by D S Kane
He scratched his head. “If I remember correctly, Aleph Airlines is the captive transportation service of the Mossad. I’ll ask Mother to set it up.”
Pesi Houmaz scanned his image in the mirror. The blue pinstripe business suit, a bespoke white shirt, and a red rep tie would make him appear to be a rich businessman as he traveled to Bern. He’d use another of his identities for the visit when he arrived. Once there, he’d don a ratty sports jacket for his meeting, posing as a professor.
He picked the attaché case from the floor and walked out the door of the family compound ten miles south of Riyadh. Emerging into the scorching sunlight, he nodded at the armed bodyguards and waited for the driver to open the door of the limo. When he was at last contained within the air-conditioned, bulletproof shell of the limo, he pulled a bottle of Glenmorangie from the polished wooden liquor cabinet and poured himself a shot as the vehicle glided through the gate and onto the road.
One visit was all it should take. They must see him to know he was serious and pay him the attention his project required. As the limo glided over the roadway, passing the desert hillocks, he popped open the lid of his case and read the notes, memorizing his presentation to Dr. Greystrom’s team at Antron.
In his brand-new office in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, Yigdal Ben-Levy sat in an overstuffed tan leather armchair, his eyes focused on something within. There was something missing; a fact or clue he couldn’t see no matter how hard he tried. Across from him, the ghost of Aviva Bushovsky danced a waltz. With every turn that brought her to face him he could see her sticking her tongue out at him. He gripped the sides of the chair to clear his head. It didn’t work. He heard her laughing.
He rose and paced around the room, his lips moving as if he were speaking to someone. He was still alone. His Mossad bodyguards were in the lobby just inside the doors to the building, but not in this room on the second floor. He slapped his head with his hand as if he’d had an epiphany, and cursed. Walking to the corner, he opened a closet and pulled out the chalkboard.
Ben-Levy used the board to diagram the scenario and lay out his plan. When he was done, he would commit the new connections to memory and erase the board. The plan he crafted would be based on several risky assumptions, but it had a much better potential outcome than doing nothing.
Thirty minutes later, he dug his secure cell phone out from his pocket. “Michael, I need you to be on secure videoconference with me at the embassy in Washington ASAP. No, just you. The rest of your team can sleep tonight. You can gather them tomorrow.” He listened to Michael Drapoff’s reply. “Good. In one hour, then.”
Closing the phone, he took the elevator to the conference room in the lobby. He had almost an hour to think. When he was done with that, he’d have plenty of time to set up before Drapoff was ready.
Chapter Twenty-One
Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th Street, Manhattan
July 29, 5:23 p.m.
Cassandra Sashakovich terminated the call. She sat, looking out the window, near tears. Why had she confessed to Lee about her abortion? Why couldn’t she control herself?
Her cell buzzed.
“Cassie, it’s Lee. They backtraced your phone call with me just now and there is probably a team of killers heading to you wherever the hell it is you are. Leave now! Leave as fast as you can. Destroy your cell phone, it’s traceable. I’ll contact you via draft message on your website. They probably made me as well by now but if not, this call is still traceable. I’m not safe here anymore. I’m not safe anywhere. Can’t go back to the agency…ever. Okay?” Seconds passed. “Cassie, are you there?” Her body went numb from head to toe. “Shit, Cassie, tell me you’re still alive, damn you.”
Her voice came out flat. “Yes. Thanks.” She stood, but her feet were wobbly. Wake up! Get out!
All thought and feeling were ground out of her by the rising panic guiding her practiced movements. The voice in her head spoke calmly to her, reminding her of what she must do. She dropped her cell phone on the floor and smashed it with her booted heel. This simple movement plus fear adrenalized her. She took a deep breath to reassert focus and control.
She jammed all the documents she’d been using to plan her current mission into the attaché case, closed and locked its lid. Then found her homeless outfit in the dresser. In less than two minutes she was dressed and made up to look like a filthy old man complete with a gray curly beard.
She reached under her pillow, extracted the Beretta and attached its silencer. She placed a fresh clip into the gun and then chambered one of the rounds. She ejected the clip and loaded another bullet into the empty space in the clip, giving her one extra bullet. She replaced the clip and pulled the safety off. Cassie placed the gun and a burner cell in her raincoat pocket. She dropped her attaché case into a paper shopping bag topped with rags, grabbed the bundle, and bolted from the room.
She had to get to the locker in the Times Square bus terminal. The one that held all her emergency files and equipment. Her life depended on those files. That is, if she lived through this.
She located the escape route she’d identified when she checked into the hotel. She sprinted to the fire exit stairwell, and descended three flights of stairs to the building’s service exit at the alleyway just short of 44th Street.
When she opened the door, she saw a rat scurry into a pile of garbage. Her nose wrinkled, nostrils flaring with the stench of rotting waste mixed with the scent of urine.
She looked toward the street as clouds obscured the sun, casting everything into shades of gray. All dark—the windows, the dirt-pocked concrete beneath her feet, and the soot-blackened brickwork that towered around her on three sides.
She stood, dark in shade, and moved close to the building’s exterior wall on the east side, where she blended into the shadows.
A black van came hurtling down the street to a screeching stop in front of her hotel. She gasped, squeezed closer against the building’s brickwork, and inched her way up toward the street. Three Middle Eastern men ran from the van into the hotel, raincoats concealing what looked like obvious bulges from weapons. One of them carried a broom handle with its end sharpened to a point.
She had expected to feel fear now, but only disappointment and frustration haunted her as once again she faced death. She sighed; the voice in her head told her it was just another day in her surreal life.
Was it safe for her to use the sidewalk yet, or should she wait another minute before shuffling into the street? She assumed there was just the driver in the van. Would he recognize her? What if he had a cell phone to call the others? Of course he did. What if there were more in the vehicle waiting for her to flee?
Shit, she was wasting time.
She walked toward the street, camouflaged by shade. She listened for her pursuers but only heard noise from the nearby street.
She intended to disappear by walking into the early evening crowd. But as she neared the sidewalk she heard the door she’d just gone through scrape open and slam closed. She turned and saw the three men exit the building close behind her.
Clouds split open and sunlight lit her up, now beige against the charcoal brickwork. Shit. Exposed. One of them pointed at her and said something in Arabic. His words didn’t carry to her in the street side noise, but she knew in an instant what he’d said. Damn. Costume didn’t fool them.
As she faced them, everything since the night in Riyadh flashed through her memory. She shook with uncontrollable rage.
She hated always being hunted.
She wouldn’t run again.
Her hand fumbled with the gun in the raincoat pocket. As if in a dream, she gripped the gun with both hands in a shooter’s stance and took aim.
It was as if she watched herself from above.
She saw them draw AK-74 automatics from their holsters as her disembodied self shot the men, every one, three smothered pops in rapid succession before they could kill her.
She watched tiny holes pop open in the top
s of each head, crimson dripping down their foreheads. Those same street-side noises further muffled the silenced gunshots in the alley.
Three bull’s-eyes in less than two seconds. Their bodies dropped onto the concrete alleyway.
She was now a serial killer. Damn. How had she managed to hit all three, each with a single shot? She’d only had six weeks of firearms training at The Farm and that was three years ago.
She must flee. And the van was right in front of her, black against the asphalt street. She sprinted to it and aimed through its window.
She could see the driver reaching for a handgun. She yelled, “Fuck you!” and fired the gun once through the window glass. The pane shattered open and the driver’s head exploded, sending a fountain of blood and bits of brains and skull onto the far window behind his slumping corpse. As the bullet passed through the window, it must have disfigured and turned into a more damaging gunshot.
She could hear people screaming from the sidewalks around her.
She opened the door and pulled the driver’s body into the street. She looked at his head, or the bits of shredded flesh still attached to his neck. As she stared at the corpse, the damage she’d wreaked, she gasped, shaking her head.
She got in the driver’s door and moved herself across the bloody seat, behind the wheel. As she gunned the engine she could hear police sirens, distant but growing closer. She drove the van over the driver’s body, continuing at breakneck speed seven blocks to the Times Square Port Authority Bus Terminal, where she left the van double-parked in the street.
She hurried to the men’s room and removed the beard and the remainder of her bloody disguise. There was splash-back from the driver all over the raincoat, and more on her face and right hand.
Her fingers smelled like the Beretta; it was the sulfur smell of Hell.
She washed the raincoat in the bathroom and then washed her hands and her face.
Several homeless men were camped out on the floor of the men’s room. None moved or spoke; they just lay there watching her. Cassie turned and faced them and they all looked away. She noticed for the first time she was coated with sweat; her body stank from fear she never knew she’d felt.
She stood at the mirror hyperventilating for a few minutes until once again she regained focus.
Still numb, she opened the attaché case and changed her blouse while the men watched. When she emerged from the men’s room, she was a punk female wearing a purple spiked wig. She moved as if in a dream, walked to her locker, and removed the rolling suitcase she’d stored there. She packed the bloody old raincoat in a plastic bag and dropped it into the case. Then, on to the ticket counter.
Her best move now was to meet with Ainsley as soon as possible. “Next bus to Washington, DC, please,” she said, clicking a wad of chewing gum. She took two counterfeit Franklins from the inside pocket of her blouse and paid for the ticket.
It was an hour before the next bus left for Washington.
Cassie found an out-of-the-way place to sit. She still was breathing hard, but not from panic. Her thoughts kept returning to assuming her shooter’s stance. The feel of the gun, squeezing the trigger. The kickback of the tiny explosions as the bullets flew from the barrel.
A long time passed before she was back in control. When she’d murdered Abdul in Riyadh, it was self-defense. This was self-defense too, but there was a big difference. This time she felt no regrets.
In fact, she was elated: it felt so fine. She thought, wow, it was great. Better than sex! My first battle to regain my life.
She felt transformed. Uncle Misha from the old KGB truly lives inside me. I may never feel fear again.
Cassie hummed an old blues tune from Blind Blake, “That’ll Never Happen No More.” She felt no sense of conscience and, even better, the voice in her head was jubilant. When the bus door opened in the station, she drifted along the boarding platform in quiet bliss. She climbed into the bus and floated down the rows of seats.
She settled near the emergency exit near the back of the bus. As they rolled onto through the tunnel toward New Jersey, she tried to come to terms with what she’d become.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Private jet air terminal, San Jose Airport, San Jose, California
July 30, 7:11 p.m.
The next day, as dusk colored the nearby mountains purple, gold, and gray, the rented Cessna touched down at San Jose Airport. Jon and his team emerged from the plane carrying their go bags. He muttered to himself, “Welcome to Silicon Valley, home of Stillwater Technologies.”
One of the sayanim from the Mossad’s consulate office in San Francisco waited at the private air hanger with a limousine. He was a squat man with a middle-aged paunch. “I’m Yuri,” was all he said.
They sat in silence in the back of the limo with the soundproof glass partition closed. When the limo stopped at the InterContinental in Menlo Park, they walked together through the hotel entrance.
Ruth scanned the décor. Lots of chrome and wood, marble tile flooring, and glass slabs instead of brick or concrete for the walls. Abstract art reproductions hung from the glass. “Mother has excellent taste.”
Jon sneered. “Think of it as the last meal before the prisoners get executed. Let’s get our rooms and meet in mine, dressed for the mission.”
At the front desk they checked into separate rooms for three nights. Per Mother’s orders.
At last within his room, Jon tipped the bellman and opened his go bag. The Mossad had given them clothing treated with STF. The shear thickening fluid could stop up to a .50 caliber round or a bladed weapon without penetration, but felt silk-smooth to the touch. He examined the dress shirt, slacks, socks, underwear. Not the height of fashion, but…He dressed in the treated clothing.
He heard a knock at the door to his room. When he opened it, he found William, Avram, and Ruth standing outside and waved them in.
She scanned his room. “You’ve got a bigger room than me.”
Avram’s brows arched. “So what?”
Jon chuckled. “Let’s review the plan one more time. We need to get going soon. It’s already evening.”
They each went over the plan. It seemed easy, almost foolproof. By the time it was dark, they were ready to go, in STF costume and carrying go bags. If things went as planned, they wouldn’t be returning.
Outside the lobby, the Mossad’s driver, Yuri stood holding open the door to a gray van. He smiled as they entered. Climbing in the driver’s seat, he said, “Weapons and other tools including an EMP are in the carton in the back.”
Mother watched the screen that displayed Michael Drapoff, as he keyed the last transaction. Michael spoke without turning his head to face the video cam. “Are you sure? I think this is a dangerous way to discover a thief.”
Ben-Levy pointed through the screen at Michael’s shoulder. “In this case, you’re not here to think. I value your opinion, but—”
Drapoff hit the Enter key, sending the data off into the Mossad’s internal network. “As you command.”
Mother walked to his chair at the conference table and sat.
He nodded at Drapoff. “Now, we wait. Either it works or it doesn’t.”
Drapoff scratched his chin. “What if we were to make this more tempting?”
“How?”
Drapoff remained silent for several seconds. “What if we were to embed a bit of compelling intel? Something that indicated our little mole at the Ness Ziona was compromised. That we knew who he or she is?”
Drapoff felt relief when Mother smothered a sneer.
Mother faced away from him. “It could work. We might reap the mole and his handler. Set it up and let me see it before it becomes operational.”
Mother terminated the call and pulled a bottle of Lagavulin single malt and a glass from his desk. He filled the glass and raised it to his lips. “To hanging a spy!”
He sipped the smoky intoxicant, ignoring the ghost of Aviva Bushovsky who danced around the room.
Yuri
drove them along Highway 101 in heavy traffic, and he cursed as the limo crawled along. “Should usually take just fifteen freaking minutes. What shitty traffic.”
In the back, Jon sat in silence, wondering what they’d find at the plant. The plan was good, he thought, but no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. At least he had a team he could trust, most of whom had been on a mission with him before tonight.
The van exited and passed a mammoth shopping center with signs in Chinese and English. It slowed and pulled to the curb, opposite a huge parking lot, next to a sleek four-story office building. Yuri pointed to it. “Your destination.”
Jon opened the van’s door and jumped out. Ruth’s cell buzzed. “Wait. It’s Mother.”
She frowned and pressed the Receive Call button. “Yes?”