by D S Kane
They could all hear the excited voice on the other end of the line. “I have new orders for you. Put me on speaker.”
Avram shook his head. He closed the van’s door.
William whispered, “Rats.”
Jon held up his hand. “What are the orders?”
“Before you incinerate the manufacturing facility, you will upload the document I am sending you now, to one of their backup servers. It will replace the current Bug-Lok plans. Then, destroy all but that backup server. I want them to think we’re so desperate we screwed up and failed to notice the last backup copy.”
William nodded. “I can do that. But I’ll need some prep work. We’re off for tonight.”
They heard Mother terminate the call. Ruth shrugged. “Not such a big change, and easy to do. So we’re okay with this?”
Avram muttered, “Bullshit.” The other three nodded. Yuri started the van.
Inside his room at the InterContinental Hotel, William examined the file Mother had just sent. He compared it to the copy of the file he’d stolen months ago, the one Cassandra Sashakovich had in turn stolen from his apartment. Not quite identical. Although he didn’t have a background in biochemistry, after close examination he could see that several of the chemical formulas had been altered along with a few of the manufacturing steps. So what was the impact of the differences? Would it still produce a working nanobug? What was so important about leaving this one behind in place of the old architecture? There was no way for him to know any of the answers. He shrugged.
He pushed the desk chair away, rose, and paced the room. The additional step of uploading this file would take several minutes. It would have to complete before they could arm the explosives. They risked detection if he couldn’t hack into the remote backup server fast enough. And the time pressure would have its toll on his ability to hack. Their lives depended on his ability to work fast and not make any mistakes. Best to estimate five minutes more. Was that too long? Would it raise the probability of their being detected from unlikely to a highly likely? It might. “Damn.”
He sat down again and opened Jon’s planning file. He adjusted the plan to include the additional steps and played it out in his head. There was more danger here now. Much more. “Fuck.” He grabbed his notebook computer and left his room, walking down the hall. He knocked on the door to Jon’s room.
“We need a new plan.”
They gathered once again, and reviewed the changes. Jon frowned. “The weapons we have for this won’t work if we have to shoot our way out. We’ll need automatic weapons and lots more ammo.”
He called Mother. “We need heavy armament and you’d better send us a few more bodies to cover our asses if we’re discovered while completing the op.”
“I already told you before. No more ‘bodies’ available. Flying them in would bring attention to the op. And we’re stretched thin right now. I can have bigger guns and more ammo delivered from the consulate in a few hours. Get some sleep.” Mother terminated the call.
Jon looked at William. “What do you think? Are you willing to go with us? Or would you rather operate from the hotel room during the op?”
William shrugged. He stared at the ceiling, his nostrils flaring. “You already know I’d rather stay behind. But I already know you’ll need me. If I train one of you to hack in, you’ll all be twiddling your thumbs while your substitute tries to figure out why it didn’t work. You’ll all die and I’ll have to live with it. Get me a gun.”
Michael Drapoff walked the hallway on the third floor of the Ness Ziona Weapons Design facility near Tel Aviv, wearing a lab coat. The badge on the coat was for a low-level clearance janitor named “Abel Kane.” Every so often, he walked past the offices of the Bug-Lok researchers, but most of the time he sat in the janitor’s closet with a secure PDA, monitoring the research computers to see any notice of the message he’d planted in the Bug-Lok database. The bait was a terse message, referring to another in the kidon database: “Bug-Lok project compromised.” If the mole saw this, he might suspect his or her cover was blown.
Drapoff had set the clearance for limited access to the simulated kidon database where this message was housed. He hoped the mole would be spooked enough not to suspect the trap. Hours passed with no unusual activity, and Michael found himself biting his fingernails. He plucked his secure cell phone from the pocket of his lab coat. It was time to report the op’s failure to Mother.
As he punched in the number, he saw activity on the computer screen. He watched, holding the phone. Michael smiled. He finished keying the number. “Mother, we have a hit on the line coming from Lev Robinson’s computer. He’s accessed the simulated kidon database. He just accessed the message I planted, the one that says Tariq Houmaz is posing as one of Gilbert Greenfield’s NOCs.”
“Good. Get close to him and hit him with the infrared tracer to track him. Then follow him at a reasonable distance. Report when he leaves the facility and when he arrives at his destination. It may take days for his handler to arrive, so get another heth to back you up.” Mother terminated the connection.
Drapoff grabbed a large plastic garbage bag, put it in a rolling shredder, and wheeled it down the hallway. He knocked on Robinson’s office door and walked in. He emptied Robinson’s paper waste into the shredder attached to the garbage bag. On the way out, he turned toward Robinson, who was facing away, toward his computer, studying the screen. Drapoff aimed the tracer at Robinson and pulled the trigger once before he left the office. While he waited, he’d go through the garbage bag. He expected to find nothing there.
An hour later, on the third floor of the Ness Ziona Weapons Design facility, Lev Robinson closed his office door and hurried back to his desk. The message clearly stated someone knew about a mole in his department. It was likely the security officers would look at him soon, and he worried that maybe he hadn’t taken adequate care to cover his tracks.
He placed the cup of hot coffee at the edge of his desk and shook his hand while blowing on it. The skin was red where the hot cup had overheated his hand. He sat and closed his eyes to clear his mind. But when he opened them, the search spider on his desktop screen flashed intermittently at the bottom right corner.
He grimaced. What now? Cursing to himself, he pulled the thumb-drive from his pocket and ran the software on it to close his desktop’s access to the research mainframe servers.
He keyed an encrypted top-priority message onto the computer and saved it on the thumb-drive. Then he erased all traces of the message on the computer and reopened its access to the mainframes. He prayed his handler would get the message and arrange exfiltration for him and Miriam. What would Miriam say when she knew what he’d done all these years? He’d have to tell her unless he could make up a far-fetched tale. But when he stopped fantasizing, his hopes diminished.
At lunch he left the laboratory and drove to a falafel stand, where he passed the thumb-drive as he paid for his meal.
Michael Drapoff watched from a doorway in the mall as Robinson took the plate of food to a table. He wore an earbud. “I saw him pass a thumb-drive to the cashier. I’ll hit the drive with the tracer if I can get close enough.” He closed the distance to the falafel stand. Drapoff stood in line with the tracker in his hand. The thumb-drive was next to the cash register. He dropped payment for his snack and watched as a shekel coin fell off the table. “Sorry.” When the cashier reached to the floor to pick up the coin, Michael aimed and pulled the trigger. The tracer performed two separate actions. First, it left a tracking chemical on the drive. Next, it formulated a wireless connection to the thumb-drive and initiated copying the data from it. Drapoff ate his knish and drank the awful coffee while his cell phone decrypted the messages on the thumb-drive. Ten minutes later, he left with enough intelligence to perform his next step on “hanging the spy.”
As he entered his office at the Ness Ziona Weapons Research Laboratory in Herzliyya the next morning, Robinson found a message from his handler embedded in an email title
d “new datapoints.” He saw a series of numbers that resembled the Bug-Lok results. Although the message wasn’t encrypted, he used the code he’d been given in a book his handler had left for him a year ago. He brought up the message and opened the paperback novel. It took him almost an hour, using the position of words in the message to point to pages in the book, and the content of the words to decrypt their real meaning. The true message appeared, letter by letter: “Cover blown. Your contact is dead. Leave now. You’ll be met at Heathrow.”
His jaw fell. His legs wobbled as he rose from his desk. He didn’t bother to remove the thumb-drive. Taking a deep breath, he walked from the office, closed and locked his door, and tried to look calm as he walked to the elevator.
It was early in the day but no one seemed interested in his departure. Once in the elevator, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He was routed to his home’s voicemail. She must be somewhere nearby, he thought. At least he hoped she was. “Miriam, It’s Lev. We have a family emergency. Pack an overnight case for yourself and one for me. I’ll meet you in the parking garage for our flat. I’ll tell you more when I get there.”
The elevator doors opened in the lobby and Robinson exited the building for the parking lot. He punched another number into the cell. “I need two tickets on the next flight to London. My credit card number? Sure.” He stopped and pulled his wallet from his pocket and began reading the number.
Robinson never saw the nondescript man in the tweed sports jacket who followed him, moving from cover to cover.
The next night, as Jon’s team met in his room for final mission preparations, Yuri knocked on the door. The sayan pointed out toward the elevator. He smiled through his bruised mouth, showing a missing incisor. “Please. We go now. Not good to be seen here.”
“What happened to your mouth?” Ruth pointed at Yuri.
Yuri shook his head. “Problem in hotel bar. Drunk Saudi guest made nasty remark. Is nothing. But need to leave. People may remember me.”
Jon’s brows arched. “Shit. You got into a fight the night of a mission?”
Yuri looked away.
Jon shook his head. “Fuck. Okay. Let’s go.”
As they climbed into the back, Jon wondered how reliable Yuri really was. But it was too late to do anything.
Avram pointed to a box labeled “Canned Potatoes.” Inside were four AK-74s, the updated version of the old Kalashnikov, and four belts, each containing twenty-five clips of ammo.
Ruth pulled one of the ammo belts across her shoulder. “Heavy.” She picked up the machine pistol. “Shit. Heavier.”
Avram grabbed his weapon and ammo as if it weighed nothing. He pointed at Ruth. “Uzis would make it look like a Mossad mission. How long since you handled a heavy weapon?”
She frowned. “I’ll be okay.”
He shook his head. “Make sure you brace yourself and fire low at your target. Aim at the crotch. Weapon tends to rise in your hands with successive recoils. Done right, you’ll cut your target vertically in two.”
Ruth nodded. “Got it. Let’s get on the road.”
They sat in the back of the van as Yuri pulled from the curb, heading south once more on the 101 to San Jose. There was heavy traffic and he cursed in several languages as he shifted lanes. “I will change to the 280.” He exited and took streets to the other highway.
Jon tapped Yuri’s shoulder. “Slow down. Don’t call attention to us.”
Yuri stopped making noise and nodded into the rearview mirror. He moved right two lanes and slowed his speed from eighty to sixty-five miles per hour.
Even at night, Jon thought the scenery on Highway 280 going south was beautiful, with tall trees, mountains, and five miles of continuous long, narrow lakes—their watery black pools reflecting moonlight. Jon thought of Scotland, and a family vacation when he was ten years old. His father rarely took time for trips with his son and wife. His father, the Mossad assassin. His mother, the Mossad spy. His thought of the lakes was out of place for this mission. Tonight, he or his friends might die.
Ruth touched his shoulder. “I believe we’re within a hundred meters of the San Andreas Fault.”
Avram nodded. “Thanks for the guided tour. Focus on the mission.”
It took almost an hour. And once more, they were in Milpitas on McCarthy Boulevard, outside the Stillwater Technology manufacturing facility.
Avram tapped Yuri’s shoulder. “Drive around the facility, and don’t do anything to call attention to us. Go slow.”
Yuri turned right onto Tasman Drive. He coasted down the road and made another right onto a quiet side street. They passed a stream of office parks. One more right turn brought them close to the Stillwater parking lot.
Jon reached to open the van’s door, but Avram pulled his hand away. “Wait.”
“What?” Jon stared into Avram’s face and saw surprise reflected in the soldier’s eyes. “What?”
“I see something that shouldn’t be there.” Avram reached into the box and pulled out a pair of infrared binoculars. “Yes. Shit! A van in the parking lot.” He handed Jon the nightglasses.
Jon scanned the vehicle sitting about fifty meters away. “They’re looking back at us. And if I’m not mistaken, they are also using night goggles.”
Ruth tapped Yuri’s shoulder. “Leave now, go slow until we reach the highway entrance. Then race like hell. Back to the hotel. Now.”
As the van rode the highway entrance ramp north to the hotel, William whispered. “Jon, this is what I expected. Another plan with a flaw.” He shook his head.
Jon faced William. “So we’re blown. Find out how this happened.”
William nodded, opening his notebook computer. “Yeah. Can do.”
William sat at the table, keying notes into his notebook. He searched Greenfield’s agency for any trace of their mission, and found a list of the agency’s field operatives. Who was capable of doing this? He traced his finger over the words on the screen, open to a sub-page of the unnamed espionage agency. His expression changed from earnest to sour.
He’d used a program the Butterfly had given him last year, designed to hack through NSA firewalls. As William wormed through an endless set of pages from the secure server, something caught his attention. Cassandra Sashakovich’s personnel file. He’d read it months ago, after the break-in at his apartment.
He twirled the gold fountain pen in his fingers while mumbling. “So who are you, Cassandra Sashakovich? Do you still work for this Mark McDougal person? Was your firing another deception? Or are you an orphan now, like I was after my father disowned me?” He read the note stating she was dead and scanned the date. It was a lie. How could a dead person break into his apartment?
He’d already scanned the woman’s performance evaluations and her employment termination, but it might be a ruse. She might still be an NOC, now under deep cover. How could he be sure? Did she also double for another of the secret police forces of the United States? Or was she now employed by another country’s spy agency? Twenty minutes later, he gave up. There was no way for him to tell for sure what were lies, and what were truths.
He exited from two of the webpages and his finger was poised to exit from the third and final one, the email server, when something new caught his attention. Another email in Mark McDougal’s inbox, from Bob Gault and less than two weeks old. Gault had set up William, Jon, and Avram last year in Oman. The note was all he needed to see:
Sir,
I have determined the likelihood of an imminent mission by Mossad agents to destroy the primary production facility of Stillwater Technology in San Jose, CA. I request a support team of US Army Rangers be assigned to guard the facility where the Bug-Lok units are being produced.
Gault
He grimaced. “Damn, damn, damn.” How had Gault found out? But as soon as he’d asked himself the question, he knew the answer. One of McDougal’s hackers had been tracking them. I should have expected this. Fuck. He searched through Gault’s inbox until he found the ha
cker’s name: Lee Ainsley. When he had the time, he’d find out who the hell Ainsley was. He thought about asking the Butterfly, but shook his head. He didn’t have time to spend on the phone coaxing her body into orgasms.
Now he knew how their plan had been compromised. They’d have to craft yet another one. A more complicated one. Complications would reduce the probability that they’d all get out alive. His stomach growled, and sent a tiny rolling pain through his gut. More danger. He shook his head and left the room’s desk. Carrying his notebook computer, he walked down the hall to Jon’s room and knocked on the door.
Jon paced his room. When William told him about Gault’s role and the Army Rangers, he’d wanted to call Mother, but before he could reach for his cell phone, it started beeping with an incoming email. He examined the screen. It was his daily report on suspicious Middle Eastern funds transfers from Gunda Schlein at Dreitsbank. So far, none of these was worth the time. But he forced himself to read the text: