by D S Kane
Cassie examined Shimmel’s expression. It was rock solid, confident yet easygoing, and charismatic. “Let’s start with who each of us is. Lee, you first.”
Lee shifted in his seat. “Well, I’m a former Director of Information Security for an intelligence agency of the United States government. I’m familiar with our training area, since I was born in Santa Barbara. I was a lieutenant in the US Army, graduated from West Point, but I’ve never been in combat.” Ainsley sat back.
She stared right into Shimmel’s eyes. “My name is Cassandra Sashakovich, and I was a covert field operative with the agency, where my code name was “Swiftshadow.” I have never been in any chain of command within any armed force. I have a PhD in economics. For the agency, I crafted econometric forecasts for Middle Eastern governments while I hacked in-country suspected terrorist bank accounts, stole and moved money from them to the bank accounts of friendly countries. And, Major Shimmel, you should know before you decide whether or not to accept Lee’s offer that neither of us has a business background. Not only that, but the Houmaz branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has a fatwa on my life. They’ve tried more than once to kill me. Lee and I both believe they also have a fatwa on him.”
She motioned toward Shimmel. “Tell us about yourself.”
The big man fit tightly in the chair. He tucked the bottom of the uniform jacket under his bulk. Seated, he was at least four inches taller than Lee and more than a foot taller than Cassie. He was twice as wide as Lee and none of it was fat. Shimmel drew himself erect. His hands moved through the air while he spoke. “As you know, I was Israeli tank commander in Lebanon and served in over twenty major combat missions. I became major in the Israeli Defense Force. I was moved into Mossad as a covert undercover operative, responsible for counterterrorism activities in the Gaza Strip. But what you don’t know is that my wife and two young daughters died in Tel Aviv, victims of a car bomb set by Tariq Houmaz. It left my life empty, and I resigned.”
Cassie remembered the dream she’d had where she’d felt her own death. The car bomb Avram spoke of stirred her. She shivered in her seat, feeling the pain she’d experienced in her nightmare.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and she could see the tears falling. “After several months I rethought my purpose. Now I want nothing more than revenge: to kill Muslim extremists. I am founder of your mercenary army and reassumed my military rank of major. Since leaving the Mossad, I have slain over seventy Muslim terrorists and find it gives me great pleasure to watch them die. I choose my assignments according to where I can find the greatest opportunity to kill more.”
She couldn’t see them, but she imagined he was followed by a complete retainer of ghosts, including not just his dead wife and children, but also the soldiers who died under his command and the hundreds of men and women his soldiers killed. Evan’s ghost touched her shoulder and her head jolted, but when she looked, he was gone.
Shimmel bowed his head before moving on. “If you accept the conditions I sent back in my response to Lieutenant Ainsley, you can have me for military operations. My leadership capabilities are known throughout our camp in the mountains. As for my business experience, it’s limited. I worked for three years while in university as a kibbutznik, serving as the business manager. I am especially impressed by your claim to be nothing more than what you are. I’d like to work with you as equals, and await your decision.”
Shimmel smiled sheepishly. Cassie felt instant trust coming from him. She also decided she could trust him.
He said, “Oh, yes, and there is one more important thing: I would strongly advise a team of bodyguards for you—men you can trust with your lives—at least until we complete this operation. I can find such men for you. It would be a terrible shame if you were both assassinated before we got paid for our work. I recommend a team of five. Surely if you can afford all the men and materiel here, that many armed bodyguards should be a trivial expense.”
Cassie looked to Lee, and he nodded in acceptance. “Okay, Major. You’re now General Shimmel, and we agree to everything you’ve requested. And, yes, get us bodyguards. Please select a replacement for yourself as a ‘major.’ And, if you don’t mind, from now on, first names only, Avram.”
Cassie sat still in thought for a few seconds. Even with this great leader, their chances of success were slight. She sighed. Better to die trying than to die running.
As he left the room and headed for his car to take the long trip back to camp, Shimmel mumbled to himself about the meeting. “Cassandra runs the show and the lieutenant is there for her amusement.”
Sultan Raman sat below deck in a large shipping container within the ship as it motored through the Atlantic Ocean about 600 miles due east of Halifax. Raman crafted a text message on his cell and then piggybacked onto the ship’s wireless network, sending it to Pesi Houmaz: “One week until we reach Halifax. All is as planned.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
August 22, 11:32 a.m.
Headquarters of Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence agency, K Street, Washington, DC
Bob Gault sat behind his desk at agency headquarters. Papers covered his desk, sorted into piles by location and sequenced within pile by date. Most of the pages were email messages and some were blog postings.
He’d just had a break in his search for the two missing agency employees. The agency’s surveillance system used ECHELON to provide automatic flags on suspicious emails. It had highlighted one from a former Mossad operative accepting a permanent position as someone’s bodyguard. Gault’s search routine had been running for two days. It focused on all emails including those using encryption methods only the agency could solve. To see if the message he’d found was significant, he searched for retiring and fired bodyguards. Including drug cartels. There weren’t any. So someone raised to a lofty level had both the cash and the fear required to want armed protection. Slim odds this search will be successful. But so far it was all he had.
Gault traced the endpoints of the email, looked for the email provoking the response, and kept trying until it was near midnight. Then, exhausted, he gave up and drove home. He walked into the bathroom of his tiny studio apartment in Georgetown, brushed his teeth, and stripped. He patted the photograph of his former wife. Although she’d divorced him, he still loved her. As he dropped into bed, he wondered where she was tonight and who she was with.
By now, he’d examined the travel roster and determined the missing employees were Sashakovich and Ainsley. No one else had as long an unexplained absence as they did.
In the wee hours of the morning, he had a dream where a lone woman with one bodyguard was slaughtered wholesale by a team of three assassins. The dream repeated, but this time there were two bodyguards. The woman was fatally wounded but the assassins were decimated. On the third repetition, there were four bodyguards, and the woman remained safe while the bodyguards easily dealt with the assassins.
His own visage appeared in the dream and spoke to him. One bodyguard might not be enough. Find out if there are other bodyguards being recruited.
His eyes snapped open and he dashed to the bathroom, washed, dressed, and flew out the door, heading back to the office with a smirk on his face. Now I have a real clue. How many bodyguards is Sashakovich hiring? And who are they?
Chapter Thirty
August 24, 6:54 a.m.
A run-down apartment building, corner of Ben Gurion Boulevard and Ben Yehuda Street, Tel Aviv, Israel
Lester Dushov scratched his long nose, shifted his glasses back up on its bridge, and pulled his rolling suitcase from the front door of his apartment. He walked into the street, oblivious to the slum of poor immigrants and the neighborhood’s lack of fit with all of Israel’s other cities, where the ancient Middle East prevails. Dushov smiled at the distant skyline, the epitome of “making the desert bloom.” Tel Aviv’s high technology industry had served him well. The name itself, “Tel Aviv,” meant “ancient new.”
He was neither tall nor short, not fat
nor thin. With the exception of his long, bent nose, Dushov was a man so common-looking, no one ever noticed him. Perfect for a covert operative. He hailed a passing taxicab. “Take me to Natbag. The International Terminal.” The cabbie nodded and drove toward Ben Gurion airport.
Using the cabbie’s rear-view mirror, Lester noticed a van following his taxi. Probably nothing, but old habits don’t die off.
Two days ago, Avram Shimmel, his old comrade in Mossad, had offered him the opportunity to come out of retirement and serve as a bodyguard for two people Shimmel had described as “friends who also want to kill Muslim extremists.” Dushov was an old hand at military operations and covert work. Before working at “the Office,” he’d been a captain in the IDF, a direct report to Avram Shimmel. And he’d also worked at Israel’s Ness Ziona research facility, where he’d helped develop a host of exotic hypnotics and poisons.
He’d called four of his former associates on behalf of Shimmel, recruiting all of them as bodyguards. All five had served together in the past, and continued to be friends. He looked at his wristwatch. They should each be in taxicabs on their way to meet him at the airport.
Out of habit, his eyes watched the reflection of the van following them. More out of curiosity than fear, he continued following the van’s progress as both vehicles neared the airport. By the time his taxi pulled to a stop in front of the El Al terminal, he’d confirmed that it was following him.
As he sat quietly in the back seat, he loaded six plastic bullets into his vinyl-composite automatic air pistol, a gun too advanced to be detected by even El Al’s airport security. He shoved the gun up the left sleeve of his brown herringbone sport jacket into a specially designed pocket just past his wrist. When he tapped the button at the end of the sleeve, the gun would drop into his hand.
He leaned over the seat and placed cash on the driver’s seat, feeling the familiar adrenaline surge of impending danger. Missing for so long from his life, it was like a drug boosting him higher than a kite.
He said, “Shalom” and left the cab, smiling at the driver and pointing to the money. He pulled the suitcase behind him toward the terminal door with his right hand. As he walked, he looked in the glass of the terminal windows, watching the reflection of the man who’d exited the van and followed him.
He walked slowly, searching for his four comrades. When he saw them, he motioned with his right arm to the butt of the hidden sidearm in his left sleeve and pointed with his eyes behind him. Ari Westheim, the closest, nodded. This was a well-practiced maneuver they used to trap unfriendlies while in Mossad. Ari appeared preoccupied, stroking his thick moustache as Lester walked by him, and the two whispered signals as they passed. Then, as their suspect passed, Ari turned and followed two steps behind, motioning to the other three former Mossad men.
Seconds later, Lester stopped suddenly and bent over, looking as if he’d dropped something. Their suspect was also forced to halt, unable to follow someone who stood still and unwilling to step past his quarry. Ari brushed up against their suspect and apologized to him while, on the man’s other side, another of the former Mossad men, Shimon Tennenbaum, slapped a tiny syringe into the suspect’s neck.
Lester scanned the area. They were in luck. No police nearby. He faced them. “Ari, left side, Shimon, right. Turn him toward the terminal so no one can see he’s unconscious. Keep him from falling. Keep his gun hand up, pointed to me. Make it appear that he has me under his control.” Lester moved against the terminal and turned, hands in the air, appearing to anyone driving by the terminal the victim of an armed holdup. He searched the traffic looking for the van.
Seconds later, almost out of nowhere, the cream-colored van screeched to a halt and its back door flew open. Lester jumped into the street and aimed the silenced .22 caliber Beretta into the van, shooting the driver in the back of the head. Ari, gun drawn, aimed at the two men in the back of the van. In Arabic, he said, “Hands on top of your heads and drop to your knees or you’re dead in two seconds. One—”
They fell off their seats in fear and onto their knees as ordered. Ari scanned the van. He called out, “Les, come look at this,” and handed him a few sheets of paper. The papers were orders in Arabic to take Lester Dushov alive, use truth drugs to find out his ultimate destination, and then dispose of his corpse.
“Our travel itineraries have just changed.” Dushov looked apologetically at his friends. “It looks as if we’ll miss our flight. Into the van. Back to my apartment. I have some ‘candy’ we can feed these slugs. I want to know everything they know.”
Soldiers ran toward them and Dushov flashed his Mossad credentials. “These are terrorists. We’re taking them to the Shabak Interrogations Centre.” He got behind the wheel of the van and gunned the engine. In seconds they were gone.
The five former Mossad ops agents drove the van into the alleyway adjacent to Dushov’s apartment and found a large laundry gurney in the basement. They used it to transport their captives to his apartment. At this part of the day most people were at work, and they drew no attention to themselves.
The three captives were trussed like Thanksgiving turkeys ready for the oven, alive, lying on their bellies, gagged. Their hands, tied behind their backs, were joined by rope connecting to their bound feet. The tight ropes bowed their backs to the point of pain. Ari took a syringe and looked at Les. “How long?”
“Doesn’t really matter, as long as we get at least fifteen minutes.”
Ari nodded and filled the syringe part way with a cloudy liquid. He moved his left hand around on one of their captives’ necks, tapping with his middle finger until he was satisfied he’d found the right spot. Then he eased the needle into the captive’s neck. “Give him ten seconds, just to be sure. I wonder what they’d have done to you, Les, to extract the intel they were sent for. This is a kinder, gentler way.” Ari grinned.
Shimon moved to the front of the captive and turned him over so they faced each other. He smiled through a close-shaved stubble beard at the man. In flawless Arabic, he said, “I am your friend and a friend of your people. I can help you escape from these men, who are here to torture you to death. Only I can help you, but you must accept me as your friend. Do you want my help?” The panicked captive nodded. “Then you must tell me your name.”
From his expression, it was evident the man was now ruled by fear. “I am Hasseim.”
Shimon smiled, patting the man’s shoulder. “Very good. Hasseim, tell me who sent you so I can warn your comrades and keep them from dying.”
The captive blurted out the words. “Pesi Houmaz. He called my brother, Achmed. Achmed instructed me to have Dushov taken alive and interrogated.”
Shimon nodded solemnly. “How can I warn Achmed? I must tell him Dushov is on his way now to execute him.”
In under an hour, the former Mossad operatives had heard the same story repeated three times. Lester called a contact at Mossad named Geller and gave him the contact info for Achmed. His friend at Mossad said, “We’ll take Achmed alive if possible, and then discover all we can. I’ll call you with an update within a day.”
Lester went to the kitchen and removed another vial from the refrigerator. “This one should do the job. Takes about three hours. My friends at Ness Ziona research told me they’ll die in more pain than we could deliver in two years of constant torture. It starts with them feeling as if their blood is on fire.” He handed the vial to Ari, who filled the syringe. “I’ll get a laundry bin big enough for all three. After you do them, we’ll cart their bodies to their van. Then we’ll drive the van back to the airport and put it into long-term parking. Shimon, get a cleaning kit from my pantry.” Lester opened the El Al app on his cell and grunted. “With luck, we can change planes at JFK and still land in San Jose on time.”
Pesi Houmaz listened to the report on his cell phone, his face displaying none of the rage boiling inside him. “All four of them? Killed by one man? Please explain how this happened. How can one man kill four well-armed and well-traine
d soldiers?” He took a deep breath and listened to the voice from Gaza. “You say he shot one and then tortured three? How?” He listened to his contact tell him the remainder of the story. “And you can’t reach Achmed? Mossad? Wait, how did Dushov torture them?”
“Their blood was turned to a gummy substance? Their hearts…had been slowly cooked?”
He wiped his sweaty brow. He imagined with alarm what Dushov had found out. He’d told his men too much, been too confident nothing bad would happen.
Pesi placed the phone back in its cradle and frowned. He feared telling his brother. Things were unraveling. He sighed and picked the phone back up. He’d just have to lie.
Bob Gault sat at his desk and studied the report. He’d hacked all the intel he could about his little off-the-wire assignment and realized too late what he’d been recruited for. His handler wasn’t interested in helping to save the two AWOL agents. No. his handler had sold them out. Either that, or someone else had. Either way, third-party stringers had tried and failed to eliminate the bodyguards, and failed in their mission.
Now, he was convinced their failure would end his career.
How could an experienced team of assassins be captured and tortured by a single target? Dushov couldn’t be that good, could he? He gulped down several candy bars, chewing fiercely as if consuming them would mitigate his panic. Gault had performed to spec, found the needle in the haystack, given it to his boss, and, until ten minutes ago had thought nothing could go wrong. The damn ragheads had somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. At best this would keep him from ever getting a promotion.