ProxyWar

by D S Kane

  The events of the Bloodridge black op were long ago. It was past time for Jon to forgive Ben-Levy for the murder of his fiancée, his own niece. Jon wiped his eyes, stood stock still, and nodded. Goodbye, Aviva. Goodbye, Lisa. All one and the same. Now, gone forever.

  * * *

  Dmitri Sokol was a broken man. He’d watched the Israeli Defense Force cut down the well-armed Chinese troops. His connection with Moscow had gone black, and he was sure Russia’s enemies had destroyed the electric grid in Moscow.

  As for which enemies had blacked out Russia, well… there were so many of them. Were the Chinese, Russia’s so-called allies, really on their side? Had they been the ones to cut off Russia’s power grid? Were they invading Russia even now? Who were the real enemies? The Israelis? The Americans? The Germans? He sighed. There was no way to know, and it no longer mattered.

  He had failed in his mission. The electric grid of the United States had been rebooted and was now running again.

  He stood at an electronics store within Grand Central Station and watched the shortened version of Ben-Levy’s speech on television. Russia would now be a global pariah.

  Sokol was sure that he’d be terminated by the Russian President. That is, unless he fled. Then he’d be on the run for the rest of what would become his very short life. He thought of suicide. It would be an honorable death. But first, there was one final thing he could do. A mission he might be able to complete. One that would please President Pushkin.

  Standing at the window of the electronics store, he calculated the distance starting from his location on Third Avenue and 45th Street. His targets were all just over three blocks away, outside the United Nations General Assembly building. He watched the television and saw Yigdal Ben-Levy’s corpse being loaded into an ambulance.

  Sokol pushed his hand into the large pocket of his photographer’s jacket and found the safety of the Sig Sauer nested there. He pulled the safety off.

  He trotted from Grand Central Station onto 44th Street and headed east.

  * * *

  Jon faced the rest of his team. “Hard to believe, but we did it. We still have a tide of loose ends to fix, but with a bit of luck, we’ll all get medals for our roles in this.” He grinned. “About as likely as a snow storm on a hot day.”

  Lee Ainsley ran to the group. He was hyperventilating. “I saw you guys on the television outside an electronics store on Park Avenue South.” He saw Cassie and opened his arms. She hugged him tight.

  Cassie whispered, “Never thought I’d see you again.” She kissed him full on the lips. “My hubbie.”

  Avram grinned. “We survived. That’s enough. As for Mother, well, he completed what he started.”

  Jon muttered, “Bloodridge. It all started with Bloodridge.”

  Cassie faced Jon and nodded. Then she jumped slightly. She looked down and saw blood spurting from her abdomen. Her eyes rolled up and she slumped to her knees, then tumbled to the ground.

  One of the mercs cried, “Gun!”

  The three surviving mercs drew their handguns, scanning for the shooter.

  A disheveled man in a photographer’s jacket took aim at her body and readied a second shot.

  Lee had watched in horror. His hand moved into his sports jacket pocket and he pulled his 9mm Beretta Nano from his pocket. Without pausing, he emptied a complete clip into the man holding the handgun.

  The man who’d shot Cassie fell dead to the ground. Lee shouted, “Get an ambulance!”

  One of the ambulance techs who had just finished loading Ben-Levy’s corpse ran to Cassie’s slumped body. He used Dermabond to close her wound and called out to another med tech. The other tech brought paddles. No pulse. They restarted her heart.

  Lee asked, “How is she?”

  One of the techs looked up at him. “She might survive if we can get her to the hospital before she bleeds out internally.”

  Jon asked, “Who is this sonofabitch?”

  Avram muttered. “A Russian. I saw him on the gunship outside the tunnel.”

  The techs loaded the ambulance with Lee inside. The remaining team members hailed a taxi and followed behind.

  The hospital was cold but warming up now that the electricity was once again functioning. Lee paced while the others sat. Avram rose and grabbed Lee’s shoulder. “You’re wearing out the carpet in the waiting room. There’s nothing we can do to improve her odds. Sit and save your energy. I fear you’ll need it.”

  Lee nodded and sat. He wiped tears from his eyes. “I may lose her. And I may have already lost Ann. Last I heard, she was in Moscow. I can’t help either of them. I’m useless!”

  * * *

  With the exception of Lee, who stayed in Cassie’s room at the hospital, they camped out that night in Jon’s apartment. In the morning Jon rousted them with fresh coffee. Once again, they cabbed south to the New York University Hospital for an update on Cassie’s progress. Lee appeared to be beyond exhaustion.

  They waited for several hours. A nurse appeared and Lee ran in front of her, blocking her path. “Please. I need to know what’s happening with my wife. Cassandra Sashakovich. It’s been almost twenty hours.”

  The nurse nodded and walked away toward the surgery amphitheaters. A few minutes later, a doctor appeared. “I’m looking for Lee Ainsley.”

  Lee stood. “How is she?”

  He doctor sighed. “She’ll live. It might be a long time before she can walk.”

  “When can I see her?”

  “Now. But you can’t stay long. And she isn’t conscious.” The doctor scanned the other men in the waiting room. As they all rose, he shook his head. “No. Just you, Mr. Ainsley.”

  * * *

  Only two days had passed since Ben-Levy had died. Much had happened to Avram and his friends. Now, he watched the proceedings, a strange sense of foreboding pulsing within him.

  Electricity had been totally restored in the United States, and partially restored in Russia and China. Reporters claimed the global outage was due to sun flares. No one dared to question this. Avram found their explanation transparent and thought most of the world’s population would have agreed with him.

  News of their attempted attack on the United States left both Russia and China in the midst of their own uprisings. Scores of thousands of unemployed rallied, then attempted to occupy the houses of government in both countries. Rumors were circulating that both President Vladimir Pushkin of Russia and Chairman Lin Chow Chang of China now sat in prison cells, and that new, provisional leaders had taken their place.

  A story had leaked that both countries had conspired as allies to conquer the United States. Acting President Carl Hernandes of the United States was questioned by Congress on how this could have happened without his foreknowledge. Charges against him included treason.

  Given that his predecessor, Vice President-elect Amos Mastiff, had had an apparent heart attack before he could be sworn in as president, and that his predecessor, the former President, was now being tried for treason after the assassination of President-elect Wallace Winton the day after her election to the presidency, it now appeared that no one knew who was running the United States government, formerly the world’s major power.

  Stock prices had fallen by over half in under a week. The riots that had been taking place had been replaced by open battles between gangs that had materialized from nowhere.

  Acting President Hernandes had spoken with his new counterparts in Russia and China, and a standoff had been agreed to.

  But there were still issues more important to Avram Shimmel. Where were William Wing and Betsy Brown? What had happened to Misha Kovich and Ann Sashakovich?

  A day earlier, Avram, Jon, Cassandra, and her bodyguards had all traveled to Israel for Yigdal Ben-Levy’s funeral. The hearse in front of the stream of limos stopped at the Mount Hebron gravesite and Avram could hear the sound of car doors opening.

  His cell buzzed. He thought of ignoring it, but when he saw who the caller was, he answered the call
. “Mr. President! To what do I owe the honor?”

  Acting President Carl Hernandes had a squeaky high voice. “I want you to know how thankful I and the nation are. And I have an offer.”

  Avram turned away from the gathering crowd in Mount Hebron Cemetery, outside Jerusalem. “Thank you. We are about to bury Yigdal Ben-Levy, Mr. President.”

  “I’ll be brief. We’re considering replacing the intelligence service Gilbert Greenfield once ran. It would be an international agency and work out of the United Nations. Would you and your soldiers be interested?”

  Avram glowed like a bonfire. He smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”

  The President of the United States said one word. “Good.” The call ended.

  Avram walked into the drizzling mist that engulfed Mount Hebron cemetery. The sun hadn’t shined in Israel for the two days since Yigdal Ben-Levy’s body had arrived at Ben Gurion airport.

  * * *

  Russian President Vladimir Pushkin scanned the crowd rioting in Red Square. Things had gone so badly for his nearly perfect plan to save America from itself. As they had after the 9/11 attacks, their leaders and their people had shown resolve that astonished him. His own government was now threatening to replace him. When he’d tried reasoning with the Politburo using the press, the stories they printed made him out to be a fool.

  He stared at the revolver on the desk. It had once belonged to Leon Trotsky.

  * * *

  William Wing and Elizabeth Brown sat in the back seat of an ancient Chevy Nova. Lily smiled at the border guard. “We have exit visas.” She handed three backstopped passports to the border guard.

  The guard didn’t hand them back. In Mandarin, he shouted, “Out!” The three exited their vehicle slowly but confidently.

  Lily handed the guard a stack of bills. “For your kind services. We respectfully honor you.”

  The guard counted the bills, then pocketed them. He held out his hand. “Not enough.”

  Lily handed him another stack. “Okay now?”

  The guard waved them back into the vehicle.

  It had taken a few days to drive from Beijing to Chengdu, another two days to Lhasa, and then they had finally reached the border.

  As they drove into India from the border crossing from China, Lily said, “Almost failed. It was close. Very close. But now we can drive to New Delhi and its misbegotten airport. Soon, very soon, you can fly home. I will come along. I have no interest living in China anymore.”

  * * *

  Misha and Ann sat in the back seat as the cab continued south into Volgograd. Ann stared out the side window. “Where to next?”

  Sang answered from behind the wheel. “Next is Tbilisi, in Georgia. Then on through a border crossing into Turkey. A three-day drive to Ankara. Your false passports are good enough to get you home from there.”

  Misha asked, “What will you do after we leave, Chow?”

  “Russia will need a great deal of help to come back from this debacle. It could take years. Maybe I can help.”

  * * *

  Lily boarded the aircraft and took her seat. In a few hours, her new life would begin. With her handler and mentor Xian Wing now dead, she felt she never wanted to work as a spy again. But Jon Sommers, a former Mossad hit man, understood the risks of trying to flee from the life. She was sure he was someone who would understand her. He was attractive, and she thought she could make him want her. And as a banker, he had the money to make her dreams come true.

  She’d been in his apartment only once. It was truly magnificent. What would he say when he saw her?

  She knew that William and his Butterfly were seated farther back on the same plane and that they would change planes in New York for one to Omaha. Although she liked William, he was already spoken for. But Jon was fair game.

  * * *

  Ann and Misha took their seats on the Lufthansa jet in Istanbul headed to New York. From there, they would be on a commuter jet to Washington. Ann was eager to return home. She saw Misha shift his eyes without moving his head, as if he was scanning for threats. “Uncle, please. It’s upsetting me.”

  Misha stopped in his tracks. “What? What was I doing?”

  “You were acting like a spy. Please. We’re out of danger now. Let’s pretend we’re normal people until this plane lifts off.”

  He sighed. “So sorry, little one. I will try.”

  She smiled at him. “We’ll be home soon. From the news reports, it looks like we’ve done what we were asked. Now I can get back to planning for college.”

  Misha whispered, “Russians never retreat. They never give up. There will soon be other troubles.”

  But the aircraft’s engines rattled on and Ann didn’t hear him.

  * * *

  Chairman Lin Chow Chang examined the cell in which he sat. They’d taken his shoe laces and cuffed him to the tiny, rotten mattress. His replacement was one of Xian Wing’s underlings. The old dead man had reached out and slapped him from the grave.

  He knew his future. He would be tried for treason and executed. He knew the trial would be televised in an attempt to appease the United States. If Lin wasn’t made an example of, they’d threatened a nuclear holocaust.

  How could things have gone so badly? How could one now-dead Israeli have done all this?

  * * *

  Jon and Avram were among the pallbearers. Susan Rubin cried where she stood, daring to stand without her crutches for the first time in years. Cassandra, in a wheelchair, wiped tears from her eyes. She seemed to be happy to be alive.

  Oscar Gilead, Prime Minister of Israel, stood among those who watched the coffin scrape into the earth. He seemed to be deep in thought.

  Jon stood and watched, thinking about how he fit into the events that had just occurred.

  He’d put all the pieces of his past together, realizing what Yigdal Ben-Levy had done and how it had triggered a continuous stream of unintended consequences that blew through the world’s political powers. It had started over a decade in the past, when the Syrians had started building a nuclear arsenal. Jon’s parents had discovered this by hacking into Sir Charles Crane’s computer at MI-6 and delivering the news to Yigdal. As a result, one of Yigdal’s yahalomim had brought down the Syrian radar systems long enough for Israeli Air Defense jets to bomb the Syrian nuclear facilities to dust. In revenge, the Syrians had assassinated Jon’s parents. When Jon was old enough to be recruited, Yigdal sent Aviva Bushovsky to recruit Jon, but Crane had intercepted Aviva and threatened to have Jon arrested for espionage unless she worked as a double for MI-6. When the Mossad discovered her duplicity, the Prime Minister forced Yigdal to have Aviva terminated as an example of what happened to Mossad traitors. Then Yigdal himself recruited Jon and lied, telling him that a terrorist named Tariq Houmaz had murdered Aviva. Jon hunted Houmaz and almost died, but failed to kill the bombmaker.

  The United States had watched all this and decided that traditional espionage wasn’t working anymore. The President was arming terrorists in order to keep the American voters in a state of continual paranoia. One of the President’s intelligence advisors commissioned the Ness Ziona, Israel’s version of DARPA, to develop a nanodevice that could read and transmit everything a target saw and heard to the target’s controller, and terminate the target once no longer useful. But China and the United Kingdom wanted their own versions of these devices, and after developing them, each country used them along with the United States, making the world even more dangerous.

  Ben-Levy needed Tariq Houmaz terminated to keep Jon from discovering who was really responsible for Aviva’s death. When Cassandra Sashakovich, a spy from the United States, found her identity was sold to Houmaz by a mole from the American spy’s intelligence service, Ben-Levy had Avram Shimmel help Cassandra terminate Houmaz. But in doing so, the Russian mafiya got involved. The brother of the Russian president, a siloviki named Ivan Tobelov, sought vengeance against Cassandra. To save her, Shimmel captured Tobelov and gave him to the Mossad. Tobelov�
�s public trial in Jerusalem was one of the factors that had led the Russians to attempt the invasion. But the Russians couldn’t accomplish this alone. They needed help, and made a deal with China. The trigger for the Chinese was William Wing, the hacker who tried to steal the plans for the nanodevice from the Americans. In doing so, he triggered a free-for-all in which the Americans, the Brits, the Chinese, and the Israelis fought for control of the plans for the device. When the Chinese understood that the Americans were responsible for the original development plans for the nanodevice, the invasion became inevitable.

  All this was Ben-Levy’s doing. But now the old man had been buried. Jon hoped all this was behind them. If it was, should he remain a banker? He’d been trained by the Mossad to be a kidon, an assassin. Now he realized he missed that life.

  The ceremony was short, and ended with the Mourner’s Kaddish. As they left the gravesite, the sun emerged for a few seconds, then back to gray.

  The ghost of Yigdal Ben-Levy appeared, then sneered at Jon Sommers. You were never meant to be a banker. Come back and do what we trained you for.

  The ghost of Lisa Gabriel had been tough to live with. But this one? Jon shivered.

  * * *

  Avram walked with Jon to the waiting limousine. “What will you do now, Jon? Back to work as a banker in New York with Susan?”

  Jon glided into a seat in the back next to his friend. “I’m ready for a new adventure. If you will have me, I’d like to join you and Cassandra at this new United Nations intelligence group. Could you use another operative?”

  Avram smiled. “I can arrange that.”

  As the limo pulled away, rays of sunlight spiked through the rainclouds.

  Glossary

  AFI. Intelligence branch of the Israeli Air Force.

  aleph. Lead kidon, the assassin leading an execution mission for the Mossad.

  Aman. Intelligence branch of the IDF (Israeli Military Intelligence).

  asset. A civilian in a foreign country who claims to have valuable contacts or information useful to a case officer. The primary objective of most case officers is to develop in-country assets.