by Ward Larsen
“Ben-Meir … and where is our illustrious field commander?”
“I haven’t seen him in an hour. He and Walid took up positions in the hills, watching for anyone who shows too much curiosity.”
“Ben-Meir—he might scare someone away. But Walid?”
“They have weapons,” Ghazi said. He looked squarely at the pilot, and for a moment the two seemed to share something. Of all those involved, the Turk was the one he felt most in line with, a thoughtful man with a practical nature. Ghazi let loose a long breath. “What have we gotten into, my friend? Three have died, yet here we are still.”
Tuncay only shrugged. “The job is nearly done. A few more hours, and we can go our respective ways. Live quietly and in peace.”
Ghazi tried to catch Tuncay’s eyes, to see if he truly believed it, but the pilot’s gaze was riveted to the ground.
Tuncay bent down and picked up a piece of sheet metal the size of a shoe. “You see this? Foreign objects—they are everywhere on this tarmac. Our number-five main tire is nearly flat, punctured by a bolt we must have rolled over in the dark.”
“What do you expect? Last night an entire airplane, as big as this one, was demolished on this very spot.” Ghazi moved directly under the belly doors. “Is the tire a problem?”
Tuncay tossed the metal scrap far into the brush. “No, I don’t think so. One tire out of ten shouldn’t matter—not unless it disintegrates during takeoff and damages the others. Then again, how would I know? It’s not something I’ve dealt with before. In the past, if I had a flat tire I called a mechanic and had it fixed.”
Both men craned their necks upward and studied the doors. With his hands on his hips, Ghazi said, “We need something stronger, with greater tensile strength.” He scanned all around, but saw nothing useful. Low hills surrounded the old abandoned airfield, and the few buildings that had once existed were little more than foundations. There was probably not a hardware store within fifty miles. His gaze settled on the truck Ben-Meir had arrived in. It was a jeep of some sort, a bastardized stretch model whose second row of seats had been ripped out to allow a larger carrying bed—that was where the canisters were now, secured under a tarp. The jeep was rigged for off-road travel, a heavy-duty jack and jerry can strapped to the tailgate. Ghazi’s bespectacled gaze honed in on the front bumper where a sturdy winch was mounted.
“Do we have a drill?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so,” the captain replied.
“Go get it.”
* * *
“It’s true,” Stein admitted, “David is alive.”
Christine eased unsteadily onto the couch and stared at the distant wall. For how long had she cried and grieved, been consoled by others for her terrible, untimely loss? David had been legally declared dead, albeit under the false identity of Edmund Deadmarsh. And how perfect was that? Yet his body had never been found, and there was little hard evidence of what happened to him on that fateful night on a bridge in Geneva. The official report declared that he’d been shot multiple times—as evidenced by three witnesses, one of whom was a police officer—before his body went over a rail and into the Rhone River.
But there it had ended.
David was dead because the caretakers of Mossad proclaimed it so. They might have believed it. Or maybe they only wanted to.
But in the depths of her soul, Christine Palmer had never been convinced. She hadn’t mourned unnecessarily on their anniversary, hadn’t fallen to tears on the day she found the birthday card David had bought her but never delivered. And of course, the closet still waited to be cleaned out. Annette routinely chastised her for not letting go. You need to see other people, dear. You need to get on with your life. Christine had brushed it off every time.
Somehow she’d known.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Can you call him?”
“No, he only has my number. It’s not safe for him to carry a phone right now.”
An odd thing, she mused, not to have a phone in this day and age. Odd for anyone else. “Tell me, Yaniv … why did he send you?”
“That much is legitimate. He thinks you need protection.”
“Why didn’t he come himself?”
His hesitation was too long, and in the end he only shrugged to say he didn’t know.
One last question. “Is David ever coming back?”
Stein didn’t know that either.
FORTY-EIGHT
Nassoor weaved through a maze of corridors. Slaton followed at a distance, trying to look purposeful.
Hospitals were a tricky setting for tradecraft. There were mirrors mounted on every corner and hallways with double doors, not to mention numerous corridors labeled NO ADMITTANCE that created barriers. And the greatest challenge of all—hospitals were rife with thick-skinned nurses accustomed to challenging anyone who invaded their turf.
Fortunately, Moses Nassoor’s trail turned out to be a short one. He ended up outside in a large courtyard where picnic tables were set in the shade of mature cedars. A children’s playground was situated at the far end of the yard, and there Slaton saw Nassoor’s reason for coming—the family he’d seen leaving 26 Geitawi Boulevard. Nassoor waved as he approached them all. The girl, certainly his daughter, was pumping on a swing, his wife behind her giving the occasional push. He greeted them both, a cheek-kiss for his wife, and a swat to his daughter’s leg as she flew past that generated a squeal of glee. Nassoor then went to the nearby wheelchair and kissed his son.
There were a half-dozen wooden tables, most occupied by hospital staff who sat smoking cigarettes and drinking tea from small cups. Slaton took a seat at a free table, because to stand would have looked odd, and he watched Nassoor interact with his family while contemplating how best to approach the physicist. For the first time in memory, he came up with nothing.
He watched Nassoor lift the boy from the wheelchair and carry him to a large glider swing, the kind often seen on hospital playgrounds, even those in Lebanon. Nassoor sat with the boy in his lap and pushed rhythmically with his feet. The swing gathered momentum, rising and falling, and from thirty yards away Slaton heard the boy’s throaty laugh. He was eight years old, perhaps ten—it was hard to say given his crimped limbs, and a spine that was bent and likely years underdeveloped. But there was nothing underdeveloped in the infectious laugh that echoed across the courtyard. It made everyone smile, the tea drinkers at the other tables, the whole Nassoor family.
Slaton felt a peculiar discomfort as he watched the pastoral scene, and it took some time to realize what it was. Envy. What must it be like for a father to hold his son?
He looked down at his hands and saw them shaking ever so slightly. Hands once reputed to be the steadiest in all Israel. He flexed his fists and shut his eyes. He ignored Nassoor and his family, ignored his entire tactical situation. It was a loss of focus like none he’d ever suffered. But why?
Then, behind tightly closed eyes, a disconcerting picture came to mind—Christine and their son on a playground, and in the distance, sitting at a picnic table, an assassin in wait. The image was drawn in his likeness.
Was that what he had become? Had he fallen so far as to hunt down loving husbands and fathers? He knew the unspeakable answer. Slaton had killed many men, and on balance they were a deserving bunch. Yet even the most hardened terrorists had lives and loves. It was a necessary act of moral theater—and one in which he regularly took comfort—to imagine every target as evil incarnate. Today, however, watching a man with positive qualities so nakedly on display, it was quite impossible. Nassoor had likely done something terrible, but here he was cradling his crippled son. Doing his damnedest to make a needy child happy.
And if Slaton injected himself into their lives at this moment? That was a scenario with only one foreseeable outcome.
He turned on the bench, putting his back to the Nassoors.
His missions for Mossad had been many, an almost formulaic process.
The planning invariably opened with incriminating photos, which meant his first impression of every target began the process of demonization. A shadowed figure planting explosives or running from the scene of a shooting. A fingerprint lifted and matched from a tiny piece of shrapnel. If Slaton’s involvement became necessary, it meant a trial of sorts had already been run, albeit without a table for the defense. Intelligence analysts acted as prosecutors, their evidence documented and presented in vivid color—red predominating. Spymaster judges delivered verdicts and passed sentences. Slaton? His part was simplest of all, that of an executioner who didn’t need a black mask because he existed in a black world.
Now, sitting on a bench in Geitawi, Lebanon, Slaton found a new appreciation for that approach. For years he had conducted his assignments without reservation, keeping faith that a process of justice—such as it was—had already been run.
But now?
He looked over his shoulder at the playground. Could he pass judgment on this man? Certainly Nassoor had done wrong. Certainly he had committed crimes. But the motives behind what he’d done were nowhere to be seen. Was the man a fanatic, bent on killing and maiming innocents in the name of Allah? Or was there reason and intelligence behind what he’d done? Could Slaton put this man at mortal risk in order to keep his own family safe?
The answer came immediately and could not have been more clear.
Slaton stood and walked away without so much as a glance over his shoulder.
He was back at the main building, reaching for the door, when someone called from behind.
“Excuse me!”
Slaton froze. He turned.
“What is it that you want?” asked Dr. Moses Nassoor.
* * *
Colonel Roberto Cruz was sound asleep at home when his mobile phone rang. He looked at the bedside clock: 10:22 in the morning. He’d been up most of the night preparing an afternoon briefing on his stalled investigation for the Brazilian transport minister. His phone’s screen did not identify the caller, other than to tell him it was an international call.
He sighed a commander’s sigh. Being in charge of the inquiry, he had no choice but to answer. It could be news regarding vital evidence—of which so far there had been precious little. He picked up and said, “Colonel Cruz.”
“What color was the airplane?”
Cruz blinked. He recognized the voice instantly—or perhaps it was the manner. “Is this—” Still in the grip of a sleep-induced fog, the American’s name escaped him.
“Jammer Davis. What color was the airplane when it took off?”
“Color? You mean—”
“I mean last week the airplane was blue and gray. I’m sure you’ve interviewed witnesses by now, and somebody must have seen the jet take off. What color was it then?”
Cruz was suddenly wide awake: he wondered how the American had found out about this. “Well, yes … we did come across something in our interviews. The aircraft was originally, as you say, blue and gray. Last night a witness told us the aircraft was painted not long before it took off, and we confirmed this with a second reliable source. The top half of the fuselage was changed.”
“Changed to what?”
“It was not white, not gray, they both agreed—something in between. One of the pilots said it was a primer coat that would be covered by a livery once a long-term lease was arranged. How did you know about this?”
“Respirator,” said Davis.
“What?”
“The painter’s mask in your little collection of wreckage.”
Cruz only now made the connection.
“All right,” said the brusque voice from overseas, “here’s what I need you to do. First—”
“What I need to do is run my investigation!” Cruz barked. “I don’t need rude Americans giving me orders in the middle of the night!” He heard his wife stir in the next room.
After a lengthy pause, Davis continued, “You haven’t found any wreckage, have you?” His inflection made it more an accusation than a question. “You don’t have any new witnesses. All you have is the same little collection of junk I saw two days ago.” Another pause. “Colonel, help me with this and I’ll have all your questions answered within twenty-four hours.”
Cruz dropped his head on his pillow and heaved a sigh. “Tell me what you want.”
* * *
The slightly built physicist looked at Slaton through heavy round spectacles, his eyes darting left and right. “What do you want?”
“Why do you think I want something?” Slaton replied.
“You followed me here from my office.”
Slaton could have argued otherwise, or manufactured a swift and convincing lie. He let it go. “I shouldn’t bother you,” he said. “Not when you’re with your family.”
Nassoor’s posture straightened, bucking up—the way any man did when flight was not an option. Just then, a group of three nurses vacated the nearest picnic table. It was the physicist who gestured toward it and nodded. Slaton glanced at Nassoor’s family—they seemed oblivious.
At the table they took opposing seats.
“Who are you?” Nassoor asked.
Slaton’s response was quick, and loosely based on the truth. “I’m Benjamin Grossman’s representative.”
Nassoor’s steady demeanor disintegrated. “I have given you what you wanted!” he said in a harsh whisper. “Can’t you leave me alone?” His English was almost without accent, and Slaton imagined he had studied abroad.
“I think you’ve made a mistake, Doctor.”
“How so?”
Feeling he was on the right track, Slaton gambled with, “It has to do with the other man who came to see you—when was it, yesterday?”
The Lebanese nodded.
“That man never met Benjamin Grossman in his life.”
Nassoor’s face went ashen. “But if you are with Grossman and the other man was not…”
“Then you just sold something very dangerous to a complete stranger.” Having already made a number of correct assumptions, Slaton took the final leap. “And when I say dangerous, let’s be up-front. We are talking about nuclear material. A potential weapon of mass destruction.”
A speechless Nassoor cast a glance at his family.
Slaton wished he had done this differently, but his hand was now forced. “You’ve dug a very, very deep hole for yourself, Moses. I should tell you that I represent a certain government to the south, one that Monsieur Grossman worked with closely.” For a Lebanese, south had but one meaning. Nassoor did not appear surprised. “I think,” Slaton said, “that both of us would benefit if you began by telling me everything you know.”
Nassoor looked at him thoughtfully, yet Slaton couldn’t read what he was thinking. It wasn’t because he was dealing with a man trained in deception. Quite the opposite. He was dealing with an amateur, a man whose linear world had gone dreadfully askew.
For reasons Slaton would not understand until later, Nassoor relented. “It began two summers ago…”
FORTY-NINE
Moses Nassoor found himself in very deep and dark water. To his credit, he recognized his dilemma and did not hold back.
“It began nearly two years ago. I had traveled to a clinic in Aadra in order to repair their X-ray machine. I am one of but two medical physicists in all of Lebanon. Our facilities here are not advanced, at least not by Western standards, yet the need is great. During my visit to the clinic I had a discussion with the doctor who ran the facility. He told me they were facing a strange epidemic, one that he could not place. Dozens of patients had arrived with gastrointestinal issues, ocular bleeding, kidney failure. The doctor was trained in infectious diseases, so that was naturally where his thoughts went. I immediately recognized these symptoms as radiation sickness.”
“Did you tell him this?”
Nassoor paused. “I couldn’t be certain, not without testing, so I asked him to let me see one of the more severely ill patients. He agreed, but didn’t hav
e the time to accompany me—he was a very busy man. The patient was a woman, perhaps fifty years old. At her bedside I used a scintillation counter to scan a burn on her arm. The results were conclusive for gamma radiation. A very high level.”
Nassoor watched his family as he spoke. His wife glanced at him, but she didn’t seem concerned, clearly thinking her husband was addressing hospital business.
The physicist pulled out a pack of Marlboros, more out of anxiety, Slaton guessed, than anything else. He bumped one out and offered it, but Slaton politely declined. After lighting up and taking a shaky draw, he said, “I should have told the doctor then that I knew what the problem was. But I was curious. I wanted to know where the contamination had come from. I asked a nurse for more information, and quickly learned that all the patients had come from the same neighborhood, and that many knew each other. I drove there and began asking questions. It didn’t take long to discover what had happened. Some boys scavenging metal had come across a cache of cesium-137 chloride encased in canisters.”
“Where would this have come from?”
“I can’t say exactly, but it was probably manufactured in Russia—they run the largest production facility for cesium-137. It is a widely used isotope. Cancer treatment, food irradiation. The oil and construction industries use it in underground measurements. It’s a high-energy gamma emitter with a relatively long half-life of thirty years. Due to the large quantity involved, I’d guess this particular shipment was meant for food irradiation—before the war it was common practice in Syria. Then came the uprising. Whoever controlled this tranche of source material clearly lost track of it, or perhaps it was diverted when the owner tried to transfer it to a safe haven. Whatever the case, the shipment ended up in the hands of people who had no idea what they were dealing with. I found it outside a work shed in Al Qutayfah—fifty-five canisters of cesium-137 chloride stacked like cordwood.”
“Where exactly?”
“You mean the address?”
“Yes.”
Nassoor’s face crinkled as he racked his memory. “It was a dirt path off Route Five, south of town. I don’t remember the street name or number—I’m not even sure there was one. It was the second house east of a railway track.”