Independence Hall

by Roland Smith

  “Close the door,” Ziv said.

  “I don’t have time for—”

  “Close the door,” Ziv repeated a little more forcefully.

  Ziv’s tone both confused and angered him, but Eben closed the door. When he turned around Ziv was staring at him with an intensity he had not seen before, but he recognized the look. It was the same expression his Mossad superiors exhibited when they were upset about a botched mission. But Ziv was just a driver, Eben told himself. A low level… He stopped himself and took a closer look at Ziv, realizing that he didn’t even know Ziv’s last name. In fact, he knew virtually nothing about the man he had spent the past two weeks with.

  “Am I in charge of this operation, or are you?” Eben asked.

  “I suppose that would depend on who you asked,” Ziv said calmly.

  “I am asking you,” Eben said.

  “Then I would have to say that I am in charge…” Ziv paused, “…now.”

  “You were sent to spy on me?” Eben said with disgust.

  “And to evaluate Carma and Devorah’s suitability for field work…a task in which they have failed miserably I might add. What did Devorah say about what happened to her last night?”

  Eben stared at him for a moment trying to rein in his anger. To his knowledge in the twenty years he’d been with the Institute they had never inserted a team member to keep an eye on him.

  “Devorah said that she was clipped in the shoulder when the crazy cab driver threw the car into reverse.”

  “Did you know that she and Carma had their weapons drawn?” Ziv asked.

  Eben and Ziv were in the second car. Devorah and Carma had gotten out first. The street was dark and it was difficult to see with a ski mask pulled over his face.

  “No,” Eben said, his anger welling up again, but not at Ziv this time. Ziv had tried to replace their automatics that had been stolen in the Nevada desert, but had been unsuccessful so far. “I made it clear to both of them,” he continued, tight-lipped, “that there were to be no guns unless we were fired upon. It was supposed to be a simple hit-and-grab operation.”

  “I was there when you gave the order,” Ziv said quietly. “Carma and Devorah disobeyed and made certain you didn’t see. Perhaps you should have taken their weapons away.”

  Eben knew that Ziv was right, but didn’t acknowledge the criticism.

  “You approached from the right side of the taxi,” Ziv continued. “The three of us approached from the left. Do you want to know what happened on our side?”

  Eben gave Ziv a curt nod.

  “As soon as the driver put the taxi into reverse Devorah raised her automatic and was going to fire into the rear window. She was not clipped by the taxi. I pulled her arm down and dislocated her shoulder. If I hadn’t she would have pulled the trigger. One of the children could have been killed, or the driver, who at the time we did not know was working for Tyrone Boone. I was unable to get out of the way fast enough and the rear tire rolled over my foot.” Ziv smiled. “As we drove to the hospital last night Devorah was so angry she threatened to kill me with her good arm. Her mind is dislocated and Carma is not far behind.”

  “I didn’t pick them for this assignment,” Eben said. “It sounds like you picked them.”

  “I didn’t have much choice,” Ziv said. “As you know, with all the terrorist activity around the globe our operatives are spread pretty thin. We’re scraping the bottom of the barrel as they say here in America.”

  “Is that where you came from?” Eben asked angrily.

  Not rising to the insult, Ziv said, “I wasn’t in the barrel.”

  “Did they bring you out of retirement? Is that why I’ve never heard of you?”

  Ziv shook his head. “I don’t work for the Mossad…officially.”

  An NOC agent, Eben thought. Like all intelligence agencies the Institute had agents operating without official cover. But he had never heard of an NOC agent being inserted into a team on an active mission, especially as an undercover control officer. Ziv had told him the Institute had pulled him from an assignment in Mexico to be their driver.

  “Let’s get back to the subject at hand,” Ziv said. “I can’t imagine that Roger Tucker or his daughter have anything to do with this. And the woman and her son?” he shook his head. “That is even harder to believe.”

  “It was a long shot from the very beginning,” Eben admitted. “We all knew that. But things changed with the appearance of Tyrone Boone. I don’t know who he or his people are, but they’re players. There’s a reason they’ve attached themselves to this family.”

  “You can’t possibly believe they’re terrorists,” Ziv said.

  “I don’t know what they are, but they operate like a cell. I’m going to find out who they are and what their connection is to Anmar.”

  Ziv sighed. “We don’t even know if the video your brother took of the woman is the leopard.”

  “But we do know that the woman is Malak Turner, a former Secret Service agent who died at Independence Hall,” Eben said. “And that the two men with her in Paris are known terrorists that have been on our hit list for years.”

  “If Malak had switched sides why would she fake her own death, abandon her family, and disappear from the grid?” Ziv asked. “She would be much more effective working from inside the Secret Service feeding terrorists information than she would working in the field as a terrorist leader.”

  “What are you saying?” Eben asked.

  “That should be obvious,” Ziv answered “I don’t believe Malak Turner is the fabled leopard. You are after the wrong woman.”

  Eben shook his head.

  “It’s a fool’s errand,” Ziv said. “…a wild goose chase. The only reason you were allowed to embark on it was because of your brother and the fact that you wanted to resign. It was thought that if you were allowed to look into this you would eventually come to your senses. That you would rediscover your edge.”

  “Have you talked to the Institute about this?”

  Ziv nodded. “Last night and this morning. In fact, I have been in touch with your handlers every day since this mission started.”

  “I asked for a team and they give me two homicidal maniacs and an ancient babysitter.” Eben reached into his pocket for the letter that he had carried there since the day his brother died. As he pulled it out the ten of hearts fluttered to the floor.

  Silence filled the sterile room as the two men stared at the card for nearly half a minute.

  Eben broke the impasse by dropping the letter on Ziv’s bed sheet. “The next time you report in tell your handlers that I’m out. I’m off the grid.”

  “I would reconsider, Eben,” Ziv said.

  “I’ve been reconsidering my whole life!”

  Eben bent down, scooped up the ten of hearts, and left the room without looking back.

  Ziv shook his head. The conversation had gone better than he had expected. He pulled the sheet away and swung his legs out of bed. His right ankle was sore—sprained, but not broken. The night before when Devorah dropped him at the hospital it had taken some convincing to talk them into letting him spend the night for such a minor injury. He stood up and tested the ankle. It would support him. He put his suitcase on the bed, pulled out a set of clothes, and limped into the bathroom.

  The man who came out of the bathroom looked and moved like a man twenty years younger. The gray hair was gone and he was completely bald. There were no more glasses and his eyes were blue. The new clothes he wore gave him a look of authority. He looked nothing like Ziv, which was fitting, because Ziv was not his real name.

  He removed what he needed from the suitcase and left the room. The nurses and doctors walking in the hallway paid little attention to him.

  Ziv stopped at the first trash can and, when no one was looking, quickly rummaged through the contents. When he didn’t find what he was looking for he moved onto the second one. It wasn’t until he searched the fourth that he found the first item…a discarded cell
phone. In the next trash can he found the second thing he was looking for…a set of car keys. The cell phone and the keys’ disposal were Eben’s first step in disappearing from the grid. All spies had official contingency plans sanctioned and established by their handlers in the event their cover was blown. But smart agents like Eben had secret contingency plans unknown to their superiors in case they were betrayed by those they worked for. False passports, hidden cash, safe houses, elaborate disguises, fabricated histories…everything they needed to reinvent themselves and vanish.

  Ziv had reinvented himself many times before and he knew that when this was over he would have to reinvent himself again.

  On the way to the car he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

  The man who answered said, “Please don’t tell me that you want me to drive halfway across the country again.”

  Ziv laughed, and said. “No, this assignment will be much easier.”

  Ziv had not driven the SUV from Salt Lake City to Philadelphia as Eben and Tyrone Boone had thought. He had flown from Salt Lake City on a different airline and had arrived in Philadelphia forty-five minutes after Eben. The man on the other end of the cell picked up the SUV at the Salt Lake City airport and had driven it east. Ziv and the man met in Philadelphia and switched places a few minutes before Ziv picked up Eben in front of the dry cleaners.

  “Are you back in town?” Ziv asked.

  “Yeah. What do you want me to do?”

  Ziv told him.

  Vanished

  Mom and Roger’s second performance was as good, if not better, than the first.

  During the song Slim stared at the screen like a miser anticipating bags of gold. I caught a glimpse of Buddy standing in the crowd. Behind him were a man and a woman, who looked a lot younger than the other SOS team. I was going to ask Boone if they were Roger and Mom’s new PAs/spies, but his phone buzzed. He listened for a few seconds without saying anything, then ended the call.

  “Well, Slim,” Boone said. “Thanks for the show and the will calls, but we better be goin’.”

  “What about the tape?” I asked. I was sure Angela had watched Mom and Roger in her hotel room, but I thought we should get one just in case.

  “Sure,” Slim said, opening a desk drawer. “I’ll burn a DVD. It’ll only take a few—”

  “No rush,” Boone said. “We’re runnin’ a bit behind schedule. We’ll come back later and get it.”

  I didn’t know we had a schedule.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Slim offered.

  “Don’t bother,” Boone said. “Heck, I know this old building better than you do.”

  “That’s probably true,” Slim said. “I’ll catch you guys later.” He was reaching for the phone before we left the room.

  When we got out of the office I started toward the entrance, but Boone stopped me.

  “This way,” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  Croc and I followed him through the auditorium and past the stage where Mom and Roger’s roadies were setting things up. Several of them stopped what they were doing and gawked at Boone almost as if he were the star of the show, not Mom and Roger. He returned their nods and smiles as he led me to a small door. Behind it was a long hallway leading to an exit. Waiting for us in the alley was a windowless, gray, beat-up van with its engine idling. On the roof were several antennas and dishes.

  “This is the intellimobile?” I asked. It looked like someone had abandoned it the alley.

  “Never judge a book by its cover,” Boone said, sliding the side door open. “Hop in.”

  I climbed inside. Croc jumped into the front passenger seat next to Vanessa. (I wondered if she had a knife on her.) X was sitting on a chair in the back wearing a Bluetooth headset staring at a row of video monitors. He was so intent on whatever he was doing he didn’t seem to notice us climb in or hear Boone close the door. Nor did Everett, who was slumped in the corner with his chin resting on his chest sound asleep. Vanessa stepped on the gas.

  “Any sign of her?” Boone asked.

  X shook his head without taking his eyes off the monitors.

  “Any sign of who?” I asked.

  “Angela,” Boone said.

  “What are you talking about?” I shouted.

  “She slipped out of the hotel while your parents were on The Today Show,” X explained. “She was glued to the TV for the first song and told Felix that she could hardly wait for the second number. When they came back on Felix made the reasonable assumption that it would be a good time to hit the restroom. When he came out Angela was gone with a five-minute head start. She probably didn’t listen to one note of your parents’ second song.”

  “What about tracking her with her phone?”

  X shook his head. “She disabled it.”

  “You mean she turned it off,” I said.

  X shook his head again. “If she had just powered the phone down we could have still tracked her. We have the ability to turn it back on remotely. I tried and it didn’t work, which means she popped the battery out or smashed the phone. What worries me is that this isn’t something a fifteen-year-old girl would know how to do.”

  “But Eben knows the routine,” Boone said. “And so does his crew.”

  Boone and X did not know Angela. I told them about the “spy games” she and her mother used to play. They seemed relieved and a little worried at the same time.

  “This isn’t a game,” X said. “This is the real deal.”

  “Where’s Eben’s crew?” Boone asked.

  “Devorah is still parked outside the warehouse. Carma is still in her hotel room—before we picked up Everett he bribed a housekeeper to check on her. She’s in bed with her bad knee. We put a mini camera outside her door and a signaling device if the door opens.” He pointed to a monitor. “This is a live satellite feed of Eben’s rental car. He just left the hospital. The screen showed a bird’s-eye view of a car driving down the street. We don’t know if Ziv is with him or not, but I assume Eben’s solo. Ziv has a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv this afternoon and he’s scheduled an airport shuttle to pick him up at the hospital in a couple of hours. But just to make sure he’s still there, Uly’s on his way to the hospital to check. Unless Eben has more people on the ground than we think, which is a possibility, none of them were anywhere near the hotel when Angela left.”

  “Any video of her leaving the hotel?” Boone asked.

  “Negative. I didn’t have any eyes on the hotel. And I checked the various surveillance cameras around the area and none of them picked her up. Felix is on foot trying to find her.” X chuckled. “He’s pretty ticked off.”

  “She’s probably heading back to the Electric Factory or the warehouse,” I said. “Where else would she go?”

  “Wherever she’s going,” X said. “I hope she’s smart enough to know that if Eben or Devorah see her they’re going to grab her. And pretty quickly Devorah’s going to figure out there’s no one in the motor coach. Even when people are sleeping there’s ambient noise…coughs, breathing…” He glanced over at the sleeping Everett. “…snores. Since we left, the coach has been as quiet as a tomb. And that’s not our only problem.” He tapped a couple of keys and a woman’s face appeared on a monitor. “Guess who was on The Today Show watching Match?”

  The woman had very short spiky blond hair and was wearing sunglasses even though it was overcast. She was leaning against a barrier. On either side of her were screaming fans. The fan on the right was holding up a sign that read: Keep on Blaze-in! The fan on the left had a sign that read: A Match Made In Heaven.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “It’s either an angel,” X said. “Or a leopard.”

  I stared at the woman on the screen. She didn’t look anything like Malak or Anmar. “No way!” I said.

  “She’s an absolute positive match,” X said. “It’s Malak or Anmar.”

  “And she’s only a two-hour dri
ve from Philly,” Boone added. He glanced at his watch. “She could be an hour away by now. Did you tell Marie and Art?”

  “Of course,” X said. “But by the time I ran the crowd footage through the recognition software and got the match they were already at the airport getting ready to take off for Chicago.”

  “No luck with the surveillance cameras around Rockefeller Center?” Boone asked.

  X shook his head. “I’m still running some cameras farther out, but I doubt we’re going to get a hit. It usually comes quick or not at all. And Malak and/or Anmar are pros. She knows where the cameras are.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “She had to know that you have recognition software. There was a huge crowd at the concert. To get that close to the stage she would have had to have arrived at four in the morning. Why would she expose herself like that?”

  “Good question,” X said. “If Eben had followed your parents to New York I don’t think she would have exposed herself like that, which means she knew that Eben stayed behind.” He looked at Boone. “She wanted us to see her.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” X answered. “But I do know this. If the woman at the concert is Malak she wouldn’t leave Angela in Philly on her own with Eben on the loose. She either has people on the ground here keeping an eye on Angela, or she knows we’re trying to protect her…or both.”

  “How could she know that?” I asked “

  “Bugs,” X answered.

  “She put bugs in the coach too?”

  “Nope. But she could have tapped into Eben’s bugs. Which means she, or someone working with her, has a receiver near the warehouse. If it’s another person they could have followed us to the hotel this morning. We should have set up counter-surveillance when we moved Angela to the hotel, but we were concentrating on Eben, not a second group. If she’s been watching us she knows where we took Angela.”

  Boone swore.

  The van came to a stop and I was surprised to see that we were back at the warehouse. Vanessa must have been driving in circles. Devorah’s wreck was still parked across the street and she was still sitting in the driver’s seat.