by Nathan Ronen
“Something’s wrong here. There’s something we can’t see, a vulnerability. I’ll give it some thought and get back to you,” Masha concluded the conversation.
Arik was thinking over what she had said when suddenly he heard Tal Ronen’s sonorous bass voice echoing in the speeding van. “Command, this is zero-one.”
“This is Command. Proceed,” he replied.
“I’ve checked the mosque and it’s empty,” Tal reported. “And when I say empty, I mean the storeroom with the materials is completely empty, too. Everything’s disappeared. There are a few torn bits of cardboard with the logo of some London movers.”
Iman al-Uzbeki, that son of a bitch! Arik thought to himself. Has he gone and vanished on me again? Or is he on his way to carry out the job? And if he isn’t, who are we chasing now?
“Okay, activate Yuli Ebenstein’s cyber team,” he instructed Tal. “Ask the twins to find out which moving company was there, and where they’ve transferred all the materials we saw in the mosque’s basement.”
“On it,” Tal said.
“Zero-one, when you’re done with Yuli and his team, join me in the chase,” Arik instructed. “It might still be him on his way to the big job.”
“This is zero-one. Roger,” Tal said, running to the blue Audi awaiting him across the street.
Charlie-nine passed the green Toyota Yaris on the right. Alma looked in the side mirror to see whether the car was following them in the general direction of downtown London.
Suddenly, the car speeded up. The driver looked in the mirror. The motorcycle ahead of him disappeared and was replaced by a blue Audi 8 filling his mirror. The target examined the driver and the female passenger driving behind him. They were Mediterranean in appearance, young, and handsome. The older driver was wearing a gray hoodie, and a plump young woman with blond hair was sitting beside him.
The time had come for more drastic action. The target swerved wildly away from the wide boulevard onto a side road and saw the Audi sticking to him. He had a strange feeling. His heart began beating rapidly, but he didn’t want to call his friends and ask for backup.
From under his seat, the target retrieved his Walther P99 service pistol, inserted a magazine, cocked the weapon, and stuck it in the left side of his belt. The passenger sitting to his left followed his lead.
The target was a professional. He tried to shake off his tails, accelerating and then slowing down in the small Yaris, but the blue Audi continued to stick close, losing no ground. He had to admit that they were good, too.
He drove for a whole hour, gritting out silent curses and taunting his pursuers so that they would expose themselves and their intentions. He crossed the Thames and turned onto the A205, London’s South Circular Road, heading west. Looking in the mirror, he saw the blue Audi suddenly disappear.
After years of training at memorizing minute details and spotting lookouts and tails, there was no room for error. It had not been mere paranoia. Someone was still tracking him. But who? And the other question was, why now? After all, he had not completed his mission yet.
Who the hell are they? he wondered. It couldn’t have been the Brits. If they were members of the Special Branch, who were known to be impatient, they would have already opened fire on him when he left the parking garage of his building, while Mossad operatives would not have dared openly take action against him on British soil. He knew that under the spy code of conduct, this was a line in the sand that was never crossed.
He looked in the mirror and, seven cars behind him, saw a black van sporting the words “G4S British Security Services,” which had joined the procession of London’s heavy morning traffic. The van with tinted windows was the kind that served British security agencies. It was close enough to maintain eye contact, while also being far enough not to evoke panic in the person being tailed. The target knew the drill.
He decided to test whether his imagination and suspiciousness were playing tricks on him, or whether someone was indeed following him. He began to honk his horn, atypical for British drivers, weaving in and out among the other cars.
The problem was that at this time on Friday, as the weekend approached, he had no chance of speedily maneuvering through the morning traffic heading for the airport. He was stuck. A large green van began to pass other cars, heading toward him. The target looked back apprehensively. The van shifted to the lane to his right. Two young, burly people dressed in black were sitting next to the driver. They had crewcuts and were wearing sunglasses. They looked like European military personnel. Were they his people, SAS (Special Air Service), or some commando group?
The blue Audi suddenly appeared on the lane to his left and the blonde next to the driver smiled at him. The green Kawasaki Ninja H2 motorcycle appeared behind him. A closer look revealed that its driver was female. She had a suspicious bulge on her waist, obviously a gun. A black Ducati motorcycle appeared on the right shoulder of the road, its back seat also occupied by a girl with a willowy frame.
He was trapped between vehicles. In front of him was a white Ford SUV that occasionally stopped with no warning. This was the kind of ‘diamond’ array characterizing the very ones he had not expected to find there: Israeli Mossad agents. Vehicles that were different yet similar, clean but not too clean, dirty but not too dirty, all driving carefully, meticulously, in a manner that would not attract too much attention.
The target was surrounded and knew what was coming. They would lead him to a location that would be convenient for their purposes. However, his mind refused to accept the facts.
The Israelis wouldn’t dare act this way on British soil, he thought to himself. So maybe these are agents from another country or organization who were trained by the Mossad? There have been many examples of that in the world.
The target decided to seemingly cooperate. He gripped his pistol, ready for any scenario, and looked at his friend sitting beside him with a panicked expression.
“Report our location to ‘Circus’ and call for help,” he told him urgently.
Their phones were inoperative, as was the two-way radio. The EW (Electronic Warfare) system in the adjacent black van’s command post was blocking and disabling all communication systems around it.
The target thought his imagination might be playing tricks on him after all. He was incredulous that the Israeli Mossad had not planned something less obvious. They stopped together at stoplights, accelerated together in large traffic circles, and did not make a move. Perhaps the time had not yet come, but he knew and recognized that the stage was already set. Apparently, they were waiting for him to make a mistake, and then they would tighten the siege, chase after him, and force him to stop.
Thoughts raced through the target’s head at a frantic pace. He examined all options. It was possible that everything going on was a trick intended to distract him from something completely different that was taking place at the moment. The operative in him was always seeking the hidden meaning behind the words or the action. Some people might call it paranoia, but in the spy’s world, paranoia and suspicion were always a guarantee of a longer life.
For thirty minutes, he did nothing but drive out of town at a steady pace, heading for Heathrow Airport. He meant to dim his pursuers’ focus, perhaps frustrate them a bit, causing their alertness to wane. He led them toward the London borough of Hillingdon, fifteen miles west of downtown on the M25 motorway.
He knew that if he was indeed dealing with Mossad agents they would not dare open fire. It was a well-known fact that the Mossad was too smart to hurt innocent bystanders, especially since any irregular activity would trigger the arrival of the aggressive Traffic and Road Safety Police, which maintained a prominent presence on the road.
The operational driving courses he had taken served him well now. He pulled the steering wheel sharply to the left, trying to cross three lanes at once. This action caused the drivers around him to brak
e abruptly and honk while cursing the driver’s mother with a variety of juicy profanities in the myriad languages common in Britain at the time. In any case, this swerve ended up sealing his fate.
A white Ford Edge SUV tried to pass as well, veering in front of him. The Ford braked ahead of him, and the Toyota Yaris braked hard as well so as not to cause an accident. At that moment, the green van swerved toward it, ramming into his vehicle from the side, intending to force him off the road. The moment the Toyota was buffeted to the shoulder of the road, and two airbags firmly wedged its passengers in their seats, the blue Audi emerged from behind, blocking any attempt to return to the motorway by speeding in reverse. The Ducati bike, a black cab and another big black van, its roof full of antennas, raced in from the north and the south, blocking the Toyota, although it was already a mere squashed wreck on the shoulder, leaking all manners of fluids.
Alma got off the motorcycle and immediately looked back to the utility poles on the M25 motorway. She noticed a London Metropolitan Traffic Department surveillance camera overlooking the road and reporting any unexpected delay. Alma used the Audi as shelter, kneeled down, whipped out her pistol and aimed it from a distance of fifty feet at the camera. She shot at it and shattered it.
Kidon fighters ran out the green van’s back door, wearing black hoods. They were holding a hydraulic tool used by firefighters to rescue people injured in an accident and affixed it to the Yaris’s front windshield, tearing it away from the car. They had obviously practiced this scenario frequently. The other agents emerged, training their weapons at the Yaris’s stunned passengers, who lowered their own weapons when confronted with this superior force. They were pulled out like rag dolls through the window-less front of the car and tossed onto the floor of the black cab by two brawny fellows. As the two giants were cuffing their hands behind their backs, another figure showed up, seemingly out of nowhere. This figure tore their personal weapons out of their hands and then injected some Ketamine in their necks with a tiny jet syringe, causing temporary paralysis. The figure pulled a hood over their head. Two team members produced two magnetic signs and covered the sign stating “G4S British Security Services” with a new magnetic sign declaring, “O’Reilly—Plumbing Services—Islington.”
The black van took off with no delays. Bystanders who stopped by the side of the road, wanting to assist with what looked to them like an accident, were amazed to see the people emerging from the vehicles. Their faces were shielded by black hoods and they were wearing yellow florescent vests stating “Police.” They waved their IDs and yelled, “Get back in your cars! Police! Scotland Yard Special Branch.” Two Kidon agents stepped off the green Kawasaki motorcycle, producing two sets of yellow vests of the kind used by the national Traffic Police and the appropriate police caps. They began to direct traffic in order to maintain its normal flow.
Alma entered the crushed Yaris, whose engine was still on, driving it down the road into a tall thicket of bushes. It was invisible from the motorway. She then ran back to the black Ducati, which rushed back into the busy road leading to the airport.
The entire operation took about a minute and a half. The site returned to normal, full of cars hurrying to the airport, as usual. No one would imagine anything unusual had happened on the motorway.
“Charlie-nine, this is Control, can you hear me?”
“This is Charlie-nine, I can,” Alma replied, all excited due to the high-octane adrenaline streaming through her blood.
“What’s going on?”
“Everything’s okay. Meet you back in the apartment in an hour.”
“All stations, this is Control. Cease and retreat, dispersing per usual procedures. Confirm receipt.”
Proper procedure, often rehearsed and repeated once more in post-mission debriefings, required them to scatter in all directions in order to draw possible pursuers in opposite directions, as well as to ditch the vehicles, which had doubtlessly been photographed by road cameras, and return via public transportation to the safe house. The rule instructed them to sporadically ditch all vehicles that had taken part in the operation in the giant long-term parking garage at busy Heathrow Airport. From there, they would board the internal shuttle bus to the five different airport terminals and then return to city center by Tube, taxi, or bus. They were instructed to disembark in different neighborhoods in the city, to verify they were not being tailed, and only then arrive at the safe house. The required condition for going up to the apartment was phone confirmation from one of the “old ladies” that the coast was clear, and the apartment was indeed safe.
Chapter 57
Whitechapel Guest House, London
The Sea Eagle glided down the neighborhood’s main street, passing by East London’s Grand Mosque. Arik was sitting next to the driver, thinking about the interrogation of their prisoners that he was supposed to conduct.
He was debating whether to include Sir John in Iman al-Uzbeki’s interrogation since he was afraid of a severe international incident in case they had made a mistake and caught the wrong people. Therefore, he decided to wait.
The Chameleon rang in his pocket, and he typed in the passcode and accepted a video call.
“Arik, this is Ruhama Saltzman from the psychologists’ team,” she began. “We had a meeting this morning and included Masha Kramer, because she expressed reservations about our initial assessment. I still insist that Iman al-Uzbeki is an obsessive-compulsive planner, with a fierce pathological need to adjust reality to his plans. His goal is absolute control over others.”
Arik replied impatiently, “What’s the operative significance of what you’re telling me?”
“His focus is very narrow,” she continued. “He feels he needs to achieve absolute control by terrorizing anyone belonging to the group of victims in his sightline, which is the pinnacle of the Western world, both Christian and Jewish. They don’t interest him, and he considers them insignificant.
“I wanted to tell you this before you start interrogating him, so that…” Ruhama continued, but Arik was no longer there.
In a passing glimpse from the corner of his eye, he noticed a van joining the traffic from one of the side alleys. Perturbed by the question of why the vehicle looked familiar, he instructed the driver to stop by the side of the road and allowed the van to pass him by. Only then did he take in the details of the sign on the side of the vehicle: “Bethnal Green Gardening Company.” This was without a doubt the vehicle they had watched loading up sacks of soil from the depths of the Grand Mosque. Two people with an Arab appearance were sitting inside.
“I’m sorry, I have to end this call now. Thanks, Ruhama. Good work,” he blurted out quickly and thoughtlessly.
His eyes were focused on the vehicle tailing them, now waiting for them in a parking spot.
“Take another spin around the neighborhood,” he instructed the driver. “Make sure not to go anywhere near our safe house building.”
At that point, another vehicle joined the team tracking them. It was a pickup truck, a white Mitsubishi Fuso Canter, bearing a sign stating “Bethnal Green Exterminators.” Someone had done an amateurish cover job, as both vehicles prominently displayed the same phone number.
The vehicles’ presence so close to the safe house was a red flag for Arik. He assumed a description of their black tactical HQ vehicle had been shared by the Iranian Embassy in London. Or perhaps they had been spotted tracking the people attending East London’s Grand Mosque, triggering an attempt to figure out who was interested in the mosque’s worshippers and its cultural and educational institutes. Were they on to him because of bad judgement or operational sloppiness on his part? His teams were highly professional; but had his people unknowingly left behind suspicious evidence? Thinking about this scorched his chest like acid.
“Drop me off here,” Arik commanded. He believed his face was familiar and that they might be looking for him. Therefore, he decided tha
t he himself would serve as scapegoat and bait.
He needed backup, preferably on wheels. Therefore, he reported his location to Tal Ronen. He felt relieved to hear that Tal had already asked ‘Tarzan,’ head of the London bureau, to rent new vehicles for them to replace the ones they had abandoned throughout the airport’s long-term parking garage. ‘Tarzan’ had acquired these vehicles from the owner of a used car lot who had been collaborating with them for many years now. The new vehicles were already waiting for them in the parking garage under Whitechapel Market, near the Grand Mosque.
Photos of the cars and their license numbers had been sent in a group WhatsApp message. They included a Range Rover Sport SVR, a Jaguar FX sports car, and two new BMW R 1200 RT motorcycles. The parking garage attendant had been given the car keys, along with a generous tip, and instructed to give the key to the person who provided him with photos of the vehicle and its license plate. Tal reported to Arik that he and the members of Kidon’s teams were already near Whitechapel and would be picking up their new vehicles. Arik gave them the descriptions of the two vehicles tracking the Sea Eagle, along with their license numbers, and asked Kidon’s warriors to tail the trackers from afar. The last thing he wanted was to expose the location of the safe house. He believed Iman al-Uzbeki’s people were probably the ones following him. Those terrorists might have been daring warriors in the mountains, but urban warfare and confrontations on city streets were his area of expertise.
He spotted two people emerging from one of the vehicles and begin to follow him. Arik changed direction and began to lure his tails toward the large covered market. He entered and exited various shops, always seeing the same people tracking him from afar while peering at him. This was good. He was buying time until Tal Ronen and his people showed up. He saw the same cars switching places in order to camouflage themselves. However, they did not spot the Kidon team members headed by Tal Ronen, who had already arrived and were tailing them on foot and on wheels. Tal had some of the best ‘pavement artists’ in the world on his operational teams.