Poison Wind (Jackson Chase Novella Book 3)

by Connor Black

  We watched them discreetly canvass the area for nearly ten minutes before a police car rolled to a stop next to the café patio where we sat. Two officers got out, their eyes scanning us and all the patrons before moving on. Another few minutes later, a black Audi A4 pulled up behind the police car, its lights off.

  The passenger door opened, revealing a bald cannonball of a man. His movements were calm, but confident. The driver remained in the car for a few seconds longer. When the door finally opened, I saw it was a woman. A mass of unruly hair was held in a ponytail with a small blue ribbon. She wore a black leather jacket, jeans that showed a lithe, athletic figure, and well-polished black tactical boots. As she lifted a handheld radio to speak, a sidearm was visible on her left hip.

  “That’s Anat Hadas and her partner, Uri Novgorod. Shin Bet,” Hess said.

  “So the jig is up,” said Joe.

  “Indeed. Let’s call off the search, shall we?” Without waiting for an answer, Hess leaned to the side, his head and shoulders just over the railing around the café deck. With a charming smile, he said, “Miss Hadas, so good to see you on such a beautiful night!”

  The woman looked through the tables of customers and, seeing Hess, walked up to the railing.

  “Nice to see you as well, Mr. Hess. But if you’ll excuse me, I must get to work.”

  “Ah, I see. Perhaps I can be of assistance?”

  “No. Thank you, Mr. Hess,” she said. She turned and took a step away, moving to the small square.

  “I wonder if you might not be in search of a particular phone?”

  That stopped her in her tracks. She pivoted on a heel and turned to face us. The man, Novgorod, was either just far enough away or had not been listening, because he had carried on. He called back to her, saying, “Yallah.” Let’s go.

  She turned her head and made a settling motion with her hand. “Lo,” she said. No. “I am listening now, Mr. Hess.”

  “I’d like to introduce you to a few friends.”

  “Is one of them a terrorist, Mr. Hess? Because that is my focus at the moment.”

  Hess gave a little laugh. “No, I don’t think any of them are terrorists.”

  “But the night is still young,” I said, trying my disarming smile to no effect.

  “I would’ve suspected a friend of Mr. Hess’s would be American,” the woman said in reaction to my accent.

  “What you’re looking for isn’t a terrorist, I am afraid. There are two phones in the fountain over there.” I pointed down to the little square.

  She stepped slightly closer and pulled a small light from her belt. Abruptly, she pointed it at my face and turned it on. I did my best not to blink or raise a hand, not entirely sure why I was trying to be tough. After a second, she turned it off. Keeping her eyes on mine, she used her radio to relay a series of orders to the men around the square.

  One of them circled the fountain. Finding the phones, he picked them up and brought them to her. They exchanged a few words, and it appeared she was dismissing the team. As they dispersed, she turned to Novgorod and said, “Uri, Mr. Hess would like to introduce us to his friends.”

  Hess placed some Shekels on the table, and we went out to meet Agents Hadas and Novgorod. Together, we walked across the little square to a concrete railing on the far side. A spotlight on a pole pointed out to the sea, designed to give people on an evening stroll the chance to see the sea below. I looked over the edge of the railing. Beneath us, small, gentle waves massaged the rocky shore. The wind carried soft lapping noises up from below.

  “So, the request for the number came from you, Lieutenant Commander Chase?” asked Agent Hadas.

  Given that introductions hadn’t been made, we were a little shocked that she would know my name. Even Hess was surprised.

  “I am sorry, but have we met before?” I said.

  Agent Novgorod chuckled, a low rumble like a giant boulder being pushed across a granite floor. “Not exactly, Commander. But let’s say we are familiar with you and Chief Sterba. And Commander Chen, I am happy to see you’re doing well.”

  Haley was caught off guard. “How do you... ”

  Agent Hadas cut her off. “It makes no difference. You have our attention now. What is it that you want?” Her irritation at this little charade was clear.

  “The number we gave you—the number your agency is stalling us on—whose is it?”

  “It was a burner phone, used one time too many before being discarded. It belonged to a terrorist.”

  “Who?”

  “Farid Hassan, who some call Al Tilmid. The Pupil.”

  “Why have you not shared this, Agent Hadas?” asked Hess. He’d dropped the fun, charming tone and was all business at this point.

  “Mr. Hess, I think we do well sharing much of our intelligence. But this is a Palestinian terrorist. It is not an American affair.”

  “Agent Hadas, I’d like to find him,” I said.

  “So would I, Commander. Why do you want him?”

  “He’s a loose end. We’ve been following a moneyman who’s now locked away. Your man, Farid Hassan, has been recently funded. We think he’s preparing an operation.”

  “They are always preparing operations, Commander. It’s what terrorists do. How much was he funded?”

  “One-and-a-half million dollars,” I said.

  She exchanged a glance with Agent Novgorod before saying, “That is a fortune to dedicate to a single operation for Hamas.”

  “And it is unusual for a single operative to be given so much,” Agent Novgorod added.

  “Let’s find him together, then,” I said.

  “I need to talk to my superiors,” she said. “Mr. Hess, Uri and I will be at your office tomorrow at nine. Goodnight.”

  And with that, she spun on her heels and returned to her car, shoulders square and not looking back. It was clear there would be no further discussion tonight.

  “Charming,” I said.

  Hess made a dismissive gesture with his hands. “No, she understood why we did this. It’s just the way she is. Focused, no nonsense. You have to get used to it here.”

  With that, Hess took us to his car and gave us a ride to the hotel. We agreed to meet at the Embassy at nine to see if the ice had melted, and what Agents Hadas and Novgorod had to offer.

  6

  The next morning, the three of us woke up early for a run, having been inspired by all of the locals working out the night before. After cleaning up, we went to the lobby for breakfast. What the hotel lacked in architectural charm, it made up for in food: fresh fruit, an amazing array of vegetables, and delicate European-style omelets. While I was enjoying some surprisingly wonderful coffee, my phone rang. It was Hess.

  I showed the screen to Haley and Joe before answering. Joe had just sat down with a second plate of Arabic salad and breads.

  “Good morning, Fred.”

  “Morning, Jackson. Something’s come up. How soon can you get here?”

  “Leaving now,” I said, ending the call.

  “What’s up?” asked Joe.

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. But Hess sounded a little wound up.”

  We used the same meeting room as the previous day, though this time we were joined by the Diplomatic Security Service’s RSO. The Regional Security Officer is in charge of all DSS agents in a particular embassy, the primary tasking of DSS being the protection of the U.S. diplomatic mission and visiting dignitaries and diplomats. But they’re also a part of federal law enforcement, so it wasn’t such a stretch for us to meet with the RSO. His support would provide power of arrest if it came to that.

  Whereas Hess’s confidence and capability were masterfully wrapped in charm, the RSO, Tom Delaney, was the authoritative and direct type.

  After we’d all been introduced, he said, “I’ll get right to the point. The Secretary of State has just let us know that she’ll be arriving Tuesday morning for talks with the Israeli Prime Minister. Forty-eight hours from now.”

  “Your conc
ern is that the man we’re hoping to find is a risk to the Secretary?” asked Haley. “I should imagine you’d have some amount of concern for the eight million people of Israel as well.”

  “When a diplomat visits, we assess all relevant threats and risk,” Delaney said, his tone dismissive. “When this visit was announced this morning, Hess came to us and said you might have a potential threat.”

  “What we have right now, Mr. Delaney, is only a name—Farid Hassan—and the fact that he’s received one-and-a-half million dollars in the past thirty days. We’re waiting on input from Shin Bet for more, because Hassan is an unknown to us at this point.”

  “And it appears that is forthcoming,” said Hess. He pointed through the glass wall where we could see Hadas and Novgorod being escorted to the room.

  Hadas entered first. “Boker tov,” she said. Good morning.

  Her greeting was returned, and nods were shared all around.

  “Farid Hassan’s file,” she said, placing a folder on the table with one hand. With the other, she withdrew a thumb drive from her pocket. Haley took the drive and inserted it into her laptop, and soon thereafter, Hassan’s profile was projected onto one of the room’s large monitors. The right side was a number of details in a strange mix of Hebrew and English, so I focused on the photograph on the right side. It had obviously been taken covertly, because it wasn’t in perfect focus and showed his head at an oblique angle. He had short hair with a low hairline that gave him a sinister look. His beard was about the same length as his hair, giving the impression he just went with the Number 3 all over. But what really stood out was his nose. It was large, and appeared to be bent in the middle, where a knuckle of a bump pushed at his skin. It was as if he’d been in a fight, and didn’t reset it afterwards, just to spite his opponent.

  “The Prime Minister’s office has informed us of Secretary Ramirez’s visit. Given that Mr. Delaney is here, I imagine you’re working on a threat assessment?” Hadas said.

  Delaney nodded. Agent Novgorod took over the briefing at this point. His voice was gravelly with a Russian accent, though his English was very precise.

  “Hassan, also known as Al Tilmid, or ‘Pupil’ in English, is only on the edge of our radar. He has been a mid-level player in Gaza, a part of Hamas’s militant wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The name ‘Pupil’ came from Hezbollah training he received in making and launching rockets. We connected him to at least four of the launch sites used in the 2014 war.”

  “You are familiar with Gaza and Hamas?” Novgorod asked.

  “To some degree,” I replied. “Gaza was granted self-governance with the Oslo Accords, and the Palestinian Authority was eventually given control. Sometime later, Hamas was voted into power.”

  “Essentially, that is correct,” said Hadas. “But Hamas is a terrorist organization that came from the Muslim brotherhood. The 2006 elections were questionable, and it was actually defeating Fatah in a civil war that put them in power. Since then, the region has suffered. Terrorists are experts at terrorizing, not governing. They have destroyed all of the infrastructure, and the people there are poor, hungry, and angry. The goal of Hamas is not to help them, it is to stop what they call the ‘Israeli Occupation’. To kill us.”

  “Terror is still their weapon. Suicide bombings, kidnapping, and rockets,” Novgorod said. “In 2014, Hamas fired almost 3,000 rockets into Israel. Last night, you said Hassan received over a million-and-a-half dollars. That is a fortune to them. The rockets they use might cost between eight hundred and a thousand dollars. They’re rough and inaccurate, largely pipes filled with sugar and fertilizer as propellant. And to make any distance, they need to be so filled with propellant that there’s little room for an explosive charge.”

  Hadas said, “The fact that Hassan was given such a large amount of money has us worried. We wonder if he could not build more sophisticated weapons.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “We don’t know where he is now. Last night, we were compiling different intelligence reports trying to get a sense of his movements. We have one report of him being in Syria ten days ago.”

  “Reliability?” Hess asked.

  Novgorod rocked his hand back and forth and said, “Sixty percent.”

  “His unknown whereabouts is a problem,” said Delaney. “If this man has the skills and funding to improve Hamas’s capabilities—and he’s had the lead time—we have to factor that into the Secretary’s visit.”

  Delaney, I suspected, was calculating this among several other threats. But rocket attacks—and the capability of Israel’s Iron Dome system to mitigate them—are always part of the threat matrix here.

  “Do you have agents in Gaza that can locate Hassan?” I asked.

  “Our own operatives in Gaza are limited. They’ve been re-tasked, but it will take a while.”

  “Other assets?”

  “We do run local assets. One in particular has been our source in the past for Hassan. A signal for him to make contact was left late last night. There has been no response yet.”

  “Can you send a team in?” asked Joe.

  Novgorod shook his head. “Sending in a Quick Reaction Force would send Hassan to ground. There’s little in the way of infrastructure there. But notification of uniformed forces crossing the border spreads almost instantly. For finding one man, it wouldn’t work. He’d go to ground as soon as the gate was opened.”

  “SIGINT and IMINT?” Haley asked. Signals and Imagery Intelligence.

  “We’re zeroing in on activity around past rocket construction sites, and have prioritized references to Hassan in our signals monitoring,” Hadas said. “This is all we can do right now.”

  Sensing that we were getting nowhere, Delaney stood up. “Thank you, Agent Hadas.” Sweeping his eyes across all of us at the table, he said, “Work the problem. While I’d like to have an understanding of what we’re up against, what I really want is for this threat to be removed from the board altogether. Is that understood?”

  As Delaney wasn’t in my chain of command, or really anyone’s in the room, his threat lacked the bite it might have had with his own people. But regardless of his brash tone, he did impress upon us the need to mitigate the threat quickly and clearly.

  “Understood,” I replied.

  He left the room, and after a moment, Haley spoke.

  “I’d like to work this from a different angle. Let’s go back to Vatchenko.”

  “Ivan Vatchenko is who funded Hassan,” I said by way of explanation.

  Haley continued, “Vatchenko we know was never an ideologist. He’s an opportunist who simply manufactures his opportunities for success. The way he’d operate is making investments that would skyrocket after an act of terrorism, everything from protection to reconstruction. I’d like to go back through his transactions and see if we can use that as another approach vector.”

  “Dig in,” I said. Turning to Agents Hadas and Novgorod, I said, “Can you connect your SIGINT and IMINT sources to Commander Chen? I think you may find her skills rather impressive.”

  Hadas shrugged. “I will try.”

  I stood up and walked to the window that looked out over the Mediterranean. Getting as close as I could, I tried to look south. I pointed to my left and said, “It’s just over there, right? fifty miles or so?”

  “Ninety-two kilometers,” Novgorod replied.

  “What exactly are you thinking?” asked Joe.

  “I am thinking I might go in and talk to Agent Hadas’s asset.”

  “That would not be possible,” said Hadas.

  “And why is that?”

  “Ugh. Let me count the ways. This is Israel, and CIA agents have agreed not to operate here without consent. You have no training as an operative; you have no knowledge of our asset; you are unaware of our procedures for making contact; you don’t speak Arabic. Should I continue?”

  “Bikull alwasayil, min fadlik tuasil,” I said in Arabic. By all means, please continue.

 
That caused her pause.

  “Agent Hadas,” Hess said, “let me first clarify that Jackson, Joe, and Haley are not employed by the CIA. They are, however, well trained as operatives. Lieutenant Commander Chen is a U.S. Navy Intelligence officer highly skilled in intelligence analysis and cyber warfare. Chief Sterba is a U.S. Navy SEAL, with skills behind a sniper rifle that would make even you rather jealous. And Lieutenant Commander Chase, while ostensibly an Aviator for the U.S. Navy, spent nearly seven years with the New Zealand Special Air Service.”

  “Much of this we have known, Mr. Hess.”

  Again, there was a strange familiarity about her statement. The same thing I felt when she’d blinded me with her flashlight the night before.

  Hess continued, his voice projecting with more volume and emphasis than before. “Then you also must know, Anat, that what you have available to you now are one top-shelf intelligence officer and two tier one shooters trained to operate covertly behind enemy lines. One of whom, I will add, also speaks Arabic with ease and has the perfect combination of olive skin and dark hair. I suggest you take advantage of the precision tools that have placed themselves at your disposal.”

  The room fell silent after Hess finished.

  Joe broke the tension. He rubbed the rather pale skin on his forearm and said, “Thanks, Fred. I have been working on my tan.”

  “I think he meant I am the olive one and you’re the ‘tool’, Joe,” I said.

  Novgorod snickered and then spoke to Hadas in Hebrew. Some of it I could catch. But knowing only a handful of phrases, I was mostly lost in the barrage of deep Rs and harsh consonants. At one point, they excused themselves to make a call. When they returned to the room, they continued a brief discussion. Just before they finished, Hess made a dismissive face.

  “Care to let us in on your conversation?” I asked.

  “My superiors say there’s still no contact from our asset,’ said Hadas. ‘They’ve agreed to send you in to make contact and get a location on Hassan, especially given the time constraint we have with your Secretary’s visit.”

  I turned to Hess. “Why the face?”