Poison Wind (Jackson Chase Novella Book 3)

by Connor Black

  “The greenhouse,” he said, rummaging through the photos and selecting a few, “has been destroyed for the most part. The glass, irrigation, and machinery were all taken out during the looting in 2005, but the raised concrete beds are still there. You’ll come out of the edge of one here.” He selected one shot that showed a concrete rectangle. Rusty rebar protruded in places, bent at the ends. A crack in the bed was circled.

  “This portion of the bed is a composite made to look like old concrete. You’ll push it out to exit. Put it back in place exactly like this.”

  He paused for a moment, and then selected a map. “This is your route to Mahmoud’s. Memorize it, and use these photos to help you ID the destination.” He placed several photos on the map and slid them to me.

  “Your extraction will be the next day. After morning prayers. For this, we will use an aid truck. The location is better, and it prevents us from having you transit the city mid-day. It’s on one of the routes out we use, and Hamas doesn’t monitor trucks leaving like they do entering. We need you at this location no later than 09:00.” He pointed to a disused service station. “In here, on the east wall, is an access door to the basement. You’ll go down and see an old street water drainage pipe. It leads to this manhole. Again, it’s maintained to be easy to open. One of our trucks will stop over top of it at 10:00 hours. His airbrakes will puff twice. You’ll exit the manhole and find there is a metal shelf welded to the bottom of the truck. Get in, lie down, and be patient. It’ll be about thirty uncomfortable minutes until we get you out.”

  “Alternate exfil?” I asked.

  “We’ll set up the same procedure for 15:30 hours. If you miss that, the tunnel you used for entry is the fallback. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll send a team in to one of these two LZs on your call.” He slid the map he’d given me earlier back, and there were two locations circled and labeled Aleph and Bet.

  “Commo?” I asked.

  Novgorod handed over a well-worn cell phone. An older style with a flip-down cover over the keypad.

  “The phone function works. So if you’re compromised and it’s taken from you, it will appear to just make calls. But for our purposes, it’s an encrypted radio. It’s single-channel, so you’ll be on with the command center in the Pit beneath HaKirya, call sign Base, along with Anat and me. Sakeen Six is the leader of the QRF team on standby across the border. He won’t be on this net, but Base can patch you together. Anat is Sakeen One, and I am Sakeen Two.”

  “And he’s Hillary,” Joe said, pointing at me. “And Haley is Dilbert. I’m just Sterbs.”

  Novgorod made a strange face. “Why does Jackson have a girl’s call sign and Haley have a boy’s?”

  “Hillary, in this case, is actually in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary. He was a boy,” Joe said, as if it made perfect sense. He was smiling as he watched Novgorod’s confusion remain. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

  “Just don’t let the big guy choose a call sign for you, Uri,” I said.

  “No, I think not.” Going back to the phone, he said, “This is an older model phone case, technically without a photo feature. But we’ve added a camera to the end of the stubby antenna. You won’t be able to see an image, but holding the star key down for more than a second will take a photo and relay it to us along with GPS coordinates.” Novgorod handed me the phone, and showed me how to point the camera. I could see the end of the antenna had a tiny circle of tinted glass. But the fact that you held it flat to shoot was far more discreet than the way you have to hold a modern phone to take a picture.

  “Where will you be positioned?” I asked.

  Joe said, “Novgorod and I will be part of the QRF here.” He pointed to a spot near where I would be dropped off for the tunnel. “If the shit hits the fan, we’ll make our way in. Or if you need me to pop in for a hug, long-press 0 on your phone.”

  “We’ll have a big hug before I leave, Joe. That’ll just have to hold you over,” I said.

  “If you two are done, we need to go over procedures for making contact with our asset,” said Anat.

  I sat back and gestured for her to proceed.

  “Mahmoud repairs shoes in the little shop below his home, so all of our contact procedures revolve around that. When you make contact, you’ll tell him you’re there to pick up Farah’s sandals. We follow that with the name of her husband as the person we are looking for. So if you say, ‘I need to pick up Farah’s sandals. She is the wife of Farid Hassan,” then he’ll know you need a location for Hassan.

  “If he has a location, his response will be that his brother has them. He’ll tell you where his brother is, which will be where he thinks Hassan is. If he doesn’t know, but will find out, he’ll tell you the sandals are not ready, and to come back at a certain time.”

  “What if he asks me to come back in a week?”

  “You’ll have to lean on him. You’re working a covert asset, and you’ll need to be flexible.”

  “How did you turn him?”

  “We approached him after a Hamas official beat his wife for riding a bicycle through the city. She died from internal bleeding two days later. He has to take care of his young son on his own, and we’re able to offer some help in exchange for his.”

  “How many assets like this do you have?” I asked.

  “This is not for us to discuss, Jackson. I am sure you understand,” she said. A cold end to that line of discussion.

  She continued, “The mission will be to get a location on Hassan and relay that to us. You’ve been authorized to get a visual on him if possible, and relay that information back. The QRF has been working up some plans for his extraction once you get a location. So you will be in and out.”

  “Again, I’d feel better going in covertly and armed to have a chance to take Hassan.”

  She shook her head. “This is not possible. We need a location first, and you can’t approach Mahmoud in tactical gear. He’d run, or go silent if you got your hands on him. This is the best way. We have a team ready, trained precisely to go in for an extraction. You will tell them where. That’s all.”

  Before I was able to protest further, the door opened, revealing Haley and Hess. They said their hellos, and Joe brought them up to speed on our plan. He asked them what they’d been up to, and Haley explained.

  “Since Agent Hadas put us in contact with her team here, we’ve established more background on Hassan. As you said,” she nodded to Anat, “Hassan is best known for building rockets. But he’s done a bit more.

  “Pulling together disparate intelligence sources, we’ve seen a picture emerging that he’s not just building rockets, he’s instructing as well. It seems his training is more extensive than previously thought, and he’s become rather accomplished in engineering. He’s not only trained in propulsion, trajectory, and payload for rockets, but also in various forms of IEDs.”

  “This guy is bad, Anat. Worse than we thought,” Hess said. “And after analyzing the successful launch rate and accuracy changes since he’s been doing the work, we’re more worried about the Secretary’s visit.”

  “Can they meet somewhere else?” Joe asked.

  “Like Tahiti?” I said.

  Hess shook his head. “No, the meeting will take place here. But they’ve moved it to one of the bunkers under HaKirya.”

  “The Pit?” I asked.

  “No, that’s command and control. But there’s a whole compound down there. Plenty of space.”

  “We don’t know if Hassan is planning something, or even if he knows of the Secretary’s visit,” I said.

  “One, we can’t take the risk he’s not planning. As you said, the timetable Vatchenko used for funding attacks gives us a window size. Two, the Secretary’s visit was made public an hour ago. And three, we know Hassan would take advantage of a target of opportunity. We can connect him to an attempt on the Canadian Foreign Minister a year ago. A suicide bomber placed along a transit route.”

  “So she’s covered for her meeting
with the PM. But she’ll be exposed in transit from Ben Gurion and at her hotel,” Joe said.

  “We’ve been able to convince her not to stay overnight, thankfully. And DSS is working with the PM’s protection service on transportation,” Hess said. “We still have four days. Our best bet is grabbing Hassan and shutting down any operation he has in the works.”

  “Any luck looking at things from Vatchenko’s end?” I asked Haley.

  “Nothing definitive. His investment timing doesn’t always work in sync with attacks, so it’s tough to run analytics to show an attack type or time. The usual construction and property investments and shorts are there, scattered across multi-nationals. But don’t forget he has investments not tied to attacks in there, too. And there’s everything in this region from pharma to tech, commodities, and energy.”

  “Construction, commodities, and energy we know are the three dials that move after an attack where he’s made the bulk of his money,” I said. “The pharma part doesn’t fit.”

  Haley nodded. “I know. But it may be part of his regular portfolio moves, like real estate. Part of his overall diversification, since we’ve seen pharma in there as far back as five years ago.”

  It was difficult to see Haley visibly frustrated. She was incredibly intelligent, and could find answers anywhere, even before a question was in sight. But she’d come up dry in this instance for the first time since I’d known her, and I could see it wearing on her. I decided to change her mindset a bit.

  I looked down at my watch. Checking the time reminded me that I’d need to go in without the large IWC dive watch. As I undid the buckle and placed it on the table to remind myself to put it in a safe place, I said, “It’s coming on five o’clock now, and all I’ve had since breakfast is hummus with Anat. How about we break for dinner?”

  Joe’s eyes brightened. “I’m in.”

  Novgorod said he had an idea. He stood up and withdrew his phone to make a call.

  “This is interesting,” Anat said, picking up the watch. “Heavy, but it is not gold.”

  “Bronze,” I said. “A gift from an old friend. And conspicuous enough that it certainly doesn’t fit with my disguise.”

  Anat buckled it onto her own wrist. “Heavy,” she said, moving her arm up and down a bit. “But I will look after it for you.”

  I knew Haley and Joe noticed this. So I made sure not to meet their eyes.

  Thankfully, Novgorod returned with a large smile and offered a distraction.

  “Dinner plans are made. My home.”

  “Can we take the time?” asked Haley.

  “You need a break, Haley,” Novgorod said. “We’ve been going at this all day.”

  “He’s right, Haley. We all need to blow off a little steam sometimes,” Joe said.

  Novgorod and Joe were two of a kind. Aside from both having the size and strength of bears, I noticed that Novgorod acted the same with Agent Hadas as Joe did with Haley. The men were gentle with them, and protective like older brothers. And because of this, I found it both interesting and good that they seemed to get along rather well.

  “Room for an old man to join you?” Hess asked.

  “Of course! We’ll eat and enjoy ourselves, because we know it will be a long night.”

  Novgorod took us to his apartment in the Neve Tzedek, an old, charming area known for its little shops. His wife, Ella, was undoubtedly caught off guard by suddenly having five guests for dinner, but you would have never known it. We all jumped in immediately, and among the chatter of conversations in Hebrew and English and the clatter of knives and pots and pans, felt as warm and welcome as we would have in our own family homes.

  I helped Ella clean the dishes after dinner, and she told me the story, as Israelis do, of her relatives coming to the country. She talked of Uri’s family, too. And of how they’d met and what their plans were for the future.

  At one point, she said, “Uri has said for years that we must go to New Zealand.”

  “You absolutely should,” I replied. “I would be happy to give you the tiki tour.”

  “He wants to sail and fish. And to do all of the crazy adventures you have down there, like bungee!”

  “And you?” I asked.

  “I would like to hike. ‘Tramping’ I think you call it. On the Milford Track.”

  Uri came into the kitchen, a pile of plates in his arm. “Yes!” he said, obviously having heard us. “The Milford Track! We want to do it all there, Jackson. Someday.”

  His excitement was contagious, and soon everyone was in the kitchen talking about travel and trips they would like to make. Everyone, that is, except me, since my next destination was going to be in extremely hostile territory.

  8

  The air in the tunnel was cool and heavy and stale, thick with moisture and the dank smell of earth that had never enjoyed the sun. Tangles of wires hung high on the rough tunnel sides, on sharp sheet metal hooks just below the ceiling’s curved concrete forms. As my feet scuffed along the dirt floor, the sound echoed briefly, only to be swallowed by the sheer length of the tunnel. I followed the trail of small, dim lights down the gently curving path into the unknown.

  The minutes ticked by slowly as I stopped periodically to look, listen, and even smell, taking advantage of every sense to see if a threat lay ahead. Just when I was wondering if the tunnel was so long it would take me all the way to the sea, I arrived at the end. A rusty metal ladder rose in front of me. I grabbed the edges and shook it slowly but firmly. It moved a bit, but otherwise felt secure. At the top, I found a section of the wall that was different enough to know it was the hatch. Edging it out a few inches, I was circled by a breath of warm desert air. Beyond was only darkness.

  I reached down to a switch by my knee and turned the tunnel lights off. While my eyes adjusted, I listened. Only the sound of night lay ahead. I made my way through the hatch and into the old greenhouse.

  A quarter moon provided just enough light for me to see row after row of barren raised beds. Overhead was the skeleton of the arched roof, the glass long ago stolen. I found a doorway and oriented myself, then set off towards the faint glow of the city.

  I moved silently into the outskirts, sticking to the shadows of buildings where I could. As the density of buildings increased, so did the sounds. Voices, cooking, the odd night worker, the occasional car passing by, the drone of a generator. I shifted laterally to parallel streets when I sensed activity ahead, and largely made my way alone. At one point, I had to adjust about two blocks out of the way to avoid a group of four young men sharing stories and a pipe out on a curb.

  It was slow and tedious, but about an hour and a half after entering the tunnel, I found myself with a view of Mahmoud Nasar’s shop. Across the street was a small three-story apartment building. But the one next to it was still under construction. I entered, and using a set of questionable ladders left behind by the construction crew, made my way up to a vantage point that would provide a good view of his building and the street out front.

  The shop was shuttered, hiding what I imagined was a window and door. His apartment was just above the narrow building. A soft glow came through the drapes of a front room. A shadow moved slowly across, and a minute later a small light came on in the meter-wide gap between his building and the next. I heard the clatter of a plastic bin closing, and soon after the light went out. I stayed in my hide for another twenty minutes or so, familiarizing myself with the movements of the neighborhood before making my way down and across the street.

  I knocked on the door at the side of the building firmly, but without making enough noise to call unwanted attention from neighbors. No response. I knocked again and waited. From behind the door came the subtle noise of someone walking down stairs.

  “Min Hayda?” Who is it?

  “I am here to pick up sandals for Farah,” I replied.

  “The shop is closed,” came the terse reply.

  “Perhaps you don’t understand, Mahmoud. I am here for Farah’s sandals,�
� I said again.

  Silence for a few seconds, and then the knob turned and the door opened. Mahmoud poked his head out. He looked at me, and then out to the street. “Come, come,” he said. Quietly. Cautiously.

  I stepped into a tiny landing at the bottom of the stairs, resulting in me being nearly pressed against him. He turned and unlocked a narrow door next to the stairs. We walked through, into the back of his shop.

  A thick wooden table, fraught with the scars of daily work, ran across one wall. Above it were bins of tools and shoe forms. Scraps of rubber were pushed to the side. Rolls of leather leaned against one another in a corner.

  I considered Mahmoud. Short, slight. His hair and small mustache showed flecks of gray, so he was perhaps close to forty. Adjusting glasses that were horn-rimmed at the top and wire at the bottom, he said, “You are from?”

  “Some friends north of here sent me. They tried to reach you.”

  He turned and reached for a wicker bin on an upper shelf, sensing me shift position, preparing for if he were to grab a weapon. It was instinct. He turned back and waved his hand down gently.

  “I just want to show you something.”

  He placed the bin on the counter and gestured for me to look inside. There was a phone, opened, its circuit board exposed.

  “I dropped it two days ago. I have been trying to re-solder the broken connections.”

  I nodded my understanding. “Was there a backup?”

  “Yes. I am to look for a piece of tape on the fountain by the hospital every two days. Yesterday, the area was roped off. I was not able to get to it.”

  And so we arrived at the reason I’d had to come in person. Bad luck, twice in a row.

  “I understand you can help me find Farid Hassan.”

  “I know this man.”

  “I need to find him, Mahmoud.”

  “I understand. A week ago, I saw him near the hospital. My cousin works near there. I will ask him and then tell you.”

  “Let’s call him now.”

  “He does not have a phone. He goes to the mosque for morning prayer. I can talk to him then.”