Headhunters

by Mark Dawson

  It took ten minutes and, when Milton was done, Ziggy was quiet for another minute.

  “Well?”

  “Between you and me,” he began cagily, “I might have tried to hack them before. This was a long time ago, when I was working for the government.”

  “And?”

  “They’re pretty keen on security, as you might imagine. They get plenty of hostile attention. Everything they have is best in class: firewalls, systems redundancies, network hygiene. They don’t cut corners anywhere.”

  “So you didn’t get in?”

  “No. And that was with everything GCHQ fired at it. A server room as big as a football pitch. And all I have with me now is my laptop. I don’t think there’s any way I’ll be able to get in from the outside.”

  “What are you saying, Ziggy? You can’t do it?”

  “Didn’t say that.” He tapped his finger against his chest, where the necklace was hidden beneath the cloth of his shirt. “You know me: I like a challenge. I said I didn’t think I could get in from the outside. But there are other ways, Milton. Have faith. I have a plan.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  THEY LANDED AT OVDA. The airport was north of Eilat and the second largest in the country. It would have been easier to take a flight straight to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion, but Milton wanted to minimise the risk that they might be detected. He didn’t think Bachman and his stooges would suspect that he would run to Israel, straight to the bosom of the Mossad, but he couldn’t be sure. And, he knew, the passive security at Ben Gurion was state of the art. There was a good chance that he would be identified; his photograph would be captured and sent up the chain. Ovda had always been a little less advanced than its sister facility to the north, more concerned with welcoming tourists to the country than businessmen and diplomats.

  That didn’t mean that it would be a walk in the park. Milton’s working knowledge was out of date and there was a very good chance that the security had been improved since the last time that he had visited.

  Nothing to be done about that now, he thought, as he thanked the attendants at the front of the jet and stepped over the sill onto the waiting air bridge. The air was hot, and it washed over him like soup after the artificial chill of the plane.

  “You all right?” he said, turning back to Matilda.

  “Never better,” she said wryly. “Always wanted to visit Israel.”

  Milton led the way across the air bridge into the terminal building. Their fellow travellers were mostly tourists, with a smattering of businessmen and women. Milton had managed to get a little sleep, but it had not been satisfactory and he knew that he would benefit from a few extra hours. He didn’t know whether that would be possible.

  They made their way into the terminal building and joined the line for an immigration check that he expected to be particularly rigorous. He knew, from experience, that all Israeli airports had a practice of sending all military-age males with backpacks to secondary screening, regardless of where they were flying from or where they said they were going. They did not fit that profile, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t nervous as they shuffled forward. He had reminded Matilda of their cover story and emptied his bag of anything that might have contradicted it. He had been equally rigorous with the litter in their pockets.

  He leaned over to Matilda and reminded her quietly, “Be natural.”

  The border guard looked up at her and beckoned her forward before she could reply.

  “She any good at this?” Ziggy said quietly.

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “You still want me to head off on my own?”

  They had spoken about what Milton wanted Ziggy to do during their conversation on the flight. It would have looked unusual for a couple and a third traveller with no apparent connection to them to check into the same hotel, so Milton had told Ziggy to book into the nearby Hilton. The procedure that they had agreed upon was that the first of them to make it through security would make the arrangements for the trip to Tel Aviv, and then to communicate that information to the other.

  “Yes,” Milton said. “Just as we discussed.”

  “Fine.”

  Milton and Ziggy waited in line as the man checked her papers, scanning the barcode and then looking from her picture to her face and back again. She stood there, her face blank and impenetrable, and Milton silently urged her to smile, to look impatient or irritated, to be anything, but she did not.

  It was a relief when the man nodded at her to go through and called Ziggy forward.

  Milton pretended not to watch too closely. There was nothing for it but to hope that Ziggy wouldn’t say anything stupid and that there was nothing in his bag that would have caused him a problem. The guard asked questions, the words muffled by the tinny speakers that broadcast them, and Ziggy answered. He took a little longer than Matilda had, but, finally, the guard gave a nod, slid Ziggy’s passport back through the slit in the glass and bid him through.

  The man looked up and nodded to Milton.

  “Passport.”

  Milton handed it over.

  The man looked at it.

  “Mr. Anderson,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “What is your business in Israel, Mr. Anderson?”

  “Holiday.”

  “Where?”

  “Eilat.”

  “Hotel?”

  Milton felt the buzz of nerves, but he hid it. “Herods Vitalis Spa.”

  “You have a reservation?”

  “Yes.”

  The man looked back down at the passport. There would be a button beneath the desk which, when pressed, would summon the agents who performed the secondary screenings. Milton tried not to watch as the guard’s hand crept back towards the edge of the desk, paused there for a moment, and then went up to attend to an itch on his nose.

  “Good day, Mr. Anderson. Enjoy your vacation.”

  *

  MILTON PULLED his suitcase behind him and made his way through customs and into the arrivals hall. Matilda was waiting for him on the other side of the sliding doors. She looked at him with a quizzical expression. He gave a shallow nod and reached down and took her hand as they made their way through the arrivals hall and into the warmth of the evening beyond.

  “Ziggy?”

  “He got through.”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  “I told him to go on. We’re not staying together. He’ll meet us tomorrow.”

  There was a taxi rank outside. Milton found a vacant car and waited beside it for the driver to disengage himself from a group of drivers who were chatting over cigarettes. He told the man that they wanted to be taken to Eilat. The man grunted his assent and opened the rear door for Matilda. Milton slid in next to her and relaxed a little as the driver pulled out into traffic. There was no need for Matilda to continue with their masquerade now that they were out of sight of the airport’s security, but she reached across and took his hand again. Milton squeezed her hand and didn’t move to take his away.

  The hotel was to the south of the airport. The driver followed Route 12, which cleaved close to the border with Egypt. It was quiet, given the late hour, and they made good time, arriving after an hour. Their destination was a big, lavish hotel occupying an envious position overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba. The driver pulled off the main road and slowed as he approached the entrance to the lobby. A uniformed bellboy emerged as the car drew to a halt, opening their door for them and then going around to the trunk for their luggage. Milton paid the driver with three hundred of the shekels he had converted from his Australian dollars at Bangkok.

  Ziggy had already checked into the Hilton and left a message for them at the reception of their own hotel. He suggested that he would pick them up tomorrow morning at nine for the drive to Tel Aviv. Milton was happy with that.

  They finished the formalities of registration and a bellboy took them to their room. It was a high-end hotel, and Milton had booked a suite so that they had enough
space for them both. There was a large double bed and, in an adjacent sitting room, a comfortable sofa.

  “You take the bed,” he said as he dropped onto the sofa.

  “We can share it,” Matilda said.

  “No. You have it. I’m fine here. Go on. I sleep better alone.”

  She shrugged, wished him good night, and went through into the bedroom. She didn’t close the door, though, and made no show of modesty as she undressed. Milton felt his self-control erode and, to prevent himself from doing anything that he would later regret, he collected his cigarettes from the coffee table and took them outside onto the balcony for a smoke.

  He lit one and inhaled deeply as he looked out across the water. He knew that behind him, 350 kilometres to the north, was Tel Aviv and, at its heart, the headquarters of the most dangerous secret service in the world. It was the reason he had brought Ziggy halfway around the world.

  Tomorrow, Milton was going to have to try to infiltrate it.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  MILTON SLEPT BADLY.

  His mind was anxious, full of questions and possibilities, and he woke at four in the morning as dawn broke. He tried to return to sleep, but it was impossible. Eventually, he gave up. He got up and collected his cigarettes from the table. He paused at the door to the bedroom and glanced inside. Matilda was asleep on the bed, lying face down with the sheets pulled down so that her back was bare. The curves of her figure were obvious and eloquent and Milton had to remind himself, once again, why he needed to keep his distance. There were dozens of reasons, but it was still a struggle.

  He went out onto the balcony. The spreading glow of dawn revealed the bay in all its glory, the fringe of yellow sand hemming in a sea that was so blue it was almost violet.

  *

  MATILDA WOKE soon after and, after she had showered, they went down to breakfast together. They were both a little subdued. Milton was anxious about what the day might bring, and it was obvious that some of his anxiety had transferred to her.

  They were in the hotel lobby at five minutes to nine. Ziggy arrived promptly on the hour. Milton led the way outside; the sun was already burning away the chill of the night and promising another scorching-hot day. Ziggy had hired a large Mercedes people carrier with two rows of seats in the back. He opened the door and slid it back for them. Matilda got in and Milton followed behind her.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Morning.”

  He waited until the driver had started off before he spoke again. “All okay?”

  “It was fine. You?”

  “No problems.” Ziggy spoke animatedly, as if he was buzzing. Milton remembered how excited he could get during an operation. It would be something to bear in mind. Excitement could get you into trouble.

  “Did you get anything?”

  Ziggy reached into his bag and withdrew an iPad. “Quite a lot,” he said as he handed it over.

  “From where?”

  “Best you didn’t ask.”

  Milton took the iPad and started to read.

  Of course, he already knew about the Mossad. He knew of its reputation, its methods and the operations that had done so much to protect a country that was surrounded on all sides by states that wished not just its defeat, but that it be erased from existence.

  The files were concerned with the director of the agency. Victor Blum had been born on a train between the Soviet Union and Poland during World War Two. His parents were Polish Jews fleeing Warsaw for the Soviet Union as the Germans hurried to implement the Final Solution. It was his impending arrival into the world that had persuaded his parents that they could no longer risk remaining in their home, so they fled. Not all of the family were so fortunate. Many members had been killed by the Nazis, including his grandparents and his two older brothers..

  Blum and his parents had survived the war, and in 1950, the family made aliyah, a “return” to Israel. Blum had been conscripted into the Israeli Defense Force and had completed his compulsory service in 1966, but was called up as a reservist in 1967, fighting in the Six-Day War as an officer. He stayed in after the end of the war and had commanded an ad hoc undercover commando unit known as Sayeret Rimon, whose task was to combat the increasing violence in the Palestinian territories. Later, he had fought in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Lebanon War. He had then held a series of high-level positions in the IDF command, eventually reaching the rank of major general.

  The prime minister had appointed Blum to the role of director-general of the Mossad in August 2002. As such, he was responsible for intelligence, counter-intelligence, and counterterrorism activities outside of Israel and the Palestinian Territories and was infamously aggressive in ordering killings of terrorists on foreign soil. Milton had heard of the paradox that, while Israel did not have a domestic death penalty, the Mossad under Blum had carte blanche to target Arab terrorists outside of its borders with complete impunity.

  Victor Blum was a killer at the head of an organisation of killers.

  And Avi Bachman had been the tip of the spear.

  Milton opened another file.

  Blum lived in a penthouse in the recently completed Meier-on-Rothschild Tower, a six-hundred-foot-tall apartment block in the heart of Tel Aviv. Prices started at a million dollars per apartment and went far higher than that; it was more, Milton thought, than might have been expected on the budget of a government employee. He suspected that a penthouse apartment, several hundred feet above the ground, had been provided so as to ensure Blum’s security. It would be much easier to defend than a ground-level property.

  All Milton wanted to do was talk to him.

  His residence wouldn’t be the place to do it.

  He would try something else.

  *

  IT TOOK them four hours to complete the drive to Tel Aviv. The driver took them to the city’s main railway station, where they changed to another car. They took that car to the Best Western and checked into two rooms. Ziggy waited ten minutes and then came to the room that Milton and Matilda had taken. He knocked three times, as they had agreed, and Milton let him in.

  “Ready?”

  Milton nodded.

  “What are we going to do?” Matilda asked.

  “Not we,” Milton corrected. “Just me. You’re staying here.” He could see that she was going to argue. “Please, Matty. It’s safe here. We weren’t followed. And what I’m going to do could go either way.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He had been deliberately vague about that until now. “I’m going to talk to them.”

  “What? Just walk in and ask to speak to someone?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And say what?”

  “I’m going to persuade them that they need to stop taking sides.”

  “And you think they’ll take kindly to that?”

  “I have no idea. Probably not.”

  “And then? What happens when they arrest you and tell Bachman?”

  “That’s where Ziggy comes in.”

  “Right,” she said, not bothering to hide her doubt. “And what’s he going to do?”

  Ziggy held up a USB stick.

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re going to blackmail them,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  THE MOSSAD’S headquarters were notoriously difficult to locate, but Ziggy had managed easily enough. He led the way to a highway intersection called Glilot Junction, which contained a partially hidden campus of low-slung office buildings sandwiched between the junction, a Cineplex, and a shopping centre.

  Milton looked at the bland buildings, all smooth stone walls and tinted glass. The men and women going in and out of the anonymous doorways all wore business dress. It looked as the agency must have wanted it to look: completely unremarkable.

  “What do you think?” Ziggy asked him.

  “Looks like all the intelligence agencies I’ve ever seen,” Milton answered.

  They continued up the st
reet until they were a block away from the building. They reached a kiosk that was selling cheap cell phones and SIM cards. Milton bought a phone, gave it to Ziggy and memorised the number.

  “I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  Ziggy nodded.

  “Do you have it?”

  Ziggy reached into his pocket and gave him the USB stick.

  “Are you sure it’s going to work?”

  “Reasonably sure.”

  “Reasonably?”

  “This is cutting edge, Milton.”

  “You’ve tested it?”

  “Yes.” He paused, frowning. “Of course I tested it. But not like this.”

  “How did you test it?”

  “An Internet café in Tokyo.”

  Milton’s stomach dropped.

  “But it worked well,” Ziggy said quickly. “In theory, it’ll work. Get it into the building and make sure it’s plugged in.”

  “And then what? Cross my fingers and hope?”

  Ziggy smiled at him. “Have I ever let you down?”

  Milton didn’t answer.

  *

  MILTON STOOD outside the entrance to the office building. It was a bland, eighties construction, four storeys tall and with mirrored glass windows that prickled in the glare of the midday sun. He had been observing the building for an hour. He had been careful about it, changing his vantage point every ten minutes.

  This was one of the most heavily guarded addresses in the world.

  The building looked unprepossessing, akin to all the others in this part of downtown Tel Aviv. A pair of revolving doors offered access to the lobby. Milton had walked along the street two times, approaching the building once from each direction, and had fixed the interior in his mind: leather sofas positioned at the perimeter of the room, a marble floor that was polished to a dark sheen, and an impressive marble counter behind which sat three smartly dressed attendants. A steady stream of smartly dressed men and women passed in and out, going about their business. A board fixed to the wall behind the counter announced the businesses that had taken space on the various floors. Milton couldn’t read the names from outside, but he knew that they would all be aliases to mask the identity of the building’s single tenant. It reminded him of the scruffy office block down by the Thames that housed Group Fifteen. Her Majesty’s department of murderers and blackmailers cloaked itself within the fiction of Global Logistics, a front company whose legitimate business interests allowed its agents a pretext to travel the world.