Final Strike--A Sean Falcone Novel

by William S. Cohen

She fished through her large handbag, extracted a small leather case, and produced a card from a salesman for an Israeli software manufacturer.

  “Thank you,” Falcone said, grinning. “Did he sell you anything?”

  “No. But in my business he is a good man to know.”

  He ordered another vodka; she asked for Russian sparkling wine. When the waiter left, she extracted a second card, handed it to him and, without moving her lips, whispered, “Kismet. It’s meant to be. We meet again!”

  Falcone reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out his Sullivan & Ford business card. Handing it to Rachel, Falcone glanced quickly at her card, and said, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ms.—”

  “Andrea, Mr. Falcone. Andrea Mitrovitz.” She had said “Falcone” without first looking at his card.

  “Well, I’ll see you at the conference, Andrea.”

  “I’m sure you will,” she said. She paused before adding, “Have you had dinner?”

  “I’m still recovering from jet lag,” he said. “But … do you have any suggestions?”

  “There’s a wonderful place for the finest Russian cuisine. Café Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard. And then, perhaps, a walk along the river.”

  “Sounds like a fine idea. I’m glad we happened to run into each other.”

  “Yes. And perhaps you will tell me about this woman named Rachel.”

  “I’ll tell you what I know. But I’m not sure where she is now and what she is doing with her life.”

  “I’m sure she must be doing something worthwhile. Shall we meet at the Pushkin at seven?” She took a last sip and left.

  As she walked past the bar, the men turned and stared. Men always stared at her, Falcone remembered.

  One of them stood in front of her and said something Falcone could not make out.

  She swung her bag at his head, and as he reeled he knocked over the bar stool. She stiffened her free hand and, using it like a blade, slammed down hard on the bridge of his nose. He slumped to the floor, blood flowing down his face. The two women down the bar applauded.

  She strode out of the hotel as if there had never been an obstacle in her path.

  * * *

  When Falcone had been President Oxley’s national security adviser, he was given a highly secret CIA briefing on a Mossad rendition. Only the name of the Mossad target was revealed. But Falcone was sure that Rachel had been involved. Memory of that briefing drifted into his mind.

  An employee at Israel’s top-secret Negev Nuclear Research Center became convinced that Israel’s development of nuclear bombs had to be revealed. He slipped into England under an assumed name, contacted a journalist, and told all he knew about Israel’s nuclear bombs. Israel had never confirmed or denied having a nuclear-weapons program. The newspaper account broke the nuclear seal, and subsequent leaks established beyond a doubt that Israel was a nuclear nation.

  In an operation to capture and punish the employee, Mossad concocted what is popularly known in the spy world as a honeypot operation. A woman posing as an American tourist named “Cindy” was sent to London, where she struck up what appeared to be a chance encounter with the employee.

  Rachel! Falcone remembered thinking at this point in the briefing, expecting that she was going to assassinate the employee. Instead, Cindy feigned a romance and convinced her new boyfriend to accompany her to Rome. Ultimately, he was not assassinated. Instead, Mossad agents, directed by Cindy, chose a rendition that partially resembled Drexler’s plan: injection of a paralyzing drug, dumped in a van, abducted to his homeland. The van took him to a dock instead of an airport. A launch left the port of Civitavecchia and sped to an Israeli intelligence ship masquerading as a merchantman, which took him to Israel. He was tried, convicted, and given a long prison sentence. Chalk one up for a non-homicidal Rachel.

  44

  Rachel stooped to pluck the nearly-invisible thread from the bottom hinge of the door. Room not entered. A soft light filled her room when she entered. Automatic switch. Recessed-lighting, she instinctively thought. Transformer to reduce voltage. Easy to disable. To her, it was all what the instructor had said at the Mossad training school: situational awareness, a lesson that had often saved her life.

  Rachel—her real name, her born name, and the name she had not used for a long time: That was the name of her real existence, now all but lost. And that was how Falcone knew her. And now he’s reappeared. How could that be? Kismet … or Bashert. My grandmother would have called it Bashert: the gift—or curse—that comes from Heaven, that makes you rich or poor, dead or spared, damned or blessed. Bashert.

  Her memory took her back to the first time she met with Falcone at a State Department dinner in Washington when he was a senator. The attraction was instant—and forbidden. Perhaps that was part of it. He was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and she was an Israeli, a member of Mossad’s kidon, a professional killer. Yet, when he learned this, he still pursued her. Or was it the reverse?

  She had never met anyone like him: Strong but hiding a deep wound behind the tough exterior. Mossad’s psychological profile peeled back the layers of his life. He had survived the physical beatings while a prisoner of war. His bones had been broken; his faith shattered. Yet he pushed on through the pain, persevered.

  Falcone possessed all of the gifts of a natural politician—dancing eyes, a firm handshake, a million-dollar smile, and a seemingly genuine affability. Yet lurking behind the facade was a darkness, a shadow that he could not shake. No amount of charm could hide it from prying eyes. And if Rachel could do anything better than kill an enemy, it was the detection of the hair-thin fissures behind the mask that all men and women wear.

  Against all odds and protocols, they had become lovers. She had even fantasized that she would leave her beloved country and profession to marry him. But the thought was as thin and evanescent as a soap bubble. They were alike in so many ways. Both were haunted by their pasts. Both were driven to protect their nation’s security. And both hoped to reach an idyllic plateau where they could enjoy some level of solace, of peace from the war within and the wars without.

  But their differences were as great as the burdens they shared. Rachel allowed herself a small laugh as she thought about the lines from Sholom Aleichem’s Fiddler on the Roof:

  “Fyedka is not a creature, Papa. Fyedka is a man.”

  “A bird, may love a fish, but where would they build a home together?”

  And it was that simple. They could never build a nest that could accommodate the two of them. Yet, just as they were destined to remain apart, fate kept pulling them together on dangerous missions.

  And now this.

  * * *

  It all began three days ago, when Rachel was contacted by David Ben-Dar, the head of Mossad and a kind of uncle to her through most of her career. Ben-Dar, nearing retirement, had just received the agency’s highest decoration. The award was for an unspecified “important contribution to a unique operational activity,” in which she had played a part.

  He contacted her in the usual way, by a one-word telephone call: Mizrach, a lovely Hebrew word not just for east but also for the place of the sunrise. That single word was an order, a high-priority summons for noon the following day at a Mossad safe house in Moscow. She had wondered if Ben-Dar were summoning her so she could congratulate him for the award. If so, it would be a highly uncharacteristic show of vanity.

  She knew that she would be meeting with a Mossad officer designated by David Ben-Dar, who never traveled out of Israel. He relayed his orders through the Mossad network of agents and chiefs of station at embassies and consulates. He also had ways to contact less accessible officers who were—or appeared to be—citizens of “denied areas”—countries that did not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

  The safe house was in the Kitai-Gorod district, a neighborhood overlooking the Moskva River—quiet streets, churches, ancient buildings, back alleys, and three-or four-story apartment houses framing shadowy courtyards
. Dressed drably and traveling by subway, she arrived at the two-room safe apartment early enough to enjoy a lunch of tea and chicken-salad sandwiches with the young woman sent by the station chief. They went through a series of passwords and counter-passwords tucked inside a fifteen-minute conversation in Russian about shopping and restaurants.

  Rachel departed with a purse that she had switched with the young woman. Inside was a cell phone she would later destroy. Taking the usual precautions to confirm she was not being followed, she took the Metro on two lines, interspersed by taxi rides. Her trip finally ended a quarter mile from the Metropol. From there she walked, ducking into an alley leading to a small store, where she lingered, waiting to see if anyone else entered the alley. Convinced she was not being followed, she left the store and went on to the hotel, which she entered via a side door.

  In her room, with the television loudly playing, she pressed a button. Ben-Dar answered immediately, saying in Hebrew “Please, no questions unless absolutely necessary.” He quickly outlined the operation, casually said it had been approved by Prime Minister Weisman, and mentioned that “your old friend Falcone” would be her contact. He called Falcone Aluf, literally champion, the title used in the Israel Defense Forces for rank equivalent to general, air marshal, or admiral. “He will be looking for a contact code named Domino.”

  “And how could someone as smart as Falcone allow himself to become a part of such a mad scheme?” she asked, breaking the no-question order. “It is a mission impossible. Abducting an American billionaire in Moscow and getting him out of the heart of Russia? And even more insane was the absence of any preparation and training. Plan A had gaping holes. And there was no Plan B if things went to hell, as they were sure to do.”

  “Calm down, Rachel. Calm down,” Ben-Dar said.

  But she ranted on: “The tires were already falling off before Komov killed Danshov.”

  “Tires?” Ben-Dar asked.

  “An American expression for the rapid failure of a plan. Danshov, as you know, had a CIA background and was working under the code name Domino. His death should have shut down the operation. And the FSB has to be onto Falcone.…”

  “Please, Rachel,” Ben-Dar said.

  But she went on, raising the pace of her words to rapid-fire: “Why do you want to help? Why risk becoming involved in a foolish plan and then get blamed for it when it goes down?”

  “Please, Rachel. No questions. You’ll come to understand it all soon enough. I have talked to various people about a few changes, which you will receive soon.”

  45

  Colonel Komov and Lieutenant Shumeyko walked down a long, dimly lit hallway in the basement of the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski. At an unmarked door, Komov tapped six digits on the number pad and opened the door. “Remain here,” Komov ordered, closing the door behind him.

  As he stepped into the gray box of a room, a man rose from the controls of a wall full of ever-changing surveillance images.

  “This is an honor, Colonel,” the man said with a slight bow. He wore a black suit, a tightly knotted red tie, and a white shirt. On the breast pocket of his suit coat was the name of the hotel in Cyrillic letters.

  “I am conducting a sensitive inquiry,” Komov said. “Make no report of my visit.” The man nodded again and said, “Absolutely, Colonel.” He had recognized Komov on one of the surveillance cameras at the front entrance and had texted an alert to Sergey Algov at his concierge station in the lobby. Komov’s visits were rare, and news of them reverberated throughout the staff. Komov was a man to fear.

  Billionaire friends of Lebed had recently been arrested and indicted for fraudulent business corruption on evidence obtained by FSB recording devices in their Baltschug Kempinski executive suites. Their conversations—some merely bawdy, some involving brazen bribery—were thrown out of court, and the suspects were all acquitted.

  Against Komov’s wishes, orders soon went out from Lebed’s office: no more electronic eavesdropping anywhere in the hotel. And FSB officers were ordered to stop hanging out in the lounge bar. The actions had infuriated Komov, who saw the hotel as a den of sinners given immunity by the siloviki, “the people of power.”

  * * *

  Komov reached into his briefcase, extracted two passports, and handed them to the man seated at the surveillance console. He assumed that Komov had obtained them from a hotel official. Passports were routinely taken from guests when they checked in, with the explanation that it was being done as a service so that they could be put in a hotel safe for maximum security.

  “I am looking for images of this man and this woman,” Komov said. “Particularly images showing them together.”

  The man copied the passport photos in a facial-recognition device, which began whirring through thousands of images. As he handed the passports back to Komov, he saw the names and the diplomatic visas. He made a mental note to tell Sergey Algov about Komov’s interest in these guests. As a concierge, Sergey wanted to get all the information he could about hotel guests. And he shared his tips.

  Komov stood before a battery of surveillance monitors. “There. That one. Stop,” he said to the man. Komov leaned forward to peer at one of the monitors. “Closer. Move in closer.”

  The operator froze an image of a black-haired woman in a blue dress. She was talking to a man in a dark suit and a red-and-white striped tie. Komov nodded. “Yes, Falcone,” Komov said half-aloud. “And the so-called Mitrovitz.”

  He turned to the operator and said, “They are speaking. Let me hear.”

  “I am sorry, Colonel. But there is only video.” He said the word, syllable by syllable.

  “What kind of surveillance is this?” Komov angrily exclaimed. “I was expecting audio surveillance also.”

  “I am, once more, sorry, Colonel. But we have been instructed to—”

  “All right, all right. I know, I know. Never mind. Go through all surveillance of those two subjects. Alone or together.”

  The operator worked the controls for a few minutes and then, on the large central monitor, jerky video of several scenes began: Falcone checking into the hotel … going to his room … leaving the room … going to a restaurant … going to the bar … The woman in the blue dress appearing at his table … the encounter between the woman and a man at the bar … The woman standing beneath the marquee, getting into a taxi …

  “Stop!” Komov commanded. “Go back. Back to the man at the bar.” He had recognized the FSB officer and smiled when he went down. He needed to be reprimanded. “Make a copy,” he ordered and put the copy in his briefcase.

  He took out a thin folder of photographs and spread them on the operator’s table. The photographs were obvious surveillance images. They bore time stamps going back several years with identifications changing—blond Rachel Yeager, blond Sarah Hyman, red-haired Miya Polansky, black-haired Andrea Mitrovitz—but never did the beauty change. Always, the glowing beauty. After scanning them, the facial-recognition device reported that all the images were of the same person.

  Komov knew he had seen that face before. She had thwarted the crazy plan by Colonel Cyril Metrinko to destroy the Al Aqasa Mosque and blame it on the Israelis, launching a war that would enflame the world. Metrinko, who had headed the KGB counterintelligence before Komov, had believed he could best serve Russia by reigniting the Cold War. She had killed Metrinko’s agent, a Russian who had been masquerading as a Jewish-American businessman-philanthropist, seconds before he was about to set off the explosives buried inside the mosque. Mossad.

  The operator made copies of the latest images, which Komov put in his folder and returned to his briefcase. With a nod to the operator, he headed toward the door. The operator stepped before him to open the door for him. He closed it slowly, allowing himself to hear Komov say to Shumeyko, “I will go to Lubyanka now. I must do some work there—some research in the archives. I’ll return tomorrow. There are guests I must interrogate and perhaps detain. You will accompany me.”

  46

 
; As the ZIL sped to the Lubyanka, Shumeyko’s cell phone buzzed. Komov frowned. He hated cell phones. He did see their value and saw the need for FSB officers to carry them. But he had expressly ordered that no cell phone was to sound in his presence. Before he could censure Shumeyko, the lieutenant said, “Yes, yes, sir. Right here, sir.”

  His hand shaking, he passed the cell phone to Komov, who held it gingerly, not sure how to listen. Before he could get it to his ear, he could hear the voice of Boris Lebed shouting, “Komov! Come to my office immediately!”

  Komov handed the cell phone back to Shumeyko and said to the driver, “It is necessary to go to the Kremlin.”

  The ZIL stopped before the Borovitsky Gate. Komov walked briskly to the East Door, where a presidential guard—high-peaked, gold-and-black hat, blue tunic, shiny black boots—stepped forward, saluted, and escorted him through a warren of halls and stairs to Lebed’s suite and then to his office door. A young aide, whom Komov knew, appeared from a side door, spoke into a cell phone, and motioned for Komov to enter. The guard did a smart about-face and strode away.

  Komov stood at attention in front of Lebed’s desk until the President pointed to a straight-back chair. Komov sat and waited, motionless for three full minutes in the heavy silence of Lebed’s smoldering rage. Lebed was reading a paper bearing his letterhead, crossing out words and substituting new ones. He finally looked up and said, “I am writing an order that you be arrested and publicly prosecuted for murder.” He reached for another piece of paper and said, “I have already written a statement, to be signed by you, in which you resign from the FSB. Only then will you be spared from a vacation in prison. In the old days, I would have handed you a Tokarev pistol and left the room.”

  Lebed placed the sheet of paper at the edge of the desk. Komov stared at the paper for a moment before picking it up and reading the single sentence that ended his career. “There is no reason given,” he said, gazing at Lebed, who lifted his head and looked at Komov, eye-to-eye.