The Hijack s-2

by Duncan Falconer

  Raz was an Ashkenazi Jew from a third-generation middle-class family of European roots. It was practically unheard of to get into Israeli intelligence without hailing from a second-generation family at least. He was the only son of a schoolteacher and recruited into Shin Bet after serving three years’ mandatory service in the army. The examination of his past went back the standard two generations although, it was rumoured, to reach the higher echelons of intelligence, that examination went much deeper.

  Raz had spent most of his three years as a conscript in the Gaza Strip and it was during his last couple of months that a senior member of intelligence approached him to join the Sherut Bitachon Klali, shortened to Sha-bak or, more commonly, Shin Bet. Raz’s father had wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, and Raz might well have become a teacher since although life in intelligence appealed to him, he did not believe he had the slightest chance of gaining entry because of what he had done as a young man which was far worse than any ordinary crime. It was while he was serving in Gaza and even though he had been careful to hide it from even his closest friends, he fully expected Shin Bet to find out once they investigated his past. He could have declined the offer to join and avoid the possible consequences, but he did not. Perhaps it was the gambler in him, or the fatalist, or perhaps it was something as simple as his conscience as the discovery of his secret would have freed him from many years of mixed feelings that included guilt.

  The vetting of recruits into the intelligence community was historically intense for obvious reasons, the most important one being the fear of enemy infiltration. Many potential recruits never learned why they failed to gain entry. They were simply invited to leave without explanation. All through the selection period, while he carried out various aptitude tests and examinations including foreign languages such as English and Arabic, he expected at any time to be asked to pack his bags and never darken their doors again, and possibly even receive some form of retribution for his past crime. And if they never told him why, he would know. He became so convinced they would find out he remained extremely blasé throughout the selection programme, right-wing and even at times aggressive towards his teachers, which, ironically, began his reputation for being self-assured, arrogant and unflappable. Add highly intelligent to the mix and his reputation spread.

  It was not until he was given his first posting that it dawned on him they had not discovered his secret. His first thought was that perhaps the rumours about the effectiveness of Israeli intelligence were greatly exaggerated. It took several years on the job before he appreciated how he had slipped through the cracks due to the complex rules of intelligence compiling and how the three basic means of the process of information gathering were applied. The first was to direct precise interrogatives towards precise focuses for precise answers, usually because those answers were already known. In Raz’s case, no one in Shin Bet had considered if he had ever had an affair with a Palestinian woman and so there was no specific investigation of that nature.The second was the collation of data, which needed to be sorted, cross-referenced and placed in correct acquisition pools with the correct links. There were countless stories of Israeli soldiers fraternising with locals, but, again, in Raz’s case, since he had called himself David and was just a regular conscript, the spies inside Rafah had produced nothing that pointed a finger directly at him. Finally, piecing together information from the multitude of sources to form a picture relied on many things and one of those was luck, and Raz appeared to have had an adequate amount of that. His past, or that one small part of it, had been overlooked. The information was there somewhere that could link him to a Palestinian woman and her son, but it had not been pieced together.

  By the time he received his first promotion and had taken up a new posting on the Lebanese border, one of the most dangerous and interesting offices of all the divisions that assured promotion if successful, he was confident enough to once more make contact with the girl and open up a bank account for her and their child. Despite his politics and, since being in Shin Bet, developing an unhealthy hatred for the Arab in general, his sense of honour and duty to the child he had seen only a handful of times was startling and ensured he watched over the young Abed as best he could. Raz did many vile things throughout his career in the name of national survival but, strangely, the hand he reached out to Abed and his mother remained a precious redemption of his soul and served in part to forgive him some of his sins.

  Raz monitored Abed for over twenty years and not once was he disappointed in the boy who had managed to grow up so wise. Because of Abed’s strength of character, due to or despite his difficult existence, he had become far more fascinating to Raz than his Israeli children had ever been. Raz’s marriage was one of convenience, arranged by his and his wife’s families, which Raz went along with in his inimitable way - it was not important enough for him to go against. Raz believed he would never again have the love he shared with his Palestinian girl, and a normal family life was important for his chosen career.

  He went to extraordinary lengths to keep his son safe, even placing his name on a secret intelligence list as a potential spy, which saved him on more than one occasion from being brutalised during incursions. The day Raz learned of the death sentence placed on Abed by the IDF officer he found himself fearing for the life of his Palestinian son more than he imagined possible. He went immediately into high gear as he considered various ways of getting the death sentence removed. His options included abducting Abed and his mother and placing them in a safe house much like a witness protection programme, but even in his high position within Shin Bet that would be too difficult to engineer and maintain for long without drawing suspicion. Another option was to place Abed on record as actually being an insider, a confirmed spy for Shin Bet, but that was fraught with danger too. It would expose Abed to other agent handlers and then create all kinds of complications if Raz was ever asked to ‘loan’ him out, since Abed was not really a spy. When the day came that Raz learned the officer had decided to carry out the assassination of Abed himself, he was motivated into taking action that was drastic but unavoidable if he was to save his son’s life.

  Raz took full advantage of his senior position to mount a relatively small operation aimed at establishing a covert observation hide in the attic of a derelict building that just happened to be next to Abed’s new metal shop. The operation required Raz to be driven into Rafah late one night through an IDF checkpoint and dropped off where he could walk to the proposed hide carrying a nondescript case of observation equipment. It was more normal for a police agent to carry out such a task for Shin Bet, but neither was it unheard of for a department head to get his hands a little dirty now and then to keep in touch with the realities of field operations.

  Raz did not know where the IDF officer intended to position himself for the shoot although the options were limited if he wanted to kill Abed while inside his shop. However, he did know roughly when to expect the hit which would be on Abed’s arrival at his metal shop. The biggest problem for Raz was locating the officer’s hide. Raz knew he would probably have to wait for the first shot to give away the officer’s location. The question was, would the officer play with his mouse first as he had done so often in the past, or would he kill Abed at the earliest opportunity. The first bullet that slapped into the metal shop took Raz by surprise even though he had been as vigilant as possible. It was the second shot, hitting a sheet of steel inside the shop, that gave the sniper’s position away, a hint of smoke and movement in the shadows of a distant building. Raz could only pray that Abed had not yet been hit. Fortunately, the officer was not a professional sniper and as he exposed the barrel of his weapon to squeeze off his next, and probably deadly shot, Raz carefully took aim through the scope of his own rifle and fired.The bullet flew down between the houses that lined the market road, across the open stretch of no-man’s-land that ran along the edge of Rafah, past the Israeli watch tower, over the three layers of fifteen foot high fence topped with razor
wire, in the second-floor window of the derelict house on the edge of the Egyptian border and through the officer’s head, flinging him back across the room, killing him instantly.

  Raz left his hide almost immediately and did not find out until the next day that his son had survived unhurt. Shortly after that, Raz lost track of Abed and assumed he had gone to ground in fear for his life.

  It was not until a year later he learned the name and description of the leader of the team of Islamic Jihad which had hijacked a supertanker off the coast of Spain, murdered all the crew and set the boat, filled with crude oil, on a collision course with the English coastline.

  There was a time before that when Raz fantasised about one day meeting Abed and revealing himself as his father, not that he was under any illusion it would be a loving reunion. Perhaps it would be nothing more than closure between them. But it was a pipe dream, for their races could not be more polarised. In truth, it was both their stated doctrine that the other be denied the right to exist. There used to be a chance things could change on a personal level between the two of them, but now that Abed had joined the ranks of the arch terrorists, Raz’s fantasies were forced to give way to the grim reality that Abed would probably die at the hands of an Israeli or British assassination squad. He did wonder what he would do if he happened to become involved in such an operation even though that was unlikely. In his heart of hearts, he knew he would pull the trigger, even if that only meant giving the order.

  His thoughts went back to Abed’s mother, the image of her on her deathbed still fresh in his memory, and he was filled with sadness at the outcome of it all. The human story was indeed more often than not an unhappy one.

  Raz snapped out of his daydream as Stratton and Gabriel walked towards him and he opened the rear door of the car for them to climb in. As they drove across the airfield and out of the airport, Raz looked over his shoulder from the front passenger seat. ‘We will be in Jerusalem in forty-five minutes or so,’ he said. ‘Will that be okay for you?’ he asked in his typically insincere polite manner that was only barely detectable.

  No one answered him. They were looking out of the window at the country neither of them had seen before. It did not look as clean as it did from the air. The land was dry and dusty. In the distance was a hint of green but no evidence of the soil that produced the lush fruits and vegetables for which Israel was famous.

  Raz considered asking them about the Russian to get the ball rolling and start searching for any cracks in their supposed mission but decided against it and turned back to face the front. He was not in the mood for subtle conversation at that moment, and, anyway, he got the impression from the thuggishlooking Englishman he would learn more from watching than discussion.

  Stratton stared at the back of Raz’s head and wondered what kind of man he was and would he pose any problems for them. His thoughts drifted to the meeting in Ramallah and what light it might throw on the mission, if any. Zhilev was somewhere here in the Middle East with his atom bomb, of that he was certain. The question was, where did he want to detonate it. A more detailed profile on Zhilev could have been useful and might shed some clue as to what his goal was. From what little Stratton knew, and thinking as a Special Forces soldier himself, he had boiled it down to two options. Zhilev either wanted to destroy an Islamic symbol and as many Muslims as possible along with it, or start a fight between the East and the West. For the latter, initiating the bomb in Europe would have been better, but only if he could somehow blame it on Islam, which would not be easy. For the former option, the two most important Muslim sites were Mecca and Medina. After that came Jerusalem, but inside what was perhaps technically or symbolically the West, i.e. Israel. That certainly made it interesting, but the big disadvantage was the degree of difficulty. It would be much harder to get a bomb into an Israeli city than into an Arab one. But then, from what little Stratton knew about Zhilev, he was certainly ambitious and did not lack tenacity or planning abilities. The truth was Zhilev had been faultless so far and was only being hunted thanks to a psychic remote viewer.

  Stratton suddenly felt eyes on him and looked up to the rear-view mirror. Like most civilianised police-type vehicles, there was a second rear-view mirror for the passenger to use and Raz was looking directly at him.

  Chapter 12

  Zhilev pulled off the tarmac road scarred by countless tank tracks and eased on to a sandy, stony verge, stopped the car and killed the engine. He looked ahead through the dirty windscreen up the road that climbed steeply to a permanent Israeli army checkpoint a hundred yards away. A large sign close by announced the entrance to the city of Jerusalem. Jericho, the lowest dry point on earth, was some twenty miles behind and to the east on the northern tip of the Dead Sea and over two hundred miles north of Elat. He had spent the night outside a petrol station, south of the Dead Sea, waiting for it to open, and the drive to Jerusalem had been eventless with no other checkpoints after the one outside Elat.

  The traffic heading into the city at this checkpoint was light; however the lethargic soldiers who ran it were slow and managed to maintain a constant line of half a dozen or so waiting cars. Beyond the checkpoint, lining the high ground a mile away like medieval battlements, were new Israeli housing estates, their stone-clad buildings and red-clay tiled roofs standing defiantly, proudly occupying their captured ground. The land in front of the city on all sides was barren, rocky desert with sprinklings of hardy shrubbery growing out of the arid soil.

  Zhilev had considered bypassing the Israeli outpost on foot but after studying the land decided against it. There was hardly a stick of cover for a daylight move and at night the likely approach routes to the city were undoubtedly monitored by a variety of night vision, trembler and movement detection devices. Attempting to pass through the checkpoint with the stolen car was obviously out of the question. He had to assume the owners had been discovered by now and the car reported missing.

  He watched a handful of Palestinians approach the checkpoint on foot where they were questioned, asked to show identification and searched before being allowed through into Jerusalem. The checkpoint was his only option but Zhilev’s concern was not so much the device he was carrying. The young soldiers would hardly be suspicious of a block of wood even if it did appear to be a little bizarre. The obvious cover story would be that the wood was a souvenir from the Holy Land. His problem was identification; his passport had no entry stamp in it. He did not know if the carriage of identification was mandatory for tourists, and whether or not they would ask him to present it. He was beginning to feel apprehensive. Considering all he had gone through to get this far, the checkpoint could turn out to be the most difficult obstacle. All it needed was one vigilant young soldier to demand proof of official entry into the country and he might find himself locked up and waiting for an immigration officer to arrive and interrogate him. The justifiably paranoid Israelis would undoubtedly make a closer inspection of his belongings in that event and the game would be up.

  As he mulled over the problem he watched a taxi drive through the checkpoint from the Jerusalem side and, since it was leaving the city, continue without being stopped. Zhilev watched as it came to a stop a short distance down the road and a Palestinian, wearing the black-and-white patterned kaffiyeh headdress of his tribe, climbed out of the back seat dragging several large bags with him.

  Zhilev’s mind raced through the possible scenarios as he studied the dented vehicle with its cracked windscreen, wondering if it would turn around and head back into the city. Inspired more by intuition than any firm plan he quickly opened his bag on the passenger seat and took out a bottle of water, unscrewed the top, dug his passport out of his pocket and carefully poured water down one edge of it, partially wetting the pages. He put the bottle down and opened the passport to check the effect. A good portion of each page had been soaked causing the fine anti-forgery patterns to run. He found the page that contained his UK entry stamp and carefully rubbed moisture over it until it became smudged an
d illegible. His aim was simple and surprisingly desperate considering his planning so far but the momentum was taking him along and having decided to go for it, he chose to ignore the obvious risks. If the soldier asked for his ID Zhilev would offer the passport with the explanation that it accidentally got wet in his bag and he was heading through Jerusalem on his way to Tel Aviv and the Russian embassy to have it renewed. Not completely satisfied with the plan but committed, he climbed out of the car as he watched the taxi pull away and turn in the road to join the back of the line of cars entering the city. Zhilev shouldered his pack and headed briskly up the hill. The taxi was three cars from the checkpoint as he approached it from the back, opened the rear door and climbed in.

  The driver, a large, unshaven, gruff-looking man in a sweat-stained t-shirt with a cigarette in his mouth, turned to look at him and said something in Hebrew which Zhilev did not understand.

  ‘Jerusalem, old city,’ Zhilev said, expecting that was the answer to the question.

  The driver said something else but when his passenger did not reply he realised it was because he was not being understood.