The Peace Killers
Page 16
He drummed his fingers on his desk and reached a decision. Calling the FSB director was a last resort. However, if Zeb needed help, Andropov would go to the Kremlin if that was needed.
He made the call.
* * *
Somewhere in the Middle East
* * *
It was the handler’s turn to grimace. Magal and Shiri had sent him a photograph. That of the stranger standing beside the American ambassador’s vehicle. But that man didn’t seem to exist. Not in any of the agency systems that the handler had hacked into.
No such person in Mossad. FSB didn’t have anyone who looked like him. It wasn’t just the Israeli agency that the handler had penetrated when his people had developed their cyberattack capabilities. The Russians, the Germans—heck, even the Chinese. He hadn’t gone after the U.S. and UK, however. Not because he thought they couldn’t hack into MI6 or American systems, but because, if discovered, his entire capability would be nullified.
Those two countries would detect his viruses in little time, would erase them, create defenses and would then share those with their allies.
He smoothed his beard and looked at his reflection in the polished surface of his desk. He looked the part. The head of a ruthless and feared agency. But his looks didn’t reassure him just then.
This new person was obviously an American. Who else would ride in Alice Monash’s car? But why was he there?
He perused the dossiers his agency had of all U.S. agents. No file photograph matched that of the stranger. He cursed in disgust and turned off the screen. He was overreacting. Why did it matter if some unknown person was with the ambassador?
It wouldn’t affect what he was working on.
Which reminded him.
He shot off a message to Magal and Shiri.
When will you attack?
* * *
Somewhere in Jerusalem
* * *
Abdul Masih ripped a piece of bread, dipped it in olive oil and stuffed it into his mouth as he pored over a map.
He was in their safe house, a small residence in the Muslim Quarter in the Old City. Three of his trusted lieutenants were with him. Outside, more of his men were spread out, some at the entrance and exit of the narrow street. Those would warn him if any police or IDF personnel made an entry.
‘How do you know it is that hotel?’ he asked, stabbing his finger on a red circle on the map.
‘She visited it. One of our informers entered it as well and saw heavy security. He—’
‘He wasn’t spotted, sayidi,’ his lieutenant clarified hurriedly.
‘Good. Did he see where she went?’
‘There’s a corridor that goes to conference rooms. There were many guards. He didn’t see where exactly she went from that corridor.’
Masih pursed his lips as he examined the map silently. Emek Refaim was a busy street. The previous attacks were practically a stone’s throw from the circled hotel. Why would the Israelis move all negotiators to another one so close by?
Because no one will think the talks are happening practically next door.
He nodded unconsciously and glared at his lieutenant, who smiled as if he was being complimented.
‘What’s the plan?’ he barked.
His man faltered. Plan? That was for the sayidi to make, wasn’t it?
Masih growled in anger at his silence and looked at the others. They turned away.
‘I have to do everything,’ he grated. He bent down and studied the map again. The street was broad, but getting away would be difficult. The Israelis would have a heavy presence and at the first sign of trouble, would block all escape routes.
Unless …
‘Do we have any suicide bombers here? In Jerusalem.’
‘Yes, sayidi. Lots of them, ready to die for the cause.’
‘Do we have fighters? A dozen or so?’
‘Yes, sayidi.’
‘They will die.’
‘They are ready for it.’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Musrara, Jerusalem
Three days after Assassinations
Eight days to Announcement
* * *
Abdul Masih was the furthest thing from Zeb’s mind. He was breaking into Meir’s apartment when the terrorist was enquiring about suicide bombers.
Getting entry into the building hadn’t been a problem. The residential complex didn’t have a concierge, nor did it have security of any kind.
With his ball cap pulled low over his face, Zeb raced up the stairs and reached Meir’s fifth-floor apartment. He inspected the door and spotted the discreetly mounted security camera.
Can’t risk picking the lock.
He took the stairs, climbing rapidly until he reached the landing on the twelfth floor, and took a door that opened on the roof.
A water tank in one corner. Air-conditioning equipment. Solar panels. No other human.
He peered over the parapet that ran all around. Luck favored him for a change. The Mossad operative’s apartment was at the rear of the building and overlooked its parking lot. Which happened to be quiet at that time of the night and was dark.
He extracted a climbing rope from his backpack and secured one end to the tank. Donned gloves and slithered down the side of the building. He slid down the eleventh floor, tenth; kicked hard and jumped to the right when a bedroom window opened on the ninth floor and a head peered out. He remained motionless, a dark figure against the wall, his feet braced against the building, his palms wrapped firmly around the rope.
The head, a woman, called out querulously in the night. A voice replied from somewhere beyond the parking lot. The resident cursed, retreated and slammed the window shut.
Zeb resumed his approach. He stopped when he reached Meir’s window. No curtains inside. He looked around and upwards and downwards. He was alone in the night. He peered cautiously through the pane and saw only his reflection. He brought out a palm-sized flashlight and aimed it at the room.
Bedroom. A double bed. A floor-to-ceiling wardrobe. A door at the far end. No alarms visible. He clutched the flashlight between his teeth, drew out his blade and jammed it beneath the sill. There was give between the window and its frame. Sufficient enough for him to use his burglar toolkit and open the window.
Moments later, he was padding across the room, after confirming there were no intruder alarms or cameras. He searched the room swiftly. No phone. There was a laptop on a side table, but it was password-protected. That wasn’t a deterrent. He inserted a thumb drive in its port. The program on it would force the machine to perform certain commands and yield its files. Zeb knew how it worked; the twins had explained it to him in excruciating detail. Hopefully Meir hasn’t encrypted his files. Werner could crack those, too, but it would take longer.
He searched the rest of the apartment while the thumb drive did its work. There was another bedroom that seemed unoccupied, a living room that also doubled as a dining room, a kitchen, bathroom. The apartment was comfortably furnished, pictures of Meir and his girlfriend adorning the wall. No files of any kind. No concealed safe, not that he could detect. There must be one for his passports, weapons. Or he has a locker somewhere else. He didn’t find another phone.
He planted listening devices in the apartment and, when the thumb drive stopped flashing, removed it and stowed away the laptop in its original position.
One last look around the apartment and then he was out of the window, climbing back to the roof.
Forty-five minutes later he was on the street, with no proof that the kidon was either innocent or the killer. He hoped the thumb drive would have something.
One hour later, Zeb was in his hotel room, fresh after a shower. He sent the files to the sisters and crashed on his bed.
He woke up in the morning to find a Glock pointed at him.
Chapter Forty
Jerusalem
Four days after Assassinations
Seven Days to Announcement
* * *
Something deep inside Zeb settled on seeing them. He had always been a loner. He still was. However, the twins, just by their presence and their enthusiasm, had reshaped him to a large extent. He no longer felt isolated, strange, when he was with his friends. With them around he felt … grounded.
He also felt relief. Now that the twins were with him … we can work faster together.
‘How did you find me?’ he stifled a yawn and pushed the weapon away.
‘It wasn’t difficult,’ Beth chortled, holstering her gun. ‘We figured you would be in some place central. Not more than an hour or ninety minutes away from the furthest Mossad operative. Close enough to the embassy, too. We zeroed in on various hotels, shortlisted thirty and approached them.’
‘The people at the desk gave me up, just like that?’ he asked, startled.
‘This,’ Meghan produced a Mossad ID card, ‘carries a lot of weight in Israel. And when Beth fluttered her eyes …’
‘I used a false name. I was in disguise!’ he protested.
‘Well, they gave us a list of rooms that had single occupants, described them in general, and that was our starting point.’
‘How long have you been knocking on hotel doors?’ he asked suspiciously. Did I let slip somehow where I was staying? They could have tracked my phone, but I turned it off. And I am not wearing clothing that has GPS tags.
‘Two hours. We got lucky,’ Meghan admitted, running her fingers through her hair. ‘This was the third hotel we approached, and yours was the second room we picked.’
Zeb shook his head in disgust at himself. He normally would have woken up at the slightest noise, alert at any sign of intrusion.
I must have been exhausted.
Three cups of steaming coffee were on the small table in his room when he returned from his shower.
Beth and Meghan were seated shoulder to shoulder, their screens running.
‘Bring us up to speed,’ Beth ordered. Work mode. No joviality.
He broke it down for them succinctly, right from Kadikoy, even though they knew parts of it.
‘Riva and Adir, Carmel and Dalia, Yakov, Nachman, Danell, Yonah, Osip, and Uzziah, Eliel and Navon … those are the only ones we are confident of. Who had no role in the killing,’ she summed up.
‘Correct. Meir … You got anything from his files?’
Meghan’s fingers danced over her keyboard as she shook her head. ‘Encrypted. Werner’s working on cracking them open. It’s also listening to those bugs you planted in his apartment. Searching for keywords. Nothing so far. Meir and his girlfriend have been talking domestic stuff.’
‘Out of twenty-eight kidon, we have crossed out twelve,’ Beth sipped her coffee and swiped her tongue over her lips. ‘Sixteen operatives yet to be cleared. Of the fourteen men Carmel and Dalia identified, six remain.’
‘Correct.’
‘Just because those men are opposed to what’s happening, doesn’t mean any of them … The ones not on Carmel and Dalia’s list also can be—’
‘I know. It is a matter of priorities, however.’
‘We’ve been thinking about this,’ she nodded, accepting what he said. ‘The time crunch and all that.’
‘Someone’s got to do that, you know,’ Meghan interrupted wickedly, ‘thinking, I mean.’
Zeb put on a stoic face, though he was finding it hard not to smile. ‘And?’
‘You meet the operatives. All day today. One at a time, or in a group, however you want to play it. Beth and me, we’ll break into their apartments and see what we can uncover.’
Zeb emptied his cup, collected the twins’, and went to the kitchenette to rinse them. It might work. Interviewing the kidon will not necessarily prove anything. But this two-pronged approach will lead us to something. Faster.
‘Let’s do it.’
‘Great,’ Beth bounced in her seat. ‘Start off with Abraham and Mattias. Their apartments aren’t far. Half an hour away. A brisk walk, for us. Might be longer for you, given that you are old.’ She tossed him his cell, the Jarrett Epstein one. ‘Set it up.’
* * *
Beit Aghion
* * *
Prime Minister Yago Cantor was having a breakfast meeting with Jessy Levitsky, Nadav Shoshon and Jore Spiro. His morning was already turning sour with the lack of progress.
‘We have some of the finest intelligence agencies in the world. And what have we to show for that?’ He speared toast viciously with his fork and chewed angrily. ‘Nothing. Why is that?’
‘Prime Minister, it’s just four days from—’ Levitsky began, at which the leader sighed.
‘I know, I know, Jessy. It’s just that …’ He composed himself. ‘Tell me what you have got.’
Cantor had appointed the minister to liaise with all investigative bodies, including the task force he had set up.
‘The weapon was a Galil Mar,’ Levitsky outlined crisply. ‘Ballistics confirm that, but we have not found it. Unfortunately, those rifles aren’t hard to get. We have some cell phone footage of two men getting out of a VW and into a Toyota. We got lucky with that. A tourist was filming randomly and caught them.’
Cantor leaned forward. ‘Who are they?’
‘We can see only their backs,’ the minister replied dispiritedly. ‘The men are average sized, dark hair … not much for us to go on. Thousands of people have sent their cell phone clips. We are going through them all. It will take time.’
‘How did they know where those negotiators were?’
‘We don’t know.’ An awkward silence followed. The minister didn’t need to state that if the killers were Mossad operatives, they could have gotten access to inside knowledge.
‘What of the task force?’
‘Shabak has cleared several Mossad agents,’ Levitsky glanced sideways at Levin, who remained unperturbed.
‘Several, not all?’
‘That’s correct, prime minister.’
‘Avichai, what have you got for us?’
‘I have sixteen kidon yet to be cleared.’
‘Sixteen out of how many?’ Shoshon challenged. It was no secret that the Shabak director didn’t like Mossad’s preferential treatment by the prime minister and the media. Cantor had explained to him several times why the counter-intelligence agency needed to operate in secrecy. His reasoning fell on deaf years. He had thought about firing Shoshon, however, the director was good at his job.
‘Sixteen remain; that’s all that matters,’ Levin replied urbanely.
‘That’s a large number. We don’t have much time.’
‘I know. We are working as fast as we can. Such investigations cannot be rushed.’
‘If you throw more people at it …’ Shoshon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wait! Are you investigating yourself?’
‘I have an experienced agent checking them out.’
‘Just one?’
‘One is all I can trust.’
‘He’s not from Mossad, is he?’ the Shabak director smiled knowingly. ‘Who is he?’
‘He’s good,’ Levin replied shortly. He turned to the prime minister with a questioning look, as if to ask, is this going somewhere?
Cantor took the hint. ‘Avichai, you know what we are up against. It is vital we find the killers before our announcement.’
Spiro stirred in his chair. ‘What happens if we don’t?’
‘We might not be able to make that announcement. Our government might collapse. You have heard of the no-confidence rumors?’
Heads nodded around the table.
‘They are true,’ Cantor confirmed. ‘And on top of that, if more killings happen and Mossad is blamed—’
‘Our country may not exist,’ Levin completed, softly. ‘A war will inevitably break out.’
Chapter Forty-One
Jerusalem
Four days after Assassinations
/> Seven Days to Announcement
* * *
Avichai Levin broke the brooding silence that followed his words. ‘Prime Minister,’ he stated firmly, ‘I can’t guarantee I can prove my kidon are innocent or are involved by that deadline. However, there’s a way we can build confidence in the coalition partners.’
‘I am listening,’ Cantor replied.
‘Take the American ambassador’s help. Her speaking outside Beit Aghion made a difference. The opinion polls showed a slight increase in support for you.’
‘I am aware of that. What more can she do, however?’ the prime minister ground out in frustration.
‘Lots, Prime Minister. Arrange meetings for her with your coalition partners. Get her to convey that America is firmly behind you. She has to state that calling off the negotiations is not an option, regardless of who the killers are. Talk to President Baruti as well. Arrange Alice Monash to have similar discussions with his party and political partners. Believe me, her presence and her message will make a significant difference.’
Yago Cantor stared unseeingly at his ramsad as he considered Levin’s words. He had been in his position this long because he considered politics to be one enormous game of chess. And he had few equals in the political maneuvering such a game required. Levin is right. I should have thought of it earlier.
‘That’s a good idea,’ he nodded. ‘Let me work on it. Can you stay back, Avichai?’ He signaled the end of the meeting and waited for the others to leave the room.
‘Avichai,’ he crossed his arms behind his neck, a ghost of a smile behind his lips. ‘What I said earlier … you do have a career in politics. It comes naturally to you.’
His face turned serious. His hands dropped to his sides. ‘We still need to find those killers. If they are Mossad—’