By Dawn's Early Light

by Grant R. Jeffrey

  “He was assuming, of course,” the captain remarked, “that the terrorists were PLO.”

  “I don’t think Captain Reed ever assumes anything.” Devorah frowned. “Were they PLO?”

  “We think they were a renegade Arab group, disenchanted with the peace process.” The captain stood and thanked her with a smile. “That’s all, Sergeant Major. Please give our regards to your father and our apologies for disturbing the serenity of his Sabbath. You are to continue your work with Captain Reed, following his orders as you would my own. If you have any questions, or if he does anything unusual, please contact me immediately.”

  In a surge of memory, Reed’s own words came back to her: Everybody knows attachés are used for gathering intelligence. We’re just more subtle about spying on our allies than we are our adversaries.

  She stood, saluted, and pivoted toward the door, her mind vibrating with a thousand thoughts.

  “So—did you enjoy your debriefing yesterday?”

  Reed buried his smile in his coffee cup, but Devorah heard the teasing tone in his voice. “It was fine, thank you, and we held it this morning, not yesterday. Yesterday was the Sabbath.”

  He seemed relaxed and casual, not at all worried about her debriefing. He wore civilian clothing, khaki trousers and a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The shirt, she noticed, matched his eyes, especially when they were lit with laughter . . . like now.

  “Sorry. I sometimes forget these things.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Half the people in Israel pay no attention to these things.”

  She dropped her eyes to her napkin, feeling suddenly uncomfortable beneath the intensity of his gaze. There was a new quality to his smile, a familiarity that could only have arisen from their shared experience. Such a familiarity could not be good.

  “I am supposed to continue my work with you.” She looked up and forced herself to meet his eyes. “I was told to obey you as I would obey my own captain.”

  “How convenient.”

  Her lips thinned with irritation. “How much longer do you think you’ll be in Israel, Captain? I do have my own work, you know. I have classes to teach and operators to train—”

  “Actually, I was thinking of postponing the base inspections for a while.” He lowered his coffee cup and folded his arms on the edge of the table. “What did they tell you about the men who stormed the Knesset?”

  She frowned. “Nothing. Why?”

  “Because I know who and what they are.” He glanced quickly left and right as if he might be overheard, then leaned closer. “I have a contact— never mind who he is—who was able to access the IDF videotape of the intruders.”

  “What? How?”

  “Never mind that. My contact has identified the ringleader as Uri Dyakonov—does the name mean anything to you?”

  Devorah closed her eyes and struggled to remember. The name did ring a distant bell, but why? She had seen it in a printed report, perhaps something from Interpol . . . No, not Interpol. The man wasn’t a terrorist— he was military. She snapped her fingers as the name linked with a recollection. “Afghanistan. He led the Russian spetsnaz team that wiped out the entire government in five minutes.”

  “Very good.” He leaned back and grinned at her, obviously impressed. “Christmas Day 1979. Dyakonov and his team took out the Afghan government under the express command of General Vladimir Gogol, who was then working for the general staff ’s Main Intelligence Directorate.”

  Devorah stared at him. “What’s the connection?” she asked, trying to formulate a link between Afghanistan and Israel. “And why didn’t he succeed at the Knesset? A man with Dyakonov’s training should not have failed.”

  Michael shook his head. “The Soviet elite units were once among the best in the world, but Russia’s economic crisis has dramatically affected them. Once a man has concluded his service in a spetsnaz unit, he can leave military life and earn a soldier’s monthly wages in a day. The best operators haven’t remained with their units—they’re out working for private security firms or criminal organizations. Only the most gung-ho have stayed in uniform.”

  “So—did Dyakonov go to work for the PLO?”

  Michael snorted softly. “Gung-ho is too mild a word for Dyakonov. The man was a nationalist zealot—he’d give nothing less than all for Mother Russia.” Michael’s strong and tapered fingers tapped his coffee mug. “There are dozens of spetsnaz units in Russia, but Dyakonov’s unit was the crème de la crème, the most secret and the most dangerous. They are trained to act in groups of five to ten people, move autonomously for days at a time, and carry out orders that have nothing to do with military operations. Quite simply, they are trained to search, find, and assassinate . . . on the enemy’s territory.”

  “So—has Dyakonov been training Arab terrorists?”

  Michael gripped the cup again, and Devorah saw the muscles of his forearm tighten. Instead of answering, he asked a question: “Did they learn anything from the four men in custody?”

  Devorah waved her hand. “My captain said they are members of a splinter Palestinian group disenchanted with the peace process.”

  “He’s wrong. I’d bet my last shekel that all eight of our tangos spent last month in a Russian military training camp called Pushkina. I’d also bet that not one of those men in jail is an Arab . . . or alive at this moment.”

  She stared at him in total incredulity. “You’re going to have to explain yourself, Captain.”

  “Dyakonov didn’t leave his spetsnaz unit; he brought it to Jerusalem.” Michael leaned forward again. “I e-mailed a friend of mine back at the NSA and picked up a few bits of useful information. Russian Military Intelligence controlled Dyakonov’s unit. Their teams were trained to destroy the enemy’s command and communication posts, operation systems, and—” he lowered his voice—“physically eliminate the opposite side’s military and political leadership.”

  Devorah stared at him, her mind blank with shock.

  “We missed something,” Michael continued, looking fully into her eyes. “You told me that the Parliament meeting dismissed early because of Sukkot, remember? Dyakonov wasn’t after Parliament members alone. Who else would have attended that meeting Friday afternoon?”

  Devorah rested her elbow on the table. When she could speak, her voice came out in an uncertain stutter. “The—the other government officials have offices in other parts of the city. The prime minister’s office is west of the Knesset, while the minister of defense—” She gasped as the shock of discovery hit her full force. “The meetings of the government are usually held at the prime minister’s office,” she whispered. “But on days when the members of government are obliged to participate in Parliament meetings, government members convene in the Knesset, where all the ministers have bureaus.”

  Michael nodded, his mouth tight and grim. “Friday was such a day. If not for Sukkot, all the members of the Israeli government would have been inside the Knesset and at Dyakonov’s mercy. He thought of everything a Russian commando would consider—but he forgot to think like a Jew.”

  A thunderbolt jagged through her. “They’d all be dead.” Her voice rasped in her own ears. “They would have killed every last man.” Her gaze flew up to his face. “But why? What does Russia have against Israel?”

  Uncertainty crept into Michael’s expression. “Who knows why the angry finger of the Kremlin pointed in this direction? Things are anything but stable in Moscow. It might have been a test . . . or a diversion.”

  “A diversion from what?”

  He leaned upon the table, one arm extended toward her, the other supporting his head. From a distance, anyone might have supposed them to be lovers . . . but the stirring in Devorah’s heart convinced her far more was at stake than the lives of two people.

  “Can I trust you, Devorah Cohen?” Reed spoke slowly, as if carefully measuring each word before pronouncing it. “This morning—what did you tell them about the thermal guns?”

/>   Devorah felt her cheeks blaze as though they had been seared by a candle flame, but she refused to tear her gaze from his. “I answered their questions truthfully. I told them I couldn’t see the guns in the dark . . . and that you didn’t explain them.”

  He watched her through glittering eyes that were both admiring and accusing. “So you gave them no more and no less than your duty demanded. Obviously,” his voice dropped to a deeper pitch, “you did not paint me as an enemy of Israel, or I’d be on my way home.”

  “What should I have told them?” She clenched her hands under the table, resisting the creeping uneasiness at the bottom of her heart. “If you are not an ally of Israel, Captain Reed, I will not cooperate with you. If you have any regard for me at all, you will not force me into a difficult situation.”

  His face creased into a sudden smile. “I can assure you I’m not a spy— no more than any other attaché, in any case. But I do need to know if I can share information with you . . . and not have it appear on the front page of the Jerusalem Post within two days.”

  She looked away, picked up her spoon, and idly dropped a teaspoon of sugar into her tea. He was encroaching upon forbidden territory, and yet she could not find it within her heart to tell him to back off. She was a career officer in the IDF, as committed to Israel as to her own family, and any significant information she learned should be immediately reported to her commanding officer. Yet there was something about Michael Reed . . . and he certainly seemed to trust her. Her captain had deliberately ignored her question about the terrorists’ identity, yet Michael had freely shared information about Dyakonov and his intentions.

  “You can trust me not to run to the Post.” She rested her chin on her hand, her mouth curving in a bemused smile. “And you can trust me to protect a fellow spec warrior. If it is necessary to keep a confidence in order to protect you, Captain Reed, you can trust me to keep quiet . . . for as long as you are here.”

  “Diplomacy, beauty, and brains.” He shifted in his chair, regarding her with amusement as he signaled for the check. “Will you come for a drive with me, Sergeant Major? I’d like to explain my entire reason for coming to Israel and how I think it ties into what happened at the Knesset Friday night. There are some other new developments I’d like to tell you about, too.” He hesitated. “I suppose we can take your Fiat—it’s not likely to be bugged, is it?”

  She stiffened in shock. “You think my car might be bugged?”

  “One can never be too careful.” He pulled a handful of shekels from his wallet, placed them on the table, then stood and gallantly gestured toward the exit. “Shall we go?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The White House

  0932 hours

  SAM STEDMAN HAD JUST OPENEDVICTORIA’S BIBLEWHEN HE HEARD A RESOUNDING thump on the curved door leading into the Oval Office. Jack Powell entered without knocking, a fluttering newspaper in his hand. Frowning, Sam looked out and saw a Secret Service agent standing in the doorway, his arms uplifted and an I’m-sorry expression on his face. Powell didn’t have an appointment, but these days he didn’t seem to think he needed one.

  “Have you seen this?” Jack dropped a copy of the Washington Post over the Bible, then thumped the headline with his thick index finger. “How did this happen, Sam? What were you thinking?”

  Sam pinched the bridge of his nose as he read the headline: U.S. Uses Navy SEALs and Top-Secret Weapons to Oust Terrorists from Knesset.

  “Ouch.” He lowered his hand and looked wearily at his chief of staff. “Not much we can do about it now, I suppose.”

  Jack sank into the guest chair across from the desk and slapped the armrest in frustration. “What in the world possessed you, Sam? You know William Blackstone is going to eat this up. He’s been hoping something like this would happen. Now, a few weeks before the election, he’s caught us.”

  Sam tented his hands. “How’d the word get out?”

  Jack used his knuckle to wipe small sparkles of sweat off his upper lip. “Who knows? Probably half of Jerusalem saw the SEALs land outside the Knesset. And I hear there’s a pirated copy of a surveillance videotape playing on the Internet. It’s grainy and dark, but you can see our guys shooting through the wall with whatever that thermal thing is.” His gray eyes darkened as he held Sam’s gaze. “How could you do it, Mr. President? The Israelis accepted your help, then turned around and stabbed you in the back by releasing that videotape. Blackstone will use it to destroy us; you’ve got to know that.”

  “I don’t know any such thing.” Sam’s lower lip trembled as he returned Jack’s glare. “Someone released the tape—OK, but that could have been anyone from a custodian to a foreign agent. Daniel Prentice taught me that few things are truly secure these days. We can’t lay the blame for this leak on the IDF.”

  “But you sent a SEAL team into a public place!”

  Sam’s mood veered sharply to anger. “I could do no less! The Israelis are our allies, and they needed our help.”

  Powell pressed his lips together, then drew a deep breath, his long nose pinched and white with resentful rage. “The media might learn that Michael Reed was at the scene. If the interest level in the story remains high, they’ll dig until they uncover every detail.”

  Sam shrugged. “He is participating in a routine liaison mission. He happened upon the situation by chance.”

  “An Israeli paper is already reporting that an American led the team.”

  “Then let’s call the man a hero and get back to work.” Sam reached out and cupped his hand around his coffee mug, then flipped the revolting newspaper off the Bible. “This won’t hurt us, Jack, unless we let it. If Reed’s involvement reaches our press, issue a statement praising Reed for his bravery, then assure our people it was a one-time action and nothing more. For once in your life, fight the lies with truth, then stand back and let it blow over.”

  Powell stood and lifted the newspaper from the desk. “Blackstone’s going to hit us hard with this. By sunset he’ll be saying we want to reinstate the draft and send eighteen-year-olds to fight in the Middle East.”

  Sam struggled to maintain an even, patient tone. “Just tell the truth, Jack, and let the American people sort it out. They usually do.”

  As the chief of staff walked away, Sam took a sip from his coffee mug, then lifted his hand. “And Jack—next time, don’t throw your newspapers on my desk. I’d rather read Victoria’s Bible than the Washington Compost any time.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Moscow

  1745 hours

  AS THE TINNY RADIO HUMMED WITH THE ANNOYING AND FALSELY CHEERFUL rhythms of Russian pop music, Alanna’s heart seemed to keep pace with the thumping sounds of the bass drum. Vladimir had just left the hotel suite in a dark mood again, and the worm of anxiety that had been needling her heart slithered lower to writhe in her stomach.

  Something was not right. Though life inside her gilded suite seemed to glide on as usual, she could feel darkness descending, growing deeper and denser as the autumn days grew shorter. She saw it in the freezing blue eyes of the Russian couple who had taken over the bookstore; she saw it in the boarded windows of the small synagogue that stood across from Revolutsii Ploschad, or Revolution Square. Each evening the television newscasts featured more people being loaded into trucks and taken away, and Alanna didn’t need to understand Russian to know they were Jews. The city that had once comforted and thrilled her was now filled with foreboding, its buildings casting grim shadows across her path, the walls of Red Square gleaming darkly, as if painted with dried blood.

  Winter was coming and drawing some unspeakable horror in its wake.

  Alanna checked her watch, then moved to the window and pressed her hands to the chilly glass. Twenty floors below, Vladimir and his entourage moved from the curb into the black limousine, then the car nudged into the traffic and moved toward the Kremlin.

  She had time.

  She ran to the front door and shot the deadbolts home, first one, t
hen the other, not caring if the guards heard the sound. Scurrying to the kitchen, she knocked the bottles of cleaner aside, then pulled the laptop from its hiding place and ripped away the plastic. With trembling fingers she plugged in the modem and the power, then set the computer on the counter and typed in the familiar address.

  She tabbed down and hesitated at the subject line. What could she say? Help, I want out? She had not yet found an opportunity to escape. She had concluded that for the moment she was safer remaining where she was than trying to run.

  Her fingers hovered over the keys as she searched for words to describe the premonition that had invaded her hotel suite. How could she describe these foreboding feelings to a thoroughly practical man like Daniel Prentice? She could say that in the last few days Vladimir seemed absorbed and distant, that lately he looked more like a lion scenting the breeze than the doting lover she had come to know. Would Daniel realize the significance of these observations, or would he think her a foolish female with an overactive imagination?

  The keyboard made a ghostly clatter in the silence of the kitchen as she typed:

  I’m worried. Vladimir seems preoccupied. He has been in a bad mood lately, but he won’t say what’s troubling him. He says a woman shouldn’t be bothered with such things. He is gone now to prepare for a meeting with a group of foreign officials, and I am to appear later tonight at his side. He is planning something, but I have no idea what.

  outside, the city is in turmoil. I am in a quiet place, but the television newscasts are filled with reports of Jews being taken away in large white vans. It looks like a purge, though I cannot imagine what crimes could possibly be attributed to these people. A lovely Jewish family disappeared from my hotel and their shop has been given to others.