by Jon Land
“The people retained exceeded their mandate.”
“They did a hell of a lot more than that. You should have seen the housemaster’s residence, Fett. Whoever killed him enjoyed it and they wanted me to know that. What did they want him to see after he was dead?”
“I—”
“You might be bringing me one message, but those women were delivering a different one.”
“My point exactly. Their role in this has ended. You have only me to deal with now.”
“My lucky day …”
“There will be far more deaths on your head if you do not act, if we do not act.”
“Against Israel?”
“Against a militant force within Israel. This force is in possession of a weapon of incredible scope. If utilized, it will destroy the Arab world as it is known today.”
“And I’m supposed to stop it from being utilized, is that it?”
“Exactly.”
Blaine felt himself starting to fume again,”Know something, Fett? I could torture the boy’s location out of you now.”
“That would be useless because I don’t know it. Steps were taken to guard against just what you are threatening.”
“Fine. Now explain why me? What makes me so important to you?”
Fett shrugged. “It was not my idea. I warned them against angering you. I told them what you were capable of. She overruled me.”
“She?”
“You’ve heard of Evira no doubt.”
“Have I ever. She’s an Arab agent operating within Israel, certainly the most wanted terrorist in the entire country.”
“Not a terrorist, McCracken! Not even a militant!”
“Call her whatever you want. She chose me?”
“She insisted on you. There have been leaks, deep ones, within our organization. Evira fears her own identity has been compromised. An outsider seemed the only hope, and you were the only choice she presented.”
Blaine eased off. “So you’re saying Israel has this weapon and I’m supposed to prevent it from being used.”
Fett nodded. “In return for the life of your son, yes. But it becomes even more complicated. The government of Israel is not to blame here, but a cell operating within the country. With the government’s blessing or not, it is difficult to tell. The Israelis are masters of misdirection. But the weapon exists and the cell intends to use it; there’s no misreading that.”
“Can you tell me more about this cell?”
Fett shook his head. “I only know what I’ve been allowed to. The rest of what you need to hear will come from one closer to Evira.”
“Another messenger, Fett?”
“Only this time the journey will be yours, McCracken. To Tel Aviv. I have your ticket with me.”
Part Two
Critical Mass
Jaffa: Thursday, May 4; two P.M.
Chapter 6
MCCRACKEN’S THOUGTHS SWIRLED as the 747 dipped into its descent for Ben-Gurion Airport. Fett had handed him a ticket on an El Al jet that left for Israel just after dawn. When he at last closed the door behind the Arab, Blaine had never felt more helpless or alone. Ever since learning of Matthew’s kidnapping, he’d been filled with a cold dread, exactly the kind of feeling that Lauren had wished to spare him by never mentioning his son’s existence. To say nothing of sparing the boy the terrors that had now befallen him.
He wondered how it was possible to develop such strong feelings of love and devotion for Matthew after knowing him for barely two days. The feelings were foreign to Blaine, terrifying in their implications. He forced himself to focus on the task at hand. All he had was a cryptic instruction from Fett on where to meet Evira’s contact:
Go to the Jaffa Flea Market. Present yourself in the gift shop featuring leather handbags over its door on the market’s last corner.
Once there, McCracken would be filled in on further details that Fett himself wasn’t privy to. With the leaks to consider, Evira was taking no chances. Similarly, Blaine was forbidden to contact anyone else for help. Under those circumstances, useless were his allies in intelligence and the vast cache of favors owed him by friendly forces within Israel, forces he was now ironically pitted against. He knew these men well. If they caught him working for the other side, they would kill him without hesitation.
He’d spent five hard months in Israel in 1973, but they’d been worthwhile ones. It was his first action after being pulled out of Nam, and it reassured him that his skills were still required now that the Phoenix Project was history. One well kept secret about the Yom Kippur War was that Israel knew it was coming, just as she had in ’68. But this time Nixon and the Americans absolutely forbade her to make the first move on threats of a total cut-off. Let the Arabs fire the first shots and Nixon promised to back Israel with everything he had.
“Everything” turned out to be five hundred Special Forces troops fresh from the Phoenix Project under the command of Blaine McCracken. They were spirited into the country hours before the war started and worked the magic they had refined so well in Vietnam. The terrain was different, but that was all. Infiltration behind enemy lines was still the key. Lines of communication were disrupted, so that contradictory and downright ludicrous orders reached the Arab fighters at the front. Direct intelligence gathered by McCracken and his men paved the road the Israelis could have taken straight to Cairo and Damascus if Nixon hadn’t intervened again. As for direct engagements in battle, each of Blaine’s men was worth a hundred untrained Arabs, and the kill ratio was not far from that. His troops were sharp, seasoned, and unwilling to accept defeat again. Winning was a nice feeling and a number of them, including McCracken and Johnny Wareagle, stayed on afterward to savor it while educating Israeli paratroopers in the lessons of the Phoenix Project.
After landing in Tel Aviv, Blaine negotiated customs easily, stowed his single suitcase temporarily in an airport locker, and pushed his way through the throngs of travelers for the taxi stand outside Ben Guiron. The driver left him to his thoughts in the cab’s backseat and pulled into traffic headed for Tel Aviv.
The Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, maintains regular shifts at Ben Gurion Airport. Often disguised as fidgety travelers, or fliers seated near their suitcases in apparent consternation over a delay, even garbed as sanitation personnel, they wait and watch day and night for the entry of suspicious persons. Although possible routes of enemy penetration into Israel are many and diverse, it remains surprising how many potential enemies make their entry right at Ben Gurion.
The Mossad agent who spotted the casually dressed bearded man making his way from immigration to baggage claim was on duty behind a monetary exchange counter. As soon as the bearded man had gone, he moved to a phone directly behind his desk and dialed his control.
“Are we expecting anything from the Americans?” he queried after standard codes were exchanged.
“CIA?”
“Independent more likely. Possibly by invitation.”
“I’ll run the checks. Someone grab your eye?”
“Yes. An old friend of ours just flew in… .”
McCracken had the driver take him into Jaffa and deposit him at the Ottoman Clock Tower in Haganah Square. With the bustling modern skyscrapers of Tel Aviv looming above, the old city of Jaffa maintained a tight, imponderable hold on the past, thanks to the outdoor flea market filled with salesmen pitching their wares from stands on the sidewalk, moving carts, or open-front shops. The peddlers and shopkeepers strain their voices to have their boasts of bargains heard and heeded. The quality of merchandise is generally low, but the spirit of the merchants who battle for street space and customers is keen.
From the clock tower, Blaine headed down Yefet Street and swung left on to Oley Tsiyon toward the center of the market. Less than a block later his nose was assaulted by the sharp aroma of freshly caught fish being showcased on hooks or ice at the market across the street. The entrance to the flea market just beyond was signalled by arrays of Oriental rugs d
raped over car hoods and roofs. As more merchants appeared, the market’s borders continued to expand, filling up every available foot of sidewalk and storefront and forcing would-be buyers into the streets to compete for space with vehicular traffic.
The shop Fett had sent him to was of the permanent variety: a building, not a pushcart. Blaine took his time getting there, wanting to become familiar with his surroundings. In addition to the rugs piled everywhere, used clothing seemed a hot item along with cheap, flashy pieces of jewelry. McCracken was most intrigued, though, by the miniature warehouse-like buildings selling ancient appliances. The incredibly high duties placed on such merchandise by the Israeli government turned convenience items like modern refrigerators and televisions into luxuries here. These items were recycled over and over again to meet the demand for them, in spite of the fact that many looked antiquated to the point of decay.
The buildings housing them were no different. Jaffa was a city mired in its historical past, the ancient structures virtually untouched by redevelopment or renewal. Torn and tattered awnings flapped in the faint breeze. Windows peeked out from behind shutters more broken than whole. The buildings were constructed mostly of stone, smoked gray or black through the years. These aged structures had a dusty, heated scent that McCracken found repellent.
A man easing a battered refrigerator from the back of his truck forced Blaine to veer off the sidewalk onto the street. Traffic was snarled, and all movements had been reduced to maddening stops and starts, accompanied by a regular chorus of horns. He passed an old man whose wares were laid out on a blanket in what should have been the right-hand lane. The old man was munching on a pita sandwich and barking to passersby amidst mouthfuls.
The street and sidewalks grew more cluttered by the moment, although more people seemed to be looking than buying. McCracken eased by an Arab merchant operating from behind a pushcart and slid between a pair of cars frozen in traffic. A young man on a bicycle nearly collided with him, and Blaine was forced up against a boy pulling a pair of used jeans on over his gym shorts to check the fit while the salesman spit on in Hebrew about the potential bargain.
The knickknack shop Fett had directed him to was located on a corner at the southern edge of the market. Blaine dodged a bunch of leather handbags dangling over the entrance and stepped inside, delighted to be out of the sun. The smell of leather replaced that of age in his nose. Blaine felt immediately better.
A young woman approached him in search of a sale.
“I believe you’re holding something for me,” he told her, and produced the Egyptian bill Fett had given him back in Reading as the signal.
“Right this way,” the young woman said.
They moved to a door in the rear of the shop. She opened it for him and smiled. Blaine accepted the invitation and entered. There, seated behind a single desk in the cramped quarters, was an old crone, her gray hair tied up in a bun and her stooped frame draped in a baggy black dress.
“Close the door!” she ordered. After McCracken had done so, she said, “Sit! Now!”
There was only one chair available, that being right in front of the desk she was squeezed behind. All light in the room came through a single uncovered window, and it was more than enough for Blaine to size up the crone. He noticed that only one eye was regarding him. The other was shut and almost encased by layers of sun-wrinkled flesh. Her hands were not visible, and Blaine wondered if they might be holding a weapon on him even now.
“You know why you here?” the hag wanted to know after he was seated.
“Not really.”
“You know!” she raged. “You had the bill!”
“Oh, I know what I’m doing here all right. But I’m not clear on why I’m not talking to Evira herself.”
“Evira wants it this way.”
“Do you know where they’re holding my son?”
“I not speak of—”
“But Evira does, doesn’t she?”
“I know only what she tells me, what she wants me to know. I here to explain as best I can. I know what Fett told you.”
“Then we both know he told me nothing.”
“He told you what he knew. Evira don’t trust him. Evira trust no one but you. You only man who can stop weapon from being used.”
“What weapon?”
“What you know of Yosef Rasin?” she asked him instead of answering.
“Fanatic from the Meir Kahane school, only a hundred times more fanatical. Hates all Arabs and encourages turmoil in the occupied zones. On one occasion he publicly demanded forced birth control for all Arabs living in Israel. I think castration was the word he used. Even so, his fanaticism has found a following. With half the government willing to concede a Palestinian state on the West Bank, there are plenty in this country who are starting to take his side because they’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“What is ‘his side’?”
“That Israel—and the world—would be better off if no Arab was left alive.”
The hag looked at him with her one good eye. “Fett told you of weapon that can wipe out the whole Arab world?”
“Yes.”
“Rasin has it.”
And out of the madness of the past sixteen hours, Blaine saw sense starting to form. No wonder the Arabs were desperate. If they even suspected Rasin possessed such a weapon, they’d pull out all the stops.
“Wait a minute,” Blaine said, following his own thoughts. “Why don’t you just kill him? You wouldn’t need me for that.”
A sudden breeze flapped the curtain and blew through the half-open window. Straying strands of the crone’s gray hair blew across her face. “Can’t. Rasin gone. Disappeared underground with his weapon. Trail there but need you to follow it.”
“Why can’t Evira follow it herself?”
“I not know.”
“I think you do. And I think we’re gonna sit here until you tell me.”
“Your son be no closer to safety as long as we do.”
Blaine’s anger flared. The deep scar that ran down his forehead through his left eyebrow turned milk white against the red flush of his face. His beard bristled. He leaned menacingly across the table.
“You know something, old woman? I believe that you don’t know a thing about the boy. But I know Evira does since she set this whole thing up. So here’s how we’re going to play it: you contact her and set up a meeting between us or the deal’s off. I won’t lift a finger for you and your people, and I don’t think Evira would be pleased with that after all she went through to recruit me.”
“No,” the hag acknowledged, “Evira wouldn’t.”
Blaine watched her as her left hand probed to the dead tissue around her left eye. The skin peeled back in her hand and took a hefty measure of the wrinkles on her cheek with it. The left hand continued to peel and tear while the right stripped off the gray wig to reveal a bun of dark black hair. She stared across the desk at Blaine with both eyes now, as the age of her face lay in strips on the table before them.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. McCracken,” said Evira.
“Come in, Colonel Ben-Neser!”
From his position in a shabby apartment, overlooking the market from above a furniture store, Yuri Ben-Neser lifted the walkie-talkie to his lips. “Have you got her, Ari?”
“Yes,” Ari told him. “Far edge of the market on the corner. Leather handbags hanging outside the entrance.”
Ben-Neser moved to the window. “I can see it! I can see it!” he said thankfully, propping the walkie-talkie upon his shoulder so he could use his single arm to mop his brow. He’d lost the other in the Yom Kippur War of ’73.
Ben-Neser had spent the last two years searching for the elusive Evira. He had heard all the stories, all the legends. Some said she had killed every agent who got even remotely close. Others claimed she had not once taken up arms within the state of Israel, that she was in fact an Israeli citizen. Another legend claimed she directed each and every terrorist attack that took place wi
thin the country. Ben-Neser preferred to accept the most secure intelligence on her, which had it that she was committed to organizing Israel’s Arabs into a force that could someday take over the country from the inside. Even this conservative analysis stated that she had agents placed in every sphere of Israeli life, including the cabinet itself. For this reason, cabinet meetings of late had been held in absolute secrecy. Ben-Neser himself favored neither the views of Kahane, nor the far more radical position of Rasin. But the notion of a legion of Arabs and those loyal to them spying on the state from within was terrifying. It certainly justified for him the risk he was taking by conducting this unauthorized mission.
“She’s meeting with someone, sir,” Ari was saying.
Ben-Neser felt the phantom pain of his missing arm as he always did when he was nervous. If anything went wrong, the ramification would be catastrophic. He had to bring this off without a hitch.
“Recognize him?” he asked Ari.
“Big. Rugged with a beard. Looks American.”
American? Ben-Neser wondered to himself. The last thing he needed here was just that sort of complication.
“Do we move in?” Ari asked.
“No,” Ben-Neser said from his position by the window of the apartment, choking down the urge to rub the arm that was no longer there. “Where are you?”
“Shop featuring plumbing fixtures diagonally across the street from Evira.”
“Hold your position. I’m coming down.”
McCracken continued to gaze across the table at the woman whose age had shrunk by upwards of forty years. She returned his gawking stare with an admiring one of her own while she continued to pick at the stray patches of theatrical makeup stuck on her flesh.
“I’m sorry this was necessary,” she said.
“And just what are you referring to, the disguise or the taking of my son?”
“Both, I guess. The boy’s fine. Better than fine. He’s safe.”
“Safe from whom?”
“My enemies are now your enemies.”
“Arab?”