Recon

by David McCaleb

  “Shut up!” Lori snapped. “My rules. I’ll call you on this same number when I’m done.” She punched End, closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and held it. Blood throbbed in her ears. A cricket chirped near her window. A police siren wavered a few blocks away. This had to be the same woman from the message blasts through the fintel back door. What a controlling bitch. Who could live with someone like that?

  * * * *

  Lori pulled back her hair and pressed a flesh-colored bone mic into her ear canal. The device, smaller than a hearing aid, was invisible to casual observation. The Uber driver slowed his Audi at a stoplight and glanced both directions; then the engine raced as they sped through the intersection. It seemed to be a sport model of some variety, seats tighter than airline coach economy class. Why’d someone that owned an Audi need to drive for a ride-sharing service? Probably couldn’t afford the payments otherwise. Turns out Baladi Supermarket was in the West Bank. They’d been through two military checkpoints en route. The guards at both seemed to be set at ease upon recognizing her driver. They’d turned off Route 60 a minute ago. Sweat glistened upon his cheek beneath tight black curly locks as headlights flashed through the windshield.

  The man glanced into the rearview and turned a palm open. “Why market? And why this one? Too late for woman. Return tomorrow instead?”

  The Baladi Supermarket was open twenty-four hours. It was almost 1:30 a.m. now. “I just need to pick up a few items before morning. We’re going on a tour.” Passing an empty parking garage surrounded by chain-link fence and rusted sheet metal, the driver’s concern appeared warranted. The streets were becoming darker as they drove farther from the main road, and trash filled several corners. But this market was supposed to be a major store and was situated in a section of the city that attracted a younger crowd. It’d still be busy, even at this time of night.

  The vehicle smashed through a pothole, and the driver smacked the wheel. In Hebrew he shouted, “Son of a whore! Fix the roads.”

  Lori had called Stacy after the control-freak lady had woken her. “Don’t change the plan!” Stacy had said. “You dictate the drop location and time, not the other way around.”

  Correct…under most circumstances. But Control Freak already knew who Lori was. She’d already tried to kill her. But now Lori had the threat of the dead man’s switch on the audit report keeping her pursuers in check. They wouldn’t attempt that again.

  This exchange was Lori’s only option. If unsuccessful, she’d have to drop off the grid completely and subject the kids to another move, this time further away, breaking all ties with family. She couldn’t do that to them. They’d just settled into a new home. They’d leased a horse at a nearby stable for Penny. The boys loved their teachers. Other than a rogue Mossad agent trying to kill her, life was good.

  She glanced at her phone screen and verified the bone mic had synced. Her thumb hovered over the local number for Stacy. She’d be fuming, and Lori didn’t need that this early in the morning. She’d fill her in afterward, blame it on technical difficulties. The car stopped beside a sidewalk half-covered in sand next to an excavation. A tracked yellow backhoe hulked like a tank near the pit. Across the street on a corner lot was a three-story tan cement block building, light spilling from large street-level windows, the rest dimly lit. The top two floors looked to be apartments. At least a dozen shoppers pushed carts and milled about behind the lower panes. Scarves covered the hair and neck of several women, like Muslim hijabs. Black or white kippahs crowned the heads of the men.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes. Wait here till I come back and you’ll receive a return fare as well.” She dropped a two-hundred-shekel note onto the front seat, opened the door, and stepped across the road. Her foot splashed water onto the cuff of her slacks. Across the store threshold, warm humidity heavy with cardamom and saffron brushed her cheeks. Black curls stretched below the pink headcloth of a young lady who stood behind a checkout register plastered with multicolored stickers, as if the decals were trying to conceal hidden damage. The attendant’s skin glowed, and she smiled at a lanky teenage boy, the young man’s eyes fixed on the floor. She sighed as she pounded buttons and stuffed celery into a plastic bag.

  A large supermarket, at least thirty aisles. Yet they were narrow, with barely enough room for two carts to pass. This place must’ve been an anthill during daylight hours. Drums, guitar, and a violin sang in rhythm as a vocalist called out Hebrew pop lyrics—too distorted to understand. Stamped knives with plastic handles hung from the capital of a short Greek column of faux marble, like acanthus leaves. A young man, square jawed with straight blond hair, restocked shelves with yellow-and-red boxes of Telma cornflakes, a photo of a basketball player about to shoot printed across their front. Israel was one of the most culturally diverse nations in the world. The employee was most likely a Russian Jew.

  Or a contract assassin.

  At the far end of the store, fruit carts lined the wall, an indoor market. Oranges, grapefruit, persimmons, and pomegranates heaped in piles beneath a false ceiling of palm fronds. This side of the building stood silent, no people. Frozen meals and wine were most likely the staples of patrons this time of night. Across from a display of avocados, neat rows of canned soup were stacked three high, flush with the front of the shelves. Perfect. Already restocked.

  She pulled the white envelope containing the falsified audit report from her purse and slipped it behind a row of Osem canned tomatoes. The package could lie unseen for days back there. She withdrew her hand, turned, and jerked to a halt.

  A man stood in the middle of the aisle. Wide shoulders, gray hair neatly trimmed short, tanned skin, thick neck, but with a belly that stretched a green polo shirt over blue Levis. Jackson’s and Nick’s steel-blue eyes stared back at her. Both her boys had inherited several of their grandfather’s features.

  “Dad?”

  Her father’s mouth opened; then he seemed to compose himself. He pointed to her head. “What’d you do to your hair? You’ve been blond your entire life.”

  Stacy had been investigating Lori’s father for illegal campaign fund-raising as a pet project for years. She’d tried to keep it a secret, but Lori knew everything that went on in that office. Her dad, a Virginia state senator, had taken flak in the press for illegal fund-raising, but it only increased his poll rankings. Lori had ignored Stacy’s obsession with him. Several women wanted to see her father in jail. Some days, she was one. She’d diagnosed the man with narcissistic personality disorder two decades ago. He treated her mom like carpet and been caught in two affairs. God bless that woman for sticking with him as long as she had.

  “What are you doing here?” She clenched her jaw. It was all she could think to ask.

  “You know better. Never let the other side dictate circumstances of an exchange.”

  Why was her estranged father in a supermarket in Jerusalem? How’d he know she was working a drop? He’d worked for the CIA fifteen years ago before running for office. Was he still in their employ? Lights fluttered above as a bird flew straight down the center of the aisle. Her father wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t allowed in this part of her life. “But—”

  He stepped toward her. “I’ll explain later.” He grabbed her wrist. “You need to get out of here.”

  She twisted her arm free. “What the hell are you doing? You have any idea what you’re putting at risk?”

  Two pops like an air stapler sounded near the end of the aisle. Palm fronds shuddered, and warm blood splashed Lori’s neck. Her father tipped toward her like a propped broom ready to fall. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a hug and pulled him to the floor between fruit carts, glancing at a brunette behind him at the end of the corridor in knit charcoal newsboy cap and Glock 17 with silencer.

  Blood spilled onto the floor from her father’s back and biceps. He lifted a hand toward her face.

  Heels clicked on the ti
le floor, marching toward their position. Shit. Where to run? What about her dad? She had no weapon. Gripping a grapefruit, she hurled it toward the woman. Not even close. Two more pops and her earlobe stung as an apple exploded next to it. She ducked.

  Her father labored to draw in a breath.

  She wasn’t going down without a fight. As Lori peered over, an avocado exploded near her cheek. She lifted the edge of the cart to tip it toward her, but it just rolled. The assassin stepped around it and aimed her pistol at her father’s chest. The woman who’d called tonight? The one on the other end of the fintel back door? The rogue Mossad agent? Almond eyes suggested Asian descent. Her hair fell straight and raven black against her neck.

  “Kill him and I’ll leak the audit trail. You’ll be hunted by your own people.”

  The woman glanced in both directions. The aisle was still empty.

  Should Lori scream? Not a good tactic when threatened with a pistol.

  The woman pursed purple lips, and a pop sounded from the muzzle. A hot puff of air blew past Lori’s face, and her father shuddered as the third projectile sank in.

  The assassin trained the muzzle at Lori’s chest. A short, shiny metal rod flew and cracked off of the assailant’s head, clattering to the floor beneath a shelf. The woman winced. She stepped back and aimed her weapon down the aisle. Another flash of metal, but this one stuck into her gut. A brown shank protruded from her stomach. She clenched fingers around it, and three more pops sounded from the Glock. She strode in the direction from which the shiny metal was flying. This was Lori’s chance to escape. Maybe slip out a back door. But…her father.

  Another flash, but it bounced off the killer’s shoulder. The object clattered to the floor. A steak knife with a cheap plastic handle. Two more pops and the woman grunted. A man was hunched behind a wagon of persimmons, tossing knives like a circus act. More pops and her slide locked back. He tucked a shoulder and rolled toward her, springing to his feet and slinging a blade so hard it stuck out of the back of her neck. A severed artery pumped a stream of crimson across cans of stewed tomatoes. Her eyes rolled back, she bent at the waist, then fell straight forward. Smacking the floor, her head rang a hollow note like a ripe melon.

  Lori pressed a palm over her father’s chest where a minute ago the same lady had punched a bullet hole. Don’t die on me, you sonofabitch. Subsonic ammo was low velocity, so the projectile might not have penetrated deeply. Who was the knife thrower? “Call an ambulance,” she whispered in Hebrew, though she’d tried to shout it.

  A second later a short man was on his knees next to her. He spoke in English. “That your dad?”

  The voice was familiar, but… “Tony?” His beard was gone. Raspberry abrasions on his cheeks, like he’d done it with one of the steak knives. His hair was black and shiny.

  He slipped to the other side of her father. “Hold the pressure. Let’s get him on his side. Need to see the wounds in his back.”

  Moses winced and grabbed Red’s neck. His speech was labored. “Kill...that—”

  “Stay quiet. Don’t move. She’s bleeding out now. Don’t need you doing the same.”

  “No!” he screeched. “Paili Baum sent the assasin. I’m going to kill her.” He turned his gaze to Lori. His voice a whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m a lousy father. But, no matter what your boss says, I never tried to hurt you. Everything I’ve done was to protect you.”

  Lori looked down on him, as if from the ceiling, up in the palm fronds. They needed to run, in case others were close. But she couldn’t move her father. Blood pulsed beneath her palm. His heart was racing. “Shut up. Tell me later.”

  Red pressed his shoulder blade. “He’s bleeding bad. Punctured a lung. Going to probe it, see if I can stem the flow.”

  Her father arched his back as Red plunged a finger into it. His chest heaved. “I’ll take care of Paili. Get out, before—”

  “Shut up, Dad. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Yes, you are.” He glanced past his feet to the body of the assassin on the floor. “She’s not Mossad.”

  Whatever. “I don’t care who she is. Tony, you’re hurting him.”

  “She’s an Abergil.” He coughed, spouting a mist of blood. “She got an artery. I can feel my lungs filling.”

  Palm frond shadows waved on his cheek. The skin of his neck sank to a pale green.

  “Abergil is Jewish mafia,” he said, glancing behind her. “They don’t perform a hit alone.”

  Chapter 31

  Losing a Tail

  Red’s finger probed inside Moses’ back. The hole went through a rib, and shards of bone cut his skin as he pressed his pinky deeper. He grabbed a steak knife and cut away the senator’s polo shirt in a long slice. The squelching music coming through ceiling speakers sounded like deaf cats mating. Or a Russian trying to yodel.

  Lori pressed a thumb against the hole in her father’s sternum. She spoke in a hush. “What’re you doing?”

  “Bullet channel is through a rib. I can’t get my finger in to pinch off the bleeding.” He placed the blade into the hole.

  Lori grabbed his wrist. “You can’t cut him.”

  There wasn’t much hope of the man living at that point, but Red had to try. “Give him something to bite on. I’ve got to slice a passage around the bone so I can get my finger inside.” Subsonic round, so the bullet might not have gone much deeper. But no way to know. He’d seen silenced 9mm bullets pass clear through a thigh. And who knew what damage the bullet in his chest had done.

  Lori grabbed a thin wooden wheel spoke from the cart next to her and yanked it loose with a crack. She bent over her father. “Dad, hold...bite down on this…Dad.” Her voice shifted to a whimper, like the whine of a puppy. She slapped the man’s cheeks. “Tony, he’s not responding.” Her short black hair parted around the pale skin on her nape as she leaned. Panic swelled in her eyes.

  Red pressed fingers into the warm rolls of her father’s neck, against his windpipe. Cardiac arrest. He rolled Moses onto his back and began chest compressions. A sadistic pararescue medic had once demonstrated on a mannequin how the seventies tune “Stayin’ Alive” set the perfect rhythm for CPR. Now, the Bee Gees sang in his mind as he counted compressions. What an awful song.

  If the senator’s heart started again, they’d need an ambulance. Amazing no patrons had ventured down this far end of the store, but there weren’t many this time of night and it had only been a couple of minutes. Time only seemed to stand still when bullets flew. The shots had been silenced, the struggle brief, and the yodel-mating had muted any other escaping noises.

  “I’ll keep doing CPR. Get someone to call for an ambulance. Keep an eye. If these guys don’t work alone, backup won’t be far.”

  Lori stood and lifted her hand from her father’s chest. The next compression squirted a jet of blood a few inches into the air. She dropped back down and covered the fountain. She placed fingers against his neck and her ear to his mouth. Her eyes were moist. Her lips quivered, but she was still holding herself together.

  A few more compressions and Red slipped a palm beneath Moses’ neck, straightening his windpipe.

  Lori covered her father’s mouth with her palm. “It’s no use. He’s gone.” A single tear streaked her nose.

  Red shoved her hand out of the way, pinched the senator’s nostrils, and blew into his lungs. The hole in his back gurgled. “Damn it!” He slammed his fist onto the senator’s chest. “I’m sorry, dear.”

  Lori stood. “We need to get out of here.”

  Red searched the ceiling. No CCTVs. He jumped up, grabbed the senator’s hand, stretched his arm, and scraped the fingers across the assassin’s cheek, gouging three streaks. Enough to get the dead woman’s skin under his fingernails. He wrapped the same hand around the hilt of the knives protruding from her gut and neck. He grabbed a clump of her hair and yanked it out, then shoved it between the d
ead man’s fingers. Lori seemed to catch the idea, and snatched up the knives that had bounced, wiped them across her shirt, and pressed them against her father’s finger pads.

  Attagirl.

  She reached behind canned tomatoes and pulled out an envelope. Must have been the drop. He gazed at the pistol in the woman’s hand. The rectangular outline of an extra magazine protruded from her pants pocket. But he couldn’t take the weapon without upsetting the stage.

  A squeak from a cart’s wheel approached from the front. They turned and sprinted the opposite direction, careful to remain silent. Red slipped around the end of the aisle, picked up two rolls of paper towels, and studied them as if comparing prices. Only a hunched man in black pants and white yarmulke shuffled along twenty meters away. Red ripped open a roll and wiped the blood from his hands, stuffing the dirty towels into his pocket and passing clean ones to Lori. “Anyone notices our sleeves are stained, tell them we grabbed a leaky ketchup bottle.” He peeked around the corner of the fruit aisle as a young blond man pushed a cart of boxes into the center. He walked faster than an employee would. He stopped when he glimpsed the bodies and pulled something from one of the boxes. The lights were dim, obscured by palm leaves, but the squared silhouette of a Glock 17 was unmistakable. The same weapon as the assassin.

  He’d have to kill this guy as well.

  Lori grabbed his arm and ran toward the back of the store. “Follow me.”

  She must have an exfil. A few rows down, she turned and started toward the cashiers. But they should be moving away from people. She held up her hands and spouted something in another language. Must have been Hebrew, because a young woman in a pink headscarf reached below a rainbow-colored cash register and lifted out an IMI Galil assault rifle. Looked like a Grateful Dead fan going vigilante. She thumbed the selector switch one click rearward—full auto. Nice. An off-duty soldier.

  Two couples ducked and sprinted toward the front door. A few others squatted low behind checkout racks. No screaming. These people knew what it was to live under the constant threat of a terrorist attack. The woman aimed the weapon toward the fruit aisle. If Red snatched it from her, he could take the man out himself.