On his way back to CARL, Nir stopped by the cafeteria. Along one wall was a series of vending machines for people who either didn’t want to wait in line for real food or who simply wanted a quick hit of sugar or caffeine. Of course, there was one machine that was committed to healthy options, but he figured those offerings remained on their racks until they expired and were replaced with fresh choices no one wanted to buy.
Nir pulled out his credit card and got to work. After a few tries, he developed a system to get three machines working on a rotating basis. He knew people had to be watching as he punched numbers and tapped his card on one pad after another, but he ignored them. Those who knew him would have figured he was just being his usual off-kilter self. Those who knew him only by reputation would have been too nervous to say anything. Once he had 30 or so packages of candy and bags of chips tossed into a pile, he laid his sweat jacket on the ground, filled it with the junk food, and hefted it up.
Turning, he saw that he had in fact drawn a crowd. “Movie night at CARL,” he said with a sheepish smile before walking off. That explanation should satisfy most who heard it. They already thought that those working in CARL were freaks.
Once he reached his team’s headquarters, he held his passcard up to the scanner and walked in. The analysts were hard at work at their stations, while the ops team had a chessboard set up on the conference table. It appeared that Dima was about to get checkmated by Yaron. The other two were giving Dima advice on how he might possibly escape.
“Meeting time,” Nir called out, dumping his vending machine haul onto the table. Four or five candy bars skittered across the table, clearing half the remaining pieces from the chessboard.
Yaron swore, while Dima quickly stood and said, “Darn. Going to have to call that one a draw.” Turning to Nir, he mouthed, “Thanks.”
Nir winked in reply.
When Liora heard the clatter, she jumped from her chair and came bounding over. Seeing the pile, her face lit up and she gave Nir a kiss on the cheek. “You still owe me,” she whispered in his ear.
“I’ll have it to you tomorrow.” As he sat, he snatched up a Twix bar, tore it open, removed one of the two pieces, and took a bite. Soon, the rest of the analysts were at the table, and Nir started the meeting.
“So, it seems me and the ops team are taking a little trip.”
“Sweet, Sint Maarten?” asked Dima.
“Euro Disney?” said Imri.
“It’s Disneyland Paris now, motek,” corrected Liora, looking past Dafna to her fiancé.
“Yes, motek,” mimicked the rest of the ops team, while Imri rolled his eyes.
Nir shook his head. “Your guesses are all so very close. We’re actually taking an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Port of Beirut.”
“Crap, I knew you were going to say that,” grumbled Yaron before fitting half a Snickers bar into his mouth.
Nir caught them up on the details of the meeting, using his imagination to fill in the parts that he missed while he was dozing.
By the time he finished, Gil was waving his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! So, there were more than thirty people in the auditorium listening while we were tasked with a secret mission? Are they going to headline it in the next edition of the Mossad Post too?”
“I know, I know. That bugged me also. But if you had seen the group that was there…it was the head of every department along with their lead assistants or heads of staff or some other big cheese dude or chick. If one of them is compromised, then we probably have a Philby-level problem on our hands,” Nir said, referencing the infamous British MI6 agent who spied for the Russians from the 1940s to the 1960s before defecting to Moscow.
Gil leaned back. “Seems to me the fewer people who know what we’re doing, the better off we are.”
“I hear you, achi. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt. So, who can tell me about the Beirut port, other than that it appears to be somewhat flammable?”
Yariv raised his hand.
“You don’t need to raise your hand, Yariv. You can just talk,” said Nir.
“Okay. Well, I’ve done some digging into the port because of it being connected to Russia. The place is still a mess, even four years after the explosion. There are piles of rubble from old warehouses and burn marks from the blast. The investigation instituted by the government, along with the French, had steam in the beginning. But eventually it petered out.”
“Eet was a beeg blast. Vat more can ve say?” said Dima in a poor French accent.
“Exactly. A group of German companies decided they were going to come in and begin reconstructing the port area in 2021, but the governmental red tape and the Hezbollah graft drove them away. It’s those same two factors that have kept a lot of other countries away too—most of whom simply wanted to help. Instead, any renovation that has taken place has been piecemeal. A building here, a warehouse there—that kind of stuff.”
“And the French were content to let the port sit like that?” asked Nir. “Lebanon has always been an important link for them into the Middle East. Has Hezbollah tainted the country that much?”
“Yes to your last question and no to your first. Hezbollah has tainted the country that much. It’s like the country is mobbed up under layers of graft. And rather than it being like The Godfather, it’s more like Goodfellas but with everyone playing the crazy Joe Pesci character.”
“Perfect reference. But I thought you guys couldn’t watch movies like that,” said Gil.
Yariv put his finger to his lips. “Shhh!”
That was the first moment Nir thought maybe this guy could make it in CARL.