Ehrlich’s team approached the back of the building. Behind them was a long off-ramp from the Charles Helou Highway that exited up by the Statue of the Immigrant and skirted along south of the port area until it cut left under the major thoroughfare. Just before that bend in the road, Ehrlich’s team huddled. One of the men raised a suppressed rifle and shot out the four lights that illuminated a stairway.
Now that it was dark, Nicole had a hard time spotting the men as they ascended the stairs. Because any action the team took would be out in the open, there was no need to use the infrared mode on the drone. Still, if Nicole had been controlling the UAV, she would have popped it into IR every few minutes, just to make sure no one was sneaking up through any back alleys or secret passages surrounding the building. Maybe she was a little paranoid, but you can never be too careful.
But Nicole wasn’t controlling the UAV, nor was anyone in CARL. They were just along for the ride, watching a video-only feed as Ehrlich’s analysts and operators carried out the plan that her team had created and perfected. She knew that it was aggravating to Nir to have lost this operation. But she wasn’t disappointed. Too many Russians had crossed her path in the last year. She was happy to keep herself and those she cared about away from any of Putin’s minions for a while.
She thumbed in a text:
They’re on the roof.
Dots appeared on her screen, then resolved with:
time to see if lahavs contraption works
Nir was in a van with his team on his way back to CARL. She guessed he was still about an hour and a half out. The journey to the tunnel had taken longer than they had planned. The car they had stolen in Dmit had broken down after only 20 minutes. A two-hour hike later, they had come across a small parking lot of cars at some kind of cedar biosphere or something. Nir had been winded enough that Nicole couldn’t fully understand his words. From the side talk between the team members, she picked up that he likely had a concussion and that his words weren’t always making sense. Yaron had picked up the de facto lead of the operation.
Once they had the second car, they drove a couple hours south until they saw a roadblock. They abandoned the car and went on foot for another few hours. It was well past dark when they had arrived near the tunnel entrance, only to find that a shepherd had decided to let his goats bed down there for the night. After waiting for an hour, they became impatient. They tried quietly shooing the goats. They threw small rocks at them. It was only when Gil called out some surprisingly accurate coyote yips that the shepherd woke up and decided that this might not be the safest place for his flock. Once he was gone, the team passed through. On the Israeli side of the tunnel, they found a van waiting for them to bring them back to the Mossad headquarters.
Back in Beirut, Ehrlich’s shooters were crawling to the front of the roof. During planning, the decision had been made to not kill the guards, if at all possible. Israelis killing Russians was a surefire way to incite an international incident, even if those guards were protecting weapons that would eventually be used to kill Israelis. The Mossad had been experimenting with a new kind of projectile that contained a very potent chemical agent and three dozen micro-darts. The theory was that the micro-darts would burst when they struck the target. They would puncture a person’s skin, allowing the chemical to flow in subdermally. They worked on animals and the very few humans who had volunteered to take part in the testing. But they had never been used at this distance.
The Kidon men took their positions and aimed their weapons. Moments later, the guards at the back of the Russian building quickly lifted their hands, one to his neck and the other to his left cheek. They swayed for a moment, then they went down.
Rear guards are down.
Nir tagged the text with a thumbs-up emoji.
As those operators were taking out the guards, the rest of the team had been constructing the pole that Lahav had created, duplicate to the one Nir’s team had carried in. Once the last piece was locked into place, it was lifted, pointing up into the sky. Members of the team began to run to opposing ends of the roof, each dragging a bundle made up of ten thin, reinforced wires. When they reached the edges of the roof, they set the hooks, one after another.
Back at the pole, the wires were attached to four spools with hand cranks. As a unit, they began turning the handles while one man held a level against the pole. Sometimes they’d have to turn one faster, other times, another. But once they were done, they had a solid, vertical post that wasn’t going anywhere.
Now came the big test. One of Ehrlich’s men went to the front of the roof. He took aim with a rifle chambered with a spike attached to a long line wire. He shot, and the spike imbedded itself in the target building’s roof with an audible thud. The guards on the ground jumped and looked around. But when they saw nothing out of the ordinary, they went back to their stations.
Pole is set. E is climbing first.
does it look strong
Lahav did a good job. It doesn’t
look like it’s going anywhere.
Again, Nir dropped a thumbs-up on Nicole’s most recent text.
Nicole watched as Ehrlich threaded the wire into the top of the pole. After tugging on it a few times, he hooked his vest to the lead. Then, with a thumbs-up to his team, he jumped. Over at the conference table, Lahav chanted, “Go! Go! Go!” The man sped from one roof, over another, and onto the Russian warehouse. Once there, he quickly unhooked himself, then gave the thumbs-up for the next guy to go.
Lahav let out a cheer and Liora and Dafna mobbed him, celebrating his victory. The only one who didn’t join was Yariv, who called out “L’chaim,” but remained in his chair.
E is across safely. Rest of team are going.
did he look cool doing it
Yeah, kinda
Sigh
Maybe we can go to Costa Rica and you can
do the zip lines there. You can pretend you’re
carrying a gun. It’ll almost be the same.
youre not helping
Wait…Lahav says you owe him a
Kyojuro Rengoku figma. ????
some weird anime thing. said if got this
to work i had to buy him one. dont even
know what it is. mind looking it up
and ordering it—ill pay you back
Nicole smiled and jotted herself a note. She dropped a thumbs-up on his last emoji and focused again on the screen.
Once the fifth team member crossed to the roof, the group moved to an access door. Not surprisingly, it appeared to be locked. They stood there watching one man work for about 30 seconds before the door popped open and they filed in, rifles in position.
The view on Nicole’s screen switched to body cam. The feed said “Ehrlich” on the bottom, so she supposed it was his. He had one man in front of him, a guy named Andy or Anvi—she couldn’t remember which. They went down the stairs. At the bottom, they peeked around the corner and saw that all was clear. Ehrlich turned and signaled for the rest to follow.