After President BenTov’s refusal, Aloni had Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, do a kill switch on the area’s cell-phone towers during the ceremony. It bought them time.
There’d be a shitstorm about it later.
Denying cell-phone service to the wealthiest of the Israeli wealthy for two hours is never a good PR strategy. Much better than having both the country’s and the American presidents blown up live on global TV, but still.
The American president arrived at the presidential residence twenty minutes ago.
Nothing’s blown up yet.
But Bloom’s nowhere close to bagging the elephant.
Galia and Tali did an excellent job getting to the contractor and sending the address and files. Otherwise, it would’ve been like looking for a needle in a haystack.
He reaches the house in Talbiya as the sun blazes over Jerusalem, shining on its limestone buildings, coloring the city gold. The house is behind the presidential residence.
It looks empty. It doesn’t show any work’s been done to it. There’s a construction site next to it. It makes more sense to look for the baker’s son there first.
He does.
He searches in his trained, methodical way.
He wastes precious minutes.
He finds the toolshed’s locks shot and broken. The baker’s son was here. He took something. There’s no time to determine what, but Bloom has an idea.
The baker’s son is still bent on completing his mission.
“Lone Indian to Witch Doctor,” he says in his commlink. “I’m at the house. Daughter raided a construction site next door. I believe Daughter’s got more candy and is bent on completing her project. I need back up. stat. I’m going in now.”
“Witch Doctor to Lone Indian: bring Daughter down. Repeat: bring Daughter down.”