LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Upon arriving at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Lia Ganz was escorted to an empty conference room and ushered to a chair to the immediate right of the head of the table. Following protocol, she had bypassed the main entrance, instead using a secret underground tunnel known only to fellow intelligence operatives. The dangers of leaks and social media had mandated such a process, to avoid prying eyes and prevent inquisitive minds from wondering, in this case, what had brought a former Mossad operative known as the Lioness of Judah to Langley. Even then, the tunnel was used only in the most sensitive and clandestine of cases, which might further explain why Mossad had dispatched her instead of a still active agent with an ongoing relationship to the organization’s American counterpart.
Lia had heard rumors of the tunnel’s existence, but nothing had mentioned its elaborate construction or warned her that the agents who picked her up at Dulles Airport would blindfold her before accessing the tunnel. Other foreign intelligence operatives might have found such precautions to be a bit much, but she’d endured similar ones for a lifetime.
A pair of bulky escorts were waiting for her when the car reached its debarkation point and her blindfold was finally removed.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, Colonel,” her driver said, the fact that he’d addressed her by her rank indicating that he’d been briefed on who she was and where she’d come from.
“I’ve subjected others back home to far more inconvenient practices than this,” she told him. “Perhaps someday I can return the favor.”
The man shared a smile with her. “Perhaps.”
At that point, the man who’d picked her up at Dulles turned her over to a pair of escorts, who took up posts on either side of the single door of the windowless conference room, lit only by recessed fixtures built into the ceiling. They would remain there, Lia knew, until whoever was coming to meet her appeared.
Those are remains recovered from the scene of that failed terrorist attack.
Clearly, there was a connection between the deadly drone attack in Caesarea and the suicide bombing on the Washington Metro, which had claimed only the life of the bomber. Since it had been a search of Dar Ibrahim al-Bis’s secret workshop on the grounds of the Kif Tzuba amusement park that had sparked her visit, Lia knew that’s where the connection must have originated. She’d been ruminating the whole trip on the possibility that the suicide bomber might be part of the same terrorist cell that had struck Caesarea. But Hamas had quickly claimed credit for that strike, and al-Bis was reputed to be that organization’s top bomb maker, with no links to either al-Qaeda or ISIS that Mossad could find. This made no sense to her, since Hamas had never attempted a strike inside the United States.
You are looking, Colonel, at the transmitter and camera that were salvaged from the remains of the drones recovered at the site of the attack in Caesarea.
She was replaying Mossad chief Moshe Baruch’s words in her head when the door opened and an older man with wispy white hair entered. He was dressed casually, a rumpled sports jacket worn over slacks and a shirt without a tie, his appearance more in keeping with the less formal Israeli approach to things, and Lia had the feeling he was the kind of operative who moved among the ranks and operations without ever having his name or identity revealed. Back home, such men were called “lifers.” They might step away from day-to-day operations, but they never really retired. She’d also heard of former New York police detectives called “tin badges” being enlisted at times to run lead on cases they were better equipped to take on than any of those who still carried a badge. The United States and Israel, it seemed, were of one mind in respecting experience and institutional memory, both of which were irreplaceable when it came to fighting an enemy who never retired.
The white-haired man waited for Lia’s two escorts to exit and then closed the door behind them, smiling at her as if they were old friends.
“It’s been a long time, Colonel.”
“We’ve met before?”
He smiled again. “Never formally. Let’s just say we’ve been in the same room on a few occasions, and on the same video conference on others. We were never introduced, and you not recognizing me is understandable in that I tend to stick to the shadows.”
“You too?” Lia posed, matching his smile with her own.
“You shortchange yourself. The Lioness of Judah was never known for keeping a low profile.”
“I haven’t been that person in a long time.”
“And yet here you are.”
Lia nodded. “Here I am.”
“My name is Winters and I’m here to brief you on the circumstances that have brought you halfway across the world.” His expression tightened, soured. “My condolences for the loss of so many to that drone attack.”
“Thank you.”
“I understand you were on the beach at the time.”
Lia nodded. “In the water, which is the only reason why I was spared.”
“Along with your granddaughter.” Winters’s expression tightened even further. “I’ve been at this a long time, since the days of Black September, and I’ve never understood the penchant of terrorist organizations to target children.”
“It goes to the low regard in which they hold human life in general,” Lia told him.
“But it sets their cause back, robs them of the hearts and minds they need to succeed.”
“And yet the ruthlessness helps replenish their coffers. They are nothing without money, Mr. Winters, and their backers feast on the spilling of blood, the younger the better, because of the anguish it breeds.”
The man finally took a seat at the head of the table and laid a manila folder on the wooden surface before him. “It’s not ‘mister.’ Just ‘Winters,’ Colonel. And I assume you know what you’re doing here.”
“I know it involves a connection between the drone attack in Caesarea and the failed bombing on your Washington Metro that occurred one week later.”
“Indeed, it does,” Winters said, opening the manila folder and extracting a photograph, which he eased in front of her. “These objects are familiar to you, yes?”
Lia responded while keeping her eyes locked on a pair of objects pictured. “The camera and transmitter each of the drones contained.”
Winters extracted a second standard-size photograph. “And this?” he posed, sliding it in front of her as well.
Lia regarded the twisted pieces of metal recovered and reassembled as much as possible after being shredded in the blast that had claimed only the bomber’s life. “Remnants of the suicide vest the bomber was wearing, I assume.”
“Nothing more?”
“The remains are too mangled to make much out of.”
Winters smiled tightly, as if Lia had made his unspoken point for him. “Then try this,” he said, handing her a fresh glossy printout. “The computer digitally reassembled the remains. Tell me what you see.”
Lia gave the enhanced photo a long look, then compared it side by side with the transmitter and camera Mossad had recovered from Dar Ibrahim al-Bis’s workshop.
“They’re the same,” she said, of the conclusion that Mossad had reached as well. “It’s why I’m here.”
“Not the only reason,” Winters told her.
“You think the Washington Metro bombing was the start of a wave?”
“I believe, Colonel, it’s the precursor to something much bigger, yes. I think somebody wants to bring this country to its knees.”