Ein Kerem, Jerusalem,
One day after Assassinations
Magal and Shiri were up at their usual time the day after the killing.
They had dumped the VW and had taken a Toyota, which had been parked in a public lot in the city center. From there, they had driven to Ein Kerem, a neighborhood in the southwest of Jerusalem. It was away from the main city but received tourist traffic on account of its Christian heritage.
Shiri had rented a stone house a month ago, at the end of a cobbled street. They were university researchers, writing a book on Jerusalem. That was their cover.
The house was utilitarian but had everything they needed. They watched the news on TV as they ate their spartan breakfast. The Skoda had been found by the police. No prints on it, no leads.
The host read out Cantor and Baruti’s statements and then cut to scenes in Gaza and the West Bank, where angry mobs were rioting and burning effigies of Avichai Levin.
Mossad was trending on social media, as were the names of the dead negotiators.
‘You checked your email?’ Magal asked Shiri.
‘Yes. The ramsad acted fast.’
‘He had to. There’s tremendous pressure on him.’
‘Jarrett Epstein. I’ve never heard of him. No description. We don’t know what he looks like.’
‘We could ask the ramsad.’
‘And put ourselves on the radar? No. He may not be kidon. The ramsad said he was an experienced investigator with field experience. That could mean anything. He could be from Shabak or the police.’
‘We are prepared for this,’ Magal replied, unconcerned.
‘Yes, but we were expecting a police investigation … Shabak. We didn’t expect Levin to appoint someone. An inside man will know how we work. We need to find where he is and take him out.’
‘Is that necessary?’
‘We need time for the second phase. He cannot interfere with our plans.’
Magal went to the kitchen sink, rinsed his glass and placed it on a plastic tray. He wiped his hands on a kitchen towel and went to his room. He returned with the MAR and disassembled it with practiced ease. He set about cleaning it. ‘Why don’t we meet him? He will want to interview all of us, won’t he?’
‘Let him contact us.’
‘No, let us take the initiative. Offer to meet him. Then we’ll decide how and when to take him out.’
‘It could be a trap—their telling us he’s the investigator.’
‘Yes, which is why I’m suggesting we meet him first.’
Downtown Jerusalem, That Day
Zeb woke up to the noise of Mahane Yehuda Market as vendors put up their stalls, vans drove up, and produce and products were unloaded.
He had rented a room in a small hotel almost next to the market—which sold everything from vegetables to textiles—the previous night. He had collapsed on the bed as soon as he arrived and woke up when the market came to life.
He yawned and padded to the window, which looked out into the city. Smoke rose lazily in the air from rooftops. Sounds of traffic, honking and the squeal of tires. He was on the fourth floor and could see masses of people in the winding streets below. Office-goers and tourists ambling by.
To the southeast was the Old City, home to the Dome of the Rock, whose gold cupola featured in many travelers’ photographs. The Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher were also located in that vicinity.
Three of the oldest religions came together in Jerusalem. It was a holy land for billions of people the world over.
Now, two killers are threatening its very existence.
Zeb worked out for forty-five minutes in his room, showered, and then hit his screen. He hit a block when he plugged in the thumb drive. It needed a password. He checked his email. No password sent to him by Levin. No text message either. He got the hint.
He called the ramsad, who sounded as though he had been awake all night. Levin recited the password to him, and the drive responded by revealing a set of files. He clicked on one. It was encrypted. He checked the others; they were the same.
‘Check your phone,’ the director told him. ‘You should know, all kidon are here. All passed their polygraph tests.’
Zeb nodded unconsciously as he checked for the link. Passing such a test wasn’t that difficult for a highly trained operative. He and everyone else at the Agency could sail through them.
He hung up, copied the link that held the keys to the encryption, and got access to the files.
There were twenty-eight kidon listed, detailed profiles for each one of them. Addresses—all of them in Jerusalem, a condition Levin insisted on—relationship data, physical and psych evals. Everything that he would expect from one of the best intelligence agencies in the world.
One particular detail surprised him.
All of them go by their first names, even though the files have their full nomenclature. He thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
Makes sense. Makes them more anonymous when they are on missions.
Many of the kidon had expressed preferences for working with other members. Zeb glanced through the teams in operation. It looked like Levin had accommodated such requests. Most of those khuliyot have been unchanged for a long time.
Not every team was of the same size, and not every kidon was currently in one.
Some khuliyot were four-person operations, some two, and there were several lone-ranger missions in play.
Zeb raised his eyebrows when he found where they had been deployed. Two teams were in the U.S. and would have landed late the previous night. Both on separate missions, one tagging a Russian arms dealer, another gathering intel on a Qatari businessman. No wetwork involved.
As he scrolled down the list he found that no khuliyot was tasked with assassination in their current missions. That wasn’t surprising. Popular culture overstated the number of kills any counter-intelligence agency carried out.
He looked up Riva and Adir’s profiles, both of them from Sayeret Matkal. Both unmarried, though Adir had a girlfriend. The percentage of married kidon was low. The job took a heavy toll on relationships and family life.
He ruled the two out. They hadn’t left Istanbul … which reminded him. He opened another app and looked up their location. The three green dots were still in Turkey’s capital.
Probably in a safe house, sweating Hussain and Shahi. Looks like Levin didn’t recall them. He knew I was with them.
He had pushed the nuclear scientists to the back of his mind. Clare would pursue the intel-sharing with Levin. She knew he was currently helping the Israeli and would let him get on with it.
The kidon were evenly split gender-wise, an equal number of men and women, with the majority of them coming from the IDF. All the operatives were staying in Jerusalem, and the drive had their addresses.
A ping on his screen. Incoming email from Levin. He opened it. Some kidon had responded to the ramsad’s terse announcement of Jarret Epstein’s appointment. The ramsad had forwarded all those replies to Zeb.
Okay, some operatives had answered, with just that one word. Who is he, a few had asked, to which Levin hadn’t replied. A couple had offered to meet at the earliest. Best to get this out of the way quickly, the team lead of that khuliyot had said.
Standard responses. Nothing surprising there.
Zeb looked up the locations of the kidon on a map of the city, their relative proximity to his hotel. Two female operatives were the closest, sharing an apartment in a nearby neighborhood.
Zeb decided to check them out first. The ramsad had said the killer was male, but gait analysis wasn’t definitive. In any case, the gender of the accomplice was unknown.
He made a secure copy of the thumb drive, made a hole in the wooden window jamb and stuffed it inside. He covered the opening with putty that looked like wood.
He filled his backpack with what he thought he would need. Spare mags for his Glock, listening devices, rappelling gear, balaclava masks, wigs, prosthetic noses, and, almost as an afterthought, a building maintenance worker’s uniform.
The rucksack bulged when he had finished, but the weight wasn’t significant.
He donned a pair of clear glasses, ruffled his hair, pulled on his baseball cap and set out.
He had armor beneath his tee, trainers on his feet and comfortable jeans. He wasn’t looking for confrontation with the kidon.
But if there was one, he was ready.