Jerusalem
One day after Assassinations
Carmel and Dalia. Early thirties. Returned from Tunisia, where they were stalking a military commander suspected of ties with Hezbollah. Zeb recalled the contents of their files as he walked down the stairs and stepped out into bright sunlight.
He squinted his eyes in the light, brought out a map and studied it in the shade of an awning. Checked out the surroundings of the market covertly.
No one looked away quickly or stopped abruptly. His inner radar stayed quiet. He stuffed the map into his pocket and walked purposefully away from the market toward Rehavia, where the two kidon were.
Not in a romantic relationship with each other. No boyfriends. Renting the apartment jointly to share costs. Good friends. Both from the IDF, both had several kills to their names.
‘Which way to Rehavia?’ he asked two suited men who were chatting at the end of the market.
One of them pointed toward the south and gave him directions.
‘Follow Mahane Yehuda Street, turn right into Agripas Street …’ Zeb tuned him out after a while and thanked him when he had finished.
He hurried toward the apartment building, dodging and weaving through travelers and locals. He knew where he was. To his right was the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament. To his left, a mix of government offices, residential and religious buildings, and offices.
His earpiece buzzed. An incoming call. He glanced at his phone.
Meghan. He took the call.
‘You’re up late.’
‘Yeah, couldn’t sleep.’ Her voice was warm, cheerful. That was characteristic of the sisters. The world could be coming to an end, but they always managed to see the bright side of it. ‘Beth was grumbling that things were too quiet. She was wondering if you’d started a war, yet.’
‘Nope. Where’s she?’
‘I sent her away. She was distracting me.’ She turned serious. ‘Werner’s looking into the profiles you sent.’
Zeb had emailed details of the kidon to the twins before he left the hotel room. Had asked them to see if there was anything off that they could find.
‘And?’
‘Nothing,’ she said in disgust. ‘We checked their phones. Nothing unusual there. They were in the countries they were supposed to be. But then, you expected that, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah. They are kidon. Those phones are their official ones, issued by Mossad. If any of the operatives are the killers, they’ll be smart. They would know their devices would be tracked. They would work around that. I’ll have to find another way.’
‘You’re going up against them?’ she sucked her breath sharply. ‘We thought you were just analyzing data for Levin.’
He blinked and realized he hadn’t briefed any of them on the details of his assignment. Broke it down for her swiftly, cut her off when she protested.
‘I don’t intend to take them on at all. Heck, the killers might not even be kidon. My job is to check them out, go back to Levin with my findings. That’s all.’
He stifled a grin when she snapped, ‘You should write fiction. You make it sound easy. You know it never is. You have a plan?’
‘Yeah. Get hold of their phones, their personal ones, that Levin doesn’t know of. See where those devices have traveled. Get their laptops and any screens they have. Analyze the data. I might meet them as well. See what they say. I’ll play it by ear.’
‘You’re sure they’ll have such cell phones?’
‘Yeah. Every operative has one.’
‘We don’t.’
‘That’s because we’re a very different agency. I don’t think there is any other that’s structured like us—each of us with only one number that Werner tracks.’
‘They’ll give you their phones just like that? How would you know it isn’t a burner or a fake? These are Mossad kidon, for Chrissakes.’
‘I might have to break into their apartments. If necessary, plant a bug.’
‘And their screens?’
‘Same MO.’
She fell silent. He heard a door opening, a voice calling, ‘Who is it?’
Beth.
Meghan quickly briefed her twin, who latched on to two words that Zeb had let slip.
‘You might have to meet them?’ Beth shrieked.
‘Yes,’ he bit his tongue, cursing himself for revealing too much. ‘I’ll have to try all means. Meeting them, breaking into their apartments … Levin has let them know there’s an investigator.’
‘That’ll bring the killers after you,’ she yelled.
‘No, he hasn’t given out my description. And the killers wouldn’t be that stupid.’
‘You don’t know that. Besides, phone and laptop data can be tampered with.’
‘I thought you two had upgraded Werner. That it can detect if a phone’s data has been altered. If you haven’t—’
‘Of course, we have,’ she said indignantly.
‘He’s deflecting,’ Meghan told her sister.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Beth grumped. ‘We’re coming—’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘You and Meghan will blend in here, but the rest … can you imagine Bear or Bwana trying to look like a local?’
She chuckled reluctantly at the images of the huge men trying to look like Israelis.
‘We’ll keep digging,’ she sighed. ‘We checked cameras at various airports. The countries they were in, Israeli ones … nada. Zilch.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ Zeb said, swerving around a couple. ‘They wouldn’t be that careless. I gotta go,’ he told her when he saw Carmel and Dalia’s building came in sight.
He hung up and stopped at a street-side vendor. Bought an ice-cream and licked it slowly as he removed his map and made a show of looking at it.
The apartment building was made of pale stone and concrete, like many in the city. It had six floors, with the kidon’s apartment on the fifth. Each apartment had a balcony, and the one the operatives occupied overlooked a street crossing.
Good location. They have a good view of anything happening on the street. I’m sure they’ll have escape routes mapped out.
The building’s lobby had a revolving glass door, mirrored, and while he was watching, it rotated.
Carmel and Dalia came through.