Jerusalem
Two days after Assassinations
Nine Days to Announcement
‘Ma’am,’ Zeb protested, wondering if he had heard right. ‘I don’t have the time to play protector—’
‘Save it, Zeb,’ Clare sighed. ‘I argued with President Morgan. Tried to convince Alice. She isn’t budging. You’ll have to figure something out.’
Zeb pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘When’s she arriving?’
‘Your evening. I’ll send you the details.’
He stared blankly when the call ended, unconscious of the smile the waitress bestowed on him, thinking that he was looking at her.
Avichai wants me to find these killers. If they are kidon. At the same time, I’m supposed to bodyguard our ambassador. Does anyone else want me to save the world?
His lips twisted wryly at his feeble attempts to humor himself. He finished his breakfast, deciding to worry later. An operative couldn’t let circumstances get the better of him.
He would be at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv in the evening, to meet Alice Monash. I might be able to convince her. In the meantime, he had kidon to investigate.
Eliel and Navon. The two operatives who had offered to meet him when Levin had sent out the Jarrett Epstein email. Their backstory intrigued Zeb. Both raised by foster parents. Their families had come from a different country. The two men identified as Israelis and, if anything, their origins helped them carry out several missions in their grandparents’ land. Mossad had deployed them several times in that country, and each time the two had carried out successful missions.
They’re two of the best operatives Levin has got. Both proficient with multiple weapons, but Eliel prefers the blade.
Knife work, by its very nature, required a killer to get close to victims. It was messy, brutal, and in Zeb’s experience, many of those who used the weapon liked killing.
Nothing of that sort in Eliel’s file. Which made Zeb eager to meet him and Navon.
A knife-wielding operative who is as normal as operatives go. Not many of those around.
Zeb found the kidon in a café in the Downtown Triangle of the city. It was an area bounded by Jaffa Road on one side, King George Street on another, and Ben Yehuda Street completing the third side. There were offices, shops, and outdoor cafes in the area. It was a neighborhood that catered to the yarmulke-wearing person as well as more secular office-goers.
The two men had responded quickly when he messaged them and had agreed to meet at the venue he had chosen.
Zeb was disguised as an older person. Thickset in the middle due to the padding and armor beneath his sweater, his face jowly thanks to cheek pads, a heavy nose and bushy eyebrows. His Glock was taped to his right shin, a knife sheathed to his left leg.
Eliel and Navon were seated in a corner, facing the entrance, their backs to the wall. A couple of drinks on their table that they sipped occasionally.
He entered the café and observed them as he joined the line at the counter. The two men didn’t talk much. Didn’t make eye contact when they did.
They’ve been a team for a long time. He took his coffee from the server and approached the men.
‘Jarrett Epstein?’ Eliel rose, asked in Hebrew, when he came to their table.
‘Yes.’
He pulled out the empty chair and gestured at the operative to sit. Navon hadn’t moved a muscle, his dark eyes flickering as they ran up and down Zeb.
‘You got any ID?’ he asked, an undercurrent of hostility in his voice.
‘No. What about you?’ I can show them my Mossad card, but I want to push back at them. See how they react.
‘Several.’ Navon brought out several cards, his lips twisting humorlessly. ‘Which one do you prefer?’
‘The one that says who you really are.’
The kidon collected his credentials and stuffed them in his pocket. ‘Neither of us have that. If you know who we are, you’ll know why. How do we know you’re Epstein, though?’
‘Call the ramsad. Ask him.’
Navon took him up on his offer. He dialed the director’s number, his eyes never leaving Zeb. ‘There’s a man who says he’s Epstein,’ he explained when Levin came on line. ‘You never described him. Heavy. Greying hair. Big nose. Wait …’
He snapped a picture with his phone and sent it to the ramsad.
‘Okay,’ he said and hung up.
‘You’re Epstein.’ He stowed away his phone.
‘That’s what I said.’ Zeb signaled the server and asked for a refill. ‘That tattoo on your shoulder—’ he switched his attention to Eliel, ‘why do you still keep it?’
‘You know about it … of course you would! The ramsad must have given you our files. It comes in handy. Especially when we are going to that country.’
‘And in others?’
‘Well, it’s not as if I expose my upper body to everyone. It hasn’t proven to be a problem.’
‘I know how operatives work. Most would erase any marks that could reveal their identity.’
‘I won’t. That tat is who I am.’
‘We’ve never seen you before,’ Navon asked abruptly. ‘Which department are you with?’
‘Which department do you belong to?’
‘Navon, stop!’ Eliel frowned in irritation. ‘He’s doing his job. I am sorry,’ he said, turning to Zeb and spreading his hands in apology. ‘If you’ve read our files, you’ll know we have just returned from Jordan. Our mission was stressful. We haven’t decompressed fully.’
‘And what operation was that?’
‘Tailing Ali Gaber, a colonel in their army.’ Eliel’s lips curled in a thin smile. He knew what Zeb was doing. Getting the operatives to confirm, seeing if their story strayed from what was in their dossiers. ‘We suspect he’s running an espionage ring in Israel. Here,’ he reached inside his vest and brought out a sheaf of photographs.
A man in either business attire or in uniform, striding through the streets of Amman, briefcase in hand. In a few of the images, Eliel and Navon were in the background. Each image had a time stamp on it.
‘How did you get these?’
‘It turns out we aren’t the only ones interested in Gaber. We spotted another tail. We broke into his apartment. He’s an FSB agent. We got those pictures from his camera.’
‘So, you’ve been made?’
‘Made by the FSB. We don’t know if Gaber knows about us. Even if he does, it’s not relevant. We wanted Gaber to know we were shadowing him. His reactions, his behavior, was what interested us.’
Their story matches what’s in their files.
‘Photographs are easy to fake.’
‘Yes, we know. But we have this,’ Eliel turned his cell phone to face Zeb and navigated through its menu. ‘This is my personal phone. Not a burner. You can see where it has been in the last few days.’
Zeb saw. The kidon had been in Amman all along and had returned to Israel on the evening of the assassinations.
Navon shoved his phone wordlessly across the table. Zeb checked it. Same story.
Eliel was smiling thinly when he glanced up. The Israeli handed him a flash drive. ‘Copies of our phone data as well as laptop hard drives. Normally we wouldn’t share that with anyone, but the ramsad says you have security clearance.’
‘We came prepared,’ he continued when Zeb pocketed the device without a word. ‘We know how such investigations work. Call me if you need anything else.’
It looks like they are clear. Beth or Meghan can check that phone data and verify if it has been tampered with. I doubt it, however. They wouldn’t take such a risk.
Still, he was not ready to cross them off his list just yet.
‘Show me your tattoo.’
‘Here?’ Eliel asked, startled.
‘Yes.’
The operative glanced around quickly and pulled aside his vest. The design was small, no larger than a quarter coin. The image was recognizable, too, a revered figure in the country of Eliel’s heritage.
‘Satisfied?’ Navon asked sarcastically when Zeb nodded in thanks.
‘Not quite. Who is this FSB man? Did you identify him?’
‘Peter Raskov. That’s what he calls himself,’ Eliel replied, throwing a sharp look at his partner.
‘How do you know he’s FSB?’
‘We didn’t. Not then. We relayed the info to the ramsad, who got back to us with his identity.’
‘Why is the FSB interested in Gaber?’
‘Don’t know,’ the Israeli shrugged. ‘We didn’t get that far. The ramsad recalled us.’
‘We are done,’ Zeb laid a few notes on the table, enough to cover a tip, and rose. ‘Don’t leave—’
‘We won’t leave the country,’ Navon replied snidely. ‘Don’t worry. The director’s instructions were clear.’
Zeb followed them discreetly but didn’t see anything suspicious. The two men went to a grocery store and then headed home to their apartment in Yemin Moshe, a neighborhood close to the Old City.
He returned to his room and made another call.
It was time to talk to Grigor Andropov.