Jerusalem
Three days after Assassinations
Eight days to Announcement
Zeb headed back to his room and changed into another Jarrett Epstein disguise. A lean, deeply tanned, mustache-sporting and shades-wearing man. Just like thousands of Israeli men on the street.
He took one look at the kidon files and decided to approach Yonah, Osip, Danell and Uzziah. The four men had returned from Britain, where they had been surveilling an anti-Jewish hate organization. Danell was in an accident the day before the killings. A collision with a scooter. He has a broken collarbone. The Mossad files had hospital records for him. That eliminates him, but what about the others? He chose Yonah randomly as the next kidon to investigate and looked up where he lived. He’s not far, but I need to change hotels. I’ve been at the current one for too long.
He checked for messages from the sisters. A long one from Meghan with a lot of technical details, summed up in a few lines. Nachman was clear. His Internet calls were conclusive. He was in Berlin when the assassinations went down.
Eliel and Navon were good, too, the sisters confirmed in the same message. I still have to hear from Andropov.
He looked at his messaging app. The twins were greyed out, with a new status message. In transit. Flight distance from New York to Tel Aviv was about eleven hours if one flew commercial. Ten, if one was using private aircraft, which the twins were. Four more hours for transit to and from both airports. Sometime early in the morning, he decided. That’s when he would have more support.
He checked out of his hotel and found another one in Talbiya, which was half an hour away from where Yonah lived. It was suitably anonymous, had a room on the ground floor, had a rear exit. His room had a window to the street and a sturdy door. Everything that I want.
He walked briskly from his new accommodation toward the kidon’s apartment. It was on the first floor on a quiet street. Large windows on side walls, none of them overlooking the main thoroughfare. Zeb looked left, then right.
An amorous couple passed him, whispering in each other’s ears. He let them disappear in the darkness and entered the building. No one in the lobby to stop him. He took the concrete stairs two at a time and reached the first floor.
Four doors on it, four apartments. Yonah’s was to his right.
Direct approach. I’ll just knock, ask him and play it by ear.
Zeb discarded his plan when he went to the door and heard faint voices from within. He’s got company?
He checked the bottom of the door. Yeah, there was a thin sliver of light, indicating a gap between door and floor.
He removed a cable camera from his backpack—a thin, flexible, plastic-sheathed wire that had a miniature camera at one end and a phone jack at the other. He slid the lens underneath the door and plugged the other end into his cell. Images in high definition appeared instantly, the camera drawing its power from the phone. Four men, seated around a table, cards in hand, a bottle and glasses beside them. Yonah, Danell, Osip and Uzziah, all of them under one roof.
Zeb stowed the camera back, slipped his cell into his pocket and inspected the door. Wooden, sturdy. A lock that seemed easy enough to pick. There could be deadbolts inside.
He decided to try his luck and brought out his burglar kit. It had master keys, picks and various levers. He tried several keys and, when none worked, used other tools, working with controlled haste, paying attention to the sounds within and to those on the floor.
The lock gave with a soft click. No change to the laughter from inside. Zeb tried the door with soft hands. It opened a crack.
He frowned. No bolt? No chain? No other security? Either Yonah was supremely confident of himself or this apartment was purely a transient one.
He pushed the door cautiously and, when a burst of conversation broke out, risked a peek. The men were inspecting their cards, none of them paying any attention to the door.
He was halfway inside when Yonah’s head rose. The expression on his face was almost comical when he regarded the stranger in the apartment.
‘Who are you—’ he began.
Osip and Uzziah reacted fast. They rolled off their chairs, one operative diving toward a bag on the floor, the other hurling something at the intruder.
The missile, a dinner plate, shattered behind Zeb, who dived to the floor, rolled to his left, his Glock rising to cover Uzziah. He’s quicker than the others. He’s the threat.
‘STOP!’ he commanded, his weapon covering the kidon.
The Mossad men froze. None of them had produced a gun yet, and they were smart enough to know they could not out-move a bullet. Not without at least one of them getting hurt. Or killed.
‘Who are you?’ Uzziah asked roughly, his eyes hard.
‘Jarrett Epstein. You must have heard of me.’
They had, by the quick exchange of looks between the operatives.
‘You come in like this?’ Uzziah snarled. ‘You couldn’t have requested a meeting?’
‘And miss this reception?’ Zeb rose slowly and holstered his gun when the operatives made no further hostile moves.
He approached the table and occupied an empty chair. Gestured at the kidon to seat themselves.
‘Which one of you killed the Palestinians?’ he asked them.
‘None of us,’ Uzziah reacted angrily. ‘How do we know you are Epstein?’
‘Call Levin,’ Zeb replied. ‘Check me out.’
The operative was reaching into his pocket when Danell stopped him. ‘Who else would it be? No one else knows Epstein’s name. You considered knocking?’ This was directed at Zeb, with a tilt of the eyebrows.
‘What would be the fun in that?’ Zeb retorted, liking the operative immediately. Of the four kidon, he alone sat relaxed, an amused look in his eyes. ‘Your friends are right, though. You should confirm who I am with Levin.’
‘I’m good friends with Carmel and Dalia,’ the operative waved a hand nonchalantly, ‘unlike these three. They gave me a heads-up. That you might come calling. Nachman, too. Though their descriptions,’ his teeth flashed, ‘are quite different from how you look.’
‘You know how it is in our business.’
‘We do,’ the kidon nodded. ‘None of us killed those Palestinians.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
‘I’m speaking for my friends, too. They were with me at the British hospital.’
‘There’s no record of that. Nothing in their files. Or yours.’
‘There wouldn’t be. We wanted to minimize any mention of their presence.’
‘Your word isn’t proof, however.’
‘Check the hospital’s security cameras,’ Danell grinned. ‘We tried to delete the footage, but we couldn’t hack into their system. I am sure if you ask politely, the British will hand over the relevant clips.’
‘Why isn’t this in your reports?’
‘Because the ramsad asked them,’ the kidon nodded at his friends, ‘not to be at the hospital. They disregarded his orders.’
‘I’ll have to tell Levin.’
‘I know. It doesn’t matter now,’ Danell laughed, ‘I think the ramsad has a lot more on his plate than blowing his top at us.’