Jerusalem
Four days after Assassinations
Seven Days to Announcement
Behind the Glock were two pairs of green eyes. One mirthful, the other steady. Beth and Meghan Petersen. One impulsive, the other analytical.
Something deep inside Zeb settled on seeing them. He had always been a loner. He still was. However, the twins, just by their presence and their enthusiasm, had reshaped him to a large extent. He no longer felt isolated, strange, when he was with his friends. With them around he felt … grounded.
He also felt relief. Now that the twins were with him … we can work faster together.
‘How did you find me?’ he stifled a yawn and pushed the weapon away.
‘It wasn’t difficult,’ Beth chortled, holstering her gun. ‘We figured you would be in some place central. Not more than an hour or ninety minutes away from the furthest Mossad operative. Close enough to the embassy, too. We zeroed in on various hotels, shortlisted thirty and approached them.’
‘The people at the desk gave me up, just like that?’ he asked, startled.
‘This,’ Meghan produced a Mossad ID card, ‘carries a lot of weight in Israel. And when Beth fluttered her eyes …’
‘I used a false name. I was in disguise!’ he protested.
‘Well, they gave us a list of rooms that had single occupants, described them in general, and that was our starting point.’
‘How long have you been knocking on hotel doors?’ he asked suspiciously. Did I let slip somehow where I was staying? They could have tracked my phone, but I turned it off. And I am not wearing clothing that has GPS tags.
‘Two hours. We got lucky,’ Meghan admitted, running her fingers through her hair. ‘This was the third hotel we approached, and yours was the second room we picked.’
Zeb shook his head in disgust at himself. He normally would have woken up at the slightest noise, alert at any sign of intrusion.
I must have been exhausted.
Three cups of steaming coffee were on the small table in his room when he returned from his shower.
Beth and Meghan were seated shoulder to shoulder, their screens running.
‘Bring us up to speed,’ Beth ordered. Work mode. No joviality.
He broke it down for them succinctly, right from Kadikoy, even though they knew parts of it.
‘Riva and Adir, Carmel and Dalia, Yakov, Nachman, Danell, Yonah, Osip, and Uzziah, Eliel and Navon … those are the only ones we are confident of. Who had no role in the killing,’ she summed up.
‘Correct. Meir … You got anything from his files?’
Meghan’s fingers danced over her keyboard as she shook her head. ‘Encrypted. Werner’s working on cracking them open. It’s also listening to those bugs you planted in his apartment. Searching for keywords. Nothing so far. Meir and his girlfriend have been talking domestic stuff.’
‘Out of twenty-eight kidon, we have crossed out twelve,’ Beth sipped her coffee and swiped her tongue over her lips. ‘Sixteen operatives yet to be cleared. Of the fourteen men Carmel and Dalia identified, six remain.’
‘Correct.’
‘Just because those men are opposed to what’s happening, doesn’t mean any of them … The ones not on Carmel and Dalia’s list also can be—’
‘I know. It is a matter of priorities, however.’
‘We’ve been thinking about this,’ she nodded, accepting what he said. ‘The time crunch and all that.’
‘Someone’s got to do that, you know,’ Meghan interrupted wickedly, ‘thinking, I mean.’
Zeb put on a stoic face, though he was finding it hard not to smile. ‘And?’
‘You meet the operatives. All day today. One at a time, or in a group, however you want to play it. Beth and me, we’ll break into their apartments and see what we can uncover.’
Zeb emptied his cup, collected the twins’, and went to the kitchenette to rinse them. It might work. Interviewing the kidon will not necessarily prove anything. But this two-pronged approach will lead us to something. Faster.
‘Let’s do it.’
‘Great,’ Beth bounced in her seat. ‘Start off with Abraham and Mattias. Their apartments aren’t far. Half an hour away. A brisk walk, for us. Might be longer for you, given that you are old.’ She tossed him his cell, the Jarrett Epstein one. ‘Set it up.’
Beit Aghion
Prime Minister Yago Cantor was having a breakfast meeting with Jessy Levitsky, Nadav Shoshon and Jore Spiro. His morning was already turning sour with the lack of progress.
‘We have some of the finest intelligence agencies in the world. And what have we to show for that?’ He speared toast viciously with his fork and chewed angrily. ‘Nothing. Why is that?’
‘Prime Minister, it’s just four days from—’ Levitsky began, at which the leader sighed.
‘I know, I know, Jessy. It’s just that …’ He composed himself. ‘Tell me what you have got.’
Cantor had appointed the minister to liaise with all investigative bodies, including the task force he had set up.
‘The weapon was a Galil Mar,’ Levitsky outlined crisply. ‘Ballistics confirm that, but we have not found it. Unfortunately, those rifles aren’t hard to get. We have some cell phone footage of two men getting out of a VW and into a Toyota. We got lucky with that. A tourist was filming randomly and caught them.’
Cantor leaned forward. ‘Who are they?’
‘We can see only their backs,’ the minister replied dispiritedly. ‘The men are average sized, dark hair … not much for us to go on. Thousands of people have sent their cell phone clips. We are going through them all. It will take time.’
‘How did they know where those negotiators were?’
‘We don’t know.’ An awkward silence followed. The minister didn’t need to state that if the killers were Mossad operatives, they could have gotten access to inside knowledge.
‘What of the task force?’
‘Shabak has cleared several Mossad agents,’ Levitsky glanced sideways at Levin, who remained unperturbed.
‘Several, not all?’
‘That’s correct, prime minister.’
‘Avichai, what have you got for us?’
‘I have sixteen kidon yet to be cleared.’
‘Sixteen out of how many?’ Shoshon challenged. It was no secret that the Shabak director didn’t like Mossad’s preferential treatment by the prime minister and the media. Cantor had explained to him several times why the counter-intelligence agency needed to operate in secrecy. His reasoning fell on deaf years. He had thought about firing Shoshon, however, the director was good at his job.
‘Sixteen remain; that’s all that matters,’ Levin replied urbanely.
‘That’s a large number. We don’t have much time.’
‘I know. We are working as fast as we can. Such investigations cannot be rushed.’
‘If you throw more people at it …’ Shoshon’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wait! Are you investigating yourself?’
‘I have an experienced agent checking them out.’
‘Just one?’
‘One is all I can trust.’
‘He’s not from Mossad, is he?’ the Shabak director smiled knowingly. ‘Who is he?’
‘He’s good,’ Levin replied shortly. He turned to the prime minister with a questioning look, as if to ask, is this going somewhere?
Cantor took the hint. ‘Avichai, you know what we are up against. It is vital we find the killers before our announcement.’
Spiro stirred in his chair. ‘What happens if we don’t?’
‘We might not be able to make that announcement. Our government might collapse. You have heard of the no-confidence rumors?’
Heads nodded around the table.
‘They are true,’ Cantor confirmed. ‘And on top of that, if more killings happen and Mossad is blamed—’
‘Our country may not exist,’ Levin completed, softly. ‘A war will inevitably break out.’