IDF Base
Ten days after Assassinations
One day to Announcement
Magal arrived at six am. His eyes were red and his face drooped. He looked the picture of exhaustion.
He wasn’t.
He had slept in Lipman’s office while the forger worked on the masks, and he was well-rested.
The base was a hive of activity even that early, and the admin office was jumping with people. The first person he saw was Shiri, who rushed over to him and hugged him.
There were tears in his friend’s eyes when they separated. He thumped Shiri’s back and was about to speak when Carmel joined them.
She thrust a coffee mug at him. ‘What happened? Why’s Navon crying? Your mother—’
‘She’s still alive. Tomorrow. That’s what doctors say.’
‘You shouldn’t be here, Eliel.’
‘There’s no other place I would rather be. I thought your shift ended?’
‘It is, but I stayed back. Don’t change the subject.’
She tried to persuade him to go to his mother, but he didn’t budge. She gave up and told him to join the morning shift. ‘That way, you can go to Haifa in the evening if you need to, your conscience clear.’
The morning shift was precisely what he wanted.
‘Can I shower, first?’ he asked her.
‘Sure. Navon, go with him.’
‘You shouldn’t—’ he began in the privacy of his room.
‘Stop. Say nothing more. We have grown up together. We have gone on operations together. There isn’t much I would do without you. Even dying.’
The two men embraced again and got to work, their professional selves taking over.
‘You got them?’ Shiri asked.
Magal held up the masks in reply.
They were made of a special rubber that allowed the skin underneath to breathe. They covered the entire face, with nose holes and openings for eyes.
‘Try yours.’
Shiri fitted it over his face and looked in the mirror.
‘Face me.’
He turned to Magal, who snapped his picture.
The two men looked at his image and then at the particular server’s it replicated.
The faces looked identical.
‘Who did this for you?’
‘Someone I know in Beersheba. These look good in the pictures. In reality, up close, they will be detected as fake.’
‘They will pass a quick check?’
‘Yes.’
‘Put on yours.’
Magal tried his. The results were the same. He looked similar to the second server.
‘Didn’t the security at the check post ask you about these?’
‘I told them it was for a surprise, fancy dress party. I asked them to keep it to themselves. They laughed.’
‘They didn’t recognize the faces?’
‘No.’
‘Did you bring any weapons?’
‘No,’ Magal shook his head, removed the rubber and wiped his face. ‘Those would be harder to explain. We will use what we have and take the grenades from the two men.’
‘I know you said you feel nothing … I don’t, either,’ Shiri said hesitantly. ‘But I don’t want to kill the other kidon. Not without good reason.’
‘We won’t,’ Magal assured him. ‘Unless they cross our paths.’
Seven am
Magal and Shiri returned to the admin office. They went to the coffee stand and bought themselves drinks. Dalia, Nachman, Yakov, Uzziah, Danell and Shiri were on the morning shift. Carmel and Magal were additional members.
Magal drifted to where Carmel and her partner were chatting with Danell. I like these women. I hope I don’t have to kill them.
He felt free, knowing what was coming. He no longer had the burden of working out their escape. It was as if a weight had been lifted off him.
‘Eliel,’ Dalia plucked at his sleeve, ‘what do you think? Danell says the ramsad wanted to give us a vacation. That’s why he brought us here. There’s nothing to be done here.’
‘I doubt the director knows what a vacation is,’ he replied, drily. ‘Isn’t he here?’
‘Yes. He, the ambassador and the Americans are staying in a different building. He will show up.’
Eight am
Zeb came to the admin building. He had set off for an early-morning run, and before he had gone far, two pairs of footsteps had echoed behind him.
He looked back. The twins.
The three of them had proceeded silently and, after a light workout, headed back to their rooms.
Carmel brought him a coffee; Dalia brought two for the sisters.
‘You don’t need to serve us,’ he chided her.
‘Enjoy,’ she mocked him. ‘You can boast how Mossad was at your service. You won’t get any other opportunity.’
‘Anything?’
‘Nothing. A few visitors in the night. IDF civilians who are security-cleared. They are in the tech department, working in shifts. They never left their office.’ She waved toward a hallway.
Alice Monash came in, along with Levin. The ambassador spent a few minutes with them and introduced herself to the kidon she didn’t know.
At eight-thirty am, the negotiators arrived. They were escorted by six soldiers, who led them to the conference room. Alice Monash followed them, and the door closed behind the two teams and the U.S. ambassador.
Nine am
Magal went to the kitchen and helped himself to a glass of water. He made idle talk with the cook while he observed the servers from the corners of his eyes.
The men were at the call of the negotiators. They served beverages and soft drinks when needed. The lunch service began at twelve and ended at one pm.
‘It’s busiest then,’ the chef said, wiping sweat from his forehead and washing his hands. ‘I have cooked for larger groups, but I have also had more help. Here,’ he turned around in a half-circle, ‘it’s just me and him.’ The assistant waved lazily at Magal.
‘What about the servers?’
‘They don’t help in the kitchen. Security protocol. They will back up the guards if needed.’
‘They are soldiers?’
‘Yes. I, too, have to go through rigorous training.’
Our masks will pass. Magal took the liberty of staring openly at the servers, who ignored him. Lipman did a good job.
The kidon checked out the various weapons on their bodies and noted how they moved. Both are right-handed. Rifles across their backs, secured firmly, but available for quick action. Handgun across the chest. Grenades in pouches around their belly. Knife down the thigh.
He went out of the kitchen and inspected the guards at the conference room as well as the kitchen. They had their rifles in their hands and more gear on their bodies. The soldiers down the hallway were similarly equipped.
Ten am
‘Werner cracked it.’ Beth approached Zeb and led him to where Meghan was, on a couch, headphones wrapped around her ears, head bobbing to some beat. ‘Cracked it during the night, but we had connectivity issues.’
‘Such as?’
‘Heavy cloud cover, late in the night. The satellite signal dropped.’
‘You haven’t hooked into the base’s network?’
‘And give the IDF an opportunity to hack into us?’ She rolled her eyes and tapped her sister on the shoulder.
‘Files. Lots of them,’ Meghan told them. ‘In Russian. I am getting them translated. But heck, this dude, it looks like he dumped FSB’s operations on that thumb drive. This might take some time.’
‘Try keyword searches,’ Zeb suggested.
‘Way ahead of you. Am doing that. Trouble is, which keywords to search for?’
‘I don’t know.’ Zeb shrugged. ‘You two are smarter than me, aren’t you?’ He walked away quickly before they could retort.
Eleven am
Andropov called. ‘Raskov. You remember him?’
‘Yeah,’ Zeb answered. ‘Meghan’s going through his files.’
‘She is?’
Zeb heard him bellowing at some Yuri.
‘You’re ahead of the curve,’ the Russian came back to him. ‘My cyber guy encountered some basic problems. We lost the Internet for a while. This is Russia, my friend.’
‘Grigor,’ Zeb stopped his friend before he launched into a tirade. ‘We’ll share what we have. You called for a reason?’
‘Yes. Raskov’s killing. It matches another killing in Saint Petersburg a year back.’
‘Same cuts—’
‘Same everything. I’ve got the photos with me. The police suspect it was even the same weapon.’
‘The killer wasn’t found?’
‘No. Ask me about the victim.
‘Who was he?’
‘An arms dealer. Suspected of supplying EQB.’