ONE DAY LATER
MOSSAD HEADQUARTERS, TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—OCTOBER 15, 2020—09:15 / 9:15 A.M. IDT
He’ll get us all killed,” Yaron said. Although his ops second was short and stocky, his standing body dominated the table.
“I’m sitting right here,” Lahav said, looking like he’d walked out of computer nerd central casting, complete with thick black plastic glasses and a mostly full pocket protector. “If you have something to say, say it to me.”
Yaron turned toward the man and leaned over the table, his face red with anger. “You are going to get us all killed,” he said, emphasizing each word with a point of his index finger.
Lahav pretended to turn a crank as he slowly raised a finger of his own. Yaron started to climb across the table toward him, but Dima and Doron grabbed hold of his shoulders and pulled him back down to his chair. The fourth member of Nir’s Kidon team, Imri, remained calmly seated at the farthest side of the table away from Nir, watching the events with amusement.
On the analyst side of the table sat Dafna Ronen and Liora to Lahav’s left and Yossi Hirschfield to his right. Dafna and Liora were on their feet threatening to use their extensive computer skills to do something very nasty to the title of Yaron’s home if he touched Lahav. Yossi had his feet up on the table with a laptop perched on his long legs. White earbuds had been inserted in his ears.
Nir was at the head of the table, and Efraim Cohen, the assistant deputy director of Caesarea and Nir’s good friend, sat to his right. Although Efraim had gone a little soft in the midsection, prior to reaching his fortieth birthday this year, the man had been part of several dozen risky missions and was likely the best shot in the room.
“I like your hands-off leadership style,” he said to Nir, nodding toward the mayhem taking place around the table. “Do you usually step in before or after bloodshed?”
Nir glared at him, then yelled, “Okay, knock it off!”
Everyone ignored him.
Efraim took on a professorial air and said, “You know, I once heard a man say that in every leader there’s—”
Nir grabbed a large bowl of pistachios Liora had provided for the meeting and hurled it across the room. It pinged off the head of the life-sized Chewbacca mannequin that stood next to Lahav’s desk and today wore a hat stenciled with the words Furry World Tel Aviv 2020. The metal bowl clattered to the floor followed by what sounded like a very brief yet very intense hailstorm.
All heads turned toward Nir except for Yossi’s. His eyes never left whatever he was watching on his computer as he said, “I’m not cleaning that up.”
Nir paused for a moment, hoping the silence would lower the emotion in the room.
“Listen, I didn’t invite Assistant Deputy Director Cohen here—”
“Isn’t that Assistant to the Deputy Director?” asked Yossi.
Snickers rippled throughout the room.
“Yeah, what’s with the sudden use of titles?” Doron asked in a transparent attempt to bait the room into a meaningless discussion in order to lower the temperature of the discourse.
“I’ll tell you what,” Dafna said, pointing at Yaron. “I’ve got a title for that guy.”
Unfortunately, she proceeded to announce the title, and the whole table erupted again.
“You’re a regular Dale Carnegie,” Efraim said as he put his arm around Nir’s shoulders. “Never seen so much influencing of people.”
“You’re not helping.”
Gradually, Nir gained control of the mob and said, “Listen, Yaron, normally I agree with you. The operative’s place is in the field, the analyst’s place is back at headquarters. But this is different.”
“Why? What makes this different? Just because it’s artificial intelligence? Ooh, suddenly it’s too fancy for us mouth-breathers to handle?”
Lahav replied with a placating tone. “No, you’re right, you’re right. It’s true that we don’t always give you boots-on-the-ground guys enough credit. Just tell me this, though. What if you’re all set up, the target is coming, and you suddenly realize your flux capacitor has gone down and you don’t have enough jigawatts to power it back up? What would you do?”
“I can’t tell you right now,” Yaron said with a condescending tone. “But if you do your job, then by the time of the operation, I will know exactly how to get enough jigawatts to start up the flux capacitor.”
“There’s no such thing as a flux capacitor, you mefager,” Lahav said as he leaned back in his chair and spread his arms as if he’d just announced “Checkmate.”
This time the hands were on Yaron’s shoulders before he could clear his chair.
“I heard you can only get that many jigawatts using lightning,” Yossi said amid the ensuing chaos, still focused on his laptop.
Efraim stood and slammed one palm on the table. “Okay, everybody stop. I’ve got a limited amount of time, and you guys are wasting it. Lahav is going with the ops team, so shut up and accept it.”
As he sat back down, he turned toward Nir and whispered with a wink, “It’s all about influence, achi. I’ll get you a copy of Carnegie’s book.”
Nir shook his head and sighed. “Okay, can we please act like adults? We’ve got six weeks before we’re on the ground in Iran. We need to be a solid team watching each other’s backs. You don’t have to agree with all the decisions made. You just need to make them work. Understood?”
Nods of agreement all around, some more emphatic than others.
“Okay, now I have something else to run past you all. And that’s why Efraim’s in here. Yossi, close your laptop before it follows the flight path of the pistachio bowl.”
The full-bearded, man-bunned analyst gave an exasperated sigh and obeyed.
Nir began by giving them the background of walking the streets of Milan with Nicole, ignoring all the catcalls and kissing noises from the Millennials who made up his team of analysts. When he got to the part about seeing the Alicia Marcos painting, he clicked a remote, and a photo of the painting appeared on a large double monitor set that hung over Liora and Dafna’s joined workstations. The Kidon members had to turn around in their chairs to see it.
“Esh! Marilyn. I love her,” said Dafna. Tattooed, overly pierced, and sporting blue and purple hair on the half of her head that wasn’t shaved, she was the visual opposite of the tiny, dark-haired, ultra-cute Liora. Yet despite their external differences, the two of them had a remarkably symbiotic connection as they worked, and they often joked that they finished each other’s sandwiches.
Liora piped up. “Nicole’s friend is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s like Warhol meets pulp-fiction cover art meets NYC Club Kid.”
Nir had to admit that was a really good analysis. The best descriptor for the painting he’d been able to come up with was colorful.
Imri spoke up. “The gloss is metoraf—seriously, it’s really incredible. And what’s it painted on? That’s not a regular canvas.”
“Exactly.” Nir was glad to see the new guy was weighing in. “It’s a cement-based medium, specially designed to hold color in wet and humid environments.”
“That’s an oddly specific answer. Want to tell the rest?” Yaron said.
All the hostility was in the past now that the page had turned to what might be a new operation.
“Where might one want waterproof and humidity-proof artwork?” Nir asked.
“The shower?” Dima said, immediately looking as though he regretted his offering. When all eyes turned to him, he said, “Sorry, your words no translate good to Russian.”
Imri spoke up again. “I’m thinking either coastal areas or high humidity places like East Asia or the Indian subcontinent.”
“Good. And Alicia does have some clients there. But this is very specialized, unique stuff specifically designed not just for humidity but for wetness.”
“So I’m guessing boats or cruise ships,” Liora said.
“Not cruise ships,” Dafna said, the excitement of the process coming through in her voice. “They go as cheap as they can get away with. You’re thinking about yachts. Big old Bezos-sized personal luxury cruisers.”
“Bingo,” said Nir. “How many bad actors—big-money guys running arms or funneling cash to militias—have their own overly indulgent water-bound playpens?”
“Pretty close to all of them,” Yossi chimed in. “I’ve had to track quite a few of them in the past. They’re all over the Med, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean.”
“I still don’t get it, though. What’s your play, boss?” Liora shrugged. “Are you going to culture them all with modern art, thereby taking away their desire for violence and mayhem?”
“Sababa,” Dafna said, high-fiving her friend.
“Definitely out of the box,” Doron said with a wink across the table.
“We can call it Operation Art-Masculation.”
Cheers greeted Lahav’s suggestion, and Nir had to calm them down again.
“Liora, you’re partially right. I do want to get this artwork onto the fancy yachts of these bad guys. But I don’t plan on just cement and paint and a big wooden frame.”
“Esh!” Efraim cried, clapping his hands as he jumped up. Everyone turned toward him, startled. Pointing at Nir, he said, “Natanz, you scruffy-faced mastermind! You want to Natanz them.”
Everyone got it immediately. Putting explosives into building materials, then selling them to the Iranians so that they themselves installed the bombs into their own nuclear facility was one of the most brilliant operations ever pulled off by the Mossad. And now here was the possibility of pulling off a sequel. The room was hyped.
“So how will we get explosives into the artwork without detection? And then how will we get the paintings on the boats?” asked Yaron, voicing the obvious questions.
“I’ve got some ideas. But I’m hoping, Yaron, that since you’re our explosives expert, you’ll help me think through the first part.”
“I’ll try, but I’m less an expert on making the bombs than I am at making them go off.”
Nir gave a dismissive wave. “Well, let’s sit and talk anyway. As for the distribution, I’m already working on it. Well, Nicole is.”
He settled back in his chair. “She met with Alicia in Texas last night, telling her that yours truly, a big-time jeweler with connections around the world, is interested in helping her sell her paintings to some very rich people with very big yachts. Of course, no mentions of future explosions will be made to Alicia. No commitments yet, but Nicole has her thinking.”
“Me’uleh! That’s our girl,” said Liora.
Nir knew both she and Dafna had a special place in their hearts for the lone Gentile representative on their team full of Jews.
Efraim stood. “Okay, this is all very cool stuff, but remember it’s not your priority at present. Put any spare time you might have on it, but right now your eyes are on Iran. We’ve got six weeks to get ready. Once that’s over and done with, you can give me what you’ve come up with, and I’ll take it to the ramsad.”