Chapter Twenty-four

 

 

Bartella, Iraq

June 20, 9:35 a.m.

 

The teams made it to Bartella without any further engagement with ISIS fighters. The wounded received what passed for medical attention in this war zone: a single nurse equipped with only the most basic supplies to treat gunshot wounds. And she was running out of even those few antibiotics and anesthetics. She stabilized a couple of the seriously wounded Peshmergas, but could not do much for the other two Iranians, who had suffered head and chest wounds.

“Tell me my men will not die in vain.” Reza approached Justin, who was standing near one of the SUVs, observing from a distance the work of the nurse and Carrie giving her a hand. Reza spoke in a firm, fuming tone, and his dirty rugged face was locked in a mean expression of grief mixed with rage. “What did Mustafa tell you?”

Justin shrugged and did not look at Reza. It was easier to lie if he kept his gaze distant and his voice cold, as if contemplating the aftermath of their battle. “He asked me to take care of his family. I promised I would do so. You know he has a wife and two young daughters.”

“What were his secrets?” Reza’s voice remained tense and emotionless. He was unaffected by Justin’s attempt to create any sense of emotion in him.

“He was a part of the Berlin strike team, along with other Palestinians. We were hoping he would give us his contacts, sources. Intel about their past and future ops. But everything he knew died with him.”

Reza cursed. He slammed his fist against the SUV’s door so hard it made a huge dent.

“I’ll get you our intel report on what we’ve learned from Mustafa.” Justin kept staring at a whitewashed church building about two hundred yards away. Four gunmen were sitting behind a couple of heavy machine guns set near the large church’s rooftop cross.

“The edited version, I assume, which leaves out the crucial pieces of intel,” Reza said.

“I’ll make sure you get as much as we can share,” Justin said in a non-committal tone. “You know it doesn’t all depend on me. We all have bosses.”

Reza nodded slowly. He seemed to be still seething on the inside, but the corner of his lips curved in a small smile. “Yes, and mine will chew my butt when I return empty-handed and with casualties. At least we took out so many of these godless swine.” He spat on the ground. Then he drew near Justin and offered him his hand. “You saved my life back in Mosul. I . . . I’m grateful for that.”

Justin shrugged as they shook hands. “You would have done the same for me. And you fought like a lion. I could not have asked for a better man to be on my team.”

Reza brought him in close for a bear hug.

“I will stay with my wounded men, but I will give you an escort to take you to the exfiltration point,” Reza said after they broke off their hug. “And if you ever need a hand in this part of the world, you know how to find me.”

“I will do that.”

Reza cursed the ISIS fighters again, then walked with a brisk pace toward the nurse.

Justin sighed and rested his back against the SUV. He had just closed his eyes when he heard footsteps and Scot’s voice. “Resting after a hard day’s work, huh?”

“Was resting, until you came along.” Justin kept his eyes shut and took a deep breath.

“Reza’s giving you a hard time?”

“No, no. He’s mad, and understandably so. He’s losing two men and others are wounded. And he didn’t get his face time with Mustafa.” Justin opened his eyes.

Scot nodded. “We learned nothing from him, did we?”

Justin shook his head. “No, but we got his body. One less person for ISIS to behead on video.”

Scot cursed. “When should we leave?”

“Right away. Reza is giving us an escort.”

“We don’t need all the Peshmergas now that our battle’s over. I talked to my boss, and they want me for a new mission in Irbil.”

“Don’t worry. We can find our way out. Scot, you’ve been a tremendous help. We could not have done this on our own.”

“Next time, I’m riding with you instead of your Iranian friend.” Scot hunched his thumb toward Reza.

Justin smiled. “For sure.”

They exchanged a strong handshake.

Justin called McClain for a status update. Once Carrie and the nurse were done with the wounded, the team got into a couple of SUVs and headed toward the exfiltration point.

 

Tel Aviv, Israel

June 21, 10:25 a.m.

 

Justin, Carrie, and the Mossad agents arrived in Israel late in the evening of June 20. They met with Daniel and McClain in one of Mossad’s safe houses in Tel Aviv. It was a brand new location Daniel had just secured, off the grid, and no one but he knew about it. In this way, neither Kessler nor any of her cronies would have any idea of the team’s operation.

They went over the evidence they had on their case against Kessler. With Mustafa dead, they had lost the only eyewitness to Kessler’s alleged treason. But Mustafa’s laptop contained a lot of intelligence about his meetings and conversations with Kessler over the course of the last three months. The team pored over these records, tearing them apart, looking for clues, hints, data, something concrete and truly incriminating, a detail, a name or a date, something that would really nail Kessler, anything they could use to force her into admitting her devious assassination plot.

But Kessler had been a true mastermind throughout all her dealings with Mustafa. All the conversations and meetings could be explained and construed as “asset development” and “informant preparation.” Yes, she had given him Mossad classified intelligence but it was for the purposes of the informant’s accomplishing his tasks, and was done only on a need-to-know basis. Yes, Kessler had told Mustafa about the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Tel Aviv, but only so Mustafa could lure Palestinian terrorists to come out into the open and plan an attack. Mossad was going to intervene and neutralize all threats before things got out of hand.

The team was able to tie Kessler and Mustafa to the operation against Nassar in Ramallah in early June, but that operation was unsanctioned, at least as far as indicated in records found on the laptop. Mustafa had provided the intelligence that had sparked the operation, but from the limited evidence it seemed Mossad agents had operated without any written authorization. And the team had nothing to implicate Kessler in the Tel Aviv highway attack on June 17.

The flash drive stained with Mustafa’s blood contained the last phone call between him and Kessler. The team played and replayed the recording over ten times. They brought in a trusted audio forensic examiner team that dissected it and ran it through their state-of-the art equipment. But at the end, despite their hopes and prayers, the team had plenty of suspicions, gut feelings, and circumstantial evidence, but no concrete evidence they could use against Kessler. A good legal team—and Kessler could afford the finest defense lawyers in Israel—would be able to get this case thrown out even before the first hearing.

But Daniel refused to concede defeat.

The team regrouped the next day to go over other non-legal, less orthodox options. This time, it was only Daniel, Raphael, Justin, and Carrie in the safe house. Doctors had determined McClain and Eli needed to be under constant observation and had prohibited them from leaving the Ichilov General Hospital. McClain agreed to what he deemed “capitulation terms” only after Justin promised to give him a detailed briefing as soon as the meeting was over.

They ran through a few scenarios, but they all led to dead ends. Because Kessler knew about Justin’s and Carrie’s suspicions, it was not wise to pry too deep into her operational files in Mossad’s servers and databases. Daniel was worried another agent might tip her off about their inquiry. Then Kessler would put up all her defenses and all would be lost.

At some point during the morning, Daniel’s cell phone rang and he stepped into the safe house’s hall to take what he described as an “imperative call.” When he returned, less than a minute later, he suggested they try a deception tactic.

He placed a call to Kessler informing her of a CIS operation that had taken place the previous day in Mosul. He told Kessler the informant was killed by ISIS jihadists during that operation, before he had a chance to talk to the Canadian agents. Left without any other leads, the Canadian agents were wrapping up their investigation and were going to leave Israel as soon as McClain was deemed by the doctors healthy enough to take the long plane ride back to Canada.

“This intel should calm her down. We need her to resume her plot as if nothing ever happened,” Daniel said and poured more coffee into his cup. Then he set the metallic silver carafe back in the middle of the oval dining table.

“It will be close to impossible to keep track of her moves, her planning,” Justin said from across the table where he was sitting next to Carrie. He reached with his left arm for the carafe and winced. He had reopened the wound on his right arm during the operation in Iraq, and another bullet had caused a new two-inch tear. The slug had missed the bone and most of the muscle, but his tendons caused him severe pain, especially if he tried to lift objects and sometimes even when he used the other arm.

Carrie picked up the carafe and filled Justin’s cup. She leaned forward, perched on the edge of her chair, looked at Daniel, then at Raphael and said, “Kessler has proved that she’s really good. She’ll detect any surveillance. But my question is: Does the bait know of and has he approved this plan of action?”

Daniel smiled. “Actually, it was his idea.” He pointed at his cell phone on the table. “That was Prime Minister Asher earlier, before I called Kessler. Asher served with Shabak, our General Security Service, also known as Shin Bet. He fought in the Yom Kippur war, in 1973. He refused to cancel his visit or change his schedule. He proposed we go ahead with this plan and proceed as if everything is normal.”

Justin shook his head. “Is the PM truly aware of the danger? If we’re going in blind, we’ll have no idea what to expect. And we’ll have no time for a proper response if things take a turn for the worse.”

“He knows his life is at stake. The years in office have not rusted him out or dulled his senses. Asher has survived two assassination attempts. He’ll live through this one as well. His security detail is not thrilled about the idea, but what can they do? Asher is the one who gives the orders.”

Justin shrugged and raised his left hand. “It’s his visit, his life. He makes the final decision. Carrie and I would like to lend a hand and be a part of the convoy. Just in case.”

Carrie nodded. “Yes, any help we can give.”

Daniel took a sip of coffee. “We’ll have to be extremely careful. If Kessler as much as catches a glimpse of you, she’ll clue in we’re onto something and abort her plot.”

“Right,” Justin said.

“They can ride with me,” Raphael said.

“Yes, let’s do that,” Daniel said. “You’ll pick them up at the safe house and then join the convoy.”

“So, it’s settled then?” Carrie asked.

“Pretty much. Unless the big boss changes his mind, which I don’t think he will, then we’re good to go.”

“All right,” Justin said. “And what is our Plan B if Kessler is spooked? What if she decides the situation is too hot and nothing happens?”

Daniel scratched his head near his left temple. “We have no Plan B. So something better happen.”

 

* * *

 

Justin and Carrie spent the rest of the day reviewing the files from Mustafa’s laptop. Although Daniel already had a plan in motion, they still hoped they would find new evidence they had overlooked when they had combed through the files the first time. Justin could not sit on his hands and wait for Kessler to make her move. What if she did and the team could not react fast enough? Prime Minister Asher would be assassinated and along with it, the entire peace process in the Middle East would go up in smoke. And that would be a real tragedy for so many people, especially since negotiations were advancing at a slow yet steady pace, regardless of attempts by disgruntled elements on both sides trying to derail the peace talks.

As evening came around, they reluctantly admitted they were no closer to their goal than when they first started over twelve hours ago.

“Maybe we’ll have better luck tomorrow. We’ll come at this from a different angle, and look at it with fresh eyes,” Justin said as they left the safe house to visit McClain for the evening briefing.

The next day, they put all the crucial pieces of intelligence onto a large whiteboard Justin had requested to be brought to the safe house. He was hoping having all the information in one place would help them discover the decisive link between Kessler and the assassination plot. Justin and Carrie drew lines, boxes, used different markers, placed question marks and asterisks next to critical players and events. Still, they felt they were making no progress. No matter how they looked at it and whichever way they sliced it, Kessler had been extremely cunning in her plan and had covered or erased all her steps.

As the clock neared midnight, Justin and Carrie threw in the towel. They were out of time and out of options.

“I hate to be pessimistic,” Carrie said, “but we have nothing on her. I mean nothing unquestionable and that will survive any kind of strict scrutiny, legal, political, or otherwise.”

Justin gave Carrie a somber head nod. “Unless we catch Kessler red-handed. As Daniel rightly put it, something better happen tomorrow. And we better be ready and prepared to catch her in the act.”