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Callaghan hoisted al-Masri’s corpse over his shoulder.

As he did, Marcus shouted to Tomer over the roar of the growing fire to radio Jenny and have her pull the Toyota directly under the hole. The moment she did, Tomer jumped down onto its roof. Noah scrambled up onto the roof from below. Together they took Kailea as Marcus lowered her down to them. With Jenny’s help, they got her to the tarmac and then onto the backseat.

They repeated the procedure with Yigal.

When it came to al-Masri, however, Jenny told them they had neither the time nor the room to take him. Instead, she instructed them to snap a picture of the man and leave him behind. Marcus began to protest, but Jenny was adamant. She was in no mood to have another order of hers disregarded, and fire trucks and ambulances were rapidly bearing down on them. Marcus relented and jumped to the roof of the van and then to the ground. Geoff did the same.

Callaghan was last. The fiery agent could not simply leave al-Masri behind without exacting some measure of revenge. So he simply let go of the body. It landed with a thud on the tarmac, legs and arms askew. As Callaghan jumped onto the roof, Tomer snapped pictures with his mobile phone.

The last thing to do was make room in the back of the van. While Jenny climbed into the driver’s seat, the men dumped all the body bags onto the tarmac. As the others piled inside, Tomer remembered to unzip the bags containing Abdel Rahman and the other living prisoner. Then he climbed in as well. Even before he had shut the door behind him, Jenny had hit the accelerator, and they were off.

Minutes later, the team reached the private aviation section on the other side of the airport grounds. They quickly boarded a waiting Gulfstream V business jet—the “escape hatch” the extraction team had arranged—where they were greeted by none other than Mossad chief Asher Gilad and a team of the IDF’s best combat medics. The moment Kailea and Yigal were hooked up to IVs, the Gulfstream taxied out to the flight lines, and before they knew it, they were airborne.

As they streaked into the cloudless blue sky and banked westward, no one said a word. Marcus, for one, needed time to let the adrenaline stop pumping and his system to stabilize, and he was certain the rest of the team needed it too. When they reached their cruising altitude, however, Gilad unbuckled his seat belt and rose to his feet.

“I just want to say a word of congratulations to each and every one of you for a job very well done,” he began, his eyes uncharacteristically red and moist, his face beaming with pride. “Thank you. I mean it. This was rapidly shaping up into the worst hostage crisis that either of our countries has faced in years. And while I realize there are a great deal of people on both of our teams who played critical behind-the-scenes roles, I could not have asked for more from you guys.”

Gilad turned to Marcus. “Mr. Ryker, I don’t even have the right words to express how good it is to have you and your colleagues back.”

Everyone cheered, even the doctors in the rear of the plane, and Marcus nodded his appreciation to them all.

“And, Miss Morris, I don’t care what they say about you at Langley, you were absolutely stellar—every step of the way—and if you ever want to jump ship, I would be honored to have you come work for me and the Mossad any day.”

The cabin erupted in laughter as Jenny shot Marcus a look that suggested she was just as embarrassed and uncomfortable as he. They were not ones to seek or want attention, even from their colleagues. But this was clearly Gilad’s show, not either of theirs.

The Mossad chief went on for several minutes, making specific comments on the impressive performances of Tomer, Callaghan, and Noah and the roles each of them had played in the stunning success of the operation he had code-named the Beirut Protocol. It was, he told them, a bit of an inside joke, a spin on the Hannibal Protocol, a policy the IDF had long before discontinued and yet had so disastrously tried to reinstitute in recent days.

Then he popped the cork on some very expensive champagne. “To better days,” he said.

“To better days,” they all replied.

After they had all taken their first sip, Geoff asked if they were really headed back to Israel, since that would seem terribly suspicious to everyone monitoring flight paths in the region, including reporters.

“You’re right,” Gilad replied. “We’re headed for Rome. There, we’ll change planes—and thus tail numbers—then fly to Cairo, where we’ll change planes again and fly back to Tel Aviv. Director Stephens and Deputy Director Dell should be on the ground by then and will be waiting for us. As you can imagine, they’re eager to debrief you and celebrate with you. And then, of course, the prime minister would like to host you all for a private, off-the-record dinner at his home. Hopefully Yigal and Special Agent Curtis will be well enough to join us.”

At this, Marcus cleared his throat and Gilad readily gave him the floor.

“Mr. Gilad—”

“Please, call me Asher. We Israelis are not so formal as you.”

“Fair enough,” Marcus replied. “And I certainly want to thank you—each of you and all the others who worked to get us out. But I have to say I think this celebration is all a bit premature.”

Everyone was caught off guard by the remark, and a hush settled over the cabin.

“Don’t get me wrong—I truly am grateful to be free. And yes, we took out al-Masri and his cell. But I think it should be clear to all of us by now that Hezbollah was not responsible for Saturday’s attack on the border. Al-Masri was working for someone else. The question we all need to be asking ourselves is, Who?”