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Kai looked up as Asher came around the corner. He drew up short, startled to see her in the back of the van.
“Oh! I thought you were still with Jared,” he said. “Sorry!”
Kai grinned at the flustered look on his face. “What’s the matter? Never see a woman in a sports bra before?”
“What? No, I...I mean...I wasn’t...”
Kai burst out laughing and reached for the light-weight, 9mm vest next to her.
“God, Asher, you’re adorable.” She pulled on the protective body armor and reached for a black, nylon jacket. “Did you need something?”
“I just wanted to grab a box of clips for Rina,” he said, climbing into the back of the van. He cleared his throat. “Why are you wearing a vest?”
“I’m not a huge fan of being shot,” she replied easily, zipping up the jacket.
“Do you think you will be?”
“No, but you can never be too careful.” She sat on the edge of a bench bolted to the inside of the van and pulled up her pant leg to strap on an ankle holster. “Are you all set with your gear?”
“Yes.”
She glanced up at him. “You said you’ve been doing a lot of teamwork lately. Have you been strictly tech?”
He looked at her and his lips twisted dryly. “Are you asking if I can still shoot straight?”
She grinned and went back to strapping on her holster. “Maybe.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She nodded and slid a combat knife into the holster before pulling her pant leg over it.
“Good.”
Asher pulled a box of clips from of one of the few remaining boxes of ammunition and turned to look down at her.
“Are you worried?” he asked.
She looked up, surprised. “Why do you think that?”
“You’re wearing a vest and asking if I can still handle a gun,” he said bluntly. “Those are the actions of someone who thinks things won’t go well.”
“Not at all,” she lied smoothly. “I always wear a vest when it’s practical, and as for you and guns, you seemed very uncomfortable yesterday when I shot Raj with a rubber bullet. I’m just making sure you’re still good.”
“I was uncomfortable because of the look on your face when you did it,” he retorted. “There was no emotion there. Nothing.”
“What did you want? Laughter?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t know. It was just...unnerving.”
Kai looked at him for a minute, then shrugged. “There’s nothing to feel anymore. It’s all become mechanical now. I do it without thinking. That’s what makes me effective.”
“I know.” He hesitated, then sat next to her. “I’ve been thinking about the cameras. I think I came up with a way to make sure Raj and Kodak aren’t picked up by any of them before I can hijack them.”
She raised her eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I was thinking the only way to do that was to hack in and replace the feed with a looped image,” he told her in a low voice. “That’s how I’ve always done it. But I would have to leave the tunnel, make it to a camera, attach a parasite, and then get back to the tunnel without anyone seeing.”
“Right.”
“Well, then I remembered what happened in Basrah.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“I was in Basrah for...well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that there were sandstorms in the desert while I was there. Even though we were nowhere near them, we kept getting power surges that constantly reset our system. We were running a closed-circuit system with no satellite connection, just like what we think is in the compound.”
“And?”
“Every time there was a surge, we lost connectivity for about five minutes.”
“You’re saying if we cause power surges, the cameras will reset and go down for minutes at a time?” Kai asked incredulously.
“Yes, I think they might,” he said nodding slowly.
She was silent for a moment, thinking. The compound was on its own grid, making arranging for surges a much simpler task than it otherwise might be. They just had to create a plausible reason for them. After a moment, her lips curved slowly.
“I think a series of power surges could be easily arranged,” she said. “If I provide a plausible reason, can you create a surge from inside the tunnel?”
“No, but Raj and Kodak can from outside the compound. I can give them something to overload the system. They just have to find the grid.”
Kai nodded and stood up. “I’ll go talk to them. That’s good thinking, Asher. If it doesn’t work, we’ll go back to the original plan, but it’s worth a try.”
“It’ll work,” he said, standing. “Trust me. This is what I do.”
“And thank God you do.” She tilted her head and looked at him. “Will you be all right in the tunnel for a couple of hours?”
Asher scowled. “Rina told you.” When she nodded, he let out a loud sigh. “I’ll be fine. I’ll take an anti-anxiety pill before we go in.”
“Good. I need you, Asher. Without you, this whole thing is over before we even start.”
“I could say the same thing about you.”
Her lips curved into a sardonic smile. “I have no other plans today. Now, let’s go to work.”
“Raj, Kodak, change of plans,” Kai announced, walking towards the others. “One of you take the truck; the other one has to steal a car.”
Absolute silence fell over the group as everyone stared at her speechlessly.
“I’m sorry.” Rina finally found her voice. “Did you just say one of them has to steal a car?”
“Yes.”
Jared was the first to show any reaction, and a rogue smile crossed his lips before being ruthlessly repressed.
“I presume you have a good reason for potentially drawing attention to us?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against one of the tables.
“Asher had an idea. We’re going to cause a power surge into the compound that will, hopefully, reset the cameras and give us some protection for several minutes at a time.”
“Will that work?” Rina asked Asher, raising her eyebrows in surprise.
“It should, yes.”
“Where does the stolen car come in?” Kodak asked after a moment of thought. “We can force power surges easily enough from the grid station.”
“If they have an ounce of sense, they’ll want to know why they’re having power fluxes,” Rina said slowly. She looked at Kai. “You’re thinking of an accident? Ramming a pole?”
“Something like that.”
Asher looked up from where he had been typing away on a laptop. “I found three possibilities. Two poles and one tree. The tree is right near a power line that runs into the grid station, and the two poles are standard utility poles. Any of them could cause a legitimate power surge.”
“We need to be sure that it won’t overload the grid too much,” Kai said, walking over to look at the screen. “We don’t want the power to go down. We just want it interrupted.”
“If you want to be cautious, this pole might be the best option,” Asher said after a moment, pointing on the map. “It probably won’t do anything, but they won’t know that. They’ll assume that because it’s attached to power lines, it was the culprit.”
She nodded and looked at Raj. “Are you willing to steal a car and crash it into a pole?” she asked cheerfully.
“Do I have a choice?” he asked dryly.
“Not really.”
“Then I’d better go find a car.” He picked up a bag and slung it over his shoulder, then reached for a comm unit. “Asher, send the coordinates to my phone,” he said, inserting the ear piece. “I’ll let you know when I’m in position.”
“Kodak, once he has a vehicle, follow him in the truck,” Kai instructed. “When he’s crashed the car, wipe it down and get out of there.”
Kodak nodded. “All right. What about the real power surge?”
“You’ll want to place this on the power line going from the grid station to the compound,” Asher said, holding up a box. “It’ll overload the grid enough to cause intermittent power surges. If you attach a small charge to one of the other boxes on the grid, you can cause a timed outage for when you pull through the gates to ensure that they’re all down. Both can be done from the main grid station.”
“I can use a remote charge,” Raj said. “I’ll attach it, then detonate it right before we enter the compound.”
“Good. If Asher’s estimations are correct, you’ll have between three and five minutes of the cameras going haywire. Raj, see if Shira can still redirect the more immediate ones, just in case.”
“Already done. I sent her a message this morning.” He put on his sunglasses and turned towards the back door. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got a vehicle.”
Kai watched him leave and turned to look at Asher. “The rest is on you.”
“I’m uploading the maps now and sending them to his phone, along with GPS coordinates,” he said, typing away. “He’ll have them in a few minutes.”
“Good. Give Kodak one of your parasites. He can attach it to a camera when he gets on-site. Then you’ll have complete control of the cameras and can sever the feed to their server.”
Jared looked at his watch. “The rest of you need to get moving,” he said. “I’m going back to the hotel. I’ll monitor the Americans and the satellites from there. Once you have Masha’al, I’ll leave for home.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Rina said with a grin. “Have a strong drink waiting for us.”
Jared nodded. “Good luck.”
He went towards the door and Kai watched him go. Just as he reached it, she called after him.
“Jared? Don’t forget your promise.”
He turned to look at her, his hand on the door, and smiled faintly.
“Shalom ulehitraot.”
Kai watched through the black-tinted, full-face visor of her motorcycle helmet as the black van disappeared from sight outside the city.
“I’ll do one last sweep, then catch up with you,” she said into her comm unit.
“You know where to find us,” Rina replied.
Kai turned the bike around, revving the engine as she headed back into Cairo. After packing everything up into the van, Asher had climbed behind the wheel to begin a long and circuitous route out of the city while Kai followed at a distance. After she was convinced that no one was following or paying undue attention to the van, which looked like a hundred others, she had given the all clear and he headed for the outskirts of the city, and the road that would take them to Tanta.
She drove back into the city proper, weaving through heavy traffic with the skill of an experienced rider. The traffic in Cairo was enough to make even the staunchest driver blanch, but Kai was unfazed by the clogs of vehicles or the erratic traffic patterns that baffled anyone unfamiliar with the city’s streets. Instead, she took it all as a challenge.
Cutting through an alley, she emerged onto a main thoroughfare and turned left, making her way to a building further down. Approaching it, she slowed when a work van suddenly lurched next to the building. As soon as it joined the flow of traffic, Kai turned and pulled into the alley. She rolled about halfway down before pulling to the side and shutting off the engine. Getting off the motorcycle, she turned and walked towards the street. A few minutes later, she was standing at an ATM machine, inserting her card.
While she always carried what she called emergency cash with her wherever she went, and had more in the safes in her storage units across the globe, Kai was uncomfortably aware that if something went terribly wrong today, she would need access to more than what she had on her. She tried not to analyze why she felt so compelled to pull out as much cash as her international bank allowed in one transaction, but typed in her code resolutely. She had learned very early on to trust her gut instincts implicitly, and that was what she was doing now. If everything went according to plan, she would put it back tomorrow when she reached Tel Aviv. No harm, no foul, as the Americans were fond of saying.
Her lips tightened behind her helmet visor at the thought of the Americans. Jared had been very clear about what she had to do, but Kai had absolutely no idea how she was going to keep the Lieutenant alive if he breached the house too soon. In fact, she wasn’t even sure how she was supposed to know which one he was! Jared had said he would be leading the assault, but Kai knew there would be no identification visible on the Special Forces. They didn’t want anyone knowing their names or rank, and for good reason. The best she could possibly hope for was that he would literally be leading the assault, in front and the first one in. In any case, whoever that was would be the one who witnessed the supposed execution of Masha’al, and therefore would be the one she would have to keep alive, Lieutenant or not.
The slot in the machine opened, dispensing a stack of bills, and she pulled them out, tucking them into the inside pocked of her jacket while her eyes watched the reverse mirror above the keypad. None of the pedestrians on the busy street were paying any attention to the person dressed in motorcycle gear standing at an ATM. Her card ejected and she slid that into the same pocket as the cash before turning and retracing her steps to the mouth of the alley. If the worst case scenario happened and everything went sideways, she now had enough cash to disappear easily. Always assuming, of course, that she survived. If she didn’t, well, then it would make no difference how much cash she had on her. It would all be a moot point.
Kai went back to the motorcycle and climbed on. The engine roared to life and she released the brake, rolling forward until she reached the alley opening. No matter what happened, she had every confidence that she would handle it. This was what she did. This was what she’d been trained to do, and this was what Jared expected of her, and of all of them. They would get Masha’al and get out, leaving the Americans convinced that he was dead. And if, for some reason, they couldn’t, she would make damn sure the man was really dead. Masha’al Al-Amin was hers, and she had never failed to get her target. She certainly wasn’t going to start now.
The engine revved and the motorcycle surged forward into the heavy traffic, narrowly missing a compact car as Kai shot into the street. As she weaved in between vehicles, she was conscious of a sudden feeling of freedom. It was time to get to work. All the prep was finished, all the planning and organizing completed. Now it was time to sit back and execute.
And this was her favorite part.
