ONE WEEK LATER
MOSSAD HEADQUARTERS, TEL AVIV, ISRAEL—JANUARY 21, 2020—10:15 / 10:15 A.M. IST
Despite the cold, Nir was sweating as he walked into Mossad headquarters. He’d spent the morning running drills with Yaron, Avi, Dima, and Doron. They were starting to gel as a team, and their communication was reaching peak. But Yaron, whom Nir had put in charge of their training, ran them hard. They’d started at five in the morning, and he still had them out on a trail run when Nir had to duck out to get to the office. He’d taken a shower and put on clean clothes, but the endorphins were still pumping, and the sweat kept leaking.
“Hey, all,” he said to the rest of the team as he walked into their workroom. A couple mumbled greetings was all he got, which was fine with him. That meant they were working hard and didn’t have time to be distracted. The team that jumped up and excitedly met you by the door had too much time on their hands.
The workroom was fairly large. The long conference table sat in the middle and was surrounded by eight workspaces up against the walls, each loaded with the latest in computer technology. Only five were currently occupied. The other three were ready in case their team needed to expand. There were no cubicles, just large desks spread around. Nir didn’t want any walls dividing the players. All communication needed to be open and heard and ready to be implemented.
Nicole was stationed to the left as he walked in. She had a two-tier array of six 27-inch monitors, each filled with code that made Nir’s head hurt just by looking at it. She briefly turned her head and smiled at him, her hands never even slowing on the keyboard.
They had met again, this time for dinner, but although they had a past together and their feelings were still strong in the present, they’d decided to hold off on rekindling a relationship at least until this operation was over. They didn’t want anything between them to create a strange vibe in the group, and they certainly didn’t need any distraction from their own work. To Nir’s relief, that also put off any further discussion about Nicole’s newfound faith.
Liora and Dafna had pulled their workstations together so they were working as one unit. An oversized bowl of popcorn sat on the seam between their two desks, into which they both regularly dipped their hands.
To their right was Yossi. In spite of the cold, he was wearing shorts and sandals. His man-bun was down today, which from behind made him look like he belonged on the cover of a romance novel.
Finally, Lahav was on the far right. He was the only one who had bothered to decorate his space. His style would best be described as Star Wars chic, with various space cruisers, X-wings, and TIE fighters hanging from the ceiling. Posters hung on the walls, but only from episodes IV through IX. Each member of the team had been cornered at some point in time to hear his view as to why the prequels were an abomination. Only Liora had been kind enough to hear him out all the way.
Standing next to Lahav’s desk was a full-size Chewbacca mannequin, the fur of which had seen better days. The team had decided to adopt it as a mascot, and they took turns bringing hats for Chewie to wear. It was Nir’s turn today, and he pulled a pink bucket hat with Tel Aviv Is 4 ♥-ers stenciled on it out of his messenger bag and placed it on the Wookie’s head.
“Nice. It sets off his eyes,” Liora said.
“It was a gift from my mom,” Nir replied with a wink. Then he called out to the rest of the group, “Team meeting in ten minutes.”
He walked past the Wookie and through a door into his office. He usually kept the door open so he wouldn’t be so separated from the team, but the walls and door were essential since he’d sometimes receive calls or visits not for the whole team to hear.
He set his bag on his desk, then sat in the swivel, executive chair. The last week had been frustrating for the team. They’d chased lead after lead and come up with nothing. Also, the mysterious Iranian mole had been completely silent. Any cushion of time Soleimani’s assassination had bought them would soon be gone. They needed something, and they needed it soon.
One positive note was that there hadn’t been any blowback about Nicole’s Christianity so far. Whether it was because nobody knew about it or nobody cared, Nir wasn’t sure. He was just glad everyone was getting along.
By the time he’d responded to a series of emails, the ten minutes were up. He walked back into the workroom. “Let’s bring it in, guys.”
Everyone groaned but moved toward the table. Dafna tossed the metal popcorn bowl into the middle, and it came precariously close to dumping its contents as it spun. Everyone watched while it slowed and finally settled.
“Nice.” Lahav grabbed two handfuls, then dumped the buttery corn directly on the table in front of him.
Nir started them off. “Let’s go around the horn. Nicole?”
“As you all know, General Esmail Qaani took over as commander of Quds Force after Soleimani was particled out. There’s little doubt that he knows about anything being sponsored by the IRGC. I’ve been trying to track down any computer signature he might have or phone I can get into, but so far I’m coming up dry.”
“Okay, keep it up. Ladies?”
Liora started. “So word was that Soleimani was going to Baghdad to make peace with the Saudis, which we all know was a load of toasted goat droppings.”
“That’s right, girl,” Dafna said.
A few days ago, the two women had stumbled across a couple of African American ladies speaking their minds on a U.S. cable news channel. They loved it and had been playing the shtick ever since.
“So we’re thinking, just why did that boy go there?”
“Why indeed,” Dafna echoed.
“Anytime Iran has something nasty in mind, they don’t do it themselves. They get one of the militias to do their nasty.”
“Nasty boys.”
“What better place to meet one of their Iraqi insurgent militias than in Iraq?”
“Mmm.”
“So we’ve been going over every piece of surveillance footage we can find in our database and in the American database, with a little help from Nicole—”
“Girl rocks.”
“And we’re trying to track down any known militia leaders who might have been within a ten-mile radius of Baghdad Airport.”
“That’s the kind of thinking I like,” Nir said, laughing at their banter. “Good job. Yossi, can you help them with your needle-in-a-haystack skills?”
“Already on it, boss. The difficulty is that everyone and their left-handed savta has started their own militia.”
“My grandmother was left-handed,” Nicole said.
“Is your savta in Iraq?” Yossi grinned.
“Nah, she died.”
“Phew, then she’s probably not a militia leader.”
Nicole laughed, crumpled a piece of paper, and threw it at Yossi.
“Let’s rein it back in.” Nir rolled his eyes. “I hate to put all of our eggs in one basket, but right now this Baghdad Airport lead is the only basket we’ve got. So let’s go full-on with this. Lahav, what have you been working on?”
“I’m learning all I can about drones.”
“Good.” Nir thought back to Efraim’s idea that the attack might be something “drone-y.” “And what are you learning about drones?”
“If I wanted to kill you, I’d use a drone.”
“And do you want to kill me?”
Lahav’s creepy factor had elevated from the time the team was first formed, and some moments, like now, it full-on spiked.
“Of course not. No really good reason I can think of right now. But if I were going to launch an attack and make it big, I would not use a Katyusha rocket like the incompetents in Hamas. Their detonation is unreliable, and their aim is worthless. I also wouldn’t go into someplace with guns blazing. Too many other guns around to last long. Besides, it’s been done. Suicide bombs are a big yawn now. Nobody cares. If you want to make a statement, fly a drone. It’s the terrorism of the future.”
“Wow, Lahav, you could make a commercial for Killer Drones ‘R’ Us.” Dafna had a point.
Lahav blushed. “Thanks.”
Although said with a high level of creep, Lahav was exactly right. And what he said confirmed Efraim’s earlier speculation.
“All of you, great work. Keep it going. Let me know if you come up with anything. I don’t care how minuscule or seemingly irrelevant it is.”
A chorus of “Okay, boss” and “You got it, Nir” rang around the table. The meeting broke up, and Nir went back to his computer. The meeting had shown him that his understanding of drone terrorism was sorely lacking. He needed to remedy that, and fast.