13:00 / 1:00 P.M. IST
They’re ready for you,” said the ramsad’s administrative assistant.
Nir thanked her and went through the office door. Ira Katz sat behind his desk, and sitting in chairs on the left side of the office were Deputy Director Asher Porush and Assistant Deputy Director Karin Friedman. On the other side of the room sat Efraim Cohen and the director of Caesarea, Alex Eichler. Eichler was the one who questioned Nir before his acceptance into the Mossad. In the middle of the room stood a single empty chair. The ramsad welcomed Nir and invited him to sit in the center seat.
“He jumped right through the door, huh?” Katz began.
Well, no beating around the bush here.
“Sir, it was completely my fault that he was unharnessed.”
“Why was he unharnessed?”
Nir paused, considering how to best explain what happened.
“Did it have anything to do with how you got the information about Abu Dhabi?” asked Porush.
“Indirectly, but yes.” Technically, he was unharnessed so Dima could hang him out the door, which turned out to be an unfruitful methodology. The mistake was forgetting to reharness him when they threw him back into his seat. But was all that information they really needed to know?
“So you were roughing him up and you unharnessed him in order to…what? Rough him up harder?” Porush continued.
It was obvious that the deputy director was trying to get under his skin, but Nir wasn’t going to take the bait. Keep calm and cool. Ride it out.
“No, that wasn’t it.”
“Then what was it? Was the harness uncomfortable for him, so you thought you’d help him out a little? Did you offer him peanuts and a cocktail while you were at it?”
“I don’t think a Muslim would have taken a cocktail.” Nir saw the ramsad cover a smile with his hand.
Porush, however, was not smiling. “Do you think this is a joke? Do you know how much money and effort went into this operation? Do you know the political fallout we’re dealing with from having one of our warships that close to the Turkish coastline? All that work so you could let the target jump out of the helicopter. You’re lucky you’re not up on charges right now. You’ve got no reason to be sitting there all smug when you’ve led one of the greatest failures in Caesarea’s history.”
Failure? Did he really just say failure?
“You want to know why he was unharnessed? Because I had one of my men hang him out the door to see if he would talk. When he didn’t, I had him brought inside. That’s when I set to work on the old man. It took only five punches to the shoulder I had personally put a bullet through no more than half an hour earlier to make him talk. You want to know why this wasn’t a failure? I’ll give you two words—Abu Dhabi. Out of all the cities in this world, we got it narrowed down to one. Was this a screwup? You bet it was, and I’ll take the heat for it. Was it a failure? Absolutely not.”
Nir glared at Porush, then turned to the ramsad. So much for not taking the bait. A quick glance toward Efraim saw the other man shaking his head, trying not to laugh.
“Well, that saved us about 15 minutes of interrogation.” Katz gave Porush a chastising look, then turned to Nir. “I appreciate your being candid and taking responsibility for, as you yourself put it, screwing up. I’m sure I have nothing to say to you, no great pearl of wisdom like always buckle the harness—that you haven’t already thought of and beat yourself up over. We all make mistakes, but only the fool doesn’t learn from them. If something like this should happen again, it would be very clear to me that you are a fool. I will not tolerate fools in my Mossad. Is that understood?”
“Yes, ramsad.”
“Good. Now, Director Eichler has been in touch with Abdullah Al Rashidi, director of our Emirati equivalent, the Signals Intelligence Agency or SIA. Alex, do you want to take it from here?”
Eichler—short, bald, and tending toward the round—was a man who had quite the body count behind him despite the image his appearance gave. “Al Rashidi took it to the prime minister, and then the two of them took it to the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi. Surprisingly, the Sheikh was open to our involvement and even appreciative. I think that’s likely because he’s heard about the rumored accords that will soon come out of Washington. Because the prime minister is very open to normalizing relations with us, most of the Sheikhs see the direction the tide is flowing. They will cooperate with us under one condition—that they’re kept abreast of everything going on. Communication will be key, Nir. I need to know your every step. I will communicate with Al Rashidi, who will run it up his chain.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“We’re on the cusp of something very big right now, not just with the UAE but with other countries, like Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan—maybe even the Saudis. One wrong guy plunging out a helicopter could destroy this whole thing. But if you find a way to stop this attack, I think it’s possible that we will see many new friendships. The very fact that the Emiratis are inviting us in on this investigation is a step further than we’ve ever seen with them.”
The ramsad stepped back into the conversation. “You will have full resources at your disposal. Use them. You have ten good people on your team but thousands more to draw upon. If you feel you’re in over your head, don’t let pride keep you from asking for help. You’re still fairly young for this responsibility, and there are those around me who want someone more experienced to lead this operation. Yet I believe since we’re dealing with new technology, we need a new perspective on how to counter it. Stopping this attack will take more than a well-placed car bomb. I think you have that perspective.”
“Thank you, sir. I will not let you down.”
“Nir, there’s one more thing,” said Director Eichler. “The Emiratis are still pretty sore about the Mahmoud al-Mabhouh hit a decade ago. I had to assure Director Al Rashidi that nobody involved with that targeted elimination would be part of this operation. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Mahmoud Al-Mab-who?”
“Exactly. Make sure Nicole le Roux knows she’s never been in the UAE either.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take care. And Godspeed, Nir.”
The ramsad had dismissed him, and as Nir walked back to the workroom, he felt the weight of his charge. He’d started the day trying to stop a drone attack on a foreign nation. Now it felt like he was suddenly responsible for bringing about world peace. This was when he wished he had some of that faith Nicole talked about. It would be nice to know there was some kind of higher power looking out for him, someone who would come to his aid when the going was tough.
Yeah, it’d be nice. It’d also be nice if I had lasers in my eyes and I could fly. But we’re dealing with reality here. It’s up to me and my team to stop this attack. And if we work hard enough and smart enough, we’ll bring these terrorists down.