9

Jennifer dropped the robe, put on her bra, and began pulling on a pair of jeans. Innocently, as if she cared only about the mission, she said, “I think we should go to Caesarea if this doesn’t pan out in the next few hours. I mean, we’re supposedly getting paid by the United States to do that. We could leave Brett here.”

I laughed and said, “We’re getting paid by the United States to figure out what that asshole is up to.”

She slid her arms into a blouse and said, “Cover, Pike. We have to maintain our cover. We can’t do anything over here without protection. You’re the one who taught me that.”

I said, “Okay, okay. I get it. You want to go look at pottery shards. We’ll do it. I promise.”

Jennifer’s first love was archeology, and she was perennially aggravated that our cover never let her actually see the sites we were supposedly supporting. She’d earned at least one trip to a site.

She slid her feet into a pair of Salomon hikers and said, “You promise? We don’t do it today and you know it’s not happening.”

I said, “Yeah, okay. After we flesh out what’s going on. I’ll take you there myself.”

She sighed and said, “We’re in the land of the Bible, with more history per square mile than anyplace on earth. And I’m not going to see any of that, am I?”

“No, no. You will. I promise.”

Our computer dinged, and she went to it. She took one look at the screen and said, “Liar.”

I ran to the computer and saw, Pair’s on the move. Just came to the lobby. They’re getting coffee. Get your ass down here.

I typed back, On the way. Stage the vehicles, then looked at Jennifer with chagrin. I said, “Sorry. I can’t predict this stuff.”

She threw her bag over her shoulder and said, “Yeah, yeah. Story of my life.”

I said, “I really didn’t plan this. Come on.”

She held the door open, a little wicked grin on her face, saying, “Well, this just jacks it up another carat.”

Lately, she’d started keeping a tally of my perceived transgressions. The score was in the currency of precious stones. Didn’t do the dishes on my turn, making her wash a plate? That’s an eighth of a carat. Our mangy, diabolically evil cat taking a shit on the floor because I didn’t change out the litter box? A quarter. Deploy for an archeological site and not get to see it? A full carat.

I had no idea if she was kidding or not, and didn’t want to even broach the fact that she was talking about a diamond. That had all sorts of subliminal connotations.

I grabbed our backpack of tech gear, both of us racing out. We reached the lobby and saw our targets crossing it, each carrying a paper cup of coffee. We ignored them, heading straight to the revolving door exit.

Getting outside, I saw Brett down the circular drive at a pullout, leaning on a vehicle. We got to him, and he tossed me a key fob, saying, “I’m getting reimbursed for the valet tip.”

I clicked the door locks and said, “Easy day. You take a car as singleton. Jennifer and I have the other one. You got your earpiece running?”

“Yeah.”

I clicked mine and said, “Test, test.”

I heard him next to me, then in my ear: “I got you.”

I said, “Okay, today’s just exploratory. Let’s see where they go, what they do. Get us an angle on what’s going on. Remember, it might be nothing at all.”

Brett slid into the seat of his car and said, “Somehow, you’ll manage to turn nothing into high adventure.”

I grinned and said, “We can only hope—but remember, it’s Alpha only. The high adventure will come later, when we prove this guy’s an asshole.”

I saw Tyler Malloy exit with his sidekick from Bulgaria and took a closer look at him. As much as I wanted it to be true, he was not a pussy. Dressed in 5.11 pants, a Columbia shirt, and a Mountain Hardwear fleece jacket, he looked just like any other military contractor on the planet, but he was no longer a gunslinger and had no reason to dress like one. He was now an international arms dealer, and the fact that he refused to dress the part in his new position told me volumes.

He was about six-two and carried some weight, and not in a bad way. He hadn’t left the Marines and dived into Mickey D’s and Pop-Tarts. He’d clearly stayed in shape, and, of course, he maintained the operator beard, which I found ridiculous, because he was never an operator. But obviously, he thought he was.

They entered a Crown Vic limo and passed us, and we picked up the follow, Brett leading. They went through the intersection at the main road of HaYarkon, passing by the British embassy, and we hung with them a few cars back. They made no left or right turns, so the surveillance effort was pretty simple. Eventually, we entered Ramat Gan, a city/suburb east of Tel Aviv. We wound around for a few minutes, the channelized nature of the roads giving me confidence that we wouldn’t be tagged as following.

Abruptly, the Crown Vic stopped outside of some mall area with four tall buildings jutting into the sky. Brett passed the drop-off, going deep and saying, “Diamond exchange.”

I pulled up short with Jennifer and said, “What’s that?”

“Just what I said. It’s the Israeli diamond exchange. And it’s locked down tight.”

Jennifer had already been working her tablet and said, “It’s one of the biggest diamond exchanges in the world. It rivals Antwerp.”

She poked and prodded her tablet a bit more, then said, “It has some serious security. We aren’t getting in there.”

Shit.

I watched the two exit, and enter the front doors of the exchange. I waited a beat, then said, “Stage here. Let’s see what happens.”

Within two minutes, I saw the target we called Ivan exit. He stood on the steps for a minute, then waved over the limo.

Decision time.

I said, “Got Ivan out front now. Blood, I want you to stay on the building. We’re going to take the trailer and see where it leads us.”

Brett said, “Only if you quit using that callsign.”

Everyone in the Taskforce had a callsign, and usually for something they did that wasn’t stellar. I’d anointed him with the callsign “Blood,” and he despised it.

I said, “No promises. Ivan’s in the limo. We’re rolling.”