Swiftshadow

by D S Kane

  She mourned Evan’s death, but then she thought about Lee. Lee had been everything she’d ever fantasized in a man, and after being so close to him for over six months, she was sure she’d never feel as much for anyone else. And she was sure she could depend on him to be her conscience.

  She stopped walking, surprised by an unexpected realization. She really was in love with him.

  She stood still for several seconds, savoring this feeling while the slow flow of pedestrians moved around her. Smiling like an idiot, she started walking down the street again, singing a blues tune by Chris Smither, “Love Me Like A Man.” She’d heard Bonnie Raitt perform it in concert several years ago:

  I come home sad and lonely, feel like I wanna cry.

  I want a man to hold me, not some fool to ask me why.

  The colors of the world seemed much brighter, and she could clearly see details of texture and deeper shades in the scene around her. She suddenly hoped she could be normal if she and Lee were together. But would he still want her after whatever tortures they were doing to him? Would he become as mangled as she was?

  Had she lost him forever?

  As Cassie walked past an alleyway on K Street, she heard a pitiful “meow.” She looked into the dark passage. She heard the “meow” again. She searched until she found a tiny black kitten, the size of a cup of coffee, walking among the alley garbage. The starving kitten looked up at her and meowed once more. Cassie reached down. It let her pet it, and it rubbed its head against her hand. She picked up the kitten. It fit perfectly in her hand. She was gentle as she rubbed its fur, and its purr was loud.

  The tiny cat was as she had been when she’d first arrived in Manhattan: homeless, alone, desperate. Cassie looked into its eyes. Only trust reflected back at her. But she realized she could change its future by adopting it. It was then Cassie knew she had her life back. She was free again. She could do things normal people did.

  As she walked on, she remembered vividly the dream she’d had in Carmel when Lee had awakened her just two weeks ago. She and Lee, much older, with Gizmo the cat and a daughter.

  Now she clearly saw the face of her teenaged daughter. Her eyes misted over. It was Ann Silbee. Cassie decided to return to the Grand Central Station tunnels as soon as possible and get Ann out from there, adopt her. But would Ann still be there? What if something had happened to her? She hoped the teenager was still safe. She’d dreamed about being married, but since Evan’s death she had stopped hoping for it, and hadn’t ever given a thought to being a parent. Now it seemed like the perfect next step.

  Family!

  She could visualize the life ahead of her. A normal life. Her entire future seemed at once very whole and satisfying.

  She thought about finding a vet for the cat, get it vaccinations and something to kill the fleas she was sure it carried. She walked off, carrying the kitten in her arms. Cassie said to it, “Little one, I name you ‘Gizmo.’ You’re coming home with me. I sure hope Lee likes cats.”

  She had work to do. Serious work.

  Time to live!

  Appendix A - Glossary

  AFI. Intelligence branch of the Israeli Air Force.

  aleph. Lead kidon, the assassin leading an execution mission for the Mossad.

  Aman. Intelligence branch of the IDF (Israeli Military Intelligence).

  asset. A civilian in a foreign country who claims to have valuable contacts or information useful to a case officer. The primary objective of most case officers is to develop in-country assets.

  ayin. Tracker (surveillance) for the Mossad.

  backstopping. Fake identification papers.

  bat leveyha. Female agent for the Mossad.

  better world, send to a. Euphemism for murdering an enemy agent.

  blind dating. Meeting place chosen by an agent to meet his or her handler.

  bodel. Courier for the Mossad.

  BP. Israeli paramilitary Border Patrol.

  burn notice. A termination notice for an official operative or an NOC; the burned spy has his or her bank accounts confiscated and identity documents redacted, and, in extreme cases, is subject to a terminate-on-sight order.

  C-6. A more powerful and concentrated form of the C-4 explosive.

  Chinese Secret Intelligence Services (CSIS). Chinese version of the FBI.

  CHIPS. The Clearinghouse Interface Processing System, used by money-center banks to settle all outstanding transactions between them at the end of their day.

  Collections Department. Intelligence Department abroad for the Mossad; traditional espionage.

  cutout. An intermediary, usually an innocent person, either a volunteer or paid by a covert operative to deliver or retrieve something valuable such as a message or a gadget, from a covert operative or an asset.

  DARPA. Defense Department’s agency for advanced research projects, charged with development of weapons systems for the United States.

  daylight alert. Highest priority alert.

  DDOS. Distributed denial of service; a brute-force method of bringing down a website, by overloading it with traffic. Rarely used successfully by any except the most desperate and skillful of hackers.

  dry cleaning. Counter-surveillance techniques.

  ECHELON. An identity-tracking system developed by contract programmers and used by the United States as its primary terrorism prevention system prior to 9/11. There are currently in excess of forty systems developed since 9/11, used by the NSA to track the identities of US citizens and foreigners.

  EFT. Electronic Funds Transfer, the basic term denoting a non-check payment.

  EMP. Electromagnetic pulse device that unleashes a high-energy discharge that fries all electronic devices within its range.

  exfiltrate. To retrieve an agent from hostile territory.

  Farm, The. A camp in Virginia used to train CIA case officers and the case officers of intelligence services friendly to the United States.

  FSB. The Russian internal security and counterintelligence service, created in 1994 as one of the successor agencies of the Soviet-era KGB.

  go bag. A lightweight luggage carrier used by covert operatives to carry travel essentials, including emergency clothing and sundries, weapons and ammunition. When not being used, it is typically stored, fully loaded, near a door or under a window for fast access.

  heth. Logistician for the Mossad.

  false flagging. An operation falsely made to appear mounted by another country.

  fumigate. Sweeping an area for electronic bugs.

  honey trap. Sexual entrapment for intelligence purposes.

  IDF. Israel Defense Forces; the Israeli army.

  katsa. Case officer for the Mossad.

  KGB. Soviet Union’s secret police, the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopanosti was established in March 1954 in Moscow and was attached to the Council of Ministers, but operated independently. With over 500,000 employees, it was the largest spy agency in the world.

  Liquid armor, or shear thickening fluid (STF). Developed by the U S Army in 2003, STF can stop a .38 caliber bullet, but improved versions can stop anything up to a .50 caliber shell

  kidon. Operative specializing in assassination for the Mossad. (plural: kidonim.)

  Krav Maga. Israeli martial art developed by Aman and used by IDF and Mossad. Now taught to many of the global spy agencies.

  MI-6. Also known as Great Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

  Mossad. The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations; originally called the Institute for Coordination; called “the Office” by those who work there.

  Ness Ziona. Israeli weapons laboratory, located in Herzliyya, Israel.

  neviot. Surveillance specialist for the Mossad.

  NI. Intelligence branch of the Israeli navy.

  NOC. Non-official cover; the status of a contractor working with the CIA in-country and without sanction or cover from the Agency.

  NSA. National Security Agency; formed under the Truman administration and used as the tec
hnology management arm of the United States government.

  Office, The. The name of the Mossad used by most of its case officers (katsas).

  qoph. Communications officer for the Mossad.

  RAID. Redundant array of independent disks; used as a physical non-cloud device for backup of high-value data.

  RSA. An encryption algorithm, or key, used to safely send messages between parties on the Internet.

  safe house. Apartment or house used covertly for base of operations

  sayan. A helper for the Mossad. (plural: sayanim.)

  Shabak. Also known as GSS or Shin Bet; responsible for internal security and defense of Israeli installations abroad, including embassies, consulates, and other organizations.

  slick. Hiding place for documents.

  souk. A Middle Eastern marketplace, usually an open-air farmer’s market that also sells craft items.

  surveillance detection route. A method used by covert agents, walking back and forth several city blocks, looking in the reflective surfaces to discern if they are being followed.

  SWIFT. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, a European agency that sets standards for global financial messages used by banks for near-real-time settlement of electronic funds transfers. The transaction types (debit memo, credit memo, etc.) have numbers to identify them; e.g., MT100 is a credit memo sent by one bank to another to indicate payment via real-time book entry.

  Tze’elim. Israel’s Urban Warfare Training Center in the Negev Desert.

  Va’adet Rashei Hasherutim. The committee of the heads of service in Israel’s intelligence community. Mossad is a prime member.

  Vory. Russian criminal brotherhood, compatriots.

  Wahhabi. Puritan doctrine of Islam, founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792) in Saudi Arabia.

  wash. Recycling of a valid passport obtained by theft or purchase.

  yahalom. A covert computer hacker or cybercriminal working for the Mossad’s Yahalomin unit.

  Appendix B - Character List for the Spies Lie series (alphabetical)

  Lee Ainsley. Director of Information Security at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence service in Washington, DC. He has a crush on Cassandra Sashakovich.

  Hazret Ali. Tribal leader in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.

  Yigdal Ben-Levy. Call-sign “Emah” or Mother. Ben-Levy is the Associate Director of the Mossad, a spymaster who also runs liaison between them and Aman. Ben-Levy runs the dirtiest black ops missions. His niece, Aviva Bushovsky, died one year ago.

  Elizabeth Rochelle Brown. Call-sign Butterfly. Hacker living in Woodbine, Iowa. Self-proclaimed as the best hacker on earth. William Wing claims the same thing about himself.

  Aviva Bushovsky. Call-sign Sweetthing, aka Lisa Gabriel. Under cover, she became engaged to Jon Sommers. She was a Mossad bat leveyha, niece of Yigdal Ben-Levy. Aviva died in a car bomb set in the parking garage in Herzliyya where she’d left her car to meet Ruth Cohen for lunch.

  Lieutenant Benjamin Chan. A direct report to Xian Wing, Benjamin’s mother was English, and hence his Western first name.

  Norman Cisco. Currency Custodian working at the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan.

  Ruth Cohen. Call-sign Toots, alias Ruth DeWitt. Cohen rose through the ranks from bat leveyha (honey pot) to kidon to katsa, and is now Mossad Station Chief, Berlin, Germany. Less than one year ago, she and Jon Sommers were lovers.

  Sir Charles Crane. Call sign Mastercollector, a British spymaster at MI-6, whose career was almost terminated by Jon Sommers’ parents, Abel and Natasha Sommerstein.

  Michael Drapoff. A kidon reporting to Yigdal Ben-Levy.

  Lester Dushov. A katsa reporting to Yigdal Ben-Levy.

  Simon Fiernen. A cover identity for Yigdal Ben-Levy.

  Bob Gault. Call-sign Snakecharmer, works as a case officer at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence service in Washington, DC. Gault is overweight and unpromotable, but he is also an effective operative.

  Oscar Gilead. Director of the Mossad, to whom Yigdal Ben-Levy reports.

  Major Ralph Giondella. American Tactics Commander.

  Gilbert Greenfield. Director in Charge of an intelligence agency in Washington DC so secret that it is “unnamed.” Aliases include Herr Flouber and Ellbert E. Friend.

  Abdul Hassain. Abdul was hired by Pesi Houmaz to torture and murder Cassandra Sashakovich in Riyadh after first determining if she had learned of the Houmaz brothers plans to attach the United States. He raped and impregnated her before Cassandra was able to kill him in self-defense.

  Judy Hernandez. A personal trainer working at the YMCA in Manhattan.

  Achmed Houmaz. Youngest of the brothers, Achmed was left to run Arab Oil Corporation after Tariq was disowned by their father and Pesi followed Tariq from the family. Achmed resides in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

  Pesi Houmaz. Second in command of a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot group headquartered at its training facility near Upper Pachir, Afghanistan. Pesi is the brother of Tariq Houmaz. Pesi resides in Saudi Arabia.

  Tariq Houmaz. Leader of Muslim Brotherhood offshoot terrorism group, located near Upper Pachir, Afghanistan.

  Maukvi Muhammed Khalis. Hazret Ali’s mullah, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.

  Nomi Klein. Cobbler (document forger) working for the Mossad in the South Bronx, New York.

  Misha Kovich. Cassandra Sashakovich’s uncle and Kiril Sashakovich’s brother. Worked for the KGB until the fall of the Soviet Union, then worked for the Russian Mafiya transporting weapons and money between Moscow and Vladivostok.

  Lily Lee. A girlfriend of William Wing, she lives in Hong Kong. She is also a call girl and her father owns an upscale restaurant, Star Luk restaurant in Hong Kong’s harbor.

  Major Jacques LeFleur. French North African Battle Operations Specialist.

  Clyde MacIntosh. Case officer, MI-6, reporting to Sir Charles Crane.

  Adam Mahee. Stanford University adjunct faculty, project manager and contractor, Silicon Valley.

  Debra McCandless. Treasurer of Stillwater Technologies, Inc., a Silicon Valley chipset developer in San Jose, California.

  Mark McDougal. Director, unnamed intelligence agency, Washington, DC. McDougal is Bob Gault and Cassandra Sashakovich’s boss. McDougal reports to Gilbert Greenfield, who runs an agency so secret that it is “unnamed.”

  Major Alister McTavish. British Tactics Commander, hired as a mercenary by Major Avram Shimmel.

  Samuel Meyer. Call-sign Uncle Sam. Associate Director of the Mossad and liaison to Aman, successor to Yigdal Ben-Levy. Meyer graduated from Harvard Law School.

  Shula Ries. Call-sign Viper, Mossad kidon who reports to Yigdal Ben-Levy. Ries is more than just a honeypot for the Mossad. She is lethal with any weapon and has no conscience.

  Lev Robinson. A Ness Ziona scientist who works on Bug-Lok, and was turned into a mole by Sir Charles Crane, an MI-6 spymaster.

  Cassandra Sashakovich. Call-sign Swiftshadow, Multiple aliases, including Chandra Paklorri, Chrissie Card, Darla Kidon, Denise Hardcastle, Susan Blumenthal, Elaine Teman, and Emily Fishcallow. Former NOC and hacker at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence service in Washington, DC. She has gone black, outed by a mole within the agency, and now is hunted by the Houmaz family.

  Kiril Sashakovich. Cassandra’s father, professor of economics, Stanford University, and former econometric planner for the now defunct Soviet Union.

  Natasha Sashakovich. Cassandra’s mother, member of the Half Moon Bay, California city council, and former case officer for the KGB.

  Gunda Schlein. Finance Manager, Dreitsbank, Munich. Schlein’s brother is held by MI-6 to compel her to spy on Jon Sommers. But Sommers has also tried to double her.

  Dr. Henry Sheldorff. High-priced Manhattan plastic surgeon.

  Avram Shimmel. Call-sign Clearcut, mercenary, former major in the IDF,and later, a Mossad kidon. Shimmel is 6’7” and a wall of muscle, but he also was one of the IDF’s most gifted tacticians. His p
regnant wife and young daughter were killed by a car bomb set by Tariq Houmaz.

  Ann Silbee. Homeless teenager living in the tunnels under Manhattan.

  Jon Sommers. Call-sign Quicksilver, aka Friedrich Stamphil. Mossad katsa working for Ruth Cohen. A year ago, Jon was recruited by Yigdal Ben-Levy after Jon’s fiancée, Lisa Gabriel, died in a car bombing.

  Abel Sommerstein. Jon Sommers’ father.

  Natasha Sommerstein. Jon Sommers’ mother.

  Sandhia Sorab. Funds Transfer Repair Station Specialist at the Bank of Trade, Karachi, Pakistan.

  Herr Rickard Stossler. A cover identity for Yigdal Ben-Levy.

  Shimon Tennenbaum. A Mossad kidon who works for Yigdal Ben-Levy.

  Nikita Tobelov. Head of Russian Mafiya’s Eastern District, in Vladivostok

  Benjamin Franklin Wagner. US Ambassador to Israel.

  Phillip Watson. Graduate student at working in the Technology Centre of the University of London.

  JD “Jacob David” Weinstein. A Mossad kidon who works for Yigdal Ben-Levy.

  Ari Westheim. A Mossad kidon who works for Yigdal Ben-Levy.

  William Wing. Call-sign CryptoMonger. Hacker, living in Hong Kong, contract worker for corporations, MI-6, the Mossad, and other intelligence services. He was disowned by his father when he was twelve years old, for hacking into the CSIS servers.

  Xian Wing. Director of Chinese Security Information Systems (CSIS). Father of William Wing.

  Appendix C

  Agency Dossier, Cassandra Sashakovich

  (copy found by Sashakovich on Pesi Houmaz’s computer)

  NAME: Cassandra Sashakovich

  AGE: 28

  DATE OF BIRTH: May 19, 1983

  EDUCATION:

  Half Moon Bay High School, Academic Diploma 1998

  California Culinary Institute, No Degree, 2002

  New York University, BA, Economics, minor in

  Computer Science, 2006

  Stanford University, Ph. D. Economics, 2008

  PLACE OF BIRTH: San Mateo, CA

  CALLSIGN: Swiftshadow