by E. L. Pini
I sat in the jeep and lit a cigar. The smoke swirled up into my nasal cavity, around my brain. I needed some shielding before coming back down to earth. I wrote myself another reminder, the second one in an hour, to contact this Doctor Verbin once the project was over. I tried to understand what had compelled me to be so unpleasant toward the attractive, mesmerizing physician, with her striking smile and impressive self-confidence. Interpersonal communication had never been my specialty, and interacting with someone unfamiliar always seemed exhausting, and rarely worthwhile. I hadn’t been in a serious relationship since Ya’ara—apart from a brief, surprisingly cheerful fling with Nora, my intelligence officer, which we’d mutually agreed to end so it wouldn’t get in the way of work. And of course, the forbidden—yet entirely unavoidable—affair with Anna.
The cigar went out. Time to go. The GPS app informed me that Highway 1 was clogged—an excellent reason to take the picturesque Route 383 to the facility. I shoved in the USB drive, and it was Otis Redding, of all people, crooning through “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” It wasn’t Pavarotti, but it somehow perfectly matched the landscape.
10.
Nora, Albert and I were cramped into the small alcove in Digital Albert’s “office.” Albert, so named after Albert Einstein, was in fact Guy, a Unit 8200 alum—a short, bespectacled geek, who had accrued an impressive number of location successes over the years. Prominent among these was the location of General Muhammad Suleiman, special presidential adviser to Bashar Al-Assad, at Tartus near Lattakia. There we’d introduced him to his maker, with the assistance of three Flotilla 13 snipers who had risen from the sea to place three bullets into his skull. One for each sniper.
Albert and Nora tore like barracudas through the croissants I’d bought and started on the coffee I’d made them.
“No idea,” said Nora, sounding as desperate as every intelligence officer sounds at the beginning of a project. She made a point of clarifying that we had, in fact, no legs to stand on. Even our primary assumption—that this attack had been initiated by a jihadist organization—was based on nothing more substantial than a hunch.
I tried to construct some kind of organized work plan. In cases like these, the first goal is always to define the “target bank”—the other potential targets—and defend it. If we’d known who had carried out the initial attack, we could at least guess, with a reasonable degree of confidence, the contents of this target bank. If we’d known where the explosives had been made, or bought, we could eliminate that channel, delay the next attacks, and get some breathing room for intelligence gathering. Most Western intelligence organizations were currently tied up with this thing, and right now, they were all in the dark.
“What about you? Found anything?”
“Affirmative,” replied Albert, adding, “The coffee is very bitter. Very, very bitter.” He made a face and went back to typing with finger-numbing speed, never glancing at the keyboard. He looked like Arthur Rubinstein, playing Chopin on some Friday afternoon at a kosher Catskills hotel, surrounded by purple-haired Polish ladies.
“Bingo,” Albert suddenly piped up, looking up from his screen, which currently exhibited the security camera system in the airport in Rome.
Nora informed me that she thought my coffee was excellent, apart from the lack of milk and sugar and the possibly irreparable damage to her taste buds. She added that as far as she knew, when they were going over the videos in search of suspects, “they’d only focused on men…”
Albert cut her off with some sexist nonsense, but I wasn’t paying attention—something had suddenly fallen into place.
“PETN is extremely dangerous, first and foremost to the person building the bomb. Extremely sensitive to heat and friction. Today it’s only used in tiny quantities in compounds like Semtex. If a professional—which is definitely what we’re dealing with here—chooses to build a bomb entirely out of PETN, it might mean that it served another function, apart from the actual explosion,” I said, sloshing around the remains of the coffee in my cup.
They didn’t seem to follow.
“Nora, if you wanted to initiate a series of bombings in Italy, Germany, anywhere else in Europe—which central property would you look for in your explosive of choice?”
Instead of replying, Nora collected the coffee cups and went into the kitchenette. She made some milky coffee-like concoction for Albert and herself and handed me an espresso.
“Drink your gross poison,” she said. “And I’d like my explosives to be undetectable, either by security scanners or personnel.”
“Amazingly, you’re right. Don’t let this become a habit,” I said. “At least, that’s the same conclusion I came to. And I’m guessing that if that’s the case, the first shahid wouldn’t have tried to hide the fact that he was an Arab from airport security. Maybe just the opposite… and maybe, just maybe, it turns out that his name is Qawasameh…”
Nora raised her head and widened her doe eyes at me. I shoved the lascivious thoughts aside and added, “But this is just a shot in the dark at this point. No actual evidence. Ami’s working on it… meanwhile, proceed as usual. And stay in touch with Ami.”
Nora nodded and sipped her coffee-flavored milk.
Two seconds later, an urgent notice came down from operations—a new transmission from Anna. The convoy was leaving early, which means D-Day got pushed up. The convoy was expected to reach the hunting ground at 0300.
“I gotta go.” I got up and headed for the office. Nora came after me, stopped me, and handed me a large yellow envelope.
“Your tickets and documents.” I was momentarily stunned. Bella never let anyone else handle my flight arrangements. “The evil hag—I’m sorry, I mean your BFF,” Nora corrected, “is on a flight to New York. Her daughter’s having a baby.”
“Look, my flight to Vienna was postponed. I need to get to Cyprus, to Larnaca. Let’s get to operations. You’re coming with me.”
“What, you mean just the two of us? But—”
“Don’t worry, we’ll leave now, fly back tonight. We have until three a.m.”
Nora flashed me a skeptical glace.
“Nora, I need you there.”
She kissed me on the cheek, appeased. “Now you’re talkin’.”
11.
The upside-down pyramid that housed the Royal Ministry of the Interior in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, exuded the same condescending foreignness that characterized most public buildings in this part of town. The hundreds of local palm trees, which seemed to bow down to the glass-and-steel monstrosities, emphasized its foreignness even more.
The passenger, about seventeen or eighteen years old, ordered the limo driver to pull up by the sidewalk and aimed the telescopic lens toward the ministry’s entrance hall. The entrance area and screening equipment were manned by bored-looking security personnel.
“Let’s go around again,” he ordered the driver, who dutifully drove back down King Fahad Road all the way to Airport Road and back up again. A thin trickle of ministry workers was beginning to spill from the large elevators into the entrance hall, and the security personnel had taken their posts in preparation for the first end-of-the-workday wave. Due to some odd planning mistake, the growing torrent of people leaving the building made it nearly impossible for the guards to properly screen everyone coming inside—thankfully, at the end of the workday, there weren’t many arrivals.
The passenger reminded the driver that he was to remain there and ostensibly talk on his cell phone, which would in fact be used to document and record the incident. The videos would be sent to Imad, as well as to one of the activist groups in Riyadh, and from there sent in real time to news agencies everywhere.
When the young man walked down the palm tree boulevard leading to the main gate, he couldn’t help but wish it were possible to simply blow up the needle-thin base of the upside-down pyramid, watch it topple over like the World Tr
ade Center.
The passenger reached the main gate, where he was ushered by a security guard toward the screening machine. He placed his wristwatch and his keys in the small tray but kept the constantly recording phone up in his hand, raising his hand. Another wave of impatient ministry workers pushed him back, and he waved questioningly at the security guard. The guard signaled him to just go around the security screening.
The entrance hall wasn’t full yet. The passenger signaled back that he would wait patiently until the passageway cleared. The guard, apparently approving of this attitude, smiled back. The passenger stroked his large belly, remembering how astounded Dr. Taissiri had been when, before the surgery, he’d asked him to put as much of the stuff inside of his stomach as possible. A huge flood of workers spilled out of the elevators, filling the hall on its way to the exit. The passenger hurried toward the screening machines, grinning at the security guard, who returned a somewhat forced smile.
“Smile!” he ordered the security guard.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Smile, please. For the camera.” The passenger pointed at his cell phone.
The guard smiled at the camera, and the passenger activated the charge.
Jay Heller, a political and military correspondent for BBC News, was visiting Riyadh as a guest of the crown prince. In an interview for local news, he noted that, while the deadly attacks in the European capitals and here in Riyadh had most likely been carried out by the same group—the Al-Qaeda branch in Yemen—the goals of this latest attack appeared to be different. The strikes to the heart of Europe had been a demonstration, meant to show the Western world that 9/11 had been just the beginning, that the bin Laden assassination had done nothing to stop the Islamic revolution. The bombing at the core of the world’s most powerful Sunni nation, however, delivered a different message—the prince’s liberalization and Westernization efforts were unwelcome, unwanted, and doomed to failure. This was an assault on the very heart of Saudi national security, which utilized the ultimate weapon of global jihad: humiliation. The crown prince, Prince bin Nayef, and the entire Saudi kingdom had been deeply, inconsolably humiliated.
12.
“If anyone can lead us to the explosives supplier, it’s Abrasha,” I was telling Nora, who paled at every hint of turbulence. Abrasha, who ran his weapons and security business from his office in Larnaca, was not just a major general (res.), but a major player. This was, granted, back in the days before every toilet stall featured the sexual harassment bulletin. I warned Nora, but she just laughed me off. She was captivating when she laughed. A long and slender body, topped by large, round breasts, like I’d once assumed only Hollywood could provide. Her mouth featured a slight overbite of white, dangerous teeth. More than once, I’d imagined her picture inside the frame of a “Wanted” poster, the kind you see in westerns, covered with a black stamp reading: “PUBLIC MENACE: SEEKING HUSBAND.”
“If I managed with you,” she replied, “I can handle any asshole.”
Weizmann, who’d been Abrasha’s driver since he was a paratrooper battalion CO, picked us up at the airport in a gleaming black Range Rover that made me wonder if perhaps, in my old age, it might be wise to find a more comfortable job.
Larnaca looked like a blend of 1950s Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Gaza. We felt right at home. Abrasha was waiting for us in a private room at the back of “the best Turkish restaurant on the island.” Apart from a small gut and grayer hair, he looked exactly the same as he had in the Service. After he and I hugged and kissed at great length, he stared deeply into Nora’s eyes, kissed her hand like a Polish nobleman, and broke into praise of the restaurant and the local sheep. We mixed the ice in our glasses of Turkish rakı, while Nora mixed sweet orgeat in hers.
“Do you know,” Abrasha asked Nora, “what gave birth to the Rebetiko?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “It is, in fact, a protest song, over the fact that from the same exact products used by the Turks to create one of the best cuisines in the world, the Greeks can’t seem to cook a single proper meal.”
Nora smiled, and I asked him if he could get me some PETN.
Abrasha understood why I was asking and grew serious. “They make the stuff in small quantities in any large explosive factory,” he said. “But these factories mostly sell to armies. Hard to believe that’s where your explosives came from.”
He then told us about a Soviet explosives factory near Chernobyl that was currently controlled by a local oligarch who’d bought it for practically nothing. This guy was apparently the main provider for private parties. The product was distributed by three sellers, all of them former KGB and Spetsnaz.
The sound of a siren suddenly wailed from the nearby room. Abrasha turned up the volume on the ancient TV set in the corner of the room. An Al Jazeera broadcast, live from Riyadh, routed through CNN. A Red Crescent ambulance, covered in Arabic, entered the frame. The camera panned to a reporter describing a mass-casualty bombing in Riyadh. Cut to the studio, where some political analyst was saying that “at this point, no Saudi official is able to explain how an explosive was carried into their Ministry of the Interior, the entrance to which is as heavily monitored and screened as any airport.” This was accompanied by old stock footage of the entrance gate, the screening equipment and its small conveyor belt. The analyst went on to say that, unlike at airports, all visitors to the ministry were subject to frisking. This bombing defied explanation, he concluded—barring some sort of ministry collaborator—and so far, no terrorist organization had claimed responsibility, just like in Rome.
“Shit,” Abrasha said, still chewing, and hurried to knock back the remainder of his rakı.
“Rome two days ago, and now Riyadh… it’s like a serial killer,” he said, thoughtful. “No way of knowing when and where he’ll strike next.”
“A serial killer murders one victim each time,” Nora blurted out. “This one doesn’t settle for less than twenty.”
At least this time, I thought, trying to find some small comfort, there were probably no Israelis around.
“The Saudis are pissed as hell right now. If they could, they’d crush Al-Qaeda like flies,” said Abrasha, adding, “Let’s see what the darknet has to offer. Lay some bait around, see if anyone come nibbling.”
He shot me a glance to make sure I knew what he was talking about—darknet, the internet’s underworld—then slipped into a Tor browser and surfed to a network named Unfriendly Solutions.
“Saudis are pissed as hell,” he muttered again. This could have potential, I mused. Serious potential. A common enemy can easily mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Abrasha pulled out a ridiculously thin Sony tablet, and his sausage fingers began moving with surprising speed. “I tossed out there that I’m looking for a large quantity of that stuff of yours, from a Syrian IP.”
“Why Syria?” Nora inquired. I wanted to reply, but instead let the old geezer do the honors—if only because of his typing prowess on the small, smooth touchscreen, which I found quite impressive. He had just opened his mouth when Nora clarified, “Obviously, you wouldn’t use your own IP—but why Syria?”
After several seconds, she figured it out; Syria was swarming with arms and ammunition dealers at the moment. Exact identification would be impossible in this climate.
We quickly downed our little coffee cups. Abrasha once again kissed the back of Nora’s hand. “I need a moment alone with the kid.”
Nora shot a glance at me. I nodded, and she left the room along with Weizmann.
Abrasha, to my absolute lack of surprise, asked what was in it for him if he embarked on this momentous endeavor with us. I asked what he wanted, and he requested my help to win some Ministry of Defense auction. I promised I’d get Froyke to try, and that was good enough for him.
“So, you fucking that beautiful creature?” he asked, nodding toward Nora’s presumed location outside the room.
; “Are you insane?!”
“Mind if I give it a shot, then?”
“Sure,” I said, “if you’ve got a spare set of balls. Listen, Abrasha, I need a chopper for an extraction in Hadhramaut. You got anything?”
“Hadhramaut? One of our guys?” he asked, genuine worry coloring his voice.
“One of our girls,” I replied. “And a bombshell at that.”
Abrasha rubbed his chin. “Look, your CIA buddies have a secret base in Djibouti, right on the Yemenite border. No one knows it’s there.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “no one apart from the Senate committee of inquiry and the reporters covering it. The Predator compound.”
Abrasha nodded. “The compound and its logistics are run and maintained by a private company, which happens to be a large client of mine.” He shot me a look, and I responded with the appropriate respect.
“The company’s air fleet is led by a close friend, Crazy Jule. He ran extractions back in ’Naaam.” Abrasha attempted a Southern drawl. “The best chopper pilot in the Night Stalkers. Ten in advance, another ten when the job’s done, cash—don’t expect a receipt, either—and he’ll get anyone out of anywhere. If I tell him there’s gonna be action, he’ll fly it himself—and that’s the best you could possibly want. Who’s running the mission? A team of yours?”
