“So let’s go talk to General Yarviv,” Pete said, and Smith glared at her.
FIFTY-EIGHT
Alex got up from where she had been sitting for the past fifteen minutes with the people waiting for the early morning British Airways flight to London. First- and business-class passengers, along with the frequent flyer members, were already shuffling past the gate agent and into the Jetway.
A lot of airport security uniformed officers and a number of guys she spotted as plainclothes cops had streamed by, but not one of them had thought to check out the passengers waiting to board a flight at a gate that was just steps away from the women’s room she’d used.
She moved forward in line as the zone one passengers were invited to board. When it was her turn to present her boarding pass, she pushed past the man ahead of her and raced down the Jetway.
The female boarding agent shouted something, and when Alex reached the aircraft’s open hatch, one of the male flight attendants stepped off the plane and got in front of her. He tried to grab the strap of her shoulder bag, but she strong-armed him, shoving him backward, and slammed open the Jetway’s exit door and clambered down the steps to the tarmac.
A siren sounded from behind her as she ducked under the fuselage and ran inside the baggage processing area. Around the corner she slowed down and strode normally across the big open space as if she belonged there.
A tractor hauling three carts filled with baggage for the London flight trundled past, momentarily blocking the view of a cop who appeared at the open service door at the foot of the Jetway’s stairs, giving her time to slip behind a pile of luggage coming down a conveyor belt. Two men in white coveralls were loading suitcases, boxes, and other things on the carts of a second tractor.
Glancing over her shoulder to make sure the cop wasn’t coming around the corner, she waited until both ground crewmen were looking the other way, then took a wheeled suitcase from the pile and walked in the opposite direction, keeping in the shadows as much as possible.
Someone was making a commotion behind her, and she sped up, coming to the entrance of a luggage carousel that wasn’t in use.
After climbing up on the slideway, she parted the rubber curtains and looked out to the baggage hall, where checked luggage that had already passed security was being routed to the proper flights. Two men were loading luggage three slideways to the left, intent on their work, their backs turned to her.
She ducked out on the slideway, hurried to the right, and continued to the far end of the hall, where she opened a door a crack and looked out. The conveyor belts coming from the ticketing area two levels up, the ones used to send checked luggage down to the preliminary sorting area, were idle.
Stepping out, she crossed the large room and slipped out a door on the other side, where she found herself in the arrivals hall, busy at this hour of the evening.
She was on the outside of the secured area now, and she pulled the suitcase behind her as she went outside and then climbed into a taxi. The driver put her suitcase in the trunk and got behind the wheel.
“The Hilton, please,” she told him.
“You’re an American?” the driver asked, pulling away.
“Canadian, actually,” she said. She took out her phone and called Otto.
He answered on the first ring. “You’re not at the airport,” he said.
“I’m in a cab heading to the Hilton. Is Pete okay?”
“Yes. An Aman officer met her at customs, but Mac and Sharon are with her. All hell has broken loose at the airport. Sharon is convinced it was Mac who engineered your escape.”
“They can’t prove it,” Alex said. “But right now I need you to do a couple of things for me.”
“I thought you were going to stick with Mac so you could identify George, who, as it turns out, now might be an Aman general?”
“I’m going to do exactly that, but my own way. I value my hide more than to simply walk into wherever this guy wants to meet.”
“I’ll have to let Mac know.”
“Naturally.”
“You didn’t have time to make a reservation at the Hilton, so I’ll take care of that right now. What else?”
A bright flash lit up the early morning sky far to the southeast, behind them.
“Hezbollah,” the driver said. “And right on time.”
“A Hezbollah rocket just landed,” Alex said.
“It’s been happening just about every night for the past week,” Otto said.
“Are Mac and the others still at the airport?”
“Yes. They’re still trying to figure out what to do about you. They know Pete’s real identity, and Mossad wants to throw her in jail for traveling under a false passport.”
“What about Aman?”
“The general has been told, but he still wants the meeting.”
“Has Walt Page been informed?”
“The chief of station in Tel Aviv sent a flash message to Marty, so I’m sure he’s called Page.”
The situation was unfolding exactly the way she wanted it to. She needed the delay. “I want to know the moment they leave the airport, and I’ll want to know exactly where they’re going—that’s if they haven’t taken Mac’s sat phone.”
“He still has it. I’ve booked you a suite for three days, under Pete’s name, with a Congolese Faith Ministries Gold Amex card.” It was a sometimes-used CIA front.
Alex had to laugh. “I didn’t think we still used that one.”
“They’re saying now that you injured one of the Mossad officers. They’re going to issue a warrant for your arrest.”
“I just put her down. She couldn’t have been out for more than ten or fifteen seconds.”
“If the warrant is issued, and the cops try to pick you up, you’ll surrender peacefully. No one gets hurt.”
“Sure, if it goes down that way. But if George sends some of his muscle like he tried in Paris, I will defend myself. I just want to get a look at his eyes, and then I’ll back off. You have my word on it, because the next thing I need from you is a piece of equipment I couldn’t bring into the country.”
“A gun.”
“Yes. And I’ll need a car.”
“The car is easy,” Otto said. “I’ll have to think about the other.”
“Don’t think too long about it,” Alex said. “We’re coming to the end game.”
“We could cut to the chase right now, if you’d confirm what’s buried out there and what became of it.”
“You’ve figured it out. Christ, Roy practically drew you guys a picture.”
“I want to hear it from you,” Otto insisted.
“I want Mac to hear it from George.”
* * *
When they reached the Hilton, a bellman took the suitcase from the trunk. Alex paid the cabby, and once inside, she showed Pete’s passport and checked in. The morning desk clerk didn’t bother looking at the photo. He just had her sign, and then gave her the key card.
Her suite was on the twelfth floor, overlooking the Mediterranean. She gave the bellman a good tip, then ordered a pot of coffee and a plate of sweet rolls.
She figured that whatever was going down would happen within the next hour or two. She didn’t think that George, or the Israeli authorities, would let it drag out any longer than that.
Her coffee and rolls came, and she’d sat down to eat when someone else knocked lightly at her door.
No one was visible in the peephole, but when she opened the door, a man was rounding the corner to the elevators halfway down the corridor. He’d left a small leather valise.
Otto had arranged for her to have a standard U.S.-issue 9-mm Beretta with a decent suppressor but with only one fifteen-round magazine. She field-stripped the weapon to make sure it was in working order, and then reloaded it.
She sat by the half-open slider, smelling the Med and drinking her coffee, nothing else to do but wait until Otto called.
FIFTY-NINE
The Aman officer identif
ied only as Mr. Smith rode shotgun in an eight-passenger Mercedes van, a taciturn young man in jeans and a T-shirt driving. McGarvey and Pete sat in the second row while Sharon sat in back. Sheila had remained behind to help airport security with the search for Alex.
“Leave her alone, and she’ll show up on her own,” McGarvey had told Sharon. “No one will get hurt.”
“That’s not acceptable,” Sharon had said, and Smith had agreed.
They headed into downtown Tel Aviv directly from the airport, the early morning traffic beginning to pick up, mostly with trucks making deliveries to hotels and restaurants or collecting garbage. It was the same in every city.
An explosion had come from somewhere in the southeast, lighting up the morning sky for just a few moments, but Sharon or Smith didn’t seem to be affected by it. What was common in a place became the norm, and most people ignored it.
The driver was very good, turning down narrow streets and then doubling back, pulling into hotel driveways, including the Hilton’s to see if anyone could be outed behind them, then speeding off in a completely different direction.
“Is someone following us?” Pete asked.
No one answered her. She looked at McGarvey, who shrugged.
“We’ve passed Mossad headquarters twice, but I don’t suspect he’d want to meet with us there,” McGarvey said. “Not unless Mossad and Aman are on better terms than they were when I was DCI.”
“Where is Alex?” Sharon asked. “Do you know?”
“She could be anywhere.”
“That doesn’t help,” the Mossad officer said, vexed. “We’re on the same page here, Mr. Director. We want to help you solve your mystery and we want to stop the killings.”
“Did you know General Yarviv and Alex were lovers during the war?”
Smith laughed. “That’s the woman’s story. I know better.”
“Do you?” McGarvey asked. “Did the general tell you what he and Alex did?”
“You’ve already made your accusations.”
“Yes, but did you ever discuss Iraq with him—if he turns out to be Alex’s George after all?”
McGarvey kept his tone neutral, though he could see he was getting to them, especially to Smith, who was probably Yarviv’s chief of staff or personal friend.
“Was Mossad briefed on the Iraq operation above Kirkuk?” McGarvey asked Sharon. “Or has all this come as a surprise?”
“Mr. Director, you have come here looking for answers I don’t know we can give you,” Sharon said. “But I would caution you to take great care with the questions you do ask, because you might not like the answers.”
“Good advice,” Smith said, his voice soft.
* * *
They left the city on Highway 1 toward Beit Dagan, the terrain rising from the narrow coastal plains within less than ten miles to the beginning of hill country, where they turned south on Highway 6, which more or less paralleled the border with the West Bank.
Just before the town of Modi’in, they turned east on Highway 443, and within a couple of miles of the border, the driver turned off the main road and took a stony dirt track up a steep hill through an olive grove to a sprawling stuccoed house nestled in a slight dip just below the crest.
Several ancient outbuildings dotted the west side of the property, and as they drove up, two young men were leading a small flock of sheep away. The scene in that direction was almost biblical.
But the roof of the main house bristled with several antennas, including one used for microwave burst traffic. An American-made Hummer with Israeli-army markings was parked around back, and a fairly new Mercedes S-Class sedan was parked directly in front.
It didn’t look like an ordinary safe house to McGarvey; it was too ostentatious, and nothing was anonymous about the place.
McGarvey and Pete and the two Israeli intelligence officers went up a white river-rock path to the front door that opened as they approached. Their driver had gotten out of the van, but he lit a cigarette and stayed there.
A middle-aged woman in khaki slacks and a short-sleeved white blouse, a smile on her round face, stood there. “Good evening,” she said in English. “My husband has been expecting you.”
She showed them back to a large study, its sliders open to a patio and pool beyond which was a garden with a riot of fruit trees and bright flowers in full bloom.
“Lovely,” Pete said.
The woman’s smile broadened. “This is our favorite place of anywhere we’ve lived,” she said. “If you’ll have a seat, the general will join you momentarily. Would anyone like coffee or tea?”
“No, ma’am,” Smith said. “We’ll only be staying for a short time.”
The general’s wife nodded and then left the room.
The study was large, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases on two walls, an ancient oak desk with ornate carvings on the front and sides, and an arrangement of a leather couch, a pair of wingback chairs, and a coffee table. One space to the left, which could have used a chair, was empty. Old oriental rugs covered the multicolored terrazzo floor. A couple of very good paintings, one of them McGarvey thought might be an original Renoir, hung on the textured red stone walls. Altogether it was a totally masculine room of a refined man.
“Good evening,” a baritone voice said, coming in from the corridor. He was a broad-shouldered man with a thick head of mostly gray hair, and a large square face with prominent eyebrows that stuck out in all directions. He was dressed in jeans and a white shirt, and he looked like a general. He was in a wheelchair, and he came around to the empty spot.
“Good morning, sir,” Smith said. “Sorry to be a bother so late.”
“It’s okay, Uri. We were expecting some company sooner or later,” the general said. He turned to the others. “Mr. McGarvey, I presume, and Ms. Boylan, I was told. I’m Chaim Yarviv. Until I retired a few years ago, I was a deputy director of Aman, but then a stupid incident put me in this chair.”
“Good morning, General,” McGarvey said. “Do you know why we’re here?”
“Yes, and I knew someone like you might be showing up on my doorstep to get some answers, which neither of our governments would like me to give. But Ms. Unroth isn’t with you?”
“We lost her at the airport,” Smith said.
“I’m told she is an inventive woman, ruthless when need be, but very bright. I expect she’ll be showing up soon.”
“I’m sorry, General, but we think she may still be at the airport,” Sharon said.
“I doubt that,” Yarviv said. “So, to the business at hand. We received the properly formatted message to George, from Alex though our travel agency in Paris. It was brought to me, and I authorized the reply for her to come.”
“You’re George?”
Yarviv smiled. “No. That would have been Jacob Ya’alon. An utterly charming man, one of our best field operators, but a man totally lacking in any sense of morals. He was well educated, but for whatever reason, he could never distinguish right from wrong. Because of that character trait, he was one of our best tools. Shame on us.”
“We have been fighting for our lives here since 1945,” Smith said.
“Yes, but shame on us for using such tools. Only those who believe the ends justify the means can do such things. Hitler’s philosophy. Stalin’s.”
“What became of Ya’alon?” McGarvey asked.
“Major Ya’alon at the end. We took him out of the field and put him behind a desk, hoping to muzzle him. But he became a hopeless drunk, and maybe used some cocaine at the end. He murdered his live-in girlfriend, and we locked him up. That was eight years ago. He went crazy in prison, tried to kill himself a couple of times. But less than a year after he was convicted, he developed cancer—leukemia, I think it might have been—and was dead within eight months.”
“All this time we’ve been chasing a dead man,” McGarvey said, certain the general was telling the truth.
“Ah, but Alex, from what Ya’alon told me, was an utterly convincing oper
ator. The best he’d ever seen. I think he was captivated with her. Maybe even in love, and she with him. They did terrible things together in Iraq. It reinforced who he was, of course, but it must have changed her. Given her some warped sense of herself, some skewed view of the real world. He had that effect on people.”
SIXTY
Alex pushed the Range Rover through Beit Dagan on Highway 1, turning south when she reached Highway 6. They’d been at the compound now for nearly ten minutes, according to Otto. He managed to repurpose a Keyhole satellite that was permanently looking down on the region to pinpoint the compound, even to the detail that the driver of the Mercedes van was still outside and on his second cigarette, and that two men were leading a small flock of sheep off to the west.
Traffic was picking up, but Alex had gotten used to driving on the left within the first few minutes. From day one, her instructors had given her high marks: She’s nothing if not a quick study.
She was driven, had been since she was a small child battling the abuser her mother had married. Her psych eval people had reported she was not in touch with reality, but actually, she knew the difference between her fantasy world and the real one; hers was nothing more than a defense mechanism.
You did what you had to do to survive. The Army Rangers knew that score: Adapt, improvise, survive! Hoorah!
“You’ll turn off on Highway four forty-three,” Otto said. Her cell phone was in speaker mode on the seat next to her.
“How far?”
“About five miles.”
“Then what?”
“There’ll be a dirt road leading up through an olive grove. The general’s house is on the other side, just below the crest.”
Their conversation was encrypted. Whoever was monitoring the call would not be able to decrypt it anytime soon, nor would they be able to pinpoint either phone, except that their techs would guess that both phones were probably somewhere in Japan, or perhaps coastal mainland China. Otto loved screwing with the other side’s techies.
“Are you monitoring their conversation?”
“I’m getting no signal. I think they took Mac’s phone and pulled the SIM card. But I don’t think the general is your George.”
End Game Page 26
