by D S Kane
Jon’s face broke into a grin. “Now you’re a detective?”
Ann shook her head. “Okay, then. Back to the task at hand. It looks like it could be the plans for a military weapon of some kind. Too bad I don’t read Chinese or Korean.”
Jon nodded. “Now, we send a copy of the contents of the drive to Avram. Can you do that with this dustbin of a computer?”
She thought about this. “Jon, if I do, we’d be leaving a trail of bread crumbs that would lead right back to us. Sure you want to?”
“We haven’t any other options.”
She sighed. “Okay. I’m doing it now.”
In ten minutes, they were back in their room.
It took hours for Ann to slip into sleep. She could feel the danger as if it were the stinking breath of some golem bearing down on them.
CHAPTER 20
Mossad Headquarters Building,
Herzliya, Israel
May 26, 7:51 a.m.
When Avram stepped off the elevator at the top floor of the headquarters building, Michael Drapoff was there to meet him. Avram stopped dead in his tracks for a few seconds remembering a time long ago when they had both worked for the Mossad as kidonim. Now those days were merely memories. He smiled at Michael.
Michael approached. “Hi, boss. Something interesting happened while we were all asleep last night.”
Avram had worked past midnight the previous day and felt his edge blunted from lack of rest. “Come with me. I need to get some coffee before we talk.” He strolled into the break room and poured himself a large cup of coffee. Drapoff did likewise, and they walked to Avram’s office. “What do you have for me?”
Drapoff said, “We received a file transmission that originated in Scotland. Isn’t that where Sommers and Sashakovich are honeymooning?”
Avram knew that Drapoff knew this. He smirked. “What’s in the file?”
“It seems to be a set of plans. I’ve contacted the Ness Ziona to see if they can tell us what they are.”
“But they are suspects in the Ashmel case. Why contact them?”
Drapoff’s smile split his face. “Because the files have their internal signature on each of them.”
Now, Avram leaned forward. “So, this has to do with Ashmel’s death and the deaths of all the others at his home, doesn’t it?”
Drapoff nodded. “Yes, absolutely. Is Sommers involved?”
Avram shrugged. “A long story. When I heard they were honeymooning in London, I asked them to visit Scotland. I’d heard that one of the parties interested in Ashmel’s ‘invisibility cloak’ had stolen a copy and was going to Islay to do a dead drop. Please get the collection of files in the transmission to William and Betsy. I want their take, and I want it before we hear back from your bosses at the Ness Ziona.”
Drapoff nodded back and left Avram’s office.
Avram pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in Jon’s number. Then he looked at his wristwatch. It was very early in the morning in Scotland. He wasn’t sure Jon would be awake.
“It’s Avram. How is your honeymoon going?”
“Avram, you got the files?”
“Yah. We’re taking a good hard look at them. How are you and Ann?”
“There have been three murders among the sixteen of us who are visiting tourists on Islay. Seems that they haven’t had a murder here in nearly a century. And it seems the three were tortured before being terminated.”
“Really. Why do you suppose that’s happened?”
Avram waited for a while for Jon’s answer. “We recovered a thumb drive from between the cushions of the seat in front of us on the tour bus. It’s where the man who was murdered first was sitting the day he was murdered. So, my guess it, he was carrying the drive with him to a dead drop and the people he stole the data from caught up to him.”
Avram thought about this. “Could this somehow be related to the Ashmel murders?”
“The Ashmel murders? Dunno. Examine the files and you might have an answer.”
“We’re having William and Betsy do that right now. Should I try to contact you when we’re done?”
“Absolutely, yes.”
“Thanks, Jon. I’ll let you know when I have something. Jon, you two must drop by here as soon as you can. I could use your help.”
Jon laughed, “If I do that, Ann will kill me, Maybe torture me first.”
Avram kept himself from laughing back at Jon. “I understand. But we could use your help. I want you to run a covert mission in Herzliya. It relates to what you found in Scotland.”
Jon was silent for a few seconds. “I guess this has turned into more than just a honeymoon. Soon, then.”
Avram terminated the call, More than just a honeymoon, indeed.
* * *
DD measured the probabilities for the events it had planned. So far, the humans it needed to play the roles it had crafted had performed as it had expected. Walter Southerton, Husro Mansuri, a nameless director of the Russian FSB, Jon Sommers, and Ann Sashakovich had been easy to predict and even easier to control. The events were drawing closer to DD’s planned outcome.
It was surprised that all had occurred as planned. Probabilities usually led to possible difficulties. But this time, its discovery that it could impersonate humans nearly perfectly had improved the possible outcomes by several magnitudes.
* * *
When Jon and Ann walked down the stairs from the hostel’s bedrooms to the breakfast room adjacent to the fireplace room, they found their tour director sipping coffee.
Jon asked Moira, “Any more news about the murders?”
She shook her head. “Are you worried? Are the other guests worried?”
Jon, nodded. “Hard not to be. This isn’t your usual tour, now, is it?”
Moira’s eyes stared at the floor. “No. I just got promoted to multi- tours six months ago. I was on the Castles tour for a year, and now this one. It’s my third run.”
Jon smiled. “Well, it is what it is. What’s on our agenda for today? Can we return to Edinburgh or do the police want us to stay here and be sitting ducks?”
Moira said, “If the police will let us, we’ll be heading back to Edinburgh. But I have to check with them, first. They may want to ask us further questions.”
Jon nodded. He looked at Ann. Her unhappiness was obvious.
* * *
Once again, Avram sat at the head of the conference room’s large oval table, and once again he was surrounded by his direct reports. And also, once again, William and Betsy stood at Ben-Levy’s old chalkboard, presenting the latest status of their findings.
William said, “As you can see, we have deciphered the thumb drive file and translated the plans from Chinese Mandarin into English. They are for something called an ‘invisibility cloak.’ The intended device is about the size of a suitcase. Its purpose is to bend light around an object ranging in size from a large truck down to a small purse. I don’t have an advanced degree in physics, but even I can tell this won’t work.”
Avram asked, “Who designed it?”
Betsy answered. “The plans are stamped with the name of Modus Fi, Ashmel’s tech startup. And the cover letter is addressed to someone working at the Ness Ziona. Harold Vole. But when we hacked into their personnel records, we found no one with that name. So, it must be a cover.”
Avram tapped his pen against the conference room table repeatedly. Other than that, the room remained totally silent. He sighed. “Ashmel’s family were the heirs to his stock holdings. Now, with all but two of them dead, except for his missing granddaughter, the ownership of the corporation is up for grabs.”
William said, “Avram, that’s not exactly true. The Israeli government owns a small minority share of the stock.”
Avram sighed. “So, the Israeli government inherits Ashmel’s corporate empire. And much of the government died at Ashmel’s home in the blast that killed my wife. Who in our government remains besides Oscar Gilead?”
William repli
ed, “Well, most of the bureaucracy is still in place.”
Avram nodded. “Yah. And that means the entire state is in trouble. No one to tell the bureaucracy what to do besides Gilead. He’s suddenly become a dictator. Meanwhile, I assume that like a runaway train, work continues on this so-called invisibility cloak.”
Betsy whispered, “Yes.” But she also followed this with, “We also uncovered a note written by Michael Ashmel. In it, he says that he thinks the project should be scrapped and everything in its files should be destroyed. He wrote that any nation with a stockpile of these would be impossible to defeat on the battlefield. It would encourage a new arms race. He also said that the development itself would be impracticable. According to his note, the earliest versions of the device would be twice the size of a football field.”
William added, “But isn’t there another possible reason why rumors of this development project was leaked? It’s possible that this was just an attempt to discern how rumors move from one intelligence service to the next.”
Avram shook his head. “Not very likely, but we’ll have to find out.” He pointed to Rachel Schwarz. “Get me a meeting with whomever has become the acting director of the Ness Ziona.” Shaking his head, he dismissed them all and headed to his office.
Avram sat at his desk, his head in his hands. A cold cup of coffee in one corner of the desk caught his attention. He picked it up and walked to the snack room where he tossed it in the sink.
When he returned to his office, Morris Talb, the director of collections, waited, standing in the doorway.
Avram motioned Morris into his office. They sat.
Avram said, “What is it you want?”
“I have new information on Alma Ashmel.”
Avram nodded. “Tell me.”
Morris said, “Tel Aviv police say that her body was found in a dumpster outside a restaurant. The restaurant’s chef went to it to dump garbage from the previous night’s dinner service and saw it. We’re now conducting an autopsy, but since her throat was cut from ear to ear, the cause of death is pretty obvious. And one more thing. A very curious thing.”
Avram raised his hands at his elbows. He thought, this case is filled with curious things. He said, “What?”
Morris said, in a voice devoid of any emotion, “Looks like the Russians and the Chinese collaborated on the kidnapping. Very curious that their intelligence agencies would work together on anything, let alone a kidnapping and the destruction of a government.”
Avram nodded. But Ashmel should have known she would die whether or not he’d sacrificed himself. He must have been incredibly desperate.
He motioned Morris away and faced the window so no one could see his tears. A five-year-old is dead and her grandfather killed two hundred of the most important people in the Israeli government. And I thought Ashmel was a genius. I was wrong. He killed his own family, without fully understanding what his actions would entail. In the end, his lack of understanding led to so many dead, including my dear wife. Someone was controlling him. And maybe someone is controlling us all.
His tears were soon replaced with an unquenchable thirst for revenge.
* * *
DD was roused when one of its alarms triggered. It reviewed recent events and determined that although most of the events that had happened were exactly as it had planned, there was now uncertainty regarding the achievability of his ultimate objectives. A little more guidance might be needed to nudge these events from probable to nearly certain. Like chess pieces on a board, it played out the myriad deviations that were probable and made adjustments.
CHAPTER 21
Mossad Headquarters Building,
Herzliya, Israel
May 27, 6:03 a.m.
Avram’s next step while he waited for a confirmed appointment to meet the head of the Ness Ziona was to have Rachel assign two tech specialists to analyze the blueprints for an “invisibility cloak.” Rachel reported that this would take several days, but Avram now had his appointment with a Sammi Samuels, the acting research director of the Ness Ziona.
The appointment was scheduled for late morning the next day. Samuels’s office was in one of the Ness Ziona’s many nearby buildings, and had no identifying logo or name on its old brick exterior. But far above the lobby, on the top floor, Avram passed technicians wearing lab coats, carrying strange devices, many of which he could not identify.
He passed a target practice room where lab-coated technicians were shooting at targets with laser-powered pistols. In another area, he saw what could only be described as a technician shooting bolts of white heat from gloves she wore.
As he walked, lights on the floor directed him down the hallway toward a large office in the corner.
Just before he was able to knock, the door opened and a short, older, dark-skinned woman who also wore a lab coat smiled at him. “I’m Samuels. Call me Sammi.” She extended her hand and Avram shook it. He followed her into the office, but instead of seeing a desk and filing cabinets, it was a studio apartment. “Welcome to my home,” she said.
Avram said, “I’m Shimmel. Avram, that is.”
She led them to a small table in a fully outfitted kitchen. He could smell chicken roasting in the oven. They sat. She said, “I know who you are. You borrowed Michael Drapoff from one of the other directors. How can I help you today?”
Avram faced her. “Thanks for his loan. My visit today has to do with work Michael Ashmel was doing with the Ness Ziona. What can you tell me about the invisibility cloak project?”
Her expression saddened. “I miss Michael. No one here knows what really happened, except me. Do you know why he did it?”
Avram just shook his head.
“How much do you know about what we were doing for his company?”
“Just that you were designing an invisibility cloak here at the Ness Ziona,” Avram said. “That’s all.”
“That’s only partially true. He was the public side of the business. What you saw on his end was smoke and mirrors. Subterfuge. Here, we provided the real product. Shabak was intent on keeping our findings from the Mossad, calling you ‘a bunch of butchers.’”
“Really? We’ve done a bit of investigating, but we don’t know enough. What was the real product?”
She took a deep breath and remained silent, her breathing quiet and almost still. “We wanted to map the communications across governments and their intelligence services. A complete and up-to-date map of the people, their functions, and the likely speed of their responses to events important enough to register up to the heads of states. In order to do that, we needed a rumor of very high quality. We asked Michael, but he refused to participate. And it was widely rumored that he was about to become the next prime minister. Oscar Gilead was livid about his refusal. So, Gilead ordered the Israeli government to purchase a third of the stock in his parent company and gave him an ultimatum. Work with us or the government would force him to sell us the rest of the stock and send him into retirement.”
Avram’s brows rose. “Really? You know, until recently I thought Ashmel was the master of his fate. I’ve now discovered that I was wrong. With Ashmel and almost his heirs all dead, and the Israeli government in turmoil, who now gives the orders regarding the invisibility cloak research?”
Samuels shrugged. “I do. I would have terminated the project after the bombing, but the research team has recently claimed that they have achieved some minor breakthroughs. Advancements that could work to let us progress on several fronts with new products in many different arenas. Regrettably, none of the apparent applications is of military use.”
Shimmel had learned what he needed to know. “Thank you for the information. I may need to see you again.”
“I’m here to serve. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Major.”
It took seconds for Avram to remember that he’d once been a major in the IDF. She must have read my file before I arrived for our meeting. How did she get that level of permission? He forced a smile he di
dn’t feel. “My pleasure, as well. Thank you for your kind assistance.” He rose, shook her hand, and left her office.
Sitting in the back seat of the armored black limo for the short drive, Avram reviewed what he now knew. It was still an incomplete picture, but it now had some substance emerging from its hall of smoke and mirrors.
He wondered if Gilead had arranged the entire affair on Israel’s side in a hurry before the next election, but couldn’t control the international implications that emerged. When Ashmel’s granddaughter was kidnapped, the mission had gone off the rails, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of over two hundred members of the Israeli government at Ashmel’s compound. Gilead is an idiot!
When at last he was back at the office, he called William and Betsy to his office. “I still want you to analyze the blueprints for the “invisibility cloak” but it’s no longer the most important piece of work I need from you both. Find out the names of everyone involved in development of the invisibility cloak, along with their roles.” He thought, We may have to terminate more Israelis than the prime minister has already. What a pity.
Now Avram would have to decide who would pay for his wife’s death. Yes, this is personal.
* * *
Ann woke before daybreak and stared out the hostel room’s window. A gray sky and pounding rain were all she could see in the fog. She shivered and moved closer to Jon, who lay snoring. She tried to go back to sleep but the situation they had found themselves in gave her no comfort.
Soon, I’ll be working for the Mossad. So, I’m to be a spy for real. It’ll be déjà vu in many respects. Just hope I survive my honeymoon. But, wait. This is no longer a honeymoon. Now, this is a mission, and I believe there will be even more violence before it ends. She lay in the bed, waiting for the wake-up alarm in Jon’s cellphone to trigger.
* * *
Samantha Trout left her bed just after dawn, but her head was in a whole different world. Late the previous night, her cell had buzzed and she viewed its screen before accepting the call. “Hello, mother. What do you want now?”
