Operator Down

by Brad Taylor

  She’d had no social skills to speak of when we first met and had taken what I considered an unhealthy interest in my relationship with Jennifer, as if she was learning how a man and woman interacted, almost like an alien life-form. Aaron suffered through it, coaxing her along, or so I’d thought. He was the yang to her yin, and they clicked no less than Jennifer and I—on some weird astral plane. Eventually, they’d left the Mossad and set up their own private security firm, but I was pretty sure all of their money still came from that intelligence agency.

  They’d married about six months ago in Jerusalem, and we’d been at the wedding, which, of course, since Shoshana was involved, turned into a damn fiasco. Jennifer had asked where they were taking their honeymoon, and Shoshana had latched on to that, having no idea such a thing existed. Aaron had rolled his eyes, but Shoshana was insistent, and it looked like she’d finally convinced him, six months later.

  Jennifer said, “Well, maybe it’s better to leave them alone. We don’t want to do a repeat of the wedding.”

  Which was an understatement. I said, “I’m with you, but something was off. She wasn’t Shoshana.”

  Jennifer threw a towel at me and said, “Quit reading into things. Let them have their fun. We have a mission here.”

  I grinned and said, “Thank God Kurt broke Brett free. Otherwise, we’d never get any sleep.”

  She went back into the bathroom, saying, “I’m not sure how he’s helping us sleep.”

  I shouted, “What’s that mean? I gave him the early shift.”

  She poked her head out and said, “Really? He gets the shift at six in the morning, and you still wake me up?”

  “You didn’t mind that at six A.M.”

  She smiled and said, “No. But it didn’t add to my sleep.”

  I grinned and said, “We all have to sacrifice.”

  She raised an eyebrow, but I knew she wasn’t going to push it. She said, “What’s his status, anyway?”

  “Still in the lobby. Waiting.”

  Our turnaround from Las Vegas had been immediate, with Knuckles and Retro heading back to DC, and Jennifer and me flying straight out to Tel Aviv. Knuckles had tried to argue one more time, saying he could man the TOC or something else not involving surveillance, but Kurt had overridden that decision.

  We’d met Brett Thorpe at JFK, and, as expected, he was ready with a wry response after getting pulled from his liaison job. He’d held up his ticket and said, “Kurt told me to catch this flight. I asked why, and all he said was ‘Pike Logan.’ I saw the location as Israel, heard your name, and knew they were punishing the black man.”

  Brett was a short fireplug of a man, about five foot six and solid muscle. He’d been a Recon Marine in a prior life but had spent ten years inside the CIA’s Special Activities Division before he was recruited to the Taskforce. At first, I’d been extremely skeptical of him—because he was CIA and we all belong to tribes—but he’d proven himself on a mission in Lebanon, with both his skill and his sense of humor, and I’d moved heaven and earth to get him on my team.

  Kurt said I was stacking the deck, which, of course, was true, but he’d allowed it. Brett’s comment was accurate enough, in that he’d stand out as an African American in Israel, but his skills overcame any doubt I had about him being able to operate. He was one of the best I’d ever seen.

  I’d said, “Well, you weren’t my first choice, but you know the push for diversity. I was only allowed one white boy, which meant me. With you and Jennifer, the team’s a perfect example of what the world should be.”

  He’d laughed and said, “What’s our cover?”

  “Working it now.”

  During the twelve-hour flight, our cover story had been built, complete with official recognition from unwitting agencies within the United Nations. Ostensibly, we were going to make an assessment of the ongoing excavations at Caesarea, an ancient port just north of Tel Aviv designated a World Heritage site. Explorations had found extensive further archeological structures still buried, and we were going to help facilitate the bureaucracy of the UN in the work, using Jennifer’s arcane knowledge of everything that was as old as dirt. When we’d found out through the Gogo inflight Wi-Fi, she’d literally clapped her hands. I told her not to get too excited. Chances were we would never set foot on the grounds.

  We’d landed, met the UN folks at the US embassy, and coordinated for future meetings—which was how all of that shit always worked. None of those people could ever simply say what was needed. It was always one meeting after another, with me wanting to punch the people in the room. Jennifer, of course, tried valiantly to tie us into a trip to the site, knowing we would have to go if we said we would. They had said, “Of course. But first we must determine the parameters of how you can help us decide what we’re going to do next.” Basically, they were saying, Not so fast. We get paid by the day. Let’s drag this out a little bit.

  She’d been aggravated, but it gave us time to set our real mission in motion. For this one, we had the full backing of the Oversight Council, so we had all the tech and reach-back capability we needed. We knew the room the target was in and had reserved a room in the same hotel—the Hilton on the coast of Tel Aviv. What we didn’t know was what the guy was up to, which was why I had been sent for the Alpha mission.

  To start unraveling that thread, I’d placed Brett in the lobby early, drinking coffee and waiting on the target or his Bulgarian thug to exit the elevator.

  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 o
r 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.”

  10

  Tyler Malloy told the hired car to wait on them, then bounded up the stairs to the entrance of the diamond exchange, Stanko Petrov right behind him. He opened the door and said, “That fucker had better be down here to let us in.”

  Stanko said, “He’d be a fool not to.”

  Tyler moved into the foyer, seeing a security setup that looked like a cross between a top secret SCIF and a TSA airport screening. Metal detectors, thumbprint scanners, and six-foot rotating turnstile doors made of bars. Out front was a long desk staffed by men behind bulletproof glass. They looked at him expectantly, and he was brought up short. He glanced around, seeing nobody in the foyer who wasn’t engaged, then approached one of the windows.

  He said, “I’m supposed to meet a man named Eli Cohen. He works here.”

  The guard said, “I’m sorry, sir. I have no way to contact him. There are hundreds of diamond merchants, and they arrange the visits. I just process the application through.”

  Tyler cursed and turned away from the window. Stanko pulled his sleeve and pointed at a man coming through the metal turnstile. He was short, about five-five, with a mop of gray hair and a drooping mustache; his head was on a swivel, looking left and right.

  Tyler locked eyes with him, and he came scurrying over. “Tyler Malloy?”

  “Yes.”

  He stuck out his hand, saying, “I’m Eli Cohen. Sorry. I got held up. Let’s get you inside so we can talk.”

  He glanced at Stanko, then said, “Is he with you?”

  “Yes.”

  Tyler did the introductions, explaining who Stanko was and where he was from, and Eli said, “Nice to meet you, but you cannot come inside.”

  Tyler said, “Why not?”

  “He’s Bulgarian. I had no advance notice. He’ll need a background check, and they won’t do it while we wait. I’m sorry, but it’s actually to our advantage.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He glanced at the security window, making sure they were out of earshot, then said, “Our friends from South Africa are here. There’s been a complication.”

  “What kind of complication?”

  “There was someone watching the meeting, and he possibly heard what we were doing. He has a partner here. They came to take care of the problem.”

  “What the fuck? We’re already compromised?”

  “I don’t want to talk out here. Just have your friend go meet them to see what they’re up to. It would be better for all.”

  Tyler was about to tell the man to kiss his ass when Stanko touched his arm and said, “I can do that. No harm in listening.” Meaning, Don’t throw this away because you’re insulted.

  Tyler nodded, and Eli gave him an address to a restaurant in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv. Stanko left, and Tyler said, “Okay, get me into your office, because I definitely have some questions.”

  Eli approached the security window, showed his badge, and said a few words in Hebrew. He turned to Tyler and said, “Passport, please.” Tyler switched places with him and surrendered his passport. He answered a few questions, placed his thumb on a fingerprint capture device, then had his photo taken. Two minutes later, he was given a new badge.

  Eli led him to the security checkpoint, where he basically repeated the procedure, emptying his pockets for X-ray, passing across his badge, and placing his thumb on a fingerprint reader. Tyler followed Eli through the metal detector, and the guard manning it pointed at his cell phone, saying, “No pictures.”

  Tyler nodded, actually impressed at the security. Walking to the elevator, he said, “Is there some giant vault in this place, like Fort Knox?”

  “No. Every company on the exchange has its own safe. The security is tight because at any given moment, people are wandering around here with millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds.”

  Two men in yarmulkes came by, both pulling black roll-aboard luggage.

  Eli pointed and said, “Those two aren’t dragging their clothes from a plane flight. The bags are full of dia
monds.”

  Crossing the foyer toward the elevators, he pointed to the left, toward a sunken open area full of desks, saying, “That’s the trading floor. Rough stones on one side, polished on the other. Biggest exchange in the world.”

  “I thought Antwerp was bigger.”

  “So they say. Either way, we’re the most respected. Our word is our bond.”

  The elevator closed, and they began to rise to the third floor. Tyler said, “If this is such a respected institution, why are you doing what you’re doing?”

  Eli said, “Respect doesn’t pay the bills.”

  They exited the elevator and traveled down a sterile hallway, stopping at a simple metal office door. Eli unlocked it, and inside was a small, opulent showroom, complete with chandelier, oak walls lined with jewelry, cherrywood oval table, and Victorian chairs. In the back, past the showroom, were a couple of offices, one manned, one empty.

  Eli closed the doors and said, “The truth of the matter is that the Israeli diamond exchange is under assault from a thousand different points. Child cutters in India, blood diamonds, wholesalers who have turned our business into a box store, and outsourcing to the third world; it’s becoming fragmented. Israel used to be the epicenter of the diamond world. It’s not anymore. People who’ve worked the exchange for generations are getting out—and not because they want to. That’s not going to happen to me.”

  “What do you mean? How is the project in Lesotho going to help with that?”

  “Lesotho produces the largest gem-quality diamonds in the world, but De Beers owns all the mines. Currently, the government only owns thirty percent of the production, but they’re opening two new mines, which will be owned by the Kingdom of Lesotho, not De Beers. And, if we succeed, that government will be amenable to me. No middleman. Just me.”

  Tyler nodded, now understanding the why of his business deal here. Ordinarily, he didn’t care one way or the other what happened with his weapons, but this time, he was betting on the come—providing his services without a concrete payout—so it was good to see the state of play.