Tsunami Connection

by Michael James Gallagher

  Tsunami

  Connection

  MICHAEL JAMES GALLAGHER

  All rights reserved, without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Copyright © 2013 Michael James Gallagher

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-9917776-0-0

  Cover by Rajan Vivek Rajan

  Careful final edit by Mary Ann Hoskin

  Format for Kindle and Createspace by Lorena Wood

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To Ilona - The love of my life

  For her endless encouragement and patience

  Following strong sales in the English-speaking world, Michael’s work has recently been translated for distribution in Turkey and Germany by Matbuat Publishing Group Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  SINAI DESERT

  MELCHETTE STREET

  MEETING IN REDDITCH

  SOME MONTHS EARLIER

  VISIT IN SCOTLAND

  BOSTON WATERFRONT

  ADOPTION OF KEFIRA

  TAHRIR SQUARE

  MINYA DESERT AIRPORT

  CONNECTING IN CALIFORNIA

  BREAK IN NORTH HATLEY

  LAKE MASSAWIPPI

  RUSSIAN OLIGARCH

  OLIGARCH IN DUBAI

  BUENOS AIRES

  THREE TO TANGO

  TOO MUCH TIME

  ZAK IN TIGRE

  DRONE CONTROL ROOM

  AKULA ATTACK

  ACEH PROVINCE, INDONESIA

  KEFIRA’S CHILDHOOD - KIBBUTZ NA’AN

  OFF SYRIA

  ZAK’S TEAM IN SYRIA

  MELCHETTE STREET AGAIN

  ZAK IN HOSPITAL

  SUBMARINE CAPTAINS TEST

  WALTZING MACAULEY

  SEVERAL MONTHS LATER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SINAI DESERT

  February 2, 2012

  Sidewinder snake tracks, etched in the cool sand of the Sinai Desert, gave her a pause. It was not much of a breather. Odd how death can be so close by, she thought as she packed the last of her items. The day ahead ensured no time for reflection. All around her was the bustle of military preparation for departure. They were Special Forces troops. No one needed orders. Kefira, who was the sole politically appointed Colonel in the Israeli Defence Forces before joining the Mossad, beamed as her team broke camp. The highly trained group was performing tasks in silence.

  One of the approaching Sikorsky-manufactured Black Hawks droned in the distance. The second bird, affixed with highly secret noise suppression baffles, breezed over the dunes. After the helicopters settled down, fourteen commandos boarded the noisy one. Kefira and seven soldiers clambered into the silent one. As soon as Kefira got into the co-pilot's seat, the 'copter lifted off. The pilot wound their way above the same ancient flood plain that Moses followed in around 1300 BC. It passed over Wadi Watir, a narrow, meandering valley, and descended to the sea from the Sinai plateau.

  Kefira's Black Hawk brought up the rear, five hundred meters behind and to the right of the first chopper, heading towards Nuweiba on the Red Sea. Tired but satisfied, she surveyed the territory in front of her. Egyptian military air traffic control had approved their flight plan, even though the Israeli group did not state their final destination.

  How'd Yochana organize those flight plans into and out of Egyptian territory? wondered Kefira, as they flew less than thirty feet over the dunes and hard-packed surface of the Sinai.

  The helicopters' approach to the Red Sea ordained a turn south to avoid Nuweiba, a small tourist town, reputedly marking the exact place where Moses led the Tribes of Israel out of Egypt. They veered right, over the dunes towards the water, heading into international airspace on the way to Eilat.

  Late last evening, Kefira had ordered that all commandos be dressed in civilian clothes for the way home. A strong gut feeling had encouraged her to order that extra safeguard; it was just a gut reaction. The team had packed their unmarked uniforms and now wore untagged civilian clothes. After all, they carried no personal belongings, not even matches for cigarettes in their pockets. Kefira's group was unique, made up of ultra-secret sleepers. Mossad had not trained the Colonel's squad for combat. Not one of them had a combat kill.

  Kefira was drifting in and out of alertness, due to both fatigue and relief because the exercise was over, when a communication from the leading 'copter interrupted her thought process.

  "Movement in the sand on that dune near the beach … Christ, he's got an RPG! It's on us. I'm locked on him."

  She could not believe her ears and eyes. Tracers were blasting through the early morning light towards a man rising from a mound of sand.

  "Aim low," burst Kefira into her headset microphone, disregarding the futility of precision battlefield commands, as her Black Hawk responded to emergency measures initiated by the pilot and swerved to get some distance from the lead 'copter as it was now spinning out of control.

  When the force of the exploding rocket shuddered over the second bird, the pilot managed to maintain equilibrium as the shockwave knocked the technologically-silenced command helicopter to the right. A split second later, the lead 'copter crashed and burst into flame. The strength of detonating fuel thrust three burning soldiers out of the space that was the side hatch where the RPG struck. They did not move after the explosion ejected them. Presumably the rest of the team was still belted into seats. A 'Mayday' message echoed twice before, ending abruptly when the Black Hawk struck the dune.

  "Set us down, Captain, close as your dare," ordered the Mossad agent, her voice leveling off despite the shock, training taking over.

  As the pilot took two wide sweeps over the area, Kefira surveyed both the smoldering wreckage of the first helicopter and the surrounding dunes for movement. She turned to her new second in command.

  "Shark. Until further notice, you are in charge of this unit. Take three of your people and check the downed bird for survivors. It may be a trap. Cover your backs," said the Mossad operative, purposefully using a code name, not his rank. As a result, she imposed ultra-secret, sleeper rules of engagement.

  "Set us down on the dunes near the bloody stain in the sand, close enough to get quick access, but far enough not to endanger the 'copters."

  "Ma'am, rules of engagement preclude staying on the ground," replied the pilot, not using Kefira's rank because Mossad is a civilian organization, not a military one.

  "Then drop down low enough, Captain, so we can drop to the sand and then return to circling. That bastard in the sand murdered my team."

  They hovered after the pilot flew two circular sweeps over the area.

  "Ma'am, your team out," said the pilot as he steadied the craft. Due to her out of the ordinary, politically mandated training protocol, the leader of a top-secret, non-combat section of Mossad's Metsada was about to see her first non-training-related action.

  She launched herself out of the craft, rolled, and then crouched. Her target, the bomber, was bleeding and half buried in the sand on the side of a dune. Death's stench almost overwhelmed her. The smell of sixteen bu
rning bodies, mixed with equal parts of cordite, overheated metal and high-octane fuel filled her nostrils. She forced the smells and her accompanying involuntary reactions to them out of her mind. Kefira needed to be sure she was concentrating enough to save her life if the man in the sand was still alive and capable of assaulting her.

  Kefira slid down from the top of a dune. She arrived just above the bloody spot in the sand. Her movements had first covered the bomber with sand and then uncovered him, as she got closer. Sand slowly drifted away from the man's face, cascading down the dune in front of both of them. Kefira took his head and neck in her hands.

  Chance had resulted in the machine gun fire only injuring his legs. The bomber moaned. His eyes opened and he looked at her. In Egyptian accented Arabic, he mustered up most of his strength to mutter, "Allah be praised, a wide-eyed maiden I find in the Garden." All the while an ethereal smile relieved his otherwise pained expression. Noticing that he was fast bleeding out, and grateful for all the language training she had suffered through over the years, Kefira spoke softly.

  "My hero, tell me, who has sent you to me?"

  He paused, evaluating his answer. "MacAuley, the unwashed," he replied, uttering his last three syllables as she snapped his neck. He'd have bled out anyway.

  Now that he was limp in her arms, Kefira took stock of the suicide vest he was wearing. Her training governed her movements as a bead of sweat formed on her right eyebrow. Never taking her eyes from the vest, she let the salty brine sting her eye. She eased herself away from him. Kefira was satisfied that she had done her duty, yet felt empty, because revenge had not been cleansing. She took a deep breath, stood, surveyed the area, and moved over the top of the dune, pistol extended in front of her with slightly relaxed elbows. She used a hand signal to get the chopper. It circled and came down to pick her and the others up on an adjacent dune, far enough away that any explosion of the vest would not harm them.

  "Over the water to Eilat and radio ahead our situation," Kefira barked before the door had closed on her side of the baffled 'copter. She put on her headset.

  "Wait. His vest could be used as evidence. Circle around and clean this up. No loose ends," she added.

  Twice in one day I defied death. A snake had wound by my sack in the night without biting me, and now a bomb in my hands that didn't explode. This second piece of good luck had inadvertently rewarded her breaking of the normal rules of engagement, perhaps risking the lives of her remaining troops by trying to question a presumably dead bomber. Once again, though, her gut reactions paid off. A self-satisfied grin formed on her face.

  A name. I risked the other 'copter, but I got a name.

  "Right away, Ma'am," retorted the pilot, raising the eyebrow she couldn't see, thinking that this one had balls of steel. The dune exploded after a short burst from the 7.62 calibre guns triggered the bomber′s vest. The pilot looked at Kefira again. "I would've caught it, Ma'am, if you'd been hurt down there."

  Kefira squinted. "I'll cover for you in my report, Captain."

  She shook her head and said, "He thought I was his first virgin in Paradise. He even called me his wide-eyed maiden."

  They're trained reactions, just like ours, Ma'am. It's all a matter of perspective.″

  Kefira clammed up and went into planning mode. Her mission was more important than this event, even though this tragedy had truncated her ability to continue the sleeper's mission that she and Yochana had so long planned. Fourteen of them are gone, not including the pilot and co-pilot, she thought, aghast by the reality.

  All those years living in America for nothing. The bomber had taken almost everything away in a flash. Her thoughts spun in a negative and unproductive feedback loop. In shock, Kefira was unable to get her usual cool grip on reality. She took out a pencil, pad of paper, and wrote a message for the pilot.

  By means of a rarely used code word written on top of the pad, referring to the direct intervention of the Prime Minister, Kefira overrode any of the pilot's previous orders. She knew that the regular army, Shin Bet (Internal Security), or even Aman (Military Intelligence) must not stop her for questioning.

  She could not go with the remaining members of her team to Eilat Airport. Internal security would question them and eventually release them to their respective group leaders, Sam or Yochana, but the authorities must not associate Kefira officially with the trainees, the unknown, undocumented sleepers. If she stayed on the transport, the authorities would hold her in Eilat and make her de-briefing in her unique chain of command impossible.

  Seeing the rarely used code word, the Captain glared at the agent. Politicos, he thought. But, he indicated his understanding. She nodded back. Kefira's rank of Colonel in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) was a political, not military attribution. She had never served in the armed forces, only trained in a special ultra-secret unit.

  "Head back to the shore just after Nuweiba and let me off near one of the most secluded resorts," she ordered, tearing up the message she had written, keeping it in her hand to let it flutter in the air after she would get out of the ′copter. She knew she would take one of the old Mercedes taxis that carried tourists the sixty-five kilometers up the road to Taba. From Taba, she would make her way to Eilat as a tourist using the Canadian passport she always carried in case of emergency.

  From her side pocket, she unfolded a lightweight carry all and went into the compartment behind her to look at what was left of her team. She looked deeply into each of their eyes and noiselessly uttered, "We are one." Tears clouded the eyes of two members, but determination girded their jaws.

  Kefira prepared to leave the sound-baffled, technologically-enhanced Black Hawk for a second time, filling her over-the-shoulder bag with clothes borrowed from her team's supplies to make her clandestine arrival in Eilat more convincing.

  From the beach drop off area, where the helicopter left Kefira, it was a short walk to an isolated beach resort. In front of the hotel, Kefira found her transport to Taba. A group of young Arab men, in clothes resembling Saudi dress more than local garb, stood around smoking and talking. There were two dated Mercedes parked between them. She approached, purposefully showing exposed arms and legs, and asked in English if she could get a ride to Taba.

  The drivers of the improvised taxis looked at each other, passing comments about her uncovered arms and legs, but nodded agreement to her at the same time. A short negotiation produced an open door in the back of the newer looking car. One young man, all teeth, climbed into the front seat. She was on her way to Taba, the Egyptian city near the border with Israel, near Eilat.

  The driver had pitched his cigarette out of respect, but now his nostrils quivered as if he sensed some smell of high-octane fuel and death by fire on her. She saw some faint memory of the odor of death gloss over his eyes in the rear view mirror and covered herself by asking for a cigarette. Appearing relieved, he forgot his concern, and was happy that he would be able to smoke on the sixty-five kilometer drive. He made no attempt to converse with her and occupied his time alternating between gold-toothed smiles and fiddling with a radio that alternately played short bursts of either music or static. Other than periodic stops to look at the radiator, smoke, and talk with returning taxi drivers stopped on the route from Taba, the drive was uneventful.

  Kefira was growing more confident by the minute. In Taba, she made her way to the casino after dinner in the Marriot Hotel. As she walked in the front door, she saw what she was sure would be her lift into Israel, sitting by the bar with a BMW keychain in front of him.

  MELCHETTE STREET

  February 5, 2012

  At midnight, an ocean breeze straggled across the rooftops to the crown of a luxury duplex on Melchette Street, Tel Aviv. Kefira's kea parrot, Bo, his wings regularly clipped, perched on the bamboo chair back of Kefira's chaise lounge. The three of them, Yochana, Kefira and Bo, sat on the roof, overlooking all of Tel Aviv towards the Mediterranean. Bo affectionately nibbled her ear while running his beak through her hair.
Two soft packs of Noblesse, one of them empty, crumpled and crunched into a ball, lay beside a blood red Swarovski crystal ashtray of a size and type not seen in North America for a quarter of a century. Everyone in Israel still smoked. The dry, musty sharpness of tar and nicotine burning provoked early childhood reassurance and memories, the acrid odor producing calm.

  "Haven't you heard that those things'll kill you, Immaleh," said Kefira in reaction to a waft of smoke annoying her nostrils, using a modern Israeli diminutive for Mama.

  The younger woman turned her head and brushed her hair with her fingers, unbalancing the kea, which fluttered its wings and crackled jungle sounds into the soft night air.

  "Come … sit beside me, close to me. I need to feel your warmth," said Yochana, not quite butting a half smoked cigarette in the mound of ashes in the ashtray.

  "Let me empty that monstrosity," said Kefira, not yet willing to give in to her mourning.

  "Don't flush them. The toilet blocks so easily," replied the older woman, knowing that she had almost broken through her adopted child's defensive barriers. "That's it! There is a steel canister near the back of the balcony. Don't forget to seal the lid. Now come, Yakiri," pleaded Yochana, using the affectionate name she always used for Kefira.

  The younger woman reluctantly gave in to the need to be a child again, and rushed to the chaise lounge to embrace her stepmother. A deep sob escaped from her lungs and tears flowed from her large, dark eyes while charcoal from her natural, Bedouin eye makeup streaked her cheeks.

  "They are all gone, Imma. I couldn't save them. It was so fast," said the younger woman, her blackened tears staining the rough silk of Yochana's pantsuit.

  "The Lord sometimes giveth wisdom by his gestures," replied Yochana, halting on the words.

  Kefira cleared her eyes and looked up, puzzled.

  "Unlike you to wax biblical. I'm not particularly religious, but that quotation sounds unusual to me."