Doha 12

by Lance Charnes

  “You didn’t need to know,” Orgad said. Other than a certain roughness in his voice, Gur’s boss sounded as stolid as ever. “You have more important things to worry about.”

  “I’m not so sure. Just so I know, if I drag him in, do I end up in Lebanon? Whose ass is his nose buried in to get a sensitive position like AL?”

  “You don’t need to know that, either. If it makes you feel better, his sus isn’t any use to him anymore. This blunder is too public, he’s been disowned. Concentrate on your mission.”

  “Yes, about that. We have Grossman’s intel on dead terrorists but not on the live ones. Can we use his people? We need help.”

  “He has no people anymore, they’re leaving the country. Make do.”

  “Damn it!” Gur slammed the steering wheel with his palm. “I need more information. Anything from Paris or Amsterdam, I don’t care how small, I want it immediately. I hope Kaisarut is finally talking to the Americans.”

  “They have…contact. We have to protect our sources, of course.”

  “Fuck that! Stop playing these idiotic games. Give them everything you know, now. If we’re going to stop this, we need every policeman on this island looking for these people. If Kaisarut doesn’t start sharing information, so help me I’ll go straight to their FBI and give them what I know. All of it. Am I clear?”

  The phone overflowed with dead air. Then Orgad said, very carefully, “That would be unwise. We’d make certain you spend a great deal of time in an American prison. It would hurt to do that, Raffi, but I’d do it to protect the Institute, please believe me.” Gur believed him; he’d seen it happen. “Liaison is doing what it’s authorized to do. There are issues you’re not privileged to know, at the highest levels.”

  Meaning the Prime Minister’s office. Meaning withholding information about this from the Americans had become a matter of state policy. Meaning… “You want Hezbollah to succeed. You want the bomb to go off.”

  Static hiss stretched on far too long.

  Gur’s rushed lunch fought its way back up his throat. The Institute had manipulated events in America before, he knew, but this… “So should we stop? Let it happen?”

  “Of course not. Do what you can. If you stop it, they’ll owe us a great debt. Not all things are possible, though.” If this last thought gave Orgad any heartburn, it didn’t reflect in his voice.

  “So why send us here at all? What’s the point? What did Amzi die for?”

  “We had to eliminate the assassination team. If they survived, we’d see them in Israel, we couldn’t have that. This is different.” Orgad cleared his throat. “Good luck, Raffi. Please try to stay alive. It would be a shame to lose you for no reason.” Before Gur could say anything, Orgad broke the connection.

  Gur sagged into his seat, rubbed the throbbing between his eyes. All these busy shoppers rushing past. How many would die tonight?

  He wasn’t naïve. He understood the Institute—and by extension, Israel—looked out for its own interests above anyone else’s. But withholding information from the Americans and allowing the deaths of dozens if not hundreds of innocents, just to goad Israel’s only real ally into attacking Hezbollah…

  The idea didn’t shock him. Twenty years of taking out his country’s garbage had left him so jaded that he had no trouble believing Israel could be this cavalier about friends, supporters, fellow Jews. Is there no outrage left in me? Gloomy storm clouds hid the sun from what remained of his soul. Can I let this happen and still call myself a man?

  No. He had to act. His team could act. They must. And if the Institute didn’t like that he’d wrecked their twisted little plot, he’d hold his head high as they marched him off to prison.

  He checked his watch. Past noon local time. Sunset at six-thirty. So little time.

  Grossman was key. He had the information Tel Aviv had buried. He had Eldar and Schaffer, too, and whatever they’d learned from the terrorists. Gur didn’t know what that bastard was up to, but knowing Grossman, he was trying to cover his seriously overexposed ass…which meant shifting the blame to someone else, such as Gur. If he did, he could survive to screw someone else on his scramble up the ladder to the Director’s chair.

  Unless Gur and his team could find the bombers first.

  NINETY-ONE: Lower Manhattan, 23 December, 1:35 PM

  No one noticed the FedEx Ground panel van parked in the red outside the Commerce Bank at Broadway and Wall, flashers promising a quick return. Few paid attention to Haroun in the FedEx uniform. How else could a black man walk down Wall Street and not stand out?

  The private security guard stomping his feet under the black-topped metal shelter outside the Bank of New York Mellon just nodded as Haroun passed. The New York Stock Exchange cop at the Exchange’s entrance yanked the door open for him. “Don’t drop it,” the cop said, nodding toward the carton in Haroun’s hands.

  That wasn’t an option.

  He slid the box onto the receiving counter, shook the blood back into his hands. The package wasn’t big, but it had grown heavy after carrying it a block. The “Fragile” stamps were a nice touch. A pot-bellied Puerto Rican guy at the desk behind the counter looked up over his glasses, frowned. “Vlad was just here half an hour ago. He forget something?”

  Haroun’s mind flashed on Vlad, dead under a tarp in the back of his van, strangled so no blood would get on his uniform. Haroun spread his hands. “What can I say, man? Sign here.”

  He’d never dreamed he’d stick it to the white man and the infidel at the same time. He’d enjoy coming back in a couple hours, driving that other van no one would see until too late.

  Before prison, before he’d found his new faith, being here in the middle of the financial world’s viper den would have made him furious; he would’ve wanted to butcher every passing white man in a tie. Now with his path and his destiny set, he didn’t feel angry or tense or anxious. He felt free, weightless. Everything seemed just a little brighter and sharper, the girls a little prettier, the air a little crisper. He’d have these pictures to take with him to paradise.

  Haroun nodded at the NYPD Emergency Services truck making its way through the vehicle barriers at the mouth of Wall Street. The cops passed without even looking at him. Asleep, just like the rest of them. He smiled to himself.

  In a couple of hours, he’d wake them up. He wouldn’t be invisible anymore.

  NINETY-TWO: Midtown Manhattan, 23 December, 3:10 PM

  This is useless, Jake told himself for the hundredth time. They’d never find anything in this mess. Shoppers, hawkers, workers, security guards and street sweepers jammed the sidewalks of 47th Street’s midrise brick-and-stone canyon. The usual Friday mid-afternoon wall-to-wall filled the street cutting through the heart of New York’s Diamond District. Armored cars lined the north curb, loading or unloading gold and cash.

  But no extra cops. One patrol unit held down the corner with Fifth Avenue across from Chabad’s twelve-foot-high aluminum menorah, and another sat by the intersection with Sixth. Where was the PD? The sooner the cavalry got here, the sooner Jake and Miriam could ditch Kaminsky and leave this mess forever.

  The sooner he could get back to Eve. He flashed back almost three hours to when he’d faced down Monica in front of Kings County Hospital, where Gene lay recovering. “She needs to be with you,” Monica had scolded him, fists on her formidable hips. “You need to stop running around saving the world.”

  Eve’s “Daddy, don’t go!” still echoed in his ears. What kind of father am I?

  Jake trotted across the street through stalled traffic toward the garish neon “47 Diamond Exchange” sign. He turned a full 360 looking for Lieutenant Fitcham, Menotti’s deputy, who was supposed to meet him here.

  He felt muzzy and unfocused even after a shower, shave and change of clothes at Kaminsky’s hotel suite. He wished Miriam was with him; she had good eyes and good instincts, and he wouldn’t feel so alone.

  This had been his idea. Kaminsky was all hot about Wall Street, but
Jake had shot him down; the area around the Stock Exchange had been locked down after 9/11 and was much too hard a target. Now he began to wonder. So far today, Hezbollah had targeted two synagogues, the Anne Frank House and a Christmas party at a conference center in Paris. The strike here could come anywhere. Did Hezbollah even know about this place?

  Jake checked the oncoming pedestrians and drivers against the faces of the four bombers running on an endless loop through his head, wishing he’d find one already. The news said the Paris bombers embedded ball bearings in the explosives; that van had been a huge Claymore mine. A hundred ten dead so far. If it happened on this street, that would be just the start.

  Miriam huddled against the cold under a scaffold blocking the front of the huge half-completed International Gem Tower, halfway between Fifth and Sixth Avenues on 47th Street. She propped Kaminsky’s computer against a scaffold pier and waited for it to connect to the unsecured WiFi signal she’d found.

  It had taken some badgering on Jake’s part to get Kaminsky to leave his laptop with her. “You need to be free for action, right?” he’d said. It was “action” that finally won the argument; Kaminsky seemed to swell each time Jake brought it up. With any luck, “action” would keep him away from her for the rest of the day.

  She didn’t mind being sidelined. Standing still would save her knee. More than that, she’d felt stupid and useless at the hotel for not being able to help find the target. Now she could take a few minutes to look at the data, try to make sense of what had happened so far today.

  A nearly unbroken line of traffic streamed westbound in front of her. She’d counted a dozen white vans growling by in the past ten minutes, and while none had the Eastside Electric logo, Miriam knew how easy it would have been to switch registration plates or graphics in the two weeks since Kaminsky had last seen the thing. For all they knew, the van could be black by now…like the one parked illegally a few feet from her.

  Miriam shivered, not from the chill.

  A midnight-blue Crown Victoria squeaked to a stop next to the gray plumber’s van shielding Jake from the street. A man with hair the color of a new penny unwound from the passenger’s seat; when he stood straight, he towered over the car’s roof. Fitcham.

  Jake raised his arm. Fitcham nodded, waved the car into the intersection, then circled the van to reach the sidewalk. They shook hands. “Alright, Jake, where’d you get that intel?”

  If nothing else, Jake had managed to send Kaminsky’s files to JTTF. “Later. You see the pictures?”

  “I saw. We got copies going out to patrols and the Feds, and a BOLO on the van.” As they walked, Fitcham cased the street and crowd, his tan raincoat flapping at his knees. His handheld police radio squawked from time to time. “How sure are you they’re coming here?”

  “Not bet-my-life, but it makes sense. It’s the largest unsecured Jewish target in the city. Wide open at both ends, no barriers anywhere. Drive the van through, pull the pin and you’re guaranteed three figures’ worth of casualties.” Jake sighed, glanced around. “It just feels right. It’s like, you look up ‘soft target’ in Wikipedia, a picture of this place comes up.”

  Fitcham looked unconvinced. “The Feds like Wall Street. So does the boss.”

  “It’s a fortress. Why work that hard?”

  “Just sayin’. Captain wants me to check this out before he sends anyone else up here.” Fitcham stopped abruptly, cocked his head like an Irish setter. “You hear that ringing?”

  Jake concentrated for a moment, then said, “Fire alarm.”

  Across the street, people streamed through the five glass doors of number 55, a glass-and-granite frontage that proclaimed itself in giant aluminum letters to be the “World’s Largest Jewelry Exchange.” Workers in shirtsleeves, Haredim in full suits and hats, shopgirls and customers all spilled out onto the sidewalk, most with phones pressed to their ears, many wearing bewildered faces.

  “Just like in Amsterdam and Paris,” Jake said. “They called in bomb threats to flush people outside. It’s happening.”

  “Great,” Fitcham grumbled. He stepped off into the street, holding up his shield to stop the traffic. People filled the sidewalk in front of number 55, sloshed into the street. Fitcham began barking commands into his radio.

  “Believe me now?” Jake called after him.

  “Shit.” Fitcham, now halfway across the street, shot his hand in the air to stop an oncoming armored car. “Yes, West 47th at Fifth!” he yelled into his radio. “10-85 for a roadblock ASAP!”

  “Lieutenant! What do you want me to do?”

  Fitcham jabbed a finger eastbound. “Take Schaffer and get the hell out of here.”

  “What about all this?”

  “Captain’s orders. You, Schaffer and your little girl, on a plane to Miami tonight.” Fitcham stepped backwards while he waved his radio at Jake. “Drink rum, lay on the beach. He doesn’t want to even smell you until the hearing. Understand?” He gave Jake a getouttahere wave and disappeared into the crowd of evacuees.

  Jake shrugged, dropped back to the sidewalk and continued on his way to Miriam. Flashing blue lights marked the east end of the block, and sirens approached down Sixth Avenue. He’d turned over the scene to NYPD; he and Miriam could leave with clear consciences.

  But there were still all these white vans here. Not my problem, he told himself.

  Dozens—hundreds—of people packed both sidewalks. Let the PD deal with it.

  He stopped to peek through a white delivery van’s window. Off-white mesh blocked the view behind the front seats. Kaminsky’s photos hadn’t shown a cargo cage. Keep going.

  Another white van—from a plumbing company—rolled past. The driver’s face didn’t line up with the pictures in Jake’s head. Two cars behind it was another white van—boiler repair—and the driver…he looked a little like that Fayiz guy, didn’t he? Maybe a bit older, more gray in his shaggy black hair. They could’ve changed the signs on the van by now, stuck on new plates.

  The traffic lanes thinned out after Jake had covered a few more yards; the roadblock must have kicked in. But the momentary flash of relief turned to dust when he noticed a dozen or more white vans parked along the small stretches of curb he could see. Where were the uniforms? Why wasn’t anyone checking the drivers?

  Over there, in front of the Ross Exchange’s blue awning, next to the growing lake of evacuees: a parked white van, flashers on, “Empire Electric” on the sides, a black guy head-down behind the wheel. Texting? Filling out forms?

  Praying before he sent himself to Paradise?

  The driver looked a lot like that Haroun Sahabi character: thirties perhaps, dark skin, almost no hair, a blue cloth coat. Jake checked the street; the nearest cops were too far away. The evacuees eddied around the van, oblivious.

  A hand grabbed Jake’s elbow. “Come with me,” a man growled in Hebrew.

  Jake tried to wrench away, but the man’s fingers cranked down on the nerves in his elbow and wouldn’t let go. “But that van—that guy—”

  “Just shut up and come with me.” The man flashed an open leather ID case at him. A bad photo, a blue Shield of David inside a wreath, a name and police rank in Hebrew between them. An Israeli cop?

  Jake tried to make sense of this as they marched down the sidewalk. JTTF? Dozens of agencies were part of it; maybe the Mishteret was, too. But somehow the man knew Jake understood Hebrew. “Who are you?”

  The man pushed him forward. “Call me Ephraim.”

  Ephraim? Jake recalled Kaminsky’s words at the White Castle. He broke Ephraim’s hold when the man answered his phone and swiveled to take a good, straight look at him.

  Mid-forties, triangular face, broken nose, straight black hair, Mediterranean olive skin. The photo on the Red Notice: Alias Eldar, Alias Jacob. Only the moustache was missing.

  Jake’s bubbling lava pit of anger sent up a geyser. “You son-of-a-bitch!”

  Miriam frowned to herself. She’d read everything she could find on the comput
er about the four European targets, and Jake was right, the few common threads were very generic: no meaningful security, direct access to crowds, lots of Jews. Now she’d had time to look at the data, though, the tickle of an idea played hide-and-seek in the back of her mind, just out of reach.

  She woke up her dormant border-cop brain, the one that usually had had good instincts before she started second-guessing them and ended up with a thrashed knee and an aborted career. She turned off the facts and tried to connect with something more elemental—how did the targets make her feel?

  Kaminsky materialized next to her. Sweat beaded his forehead despite the cold. “The others are here. Elena was watching you a few minutes ago. She’s not even trying to hide.”

  Miriam didn’t feel threatened. She’d put up with Kaminsky; how much worse could the other Mossad agents be? At least the female one had been trying to help. “What are you going to do?” she finally asked.

  He checked both ways, bounced on the balls of his feet. “She may not have seen me. I’ll find an observation point. Please, Mrs. Schaffer, don’t be alarmed if you don’t see me.”

  I’ll be delighted, she almost said.

  He took a step backward and froze.

  “Hello, Avi.” A woman’s voice, low and steady, speaking Hebrew. “Before you ask, that’s a pistol in your spine. If I shoot, your prick’ll never work again. Please let me shoot you.”

  Kaminsky swallowed so hard, Miriam could hear it. “Sandrine, what a lovely surprise.” His voice climbed a full octave.

  “Not for me. Mrs. Schaffer, we’ve met, but we haven’t, if that makes any sense.”

  Miriam turned to find a familiar face peering at her over Kaminsky’s shoulder: Jake had called her “Elena,” Kaminsky used “Sandrine.” “You were at the station and the cemetery. I guess I should say ‘thank you.’” She tried to read the woman’s eyes, but got back a cool distance. “Are you here for him or for me?”

  “Both. I’m glad you’ve survived, I’ve had my fingers crossed for you.” She did something that made Kaminsky wince. “Avi, just because you don’t feel this anymore doesn’t mean I can’t shoot you.”