When Shadows Collide (An Arik Bar Nathan Novel Book 1)

by Nathan Ronen

  Arik decided to change the rules of the game. Across the road, he noticed a cheap hotel called the Whitechapel Guest House, a “no-tell motel” type place promising, we won’t tell your wife you were here for a quickie. The hotel’s rates were listed next to its name: twelve pounds an hour for a room with a shower. A hotel openly and publicly listing an hourly rate was clearly not a respectable business establishment.

  Arik entered the smelly little reception lobby and looked around. The desk clerk was busy booking rooms by the hour, offering special accommodations with discreet parking, low ceilings, and mirrors.

  In a small bar across from the reception desk sat an old prostitute, smiling at him toothlessly. “I’m Valentina,” she told him in an odd accent. The generous décolletage of her overly tight dress revealed a giant pair of flaccid, wrinkly breasts, stuffed into a too-small pushup bra.

  Arik ignored her gaze of invitation and asked for a room for one night. He paid in cash and was pleased when the bored desk clerk did not ask for any form of identification, giving him the key to Room 5.

  “Do you want some different company for the night?” he asked Arik. “I can fix you up with a good, pretty girl: Asian, Russian, Polish. I’ve got photos, at all kinds of prices, of course,” he added, smirking to expose a mouthful of yellow teeth as a result of smoking cheap cigarettes. He reeked of tobacco and beer.

  Arik hurried off. He took the key and walked down the hall of the long building, looking for Room 5. By the pallid light of the corridor illumination, he found the room and went in. Room 5 was shabby. The walls had been covered with peeling striped wallpaper. A ratty yellow carpet bearing coffee stains covered the creaky wood floor. The bed did not look promising, but Arik didn’t care. He had no intention of using it anyway.

  He powered up his Chameleon and found the motel’s network and its Wi-Fi address. Using a hacking application, he effortlessly infiltrated the motel’s simple room management system. Most of the rooms were vacant, including Room 4, adjacent to his room, and Room 6, further down the corridor.

  Arik went into the bathroom, turned on the light and left the door half-open. He turned on the TV, found a live soccer game and turned the volume up. He then turned on the reading lamp standing on a chest of drawers next to the bed and pulled the curtains shut, leaving a thin crack between them that would create the impression that the room was occupied for anyone peeking in from the outside.

  Using a set of small lock picks he retrieved from his pocket, he opened the connecting door to the adjacent room and made his way inside by pushing the door with his shoulder. He walked over to the rear window, raised it and silently exited the room. He then took a roundabout path to return to the bored clerk at the front desk.

  The old prostitute looked at him hopefully, but he ignored the pathetic seductive look she directed at him. Arik asked the clerk about a cheap restaurant in the neighborhood, as if he had not noticed the neon sign of the Indian restaurant on the other side of the street. It was important to him to have the clerk think that this was where he would be for the next hour.

  The clerk did indeed point out the Indian restaurant, and Arik pretended to walk toward it. Suddenly, he disappeared swiftly behind the reception lobby, directly into a thicket of bridal-wreath spiraea shrubs blossoming with elegant white flowers. He huddled inside his coat, keeping a watch on Room 5 in the smutty little motel. Less than fifteen minutes later, the green gardening van entered the parking lot of the horseshoe-shaped single-story motel.

  Two figures, clearly Mediterranean in appearance, who looked familiar due to their previous tracking efforts, exited the van. One of them took a spin around the corridor, listening to the murmurs emerging through the door before returning to the vehicle, while the other went in to ask the desk clerk whether a new tenant had recently arrived. In return for a bluish twenty-pound note, the information was quickly provided.

  Arik knew the clerk would provide any information to anyone who asked in return for a few pounds. After all, he had survived a long, hard life only because he was always cautious and alert. Therefore, he had no intention of letting his uninvited guests catch him unprepared. He intended to keep his distance and stay out of sight until he was certain there was no sign of backup or a larger team of assailants.

  It’s often said that the darkest hour is just before dawn, but that is incorrect. The darkest hour is in the middle of the night. Arik sat on the cold ground and mentally prepared to wait. His pursuers were sitting in their silent car across from Room 5, waiting for him.

  In his inner earpiece, he heard Tal calling him on the two-way radio. “Command, this is zero-one.”

  “This is Command, over,” he whispered.

  “The whiz kids, Yuli’s cyber twins, have located the moving company that transported the entire contents of the mosque basement,” Tal said, “but they still haven’t managed to find the storage facility. They’re working on it. Where are you at the moment? I’m here on the street near our apartment.”

  “This is Command,” Arik whispered. “I’m waiting here in the bushes across from Room 5 at the Whitechapel Guest House, a motel about 500 yards east of our war room, on the main street. At this stage, I want you to block all entrances and exits here and catch any backup that might be on its way here.”

  “Roger,” Tal told him.

  Arik was waiting for the team commander, rather than the foot soldiers. He was hoping to meet the head of the snake. If they had captured Iman al-Uzbeki, maybe they would finally also catch his legendary deputy, ‘Ali Baba.’ When you only had one chance, you had to make use of it in the most effective way. You couldn’t allow yourself to miss out just because of bad planning or impatience. He liked the idea of catching two for the price of one.

  There was a reason the British were preoccupied with the weather. They were obsessed with it as, on an average day in London, you might encounter the four seasons, and not necessarily the musical piece by the same name. A typical English storm had begun to roil above him. Heavy drops of rain fell from the sky, quickly becoming a sweeping downpour. It was like lying in a bathtub with the faucet open and the water flowing. Thunderclaps roared, sounding like a barrage from a nearby battery of cannons, while flashes of lightning illuminated his surroundings. The wind was biting, and Arik stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together to get warm.

  A short while later, the white pickup entered the parking lot, stopping next to the van. He noticed three figures inside it.

  The rain increased and a thunderstorm boomed around him. The figures waited inside the silent truck for several minutes, their eyes scanning their surroundings. The bad weather and the fact that the stilled truck had become a refrigerator of sorts exhausted the men lurking in the silent vehicle.

  Arik sat there on the cold ground, thinking to himself that if he was his rivals, this was precisely the time when he would choose to emerge, precisely because no one would expect you to come out in such turbulent weather. And indeed, his rivals did not disappoint.

  Three people emerged from the pickup. Two of them were holding what were doubtlessly automatic weapons under their clothes. The two men from the van exited as well, pointing at Room 5. Action was better than non-action, especially since they believed the room would be heated.

  One of the terrorists easily broke into the room and four of them disappeared inside, while the fifth went over to the bushes across from the reception lobby as a lookout who would alert them to Arik’s return.

  That was the signal. He wanted to be in a place where he could observe them from the darkened interior of the vehicle. Arik ran, bending low, and approached the green gardening van. He extracted his break-in kit but found he didn’t need it. The driver’s door opened silently, and Arik snuck in, climbing over to the back seat. He cocked his Glock 19 pistol, assembling the silencer.

  “Zero-one, this is Command,” he transmitted. “I’m hiding in a green van mark
ed with script stating ‘Bethnal Green Gardening Company,’ which is waiting in the parking lot outside Room 5 of the Whitechapel Guest House. Next to me is a white pickup with the sign ‘Bethnal Green Exterminators.’ A hit team comprising four members is waiting for me in Room 5. One lookout hiding in the bushes at the entrance to the site. Need help urgently.”

  “We’re with you in two,” Tal Ronen whispered to him.

  “Zero-one, this is Command,” Arik added. “Park across from here in the Indian restaurant’s lot. Join me in the green van.”

  The lookout left to keep watch was surprised by a burly figure that leaped at him from behind through the bushes, strangled him with an expert grip and stabbed his chest with a dagger.

  Within a short time, the site was surrounded by two operational teams of experienced Kidon members, suitably armed. Arik heard a “Pssssst” outside the van door and coughed in response. These were the agreed-upon signals that the coast was clear, and all was safe.

  “We need live tongues; I have a few questions to ask them,” Arik clarified to the small group that had joined him.

  During the next downpour of rain, under the cover of the barrage of thunder and lightning, Tal Ronen and his people exited the vehicle and effortlessly broke into Rooms 4 and 6, where the terrorists were huddling. Through the thin plaster wall, they heard the announcer shouting enthusiastically as he narrated the soccer game between two premier league teams, Manchester United and Chelsea. Tal had no doubt that breaking down the internal door would be child’s play.

  “Charlie team in position.”

  “Tango team in position.”

  “Coordinated break-in at the count of three,” Tal commanded, standing by the internal door into Room 5.

  “One… two… three.” Tal kicked in the door and threw in a stun grenade, which exploded with immense noise, creating a blinding flash. Kidon agents burst in through the two internal doors on both sides of the room, aiming their weapons at the terrorists. The two Afghani Al Qaeda members grabbed their weapons and were immediately shot in the forehead by Glock pistols with silencers. The weapons emitted a short bark that sounded like a loud hiccup and the terrorists fell to the floor. The body of one of them shattered the table. The two men left in the room raised their hands in surrender and began whimpering in Arabic, begging that their lives be spared.

  The few guests staying in the rooms rented out to couples by the hour emerged to see what the noise was all about. Kidon warriors wearing fluorescent vests stating “Police” instructed them to return to their rooms. The desk clerk came running. Arik smiled at him calmly and asked him to return to his station. He also thrust a fifty-pound note into his hand, signaling him to stay quiet.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll leave the room sparkling clean and ready for use once we’re done,” he winked.

  Arik entered the room soaked to the bone, his hair disheveled, and his body smeared with mud. He looked like an intimidating demon. A cloud of the stun grenade’s burned magnesium stench was still hovering in the air. The two men who had survived kneeled down on their knees, wrapped their arms around their heads in terror, and shivered.

  Arik brought his gun to the forehead of the first heavyset terrorist, asking in Arabic, “What’s your name?”

  “Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, ya sidi, sir,” he replied.

  “Where are you from?”

  “From Nabatieh, Lebanon.”

  “And what’s your name?” Arik addressed the other man.

  “Subhi Tufayli,” he replied, shaking all over.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Bint Jbeil, Lebanon,” came the answer.

  Both towns were in South Lebanon, the stronghold of the Hezbollah terrorist organization, currently supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

  “Are you Hezbollah? Al-Muqawama80 men?” Arik asked, receiving a nod of confirmation.

  He had captured two small fry apparently belonging to the team of expert tunnel diggers from South Lebanon. If he handed them over to David McBrady, head of the British security service, perhaps he could amend the security breach that had allowed them to enter Britain. There was no point in killing them for no good reason, as they could provide information about the tunnels they were doubtlessly digging across Israel’s northern border.

  “Do you know who I am?” Arik asked.

  “Yes,” they answered as one. “You’re the ‘white Israeli demon’ also called Assad Iben Aataf.”

  Arik burst out in laughter. This was a literal translation into Arabic of the name Arik Bar-Nathan.

  “Where’s your boss? What’s his name?” he went on to ask.

  The two men looked at each other apprehensively.

  “Today is not a day when dreams come true,” he said toughly, “and I’m not about to disappear from your nightmare. If you’ve heard of me, you probably know I’m an expert in torture. I know all the techniques, from using cables to connect your testicles to a car battery, injecting chemicals into your veins that will make you feel like you’re on fire, drowning you by placing a wet rag on your face and soaking you with a hose, breaking every joint in your fingers and toes with a steak mallet, shooting you in the kneecap to shooting into your anus, so you’ll have to shit into a bag connected to your intestines for the rest of your life. You won’t die, but by the end, you’ll wish you had.”

  These graphic descriptions proved to have the desired effect, and the two men were shaking like leaves. One of them lost control over his bladder and began to leak and stain his pants.

  “I’m in a good mood today,” Arik continued, “so I’ll let each of you choose your own form of torture. Don’t say I’m not a generous guy.”

  “But if we talk, he’ll kill us and our family members… That’s the way things are with us,” Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah wailed in fear.

  “But no one needs to know. It’ll be our secret,” Bar-Nathan said seductively.

  “We don’t know his name. We only know him as ‘Ali Baba.’ He’s a Pakistani who speaks in Urdu to those guys,” Subhi Tufayli pointed at the corpses of his friends, “and with those who are with him in the house in the village right now.”

  “How many more are there?”

  “Just him and three more Afghani fighters,” Subhi replied. “And there are a few more Gaza Arabs from the Islamic Jihad who came here especially to be shahids. Those are tough people. The rest are like us. We’re Lebanese farmers who came to make good money. I think the laborers are working in the big mosque right now. We just do the dirty work, bihyat Allah—I swear to God!”

  Arik left the room and went into the adjacent one, from which he called Masha Kramer, who picked up immediately.

  “Arik, my dear, Etty Levkovich and I were very worried about you. You’re already too old to be doing this stuff on your own. That’s what young people are for,” she scolded him.

  Arik ignored the admonition.

  “Check your database for ‘Ali Baba’ in the context of Iman al-Uzbeki in London.”

  “Wait on the line,” Masha said, walking over to the main computer. She could search the information in the Office’s Tel Aviv database, ‘the Pool.’ However, it was easier for her to call her boss, Dr. Alex Haimovitz, who picked up immediately.

  “‘Ali Baba’ is the operational code name of a Pakistani whose real name is Ashraf Ghani Abdullah, Iman al-Uzbeki’s deputy in the Taliban and later in Al Qaeda,” he informed her, and she passed the information on to Arik, who had stayed on the line.

  Arik turned to Tal. “Take their vehicles and go dispose of them. I suggest you take the Graces team with you as backup, so you don’t have any problems.”

  “What should I do with these guys?” Tal asked, pointing at the two cuffed Hezbollah tunnel diggers.

  “Inject them with Ketamine and leave them in their vehicle. We’ll deal with them later. They’re small fry.�
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  “And what about them?” Tal pointed at the dead Afghans.

  “Toss them in their white pickup outside and leave them in front of the Iranian Embassy. I’ll make sure they’re taken care of.”

  Tal was surprised, as it was not customary to ask a foreign intelligence service to come in and ‘clean up’ after you, certainly not the Iranian enemy. However, he did not ask questions. Apparently, he was not among the need-to-know personnel.

  Arik turned to Tal. “You can handle the rest on your own?”

  Tal smiled and nodded. Finally, he was being granted some autonomy.

  “I’m going to walk back to the apartment,” said Arik, who, at that moment, looked like a plucked chicken.

  “On foot?” Tal wondered in concern, in view of the lightning storm and the heavy rain outside. But the gaze Arik directed at him made it clear that despite his good intentions, there was an alpha dog there who was setting the tone.

  The Afghanis’ corpses were placed in the pickup and a ‘cleaning crew’ was ordered from the embassy to tidy up the scene and dispose of all evidence from the motel.

  Everything Arik had done there had come easily and even naturally. He was good at survival, and at killing as well. There were parts of his personality that he always took care to restrain when he was with his family, parts he always blocked, subordinating them to the laws and rules of the organization. He was constantly afraid of what he might find out if he ever crossed those lines.

  However, as that brief battle subsided, he suddenly felt he truly was too old for face-to-face combat and breaking into houses with his pistol drawn and an adrenalin erection in his blood. It was hard for him to accept that he himself had long become a ‘suit,’ the derogatory term the field agents applied to the denizens in their air-conditioned offices. He had a well-appointed bureau and an office manager, secretaries, and a driver.

  As he walked rapidly in the pouring rain, soaked to his very bones, disheveled and covered with mud, he thought of the fact that at that moment, he had transitioned to a different phase of his career.