by JT Sawyer
“That was a place your father owned,” Eva said, glancing at the pendant of Poseidon around her daughter’s neck. “He said it was to unwind after missions and for the occasional business meeting. Anatoly once promised to take me there—joked that it was going to be one of our retirement getaways when we were older. I never knew where it was other than on one of the many islands in that area, though Victor may have been there.”
“Looks like another secret that’s going to take time to unravel,” said Mitch.
“Victor—the guy you and your father always told me about,” said Petra. “He was a legend in the Mossad, like Anatoly and Uri.”
Dev sighed. “Unfortunately, Victor is dead and with him the location of this other safehouse.”
Eva stepped back and sat down in a leather seat, rubbing the back of her neck. She let out a long exhale and then stared out the window at the city below.
“What’s wrong?” said Dev.
Eva slowly arced her head around, her eyebrows raising up as she looked at Dev. “Your uncle…he, uhm, he sent me a letter after Anatoly passed away. Victor is far from dead.”
Chapter 17
Dev moved back from her mother a few feet and stood squarely facing her as her hands shot up to her hips. “Wait, what? He’s alive—Victor is alive? You told me he died in an explosion in Africa. I remember that afternoon—it was one of the worst days of my life.”
She paced in a circle, her chest pumping furiously. “All this time, you’ve known something and didn’t tell me. You and father kept this from me.”
Eva slumped back in her seat, rubbing her fingers over her weary eyes, then looking up at Dev. “I thought he was dead just like you did until that letter showed up. Anatoly even investigated the death himself initially and found no evidence to the contrary. It wasn’t until your father passed that I received word from Victor. Victor only mentioned that he needed to disappear due to a grave error in judgment he had made on a mission in Africa years ago. I knew from his writing that it was him even though the letter was unsigned and had no return address.”
“Where did it originate?” said Mitch. “What country?”
She put her hand to her chin as her eyes darted around the ceiling. “Switzerland, if I remember correctly. The postmark was in Switzerland. Which came as a surprise as Victor hated any place that was cold.”
“Was there anything else in the letter?” said Petra.
Eva gave a plaintive look at Dev, partly slipping into Hebrew as she spoke. “He only asked about his yaldonet, his sweet girl.”
Dev’s glassy expression remained unchanged as she endured her mother’s words, trying to decipher her own jumbled feelings about this revelation along with a glimmer of hope that he could truly be alive.
“Why would the man risk exposing himself after so many years to write you?” said Mitch.
“It seemed more like a letter of atonement at times than of condolence. He mentioned his deep regrets over the schism between him and Anatoly.” She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees. “Anatoly, Uri, and Victor were like brothers for so many years. Then that changed after they returned from this one mission a few years before they all retired from the service. I never knew what went on that could cause such a rift between them but that was when things changed. I can remember it like it was yesterday. The three of them never came over to the house or got together again after they left the Mossad.”
Petra moved closer into the group. “Uri went into politics, soaring to the top overnight while Anatoly started Gideon. That’s when I came into the picture. I was amongst the first group of hires—all of us former Mossad,” said Petra. “I recall hearing rumblings from Anatoly on occasion about some colleague who stuck him in the back.”
“And this fellow Victor, that’s when he drops off the map—after Gideon opens its doors?” said Mitch, who was standing near the fireplace with his arms crossed.
“No, Victor went off to do humanitarian work in Africa,” said Dev. “Then a few years later, he apparently faked his death in an explosion.” She raised her fingers in air quotes while casting a steely glance at her mother.
“Humanitarian work in part,” said Eva, who kept her eyes averted from her daughter. “He had come into a considerable amount of funds somehow after he left the Mossad. I was never sure how he could do the things he mentioned but he traveled to Liberia and Sierra Leone quite frequently. He had established these refugee camps there for displaced miners from Sierra Leone.” She grimaced, biting her lip. “Why in God’s name you’d spend time there is beyond me.”
Eva stood up, wincing slightly from her right hip, which had stiffened. “Anatoly said Victor sometimes freelanced his computer skills for a few of the new cyber-agencies in Israel and the UK. That’s about the only time we’d see him—when he was back here for a few months consulting.”
Dev rolled her eyes back. “You amaze me—my own mother has a damn book to write about Victor while she keeps me in the dark about his life and whereabouts.”
Eva glanced up at Dev. “You have every right to be upset with me. But this wasn’t just about you—this letter came right after your father’s death and it was too much for me to bear, let alone tell you that I got some cryptic letter from someone we all thought was dead.”
Eva cradled her balled fist with her other hand. “I just wanted to leave behind all the secrets and lies. I was sick of it. So many years waiting at home while Anatoly was gone and then he would return and we’d all sit in silence at every meal.” She stepped forward, her face flushed. “I loved your father but I hated the life he led. So what if he was some amazing superman overseas. At home, the man I had married slowly slipped away from me each year and was a stranger when he returned after each deployment.” She threw her hands up in the air while darting her eyes around the room. “And now this place, this goddamned safehouse of his is one more reminder of his ways—and the life that you keep getting sucked into.” She wiped a single tear from her cheek, her expression oscillating between anguish and fury. Eva brushed past Dev and walked into the back bedroom, slamming the door.
Dev remained frozen in place, her gaze locked on the empty chair where her mother had been sitting. She rubbed the side of her neck while seething then lunged forward and put her fist through the drywall beside the fireplace.
“Shit, this day needs to end soon,” she muttered while withdrawing her dusty hand and shaking it out. As she paced, the two men took a step backwards, casting sideways glances at each other.
Mitch finally let out a deep breath, as if exhaling for more than one person, then he went to move towards her but was met by an outstretched hand. “I can’t take any more right now. I need a few minutes—or decades more like it—to think through all of this.” She spun around and walked off to the bathroom, closing the door behind her, followed by the sound of her boot smashing into the bathtub.
Petra and Mitch both stared at each other. “Well, this is one debriefing I’ll certainly never forget,” said Mitch.
“Welcome to the Leitner family. This is how I remember most of our meetings going when Dev joined the company. Her and Anatoly were constantly butting heads after every discussion.” Petra waved his hand at the jagged hole beside the fireplace. “Our maintenance guys did a lot of drywall repair in Dev’s office in those days,” he said with a grin.
***
Fifteen minutes later, Dev emerged from the bathroom. “Switzerland appears to be the next logical stepping stone if we are to move forward on getting intel.”
“We were just discussing the same thing,” said Mitch, who was shoveling down some canned pears.
Petra had already removed the façade of the wall-mounted microwave and pulled out a small lockbox that was wedged in a gap between the cabinets. “We always said this would be for the day when the storm clouds rolled in.” He pried open the metal lid, revealing a handful of fake passports for each of them along with a stack of cash and four burner phones.
�
�We’ll charge the phones enroute,” said Dev. She gave a sideways glance towards the back bedroom. “I am going to talk with my mother and tell her what we’re doing, then I just have one more thing to take care of in Tel Aviv.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Mitch, who seemed taken aback by her abrupt reply.
“No, this is something I need to do alone and it won’t take long. We will need to travel separately to Switzerland.” She swung around towards Petra. “Locate a rally point in Zurich where we can all meet up and I’ll see you fellas there hopefully in the next twelve hours.”
Chapter 18
Benjamin Abadi had just finished a grueling sixteen-hour shift that began with the unusual orders of apprehending Devorah Leitner and her staff. He was exhausted as much from the job as from the confusion about what his agency was doing getting involved in a supposedly criminal case that seemed outside of their jurisdiction given the Romanian ties to Gideon.
He exited his black Audi and walked up the cobblestone driveway from his detached garage to the tiny two-bedroom house nestled on the outskirts of downtown Tel Aviv. Given his new position as chief of the Shin Bet Tel Aviv office, he could afford to live in a more upscale neighborhood but Benjamin had other concerns on his mind as he strode through the doorway.
“Daddy’s home,” yelled Anna Abadi, his six-year-old daughter with black pigtails. The pale girl seemed as thin and frail as the doll she had just been playing with.
“And not too soon, either,” replied Ben with a huge grin. “Just in time before you ate all my dessert like last night.” He swept her up in a hug, holding her high so she could touch the ceiling. She tapped her fingers on the yellowing drywall before lowering her into his arms.
The hardened demeanor of the federal agent melted away as he danced in circles holding his giggling daughter while they made their way towards the kitchen.
“You put in a long day this time,” said his wife, who was a petite woman with a bowl-shaped haircut that extended just over her ears.
“Pfff—you don’t know the half of it. Or maybe you do if you’ve been watching the news today.”
“What—all that stuff about Gideon and that incident in Eastern Europe?”
He rolled his eyes back then moved over to the table and placed his daughter gently in her chair. “I think I’ll leave it at that. Besides, I’ll be up to my eyebrows in that whole mess in the morning.”
“Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes,” said his wife as she kissed him on the cheek. “Can you just check on the backyard? I heard the trash cans rattling a little while ago; I think the neighbor’s cat got into something again.”
He placed his hand on the gold badge attached to his belt and winked at his daughter. “That cat will run off when he sees the law comin.’”
He strode by the rear counter, which had a stack of pediatric medical reports and recommendations. Ben flipped on the switch for the exterior yard light but it appeared to have burned out. He exited the rear porch and walked down the weathered wooden steps, removing the flashlight from his side pocket. As he went to activate the light, he heard a faint whisper of a woman’s voice to his right. Stepping back to remove his pistol, he saw Dev step out from the shadows near the trash receptacles.
Ben released his hand from his holster and quickly closed the distance between them while glancing from side to side around his yard.
“Dev, are you fucking insane coming to my house like this?” He pushed her back into the shadows near the garage. “This is my home. Besides, I can’t be spotted with you in public.”
“You want to tell me what that shit-show interrogation was about back at Gideon?”
Ben glanced back over his shoulder to make sure his wife and daughter weren’t in sight. “They had eyes on us at your company. I had to play the heavy hand with you back there; I’m sorry.”
She could see sweat beading up between his lip and nose. “Who is ‘they’? The Shin Bet is clearly having its strings yanked on by someone—but who?”
He shook his head. “Look, you pissed off someone high up the food chain on this one, Dev. This has to come from someone beyond my pay-grade.”
She shoved him back against the garage, shaking the window frame beside him. “You shut down my company, accuse me and my team of murder in Romania, and blast it all around the fucking news.” She released her grip on his shirt then stepped back. “You have to do better than that, Ben.”
His eyes darted around the yard then up at the sky. Ben rubbed a knot in his low back as he paced along the edge of the grass. “For something like this to happen, there needs to be approval from someone in Parliament, even beyond Tamir.” He moved up close to her, pointing his finger at her face. “Look, I used to know you well enough that I’d never question your integrity but all this K & R shit your old man got you into has stirred up a hornet’s nest. Somewhere along the line, you or your father pissed off the wrong people and now it’s coming back to bite you, is my guess.”
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him from head to toe. “Thanks for the support. Nothing like knowing who your friends are—or were.”
“Look, even I can tell that something is off with all this stuff that supposedly went on in Romania. For an entire firm as large as yours to have the plugged pulled almost overnight—this had to take more than a disgruntled client from the past.”
Dev rested her hands on her hips and smirked. “You think?”
Ben shuffled forward, lightly grabbing her by the arm. “Dev, you really want to go down in flames—your life, your career, everything you’ve worked for up to this point—because of the sins of your father? He’s gotta be the reason this is happening—why else would they have seized all your records going back to the beginning of the company and hauled off James Ratner?”
“Ratner—what do you mean? What do your people want with him?”
“Not my guys—some private contractors showed up at Gideon just as my agency was given the green light to shut the place down. Ratner was the first one they plucked away.”
“Why would they want him?” She looked down at his hand on her arm then yanked it away. “My father was a man of honor and Gideon has always existed to help the voiceless.”
“Yeah, the voiceless, right,” he said with a long sigh. “You mean the same voiceless people with their deep pockets. I’ve seen how Gideon has expanded to the giant corporation it is now. I remember when it was in that little office down on Ninth Avenue when your pops first started up. Now look at you, Ms. CEO, jetting around the world to help liberate the ‘voiceless’ from their check-books.”
“Fuck you, Ben. You know nothing about the work I do or what Gideon is involved with.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “By the sound of it, I’d say you or Anatoly got in over your heads on a business deal somewhere along the line and this latest gig in Romania just gave our government the excuse they’d been looking for to rein in your company.”
“We’re a legitimate business that has always provided transparency and allowed in outside regulators when the feds have inquired about our operations. You know I play by the book—and I thought you did as well until today. I didn’t kill that kid in Romania and I think you know that.”
He swallowed hard then looked back at his wife moving in the kitchen window as she prepared dinner. “We’re done here. Whatever favor you think I owed you as an old pal by having this little meeting at my house is now over. Go home and wait for your day in court, Dev.”
She pivoted and moved to the back gate. Dev paused as she unlatched the metal handle. “Enjoy dinner with your family. I’m sure they love seeing you with that shiny badge on your hip—one of the good guys making the world a safer place.”
****
Fifteen minutes later, Ben stepped out to the garage with his cellphone and frantically dialed the number he’d memorized from his earlier conversation. Dev’s words questioning his morals had dug through the fibers of his being. He felt disheveled and tried to focu
s on the feeling of the ground beneath his boots to steady himself as a voice on the other end of the phone pierced his frazzled psyche.
“Anything to report?”
“Listen, she was just at my place. Asking a lot of questions that I didn’t have the answers to.” He took a deep breath then ran his hand through his thick brown hair. “I’ve done my part; now I’m finished,” he said, the words seeming to stick at the back of his throat as he spoke. “Our deal is still on, right?”
“And in your little exchange that you just had with her beside the garage, what did you learn?”
Ben moved to the dust-coated side window and peered out to the alley. Then he moved back into the shadows. “This is bullshit—you’re surveilling my house now. I told you I would contact you if I heard from her.”
“Your agency provided us with the time inside of Gideon to locate some of what we needed and shut down their operations. What I’m most interested to know though—since she is a flight risk, what protocols do you have in place to stop her from leaving Israel?”
“A, what—flight risk? Are you kidding me, she’d be crazy to try and get out of here now. She’s got too much at stake with her company.” He tapped his boot on the cement floor as a bead of sweat rolled down his back. “We’ve got her flagged with Interpol and our own agency so any egress routes at the airports or elsewhere will put her and her crew on our radar.”
There was a long pause on the other end then the older man’s voice returned. “Too many nets in the water makes for sloppy fishing. For the next twenty-four hours, tell your men not to apprehend Devorah or any senior Gideon staff if they trip any checkpoints going out of the country.”
“Wait, you want me to ignore the bulletins we just issued?” Ben shook his head, narrowing his eyes. What the hell is this guy up to? He has me apprehend them at the airport, and now he wants us to look the other way if they skip town.
“Just keep me posted on her whereabouts. My guess is that she won’t stay in Israel for long. The wheels for her departure have been set in motion. My teams on the ground will take care of her surveillance from that point on.”
