by JT Sawyer
He rested his scarred hands on his knees, looking out the tinted windows of his limousine. If she and her crew are on the run as I hoped for then where is Eva? They wouldn’t risk taking her along. She could be useful leverage if Dev uncovers something I’ve overlooked.
Uri loosened his necktie and took a deep breath. He had trained himself to be calm under tremendous pressure but now he was feeling the effects of the stress he had hoped to manage better. He hadn’t realized until today that Victor was involved and this amped up his heart rate considerably. The old, scar-riddled colleague of his was no one to trifle with. The final days of the election were on the horizon and he had worked too hard to let Victor sweep in at the last moment and thwart his plans. Uri suddenly tilted his head and pressed his lips together. But wait, if Victor has been alive all this time, he would’ve moved against me by now. He must be unable to piece all of this together by himself and needs Dev’s help. Or he’s too vulnerable working alone and doesn’t want to expose himself. Uri tapped his fingers on the leather console and smiled, his posture straightening.
Uri yelled up front to the driver, “I want Alpha Team on standby to depart Israel at a moment’s notice. Once we receive word from Abadi that Devorah has slipped across the border, I want her tailed—only this time don’t let her creep away.”
A few minutes later, the intel leader in the passenger’s seat handed the laptop back to Uri. “Sir, there are three buildings that fit the description you mentioned. One is an old grocery store, another a former pesticide factory, and the third is a small cluster of low-rent apartments near a cemetery.” Uri studied the screen, running each option through his shrewd field operator’s brain. Too many windows and poor egress routes for the supermarket; and the pesticide factory wouldn’t do for long-term habitation with the residue issues from the chemicals. He tapped his index finger on the screen at the highlighted apartment. “It’s this one—the apartment complex. That cemetery at the rear is an ideal approach route for after hours and there are numerous fire escape ladders in a structure that size.” He handed the laptop back to the man then leaned forward towards the driver. “Take us over there. If I’m right, then this will be a short wait for the prize I am after.”
Chapter 22
The cold concrete floor was pressing into David’s back when he awoke. He wasn’t sure if he was shivering from the contact with the damp pavement or from the beating he’d received earlier. The overhead light was blinding but he could tell from the acoustics that he had been moved to a smaller room.
“Good morning, David,” the unfamiliar voice said as it moved closer.
David sat up, moving his back into the wall and then feeling a tug on his left foot. He looked down at his bare feet and saw a shackle cinched down around his ankle with the chain leading to a u-shaped bolt buried in the concrete. The room reeked of body odor, the coppery smell of blood, and decaying meat. He did a visual check of his body and didn’t see any open wounds but could feel the damage to his ribs and abdominals. He squinted at the approaching figure, who was dressed in a finely tailored suit, red tie, and Italian shoes.
“Are you with the Red Cross—here to patch me up?” David said, trying to force out a grin.
“Not exactly, but I can be a savior of sorts. My name is Tamir and I may be your best chance at avoiding living out your days in a wheelchair.” The chubby man tossed a clipboard and pen on the ground beside David. On it was a single sheet of paper with a long list of bullet points and a signature line at the bottom.
“What the hell is this?”
“A list of all the domestic and international laws Gideon has broken over the years on various assignments. I know you are one of the high-ranking members of that agency and you would do well to autograph that confession showing that you voluntarily signed it.”
He looked at Tamir then around the room. “Where am I? This is no court of law.”
“Just sign the document admitting to Gideon’s crimes and you can have a hot shower and some food and then be out of here.”
David picked up the clipboard and read down the list of accusations. “We never did any of this. Hell, I’ve worked at Gideon from the beginning and never heard of any of these missions abroad. This is all bullshit.”
“Ah, geez, no, you had to go and swear. I really don’t like when people cuss.” He motioned the guard near the door. The man moved forward, striking David across the neck with a short rubber stick.
David fell back, moaning in pain while falling intentionally on top of the pen, which he clutched close to his chest.
Tamir squatted down next to him, shoving the clipboard towards his face. “Ooh, that must’ve hurt, even for a big guy like you. They say that those rubber batons don’t leave a lot of surface bruises but transfer the force deep into the layers of muscle, sometimes even to the bone itself.”
David slowly let his scowl turn to a grin. “Unlike this,” he said, grabbing Tamir’s ankle and burying the pen in the man’s calf. Then David spun and rushed for the guard, who sidestepped and struck him on the side of the head, knocking him to the floor unconscious.
Tamir gripped his dripping calf, shouting, “Son of a bitch. That son of a bitch!” He picked himself up and hobbled out the door, yelling back to the guard, “You come get me when he is awake again. He’ll sign the damn paper, either here or before his trial in Tel Aviv.”
Chapter 23
Mitch stood under the eaves of an old tavern at the end of a narrow street. The city block was comprised of dilapidated historic buildings which languished in a low-income neighborhood that sprawled out for several miles.
He glanced again at the hand-drawn map in Dev’s hands and then up at the rusty metal sign hanging above them off the façade of the shuttered business.
“The Farmhouse—that’s what the sign says alright.” Mitch chuckled. “With a name like that, no wonder they couldn’t keep their doors open.”
“So much for being out in the country,” she said, tapping her knuckles on the immense wooden door. After a few more attempts, the three of them walked around to the alley and looked over the rear entrance. There was a reinforced steel door that was painted over to make it look more weathered than it was.
“This has to be the place,” Petra said, scanning the walls and discarded wine barrels stacked in a neat row. “I don’t see any other chalk marks.”
“I’ll bet you twenty bucks that this guy Victor is dressed in blue coveralls,” said Mitch as he tapped Petra on the arm.
“That seems like a bizarre thing to think up—you’re on, cowboy.”
The three of them heard a voice behind them. “Very astute, Mr. Kearns.”
They turned and saw the rail-thin caretaker from the park emerge from his concealed spot behind the wine barrels to the rear of the alley. He held a suppressed HK pistol in his right hand. At the sight of Devorah pushing past the two men, he abruptly lowered it. The man shuffled forward, the rigid facial muscles on his right side beginning to quiver as he looked upon her. He shoved the pistol back into his blue coveralls and took another step forward while Dev did the same.
“Victor—is it—is it really you?” she said, rushing forward with her arms outstretched then immediately coming to a halt before him. She felt her sides shudder and fought to hold back the tears. She wanted to throw her arms around him but instead drove a right hook into his face. The blow knocked him back into the wine barrels.
“That’s the Devorah we all know,” said Mitch, running up and grabbing her arm.
She shrugged him off and reached out for Victor instead, offering him a hand up. “Now I can hug you,” she said, putting her arms out.
Victor rubbed his rosy cheek. “Your punches hurt more than they did a few years ago when I taught you how to fight, young lady.” He put his arms up in a defensive posture beside his face and grinned. “I just need to be sure it’s going to be a hug this time. I really didn’t see that hook coming, though I sure as hell probably deserved it.”
She slid forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and settling her head against his chest as the two embraced. “I’m sure you did too,” she said as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Dev kept squeezing his sides like she was a castaway clutching a life preserver as a flood of memories washed over her. Victor’s eyes watered but he held his emotions in partial check, letting his trembling arms around her reveal his anguish. Dev didn’t want to let go and pressed herself further into his side then she took a deep breath, forcing herself to regain her composure. She pulled back and quickly wiped away her tears, keeping her back towards Mitch and Petra so they wouldn’t see. Dev thrust her hands in her pockets and shifted her weight back and forth on either foot, looking at Victor.
“All this time you’ve been living right here in Switzerland,” she said, waving to his abode.
“It’s become a prison and one I wouldn’t mind being free of. I miss Israel.”
“So, now what?” said Petra.
Victor motioned with his hand towards the back door. “Come this way. We have much to discuss and probably not a lot of time.”
Mitch walked up to Dev and ran his hand along the sleeve of her coat. “You gonna be alright? I wasn’t sure if you were going to keep beating on him for a minute there.”
“Me neither to be honest.”
As they walked by, Petra removed a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket and handed it to Mitch. “You knew back at the park, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure until I saw the same prints at the playground.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” said Dev.
“To be honest, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure until we arrived here and I saw a few boot prints in the alley just now.” Mitch pointed back to the splayed-out wine barrels in the alley and gave her a slight grin. “Besides, I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”
“One cannot be too careful in our line of work,” said Victor. “Hence the little treasure hunt I sent you on this morning. I needed to be sure you weren’t being followed.”
Once the cumbersome steel door was opened, they walked up the stairs to the second floor where an array of computer monitors were spread on desks around the living room. The furnishings were an odd blend of modern and antique. Victor had a wealth of computer hardware spread along the rectangular table near the window while the rest of the furniture appeared to be vintage European items from the nineteenth century.
Petra made a beeline for the desk and stood in wonder before all the cutting-edge scramblers and routing devices designed to elude traces.
“Any chance I can borrow one of your laptops to track down a transmission?” he said.
“You are welcome to have that one over there,” Victor said, pointing to a small laptop with a ruggedized exterior designed to withstand punishment during fieldwork. “But if you are looking into the media broadcast from your setup in Romania, I can save you some time. That didn’t come from Bucharest or Constanta—it originated from a remote site in northwest Egypt.”
Petra raised an eyebrow. “Now that is interesting.”
“I traced the media images televised by i12 News. They thought they were getting it direct from Romanian authorities, which the Shin Bet allowed them to think—or someone high up in Shin Bet anyway.”
“Yep, you got that right,” said Dev.
“The party behind this deception and Gideon’s takedown must have a small outpost with satellite capabilities somewhere in the Egyptian desert near the Libyan border.”
Mitch rubbed his scruffy cheek. “Hmm, we’ve got a contact in Egypt, Von Harut, who owes me a favor. Might be a good person to link up with there.”
“Ah, good ole Von—that’s where he’s at these days?” said Petra. “I would’ve figured after our little job together stopping that bioweapons attack in Indonesia last spring that he would have stayed back in the tropics. Never figured him for a desert guy though I know the agency doesn’t always give you a choice in assignments.”
“I think after we sprung his ass from that cell in Sumatra, he got a new perspective on life and realized he needed to figure out how to navigate through the murky world of covert ops rather than letting it decide his fate.”
Victor pulled out two swivel seats and slid them towards Mitch and Petra. “I’d appreciate it if you two could keep an eye on the security cameras around this city block.” He looked over his shoulder towards Dev, who was studying the photographs on the fireplace mantle. “Plus, Devorah and I could do with a talk.”
Mitch and Petra both gave each other nods of approval and sat down, studying the complex array of cyber-intrusion and cloaking devices Victor had neatly arranged on the desk.
Dev was tracing an index finger along the mahogany mantle above the fireplace, studying the old photographs, many of which were of refugee encampments in Africa. Her eyes settled on a faded picture that showed her standing between the loving arms of Anatoly and Victor with the Mediterranean Sea behind them. “All these years, I thought you were dead—your body spread in the desert after the explosion my parents told me about.”
A long sigh from Victor followed. “I don’t expect you to approve of what I did. It was necessary for me to disappear from this world. Everyone except Anatoly had to be in the dark about what we were doing. He was too public a figure to go off the grid but for me, I had so few attachments. Believe me when I say, Devorah, that shutting myself off from you especially was the most painful thing I’ve ever done in my life.” He touched the swollen bruise on his cheek. “In more ways than one.”
“’Painful.” She pressed her fist against her chest. “Painful is having your heart shredded when you find out the uncle you loved is dead—never coming over again, never sitting by me at dinner to tell me stories.”
Victor looked away then interlaced his fingers and sighed. “My dear Devorah, my dear girl. I am so sorry.”
She held her hand up, stopping him from continuing. “What I want to know is why? Why send a letter to my mother last fall—why risk exposing yourself after all this time?”
He leaned forward, shaking his head slowly and interlacing his fingers like he was praying.
“When I heard of Anatoly’s death from the online chatter of former colleagues I was monitoring, it shattered the carefully constructed walls I thought I’d put up separating me from my former life.” He arched his back and stood up, coming up beside her. “I used to tell my students in counter-intelligence that the greatest weakness an evader has is this right here,” he said, tapping his heart with his fist. “Most people on the run fail long-term because they overestimate their ability to sever all of their emotional ties to their past or their homeland.” He looked into her eyes then back at the photographs lining the mantle. “For me, I only ever had you and your family so I thought beginning a new life would be easier—I was wrong.”
“But why disappear in the first place? My father could’ve helped you.”
“No, actually he couldn’t have and to ask him to get involved any further would only have put him, you, and your mother at risk.”
“From who?”
“Uri Belkin.”
“You did all of this—created this awful ruse about being killed in some shithole and shattered my world—to escape from Uri?”
Victor blew a breath of air up, ruffling the silver hair on his forehead. “Well, when you put it like that, it makes me sound like a real crotchety old bastard.”
Dev slightly cracked a smile then retracted it. “The ‘crotchety bastard’ was the thing about you I liked the most—you never sugar-coated things around me, and you treated me like an adult even when I was little.” Dev balled her fist, torn between wanting to slug Victor again or embracing him.
“Why Uri?” She waved her hand out to the window. “How does his reach extend so far?”
“Ah, Uri, good ole Uri.” He walked to the dining room table and pulled out a chair, leaning on the back with both hands as he spoke. “Out of the three of us, Uri was a
lways the most shrewd and cunning. Did you know that he had a photographic memory, which made him a great spy? I’d seen him on more than one occasion memorize critical details of classified documents and then later type them out after the mission. I mean, entire pages of intel that Anatoly and I would pick up a few lines of, and here Uri could recite the whole damn thing in our debriefings back in Israel.”
Dev started tapping her fingers on the wood mantle and giving him an impatient glare. “Yes, I heard all the dinner-time tales from my father about the three of you.”
Victor raised his hand, cutting her off while he continued, “Uri could recite information and conversations going back years. He kept these little handwritten notebooks at home about any dirt he had on his commanding officers, fellow Mossad agents, or any political figure he interacted with after he left the military.” He cleared his throat then reached for a glass of water on the table and took a sip. “Uri was a master at manipulating others using the information up his sleeves.”
“Is that how he snaked his way up the political ladder to where he is today?”
“In part, but a man also needs the funds.”
“I saw plenty of donors hobnobbing with him at the celebration the other night.”
“I’ve been keeping tabs on him from a distance and watching how he has played his hand,” he said, motioning with his arm towards his array of sophisticated cyberware on the desk. “Those financial donors were no doubt helpful participants but my intel analysis of his actions during the past few years indicates that Uri is planning something only accomplished once since 1968. Out of the five prominent parties that make up the government, there’s only been one other time when a single party ruled all of the seats needed for a majority government.” He stopped abruptly, his voice deepening with the last two words.
“But surely the other parties must be aware of his intentions.”
“No doubt, and they are hedging their bets on the electoral process being relatively fair and their own clout being significant enough. But what they aren’t aware of is how deep his pockets are. And with his background in special operations, he most likely has his own small company of men willing to take care of any opposition that gets in the way. He and his associates are attempting a circuitous Coup de Grace, if you will.”
