JET, no. 3

by Russell Blake

  He paused to survey the large open field that backed onto the governor general’s residence grounds, uninhabited and separated from his property by a six-foot-high wall. The town’s lights twinkled in the dark as he executed a few knee bends, his silk robe brushing the stone deck surrounding the pool: peach cantera imported from Mexico at his request due to its thermal properties. Any other surface would be sizzling hot from the sun baking it all day, but cantera stayed cool, and he had never regretted the additional expense required to get a semi-rig full of it brought in from Puebla.

  The attached hot tub bubbled and frothed as the system cycled, activating on schedule so it would be ready for him to dip in and relax. He slipped the robe from his slight shoulders and placed it carefully on a teak chaise lounge, then padded over to the computer control for the lighting. He punched at the buttons, but there was no response; the water remained inky in the dark night. It was a good thing that the black-bottom pool retained the heat – he almost never had to use the heater – the water was inevitably the temperature of bathwater in all but a few winter months. Still, the light control failure was irritating, and he would need to have Virgil, his maintenance technician, stop by tomorrow and have a look at the system – no doubt, the electronics were a casualty of the periodic blackouts that plagued the area.

  With a practiced dive, he plunged in and, within a few seconds, was pulling himself through the water with well-defined strokes. Back and forth he would travel until his waterproof watch signaled his mandated time was up.

  As he neared the far end, he felt motion below him, then a vice-like grip pulled him under, down toward the bottom in an embrace he couldn’t shake. He thrashed and fought, but to no avail, and it was only a matter of a minute before his last breath of air escaped his lungs, bubbling to the surface as his body went slack.

  A masked head broke the pool’s surface, peering around to ensure that nobody was watching. Confident that the struggle hadn’t been noticed, the black-clad assassin moved to the edge and pulled himself out of the water, taking a brief glance at the indistinct shape of the corpse floating in the depths before jogging to the wall and propelling himself over it and into the darkness beyond.

  The security guard wouldn’t be back for another ten minutes, enabling him to cut across the field to the waiting vehicle without being detected.

  The following day, the nation would mourn the loss of a great man, the victim of a regrettable drowning accident nobody could have foreseen.

  Sir Reginald had gone to a better place, and a brief autopsy would confirm the cause of death from the water in his lungs. He should have known better than to pursue his aquatic passion in solitude at his ripe age.

  It would be a week before the new governor general was appointed by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, the benevolent monarch who served as the ultimate figurehead of authority in the former British crown colony. In the meantime, a memorial service would be held in Belize City, and dignitaries from the government as well as all of the embassies would crowd the church aisles to commemorate Sir Reginald’s decades of selfless devotion to the young nation.

  ~ ~ ~

  Rani approached the kitchen, where Jet was getting a soda, and set his physician’s bag down on the dining room table.

  “What’s the prognosis?” she asked, popping the top of the can.

  “He’s mending. He’s not completely out of the woods yet, but he’s making excellent progress. No sign of sepsis, and the pain is manageable. All in all, I would say our David is a very lucky man,” Rani concluded, eying her as he reached for a box of cookies he had brought, along with lunch meats, fruit, more juice and sodas – plus a plethora of junk food she wouldn’t have eaten if a gun had been held to her head. “You want some? They’re really good,” he offered, holding the box up.

  “No, thanks. I’m saving mine for after dinner.”

  He looked at her as though he didn’t understand, then shrugged and popped one into his mouth.

  She came around the counter and sat opposite him.

  “How soon will it be safe for him to move?”

  “Realistically, I’d say he can walk around starting tomorrow, and within another few days, he should be good to go, with the provision that he doesn’t overdo it.” He licked his lips in search of stray crumbs, then added, “It’s going to take some time for him to get back to a hundred percent.”

  “How long?”

  Rani frowned in thought as he dispatched the last morsel of cookie. “A week, maybe more. But he’ll be out of danger by tomorrow. Why?”

  “We can’t hang around here forever.”

  “Nonsense. Take as long as you need. You’re welcome to stay…well, until the renters show up in a few weeks, anyway. I rent it out most of the holidays and all summer. You won’t believe what people will pay.” Rani stood and took a final lingering look at the cookies. “The good news is that he’s healing and making great progress, and I think we can say he’s turned the corner. Considering where he was a few days ago, that’s a kind of small miracle.”

  “I know.”

  A few minutes after Rani left, David called out from the bedroom.

  Jet padded down the hall and stood in the doorway, head tilted. “What?”

  “I think I’ve figured it out.”

  “You did? Are you going to tell me?”

  “I’m not sure where to start. But this all revolves around the last operation you were on. The Algiers sanction,” he explained.

  She moved to the chair and sat down. “I don’t understand. Those were terrorist financiers…”

  “You already know that field operatives don’t get all the details. They don’t have the need to know. In Algiers, they were indeed terrorist financiers – at least, that’s what our intelligence said. The CIA corroborated it. But what’s important for this discussion isn’t what they were doing with their money. It’s where the money came from.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All the targets in Algiers were involved in the oil industry. Between them, they represented a host of oil interests from around the world. The terrorism business lost a lot of funding that day, but that’s not the only industry that took a hit. So did five significant oil producers. The men in question were at the highest levels of their respective groups.”

  “So what? I don’t get it. Of course they got their funding from oil. Look at where they were from. Iran. Saudi Arabia–”

  “And one was from England, where, among other things, he represented a company called Lunosol, which was a subsidiary of another company, ultimately owned by Grigenko.”

  “And…?”

  “I should just start at the beginning. Four years ago, a major new oil field was discovered in Belize. It increased the country’s known reserves by a factor of ten or more. It was kept secret by the company that did the prospecting, which isn’t unusual – the business is cutthroat, and if word of something like this leaked, it would have been a major game changer for everyone with prospecting rights. And there are quite a few large players with rights there. Anyway, the field was discovered by a group that had been nosing around in the boonies for months, and when they confirmed it, a few days after they reported it to headquarters, everyone associated with the find went down in a helicopter crash. Nobody lived that knew about it. So the secret was safe. The government didn’t know, and neither did any competitors.”

  “Okay, but what does that have to do with Algeria?”

  “I’m getting to that. The CIA had a mole in the company, who tipped it off – the engineer on the project, who earned pocket money being a source in Central America for the agency. But he was working multiple angles, because he apparently told one of the targets at the Algiers meeting – a man who was an active threat to Israel. I don’t know how the Mossad got wind of it, probably our own informant, but someone at a very high level decided that it was in our interest to keep the find quiet. Again, even I don’t have all the informati
on – the same need to know applies to me as did to you. What I was told is what I’ve just told you, but with an additional piece of information. The Algeria strike solved several problems for us – we got rid of some nasty characters that were propagating misery, and the secret died in the explosion at the house. And that’s where it should have ended.”

  She understood.

  “But it didn’t, did it?”

  “Apparently not. My hunch is that Grigenko has his own mole in the Mossad – not completely impossible given the penetration we’ve seen by the KGB. The two intelligence services were closer than most people realize – myself included, until I’d been in the game for a while. Anyway, I think eliminating the team was him doing housecleaning in anticipation of making a move – one that involves the oil discovery. He couldn’t be sure how much I knew, or how much detail I shared with the team. In that scenario, the safest thing would be–”

  “To eliminate everyone who isn’t loyal to him who could know anything about it,” she finished for him.

  “Exactly. Including me.”

  She nodded. “That’s why the push to kill me, even though I was officially dead. If I was still alive, there was another risk of a leak, and they couldn’t have that floating out there…”

  “Correct. If my guess is right, they staged the robbery to get anything I had in the way of records – which turned out to be a dead end. There’s no way I would keep anything operational about the team on a computer. But they found enough to start them on a hunt that led to you.”

  “How would they know who was on the team? How could they get that information?”

  “There are only a few people in the Mossad who know. I think it’s pretty safe to say that one of them is Grigenko’s mole. But anyone we’re talking about is so highly placed that there’s no way they will ever get caught.” David paused, thinking. “Which isn’t your battle.”

  She reached out and touched his arm. “It’s not yours anymore, either, David. Unless you make it yours.”

  He waved the comment away.

  “Grigenko is the common element. I never told you about his brother because there was no need to know, and it wouldn’t have changed anything. But if he’s escalated and is now operating hit squads…if he knew you were on the team, he might have also discovered that you killed his twin brother. In that case, it would make this about blood, not just money. And it would also explain why he went the extra distance to exterminate us. Because it’s personal. You pulled the trigger…and I planned the op.”

  “What did you find on the network?”

  “I installed a program that logs everyone that accesses certain areas. It’s transparent – it does the logging invisibly and is impossible to detect. Let’s just say that I’m surprised by some of the areas that one of the deputy directors has been poking around in. Looking at the dates, he accessed the files a couple of weeks ago. A week and a half later, the team is dead, and I’ve been attacked. It’s not open and shut – there are probably a dozen reasons he could contrive to explain why he was accessing those dossiers. On the surface, it could be innocent. But I don’t think so. The timing…”

  “You’re saying that there isn’t enough to build a case against him.”

  “Not with just this. It would take a lot more. He’s been with the Mossad longer than I’ve been alive. These people always have wheels within wheels. The director would need to authorize a massive surveillance effort, and given the level of expertise we’re talking, it wouldn’t show anything, especially if he was only passing information to Grigenko for the money. Unlike a double agent, there would be no pattern. For all we know, this could be a one-shot deal.”

  “But the money would leave a trail, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not likely. Remember, we’re talking about someone who has been living and breathing tradecraft his entire life. No way would there be anything to follow.”

  They sat awhile, considering David’s theory.

  Jet rose, an expression on her face he knew too well.

  “I want to take him down.”

  “Who? The deputy director?”

  “No. Grigenko.”

  David shook his head. “You’ll never be able to get to him. He’s too insulated.”

  “Everyone can be gotten to.”

  “Not this guy.”

  “I’ll find a way. We will find a way.”

  He knew that look, and knew better than to try to argue it.

  “He’s one of the richest men in Russia,” David reminded her.

  “Rich men bleed, too.”

  “It would be suicide.”

  “David. Please. This is just a logistical problem. It can, and will, be done – by me. The only question is whether I have to do it alone, or whether you’ll help.” Her face took on a determined expression. “I want to bring the pain to him. We need to figure out what he’s doing, what triggered this. It has to be something to do with Belize, otherwise there would be no rush to execute the team. So let’s put our energy toward trying to figure out what he’s up to. We may be able to use it against him, draw him out. In any case, if he’s the problem, then he’s got to go or we’ll never be safe. A man like that, with unlimited power and money…it’s either him or us. Don’t you see that?”

  “It’s just so…he really is untouchable.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Chapter 19

  At dusk the next day, Rani stopped by again and gave David a full examination, murmuring to himself as he did so. Eventually he pulled off his stethoscope and placed it into his bag before turning to Jet.

  “What’s the prognosis?” she asked.

  “He’s healing remarkably quickly. I’d say it’s about time to get his lazy ass out of bed and walking.”

  “I’m right here, you know. I can hear both of you. I’m three feet away,” David commented.

  “Is there anything he needs to be careful about?”

  “He’ll have to take it easy. No running, no lifting anything heavy. But he should be able to handle moderate activity. Everything looks good – no doubt because of the skill of his physician,” Rani said with a grin. “I’ll need to pull the stitches in the next few days, but as long as it’s nothing strenuous he should be up for it.”

  “Hello. Am I invisible? Can you hear me out there?” David waved his arms over his head.

  Rani turned to him. “Well, my friend, you made it. Try to avoid getting shot in the stomach any more. It’s really cramped my social schedule this week.”

  David got serious. “Thanks for everything, Rani. I wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t taken me in and done this. I know that. I owe you bigger than I can ever say.”

  Rani smiled. “Nothing says thank you like pizza. Double cheese, extra sauce. Just as a hint. There’s a good place around the corner from my office. In case you’re wondering, I usually take lunch around one. Tomorrow, maybe a little earlier…”

  “Speaking of which, can I eat solid food?” David asked.

  “Sure, but stick to fruits and vegetables for another day or so just to give the healing a little more time. I wouldn’t recommend a big filet or a bag of nuts quite yet,” Rani said.

  He turned to Jet.

  “When will we see you again?” she asked.

  “In a couple of days, to pull the stitches. Other than that, there’s no reason for me to intrude on your vacation together.” Rani gave them a knowing look – Jet felt herself blushing.

  After Rani had said his goodbyes, she locked the door behind him and moved to the sofa in the living room. David walked into the kitchen, poured a glass of milk, and then joined her.

  “So where do you want to go tonight? Dancing?” he asked.

  “I was thinking of maybe a nice slow half-hour walk around the neighborhood to get you back on your sea legs.”

  “Not as exciting as hitting the discos, but I’ve learned never to argue with a woman.”

  “Who has your gun.�
� She picked it up and peered down the sights at the window. “I think the first order of business tomorrow should be to get ourselves something with more stopping power than this. Don’t get me wrong, I like Glocks, but it’s only one pistol between two people, and I don’t like to share.”

  David thought about it.

  “I know a guy in Jerusalem. He’s not Mossad. A freelancer. I’ve used him to procure weapons when I needed a deniable source. He specializes in Russian and Israeli military stuff. I’ll give him a call. He has no idea who I am, although I’m sure he suspects I’m not running a candy store. I’ll see what he can get us.”

  “That would be a start. And I’ve been thinking about our options. I have an idea. Several ideas, actually. But they’re going to be very risky, and will require luck and money,” Jet said.

  David nodded. “I’ve got a few thoughts myself. As to the money, I have just shy of a half million euros in a blind account I use for operational budgets. I can transfer that to another bank, and it will disappear – not that anyone would ever be able to trace it in the first place. That’s the whole point of an off-the-books team. Invisibility.”

  “Can you do it online?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She gestured to the laptop on the dining room table.

  “All right. Give me a few minutes, and then I’ll get dressed, and we can go for an evening constitutional.”

  Jet went to the bathroom, and on her way back heard laughter from the bedroom.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked as she approached from down the hall.

  “We should add shopping to our list of things to do tomorrow. Or maybe this evening, if we can find a store around here. I’m afraid Rani’s not quite the same size as me.” David was holding up a shirt that was twice as big as he was.

  “That’s the fashion these days. Just wear your baseball hat sideways.”

  “At least the blood washed out of my pants. Mostly.” He slipped the shirt on and swiveled, modeling his ensemble.