“Anything?” Jet asked.
“No. It looks clear.”
“Then let’s get going,” she said, sliding the laptop into her bag and zipping it closed.
“What are you going to tell the woman?”
Jet’s expression darkened. “Good riddance.”
Elena looked up as they descended to the lobby level and took in their bags with concern. Jet tossed the key onto the counter and fought to keep her voice even.
“We’re checking out. Thanks for all the help.”
“I really think you should stay the night and try in the morning. You have no idea what you’re getting into. I’ve heard stories,” Elena began.
“Thanks, but we’ll take our chances. Oh, and your cousin Eric? He said to tell you that he wanted you to come by whenever you have a chance.”
Puzzlement lined her face. “He did? That’s odd. I wonder why he didn’t call.”
“He was kind of tied up, and he knew I’d be seeing you shortly.”
Elena looked uncertain. “Oh. Well, okay then. Thank you.”
“Give him my best.”
Jet didn’t wait for a response and moved to where Matt waited in the entryway with Hannah. They pushed through the door and Jet scanned the sidewalk, alert for signs of pursuit. Seeing nothing, she led Matt and Hannah down the street, made a right onto another large boulevard, and flagged down a taxi. The driver slowed and looked them over, and then sped up with a shake of his head and a two-finger gesture.
“Natives sure are friendly, aren’t they?” Matt grumbled.
Jet smiled and eyed his dyed black hair and goatee. “Nothing worth doing’s ever easy. We’ll find one eventually.”
“Where are we headed?”
“To find another fleabag hotel that won’t ask questions.” Jet gave him a more complete account of her altercation with the forger, and the corners of his mouth pulled down.
“You think he’s going to retaliate?”
“We’ll be long gone. He was small time. I’ve got the documents. They look like a ten-year-old made them. We need to find someone competent, and asking the hotel obviously isn’t the way to go.”
“Any ideas?”
“The usual. Once it gets dark, I’ll hit the local watering holes until I find some criminal types. In a frontier town like this it shouldn’t take too long. They’ll be plugged into the local underworld – we know there’s a thriving black market for documents, so there’s no question there are competent forgers here. We just need to find one.”
“I can go.”
She waved at another taxi and this one pulled to a stop at the curb. “I’d rather handle it. They always underestimate a woman. Might as well use that to our advantage.”
The driver climbed from behind the wheel and rounded the car to open the trunk. “Where you headed?” he asked, his tone distrustful.
“Somebody told us there was a reasonably priced rooming house over on the other side of town,” Jet said, figuring that was vague enough to open the door for the man to make a recommendation for someplace that gave him a commission for directing travelers.
“Yeah? You remember the name?” he asked, wedging Matt’s duffle into the trunk and extending a hand for Jet’s.
“Something Magyar,” Jet improvised. As close as they were to the Hungarian border, there was bound to be something with Magyar in the name.
He eyed them skeptically. “You have money?”
“Yes. How much will it cost to take us there?”
The driver stated a price. “Show me the cash.”
Jet withdrew a few dinar notes from her pocket and flashed them at the driver. His frown eased, and he motioned for them to load into the back of the car. When they were inside, Hannah between them, he slid into the driver’s seat and craned his neck. “I know a better place, if you’re interested. Cheap, and the owner’s a decent sort. Takes in a lot of refugees.”
“Is it far?” Matt asked.
“Closer than that other hellhole. You won’t be sorry.”
Jet delayed an appropriate amount of time before nodding. “Okay, then. As long as it’s not expensive.”
The driver grunted and jammed the shifter into gear, and the car lurched into traffic. Jet and Matt sat back against the cracked vinyl seat, bouncing as the dilapidated cab’s nonexistent shocks rattled their teeth over every pothole. Jet turned occasionally to verify that they weren’t being followed as they snaked through columns of plodding vehicles, the driver obviously anxious to deliver them to their destination before they could have second thoughts.
The neighborhood degraded as the wended their way east, and when they pulled up to an ancient three-story building near the end of a block where most surfaces were marred by graffiti, Jet scowled. “We need someplace safe,” she warned.
“Oh, don’t let that fool you. Local kids. This is a reasonable area,” the driver countered.
“Doesn’t look too good,” Matt whispered.
“We’re not going to be here very long, with any luck,” Jet said, and nodded to the driver. “This is it?” she asked, regarding the blinking hotel sign with skepticism.
“That’s right. The owner’s name is Vaclav. Everybody knows him. He’s an honest man. Tell him Arnost sent you. He’s a friend of mine.”
They collected their luggage and paid Arnost, who watched through the windshield as they approached the scarred wooden doors of the hotel and climbed the three steps to the entry. Jet leaned against one of the doors and it groaned inward, accompanied by the tinkling of a bell, and they stepped into a reception area that could have doubled as a holding cell at the police station. A bald man in his sixties tore his eyes from a geriatric television on one end of the counter and looked them over.
“Yes?”
“Arnost the taxi driver recommended you. We need a room for a couple of nights.”
The man nodded and named a figure in the local currency. “Per night, payable in advance. That’s with a community bathroom. If you want one with a private bathroom, it’s an extra two thousand dinar.”
The number was higher than they’d been paying at the inn, but they were in no mood to negotiate and so agreed and paid for three nights.
“You take euros?” Jet asked.
“Of course.”
The clerk inspected each banknote as though they’d printed them that morning, and only once he’d done so with each bill did he slide them into a drawer and hand Matt a key. “Two D. Second floor. Faces the street, so you’ll want to keep your window closed at night. It can get a little noisy. Meals are served from eight to eight in there,” he said, indicating a doorway to their left. “Maid will check all the towels are still there when you check out. Any missing, and they come out of your deposit,” he said, and then went back to watching soccer.
Matt nudged Jet’s arm and made for the stairs, pausing to whisper to her at the bottom step.
“There goes the towel-theft ring idea,” he said.
“Seems like a trusting soul. Arnost didn’t mislead us,” Jet agreed.
“Can’t wait to see what the honeymoon suite looks like.”
“Lead the way.”
They found the room and it was everything they’d imagined from the exterior of the building – the bed older than Jet, the shower a series of wooden slats over a hole in the bathroom floor with a greasy plastic curtain for privacy. She set her bag down and offered Hannah a smile, ignoring the sounds of male voices in the next room, arguing in Arabic. “At least it’s got a roof,” Jet said, and Hannah returned the smile uncertainly.
Matt heaved his duffle onto the bed and walked to the window, through which wafted engine noise and the smell of raw exhaust. He slid the window shut and looked at the smudge of dirt on his hand before turning to Jet and shrugging.
“Maybe a tent in one of the camps wouldn’t be so bad,” he said, deadpan.
Jet’s face was impassive, but her eyes sparkled mischievously. “Be careful what you wish for. That might be next.�
��
Chapter 6
Tel Aviv, Israel
Amit Mendel reclined in his seat and stared at the other men in the room – a room that officially didn’t exist, in a compound that wasn’t on any map, four stories below ground in a hardened complex that housed the Mossad’s field operations as well as a third of its data collection and mining division, and its European cyber-warfare group, a relatively new team known only as Group A.
Amit sighed, his face world-weary and creased by a decade of heading one of the clandestine organization’s black ops groups as well as the Turkey-Armenia-Azerbaijan group, and toyed with a pencil as he considered the report he’d just received. “I want to better understand how our operative was blown, Fischel. We spent months planning this. It was a straightforward neutralization. We’ve performed countless like it without incident.”
Ziv Fischel, three years Amit Mendel’s junior, ran spiderlike fingers through a mane of thick curly hair above glasses thick as windowpanes. “Nearest his control officer can tell, something he did aroused the suspicion of the security detail. You know the rest. He took evasive action, we ran what interference we could, but it went bad.” He shrugged. “I don’t have to tell you that, while regrettable, it happens.”
“Yael was the best. Seasoned. I find it difficult to reconcile his string of operational successes with him slipping up and drawing attention to himself,” Amit said. “That part makes no sense.”
“I’m as aware of his triumphs as anyone,” Ziv agreed. “But we have to rely on the handler’s assessment, subjective as it can be.”
“What about a leak? Who else knew of the operation besides Yael and his control?”
Ziv frowned. “Nobody. We’ve been through this already. It was all compartmentalized. Not even the station chief had been informed.”
“We drew our information on the event from somewhere.”
“Local informant. He had no knowledge of what was planned.”
“Perhaps not the specifics. But depending on how the information was gathered, it might have triggered something in Azerbaijani intelligence. That makes more sense to me than that one of our top people made a mistake.”
“In the end, does it change anything?” Maor Lachman, a small, pudgy division head from the cyber-warfare group countered.
Amit nodded slowly. “Yes. We now have a problem. The Nationalists will be on high alert, so eliminating their candidate is no longer viable. Which means we need a new plan to achieve the same goal – but using a different approach.”
It was Ziv’s turn to sigh. “Anything happens to their candidate now, and it will be pinned on the administration. The whole point of Yael’s mission was to make it look like the act of a lone gunman. If another attempt is made, that narrative falls apart. We don’t need a JFK moment in Baku at this stage of the game. It will raise too many questions and undo years of work.”
The men chuckled at the reference to the American assassination – the archetype of botched executions that required the relevant documentation to still be classified as top secret fifty years after it had occurred. No intelligence group wanted that sort of blemish on its record if it could help it.
Amit stared off into space for several moments. When he spoke, his voice was softer than earlier. “Maybe we’ve been coming at this the wrong way. If we can’t eliminate the opposition party, then we need to strengthen the position of the incumbent.”
Ziv shook his head. “Hovel’s hated by much of the country. Hard to strengthen his popularity. He’s a bully and a despot.”
Amit allowed himself a small smile. “Since when did that ever matter?”
“In this case, it’s a real issue.”
“Then maybe instead of trying to figure a way across the angry sea, we part it.”
Ziv appeared perplexed, and Amit placed his hands palm down on the table. “It’s important we keep the ultimate objective in focus and not get lost in the details. We want Hovel to be reelected at all costs. What we tried didn’t fly, so now we need a different solution. One that will result in the same outcome, even if it appears to be the polar opposite at first blush.”
He outlined his thinking in a few terse sentences, and the men around him were speechless at the audacity of the gambit he proposed. They argued over tactical considerations for half an hour, but ultimately, Amit proved once again why he had retained a position of power in an organization that had a brutal rate of attrition.
When the meeting adjourned, everyone had action items, and they’d agreed to reconvene in twenty-four hours after studying the feasibility of Amit’s proposal. Ziv had undertaken most of the heavy lifting, and his staff would be working around the clock, evaluating scenarios and attempting to predict the geopolitical ramifications of Amit’s scheme.
That there were gaping holes in how they could deliver the needed result didn’t trouble them – these were men who were accustomed to achieving the impossible, and if the analysts agreed that Amit’s idea held water, they’d drill down and figure out how to execute the plan.
Amit’s step quickened as he left the conference room; he lived for the challenge of developing a workable scenario. The world was a chessboard, and he had been gifted with the ability, like all grand masters, to think many moves ahead. If he was right and his people came back with findings that the reaction domestically would be positive, then they’d turned a devastating setback into a triumph.
If it got any better than that, he didn’t know how.
Chapter 7
Jet clung to the shadows as she walked toward the area of town populated by countless bars and nightspots. She’d exchanged her robe for a dark top and her cargo pants – garb that working-class locals might wear on a night out. She moved without haste, aware of her surroundings and wary of being jumped. The threat of violent assault had been heightened with the influx of refugees, some of whom were criminals back in their home countries and had brought their predatory ways with them. Jet had heard plentiful accounts of rapes and assaults blamed on the new arrivals, and while she could attribute some of it to hysteria, there was a distinct pattern, and there was no question that a young Iraqi’s or Syrian’s view of women might be different from a European’s.
She’d decided to forego her refugee outfit when trolling the bars for an introduction to the mafia rumored to run much of the city. Better to be viewed as neutral, even if it might mean paying more for the documents. She wouldn’t have been welcome in the watering holes otherwise, and didn’t want to risk the ire of the Serbs.
Music and laughter carried down the street as she approached a string of bars she’d been directed to by a taxi driver who’d dropped her three blocks away at her request; she didn’t want to be seen coming or going in a cab. She had no real plan other than to pump the bartenders for information – some things didn’t change anywhere in the world, and it was always a safe bet that those who served the drinks knew the players.
The first bar was a dive that featured a nautical theme wholly out of place in the landlocked city, whose patrons appeared to be end-stage alcoholics. She ordered a drink and probed the bartender for information, but the man was as forthcoming as a rock, and she gave up after a fight broke out between two vagrants who were so drunk they could barely stand up.
The next watering hole featured a neon outline of a goat dancing on its hind legs, hoisting a beer stein in celebration. Jet smiled at the image and entered. The interior was everything she’d expected: a series of small tables occupied by men with gloomy expressions, a long bar running the length of the far wall, and several pros seated with dresses hiked to afford better views of their wares between the odd patron nursing a drink and staring into space or at a sporting event on a flat-screen television above the bottles.
Jet counted two dozen customers and checked the time as she neared the bar – ten o’clock, so perhaps too early for the real crowd to show up. Then again, perhaps this was the crowd. Absent a band or any draw, the place was on the lower end of the scale,
even by Serbian standards.
She took a seat, and a man shaped like a brick approached.
“What’s your pleasure?” he asked.
She named a beer she’d recognized on one of the tables, and the man gave a curt nod and opened a refrigerated door under the bar. He popped the top and placed the bottle in front of her. “Paying now, or running a tab?” he asked.
“I’ll pay now.” She tossed a Serbian dinar note on the dull wooden surface. “That cover it?”
“Got some change coming.”
“Keep it.”
He appraised her. “Thanks.” He paused. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
She smiled. “What’s the giveaway?”
“Your accent…and your looks.”
“Can’t do much about either.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to.” The bartender studied her for a moment. “We don’t see a lot of ladies in here, is all.”
“Dancing goat doesn’t draw them in?”
Another laugh. “Crowd’s a little rougher than most.”
She shrugged. “That’s okay. Might work out better that way.”
His eyes widened slightly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she answered. “I’m looking for someone who can help me with some business that might not be…strictly legal.”
His expression hardened again. “We don’t do any drug trade out of here. Sorry.”
She shook her head. “Not that. Looking for an introduction to someone who can help me with papers.”
He regarded her for a moment. “You a cop?”
“Do I look like one?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, I’m not a cop.” She hesitated. “If you don’t know anybody, that’s fine. I don’t want any trouble.”
He shook his head. “I don’t. Sorry.”
She took a sip of her beer and shrugged. “Worth asking.”
Ten minutes later, she’d drunk a quarter of her bottle and was preparing to leave when a dark-haired man wearing a leather jacket and black jeans sat on the stool next to her, his clothes rank with stale cigarette smoke and poor hygiene. He nodded to the bartender and leaned slightly toward Jet.
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