“We’re working on a location and should have it shortly. As to getting the material to you, I’ll call you back,” the director concluded, and then hung up and typed instructions on his terminal. He checked his watch – his staff would be at their desks, working crisis hours, so he’d have responses within minutes.
When he was done, he chewed away a piece of skin from his thumb and eyed the monitor expectantly. The plan wasn’t perfect, but it was achievable, and sometimes that was better than the most elegant, but improbable, approach. If it failed, they were in no worse shape than they were now.
His computer pinged and he leaned forward, his eyes sharp in spite of the hour. He read a missive and grunted approval. He reached for the keyboard and typed a response, only to be pinged again. After a furious back and forth, he lifted his phone handset to his ear and called Itai again. This time the station chief sounded alert.
“All right,” the director said. “This is what we’re going to do.”
Chapter 41
Jet blinked away sleep, checked the time, and rolled toward where Itai stood in the doorway. “What’s happening?”
“It’ll be light in half an hour. No more curfew once dawn breaks. It was on TV.”
“Great. So where are we going?”
Itai glanced down the hall and stepped inside. When he spoke, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “I spoke with the director.”
“And?”
“I’ll tell you in the car. For now, let’s clean up and eat so we can hit the ground running.”
“You’re not going to tell me where we’re running to?”
“It’s complicated. Let’s enjoy the morning while we can.”
She frowned. “That bad?”
“It won’t be boring.”
Jet yawned and stretched. “Anything on the tube about the situation on the streets?”
“They’re saying it was a failed coup attempt. I’ll fill you in downstairs.”
“Is your friend up?”
“Not yet. But he’s an early riser.”
Jet showered and pulled on her clothes, annoyed at Itai’s reluctance to tell her anything but resigned to it. She’d been on her own for too long and had gotten used to self-determination rather than following orders, and it stuck in her craw no matter how much she reminded herself that the treatment she was receiving wasn’t personal.
When she came down the stairs, Itai was seated in the dining room, looking like he’d aged five years overnight, and Dor was standing by a window, watching the sun come up. He turned toward her and nodded a greeting.
“Good morning, young lady.”
Jet managed a smile. “Morning, Rabbi.”
“Itai here has made coffee and tea and managed to toast some bread by himself. It isn’t half bad for a first effort.”
Itai tilted his head at his friend. “Old dog, new tricks. It’s a time of miracles.”
Dor looked Jet up and down, and a hint of a smirk played across his face. “Indeed it is.”
They ate quickly and said their goodbyes, and then were on their way back toward the mosque, Itai leading the way. Neither of them spoke. A few cars passed on the street, and it was obvious that the night’s excitement had already died down as the mundane business of earning a living claimed the population’s attention. Jet waited on the sidewalk for Itai to enter his apartment building’s subterranean garage, eyeing the vehicles on the street as a reflex, her nerves frayed after little sleep and the prior day’s tumultuous events.
An ancient gold-toned sedan rolled from the garage, belching poorly combusted exhaust, its motor sounding like it was ready for the scrapyard, and Itai rolled down his window. “Hop in.”
Jet pulled the door open and the hinges protested with a groan. She seated herself on a cracked leather seat and slammed the door, and then inspected the aged interior as she fastened her seatbelt. “A classic, I see.”
“No point in squandering my fortune when this runs like a top.”
“Beauty is in the eye,” Jet agreed. “What do I do with my gun?”
“There’s a compartment under the backseat. We’ll stop somewhere away from prying eyes and you can stash it.”
She patted the dashboard and was rewarded with a cloud of fine dust. “Don’t drive it much?”
“I prefer walking. Good for the soul.”
“Uh-huh. Are you going to tell me where we’re going and what we’re up to?”
The station chief’s face grew serious as they rattled along the narrow street. “As I said, I spoke with the director. We’re to head north, into the country, and…terminate the prime minister.”
“What?!”
“You heard me. They can’t allow him to take power, and apparently he’s still in the Caucasus Mountains, at a friend’s house. That will be our only opportunity to do so. Once he’s back in Baku, he’ll be surrounded by security.”
“How do you know where he is?”
“He made a broadcast last night. Our tech team was able to get into the network’s system and trace the IP address to where it originated.”
“How do we know he’s still there?”
“We don’t. But we’ve dispatched a watcher who will report if anyone leaves.”
She shook her head. “This doesn’t strike you as madness?”
Itai nodded. “I should say not at all, but you know better. This is a business of contradictions. I’m just following orders.”
“So they orchestrate a phony coup, get double-crossed and the president winds up dead, and the answer is to kill his second-in-command?”
“The prime minister is ten times worse than Hovel. But his greatest sin is he doesn’t play ball with our team. He’s actively pro-Russian, and this week we aren’t. So he has to go.”
“That’s the whole logic?”
Itai nodded grimly. “Best I can make out.”
“And nobody thinks it’s going to look odd when the two leaders of Azerbaijan are eliminated within a day or so of each other?”
“That’s the other thing. We’re to make it look like he died of natural causes.”
Jet closed her eyes and exhaled in resignation. “Of course. Because that’s so easy to do. Did they articulate how we’re supposed to accomplish that? Scare him to death?”
Itai eyed her. “The director said you might not respond like a typical agent.”
“He knows me better than I thought.”
“We’re to drive out of the city and take the road up the coast. A drone with supplies is being dispatched and will drop its cargo near the mountains. We’re to retrieve the goods and rendezvous with the watcher at dark, and you’re to penetrate the house tonight and take him out.”
“Did he mention how, exactly, I’m supposed to slip past whatever security is in place and accomplish all that?”
“They’re going to have satellite imagery sent to my phone this afternoon. We’ll know more about the layout from that and from the watcher’s reports on the number of guards, shifts, and so on.”
“And if I say no?”
“I’m to remind you that the director will be extremely grateful if you agree. He said to use those exact words.”
“I want to talk to him myself.”
“Which you can. Later. For now, I’m under instructions to get to a field in the middle of nowhere by a specific time, and it’s going to be touch and go making it anywhere close to when I’m supposed to.”
Jet frowned. “How are they going to fly a drone into the wilds on this short a notice? From where?”
“All the director said was that he’d lean on our allies to assist. Mine is not to question why…”
“What are they sending?”
“A cutaneous nerve agent that was developed by the Soviets. Apparently just a few drops is all it takes. You swab the target or drip a couple of droplets on him, and it’s nearly instantaneous. He’ll seize, and then respiratory paralysis sets in, and then his heart stops, all within twenty seconds. It will look like a massive
heart attack when he’s autopsied – it leaves no trace unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.”
She nodded. “I’ve used something like that before. But that doesn’t answer the question of how I’m supposed to get close enough to him to deliver the dose.”
“The director said he has tremendous confidence in your resourcefulness.”
“He should also know the best way to get yourself killed is to do inadequate research on a target, the layout, and the logistics. This is beyond half-baked.”
Itai’s expression was glum. “I’m not disagreeing with you.”
“I’ve already been stuck with one near suicide mission. I won’t do another.”
Itai sighed. “What would it take for you to say yes?”
“I’d need to have confidence I could make it in and out and get away clean. Otherwise it’s a nonstarter.”
“Fine. Let’s do what we need to do, check out the layout in person, see what my man has to say at the site, and take it from there, okay? No need to do anything but look it over.”
She eyed him distrustfully. “Sounds like you’re trying to ease me into a yes.”
“I’m with you. If you can’t pull it off, we go to plan B.”
“Which is?”
Itai gave the car more gas, and it responded with a tired wheeze and more smoke before reluctantly accelerating. “I’ll let you know as soon as I figure that out.”
Chapter 42
Traffic was sparse leaving Baku, and Jet was letting out a sigh of relief when a sea of brake lights confronted them as they rounded a bend leading to the on-ramp for the M1 highway. Jet glanced at Itai, who adjusted a pair of laughably unstylish sunglasses and sat forward.
“Security checkpoint?” she asked.
“That’s what it looks like.”
Forty minutes later they pulled to a stop beside a pair of tanks flanked by a contingent of two dozen soldiers brandishing assault rifles and a handful of uniformed police, their squad cars parked near a van with bars across the rear windows. The officers were blocking traffic and questioning drivers. A cop strode toward them and looked the car over with a scowl and then peered inside at Itai and Jet.
“Where are you headed?” he demanded.
“Ashagioba. We want to get out of town until everything returns to normal.”
“You’re not Azerbaijani,” the cop observed.
“No. I’m Israeli. My companion’s Russian.”
The officer’s gaze lingered on Jet and he held out his hand. “Papers.”
Itai fished his passport from his pocket, and Jet did the same. The officer took their documents and strode back to his car, where two other police waited. Jet leaned her head toward Itai.
“Seems pretty thorough, doesn’t it?”
Itai nodded slowly. “Everyone’s got to be on edge.”
“I hope I was right that no cameras picked me up at the hall.” She paused. “I should have changed my hair color.”
“How? Nothing was open.”
Jet watched the cops exchange some words, and then one of them leaned into the squad car and stretched a radio mic toward the officer with their docs. He opened Itai’s passport and read the information from it and then did the same with Jet’s. When he finished, he waited, making small talk with the others.
Five minutes later he was back at the car with their passports. “Open the trunk,” he growled.
Itai shut off the engine and climbed from behind the wheel, and the cop accompanied him to the rear of the car. The station chief popped the trunk with the key and the officer shifted some items around before stepping away and grunting to Itai. “Okay. You can go.”
Itai slid back into the car with a creak of his knee joints and twisted the ignition key. The starter ground and the chassis shook, but the motor failed to catch. He paused as the cops watched with annoyance, and then tried again, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead as he pumped the accelerator for all he was worth.
The engine coughed and backfired with a blast of black smoke from the exhaust, and then caught and hiccupped twice before settling into a rough idle. Itai slid the transmission lever into gear and they lurched off, Jet staring at him with thinly veiled disgust.
“Really, Itai? This is what we’re betting the farm on getting us into the mountains?”
“I’ve been putting off a tune-up. The local mechanics are highway robbers. But don’t worry. It’ll make it. This beast is unstoppable.”
She took her passport back from Itai and pocketed it. “What did they say?”
“Nothing much. Wanted to know why we were leaving the city, an exact address, that sort of thing. You heard my response.”
“He didn’t want to know anything more?”
“I got the impression they’re just following orders. They were told to check everyone leaving the city, so they’re doing it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Me too.”
They rolled up the on-ramp and increased their speed to a moderate pace as they left Baku’s skyline behind them and skirted the Jeyranbatan Reservoir on the way to the coast. After a dogleg north onto another highway, the deep sapphire of the Caspian Sea appeared on their right, the surface wrinkled by a gentle breeze, occasional wind waves glinting gold in the morning sun. A few children ran along the rocky beach by wooden fishing boats with peeling hull paint beached on the shore, a few gulls perched on the bows. Jet rolled down her window and let the smell of the sea wash over her, erasing some of the fatigue from sleep deprivation and stress.
“How far until this field where the drone’s dropping the goods?” Jet asked.
Itai checked his watch. “Maybe another half hour or so. Depends.”
“Is it going to land or just make a drop and fly off?”
“They said drop, so I’m assuming that’s what will happen.”
“And how will we find the package?”
“They’ll send the exact coordinates to my phone.”
She frowned. “If they can get a drone in under the radar, why don’t they just have it shoot a couple of Hellfires or whatever at the hunting lodge and call it a day?”
Itai shook his head and snuck a glance at her. “As I said before, it’s key that it appear accidental. A lone gunman who’s never apprehended shoots the president with a homemade rifle, that’s a tragedy that eventually becomes fodder for conspiracy theories. Take out others in the chain of command as well, and governments start getting involved and smelling a rat. We don’t need the Russians coming in and complicating our lives – they already have far too much sway in the industries here. Give them a hint that Western interests might be trying to overthrow the government in their backyard, and it will get ugly. They demonstrated they won’t back down in Ukraine. We want to avoid a replay.”
“You don’t think they’ll figure that out anyway?”
“Not if you do your job correctly. The prime minister will have a heart attack from the sudden burden of the responsibility of running the country, and that will be that. Next in line is a gentleman we can do business with. Not ideal, and there’s no guarantee he can win the election, but it’s better than an evil we know and can’t tolerate.”
“Have you considered what you’re asking me to do might be impossible?”
He nodded grimly. “I have. All of this is fluid. It’s unfolding as we speak, and bigger brains than mine are working on it back home. I’m not going to waste energy on something nobody’s consulting me about.”
Jet nodded. “Very pragmatic.”
“You get to be my age, you learn to be flexible.”
She laughed. “That’s exactly the word that springs to mind when I think of you.”
“I’m glad you’ve retained your sense of humor. That’s usually the first to go.”
A bright glare shone from their left, nearly blinding her, and she shaded her eyes with her hand. “What’s that?”
“Solar electric plant. Those are the panels. Hundreds of them.”
<
br /> “In an oil-producing country?”
“They export. This is the concession to the Green Party’s incessant agitation for renewable energy. They also have wind farms up ahead.”
“Surprising.”
They continued along the shore in silence, the car stuttering occasionally. Every pothole was transmitted to the small of Jet’s back with the force of rabbit punches. She shifted every few minutes, trying to get comfortable, but it was no good. She was sore from the Parkour the night before, and there was no position on the seat that relieved the aching.
Itai began checking his phone regularly and squinted at a road sign announcing an exit when the highway veered away from the sea.
“This is it,” he said, and slowed to veer onto a two-lane road badly in need of maintenance. The landscape around them was beige, with few plants in the vicinity, a bleak contrast to the lush blue of the nearby water.
“Looks like desert,” Jet commented.
“Yes. And up ahead are the mountains we’re headed to. They’re snowcapped in the winter.”
She eyed the towering peaks, their slopes lushly verdant. “The brush should provide plenty of cover, at least.”
He considered the terrain silently for a moment before responding, “We’ll see.”
The field was several bumpy miles off the highway, and by the time they arrived, Jet was ready to get out of the car and stretch her legs. Itai left the engine running by the side of the road, and she followed him to the far edge of the flat expanse, the tall grass brittle beneath their feet. Using the GPS monitor on his phone, less than ten meters from a crude wooden fence they found a package that weighed only a few ounces – an unmarked cardboard box eight inches square, barely dented from its descent from the drone.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Itai observed.
“It doesn’t have to.”
They retraced their steps to the car and Jet carefully unsealed the container. Inside were two pairs of latex gloves and a slim aluminum tube with a dispensing pump on one end, seated in a polystyrene protective casing. She inspected the tube for leaks, using one of the gloves to hold it, and then closed the case and slipped it into the glove compartment.
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