Jet

by Russell Blake

  ~ ~ ~

  Jet’s trip to Israel was long and uneventful, with the border crossing a tedious marathon – crowded and chaotic, barely controlled pandemonium as three busses arrived five minutes apart, the passengers all rushing to get to the head of the line to avoid the long wait in the heat.

  When she arrived in Jerusalem, she rented a car. Once clear of the city, the trip to Pardes Hanna-Karkur took only an hour and a half. She pulled into town at four o’clock in the afternoon, the sun’s relentless roasting almost over for the day.

  Jet had been to the safe house only once following her insertion mission in Yemen, doing her mandatory debriefing before leaving to take a welcome three-day hiatus in nearby Netanya with David. Even though it had been three and a half years, her recollection of the area was fresh – her memory for geography a skill she’d honed in her training.

  A soldier stopped her as she pulled onto the small cul-de-sac where the house was located. She rolled down the window as he peered from under the brim of his hat.

  “I’m sorry. Street’s closed. You need to turn around.”

  “Oh. Why? What happened?” Jet batted her eyes and tried a tentative smile on the young man.

  “I really can’t say. You just can’t drive any further. I’m sorry. Those are my orders.”

  “Damn. I mean, I wanted to see if my friend was home, but I suppose that’s out of the question now?” Her eyes darted to the dwelling at the end of the little street. Two of the cars in front of it were riddled with bullet holes, and a third had burned to a husk. The entire perimeter of the lot was cordoned off with yellow tape and was swarming with police and military.

  “You could try calling.”

  “She doesn’t like to use the phone. Never answers it, so trying would be pointless. Are you sure I can’t just sneak by?”

  The young soldier stiffened. “I think you should turn your car around and leave. This is a crime scene. The street is closed to all traffic, pedestrian or otherwise, for at least the rest of the day.”

  So much for charming her way through.

  “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

  She’d seen enough – obvious evidence of an assault on the house. If David had been there, he wouldn’t be any more. The house was blown. But she needed to find out what had happened. Had he been inside? Had he been killed? Wounded?

  Jet reversed and executed a three-point turn, then drove out of the neighborhood and kept going until she came to a market. She pulled into the lot and parked, needing time to think. This was all unraveling too quickly – and now her one lead to David was gone. All the effort, the trip to Yemen, the trek into Israel, in vain. But none of it made sense. Who would dare attack a Mossad safe house on Israeli turf? What was the objective? She couldn’t recall anything even remotely like it happening before, and a buzz of anxiety started in her stomach. This was uncharted territory, and as far as she knew, there was no precedent. Which was bad, because in her travels she’d thought there was nothing she hadn’t seen. And that meant that there could be more surprises lying in wait. Deadly ones she might not see coming.

  She didn’t know too many ways she could get more information other than trying to hack into the military’s computers to get information on the attack. Even with her skills, the Mossad’s would be impossible to breach, and the military’s wouldn’t be that much easier – which left the police. Local cops were likely to have only meager security on their servers – child’s play for someone of her abilities. Judging by the number of police at the scene, it wouldn’t be that hard to find any report that had been filed. She would just need a good system, a fast internet connection, and time.

  She drove half an hour to Tel Aviv and found a large electronics store, and within twenty minutes was the proud owner of a new state-of-the-art laptop. A nearby specialty coffee shop advertised free wireless internet; she found a quiet corner away from the boisterous teenagers hanging out by the entrance and plugged in her new toy.

  Forty-five minutes later, she was in the police network and reading the preliminary report on the house.

  A call had come in at four forty-two a.m. from a frantic neighbor. Gunfire, explosions, screaming. All units scrambled, the first arriving in seven minutes to find the house empty and four unidentified males dead outside. A car was burning, its gas tank ruptured, and tire tracks suggested that a vehicle had driven off at high speed. One of the other neighbors reported that his dog had lunged at the back door and gone crazy when a figure ran past. He’d caught a quick glimpse; it was the man who owned the house that had been attacked. Forensics later found blood droplets consistent with a wound of some sort. Then the military had taken over the case, and the Mossad arrived shortly thereafter. End of report.

  So David had been there, had been hurt, but had escaped.

  And the Mossad was in the mix and had clamped a lid on it.

  Which they could effectively maintain for as long as necessary by claiming national security interests were involved.

  Now Jet had even more questions than answers.

  Who had attacked the house? What did they want? If it was to kill David, as Rain had been killed, then why? Was it the same group? Terrorists? Or someone else? And was David okay? Wounded, yes, but how badly?

  Whether she liked it or not, she needed more information than the report offered. It would mean hacking the military network to scan for any admissions to military hospitals in the last sixteen hours. That was too big a project for her to bite off – she could do it, but she didn’t have the tools or the time to devote to covering her tracks and doing nothing but trying to hack her way in.

  But she knew someone who did.

  She typed in a series of keystrokes and sent an e-mail to an account she had committed to memory. Moriarty – a hacker she had never met, but who had come in handy in the past on delicate assignments where discretion was required. David had given her the contact years ago when she had needed specialized computer work done on one of her missions, but wasn’t in a position to do it herself. Since then, she’d used the hacker three times, and each had been impressive.

  But not cheap.

  Moriarty replied to her ping within two minutes. A dialog box popped up on her screen.

  [What’s shaking? Long time no talk.]

  [Yup. Got a gig. You busy?] Jet typed.

  [For you? Never.]

  [I need you to track and report to me admissions at every military hospital in Israel for gunshot, trauma, stabbing or other wounds. I don’t need routine admissions for illness. Just trauma.]

  [Are you serious?]

  [Yup.]

  [Gonna cost.]

  [Figures. How much?]

  [When do you need it?]

  [Now.]

  Twenty seconds dragged out.

  [Fifteen grand. I’ll have it within an hour, two, tops.]

  [OK. Banks are closed. Wire tomorrow?]

  [Sure. You’re cool.]

  [Good luck.]

  [Luck has nothing to do with it.]

  The dialog box disappeared, the discussion over.

  Jet closed the computer and powered it down. She didn’t want to linger there on the off chance someone from the police had noticed the breach of their network and somehow traced the IP address.

  She drove to the water and found a restaurant she hadn’t been to in years. Looking at her watch, she saw that she had an hour and forty minutes to kill, so she ordered dinner and settled in, forcing herself to be patient.

  The sun set, and the city’s lights twinkled off the sea as she digested the day’s events.

  David attacked at a top secret safe house.

  Injured.

  Whatever this was, she’d never heard of anything like it in her life.