Wednesday's Child

by Alan Zendell

  I brought Samir up to date on my trip to Maryland, reversing the order in which I did things and leaving out much of my interaction with Karminian. It wouldn’t shock either Samir or William that I’d done some sleuthing on my own, since I knew Rod would be nearby and William had always considered me the unit’s flake.

  I laid my recorder on the table and played the two messages from Rod’s voice mail.

  “The man you bugged is the one you suspected of being involved with the terrorists? Your friend’s husband?” Samir asked.

  “Yeah. His wife told me he speaks just about every language in the Middle East.”

  “And you’re wondering whether the guy who left the message was speaking Arabic, Turkish, or Armenian? Guess again. Whoever left these messages was speaking Hebrew, and he speaks it like an Israeli. The first message says to call him back right away. The second is more agitated. He says he made a mistake, that he needs this fellow Burdak to return something to him. He didn’t leave a name either time, so he obviously expected Burdak to recognize his voice and know what he was referring to.”

  I was still back at Hebrew. That was the last thing I expected to hear.

  “It must have been the Israeli who gave Burdak the envelope – Gelsen.”

  “Now what?” Samir said, smirking. “The Israelis are going to blow up New York and cost themselves billions in guilt-induced donations from American Jews? Not that I have anything against playing on other people’s guilt to get what I want.”

  Next came the twenty minutes of recorded conversations between Rod and the two Arabs he shot, including the muffled sounds of the shots themselves, and a “Fuck!” from Rod, who was only three feet from the hidden microphone when the errant bullet grazed his face. Samir told me to get lost for an hour while he enhanced the sound quality and studied the result.

  “Except for the last word in English, you finally got your Arabic,” he said when I returned. “Your friend Burdak is quite the chameleon. Here,” he pointed to the recorder, “he’s a Palestinian trying to buy one of the canisters. He’d apparently been corresponding with them for some time, claiming he represented Hamas, who learned of the smuggled isotopes through sources in Iran, which funded the whole operation. It’s not clear whether the part about Iran was invented or real, or whether the two Arabs even knew who was funding them.

  “I think they didn’t. They were obviously low level mules, well indoctrinated with hate for the enemies of Islam, but not having much of a clue about anything else. We’ve already been through everything the FBI had on them, thanks to that agent, Henry White.”

  “But,” I said, “the Arabs didn’t deny knowing about the radiological materials, right? So apparently, whoever Burdak works for has a lot better intel than we do.”

  “Damn right!” William’s voice boomed from the doorway, as he strode into the room, electrifying the air like an approaching tornado. “Manzone finally got a response to the query I put through. Turns out the CIA has a file on Burdak. He’s Mossad.”

  I should have been more surprised than I was. Given everything I’d learned in the last few days, it almost seemed like the obvious conclusion.

  I summarized what I’d told Samir for William. I’d brought the camera I purchased with his money. It was decision time. I decided to brazen it through.

  “I have something to show you. I didn’t want to say anything yesterday, but I needed to satisfy myself about Rod, because of Gayle. I knew where he was staying in Washington so I went down a day early and staked out his hotel. I followed him and got these.” I showed them the digital images. “I didn’t realize what I’d witnessed until yesterday.”

  William stared hard at me. “We’d better get him in here for a chat. You want to set it up, Dylan, or should I go through official channels and have him detained?”

  I thought of Gayle and decided the least I could do was avoid the spectacle of having him arrested. “Let me handle it. I’ll call you if I need backup.”

  Samir and I got up to leave, but William stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, saying, “Close the door on your way out, will you, Sam?” William was much too sharp to try to bamboozle for very long.

  “You’ve been pretty busy, Dylan. Not that I’m complaining about the results, but when did you turn into James Bond? We’ve worked together a long time. If I didn’t know better I’d think someone was impersonating you.”

  One thing I’d learned in the last few weeks was to keep my mouth shut and let other people talk, so I just did my best to look embarrassed.

  “Do you have contacts I don’t know about? Either that or you’re on an amazing run of luck. Watch that it doesn’t run out on you.” When I still didn’t respond, he said, “Nothing to say?” He sounded like his feelings were hurt more than anything else, so I tried a little misdirection.

  “You’re different, too, William. I think you’ve actually grown a heart. It’s true we go back a long way, but a lot of time has passed since we worked together. People change.”

  “You know I go by results, Dylan, and yours have been great. But free-lancing can be dangerous and I’m not comfortable finding things out after the fact. Remember, your number can’t come up every time.”

  I grasped for a reply. “I know I haven’t been following protocol the last few weeks, but I keep finding myself in situations in which I have to react quickly. I’m sorry if I made things harder for you. I’ll try to keep you informed from now on, but you don’t have to worry about me. I may have once been the science guy who tagged along with the rest of you, but it’s not that way anymore. I’m a member of this unit and I intend to contribute however I can.”

  He looked at me like a parent whose kid had just shown the first signs of maturity. “Just be careful.”

  William hadn’t been being ironic when he asked if I had sources he didn’t know about. It wouldn’t trouble him particularly if I did, but he’d never seen me take that kind of initiative before, and he needed to know he could trust my judgment.

  The exchange with William confirmed my notion about how people are drawn to others’ success. He couldn’t be sure whether I knew what I was doing or I was just lucky, but like any good gambler he knew not to interrupt a winning streak.

  ***

  I found an empty office and dialed Rod’s cell number. He picked up on the second ring.

  “It’s Dylan Brice.”

  “Yes, Gayle’s friend at work. It’s been a while,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Actually, I’m working my other job today. Gayle doesn’t know I’m calling.”

  “Sounds mysterious. Are you planning a welcome-back party for her?” Damn, he was a cool one. After what I’d seen him involved in this week, he didn’t miss a beat, not that he had any reason to fear me.

  “Some associates of mine would like to discuss areas of mutual interest with you. We’re all playing in the same arena. I know it’s short notice, but things that I can’t discuss on the phone make this rather urgent. We tried getting in touch with you earlier this week.”

  “Yes, Gayle mentioned you might be in Washington too.”

  “In Maryland, actually, but I was in Washington Thursday evening. I called your hotel, but you were out.”

  “I had a busy week.”

  “Do you think you could come into town this afternoon?”

  He thought for a few seconds. “If it’s as urgent as you say…”

  “I assure you it is, for you as well as for us. This really can’t wait.”

  “You know, Dylan, the way Gayle talks about you, I’d never imagined us having a conversation like this.”

  “Really? I’d be fascinated to know what she says about me. Maybe we can stop for a beer after our meeting.” Just when I was starting to enjoy the cat-and-mouse thing, he asked where we wanted him to meet us. I gave him William’s address at Federal Plaza.

  “I’m on the train. We just left Union Station. By the time I throw my suitcase in my car and get back on the PATH trai
n…let’s say 3:30.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll meet you in front of the building to escort you in.” I couldn’t resist smiling to myself. He had to have recognized the address – everyone in New York did since nine-eleven. He knew he was coming to a building swarming with federal cops.

  If he felt intimidated, he didn’t show it. Cool as ever, he didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the stark exterior of the building or the heavy presence of government security. Nor did he raise an eyebrow at the way I slid through with him in tow.

  I introduced Rod to William, Samir, and Mary, who’d been studying the CIA dossier on him. William took charge of the meeting.

  “I’m not much for beating around the bush, Mr. Burdak…”

  “Rod, please.”

  “Rod, then. It seems you’ve crossed paths with one of my people a couple of times this week. What we do here’s pretty sensitive, so with two such close encounters, it’s become necessary for us to compare notes.”

  “All right,” Rod said. “Anything I can do to help.”

  Didn’t anything perturb him?

  “By the way how’d you injure your face?”

  “Just carelessness on my part. Nothing serious, a few stitches and it was fine.”

  “Really? Looks like you were within an inch of being dead. I’d call that serious.”

  Rod looked hard at me, then at William. “I thought we weren’t going to beat around the bush. Who are you, anyway, and why am I here?”

  William pushed his credentials across the table to Rod, who looked them over and slid them back. Mary took something out of Rod’s file and handed it to him. “As to why you’re here, for starters,” William looked at me, “our friend Dylan took this.” It was the picture of him getting into his car outside the motel, with blood seeping through the white towel he pressed against his face.

  “You were following me?” Rod said to me, seemingly more interested in how I captured the image, than the picture itself.

  “I was. I knew things that didn’t add up. I was concerned for Gayle, but if there was a chance you were involved in what we were investigating the consequences were too serious to worry about anyone’s feelings.” The way he nodded his understanding said he’d have done the same thing. “I recorded the conversation with the two men you shot, too. Samir translated for us.”

  For the first time, Rod looked upset. Being caught didn’t trouble him as much as realizing he’d screwed up and left a trail.

  “There’s more,” I continued. “I wasn’t following you on Thursday, but I was there when Ari Gelsen handed you a package of sensitive documents at APL.”

  “I’ll ask you again,” Rod said. “Exactly why am I here?”

  William took the nearly inch-thick file folder from Mary and held it in front of him. “This is a hardcopy of the dossier the CIA has been building on you. We know about your Mossad connection. We’d like you tell us exactly what you were doing this week.”

  28.

  Rod understood precisely what he needed to do. He’d been presented with indisputable facts, and he knew better than to deny them or suggest they’d been faked. This wasn’t a hostile interrogation, not yet, anyway. He might have been sitting handcuffed in an FBI interrogation room instead of across the table from us. He had to know we preferred to treat him as an ally rather than an enemy, but nothing less than full disclosure would cut it.

  He leaned back in his chair, smiling. “I congratulate you on a very neat piece of work, Dylan. I wonder what Gayle would say.”

  We all sat quietly, waiting for his explanation, I especially, hoping it was convincing. I cringed at the thought of having to tell Gayle I was responsible for putting him in jail.

  Rod looked at each of us. When his gaze touched William’s, he said, “I want to be very clear about one thing. My ties to Israel aside, I am an American first, last, and always.”

  He paused, and when no one said anything he continued in a businesslike tone.

  “Let’s take the easy one, first, those ‘highly sensitive’ papers I received from Ari Gelsen. They’re worthless. Gelsen is an angry man who did a foolish thing. He came here at the invitation of our government to work on underwater detection systems. Then, for some unfathomable reason, probably because some diplomat got his nose out of joint, Gelsen’s visa was revoked months before his tour ended, and he was ordered out of the country. Security sometimes works that way, but people like Gelsen, scientists, even those attached to the military, are less sanguine about it when it does. He knew he’d done nothing to warrant being treated that way. In fact, the action had nothing to do with him or his work.”

  “That’s interesting,” William said, “But I’m more concerned with your role in all this.”

  “Fair enough,” Rod said, “but you’ll need context. Joint research projects between Israel and the United States occur all the time. Like when we sell Israel advanced fighter planes, not necessarily our best, but very good ones. Israeli engineers and scientists design improvements on things like electronic weapons systems, and both sides benefit from the result.

  “That might have happened in this case, but Gelsen believed Israel would be denied the benefits of his work, so he contacted his embassy, unleashing a chain of events that eventually reached me. From Gelsen’s point of view, he wasn’t stealing secrets, merely assuring that his country received what it was entitled to. The Americans had reneged on their deal with him, so why should he trust them not to renege on the whole arrangement?”

  “So,” William said, “he told his embassy we wouldn’t let him take his work home with him, and they arranged for you to meet him.”

  “Essentially, yes,” Rod acknowledged. “But you must understand – Israel knows the United States is its most important friend in the world. It is inconceivable that it would act to hurt this country. On the other hand, Israel knows that ultimately, it must rely on itself. There are elements in the States constantly working against Israeli interests, and we all know there’s no guarantee they won’t succeed one day. If I may be permitted to address you as colleagues – all of us, here, are in the same line of work – sometimes Israel must break the rules, not to harm the United States, but to ensure its own survival.

  “As for the papers, I returned them to Gelsen this morning. He’s prepared to admit what he did and give them back. He’s really a decent man and a fine scientist.”

  Rod might be lying about returning the papers, and he could have copied them before he gave them back, but the essential point for us was his contention that they were worthless. That could be verified by John Barksdale.

  “You make Gelsen’s actions seem like those of an impulsive child who now regrets his actions,” I said. “That would be easier to believe if he hadn’t been compensated for the papers.”

  “Compensated?” Rod seemed truly puzzled. “How?”

  “I saw you pass something to him in the parking lot.”

  “You surprise me, Dylan. Suppose you were Gelsen. Would you hand over something like that without getting a receipt?” He was serious.

  “As to the dead terrorists,” Rod said, “that is one of those tangled webs.”

  It took Rod twenty-five minutes to tell the rest of his story. Mossad had acquired the same intelligence we had concerning Al Khalifa. They actually knew about the plan to use submersibles to recover the isotopes before we did. After the trouble and expense they’d invested to acquire them, the terrorists weren’t about to risk the isotopes on the chance that a vessel from an Arab country would sail through customs and port security without a thorough inspection. “Your surprise boarding spooked them,” he told Samir. “Thus, the explosion in the harbor that sank Al Khalifa. A spectacular diversion, but quite meaningless, actually.

  “Between us, the terrorists aren’t all that smart, despite their fixation with blowing things up, themselves included. They’ve only succeeded here, in the past, because our government was so lax in protecting its vital assets in the face of credib
le threats. The fact that both American and Israeli intel caught on to them before they were able to create havoc says a lot about how far we’ve come.”

  “Far, but not far enough,” I said. More than ever, I was convinced that we were approaching a critical juncture that was the catalyst for my strangely altered life. “We’re not out of the woods, yet. We need to know everything you know.”

  “Here’s the way it’s going to work,” William said. “We’ll vet what you tell us at the diplomatic level. I’ll need a number to call at the Israeli embassy. If it all checks out, fine, but this would not be a good time to play with the truth.”

  “I understand. Believe me, we have the same goals in mind, except mine include protecting Israel from the same threat. I’m afraid Dylan may have ended my usefulness to Mossad, however.”

  “Maybe not,” William said. “This is still between us, and if your superiors and mine agree, there’s no reason we can’t go back to doing what we were doing before all this started. The CIA’s had a file on you for years.”

  “About that…I decided to help Mossad because the Israeli government rescued my family from Turkey when I was a child. My father was Eastern Orthodox and my mother was Jewish. Times were not good for them and thousands of others in that part of the world. Israel, using contributions from American Jews, ransomed our freedom. My perspective is different from yours, but nothing I’ve done for Mossad was ever detrimental to the United States.

  “I wish I could say as much for my family,” he lamented. “These last few months, I’ve been so caught up in my multiple lives, I haven’t been much of a husband or father. Perhaps it’s time I gave all this up.” He looked pointedly at me when he said that.

  The rest of Rod’s story demonstrated why American intelligence tolerated Mossad agents in our midst. Despite a handful of spectacular cases in which the media seized on accusations of Israeli agents spying on the United States, allowing Mossad to work unimpeded was a win-win.