Wednesday's Child

by Alan Zendell

  “Mossad is not your enemy,” Rod said, emphatically. “It has deep roots inside organizations like Hamas and Hezbolah, and it often feeds you information about their activities when your interests are threatened. Mossad knew about the plans to set off dirty bombs in this country before American intelligence because Hamas was aggressively trying to obtain the same weapons for use against Haifa and Tel Aviv. Also because we are less squeamish than you about our methods when survival is on the line.

  “Even in the distorted mindset of Islamic fanaticism, money talks. Hamas are like children with their noses pressed against the window of a toy store, jealously watching their better-funded peers walk off with all the prizes. But recently, they received backing from a wealthy Saudi family known for sponsoring suicide bombings. The Saudis told Hamas that if it could negotiate a deal for radiological materials, they would fund it.”

  Hamas agents had contacted terrorist cells in the United States with Mossad on top of them every step of the way. The day before the meeting in Laurel, the Hamas representative was snatched and replaced by Rod Burdak, but the terrorists, naturally paranoid, used several levels of code words and phrases, usually symbolic quotes from the Quran.

  “In our haste to set up the operation,” Rod said, regretfully, “we slipped up, and the Hamas agent I was to impersonate fed us a pass-phrase the terrorists would recognize as a covert distress signal. During my meeting with the two Arabs in Laurel, just as I identified a key contact in the acquisition chain, I saw them exchange glances and I knew I’d blown it. If they hadn’t both had to turn to reach for their weapons…I hated wasting the resource they represented, but they left me no choice. They would have killed me if I hadn’t killed them first.”

  The way he referred to killing the two terrorists as wasting a resource chilled me, resonating as it did with my own lack of remorse over firing the fatal shot.

  “You didn’t, actually,” I said.

  “Didn’t what?” Rod asked.

  “Kill them both. You left the one whose bullet grazed your face alive. Someone else fired the fatal shot. The FBI found a nine-millimeter Walther round in his thorax.”

  “There was no one in the room except me and the two terrorists, and I only carry a Glock. It must have been someone who entered the room after I left. If you were there, photographing me, you must have a picture of him, too.”

  A glance at William told me he’d already worked it out, though Samir and Mary listened expectantly. “I don’t need a photograph,” I said. “After you left, I looked into the room and saw your yellow hat. When I went in to retrieve it, the one who was still alive took a shot at me. I didn’t have a choice, either.”

  The dense silence that followed seemed to go on endlessly. Mary was deadpan, but Samir had a strange look on his face, as if he were seeing me for the first time. Time re-started when William cleared his throat.

  “We seem to have a situation, here,” he said to Rod. “I’m going to have to ask you to be our guest until we work this out. We have a couple of secure apartments down the hall for that purpose. You can phone your wife, but the lines are tapped. You’re not to communicate with anyone else until I tell you otherwise. If you violate that, there’ll be a couple of marines on you in seconds. I hope the Israeli embassy cooperates rather than resorting to delaying tactics.”

  Rod accepted William’s terms, seemingly confident everything would work out. “Just one thing before we end this interview,” he said. “Some associates of mine are still holding the Hamas agent. His people will want to know what happened to him. Right now, they’re assuming it was he who killed those two in the motel. If he doesn’t surface soon, they’ll know something’s up. If we act quickly we might still be able to get something out of that debacle.”

  William said, “Does the guy you abducted know who took him?”

  “No. We decided to keep him isolated until we knew how the operation turned out. A decision about what to do with him is supposed to be made tomorrow.”

  “Turn him over to us,” William said. “We’ll make it look like it was us all along and let it leak through back channels that we were on to him and we trailed him to the motel. We’ll also let it be known that we haven’t gotten anything useful out of him. Since terrorism is involved, we can hold him under military guidelines and prevent him from contacting anyone.”

  Rod said that would solve a problem for Mossad, too, and agreed to set it up, if William would let him make some calls. William could stay on the line and they’d conduct all their business in English. William said that would need diplomatic clearance.

  He grabbed my arm as we filed out.

  “I oughta lock you up, too,” he said. “If I didn’t know you so well… I’m not sure I do know you anymore. You had two days to tell me you shot one of those guys. Why the hell did I have to find out this way? I don’t know which would be worse, trying to protect your friend Gayle or covering your own ass. What would you have done if I hadn’t arranged for you to meet the FBI agent at the scene Thursday afternoon?”

  “I’d have done exactly what I did, using my own credentials. You made it easier, but I’d have worked it out. As for not reporting in right away,” (I couldn’t tell him Wednesday morning was yesterday, for me,) “I’d just killed a man; even though I was justified and he probably would have died anyway, I was pretty shook up. I knew I hadn’t left a trail, so I decided to wait until I saw you face to face and let you decide where to go with it. I didn’t tell Henry White, either.”

  William thought for a few seconds. “You and I need to have a serious talk, Dylan. When this stuff with Burdak wraps up, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on here.”

  I turned to go, but he wasn’t finished.

  “By the way, we haven’t had any luck tracking the guys who recovered the canisters from the harbor, though they’re obviously who the contract with APL says they are. You think Burdak could help with that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask him.”

  ***

  Gayle knew Rod’s family had fled from religious persecution, helped by an unofficial arm of the Israeli government. She knew about his Jewish roots; she did not know about his connection to Mossad. Notwithstanding William’s outburst, I hadn’t been trying to protect her, but I’d have preferred that any revelations about her husband not be attributed to me.

  The Israeli embassy acted with dispatch. Saturday morning, Carlton Manzone had breakfast at a Washington hotel with an Israeli cultural liaison who verified every point in Rod’s account. The issue was resolved by noon.

  Rod proved correct. Unless Mossad killed the Hamas agent in cold blood, they were in a sticky situation holding him captive. Turning him over to us was a win for both sides, and it helped establish Rod as someone William could work with in the future. A kinder, gentler Rod Burdak went home to Gayle and his kids.

  The incident caused me to drastically revise my opinion of him. He might be dour and secretive, but I couldn’t help admiring him. William had obviously reacted the same way, instinctively wanting him on our side.

  WEEK 4

  29.

  Ilene, Jerry, and I worked out a way to document everything that happened as a result of my day-switching. Each week, on my Thursday evening, Jerry and Ilene would record the day’s news from media outlets and the Internet, and add personal notes of their own. They’d store everything on a flash drive which I would carry with me when I dropped back to Wednesday. I asked Jerry to add encrypted items that only had meaning for him that he’d find when we compared notes on Friday.

  Contrasting what we recorded on my Thursday with the state of the world on Friday would tell me whether my actions on Wednesday changed things significantly. I also hoped that seeing how Ilene’s interactions with me changed her Thursday would ease the strain on her, but there was no guarantee of that. I counted on only two things: amassing evidence to prove that I was living days out of order and getting better at predicting which events I could influence and whic
h ones I couldn’t.

  Except for the fact that it could manipulate the space-time continuum, we knew nothing about the powerful entity that Ilene, partly as a joke, and partly because naming it made it less terrifying, had called the Übermensch. I understood, now, that the Übermensch intended for me to alter some events that had already occurred. The implications of that were enormous; I feared that I would unknowingly cause a catastrophe downstream in time.

  On Friday, August 1st, I made a list of differences between my July 31st and everyone else’s. I didn’t think living Thursday before Wednesday had significantly affected the outcome of my visit to APL. There was nothing in the media on Friday that reflected my actions on Wednesday, but their effects might not show up for a while. The possibility that Karminian might change his mind about talking, Henry White’s investigation, and my involvement with Rod all had significant potential to impact future events. Speaking of Rod, he went back to doing what he’d always done, except that, unknown to Gayle, he and I now had an open line of communication.

  The most open-ended event arising out of last week’s day-switching was my role in the death of one of the terrorists. I couldn’t imagine the conversation William intended to have with me, but the more important unknown was the FBI investigation. I convinced William to let me try to work it out with Henry White.

  I felt a strong connection with Henry, a near-compulsion to engage with him again. With the media scenting blood over the Laurel killings, he’d be working with his team in the Baltimore Field Office on Saturday. When I called his cell phone, he actually sounded pleased to hear my voice.

  “How’s the investigation going?” I asked, knowing full well that it wasn’t.

  “The most promising lead so far is what you got from Karminian. We matched the Arabic handwriting to a ninety percent certainty with a person of interest high on our watch list. He was a suspect anyway, but now we can connect him directly to the dead Arabs.

  “The shooters are another matter. Forensics came up empty except for the Walther slug.”

  “If you ask me,” I offered, “tracing the dead guys’ connections is more important than finding out who killed them.”

  “I agree, but I can’t just bag the investigation. The Post would love that.”

  “I might be able to help keep them off your back if you’re interested.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  I didn’t like manipulating him, but there was something to be said for approaching a delicate subject the right way. I proposed a joint investigation, suggesting that we had sources he didn’t have access to, and it had to stay that way for security reasons. I hate that bullshit, but it comes in handy sometimes.

  “Suppose you worked on tracing the victims’ connection to the isotopes we’re searching for, and let us go after the shooters. That way, you can pass the buck to us when the reporters come after you about the killings, and you can focus on what’s really important – stopping the terrorists from killing people and creating chaos.”

  Henry liked the idea. He thanked me. “I think my Director’ll buy it.

  I told him, between us, that I’d keep him up to date on our side of things, though I might have to keep certain details, like the names of the shooters, confidential. He said I was welcome to come back down to his territory and work with him if he found anything worth pursuing. It couldn’t have worked out better; I couldn’t have explained impulses like the one driving me to connect with Henry, but as long as they worked out, I wouldn’t tinker with success.

  Henry called back later in the day to say the arrangement was a go, and I phoned William with the news. His fire had cooled, no doubt helped by what he saw as the continuation of my winning streak. Since yesterday, a potentially nasty mess had turned into a coup, with both Mossad and the FBI developing leads on the issue that mattered most to him.

  “So you and I are okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but why do I have the feeling that you’re crawling further and further out on a limb and it could break off any minute?”

  “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I won’t embarrass you.”

  I didn’t admit that in my weaker moments I had similar thoughts as the need to continue being proactive nagged at me, pointing straight at Henry. It wasn’t logical, just another of those gut feelings that I’d decided to follow wherever they took me.

  Sunday I called Henry on a secure line. It would have been easy to believe some irresistible force meant for us to work together, but I wasn’t quite there yet.

  “I thought I’d hear from you again,” he said.

  “I was thinking about what we said, yesterday.” I suddenly felt stuck. What could I say that wouldn’t convince him I was crazy? “I’d like to propose a working arrangement, but it has to be just between us.”

  “I think I can live with that. Working with you’s been interesting, so far.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. It was William all over again. No one wanted to jinx my recent success with too many questions.

  “I’m glad you feel that way. I have a confidential source of information that’s so reliable, I’ve never regretted acting on it. But for this to work you’ll have to take a lot on faith.

  “Okay, I have sources I can’t compromise too. How would you involve me?”

  “I sometimes learn things that demand quick responses, the kind I need help with. Now that it’s clear that Washington terrorist cells are involved, I need someone I can count on in your area. I’d like that person to be you, but I don’t want to put you in situations that would be indefensible to your boss. I’m not always big on following procedure.”

  Henry didn’t answer right away. “What are we talkin’ about here? You’re not gonna put my pension in jeopardy, are you?”

  “Not intentionally,” I chuckled. “As long as success and my luck hold and I make my Agency look good, they go along with my methods without demanding explanations. I’d need your people to do the same.”

  Henry was intrigued. He said he could give me a better answer if he knew more. How much could I tell him?

  “Usually, it’ll involve preventing something from happening, like interdicting bad guys before they accomplish their objective.”

  “Aaahhhh.” Henry’s sigh was like a dominant chord. He wanted more.

  “I’ll give you an example, but you can’t repeat this. William would tear my head off,” which made Henry laugh out loud. “I had a tip about the attack on the ship in New York harbor the night before it happened. William was planning to meet it at the dock and board it, which might have been disastrous for my unit. I called him late that night to warn him off, which put him in a tough spot, because switching gears involved several agencies. He had to decide fast and be ready to demobilize everyone quickly on my say-so alone.”

  “He must really trust you.”

  “I guess he does. The thing is, the same thing might happen with you. What if I called out of the blue and said I needed you to bring a squad somewhere and meet me in an hour? You’d know the objective, but you’d have to take all the rest on faith. The only thing you can count on for sure is that if I call, it’ll be urgent. There probably won’t be time to discuss it.”

  “It sounds like you’re expecting something specific.”

  I hated to say it, but, “Right now it’s just a hunch, but if I didn’t think this conversation was necessary, I wouldn’t have called. There isn’t any more I can tell you, now.”

  “I guess that’ll have to do, then,” he said. “Call if you need me. I’ll do what I can.”

  I laid the phone down, amazed at myself. I’d called Henry on a blind impulse. The whole time we were talking, I’d felt like I was listening to someone else say those things.

  30.

  I’d promised I would share everything with Ilene from now on, but there would always be things I couldn’t or shouldn’t say. It wasn’t security, I’d made up my mind about that. William or someone else might decide to prosecute me for violating any
number of federal statutes one day, but those laws hadn’t been written with the Übermensch in mind. I was concerned about avoiding telling Ilene things that would only make her life more difficult. Moreover, she seemed content just to have me home in one piece. She was clearly of two minds about how many details she wanted.

  When she asked about my surveillance at the motel, I told her we’d identified the shooter, but the Agency had thrown a security blanket over his identity. I don’t know what I’d have done if she’d pressed me further – I couldn’t mention anything about Rod to either her or Gayle.

  Things were quiet for a few days. William had set his investigators on the trail of the two men Peter Dignan told me about, and we fed Henry’s team the identity of the terrorist handler Rod identified before the shootings. Henry knew not to ask.

  I surprised Jim and Gayle by showing up in the office on Monday, and again on Tuesday. There was plenty to keep me busy, but I needed to talk to Gayle. I drifted into her office and shut the door.

  “How was your weekend?”

  “Good. Very good.” She had a dreamy, schoolgirl look on her face.

  “I’m happy for you, Gayle. That’s quite a turnaround from a few weeks ago. You’re even okay with the cast?”

  She said that was fine, then seemed at a loss for words. “I’m still embarrassed about pouring my heart out to you, only to have Rod say what he did last weekend.”

  I nodded. “I admit, I was a little skeptical, but it sounds like everything’s going well.”

  “Better than I could have dreamed. He’s a different person. It’s like he was living in a nightmare and he suddenly woke up. The man I married is back.” We talked some more, and I did some dancing when she asked what I’d been doing.

  “You’re starting to sound like Rod,” she joked. “Why do the men in my life have so many secrets?”

  I left her office feeling good and re-engaged with my overflowing inbox. By Tuesday afternoon, I was bursting with anticipation about what might happen on Wednesday and Thursday.