by Ty Patterson
I need an opening to go through that bag.
‘You know krav maga?’
Zeb looked up. Yakov had noticed his interest.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘I haven’t seen you around.’
‘You know everyone?’
‘No,’ the kidon laughed. ‘I don’t come regularly. I travel a lot. But I have been here for the last few days. Didn’t see you.’
‘I am not regular, either,’ Zeb replied, thankful that Levin hadn’t shared his description with the operatives. Yakov would have been suspicious immediately.
‘You want to spar?’
That isn’t what I had in mind.
‘Maybe it’s not for you,’ Yakov continued slyly, his alpha-male surfacing. ‘I go full contact.’
Zeb hesitated.
‘Maybe you’re at a lower level,’ the kidon said, condescendingly. ‘It’s all right. I’ll find someone else.’
‘I’ll spar.’
‘You’re sure?’ Yakov smiled smugly. ‘You saw how we fought. You’re ready for that?’
‘Yes.’
Zeb knew how he could get to the kidon’s bag.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jerusalem
Two days after Assassinations
Nine Days to Announcement
* * *
Zeb went back to the reception counter and rented protective gear. He returned to the training room, stripped off his gi and put on a loose pair of gym trousers and a tee. A chest guard, head guard, groin protection and gloves completed his attire.
‘You might want those, too,’ Yakov smirked, pointing at the shin guards and forearm guards on the floor. The kidon wasn’t wearing them.
‘I’m good,’ Zeb replied shortly, the man’s arrogance irritating him.
The two men cleared a space for themselves and faced each other.
‘Hey, Gal,’ Yakov called out to someone behind Zeb. ‘Watch us. This is how men fight.’
Zeb half-turned. The next moment, a tremendous blow landed on his chest and sent him sprawling to the floor.
‘This is krav maga, buddy,’ Yakov chuckled. The kidon held out a hand and helped him to his feet. ‘Anything goes here. You’ve got to stay alert. Don’t be distracted. I thought you said you knew—’
Zeb slapped his hand away and punched his head guard. The force of his blow rocked Yakov’s head. His jaws snapped together in an audible click. He yelled in rage and counterpunched furiously.
Zeb ducked and parried, thrust when he found an opening, took a blow to his chest, and countered with a savage kick to the kidon’s thigh.
He was breathing lightly, a thin film of perspiration on his forehead when the two men broke off for a moment.
A small group of spectators had gathered around them.
‘You know krav maga,’ Yakov admitted.
‘That’s what I said,’ and Zeb attacked with blurring speed.
He feinted with his right fist. The kidon bent back. Zeb’s left hand shot out straight at his throat. Yakov’s hands came up to counter his blow.
Zeb closed in, letting the beast break free and fill him, feeling his fingertips tingle with a surge of power. His right hand moved faster than Yakov could react. He grabbed the operative’s tee. His left glove locked around the kidon’s left wrist. His left leg kicked the operative’s feet out from under him.
Zeb spun on his right heel, lifting Yakov bodily in the air, and brought him down to the mats.
‘And that’s judo and some other disciplines,’ he said.
Yakov groaned and clutched at his right shoulder. His face turned pale, sweat dripping off his face. Zeb bent over him and helped him sit upright. He removed the man’s mask and chest guard.
‘It’s dislocated,’ he said. Just as I planned.
Men and women crowded over them. An instructor shoved his way through, his eyes angry, his rage directed at Yakov.
‘I warned you many times. Control your fighting. One day someone will get hurt. Today, it’s you.’
He felt the kidon’s shoulder with light fingers. ‘I can fix this. It’s not broken. Let’s take him to the medical room.’
Three men lifted Yakov and carried him away, with the instructor following. A group of onlookers followed them.
Zeb sank to the floor, his back against the wall. To his right was Yakov’s bag. To his left was his backpack. He removed his headguard and his gloves. Wiped his face and grabbed his water bottle with his left hand while his right dived into the kidon’s bag and searched.
It came out with two cell phones.
He looked around. No one was watching him.
He worked with practiced haste. Removed the required gear from his backpack and hooked it up to one cell. Copied its data. Repeated the move for the second cell.
He had data dumps now. He removed the batteries from Yakov’s phone. Standard make.
He replaced them with two identical-looking ones from his backpack. They were batteries, but they were also listening devices.
He had ears on Yakov now.
He stuffed the phones back in the operative’s bag and arranged its contents the way they had been. He stowed away his gear, rose and shouldered his backpack.
Went to the medical room where the kidon was now sitting, drinking from a bottle of water.
‘You don’t fight fair, friend,’ Yakov wiped his mouth.
‘It’s krav maga. There’s no such thing as a fair fight. You’re okay?’
‘Shoulder’s back in position.’ He moved his right limb gingerly. ‘No training for me for a few days.’
‘That will affect your work?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘I am taking a break.’ He sized Zeb up with keen eyes. ‘You’re good. The best I have seen in this dojo. Maybe we can spar more often.’
‘Sure, if I see you next time. I travel a lot, you do, too. Don’t know when it will be.’
Zeb slipped out of the room when the instructor bustled in and hovered over the kidon. He showered after securing his backpack in a locker and changed into his street clothes. He was returning the protective gear at the reception counter when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned. It was the instructor.
‘I saw what you did. You slowed down his fall at the last minute; otherwise he could have been hurt more seriously.’
The man looked at him consideringly. ‘It was deliberate, wasn’t it?’
‘Sir,’ Zeb laughed, ‘I am not that good. I was acting instinctively. There’s no way I could have made him land in a particular way.’
‘There are people who can make it happen. He needed to be taken down a notch.’ He winked and went inside the dojo.
Zeb looked up an app on his phone when he hit the street. Two green dots for Yakov’s cells. He looked up Riva and Adir. They were still in Istanbul, a third dot near them, for Hussain.
What’s happened to Shahi? he wondered idly. He checked his watch. Nine am.
It’ll be one am in New York. He opened a messaging app on his phone. Two grey dots next to Beth and Meghan’s names. That shade meant they were offline. Sleeping. He searched for a reasonably quiet café and found one several streets away.
He placed his order and sent Yakov’s phone dumps to the twins. The server returned with his food, coffee with beans on toast. Something light, yet filling enough for a long day during which he planned to check out other kidon.
He was on his second refill when his phone buzzed. Clare.
‘Ma’am,’ he greeted her, wincing when the quickly swallowed drink burned his throat. ‘You’re up late.’
‘You had a good night’s sleep?’
Zeb looked at his phone as if he could see her. It was unlike her to waste time on trivialities.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Had breakfast?’
‘Having it.’
‘Then you can digest this. You know Alice Monash?’
‘Our ambassador? Of course, ma’am. We haven’t met, though.’
‘She’s returning to Israel. We thought she should have enhanced protection.’
‘Good thinking, ma’am.’ He guessed who she meant by we.
‘She turned down our offer.’
‘That isn’t wise, ma’am. Things are tense here.’
‘She wants something better.’
‘Like what?’ Zeb didn’t like where this was heading.
‘She wants you.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jerusalem
Two days after Assassinations
Nine Days to Announcement
* * *
‘Ma’am,’ Zeb protested, wondering if he had heard right. ‘I don’t have the time to play protector—’
‘Save it, Zeb,’ Clare sighed. ‘I argued with President Morgan. Tried to convince Alice. She isn’t budging. You’ll have to figure something out.’
Zeb pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘When’s she arriving?’
‘Your evening. I’ll send you the details.’
He stared blankly when the call ended, unconscious of the smile the waitress bestowed on him, thinking that he was looking at her.
Avichai wants me to find these killers. If they are kidon. At the same time, I’m supposed to bodyguard our ambassador. Does anyone else want me to save the world?
His lips twisted wryly at his feeble attempts to humor himself. He finished his breakfast, deciding to worry later. An operative couldn’t let circumstances get the better of him.
He would be at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv in the evening, to meet Alice Monash. I might be able to convince her. In the meantime, he had kidon to investigate.
Eliel and Navon. The two operatives who had offered to meet him when Levin had sent out the Jarrett Epstein email. Their backstory intrigued Zeb. Both raised by foster parents. Their families had come from a different country. The two men identified as Israelis and, if anything, their origins helped them carry out several missions in their grandparents’ land. Mossad had deployed them several times in that country, and each time the two had carried out successful missions.
They’re two of the best operatives Levin has got. Both proficient with multiple weapons, but Eliel prefers the blade.
Knife work, by its very nature, required a killer to get close to victims. It was messy, brutal, and in Zeb’s experience, many of those who used the weapon liked killing.
Nothing of that sort in Eliel’s file. Which made Zeb eager to meet him and Navon.
A knife-wielding operative who is as normal as operatives go. Not many of those around.
* * *
Zeb found the kidon in a café in the Downtown Triangle of the city. It was an area bounded by Jaffa Road on one side, King George Street on another, and Ben Yehuda Street completing the third side. There were offices, shops, and outdoor cafes in the area. It was a neighborhood that catered to the yarmulke-wearing person as well as more secular office-goers.
The two men had responded quickly when he messaged them and had agreed to meet at the venue he had chosen.
Zeb was disguised as an older person. Thickset in the middle due to the padding and armor beneath his sweater, his face jowly thanks to cheek pads, a heavy nose and bushy eyebrows. His Glock was taped to his right shin, a knife sheathed to his left leg.
Eliel and Navon were seated in a corner, facing the entrance, their backs to the wall. A couple of drinks on their table that they sipped occasionally.
He entered the café and observed them as he joined the line at the counter. The two men didn’t talk much. Didn’t make eye contact when they did.
They’ve been a team for a long time. He took his coffee from the server and approached the men.
‘Jarrett Epstein?’ Eliel rose, asked in Hebrew, when he came to their table.
‘Yes.’
He pulled out the empty chair and gestured at the operative to sit. Navon hadn’t moved a muscle, his dark eyes flickering as they ran up and down Zeb.
‘You got any ID?’ he asked, an undercurrent of hostility in his voice.
‘No. What about you?’ I can show them my Mossad card, but I want to push back at them. See how they react.
‘Several.’ Navon brought out several cards, his lips twisting humorlessly. ‘Which one do you prefer?’
‘The one that says who you really are.’
The kidon collected his credentials and stuffed them in his pocket. ‘Neither of us have that. If you know who we are, you’ll know why. How do we know you’re Epstein, though?’
‘Call the ramsad. Ask him.’
Navon took him up on his offer. He dialed the director’s number, his eyes never leaving Zeb. ‘There’s a man who says he’s Epstein,’ he explained when Levin came on line. ‘You never described him. Heavy. Greying hair. Big nose. Wait …’
He snapped a picture with his phone and sent it to the ramsad.
‘Okay,’ he said and hung up.
‘You’re Epstein.’ He stowed away his phone.
‘That’s what I said.’ Zeb signaled the server and asked for a refill. ‘That tattoo on your shoulder—’ he switched his attention to Eliel, ‘why do you still keep it?’
‘You know about it … of course you would! The ramsad must have given you our files. It comes in handy. Especially when we are going to that country.’
‘And in others?’
‘Well, it’s not as if I expose my upper body to everyone. It hasn’t proven to be a problem.’
‘I know how operatives work. Most would erase any marks that could reveal their identity.’
‘I won’t. That tat is who I am.’
‘We’ve never seen you before,’ Navon asked abruptly. ‘Which department are you with?’
‘Which department do you belong to?’
‘Navon, stop!’ Eliel frowned in irritation. ‘He’s doing his job. I am sorry,’ he said, turning to Zeb and spreading his hands in apology. ‘If you’ve read our files, you’ll know we have just returned from Jordan. Our mission was stressful. We haven’t decompressed fully.’
‘And what operation was that?’
‘Tailing Ali Gaber, a colonel in their army.’ Eliel’s lips curled in a thin smile. He knew what Zeb was doing. Getting the operatives to confirm, seeing if their story strayed from what was in their dossiers. ‘We suspect he’s running an espionage ring in Israel. Here,’ he reached inside his vest and brought out a sheaf of photographs.
A man in either business attire or in uniform, striding through the streets of Amman, briefcase in hand. In a few of the images, Eliel and Navon were in the background. Each image had a time stamp on it.
‘How did you get these?’
‘It turns out we aren’t the only ones interested in Gaber. We spotted another tail. We broke into his apartment. He’s an FSB agent. We got those pictures from his camera.’
‘So, you’ve been made?’
‘Made by the FSB. We don’t know if Gaber knows about us. Even if he does, it’s not relevant. We wanted Gaber to know we were shadowing him. His reactions, his behavior, was what interested us.’
Their story matches what’s in their files.
‘Photographs are easy to fake.’
‘Yes, we know. But we have this,’ Eliel turned his cell phone to face Zeb and navigated through its menu. ‘This is my personal phone. Not a burner. You can see where it has been in the last few days.’
Zeb saw. The kidon had been in Amman all along and had returned to Israel on the evening of the assassinations.
Navon shoved his phone wordlessly across the table. Zeb checked it. Same story.
Eliel was smiling thinly when he glanced up. The Israeli handed him a flash drive. ‘Copies of our phone data as well as laptop hard drives. Normally we wouldn’t share that with anyone, but the ramsad says you have security clearance.’
‘We came prepared,’ he continued when Zeb pocketed the device without a word. ‘We know how such investigations work. Call me if you need anything else.’
It looks like they
are clear. Beth or Meghan can check that phone data and verify if it has been tampered with. I doubt it, however. They wouldn’t take such a risk.
Still, he was not ready to cross them off his list just yet.
‘Show me your tattoo.’
‘Here?’ Eliel asked, startled.
‘Yes.’
The operative glanced around quickly and pulled aside his vest. The design was small, no larger than a quarter coin. The image was recognizable, too, a revered figure in the country of Eliel’s heritage.
‘Satisfied?’ Navon asked sarcastically when Zeb nodded in thanks.
‘Not quite. Who is this FSB man? Did you identify him?’
‘Peter Raskov. That’s what he calls himself,’ Eliel replied, throwing a sharp look at his partner.
‘How do you know he’s FSB?’
‘We didn’t. Not then. We relayed the info to the ramsad, who got back to us with his identity.’
‘Why is the FSB interested in Gaber?’
‘Don’t know,’ the Israeli shrugged. ‘We didn’t get that far. The ramsad recalled us.’
‘We are done,’ Zeb laid a few notes on the table, enough to cover a tip, and rose. ‘Don’t leave—’
‘We won’t leave the country,’ Navon replied snidely. ‘Don’t worry. The director’s instructions were clear.’
Zeb followed them discreetly but didn’t see anything suspicious. The two men went to a grocery store and then headed home to their apartment in Yemin Moshe, a neighborhood close to the Old City.
He returned to his room and made another call.
It was time to talk to Grigor Andropov.
Chapter Thirty
Jerusalem
Two days after Assassinations
Nine Days to Announcement
* * *
Grigor Andropov ran a secretive intelligence outfit in Russia, similar to the Agency. While the media and the lay population knew of the FSB, only a few in the intelligence community were aware of Andropov’s organization.
