“First things first,” the officer replied, turning for the first time to face the two journalists.
Captain Avon hated dealing with the public and he disliked journalists almost as much as he despised terrorists. His recent promotion had changed his job. The pay didn’t make up for having to deal with non-military issues. Tact was not Avon’s forte. The effort of controlling his reactions showed as he ground his teeth.
“The officer,” he repeated acidly.
“We cooperate and it means we get a story, right?” said Sue Ann.
“Maybe. Now tell me about the officer,” replied Avon.
Thomas spoke up first.
“She wasn’t wearing a uniform. I just knew instinctively that she was military.”
Captain Avon turned his gaze back to the road and cursed under his breath. A terse expletive phrase borrowed from Arabic. His index finger played between his front teeth before he spoke.
“So this person appeared to be military to you, but she was not in uniform?”
“In this business your nose gets pretty good and the military stinks a certain way,” Sue Ann rejoined, provoking an angry look from Avon.
Thomas touched Sue Ann’s leg to get her to lighten up, but she continued.
“Anyway, this spy or whatever she was. They were after her. The Chinese fell on her and ignored everyone else,” she stated. She waited for the response.
“Really. And this is the story you want to report?” Avon asked, sighing deeply.
“When do I get my camera back?” demanded Thomas.
“When you hand over that memory stick, I’ll think about it.”
“There’s copyrighted transmissions on it. I’ll need a written promise from your superior before I instruct him to hand it over,” said Sue Ann. She surprised Thomas with this sudden and apparent change of heart.
“Give it to him, Thomas.”
Thomas reached into his sock. He always stashed his memory sticks there when situations got out of control. He held the device up, but just as he was about to put it in the small tray which communicated with the front seat, Sue Ann grabbed it.
“The only reason you’re getting this is that we got those Chinese guys in the suits taking the officer on it. They appeared briefly before disappearing again. But you can bet your ass I want something in return or I destroy it right now,” said Sue Ann.
She held a Bic lighter in her hand and the flame just touched the bottom of the memory card. An acrid smell of melting plastic filled the car.
“Ok. Ok. You get the story when it’s released.”
“Write it down and sign it with your name, rank and serial number or I burn the evidence,” said Sue Ann.
Avon willed himself to remain calm. He was wondering how he let this scum trap him. If I don’t get the evidence, my ass’s in a sling, he thought. Carefully he wrote his name, rank and serial number under the authorization and passed the paper through the slot in the mesh between the seats.
“Now let me see your dog tag,” demanded Sue Ann.
Avon’s anger showed only in a momentary flush in his cheeks as he twisted his neck and placed his tag against the mesh so Sue Ann could read it. Sue Ann closed the lighter. He was indeed Captain Avon and the seven digit number agreed.
“Here you go, now take us to our hotel and replace the camera that you broke when you snatched it out of our hands,” added Sue Ann, as she dropped the memory stick into the slot where she had retrieved the note of agreement.
The Captain placed the memory stick in a pocket under his flak jacket and closed the button. At least I got the evidence, he thought.
“What hotel?”
“It’s on Dizengoff,” said Sue Ann, as she fiddled with her phone. “89 Dizengoff.”
“I know where it is,” said Avon, speaking every word as though he were talking to someone senile.
The rest of the ninety-kilometer drive passed in silence. Sue Ann texted the content of the agreement in principle between her and Captain Avon and included a photo of the text. Her editor texted back to forward Thomas’ stills and told her to get on the story so he could break it before the evening news in America. His last words congratulated Thomas for his stills and gave them instructions where to buy a new camera.
Adrenaline gone, Thomas and Sue Ann felt let down as Avon opened Sue Ann’s door. The busy thoroughfare and lush side streets, filled with flowers and greenery, brought them back to reality.
“Don’t go anywhere today. We may need to contact you,” said Avon.
“What? An’ miss my scoop?” Sue Ann retorted.
“You know what I mean,” replied Avon.
Thomas touched Sue Ann’s elbow to remind her they were on tenuous ground here. She turned to him: “Grow some balls, Thomas.”
“I’ve had it, Sue Ann. I need a shower an’ some sleep. Give it a fuckin’ break, will ya?”
I need to get away and use the suit. In a kidnapping it's the first day that's the most important. This time I'm gonna do the right thing, thought Thomas.
Avon gave a coarse laugh at Sue Ann’s predicament and returned to his vehicle. He knew where he had to go. He had recognized the description of the female officer, the one with the ‘military’ appearance. In the briefing before he left for Mount Carmel, his superior ordered him to liaise with a woman answering to the description given by Thomas and Sue Ann - and now the Chinese had her. Why would they kidnap a Mossad agent? thought Avon. His driver cleared his throat.
Avon disliked communicating outside the line of command but his superior instructed him to pass all information to a number at the spy agency. When he gave his entry code, they told him to proceed to an address in Haifa at once.
“Get that memory stick here or your ass is grass,” said the voice on the other end. Avon’s driver cleared his throat again.
“Make sure someone stays here to keep an eye on the journalists and get us to Haifa, the Mossad, on the double. Here’s the address,” Avon snapped.
While they drove, the driver ordered a unit of two officers to remain behind and report any movement by the journalists. He also suggested one of them should cover the back entrance to the hotel.
Avon’s apprehensions grew when he saw the nondescript apartment building on Yona Street in the old city of Haifa. His vehicle couldn’t double park and the driver pulled into a parking lot adjacently opposite his destination. Captain Avon made quite a spectacle entering a women’s hair salon in his full military gear.
The women seated around reading magazines didn’t bat an eye as a door opened at the back of the establishment. A stunning older woman with green eyes and careworn but amber skin approached him. She gestured with her left hand to a young woman cutting another’s hair and the young woman jumped to attention and ran out the door. Her goal: Avon’s transport. The young woman produced an identity card and placed it against the driver’s side window of Avon’s Escalade. The driver opened his window a crack.
“You’re to return to base. Captain Avon will be detained for some time. He will contact you.”
“But-” said the driver to the young agent’s back.
The Memory Chip
After she took the memory chip from him, the woman walked behind Captain Avon and he could feel her sizing him up, but she smelled so refreshing that he didn’t care. She passed close to him to open the door to a room that assaulted his nostrils. Avon turned to look at her. She looked familiar, then he got it. She’s an older version of the one who disappeared.
“In here?” he said.
“We need to have a talk,” the woman replied, her green eyes never leaving Avon’s.
He hesitated, then he heard a man’s voice from inside the interrogation room.
“Don’t go there,” said the voice.
Avon sighed, turned and walked by the woman. Stale cigarette smoke mixed with the unmistakeable smell of urine in the room depressed him. He remained standing beside the table with two chairs. Keep positive, he thought.
“Who’re we expecting?
” asked Avon.
The woman just laughed, but she seemed disposed to him and he felt relieved as a result.
“Have a seat Captain Avon.”
He sat down and she offered him a vile smelling cigarette.
“You must’ve looked at my file. You know I don’t use those things.”
“Don’t smoke it. Just burn it. It’ll cover up the stink of piss in here and I can’t stand holding them. Would you do that for me?”
Relief flushed over Avon. I’m not under suspicion. The woman looked at the glass wall and made a cutting motion under her chin with her left hand. Avon knew that the watchers had just turned off the video feed, maybe even the audio too.
“We are looking at the chip you gave us now. I need to know anything you might be able to add from the scene,” the woman said.
“Best if you ask me direct questions. It was all over when we got there.”
“Ok. There’s some confusion about the lead chopper. We need the nose feed.”
“Use my phone. Dial Star 61 and it’ll connect you to the mechanic in charge of spooling feeds upon arrival,” replied Avon.
The woman left the room and handed Avon’s phone to someone waiting just outside the door. A second woman returned with the first. Avon looked at the two of them and jumped to attention when he recognized the second woman. That one’s right up there in Mossad, he thought, trying to remember the Special Forces briefing years ago that she had attended. He remembered her because she had an ugly face but lovely eyes and the incongruence made her appealing.
“At ease, Captain. We just need any information you may have, and fast. In any kidnapping, it is the first forty-eight hours that matter. Try to remember things out of place. Was anyone suspicious looking?” asked the second woman.
“That cameraman. There was something off about him. The woman I recognized from Al Jazeera reports, but the camera guy, well, I dunno. He was too careful. Like he was hiding something, but maybe it was just the memory I took from him in the transport,” replied Avon.
“Do you think the nose camera got a clear shot of him?” asked the two women together.
These women are involved personally in this, he thought.
“I ordered a video sweep to do just that. I’m sure we got everyone. Just not positive we got all the faces. Anyway, I dropped the reporters off at their hotel and I left a unit there just to be sure. We can get ‘em. No problem.”
“We’re gonna look at that film ourselves, Captain. Please wait here. We’ll be back shortly. You want coffee or something?” asked the first woman.
“Water, please.”
Yochana, recently called back from an imposed early retirement, caught the reflection of her large nose in the glass of the two way mirror in the room adjacent to the one holding the captain. She noticed the tension in her oldest friend’s posture, her shoulders rising up and her teeth gripped tight. A young man, dressed in baggy clothes and a coffee stained t-shirt, ushered the women into two chairs. He opened his palms outwards and slid his hands in the air and a holographic image of the rooftop lookout at Mount Carmel appeared in the room.
“They have holographic video in the nose hubs of helicopters now?” asked Ekaterina, her poise returning despite her anxiety as a mother.
“Nah,” said the blasé but brilliant young man as he spilled yet another slosh of coffee on himself. “I ran it through a little thing I made. You pick up more this way, believe me,” he added.
“Now I believe them when they say you’re the best.”
“Kind words, coming from you. Your reputation-”
“You overstep yourself. What am I seeing here, young man?” asked Ekaterina.
“I’m going to pause here for comment,” he said with a sweep of his arm. “Look at that purple halo, there. That’s your agent,” said the technician.
The large observation room filled with human shapes and a hazy aura surrounded one of them. Ekaterina and Yochana had seen this holographic technology before but it never failed to impress them.
“Now, watch what happens here. I am going to slowly dial through the next few scenes. Look. Come here with me. Get on the other side of your agent. You’re seeing what she sees now.”
“Lord. That line of darkness up there?” asked Ekaterina.
“Nanofog. I’ve never seen anything like it. Ok, I’ve seen hints of it but nothing like this. I am going to go slowly through the next part too. Remember my software recreated this from the nose camera as it approached. It happened fast, only about five frames.”
“It looks like she just noticed the approaching fog,” said Yochana.
“What’s she doing there?” asked both Yochana and Ekaterina at once.
As they watched, Kefira adjusted the knob on her watch in one quick movement and the halo around her disappeared. Then she removed her watch and passed it to the young man beside her. Just as he took it, an opaque discoloration covered Kefira and swallowed her up. The shape around her disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Bright lights and sounds consistent with stun grenades accompanied the fog and Kefira’s disappearance. Yochana leapt out of her seat and ran to the room holding the captain.
“Contact your unit at the hotel. We need to detain that cameraman, now. Call the unit, damn it,” she yelled at the captain.
“I gave the other official my phone. It’s Star 82 to talk to the unit.”
Yochana ran back to the observation room. The holograph video filled the air. Her adoptive daughter, Kefira, had disappeared. Somehow the Chinese sent a patrol inside nanofog to catch her. They must be able to see our fog. That’s how they knew where she was, thought Yochana. She took the phone from the table in front of her, near the computer, and she ran back to give it to the captain.
“Call your unit, now. Detain that cameraman. And good work, Captain.”
Avon spoke into his phone and the two IDF officers on the other end sprinted up the stairs to rooms 15 and 16. They breached the doors simultaneously, weapons out in front of them. Sue Ann stood wrapped in a towel, talking on her phone and looking out a large picture window. She started shouting when the Taser hit and she fell to the ground. The other officer was not so lucky. He couldn’t find anyone in Thomas’ room. Fuck, how’d he get out of here? thought the young soldier as he spoke into his shoulder mike. It was networked to the captain’s phone and the corporal knew his captain. A sarcastic remark from him now would mean he was busted back to private.
“The cameraman’s not here, Sir. He must’ve gone out the back entrance.”
“Your orders were to split up. Was it more convenient for you to sit together in front of the hotel, Private?”
“Sir.”
“Hold the reporter.”
Thomas had been playing with Kefira’s nanosuit for almost an hour before his newly developed telekinetic senses felt a threat moving up the stairs towards him. While looking in the mirror, one of the first skills he had learned to use in Kefira’s suit was becoming invisible. I can will myself to do things, he thought as he disappeared. When the watchers rushed up the stairs, his suit warned him of danger approaching him. In an instant he floated up to the ceiling in the far corner of the room and watched the young solder search for him. Thomas wasn’t yet sure if invisibility went as far as intangibility. After the soldier spoke to his superior and left the room, he returned to the ground and sat on the bed.
The soldier didn't see me. I can’t believe it. I’m stepping off that treadmill here. I can’t die like my father and the suit’ll make it possible, but what if I fuck up? Maybe mother was right, better to move on. No, I have to find Kefira. I can still sense her presence. Somehow this suit’ll help me get to her. She’s out there. I know it, but where?
Chapter Two
Bullies Everywhere
“You can’t just turn it on and off, Mary, Sweet. It’s an undying obligation,” said Thomas’ da.
Thomas’ mother bore existence with gritted teeth. Too often the men close to her threw it all away in the n
ame of The Movement.
I’m sick to death of the bloody Movement, she thought.
She clenched and unclenched her hands under the table. She’d prepared piping hot cabbage in an aromatic milky sauce to soften her man up.
“You know how I love this meal. I don’t know how you do it, Mary. Always providing like you do on what I bring home, my treasure.”
“We’ve somet’ing to talk about dear,” said Mary.
“Son, why don’t you go in the other room and turn on the telly. Isn’t that program you like on now?”
“Thanks Da.”
“I want him to hear what we have to say.”
“Ah, Ma.”
“Do as your mother says, son.”
“It’s getting too dangerous out there. I don’t want you going to the rally tomorrow. What if something happens?”
“I can take care of myself, Secret of my Heart. Don’t go worrying yourself over nothing.”
“Pa,” said Mary. “You’re not listening to me. You’re starting to be a bad influence on the lad.”
Thomas’ da put down his fork and took in a deep breath. A pained sigh escaped from his mouth without his knowing, a habit that Mary’d remarked on more and more often recently. He knew Mary was serious.
“Don’t go using your guilt trips on me, Mary. I’m no coward. We’re in this fight for the long haul. I understand your fears, but I have to go or I’d be a traitor to the cause. Don’t use the boy against me.”
“My father got out and he’s surviving in the south. We could too.”
“Don’t compare me to that useless ‘feck’. He’s lucky he’s got his kneecaps after what he did. I’m a man of my word.”
“Man of your word? Thomas, you hear your da. I don’t ever want to hear you say that. Your word’s not going to help us if something happens to you.”
“Pass the salt, would you Thomas?”
Thomas reached for the salt shaker and gave it to his father. What’s Ma talking about? What’s gonna happen to Da? A mixed jumble of emotions filled Thomas’ bowed head. His parents never argued and it frightened him to hear them disagreeing. Mary started to speak, but Thomas’s father raised his hand and shook his head while his eyes stared at Thomas’ lowered head. I want to be like Da, but I don’t want to go against Ma. I don’t know what to do.
Diamond Rain: Adventure Science Fiction Mossad Thriller (The Spy Stories and Tales of Intrigue Series Book 2) Page 2
