by Andy Maslen
“Daniel?”
“Arlene. What news?”
“It’s all set up. You have clearance to overfly Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Both directions. The Azerbaijanis will also offer support on the ground.”
“Thank you. We’ll move straightaway. Come and see me soon.”
“I will. Shalom, Daniel.”
“Shalom, Arlene.
Shalom
TEL AVIV
Another city, another hotel room. But at least this time, Gabriel felt he and Eli were safe from the attentions of the local spooks. Mainly because they were on the same side. He’d wanted to experience something new as they climbed into the back of the taxi at the airport, but on the thirty-minute drive to the Crowne Plaza hotel, he’d been disappointed.
There wasn’t anything wrong with Tel Aviv. But as they drove under gantries, whose blue-and-white signs pointed the way to Tel Aviv-Yafo, what he saw looked depressingly familiar. An initial expanse of flat scrubland outside the airport’s perimeter gradually giving way to low-rise and then high-rise developments. Lots of cranes. A concrete barrier on the meridian of the highway dotted here and there with graffiti. Advertising hoardings towering over the road promoting razors, local TV stations, cars, lipsticks. The sky, a leaden grey as they emerged into the hot, soupy air outside the arrivals lounge, gradually changed to a sapphire blue as they neared the city proper.
Sitting in the hotel dining room the following morning, dressed for business in a light-grey linen suit, Gabriel looked across the table at Eli. He had to admit, she looked happier than he’d seen her for a while. Her face was radiant. It wasn’t just the few hours of sunshine she’d enjoyed by the hotel pool the previous day. She looked like she belonged. Which, he reflected, she did, of course. Her eyes were sparkling and her smile was relaxed. She’d dressed in loose, sage-green trousers and a white shirt. A turquoise necklace and matching earrings set off her tan. And she was wearing makeup. Not a lot. But enough for him to notice.
“What do you recommend for breakfast?” he asked her.
“Here? Only one choice. My favourite. Shakshouka . Come on, let’s go to the buffet.”
Shakshouka turned out to be eggs poached in a tomato sauce served in individual cast-iron frying pans. Gabriel and Eli collected one each and returned to their table with the eggs and mugs of coffee. He sliced off a piece of egg and dipped it in the sauce, which was rich and spicy. Below the onions, peppers, chilli and oregano, Gabriel detected cumin and smoked paprika. Crumbled feta cheese and a scatter of chopped parsley gave the whole dish a bright, sparky edge.
“Mmm. Good,” he said, after swallowing. “I could get used to this in the mornings.”
Eli smiled back.
“I’ll share my mum’s recipe with you when we’re back in England.”
Thirty minutes later, Gabriel and Eli were riding in the back of an armoured Mercedes, being driven to Mossad headquarters.
Eli turned to him. “You know,” she said, “we’re headed to one of the world’s best-hidden buildings.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I looked it up last night. Some writer, a guy called Patrick Tyler, I think, published the location in a book. He said it was between the Glilot highway junction, a cinema and a shopping centre.”
Eli’s smile widened.
“I know. It isn’t. Tyler got his information from a retired Mossad operator.” She put air quotes round the final three words. “He wasn’t retired at all. He’s still there. He works in counter-intelligence.”
Gabriel smiled.
“So unlike our own, dear SIS, you don’t have photos all over the web of your sumptuous riverside accommodations?”
“Nuh-uh. Nor do we have terrorists shooting RPGs at them.”
“Seems sensible.”
“You think?”
Their banter was interrupted by the driver, who leaned back and announced that they had arrived.
Gabriel had experienced security checks at the CIA, the FBI, MI6 and 10 Downing Street. The Israelis had seemingly taken all the techniques used by their counterparts, combined them, refined them and added a few of their own. He emerged from the small room convinced that if he’d entered Mossad with any secrets about his person, he was certainly free of them now. Eli was waiting for him. She was standing beside a woman who appeared to be in her early forties. Compared to Eli’s casual outfit, hers was pure Fortune 500 CEO. A sharply tailored, pinstriped suit over a snowy-white shirt. Her black hair was pulled back from her face, which was marked by a long, silver scar over her right eye. They turned as Gabriel arrived. Eli smirked.
“Feeling OK?”
“Tip top! Better than a weekend at a spa. Clean and tidy inside and out.”
“Gabriel, I’d like to introduce Deputy Director for Operations, Dinah Mizrahi.”
Dinah extended her hand and Gabriel took it. Her grip was firm but not the over-compensating bonecrusher adopted by some powerful women he had met.
“Shalom, Gabriel. Welcome to Israel, to Tel Aviv, and to Mossad.”
He smiled back.
“Shalom, Deputy Director Mizrahi. Tevdh shheskemt l'ezevr lenv.” Thank you for agreeing to help us.
Her eyes popped wide.
“I am not used to being thanked in Hebrew by foreign agents. But you are most welcome, Gabriel. After all, as you are already working on our behalf, it would be discourteous not to.”
Then she turned to Eli and smiled.
“Your partner has such good manners, Eli! Now. Why don’t you come to my office and we can discuss what to do about Mr Darbandi?”
Mizrahi’s office occupied a corner of an open-plan space in which, as everywhere, analysts and agent handlers stared at monitors, made calls, sent and received emails and gathered by whiteboards or huddled round documents and screens in meeting rooms.
Standing waiting to greet them was a man in his early sixties. Trim and fit looking, with an open, tanned face demarcated by heavy black eyebrows, he smiled broadly as Gabriel and Eli entered ahead of Mizrahi.
He held his arms wide, and Eli stepped into his embrace. They kissed on each cheek before releasing each other.
“Eliya!” he said, holding her by her shoulders. “You look well. But that British weather. You are as pale as a lily. Look at you!”
She laughed.
“Gabriel, this is my old boss—”
“Not so much of the old, please!”
“My former boss, Uri Ziff. I worked for him for three and a half years. And he thinks he’s my dad! Really, Uri, my colour is fine. Maybe you need to get your eyes tested.”
Ziff rolled his eyes and made a dumb-show of screwing his knuckles into them before blinking them open and scrutinising her even more closely.
“No. If anything, you look paler. What can we do to tempt you back? A corner office like Dinah’s? Nice fat expense account? Gold-plated Uzi?”
Gabriel enjoyed watching Eli and Ziff sparring. For a moment, everything felt normal. No shadowy Russian gangsters after them. No double agents wishing destruction on Israel and their deaths as a by-product. No missing siblings.
Mizrahi called them to order, and once coffees had been requested and brought, the real business began.
“We learned yesterday that Darbandi will be finished in a matter of days. No longer than a week,” she said. No smiling now. Her face a mask of seriousness. “Vareshabad is defended from aerial attack too well for an airstrike to be effective. His laboratory and the workshops are many storeys underground.”
“We want to go back in and do it in person,” Gabriel said. “But he’s heavily protected by Revolutionary Guards, several of whom Eli and I had the pleasure of meeting on our last visit.”
“And that is where we can help you,” she said.
“We’re going to need help getting there, too. I have a feeling swanning in through the arrivals lounge at Tehran International isn’t going to work this time.”
Ziff smiled.
“Leave everything to me. I have
a meeting with Director Peretz this afternoon.”
“You can’t tell us how you’re going to distract the Guards?”
It’s best if you don’t know. You’ll find out when the time is right, I promise.”
Ziff paused, and his heavy brow seemed to gain even more weight as his black eyebrows drew together.
“Gabriel, you know of my country’s history.”
“Of course.”
“Then you know that Iran’s stated desire to wipe Israel from the map is not simply expressed in this one man, this one bomb?”
“Yes.”
“We want to do more than just kill Darbandi.”
“Meaning?”
“We intend to send a message to the Iranians that we will prove a fearsome adversary if they try to restart their nuclear weapons programme.”
Gabriel could see that Ziff was sounding him out. Probing for a sudden bout of conscience. If he was, he would be disappointed. After his experience in the MOIS building, Gabriel Wolfe was no friend of Iran or its twisted ideology.
“And when you say ‘a message’ …?”
“We want to put Vareshabad beyond use. A phrase that has some resonance for your country, too, I believe.”
“You’re talking about the IRA weapons dumps. Yes. It went beyond sawing the odd Kalashnikov in half. I think most were buried under a few hundred tons of concrete.”
“We can’t really truck that much construction material across the desert, but we have an alternative. A bomb.”
Gabriel was just about to suggest that the size of bomb they would need to utterly destroy a plant the size of Vareshabad would be about as cumbersome as a concrete mixing truck when he had a flash of insight. A bright, white flash.
“You’re going to nuke it, aren’t you?”
Ziff blew his lips out with a flapping noise. Then nodded.
“Yes, but not with some showy mushroom cloud. Though believe me, there are plenty of people here who would like nothing better than to do just that. No, we have built a low-yield, hybrid device, part conventional high-explosive, part nuclear. It’s—”
“A dirty bomb. You’re going to put Vareshabad beyond use by irradiating the fuck out of it, aren’t you?”
Ziff smiled. Though, somehow, from his lugubrious features, it emerged without a trace of humour.
“Aptly put, my dear friend. Yes. The initial charge would do little more than put a kink in the Iranians’ plans. Thirty kilos of high-explosive would do a certain amount of damage, but nothing that couldn’t be rectified. But wrap that thirty kilos in a quantity of fissionable material – in this case, Cobalt-60 – and you turn the entire plant into a hotspot that will kill anyone venturing inside the perimeter.”
Eli spoke.
“We’re going to take the bomb in with us?”
“Yes.”
“And we’re not going to come back looking like a pair of glow-in-the-dark soldier dolls?”
“No, Eliya. Don’t worry. The device is shielded with a coating of lead and a composite material we have developed. You could make the return journey twice, and a Geiger counter would not so much as chirrup.”
“They’ll have missiles, too. Probably at or near Vareshabad,” Gabriel said. “We should try to destroy them as well.”
Ziff nodded.
“We’ve developed a very effective time-delayed magnetic mine armed with C-4. We’ll send you in with some.
“How will we get into Iran?” Gabriel asked.
“You’ll land just outside Chalus on Iran’s Caspian Sea coastline. There’s a perfect spot for the chopper to set down, and you can ride straight off and get going.”
“Ride?” Gabriel asked, raising his eyebrows.
Cargo Hold
The IAF C-130 Hercules took off from Ramat David Air Force Base southeast of Haifa at 6.30 a.m. local time. Onboard were its crew of pilot, co-pilot, navigator, air engineer and air loadmaster, a squad of four mechanics and six technicians, also members of the IDF, and two passengers: Gabriel Wolfe and Eli Schochat. They were garbed in lightweight desert camouflage. Each wore combat webbing loaded with M26 high-explosive grenades, Gerber Mark II daggers (similar in shape to the Fairbairn-Sykes) in nylon sheaths, and Glock 17 semi-automatics in chest-mounted, sand-coloured nylon holsters.
Three hours earlier, Gabriel and Eli had stood on the night-cool tarmac of the apron beside Uri Ziff, watching as two Triumph Tiger off-road bikes were ridden up the ramp and lashed to the cargo rails with nylon straps. The bikes were painted in a broken pattern of beige, white and a pale grey: tanks, seats, engines, wheels, the lot. The tyres were made of a sand-coloured rubber compound. Nothing on the bikes had a glossy or metallic surface. No mirrors. No polished forks. Nothing that would glint in sunlight, giving away its rider’s position.
Gabriel turned to Uri.
“Nice bikes.”
“You approve! Good. We have thirty altogether. We asked Triumph for a few modifications. They were most helpful with the upgrades.”
“What did you have upgraded?”
Uri winked.
“Everything.”
Gabriel smiled as he watched a corporal carry two IWI ACE assault rifles up the ramp and stowed them beside the bikes. He turned at the noise of an approaching articulated lorry, painted white and with no insignia or official markings of any kind. Even the licence plate was a regular civilian type: seven black numbers grouped two-three-two on a reflective yellow ground.
“What’s in that?” he asked Ziff.
“Your advance party. When you and Eli are within one mile of the facility at Vareshabad, stop and watch the sky.”
Then Ziff smiled, before clapping Gabriel on the shoulder.
“Come on,” he said in a hearty voice. “Let’s get you and Eli boarded. You’re riding up front with the pilots.”
In the cabin, Ziff introduced Gabriel and Eli to the pilot and co-pilot. Both men wore civilian pilots’ uniforms: navy-blue suits with three gold rings at the wrists, white shirts and plain, navy-blue ties.
While the pilots went through their pre-flight routine, checking in with the control tower as they flipped switches and looked at the displays in front and overhead, Gabriel turned to Eli.
“Next stop, Baku.”
In front of them, the pilot signed off on the radio.
“Thank you, Tower. Out.”
He twisted round in his seat to speak to Eli and Gabriel.
“OK, we’re cleared for take-off.”
Just under four hours later, the plane touched down with a screech from its tyres at Baku Kala Air Base, local time 11.30 a.m. As soon as it had taxied to a stop, Gabriel and Eli unstrapped themselves and were heading through the door and into the main passenger cabin. One of the IDF men had already sprung the door, and a team of ground staff, all dressed in military uniforms, were wheeling a stairway over to the plane. It clanged against the side, causing the IDF soldiers to yell something down at the men.
Gabriel and Eli descended the stairs, into baking heat, then walked to the rear of the plane. They watched as the cargo ramp descended with a great hissing from its hydraulics before clanging down onto the concrete. Like military air bases the world over, Baku Kala was built to a fairly standard pattern. Runway, taxiways and an apron fronting a few low-rise, brick-built offices and corrugated iron hangars. Beyond the hard surfaces reflecting the heat in shimmering waves, a few low-growing trees swayed lazily in a warm breeze blowing off the sea a few miles to their east. A couple of helicopters, four- and five-rotor blade models, sat on the tarmac like dragonflies resting after the hunt.
From the dim interior of the cargo space, two IDF mechanics rode the camouflaged Tigers down and over to Gabriel and Eli, where they heeled out the kickstands and killed the engines. A second man arrived a minute or so later carrying the steel cases containing the rifles.
Gabriel walked round one of the bikes, kneeling down to open each of the panniers and additional storage bins strapped and bolted to its frame. From his crouc
h, he looked up at Eli.
“Mines, ammunition, spare petrol, water. Got your gold?”
Ziff had given each of them a roll of gold Krugerands before they left Tel Aviv.
“You used to carry something similar in the SAS I believe?” he’d said to Gabriel. “In case you were captured by tribespeople or local militias?”
“Twenty gold half-sovereigns,” Gabriel answered. “Plus a blood chit.”
Ziff frowned. “A blood …?”
“Chit. It’s just a piece of paper with a Government crest telling any civilian who helps an escaping soldier that they can present it at a British embassy or consulate and claim a reward. English, Arabic and Farsi, to cover all the bases.”
Eli patted a pocket on her chest just to the right of her pistol.
“Though our chances of being able to buy our way out of Iran if it goes sideways are, I think it’s safe to say, minimal.”
Gabriel nodded as he straightened.
“Maybe, but it’s better than nothing.”
A third IDF soldier arrived from the cargo hold with a squat, desert camouflage Bergen rucksack on his back. He eased it off his shoulders and settled it with great care onto the right rear rack of one of the Tigers before lashing it to the frame with more webbing.
Gabriel jerked his chin at it.
“Toss you for who gets to ride the bomb-bike.”
Eli grinned and shook her head.
“Israeli bomb, Israeli bike. I’ll ride it.”
“Technically it’s a British bike, so I think I should ride it.”
Eli turned around until she was facing Gabriel. She squared her shoulders and frowned.
“I’ll fight you for it,” she growled.
He took a step back, hands aloft.
“No, I’m good. I saw what you did to Captain Gaddesden, remember. Just don’t crash it.”
“Fuck you! You look after your bike, and I’ll look after mine.”
A polite cough from behind them made Gabriel and Eli turn.
An officer of the Azerbaijani army, dressed in combat gear and wearing a pair of aviator-style sunglasses, was standing stiffly to attention. In slow but perfect English, he addressed them.
