by Gary Haynes
He asked Lester to take over now that they were close to TSM’s apartment and said he’d meet them back there. Lester protested, saying he’d go with him, but Tom said he wanted to know if they were after him, and he had a piece, so Lester shouldn’t worry, though he appreciated his concern.
He knew that if Lester went with him he couldn’t be sure they were after him. He didn’t tell Lester, because he didn’t want TSM to hear, that if the men in the BMW were after him, it meant that it was likely that the Westerner had sent them, and that meant he might just be Ibrahim.
But TSM hadn’t attempted to intervene, which Tom also felt was odd, given that he’d been so insistent about not using a weapon.
As Tom got out a wood pigeon flew over his head. It veered sharply to the right and up past the twelve-foot-high entry gates of one of the upscale houses as it became aware of him. A natural reaction, he thought.
Beyond the gate, flecked with ivy and dark green moss, was a gravel driveway on which were parked an assortment of prestige cars. Either side of the lawn were immaculate flowerbeds, pink dahlias and bright yellow sunflowers, nodding in the breeze, their petals soaked with rainwater. It wasn’t the type of neighbourhood to risk firing a handgun in, but then again, Tom thought, it wasn’t the type of neighbourhood where people would rush out brandishing their own weapons, either.
Strolling down the street he heard the staccato sound of the old engine that had once been a low purr behind him. He knew it was the BMW following him at a crawl. He decided to speed up and see how it would react, although in truth he knew how it would, an ambivalent mixture of exhilaration and anticipation careering through his veins.
As he came upon a side street, a young couple in their late teens emerged onto the road he was walking down, half a dozen yards in front of him. The curly haired, skinny male had his arm firmly around his even skinnier girlfriend’s waist. They were walking hip to hip, laughing and flinging their heads back. The girl had sleek black hair that cascaded down her back to her thin waist. They veered off into an alley and were gone in no time. Despite their obvious inability to act in any way that might assist him, their departure left Tom feeling oddly vulnerable, but he had set his store and he had no choice other than to keep walking.
Chapter 72
After a couple of minutes, Tom purposely walked down a cul-de-sac, where the elegant houses became more intermittent, and he slowed down again, hearing the BMW ease to a stop. He turned around to confront the occupants, without really weighing up his options. Vaguely, he made out what appeared to be a huge man in the driver’s seat, sitting beside a slight man, who looked as if he was East African, probably Eritrean or Sudanese.
The passenger got out, leaving the door ajar, and Tom saw that he was typically small-headed and long-limbed. He was wearing a black leather jacket, black jeans and black boots. The man walked over to within two yards of him, a blank expression on his face.
“What do you want?” Tom asked in French.
The man opened his jacket with his left hand and Tom noticed the handgun tucked into the man’s jeans. Not a good place to be, he thought, given that an iron sight could easily catch on the fabric as it was pulled up. The man nodded towards the car. Me in the front, him in the back, Tom thought. Not a chance.
“You’re kidding, right?”
As the guy shook his head, he saw his gun hand move up to wipe away the rain that was seeping from his forehead into his dark eyes. Tom went for the SIG that TSM had given him, which was in an open-topped plastic holster on his own hip. He’d drawn an identical gun over ten thousand times in practice, and he could do it quicker than anyone he knew.
Tom kept the SIG out of sight from any prying eyes by holding it tight against his thigh. The African didn’t react at first, but then he turned and began to stroll back to the BMW. Tom had the answer to one question, namely that they were after him, but just now a hundred other ones were tearing through his mind.
“Hold up there,” Tom said.
After about three yards, the man’s right hand reached up towards his waist. Tom fired one-handed, feeling the handgun buck and hearing the brass case hit the slick tarmac a split second before he heard the man screaming. The round had imbedded itself into the man’s shoulder. When a person got hit by a 9mm the bullet went in smooth and cut through flesh and capillaries as clean and precise as a surgeon’s scalpel. The trauma caused shock, which in turn caused the victim to collapse, rather than the impact. Death normally arouse from internal blood loss.
Before the man fell, Tom saw the driver dip down to the dash. Tom launched himself into a forward roll to the left, squeezing the trigger as he popped up. The second round caught the driver in the kneecap, from the side.
They both howled in pain, writhing around like men with an excruciating cramp. Blood had spurted out from the two entry wounds, but now bubbled, as if it was mud in a hot spring. Tom ran over to the car. Seeing the driver rolling around in the footwell, he turned and walked back to the African, who had passed out, with pain, he knew.
Tom frisked the guy quickly, pulling out a cellphone and a wallet. He fetched out his own cell and took a photo of the guy’s cellphone number before flicking through the wallet. He took out a credit card and took a quick snap of that, too. Replacing the items, he checked the nearest house for anyone at the windows. They were clear.
He had to move fast. There was no risk of these guys going to the cops, even if they lived and didn’t bleed out, but the gunshots could easily get someone in the neighbourhood to make a call unless they figured it was one of the hunters in the nearby wood.
He walked purposely towards the open end of the cul-de-sac, hitching up his jacket over his head, ostensibly to shelter form the rain. He’d send the digitals to Crane, see what came up.
Chapter 73
Over two thousand miles away, three people were sitting in a ten-year-old VW estate moving at twenty miles per hour through a pine forest situated ten miles southeast of Jerusalem. There was only a one hour time difference between Paris and the capital of the State of Israel, but in terms of geopolitics they may as well have been from different solar systems.
Ostensibly, the Israelis were regular citizens out for a picnic. The track through the forest was little more than a series of potholes and compact soil, punctuated with stones and boulders. The male driver was doing his best to avoid the hazards, but the VW’s suspension was taking a hammering.
After a few minutes, a clearing came into view, with a fifteen-foot-high, double chain-linked fence encircling it, topped with razor wire. Steel poles held searchlights and concealed infrared cameras in place. Two men dressed in blue overalls walked the fence with Dobermans. In the centre of the clearing was a seemingly derelict building, a concrete oblong, with broken windows and a flat roof. A cluster of aerials and satellite dishes had been fitted in the centre of the roof, although they were protected from view by stacked pallets and green tarps.
One of the guards unlocked the huge padlocks and pulled the wrapped-around chains loose before opening the wire mesh gates wide enough for the car to enter. The dogs barked and strained at the leash. As the man closed the gates the car stopped adjacent to a tarmac walkway that surrounded the building. The trio inside got out and walked towards a padlocked metal door. It was rust-ridden and daubed with graffiti.
Beneath the building were over thirty rooms, which were connected by a maze of corridors; a bunker of sorts. This was a virus-free communications centre. The technology was used for multiple functions, including radio interceptions, cellphone tracing, sophisticated computer hacking, distance eavesdropping, and people and vehicle tracking.
There were two men and one woman, all of them Mossad operatives. The woman was called Esther Markowitz. Dressed in a simple light brown dress and a beige-coloured hijab, her skin was smooth and flawless, like lacquered softwood, her hair long and smelt faintly of cherry blossom; her one concession. She was five-eight, with muscular legs, slim arms and a sculptured neck.
Most of her features were, in fact, individually defective, almost outsized, yet viewed together she was close to being a rare beauty.
Before she’d joined the Mossad, she’d lived in Tel Aviv and had worn tie-dyed sarongs and halter-neck tops. Her husband had said he’d enjoyed holding her hand and admiring the contrast of colour between her soft brown skin, with the aroma of coconut oil, and the bright gold of her ancestral rings. That was before the day he had walked randomly into a restaurant not far from the Western Wall.
He had been almost decapitated by a dinner plate-size piece of glass that had been propelled at a hundred miles an hour by the shockwave from an explosion caused by thirty pounds of Semtex hidden in a backpack left underneath one of the tables. Their daughter, Miriam, was cared for by her dead husband’s parents. She got to see her about once a month and then only in the sterile surroundings of an IDF compound near the border with Jordan.
The younger man had a handsome, but essentially morose-looking face, with a thin nose and narrow eyes. His hair was short, shaved up at the back. The older man was called David Steinman, an olive-skinned forty-five-year-old, with thinning curly grey-black hair and a voice that was almost sonorous and contrasted with his sheer muscular bulk. He’d been a Special Forces major and his first assignment on joining the Mossad ten years ago had been to poison two members of Hamas’s political wing.
Esther had infiltrated Hamas two years ago, masquerading as the widow of a murdered Iraqi politician, and acting as a de facto political advisor. Given her past, she found the emotional aspect of the role easy to play convincingly. The geopolitics and learning to pass herself off as an authentic Islamic activist had taken eighteen months of intensive language and specialist instruction at a Mossad institute, followed by six months’ COMMS, weapons and counterterrorism training.
The secure conference room they were sitting in was five yards down, a cellphone-free zone, with just the metal table and chairs, and a water cooler.
“There’s a rumour the person who interrogated and killed Major Rosen was Ibrahim, but I can’t verify that,” Esther said, referring to the Mossad operative who’d been tortured at the safe house in Gaza City before being in fact beheaded by Ibrahim.
“Is Ibrahim still alive?” Steinman asked.
“As far as I’m aware.”
She still wore her hijab here, not because there was any danger of her true identity being exposed, but rather because like a method actor, she had been instructed that stepping out of her role, even in a safe environment, would mean that she may do it automatically while a Palestinian was watching, and that might cost her her life.
“If he is, he may have travelled to France, according to our friends in the US,” Steinman said. “The CIA may want us to work with someone – a very able man, by all accounts.”
He stood up and walked to the water cooler and filled a plastic cup.
“I don’t work with those gung-ho types,” she said. “They are no better than mercenaries.”
Steinman took a gulp of water, gurgled with it before spitting it out. “If the French find Ibrahim alive, we won’t have to cross that bridge. But if they don’t, and he’s still at large, you, my dear, will do as you are ordered.”
She started to grind her back teeth, silently. Steinman might be a hero in her country’s eyes, but he was a condescending one.
Chapter 74
At Quantico, Crane was waiting to see the general, who was being attended to by his doctors after he’d taken a turn for the better. They were probably pumping all kinds of stuff into him to try to make sure he didn’t lapse back into a coma, he figured. He’d decided to wait in a ground-level office a hundred yards or so from the subterranean medical facility.
The office was used by a Marine officer. The oak desk Crane was sitting at had a cluster of family photos to the left, a computer and landline to the right. Perched on the sand-coloured wall, next to a map of the world, was a flat-screen TV, which Crane had switched on via the remote a few minutes ago, and had channel hopped before being drawn to an apocalyptic preacher.
The guy was a Southerner with the neatest silver haircut he’d seen in a while, his face red with effort, as he stood in front of a PowerPoint presentation. Occasionally, the preacher stared into the camera to emphasize a particular connection he said he’d found before returning his attention to the rapt, multiethnic congregation.
He was excited about Isaiah 17.1, the prophesy about Damascus and the End of Days, the screen highlighting the scripture: “Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city And will become a fallen ruin.”
The rhetoric was professional, Crane thought, as the preacher focussed on the importance of Israel, the fact that the Jews must be there for the End of Days to occur. But then he wondered how many of the guy’s viewers knew of the Sunni eschatology – the fact that they believed in the return of Jesus and the End of Days, too. The interplay between the Abrahamic religions was as complicated and incendiary as the geopolitics, he thought.
Crane shook his head.
He got a call on the secure satphone that he always carried with him since the threat had taken on an international aspect. He’d forwarded the photos that Tom had sent him to the heads of the various counterterrorism units of what was now an interlinked national intelligence community. The guy Tom had shot in France, a fact that had prompted him to make sure he and Lester got their asses aboard a CIA jet double quick, was a Somalia Muslim, with links to various terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State group and Al-Shabaab, as well as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Well, well, thought Crane. He would visit the Somali he’d seen taken down in Lafayette, who was now being held in the secret prison in upstate New York, real soon.
Two minutes later, he got a separate but related call. The DCRI had found a corpse in the mall’s restroom in Paris, just as Tom as told him. But that wasn’t all.
When the call went dead he felt a flutter of excitement.
He called Tom next, who was flying home on the CIA jet. He told him to stay awake and make a photo fit of the guy he’d seen coming out of the mall. He told him to get it sent through to Quantico ASAP. He told him to meet him there and said that his father’s condition was improving.
An hour later, Crane had been summoned to the general’s bedside. Crane thought he looked about ninety, and deep lines had appeared on his forehead and on his hollow cheeks. His eyes were yellowing and flecked with little burst blood vessels, but he was conscious. Just.
The doctors had said that he was well enough to speak with, at least for a few minutes, adding that it was important for him to remain conscious, but under no circumstances should he be put under stress. When Crane had asked if they thought he was gonna make up some freaky shit to spook him or pop a balloon, they’d walked off, shaking their bemused and intelligent heads.
Crane didn’t know what to say at first, so he filled him in on the details of the investigations, sitting on a metal chair beside the bed and monitors.
“The DCRI allowed the mall manager to call in a plumber to fix an overflowing john where the stiff had been. The plumber finds a hairpiece with some tissue paper caught in the hairs a little way down the flow pipe. Apart from the false hairs, there were some slivers of his skin on the tissue. It was all analysed by their forensics people.”
“This a long story?” the general murmured.
“Well, anyways, apart from the DNA, which we ain’t got a match for, the tissue paper contained traces of skin dye, too.”
“Fake tan?”
“Kinda, ‘cept it don’t wash off without a particular cream. And stop interrupting. Save your strength. So the wig and whatever else they haven’t found yet points to a disguise. A Westerner making out to be something else, because the DNA is that of a Caucasian male. That corpse was covered in a dishdasha, so you don’t have to be a genius to figure this one out. He’ll likely disguise himself as an Arab again. Keep us guessing, at least.”
Cran
e had already relayed the intel to the director and those of his Department B boys and girls who he felt could make use of it, including Tom, of course.
“You’ll get better and take a long vacation when you get outta here.”
The general made a noise that sounded like a dismissive snort. Then said, “I was gonna see my boy.”
“He’s on his way here to see you. Due in a few hours, in point of fact.”
The general’s eyelids fluttered and he sighed. “People like us never take long vacations. But I’m retiring, did I tell ya that?”
Crane nodded, but it wasn’t born of empathy. He’d tried something like a sabbatical a couple of times, after the then director had said he hadn’t slept properly for months and that he looked so bad that he was scaring the analysts. Physically, he’d been in Spain, a sightseeing tour of Andalucía – Seville, Valencia, Granada – visiting the Alhambra and other fortresses and palaces. But even there, among the architectural treasures of Ottoman Spain, his mind had been elsewhere, recalling some file at Langley.
He put his hand into his pocket and took out the sketch that Tom had done of the guy at the mall, who was now a major suspect, and which had arrived shortly before.
“There’s something else,” Crane said. He put the sketch in front of the general’s face. “This is the guy at the mall. Ring any bells?”
He saw the general squinting at the paper image. He raised his hand, and, with the tubes sticking out, it looked as if it belonged to a puppet.
“Nah,” he said. “What’s this guy doing in the Middle East, anyhow?”
“A convert. A lost soul, who thinks he’s found the truth. Who knows?”
