Two Steps Forward

by Luana Ehrlich

  I was startled when I realized the most beautiful voice on the plane was coming from Charlotte Phillips. As she belted out the words, tears began coursing down her cheeks. Suddenly, I felt ashamed of the dismissive thoughts I’d had about her. As different as we were, and even as irritating as I found her, the two of us shared the same faith.

  Both of us were recipients of the same amazing grace. Just like her, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

  As the song ended, I immediately reached over and grabbed some napkins I’d stuffed in the seatback. After handing them to her, I said, “You have a beautiful voice, Charlotte, and those words are just as beautiful as your voice.”

  She smiled when she took the napkins from me. After dabbing away her tears, she said, “Well, thank you. That’s very sweet of you.”

  After carefully tucking the used napkins inside her purse, she looked at Nikki and me and said, “You’re both believers, aren’t you?”

  When we nodded, she said, “I knew it as soon as we first started talking to each other.”

  “How could you tell?” Nikki asked.

  “I guess it was the way you were both so kind to me and seemed so interested in what I had to say.”

  The tragedy of Charlotte’s statement was that it was only true for one of us, and I felt so convicted about it, I immediately breathed a prayer and asked forgiveness for my arrogant attitude toward her.

  I tried to make up for it by asking her where their group would be staying in Jerusalem. When she told us, Nikki and I promised we’d try to see her again before we left.

  She smiled and said, “I’ll be praying we’ll both have a memorable time while we’re here.”

  As I watched Baran Asan making his way toward the exit door, I prayed those would only be good memories.

  * * * *

  It was past midnight by the time Nikki and I entered the terminal at Ben Gurion Airport, and although the place was bustling with activity, it wasn’t as crowded as I’d seen it at other times.

  Our first stop was at Passport Control, and as the wearied passengers from our flight queued up in front of several counters, I noticed Asan was in the line next to us. He was standing next to the woman who’d shared her granola bar with him at the departure lounge in Lisbon.

  If I’d been a security guard observing his behavior, I might have drawn the conclusion he and the woman were a couple. No doubt, this was exactly what Asan wanted them to think.

  Our queue moved much faster than the one Asan was in, and twenty minutes after we entered the terminal, Nikki’s passport was being examined by an immigration agent.

  After asking her a few questions—where she was staying, how long she planned to be in Israel, whether she was traveling alone—he placed a yellow sticker on her passport and told her she was free to proceed to baggage claim.

  When I walked up to the counter, the agent took one look at my well-worn passport and immediately began thumbing through the pages. After giving special attention to my visas from Libya and Syria and quizzing me about when I planned to return to those countries, he entered some keystrokes on a computer.

  As he studied the screen, I noticed a slight change in his facial expression. Then, after stepping away from his booth and conferring with a colleague, he placed a white sticker on the back of my passport, handed me a lanyard with Special Case printed on it, and told me to go with the beefy security officer standing a few feet behind him.

  I took my passport, hung the badge around my neck, and did as I was told. However, before I followed the officer through the door behind Passport Control, I quickly glanced back at the other passengers still waiting in line.

  Asan, who still had a ways to go before he presented his passport at the counter, was no longer engaged in conversation with the woman from the tour group.

  Instead, his eyes were focused on me. I wasn’t too surprised.

  Baran Asan hadn’t become a fixer without constantly being aware of anything out of the ordinary happening around him, and I suspected he was trying to figure out what might have triggered the immigration agent’s interest in me.

  * * * *

  The security officer escorted me down a long hallway with several unmarked doors, finally arriving at the last unmarked door at the end of the hallway. The door next to it had an Emergency Exit sign on it.

  The room we entered turned out to be a windowless room, with nothing inside except a single wooden desk and a couple of metal chairs. The gray walls were completely bare.

  After the security officer politely suggested I take a seat in one of the chairs, he closed the door and left. The moment he was gone, I scanned the room for hidden cameras.

  I found two.

  I’d just taken a seat in one of the metal chairs, when the door swung open again, and two people walked in, a man and a woman.

  The woman, who was probably in her early thirties, had short brown hair and was wearing a black skirt, a lavender blouse, and a pair of low-heel black shoes.

  She appeared to be in charge because she immediately walked over to the desk while the man positioned himself in front of the door.

  The man had to be older than the woman by at least fifteen years.

  He had a world-weary appearance, a look I usually identified with members of the intelligence community, especially someone who’d spent a lifetime in the field, so I was more than a little surprised to see the woman would be in charge of my interview.

  The woman leaned against the desk and spoke to me in Farsi.

  “I was sorry to hear about your son. It’s never easy when our children rebel against us. I hope by this time he’s seen the error of his ways and returned home.”

  “My son is still as rebellious as ever,” I said to her in Farsi, reciting the phrase Abbas Alviri had written on the back of the concierge’s business card when he’d given Mitchell the flash drive.

  The woman smiled broadly, extended her hand, and introduced herself to me in English. “I’m Mika Nabarro,” she said.

  “Titus Ray,” I said, shaking her hand.

  I glanced over at the man standing at the door because I just assumed he would also introduce himself.

  He stared back at me and didn’t say a word.

  “I believe you have something for me,” Mika said.

  “Yes,” I said, unzipping the side pocket of my messenger bag, “I have it right here.”

  Once I’d retrieved the flash drive from my bag, I didn’t hand it over to her. Instead, I placed the steel cylinder in the palm of my left hand and deliberately closed my fist around it.

  My actions obviously disturbed the woman.

  She immediately tensed up, narrowed her eyes, and shot a quick glance over at the older man. Her response led me to revise my earlier assessment—she was not the person in charge.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, holding up the flash drive, “but I believe this little beauty contains some valuable intel your boss can’t wait to get his hands on.”

  Neither of them said a word.

  They didn’t look at each other.

  Instead, their eyes were focused on the flash drive.

  “Okay,” I said, “if the two of you are just couriers, then I need to speak to someone who—”

  “You’re not wrong,” the man said, abandoning his post at the door and walking over to the desk.

  “I’m not wrong about what?” I asked.

  He gestured for Mika to take a seat, and he took her place at the desk. “You’re not wrong about my boss wanting the data on that USB drive.”

  “And your boss would be . . .”

  He leaned forward and offered me his hand. “I’m Saul Kagan. I work for Shin Bet.”

  I shook his hand. “Could you be more specific about your job description?”

  He looked irritated. “I work in counterterrorism. Moshe Geller is my boss.”

  I offered him the flash drive.

  “When you give this to Mr. Geller, would y
ou also tell him I gave you some additional intel about a member of the Quds Force?”

  He looked pleased when he took the flash drive from me, but then he said, “Why would I lie to my boss? You haven’t given me any additional intel. All you’ve done is hand over the flash drive.”

  “Here’s the rest of it. At this moment, there’s a man standing in line at Passport Control who was on our flight from Lisbon. His real name is Baran Asan. He’s a member of the IRGC, specifically the Quds Force. If you’ll give me access to one of your security cameras, I’ll identify him for you. In return, I’d appreciate it if you’d mention my name to Mr. Geller in case I need to contact him while I’m in Israel.”

  Kagan stared at me for a couple of seconds, but then he quickly pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and typed something on the keypad. Moments later, he turned the phone around so I could view the security cameras in Passport Control.

  Mika sat forward in her chair as I began studying the images. “Did you say Baran Asan? Did I hear that right? Isn’t he a modir in the Quds Force?”

  “Uh-huh. We’re talking about the same guy.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she said, leaning forward so she could see the images on Kagan’s phone. “He’s here in Israel?”

  Saul Kagan didn’t say a word.

  “There he is,” I said, pointing to Asan, who was still standing in the queue in front of Passport Control. “He’s the third guy in line behind the woman in the purple t-shirt.”

  When I showed Kagan the image of Asan, he nodded.

  “Wait here with Mika,” he said, slipping the phone back in his pocket. “I’ll be right back.”

  After a few moments of awkward silence when Kagan left the room, Mika and I both began speaking at once.

  When I insisted she go first, she smiled and said, “I was just going to say you speak Farsi very well, but you’re not Persian, are you?”

  “No, but I had an excellent tutor, and I also spent several years in Iran. Am I right in thinking Farsi is your native language?”

  “I was born here in Israel after my parents emigrated from Iran in 1989, so I grew up hearing both Hebrew and Farsi.”

  “Did your parents leave Iran because of the regime’s attitude toward its Jewish citizens?”

  “Yes, and we still have relatives in Iran who say that anti-Semitism is only getting worse there. My parents want them to—”

  Before Mika could finish her sentence, Kagan reentered the room.

  The first thing he did was ask to see my passport.

  After I gave it to him, he pulled off the white sticker and attached a yellow one. When he handed it back to me, he said, “I’ll also take your badge now.”

  I stood up and removed the Special Case lanyard from around my neck. After taking it from me, he said, “You’re free to go now. Mika will show you how to get to the baggage claim area through the emergency exit.”

  “Not so fast, Saul. I want to know what happened to Baran Asan.”

  “I’m not authorized to share that information with you.”

  As I stood there trying not to get angry, he smiled and said, “But I promise I’ll definitely mention your name to Moshe Geller.” He reached inside his front pocket and pulled out a card. “After what just happened, when you call this number and ask to speak to him, I’m sure he’ll remember your name.”

  I thanked him, grabbed my messenger bag, and followed Mika out the door. After using the Emergency Exit door, she took me through a maze of corridors until we arrived at a door marked Deliveries.

  “The baggage claim area is out this door,” she said.

  I thanked her, and then as I started to open the door, she said, “I don’t know what happened to Baran Asan, but whatever it was, it made Saul smile, and that doesn’t happen very often.”

  “No, I don’t imagine it does. Thanks again, Mika. I appreciate your help.”

  “Shalom.”

  * * * *

  I found myself smiling when I spotted Nikki, but it had nothing to do with Baran Asan or what may have happened to him when he presented his passport to the immigration agent at Passport Control.

  I was smiling because of how happy Nikki looked playing with the two little girls who were running around her as she sat on a bench in front of the Welcome to Israel sign.

  She looked equally happy to see me when I walked up.

  “Hey, stranger,” she said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek. “I was starting to get worried about you.”

  I leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Everything’s fine. I made my delivery, and we’re free to leave now.”

  Nikki gestured at the mother of the two girls who’d been entertaining her. “Would you mind telling her I enjoyed meeting her daughters? I don’t think she speaks English.”

  I relayed the message to the girls’ mother in Hebrew, and she responded back. “May you be blessed with children of your own.”

  As Nikki and I walked over to the baggage carousel to retrieve our luggage, I told her what the mother had said.

  “Now wouldn’t that be fun?”

  When I didn’t respond, Nikki said, “Or maybe not.”

  “What? No, I mean yes . . . Yes, that would be fun.”

  “You don’t sound very convincing.”

  “I’m sorry. I just got distracted for a minute. It had nothing to do with what you were asking me.”

  Nikki looked around. “What distracted you?”

  “I thought I recognized someone, but I’m sure it was a mistake.”

  It had to have been a mistake. There was no way Saul Kagan would have allowed Baran Asan to clear Passport Control and enter Israel.

  “I’m not going to let you get distracted while we’re here,” Nikki said, putting her arm through mine. “We’re in Israel to find Eleanor’s grandmother. We’re both committed to that, aren’t we?”

  “Oh, absolutely. It’s the only thing on my mind.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Chapter 15

  Sunday, May 19

  When I woke up around seven o’clock in our suite at the Orient Jerusalem Hotel, I left Nikki sleeping in the bedroom and walked out on our balcony.

  It was a beautiful sunny day in Jerusalem, and our room was on the top floor of the hotel, overlooking the Old City.

  After spending a few minutes reading some passages from the Bible on my cell phone—a habit I’d gotten into not long after I’d become a believer—I brewed myself a cup of coffee in the suite’s kitchen nook, retrieved my Agency sat phone from my messenger bag, and returned to the balcony to call Carlton.

  His phone rang several times before he picked up. When he did, he sounded out of breath.

  “Is this a good time to talk?” I asked.

  “I’m good if you are.”

  “I’m sitting out on our balcony at the Orient Jerusalem Hotel, enjoying a view of the Old City, so I can assure you I’m good.”

  “If your room has a balcony, then you must have reserved the Royal Suite. I’m sure you and your bride will enjoy staying at the Orient. It’s one of my favorite hotels in Jerusalem. Good choice, Titus.”

  “It’s near Lisa’s apartment and the Tzora kibbutz, so it’s an ideal location for us. I’m planning to start our search for Lisa at her apartment today.”

  “That’s where I’d start too, and just in case you’re wondering, I haven’t received any more intel from Moshe Geller about Lisa.”

  “Have you spoken to him lately?” I asked. “Say, within the last eight hours?”

  “No, but I’ve been tied up in the Ops Center all evening. Why would I be hearing from him? Don’t tell me you weren’t able to deliver the flash drive.”

  “No, nothing went wrong with the handover. I delivered the flash drive to a Shin Bet agent around midnight last night. Naturally, I’m curious about the contents.”

  Carlton sighed. “So is everyone else here at Langley, including me, but you still haven’t answered my question.
Why did you ask me if I’d heard from Moshe?”

  “Before I answer that, would you mind telling me what’s been happening with Baran Asan?”

  “Nothing’s been happening with him. The DDO gave me permission to run surveillance on him, but according to the head of my surveillance team, Asan hasn’t been out of his hotel room for the past two days. The guy must be sick or something.”

  “I just sent you a picture I took on our flight from Marrakesh to Lisbon. Tell me what you think.”

  “Okay, hold on while I take a look at it.”

  There was a long pause, and for a few seconds, I wondered if he’d gotten on his other phone line and contacted the Ops Center as soon as he’d seen the photograph.

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” he finally said. “Baran Asan was on the flight with you? How did he manage to make it out of the hotel without anyone on our surveillance crew seeing him?”

  “I can’t answer that, but what I can tell you is that he’s an expert at disguises. Once we landed in Lisbon, I expected him to catch a flight to Tehran, but after transforming himself into an American look-alike, he boarded our flight and flew into Israel with us last night.”

  “That’s incredible! I have to assume you informed Shin Bet he was trying to enter the country. Is that why you thought Moshe might have been in touch with me?”

  “I figured since I’d given him such a valuable gift, he’d call you up and let you know how grateful he was, maybe let you know what their plans were for Asan.”

  “I’ve just been checking my messages while I’ve been talking to you, and there’s nothing here from Moshe. If I had to guess, I’d say Baran Asan was transported to Shin Bet’s counterterrorism headquarters in the Ayalon Valley. He’s probably undergoing an intensive interrogation even as we speak.”

  I almost didn’t say anything to Carlton about the fleeting glimpse I’d had of Asan leaving the airport, but I knew if I didn’t, I’d think about it the rest of the day, and I didn’t want to think about Baran Asan the rest of the day.

  I wanted to give my full attention to locating Lisa Redding.