Authors: Russell Blake
“Have you been listening to anything I’ve said? It’s about my odds, not about you. I’m safer, and my chances of pulling this off are much higher, if I work alone.” She took a sip of the coffee she’d been gripping with white knuckles. “This isn’t a democracy, and you don’t have a vote in it, Matt. I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to ruffle your feathers, and I really appreciate your offer to help, but this is one of those times where there’s nothing you can do except let me go do what I do best. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.” She drew a long breath. “There’s no point arguing about it. I need to leave.”
He paused as he changed lanes. “What about Hannah?”
“That’s below the belt, Matt.”
“No it isn’t. It’s a fair question. You’re a mother now, not a super agent, and you have a responsibility to her. You deliberately opted out of the covert life for that reason, and now you’re going to jump back in?”
Jet stared into the distance for several seconds before turning to face him. “You’re right, Matt. And under any other circumstances, it wouldn’t even be a question. But this is big. Way bigger than anything that’s ever threatened Israel. I don’t like that I’m the one who has to risk my life to stop it, but that’s the way it’s played out, and there’s nothing I can do about it. So Hannah will have to stay with Magdalena for another week or so while I deal with this. There’s no other way. God knows I wish there was.” She took a final pull on her coffee and thrust the cup into the holder. “The situation is terrible, no matter how I slice it.”
More silence, the anxiety in the air palpable. After another mile Jet inched closer to Matt and took his hand.
“Matt, I lost you once, on Koh Samui. I don’t plan to do that again. Just be patient for a little longer. I know you don’t like this. I don’t either.”
He seemed to relax with her touch, but his eyes never left the road. “I just don’t trust them. Any of them. All governments lie and cheat and steal, convincing themselves that they have to for the good of their populations. And intelligence agencies are the worst of the worst. Maybe it’s just my bias, but it always seems very one-sided. You need to sacrifice everything, possibly even your life, so that some mission or objective can be accomplished. From what you’ve told me, that’s probably what’s driving whoever has the bomb, too. It’s always an ends-justifies-the-means thing, and it always involves the faithful dying to advance someone’s agenda. I don’t see any congressmen volunteering to spend a month on patrol to save the life of a soldier, and I don’t see any clerics strapping bombs to themselves to bring terror to the masses. It’s always you who has to sacrifice, not them. This is just more of the same.” He shook his head in frustration.
“Hey, Mister Bitter, lighten up, huh? I’m a big girl. I know that they’re all a bunch of conniving weasels. But if a nuke goes off in a populated area, much less a big city, even the most cynical can figure out that’s going to be bad all around. If it was anything else, I’d have refused, and they could spend the rest of their lives trying to find me. I’m no neophyte. I get it. Now, is there some reason you’re driving like a grandma? Do you want me to drive?”
“Hey, I’m doing the speed limit.”
“I think we just got passed by a woman in a wheelchair.”
They both chuckled, and the tension seemed to defuse. Matt wasn’t a stupid man, and given his history, Jet could understand his feelings. And he wasn’t wrong – but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Fidgety, she stabbed the radio on, stopping at a Mexican music station out of Tucson.
“It just seems like every time we get a chance to spend some quality time together…something happens,” he groused.
“I didn’t get blown up on the beach. Let’s just remember that, shall we?”
“Good point. But it still sucks, as you’re so fond of saying.”
“You don’t see me arguing, do you?” She reached for the volume, turning it down. “What are you going to do, since we’re not going to Uruguay yet? You going to stay in Mexico City until I get done? This is your big chance to travel, see the world as a single man. No ball and chain to drag around…”
“I hadn’t thought about it, but now that you mention it, I might want to go get some of my diamonds out of the vault in Bangkok so I have some mad money for the foreseeable future. Because you know how I cherish my lavish lifestyle.”
“Then it’s off to Thailand?” Jet asked.
“Seeing as I’m not going to get an invitation for an all-expenses-paid junket to wherever the hell you’re off to. It’s either that or hang out in Mexico, and that doesn’t really have much appeal for me. Do you know where you’re headed?”
“We agreed I’d go to Israel first, via Spain, and then they’ll brief me once I’m there.”
“And you’re completely sure this is what you want to do…?”
Jet exhaled noisily and released his hand. “Oh, Matt, no, in fact there’s nothing I’d rather do less. I wanted to be reunited with my daughter and start looking for a new home somewhere, spend some serious time hanging out with men who are too old for me, and maybe develop a drinking problem or start collecting cats. But that isn’t going to happen yet, is it? Instead I’ll be headed to a part of the world I thought I’d left forever and put myself into harm’s way. Did I mention this completely sucks?”
“Stop.” He turned to her and grinned. “You had me at cats.”
Her musical laughter filled the car as they rolled down the road, their future uncertain and their pasts racing to catch up with them, and soon he was joining in, an easy sound that for all its mirth contained a hint of melancholy neither of them could deny.
Chapter 12
Mexico City airport thrived on a kind of controlled mayhem – the busiest hub in Latin America processing more travelers per day than most American big city airports during peak season. The trip from Nogales through Hermosillo had been smooth, if longer than either of them would have liked. They’d stashed the Explorer in a lot on the Mexican side of the border and taken a cab to the Nogales airport, and then a commuter prop plane to Hermosillo before the final leg to Mexico City.
Jet and Matt found the ticketing area and booked their respective flights, he on KLM to Amsterdam and then on to Bangkok, she on Iberia to Madrid and ultimately, Tel Aviv. His plane would leave first, in just a few hours, so they found a restaurant and ordered dinner, then spent the entirety of it trying not to discuss the elephant in the room. Eventually the server brought the bill, and Matt paid as they lingered over their coffee.
“Any idea how long this will take?” he asked, eyeing her over the rim as he took a sip.
“You sound like Magdalena.”
“How did that go?”
“She was relieved to hear from me, but not happy about my not returning like I had told her I would. I assured her it would probably only be a week, and she seemed mollified. Apparently the big manhunt down there has petered out and other headlines are occupying the news. Didn’t take long. She doesn’t feel like she’s in any jeopardy, so for now, she’s fine,” Jet said, but to her ear it sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“You really believe it’ll be a week?”
“I’m hopeful. The director made it abundantly clear that this is a fast-track operation and that time is of the essence.”
“Help me understand it better. This group has a…device, the twin of the one detonated in Somalia…and, what else?”
“He said that the weapons were removed from Iraq during the invasion. By Mossad agents who were inserted during the battle for Baghdad for that purpose – or rather, he
believes
the devices were removed by them, and that they’d kept quiet about locating them. All three men on the team wound up leaving the service within a year or so after the mission, which was reported as a failure, with nothing found. But now, it appears the operatives weren’t entirely truthful, and for whatever reason, kept the find to themselves.”
“So Saddam actually did have nukes?”
“Apparently so. The intel we got was that he grabbed them during the Kuwait invasion back in 1990. Kuwait purchased them from an ex-Russian KGB colonel who ran a smuggling operation, among other things. Typical Russian mob stuff. Of course, it also might have been the Russian government selling them the devices through the back door, using a deniable cutout. Hard to tell with the way things go over there. Be that as it may, the intelligence suggested that the Iraqis got two Russian suitcase nukes before leaving Kuwait and had them secreted in a bunker somewhere in Baghdad, under heavy guard, in a top secret location. It came from a reliable source – a former party official and confidant of Saddam’s who was negotiating for his life.”
Matt’s eyes roved over the other diners as he fished some peso notes from his pocket and slid them under his saucer.
“Wait. Ex-Mossad agents have been sitting on Russian bombs they stole from Iraq, who in turn stole them from Kuwait, who had them for unknown purposes…and now are nuking Somali scrub? Come again?”
“They don’t have all the pieces yet, but there have been rumors for years of an ultra-conservative group of very powerful Israelis who believe that the country has lost its way and needs to be more aggressive. A clique that makes the hawks there seem mild in their views. About eight years ago, rumors started surfacing about that group having established a dirty-tricks arm – a black-ops division, if you will. Again, we’re dealing with snippets of information and very vague, low-level scuttlebutt. But if that’s the case, and if they’re working with the ex-Mossad agents, and if they have the Russian nukes, well, you can see where it becomes frightening pretty quickly.”
“What’s the objective? I mean, I get that nukes are bad. And in any rogue organization’s hands, disastrous. But what would a bunch of ultra-conservatives want with nukes?”
“That’s a big question mark. The prevailing fear is that they’ll decide to take out a regime they feel is a threat to their interests. That’s the most obvious. Iran comes to mind. There are certainly others. Can you imagine what would happen if a nuke went off in Tehran? It would be a game-changer. Everyone knows that Israel is the only nuclear-equipped nation in the region. So that’s where the blame would fall, and it would be catastrophic.”
“Where are these ex-Mossad operatives located? Do they have any leads?”
“That’s one of the problems. Nobody seems to know.”
“Great. You’re walking into a snake pit of hypotheticals, with no hard answers, and you’re in charge of stopping Armageddon. Tell me there’s a good part to this. Because otherwise, it sounds like you’re in deep shit, and I better start looking for real estate as far from the Middle East as possible. Like maybe Antarctica. Am I missing anything?”
Jet shook her head. “No, that’s about right. The hope is that by the time I get to Israel they’ll have made some progress and we’ll have a trail to follow. Right now, it’s all theoretical, based on hearsay and innuendo.”
“I wouldn’t pick today to quit drinking.”
“If I actually boozed much I’d probably increase my intake by gallons. I know the situation stinks. But it’s the one I’ve been thrown into.” Jet checked her watch and pushed back from the table. “Looks like it’s that time. You need to get to your gate. Tell you what, big boy, I’ll walk you there.”
Matt nodded. They’d tried to stretch their remaining hours together and make them last as long as possible, but reality had now reared its ugly head and there was no getting around it. They would soon again be parted, with Jet having been thrown from one crisis directly into another with hardly enough time to catch her breath.
They rose, and Matt extended his hand to her. Jet took it and they slowly made their way down the stairs from the restaurant to the departure level, where a quick glance at the flight information directed them to the KLM gate, filled with travelers waiting to board. Matt had taken Jet’s advice and booked a first class seat, and in a few minutes they were calling his cabin.
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, her soft lips hungry to consume every bit of him she could get, both oblivious to their surroundings or the watching passengers. When the attendant’s abrasive voice screeched from the public address system for a second time requesting all first class passengers, it was like being doused with cold water, and they reluctantly tore away from each other, Matt taking a long moment to lose himself in Jet’s glistening emerald gaze.
“Be careful. You’re not bulletproof or invisible, you know,” he whispered as she pulled close to him again, nuzzling his neck.
“Says you. Stay away from the ping pong clubs. You could lose an eye.”
“Good counsel,” he said. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks. Remember that your primary job now is to get through this safe so we can pick up where we’re leaving off.”
She kissed him again; and then the moment was over and he was walking purposefully toward the jetway, an anonymous businessman on his way to Europe, like countless other unremarkable road warriors waiting their turn to get on the plane. She watched as he disappeared, and then without looking back, turned and made her way to her gate, with two more hours to kill on the ground and nothing to occupy her time but her conflicted thoughts and the still-tingling memory of their final parting kiss.
Chapter 13
Twenty-two hours later, Jet’s flight touched down at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel. As the big jet lumbered to the gate, she stretched her arms over her head and took a last swallow of water, hoping to stave off the worst of the dehydration that was a by-product of prolonged air travel. Once off the plane, she was met by two stern men who whisked her through immigrations and customs without requiring that she do anything but smile, and then handed her off to a waiting black Mercedes sedan with windows tinted so dark that she couldn’t make out the driver’s shape from outside.
The car wove its way onto the freeway and then toward downtown Tel Aviv. Once in the city it pulled into a massive skyscraper’s underground parking garage and deposited her at the elevators, where two more somber agents waited, their earbuds betraying their purpose. One of the agents wordlessly took her travel bag and indicated that she should enter the waiting elevator and the pair followed her in, the one with her bag punching the button for the twentieth floor.