From the corner of her eye she saw Ferguson switching his aim from the gunman to the soldier threatening her. She shook her head at him urgently. She did not need that kind of complication. The situation was already fractious enough.
She took a deep breath and concentrated on shutting the threat out of her mind. She shouted something else to the gunman. It was unintelligible to the others, just a string of guttural and aspirated noises.
On the flatbed, the man looked at Ava hesitantly, seemingly unsure how she fitted into the emerging picture, and clearly confused by the fact that an American was advancing on her with a weapon aimed directly at her head.
After what felt to Ava like an eternity in which the gunman was visibly assessing his options, he finally seemed to make up his mind. Hesitantly at first, he answered her, speaking in rapid panicky bursts.
Ava turned to Kozinski and began translating. “He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He just wants to be released.”
Kozinski was not listening. All his attention was locked onto aiming at the gunman.
With her frustration mounting, Ava called something else out to the gunman, more urgently this time. He answered immediately, the words tumbling out in a stream of Arabic.
The large corporal with his gun on Ava continued to screech at her, but what had been a warning was now an unambiguous threat. “You have three seconds to disengage or you will be treated as hostile!”
Ava continued talking in Arabic to the man on the flat back of the Humvee.
A conversation of sorts was developing.
The corporal was now so close he was obscuring her view, and she could clearly hear the strain in his voice as he continued to shout at her. “I’m now treating you as hostile!” His trigger finger was no more than a metre and a half from her, and the gun’s muzzle was so close it felt as if it were burning a hole in her head. She concentrated on blocking the image out of her mind completely, and looked back at the man on the flatbed, conscious she was now on borrowed time—the soldier could open fire on her any moment.
“
Yalla! Qarrir bsor'aa!
” she urged the gunman, aware it was probably her last chance. At pointblank range, if the soldier next to her pulled the trigger and shot her in the head, she would be dead before she hit the floor.
Ava looked expectantly at the gunman, hoping she had done enough.
From his wild-eyed look, she was not at all sure.
Agonizingly slowly, he began to pull the muzzle of the pistol away from the back of his hostage’s skull.
With a look of resignation mixed with terror, he held both his hands in the air as a sign of surrender, before bending down and placing the gun on the floor of the flatbed.
The immediate danger averted, Kozinski seemed to snap out of his trance and burst into action, issuing authoritative commands. “Tell him to step off the truck and lie on the ground.”
Ava translated the command, and the gunman slowly climbed down from the back of the vehicle and lay face down, prostrate on the tarmac.
One of the soldiers roughly handcuffed him, before placing a boot hard in the middle of his back.
Ava saw the pain register on the man’s lean face as she turned to Kozinski. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“Like I said, ma’am,” he answered, sweat dripping from his grimy face, “we’re taking him home.”
Ava looked Kozinski directly in the eye. “I’ve just given him your personal assurance no harm will come to him now.”
Kozinski blinked slowly at her. “Were you not looking?” There was a new aggression in his tone. “He just seriously assaulted a U.S. soldier.”
The other men exchanged uneasy glances.
Ava continued, undeterred. “He thinks he’s about to disappear into your network of undisclosed prisons and never get out. I’ve given him your word that will not happen, and he will be taken directly home.”
“On what authority?” Kozinski looked unsure.
“You told me he was going home?” she continued, ignoring the question.
He nodded.
“I assume ‘negative intel value’ means you have nothing on him?”
Kozinski did not respond. She could see his jaw tightening.
She lowered her voice so that only Kozinski could hear her. “I’m sure you’re aware that for the last decade western forces haven’t had a great reputation for due process around here?”
Kozinski stared blankly back at her.
Ava changed tack. “Are you seriously telling me that if one of your men was in his shoes, he wouldn’t do anything to avoid detention and interrogation at a foreign army’s black site?”
Kozinski pursed his lips.
“I hope you’ll do the right thing.” She gave him one long last hard stare before turning and walking back over to where Ferguson was still standing.
“I can see I’m going to have to watch you,” Ferguson nodded towards her, his body visibly relaxing. “What
did
you say to Mr Blue Shirt?” He sounded mystified.
Ava shrugged. “I gave him my guarantee he would see his family soon if he put his weapon down.”
“I thought you just said you gave him Kozinski’s word?” Ferguson asked, opening the jeep’s low side door for Ava to get in.
“Why would he trust that?” Ava shot the question back at him. “He’s been lifted off the streets, held in military custody, no doubt subjected to torture, and all apparently for no good reason. He’s never going to trust another soldier again for as long as he lives.”
Ferguson looked bewildered. “So he put his gun down? Just like that? Because you gave him your word?”
Ava shook her head. “I also told him the soldiers aiming at him couldn’t hit a barn door with a cannon, so they weren’t going to risk shooting their colleague. But I said you were a British spy who would kill him cleanly with one shot between the eyes, and you wouldn’t even have to file a report about it.”
Ferguson raised an eyebrow. “You really said that?”
“It’s true isn’t it?” She pulled the jeep’s door closed. “You field guys don’t do paperwork, do you?”
Ferguson slipped the small Sig Sauer P230 neatly back into its leather ankle holster and dropped his jeans down over it, covering it completely. It was so expertly concealed she had not even noticed it earlier.
He nodded at Ava. “I can see this is going to be quite a trip.”
Ava gazed at the pencil-like Learjet against the horizon. “It’s not just museum artefacts this war has carried far from home,” she spoke quietly to herself.
While they had been talking, Prince had arrived at the jeep. She climbed in, folding her long frame into the cramped space.
“What was all that about?” she asked Ava, having caught the end of the standoff. “Did I see you being threatened by one of our soldiers?”
“Just a misunderstanding,” Ava replied as the jeep pulled away, looking over her shoulder to see the man in the blue shirt being transferred into another vehicle.
“It’s a bit different here to running a museum, I suppose,” Prince noted sympathetically.
“Not as much as you’d think,” Ava answered with a shrug. “The museum in Baghdad was founded by a woman—a good friend of Lawrence of Arabia. She had guns pointed at her more times than you can imagine. Times haven’t changed much. It goes with the territory.” She paused, turning to Ferguson. “Even for an academic.”
“I can see why the Firm was sorry to lose you.” Ferguson was shaking his head with incredulity.
As the jeep pulled up alongside the Learjet, Ava jumped out and walked ahead quickly, arriving at the aircraft’s small forward loading ramp ahead of Ferguson and Prince.
As she started to climb it, she stopped and turned back to look at them both square in the face, her dark brown eyes flashing. “Before we do this, just so we’re clear. I’m here as an independent expert. I don’t work for any of you anymore.”
——————— ◆ ———————
Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad)
West Glilot Junction
Tel Aviv
The State of Israel
"Sit down, Uri.” Moshe motioned him to a modern-looking brown leather chair in front of the large wooden desk.
The lean young Mossad officer took the seat and looked across at the older man. It had been a few years since he had last seen him, but he never seemed to age.
Moshe Stahl was a legend—a decorated veteran of the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars, and one of the masterminds behind the Raid on Entebbe. He had been involved in training and selecting Mossad’s
katsa
agents for as long as anyone could remember. In particular, as a quasi-royal prerogative, he had the final say on all new recruits into the
Metsada
department. His instincts, honed by long years of experience, were the final word on whether or not a
katsa
had the aptitude for its black ops.
Uri looked around the room. It was large, but simply furnished. Moshe’s desk was bare. Everything was locked away. There were no photographs, diplomas, or memorabilia.
Moshe kept his private life at home.
He was Old School.
Moshe stood up and padded over to the single grey steel filing cabinet, returning with a brown manila folder. He laid it on the desk and opened it, thumbing through its pinned contents.
“Still no computer, sir?” Uri asked. It was a longstanding joke in the Institute.
Moshe looked up at him coldly, killing any humour in the air. “To read my papers, someone has to get into this building, onto this floor, and then into my office,” he replied. “Until the IT wizards can guarantee me that level of security on computer files, I don’t want one. And besides,” the corners of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, “if I leave a paper file on the Tel Aviv to Jerusalem train by mistake, I probably don’t have to tell anyone. But if it was a whole laptop … .”
Uri smiled to himself. Moshe might be the same age as his grandfather, but his brain had not slowed with the years.
“You’ve been in Europe for four-and-a-half years, Uri.” Moshe leaned back in his chair, staring at the younger man.
Had it been that long?
Uri wondered.
In any event, he had been pleased to get the call from Moshe that morning calling him back to Tel Aviv. A summons to HQ usually meant something important was about to happen.
“You’re clearly talented, Uri.” Moshe’s tone was now more genial. But everyone in the Institute quickly learned this did not mean he tolerated anything less than excellence.
Uri thought back to his first European operation. His first job for the Institute. No one had ever suspected anything untoward about another heart attack at a nondescript nursing home in a poor suburb of Amsterdam. But then no one in the nursing home had ever suspected that the tetchy private old man on the third floor had once signed papers sending trainloads of Dutch Jews to their chemical deaths at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Planning and carrying out the job had given Uri a lot of satisfaction.
Moshe continued. “But you’re also unorthodox.” He looked at Uri over the file, glaring at him through his thick-rimmed glasses.
For a moment Uri wondered if something had gone wrong, if there had been some fallout from his last job. He was sure he had covered his tracks well. Trapping the fugitive Algerian in Marseille had required him to break a few rules. But it had then been plain sailing to take him over the Spanish border in the boot of his car and hand him to the Americans in the small sleepy Pyrenean village. He was not aware there had been any problems. At the time he had been pleased with how well it had worked.
The older man continued. “Fortunately for you, I don’t have any use for a yes-man who can recite the Geneva Convention. I need someone who doesn’t mind doing what it takes, and who has a record for getting the job done.”
Uri had been recruited from a dead-end job in advertising. He had assumed the Institute would use his skill for twisting language in a succession of ‘diplomatic’ postings to far-flung embassies where he would sit in the basement writing cables and filing reports. But instead, to his surprise as much as anyone else’s, it gradually became clear he had a very real talent for the dark work of the
Metsada
section.
He had been shocked at first. But he soon realized it made a strange kind of sense. He had always been drawn to extremes. He enjoyed anything that pitted him against the odds. He found the most satisfaction in solo physical activities—cross-country running, skiing, diving. Ultimately, anything where he only had to rely on himself. The work of the
Metsada
section allowed him a lot of leeway to be his own man. He liked that. They gave him jobs. He had to deliver. How he did it was up to him.
Of course, he did not agree with everything. And he had no appetite for the politics, which he was happy to leave to men like Moshe. But the cold act of killing did not bother him. He had long found that people were hypocritical on the subject. Hundreds of thousands of men and women had killed in wartime, including many world leaders. As he saw it, Israel was at war, and he was a soldier. What he did was always sanctioned by the president. What more justification could there be?
Now, after a string of successful operations, he could not think of anything else he was better qualified to do.
“I’m putting you on a flight to Astana in Kazakhstan.” Moshe interrupted his thoughts. “There’s an African militia holed up there, playing a dangerous game with the Americans and British. I need you to go and make an assessment of how to gain possession of an asset they’re holding, then physically take it from them. You’re required to bring the asset back here.”
Moshe looked at him sternly. “Usual rules apply. If you’re caught, you’re on your own. If you’re not, you will inflict on anything or anyone whatever level of damage you feel is necessary to get the job done. Clear?”
Uri nodded.
Moshe paused. “Exactly how religious are you, Uri?” The old man looked at him sharply over the top of the folder.
Uri was unprepared for the question. He dealt with those sorts of inquiries every year in his annual performance appraisal, when the Institute tried to gain an insight into whether he was still a reliable member of the silent army. But he had not been expecting this sort of question today. It took him a second to get his thoughts together.
“Never mind,” the older man continued. “Religion is for the young and the old. Not you.”
“Sir?” Uri raised an eyebrow.
“Shut up and listen.” Moshe closed the folder on his desk and leaned back in his chair. “How well do you know the old stories? Moses, the Exodus, wandering in the desert? Do they still teach it all properly in school?” Moshe peered at him closely. “What do you know of the Ark of the Covenant?”
“
The
Ark of the Covenant?” Uri asked quietly. “That’s what we’re talking about here?” He was sitting still and paying attention now. This just got interesting.
“The old rabbis say it went missing when the First Temple was destroyed.” Moshe paused, drumming his fingers on the table. “But they also say that back in the dawn of time, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba were lovers.”
Uri had not heard that before. “King Solomon, as in David’s son, the builder of the Temple?”
“Read the prophets, Uri. The book of Kings says King Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. We can safely conclude that the pleasures of the bed were not unknown to him.”
Moshe took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his large hands. “The story goes that the illegitimate son of Solomon and Sheba took the Ark with him to Ethiopia.”
Uri was listening carefully now.
“The Ethiopians have always maintained they have the real Ark,” he paused. “And maybe they’re right. Have you ever wondered about Beta Israel?”
Uri nodded. “The Jews from Africa.”
“Ethiopia, Uri,” Moshe scowled. “Details matter.” He flicked the corner of the brown folder with his thumb. “They have full rights of
aliyah
under the Right of Return. They’re as Jewish as you or me. We even sent the military in to airlift them here in ’84, ’85, and ’91.”
“Aren’t they supposed to be the lost tribe of Dan?” Uri asked.
The veteran gazed into the middle distance before turning back to Uri. “It’s a mess. Maybe they’re from the tribe of Dan. Or perhaps they’re truly descended from the Jews who went to Ethiopia at the time of Solomon and Sheba. The State of Israel has no official view either way, except they’re true Jews, unquestionably entitled to full Israeli citizenship.”
Moshe leaned back in his chair. “To make it more complicated, centuries ago, a group of them converted to Ethiopian Christianity, and they inherited the Ark. But they’re the most Jewish Christians you ever met. They’re more Jewish than most people in this building.”
Uri leaned forward in his chair. “Why haven’t we ever tried to take the Ark back then?”
Moshe nodded slowly. “We asked a few times, but the Ethiopians weren’t interested. It seems it’s very sacred to them. A sole monk has guarded it in a monastery for as long as anyone can remember now. Its presence in Ethiopia has been a core part of their Christian belief for centuries, and we have no political appetite for a major diplomatic rift with Christians over it. We rely on their goodwill for too many other things.”
“But now an armed militia has taken it.” Uri could see where this was going.
“Congolese.” The old man answered gravely. “And that changes everything. Now we have a chance to get it back without upsetting anyone important.”
Moshe stood up, indicating the meeting was over.
Uri followed him to the door. As the veteran neared it, he grabbed Uri’s upper arm. He leaned in close, and Uri could see the steel in the old man’s eyes.
“Do you appreciate the implications of this, Uri, for us, if the Ark falls into the hands of the enemies of Israel? Do you understand how weak we will look, and the damage it will do? They’ll say our God has abandoned us.” The grip on Uri’s arm was vice-like.
“Yes, sir, I do,” Uri answered, keenly aware that religion and politics were inseparable in this country, where the people’s right to be there rested on a promise made to them by God.
Moshe released Uri’s arm, and ushered him out of the door. “You’d better. That’s why I’m giving this job to
Metsada
. Don’t screw it up.”