Justifiable Homicide: A Political Thriller (Robert Paige Thrillers Book 1) (23 page)

“That’s quite an interesting story.” Wellington was commenting on the data dump Paige had just given him of the Steinman get-together. They were having lunch at
The Chart House
in Coconut Grove. Wellington chose that restaurant because it had tasty seafood and he was in a seafood mood.

Their outside table overlooked the boats in the marina. A speed boat went by, a little too fast. Its wake caused one boat to slam into another boat, making a small noise. The sun glistened off the water. A sea gull landed and perched on one of the docking posts. The smell of the salt air added to the ambiance.

Wellington took the chip from Paige’s pen that had recorded the events of the meeting. “I’ll file your report and make copies of the photos you took. You can attach names to the photos after I print them out.”

Paige leaned forward and looked Wellington in the eyes. “I think Rachel Karshenboym’s going to be a problem. I could feel it. I got the distinct impression that she’s much more than just a sociology professor. She made a point of coming up to me during the break. I felt like I was being interrogated.”

“Yeah, she probably is much more than just a sociology professor and you probably were being interrogated. I’ll run her name through the system and see what I can find. If you managed to get a good photo of her, we might be able to pick something up with our facial recognition software. She might have done some work using other names. We’ll treat her as a threat for now, but a friendly threat. After all, she does work for the same team, more or less.”

“Any idea why Mossad might have planted her?”

Wellington’s eyes narrowed, his lids almost closed as he replied. “I don’t know. I guess they’re just interested in Steinman for the same reasons we’re interested in Steinman.”

As he uttered the words, Wellington was thinking something entirely different. Mossad knew that Steinman was going to get hit, but Paige didn’t know. Mossad’s options were limited. It was unlikely they would try to prevent the hit. They probably just wanted to monitor the situation for now, and maybe learn something about the aid he was funneling to the Palestinians.

Wellington wanted to change the subject slightly. “By the way, do you think any of the professors you met at Steinman’s should be put on the list for further investigation? Do you think any of them are a sufficient threat to national security?”

“Nah. They’re just a bunch of namby pamby professors. Karl Marx probably wouldn’t even bother talking to them.” Wellington smirked. He found the comment to be especially funny, coming from a professor. Paige didn’t want to have any of them investigated. He took a liking to some of them and he liked most of the ideas they came up with to draw attention to the TSA abuses.

Wellington wanted to pursue the issue. “I’m a little concerned they might organize some demonstrations to protest the TSA’s policies. That kind of thing could catch on like it did with the Occupy Wall Street protests.”

“Yeah, but those protests were organized and funded by outsiders. These guys are unorganized and unfunded and they don’t have any ties to groups in other cities.”

“Yeah, like Martin Luther King. He wasn’t organized or funded at first, either, but it didn’t take much funding for him to have an impact. All he had were a cause and people who were willing to march in the streets. And being unfunded today doesn’t mean they’ll be unfunded tomorrow. All they need is one guy like George Soros to take an interest in their cause and they could be funded overnight.”

Wellington paid the bill in cash. He didn’t want to use his Commerce Department credit card. He didn’t want to have to answer any questions from the bookkeeping department. He could tap into his CIA slush fund without the need for much more than a receipt. They finished their meal and headed toward the parking lot.

Wellington got in his car. He took out his cell phone and called Jim Bennett, his contact at the FBI, who was also on the CIA payroll.

“Jim, I’d like you to run a background check on Rachel Karshenboym. She’s a sociology professor at Miami Dade College. Yeah, it’s K-A-R-S-H-E-N-B-O-Y-M. I might be able to send you some photos later. Do a facial recognition scan.”

“Who is she? What am I supposed to find?”

“I’ll tell you after you do your check. I want to see how good you are.”

“Thanks a lot, fuck face. You know the FBI always gets its man … or its woman, in this case. We’ll find something on her even if there’s nothing to find.”

“On second thought, I think I should give you a few hints, since this search is a little out of the ordinary. She was born in Russia and spent some time in the Israeli army.”

“Hmmm. I think I see where this is going. Am I to assume I shouldn’t ask for Mossad’s assistance with this search and that I shouldn’t use a Jewish agent to do the search?”

“That would be a very good assumption. I’m sure you don’t have any Mossad moles in your office, since they are completely trustworthy and don’t have a history of spying on the United States, but there’s always a first time.” He smirked as he said it.

“Yeah, right.” They both knew it was a joke. A few months previously, the
New York Times
reported that several Israeli spies had been discovered working at the State Department. It was an open secret that Mossad had spies in sensitive U.S. government positions and that the United States had spies within the Israeli government. It wasn’t considered a big deal, since they were allies. Most of the time the press didn’t even report on it. The
New York Times
article was an exception. Apparently, something had slipped through the cracks. The usual modus operandi was for someone from the government to suppress the news before it could see the light of day.

Paige got into his car and drove away. He started to think about what the next few steps might be. He didn’t trust Wellington’s admonitions that Steinman wasn’t on their hit list, although it was plausible that Wellington just wanted to keep apprised of Steinman’s activities. But Professors Shipkovitz and Kaplan had been hit for doing and saying things that weren’t much different from what Steinman had been doing and saying for years. If Wellington was interested in Steinman, maybe he was also interested in Shipkovitz and Kaplan. Maybe interested enough to silence them. And the two guys who accosted him in the university parking lot apparently worked for Wellington, based on what he saw of their conversation in the alley by Wellington’s Commerce Department office building. There were too many unknowns. He decided to go along with the plan. For now.

“Thank you for your report. I think you’ve identified the CIA mole. Anyone who would have a pen in his pocket that is capable of taking photos isn’t an ordinary accounting professor.” Sergei Turetsky was commenting on the report of the Steinman meeting Rachel Karshenboym had just given him orally. They sat in Turetsky’s real estate office, along with his Mossad boss, Aaron Gelman. It was after 9 p.m. All the other real estate agents had gone home. They were alone. It was quiet. The air conditioning put a chill on the room. Rachel noticed it.

Gelman didn’t usually get involved in minor projects, especially in the early stages. The fact that he was physically present at the meeting indicated that he didn’t regard the Steinman project as something minor.

Turetsky turned toward Gelman. “Do you think we should alert Tel Aviv about this?”

“No, not yet. That would be premature. Let’s find out some more information first.” Gelman hesitated to pass along the information to his superiors for several reasons. For one, they might dismiss it as nothing and accuse him of being paranoid, which they had done on several other occasions. He didn’t want to appear to be incompetent. He had an image to protect, an image that was damaged due to a few errors of judgment in the past. He didn’t want to have another incident added to his file.

His other reason for not reporting was that Tel Aviv might consider this series of events to be so important that they would take over the project, taking it out of his hands. That would result in another loss of face for him. He could always alert them of this planned hit later, when he had more details.

Gelman looked at his watch. “What are our options?” He was getting nervous about the time. His wife, Shona didn’t like it when he was out late and it was getting late. Luckily, he always had a built-in excuse. He worked for Mossad and she knew it, although she didn’t know the details. His job prevented her from asking the questions that most wives ask when their husband came home late without a good reason. He had used this built-in excuse to dally with high-end prostitutes from time to time. His preference was non-Jewish blondes from Eastern Europe or the Midwest.

“Sergei, what do you think?”

“One option would be to do nothing. Just let it happen.”

Rachel practically jumped out of her chair to respond. “I like this option. Steinman is a piece of shit. He’s doing things that undermine U.S. security, and that means Israeli security.”

Gelman was a little startled by her response to the question, and by her enthusiasm. He was accustomed to more reasoned discussions. He also didn’t know about Rachel’s volatility. He wasn’t used to dealing with personnel a few levels lower in the chain of command. He almost never dealt with private contractors or part-timers. Rachel was a part-timer.

She continued. “We should assist them to make sure they do the job right. If we let him continue doing what he’s doing it would not be in Israel’s best interest.”

“I think that’s overstating the case.” Turetsky was beginning to think he had made a mistake by bringing Rachel into this case, or for letting her stay to participate in the discussion. Perhaps he should have thanked her and asked her to leave after she finished giving her oral report.

Turetsky continued. “Steinman’s a mixed bag. Although some of his present activities don’t help the cause, we mustn’t forget that he’s a strong supporter of Israel, and that he’s vocal about it in the media. I think his support counterbalances his other activities.”

Gelman chimed in, “This whole thing would never have happened if the TSA had adopted the techniques we use to screen passengers. Rather than strip search nine year-old boys and grandmothers with colostomy bags, they should focus their attention on the real threat, which is Muslims.”

“Yeah, but the Americans are overly sensitive about profiling people. They’d rather strip search a thousand grandmothers than offend a single Muslim.” The Americans’ lack of logic on this point baffled Turetsky. He had difficulty understanding the American view that all people should be treated equally.

Gelman interrupted. “We could talk all day about the way Americans do things but that wouldn’t get us any closer to resolving this problem.” Although everyone in the room was an American citizen, they were also Israeli citizens. From the tone of their conversation, it was clear that their ultimate loyalty was with Israel rather than the United States.

Gelman continued. “What are our other options? Let’s make a list. Let’s think of everything we can possibly do, even if it doesn’t sound realistic at first. We can always cross those options off the list later.” He looked at his watch. It was approaching 10 pm.

“Make sure that assisting them to execute Steinman is one of the options on the list.”

“Yes, Rachel, we’ll include that on the list for now.” Turetsky said it, but he had already crossed that option off the list in his mind, both because he thought Steinman needed to be saved and because the CIA didn’t need any help killing a professor. If they needed help with such a low level target, he thought there was no hope for western civilization.

Rachel turned toward Turetsky. “We should also consider liquidating all of them, since they are all a bunch of little Steinmans. We could let them kill Steinman or we could execute all of them ourselves. I can do it at the next meeting.” Rachel’s energy level had increased, in sharp contrast to the other people in the room, who were sitting and trying to have a rational discussion of the options.

Gelman had to say something. Rachel was getting out of control. “I don’t think that’s a realistic option. We shouldn’t be in the business of snuffing every person who advocates doing something that’s not in Israel’s best interest. All options involving killing Steinman are off the table.”

Rachel became visibly upset, but she hadn’t given up on the idea.

Turetsky felt compelled to end his silence. “One option would be to warn Steinman. If he knew he was a target he could do things to protect himself. He could take some defensive actions.” He was talking off the top of his head. This option had just popped into his head. He hadn’t had time to think out the details.

Gelman turned toward Turetsky. “What defensive actions could he take? He doesn’t know when or where it would happen. He doesn’t know who would do it. The only realistic thing he could do would be to get out of town, and I don’t think he’d consider doing that.” Gelman was thinking logically. Although he had never met Steinman, he put himself in Steinman’s shoes, thinking about what Steinman would do in the situation.

“What’s more likely is that he’d hold a press conference to broadcast the fact that he is being targeted, and use that as an opportunity to push his agenda.” Turetsky had studied Steinman enough to be able to predict his most likely reaction. “On second thought, I don’t think telling Steinman he’s being targeted would be a good idea. He couldn’t really do anything to protect himself, but he could complicate things for us. My contact at the CIA expects us to keep this information to ourselves. He told us in confidence, as a courtesy. If Steinman held a press conference, they could guess where he got the information.”

“Another option would be to liquidate the CIA people who are trying to snuff Steinman. If we kill the killers, Steinman and his band of little shits could continue to live.” Rachel was half joking. It was a way for her to vent her frustration.

Gelman responded quickly. “Rachel, that’s not a realistic option. Targeting CIA people would be counterproductive. Besides, we don’t know which CIA people to target, and even if we did manage to kill the right people, they’d be replaced by people we probably don’t know.”