The Sinai Secret (37 page)
"I would prefer not to phrase it that way, but yes. Once you have a legitimate reason to enter private property, you can certainly follow up on anything you find suspicious."
"Like the Gestapo or NKVD."
The diplomat shook his head in resignation. "I don't think they compare."
The policeman smiled, an icy grin without humor. "I'm using my right of free expression."
Terminal Three
Ben Gurion International Airport
That Afternoon
As he stepped into the terminal, Chief Inspector Karl Rauch was met by a man and a woman. They could have been brother and sister, Hansel and Gretel. Each treated him to brilliant, orthodonticaly perfect smiles; each wore what, in the United States, would have been described as "business casual": polo shirts over khakis with knife-sharp creases; and each had that well-scrubbed look of youth, along with optimistic expressions that told Rauch neither had yet learned much about the world they lived in.
The man reached for the inspector's carry-on bag, his only piece of luggage. Though he rarely flew, Rauch had frequently been advised of the capricious nature of baggage once entrusted to the airlines.
The woman shook his hand while holding an ID wallet up for his inspection. "Come with us, Inspector," she said. "No need to waste time standing in line with all the tourists."
"Your German is perfect," Rauch observed as he walked beside her. "Your accent sounds like Berlin?"
"Very close. Potsdam. My grandparents, actually. If you remain long in Israel, you will note that almost every family speaks at least one tongue besides Hebrew. We are a nation of immigrants. Do you make a specialty of languages?"
"In my line of work, it is sometimes useful to recognize a particular dialect."
If the man, Hansel, understood German, he gave no sign of it. Instead he headed into the concourse, Rauch's bag in hand.
Rauch and the woman followed his suitcase. She politely asked the usual meaningless questions required of someone meeting a recently disembarked stranger. This was not exactly the reception a visitor on police business expected. Rauch felt more like a distant relative arriving at a family reunion.
The man in front eased his way past multiple lines of arrivees waiting their turn with customs and immigrations and, probably unknown to most, computerized facial scans by cameras concealed in the ceiling. Just short of the officials' glass booths, Hansel held open an unmarked door. Although the inspector was glad to bypass the bureaucratic traffic jam, he wished he had known the visa he had spent an hour or so securing would not be needed after all.
They entered a room without windows. There were six molded plastic chairs with legs and backs of chrome. Rauch wondered why anyone would go to such effort to make furniture look both so ugly and uncomfortable. Against the far wall was a Formica-topped table. The walls had a yellowish tint, a color someone might have thought cheerful when originally applied. It had since faded to the pigment of old nicotine.
The girl turned to him. "Forgive me for failing to introduce myself earlier. It seemed unwise in public. Lt. Heidi Strassman, Tel Aviv police."
Rauch felt a strong but not exaggerated grip. "You obviously know my name." He faced the man, hand outstretched. "And you?"
The smile was long gone from the young man; nor did he seem interested in shaking hands. "I speak no German," he said in English. "Aaron Gruber. Shin bet, national security."
Rauch withdrew his hand, frowning at the prospect of speaking English. It was not one of his greater achievements. With verbs randomly scattered about instead of neatly stacked at the end of each sentence, verbs that had no real endings, and nondeclension nouns, the language was oral chaos.
In Rauch's experience national security usually equaled some sort of intelligence operation. Why couldn't these people just admit it up front? "Might I ask what your interest in Mr. Reilly is?"
Gruber and Strassman exchanged glances before he spoke. "Your friend Reilly seems to be interested in a person also of interest to Israeli security services." She motioned him to a chair that was every bit as uncomfortable as he had anticipated. "What can you tell us about the American?"
Nothing they didn't already know, as it turned out.
"We intend to execute your request and arrest Mr. Reilly this evening," Gruber continued. "He is near a kibbutz near Gaza. Would you care to join us?"
Actually, Rauch would much rather find a hotel room with a hot shower, cool air-conditioning, and a decent dinner. He was not looking forward to the long return flight with Reilly in custody. But he said, "Of course. Thank you for asking me."
"We will go by helicopter," Gruber announced like a threat.
And it was.
Rauch was hated helicopters. From his limited experience they seemed unstable, bouncing around in the sky so that a man's stomach was in his throat as often as not. Worse, the main rotor was attached by what he understood was called the Jesus nut: If it came loose, you were going to see Jesus very soon.
"Helicopter?" he asked, hoping they could not see the blood he imagined was draining from his face.
"Helicopters," Gruber repeated. Rauch Was sure the young man was enjoying his discomfort. "We have three waiting for us if you're ready, Inspector."
Thoughts of helicopters eclipsed those of dinner. In fact, Rauch was feeling a little nauseated already.
Just Outside Kibbutz Zion
An Hour Later
Prone in the sand, Lang and Jacob watched the kibbutz from a slight rise that gave them a view of most of the compound. Family by family, the inhabitants walked to the dining hall, the last arriving just as the day's last light leached from the western sky. Almost immediately the date trees began to speak, with fronds rustling in the breeze that sprang up from the ocean.
Both men waited a few more minutes until it was totally dark before standing.
"I didn't see anyone on lookout duty," Lang observed, dusting off as much sand as possible.
"This close to the wogs, they'd jolly well have some sort of sentry," Jacob said. "Most likely electronic sensors— visual, motion-detecting, or both."
"I looked pretty close when we drove by in the truck this morning. Didn't see any."
"You wouldn't. They'd be concealed, most likely in those two palm trees at the entrance."
"Easy enough to take care of. And from seeing "someone carry three lunch plates from the mess hall, it's also likely that Alicia has a couple of guards around the clock. Just like we guessed from the satellite shot."
Jacob stooped to pick up a backpack and shifted it onto his shoulders. "As we planned, you handle them. I'll handle diverting everyone else."
Lang took a last look at the lights spilling from open windows before both men started down the hill. He savored the familiar tingle of his scalp, the chill down his spine, the almost narcotic high of pending action. It was a feeling a lawyer and head of a charitable foundation did not often enjoy.
He had missed it.
Just outside the entrance they stopped. Silently, Jacob made a circling motion. Each man walked in a wide arc before returning to the point of beginning.
"You're right," Lang said. "There's something in that tree besides coconuts."
Jacob was studying the trees with the night-vision goggles. He pulled them up on his forehead. "Two small cameras on each, angled to cover anyone going or coming."
Lang squatted, bringing the outline of the kibbutz into focus against the starry sky. "And I suppose the fence is either electrified or has a trip wire."
Jacob put the goggles on again to have a look himself. "Bloody unlikely the fence is charged—too great a risk of killing someone's livestock. We can cut through it."
"That's sure to trip whatever alarm system they have."
"Right you are. Perhaps we can dig under it."
The two approached the triple strands of wire, careful to keep out of the field of view of the tree-mounted cameras.
Lang stooped to reach under the fence. "Shit! Concrete—they've poured cement under the fence. We'd need a jackhammer to dig under it." He stood and looked across the kibbutz. "But I bet their date orchard isn't inside the fence."
"So what?" Jacob asked. "We're not here to steal effing dates."
"Maybe not," Lang conceded, "but let's see."
Keeping low to prevent presenting a silhouette, they skirted the fence line as it turned a corner. Minutes later they could see the stately palm trees against the night sky. As they got closer it became clear the palms would be on their left and the fence to the right.
"Now what?" Jacob asked. "You planning to climb a tree like some sodding monkey?"
Lang was moving along the fence line. "Exactly."
"And do what, jump? Fit to fight wed be, what with broken legs."
"I don't think that's necessary if we can—"
Lang stopped so suddenly Jacob almost collided with his back in the dark.
"There!"
A number of the date palms, pushed by years of sea breeze, were leaning drunkenly toward the fence.
Lang selected one bent almost horizontal. "This should do."
"Do what?" Jacob protested. "We can't even see how far it is off the ground where it crosses the fence."
"I doubt it gets any farther off the ground than we see here. Besides, feel how soft this sand is? Makes a great landing surface."
Jacob mumbled something before inhaling noisily. "I suppose this is the only way in."
"Unless you have another idea."
Jacob shook off his backpack and tossed it over the fence. "If I can't find that in the dark, we've made a fruitless trip."
Lang held out a hand. "Need a boost up?"
"Keep yer sodding boost to yerself. I may not be as young as I used to be, but I bloody well can still climb a tree."
Two attempts later he was breathing hard. "Well, okay, then, perhaps a wee boost would be in order."
With Lang behind pushing, Jacob made the ten to twelve! vertical feet before the tree bent toward the fence. The trunk was wide enough to permit easy movement along it.
"This should do," Lang announced, swinging over the side. He hung by his arms for a moment before dropping with a barely audible thud onto the sand below. "Softer than I thought," he whispered up.
It took perhaps a full minute to locate Jacob's backpack.
"Okay," Lang said. "I'll wait for you to do your thing. Try to get to where they're holding her. We'll take one of the cars outside to get out of here once we have her."
Without a reply, Jacob disappeared into the darkness.
Using the lights from the buildings, Lang navigated to the one from which he had seen Alicia exit that morning. There were three vehicles in front, a Range Rover, Mercedes's boxy version of the same automobile, and a Toyota pickup.
Lang waited in deep shadow until he was certain no one else was in the area. Keeping the cars between him and the building, he crawled to the pickup, knelt to open the door, and popped the hood latch. Seconds later he had the distributer cap in hand, which he threw as far away as he could. He repeated the process with the Range Rover before withdrawing again to the shadows to wait.
He was never sure of how long it took, only that the explosion came much quicker than he had anticipated.
He saw a flash, an orange cloud limning the water tower as its two front legs buckled like an animal kneeling to drink. He felt a blast of hot air, and only then did he hear the sound, a noise that cracked like a roll of thunder, followed by the diluvial slosh as the toppling tank ruptured when it hit the ground, releasing thousands of gallons of water.
He watched as figures jammed the mess hall's doorway just in time to watch the pyrotechnic display of what Lang guessed had been a fuel storage facility erupting in a greasy orange-and-black firestorm.
Men were outside the mess hall now, some firing Uzis blindly toward the conflagration, believing they were under attack by their Arab neighbors. Others screamed for firefighting equipment, which, Lang guessed, would be quite useless with the loss of the water supply.
The general impression was like kicking over an anthill.
Lang positioned himself beside the door of the building in whose shadows he had been waiting.
Two men carrying Uzis, Alicia's guards, stepped outside. The noise of general pandemonium as well as the roar of the flames devouring the shed made it impossible to hear what was said, but it was obvious they were as surprised as their comrades in the mess hall.
Lang stepped into the doorway behind them so that, should anyone look this way, the two would block sight of him. The SIG Sauer was in his hand. "This way, gentlemen."
They whirled, one beginning to raise his weapon until he saw the muzzle of Lang's pistol only inches from his forehead.
This sect might well be fanatics but they weren't suicidal.
