Flash Point

18

Eight F-16 Israeli fighters appeared out of nowhere and flew over the Washington as it steamed majestically into Haifa Bay. They banked east and flew inland, still in formation. Woods smiled at the sight. There was nothing quite like seeing fighters fly in formation. Woods aligned his belt buckle to keep his whites pristine and perfect. He was one of the few squadron officers willing to put on his dress uniform for the privilege of standing on deck while approaching Haifa. Sailors lined the perimeter of the flight deck and every deck above it, to the O12 level above the signal bridge, their whites snapping like flags in the stiff breeze.

Small patrol gunboats of the Israeli Navy — officially not a Navy, just part of the Israeli Defense Force — cruised alongside like puppies, dwarfed even by the Ticonderoga, the Aegis cruiser accompanying the Washington.

Excitement had been building for days since the port visit to Haifa had been confirmed. The sailors had assumed it would never happen. Too much volatility. Port calls in Israel were always subject to the political winds and changed with little notice. Many of the sailors had been on cruises in the Mediterranean before and had been scheduled to go to Haifa only to have the plans change for reasons they couldn’t now remember. But someone had decided that allowing events like the bus attack to vary the schedule was giving in to terrorism. And now they were in Israel.

They were excited; more than the usual excitement of a port call. Perhaps it was the recommendation to wear their uniforms ashore that so astounded them. The usual instructions were to wear civilian clothes and try not to look too American; otherwise, it was thought, people might spit on you or try to shoot you. But here, there were stories of people being asked over to dinner by Israelis because they were Americans. And women who wanted to spend time with you because you were in the Navy. That rumor alone was enough to make the sailors lose sleep.

As always in the Mediterranean, the Washington anchored offshore, her draft too deep to pull into port.

As soon as the anchors were lowered the boats were prepared to carry the men to liberty. Woods was in line to be on the first officer boat. Big was his reluctant companion.

Woods bounced impatiently. He had been to Israel before, but had never taken advantage of his time to see the country. This would be different. He had traded with other officers so the duty watches he was scheduled to stand weren’t during the time in port in Israel. He could spend every minute of the next four days seeing the country. And finding out what had happened to Vialli.

“How are we going to get to Tel Aviv?” asked Big unenthusiastically.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Vaguely. It’s north of Tel Aviv on the coastal highway.”

Big looked down at Woods. “Why are you doing this?”

“Have to.”

“Won’t change anything.”

Woods nodded slowly. “I know.”

“Then why do it? You’ve gotta get on with your life. Vialli’s death—”

“Murder.”

“Okay, murder. You can’t spend the rest of your life obsessing about it.”

“I’m not obsessing.”

“Right,” Big replied as the line started to move.

“I just want justice…”

Big scoffed. “You need to read more Shakespeare. Then you’d know justice doesn’t exist.”

“I’m not talking about global justice, Big. I’m talking about making the people who did this pay. That’s all.”

“Good luck,” Big replied, stepping into the open enlisted boat being used as an officer boat. Automatically, he walked toward the bow. Woods followed. “They never find those guys, and if they do, they can’t ever do anything about it.”

“That’s what I’m trying to change. That’s why I wrote to my congressman…”

“Looks to me like you’ve hit a wall. You didn’t accomplish anything except to get frustrated and obsess on Vialli for a month.”

The boat pulled away from the Washington, headed for Haifa. The white buildings of the city stood out sharply from the hills, reminding Woods of the Azores. He sat back against the seat and looked aft toward the diminishing carrier.

When the boat touched the quay the sailors jumped off to moor it firmly. The officers waited for the Air Boss, the senior officer aboard — always last on and first off — to go ashore first, then filed off after him, looking forward to what they thought awaited them.

Woods and Big stood on the shore, shielding their eyes from the sun, not sure which way to turn. Officers and sailors, conspicuous in their brilliant white uniforms and covers, congregated in small groups. Israelis in passing cars and buses stared at them, then at the enormous ship sitting in the middle of the bay.

A short man with curly black hair approached Woods and Big who were still unsure about which way to go. “Taxi?”

“You speak English?” Big asked.

“Sure. I grew up in New York. Where you want to go?” the driver asked, grinning.

Woods chuckled. “To the train station. We want to go to Tel Aviv.”

“No problem. Let’s go.”

Having been ashore in foreign ports before, Big asked, “How much?”

“You got money?”

“What?”

“Money. You got Israeli money?”

“No. Just dollars.”

“That’s fine. Five dollars.”

“Okay. Let’s go,” said Woods, surprised by the reasonable fare.

The ride to the train station took only five minutes. Woods and Big looked out the windows of the cab like the tourists they were. Haifa was a bustling vibrant city.

The people who noticed the cab also saw the white uniforms and tended to stare, more curious than hostile. Woods paid the driver and walked into the train station carrying his gym bag. Big followed. The train station reminded Woods of those he had seen in Southern California, a small station house with a lot of open space. They looked around and walked to the ticketing office.

“Hello,” Woods said. “Do you speak English?”

“Little,” the man said kindly, leaning his head to one side to allow him to hear better.

“We would like to go to Tel Aviv. When is the next train?”

“Left just now. Two hours more.”

He moved away from the window toward Big, who was watching the people in the station. “We just missed it. Next one is in two hours.”

“So we wait I guess,” Big said. “Unless you want to forget about this and go back to the boat.”

“No. I’m not going to forget about it. We can… hold it. What do you say we go to Nahariya instead?”

“What for?” Big asked, already knowing whatever he said wasn’t going to matter.

“To meet her family.”

Puzzled, Big asked, “Whose family?”

“Irit’s. You know. The one he was with when he got killed.”

“Murdered.”

“Touché. What do you say?”

Big didn’t like the idea at all. “Do you even know her name?”

Woods grimaced. “I’m sure I’ll remember by the time we get there. Plus I’ll bet everybody in Nahariya knows who she was.” He shifted his weight to his other foot to relieve the pressure on the one that was killing him. His white shoes never had fit him, and he was too cheap to replace them, since they rarely wore whites.

“You ever been there?”

“No. But it isn’t that far. I mean the whole country is about the size of San Diego County.”

“You don’t even know where we’d go once we got there.”

“There’s got to be some kind of hotel or something, and if not, we can ride the train straight from there to Tel Aviv and sleep on the way. What do you say?”

“I think you’re nuts. But since this is your rubber room we’re living in, I’m just along to make sure you don’t hurt yourself. Lead on.”

Woods went back to the ticket window. “Is there a train soon to Nahariya?”

The man glanced at the clock on the wall. “One half hour,” he said.

“Half an hour, Big, what do you say?”

“It’s your script, Trey. Whatever you want to do.”

Woods turned to the man at the window. “Two to Nahariya please.”

Sami was asleep and afraid. This was something new for him, to be fast asleep and have his unconscious mind yelling at him in fear. He had to wake up, but he couldn’t. He had been pushing himself too hard lately, too many late nights, too much anxiety from everything riding on his shoulders.

Something was in his eyes. Something red. He stirred waking slightly, his eyes still shut. Redness flashed across his eyelids again and his heart raced. What the hell — He opened his eyes in his dark bedroom inside his townhouse. He sat up and looked around. The room was a mess, his clothes were on the floor right where he had left them. He was about to lie down again, when the red light moved across his face again. Sami had no idea what was going on. The red light had come from the window, through the gap on the side of the window shade.

Padding over to the window in his bare feet, he opened the shade slightly and peered out. The red light was there again. Sami grew annoyed. Some neighborhood kid had decided that climbing into a tree and shining a laser pointer into his bedroom would be great fun. What a prick —

“Sami,” a gruff voice whispered.

The voice scared him. It was no kid. “Who’s there? What do you want?”

“Downstairs.”

The laser pointer was switched off and he heard the man climbing down the tree. Sami was confused. Whoever it was knew who he was and where he lived. Still barefoot, he went down the stairs to the front door and peeked through the peephole. Nothing. As he strained to see outside in the darkness, pressing his nose against the door, he heard a soft knock. “Shit!” Sami exclaimed, jumping back. He stood in the dark, his heart pounding. Then, turning the handle, he cracked the door open.

Someone shoved at the door, pushing it wide open, as a hand hit his chest, knocking him backward into the townhouse.

“What the—”

“Hi, Sami,” Ricketts said in Arabic, reaching up to put out the porch light and then closing the door behind him.

Sami stared at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You trying to give me a heart attack? What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” Ricketts said, still in Arabic.

“At…” Sami looked at his wrist, which had no watch.

“Three o’clock.”

“What are you doing here?” Sami asked again in English.

“Speak Arabic,” Ricketts said.

Sami was happy to. He continued in Arabic. “What were you doing in the tree?”

“I’ve been knocking on your door for fifteen minutes. There was no answer.”

“So you climb in a tree and shine a laser pointer into my bedroom? Can’t that make you go blind?” he asked.

“It wasn’t a laser pointer.”

“What was it?”

“A laser sight.”

“A what?”

“A laser sight. From my weapon.”

“What weapon?”

“The one I carry.”

Sami stared at him. He couldn’t believe his ears. “You were pointing a weapon at me in my bed? Loaded?”

“What good is an unloaded weapon?” Ricketts asked.

“You could have killed me!”

“Not unless I wanted to. I was using the sight to see if I could see you inside your bedroom. Then I thought maybe the sight might wake you up.”

“You some kind of psycho?”

“I want to ask you some questions.”

“Why can’t you ask me at the Agency, later? Why the big, dramatic thing?”

“I don’t have much time. I must use every minute.”

“Until what?”

“A mission.”

“What mission?”

“Can’t say.”

“What a surprise.”

“It has to do with our friend.”

Sami stared at Ricketts, suddenly realizing that the man had been speaking the best Arabic Sami had heard in a very long time; as good as Sami’s father. Very learned, very articulate. Not a hint of an accent, except perhaps Arabian, as in Saudi Arabian. “What do you need to know?”

“Absolutely everything you know about him, everything you have thought or suspected. A long, rambling, illogical, speculative talk, that will give me as much help as you can give.”

“When?” Sami asked, still tired.

“Now.”

Sami sighed and then pulled himself together. “Coffee?”

“It sure didn’t take us very long to get here,” Woods said as he picked up the phone book.

“That’s because it wasn’t very far,” Big replied, scrutinizing the Nahariya train station from the chair he was sitting in.

“You’re hilarious,” Woods replied.

“You still don’t remember her name? Didn’t Vialli tell you?”

Woods refused to look at Big. “Yeah, he told me. I just can’t remember.”

“How do you know she wasn’t lying about that too?”

“I guess I don’t.”

“Come on. Let’s go back to the ship. This is a waste of time.”

“Hirschman. That’s it!”

“How do you know?”

“I just know,” he said, opening the phone book. He turned the pages quickly and then slowed. “This is in Hebrew. I figured the names would be in English.” He put the book down.

“You are dumber than a post sometimes, Trey. Why in the world would there be an English phone book in Israel?”

“Excuse me,” Woods said to a passing soldier, one of the many in the train station, each carrying an M-16 or an Uzi. The soldier stopped.

“Yes?” he said.

“Do you speak English?”

“Yes, a little.”

“Could you find the Hirschman residence for me in the phone book?”

The soldier was young and sturdy. He stood nearly six feet tall and had short black hair under a beret. He studied Woods as he considered the request. “Sure, of course. Why do you want their phone number?” he asked.

“We just need to talk to them. Their daughter, Irit, was a friend of a friend.”

The soldier slung his M-16 over his shoulder and took the phone book. He looked at the pages as he talked. “Are you off the carrier at Haifa?”

“Yes, we are.”

The soldier’s eyes brightened as he considered the Washington. “I wish we had just one ship like that. You Americans have twelve of them and don’t know what to do with them.” He glanced at them. “Is it nuclear?”

“Yes.”

“What is that like?”

Big shrugged. “Just like not being nuclear-powered,” Big answered. “You can’t tell at all, except there’s no stack.”

The soldier studied Woods’s face. “Was your friend the Navy officer on the bus?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He closed the book, holding a finger in it to keep his place. “We all knew her. She was two years older than me.” He grew somber. “She was one of the jewels of Nahariya. Wonderful girl, very strong spirit; I don’t know the words in English. She was special.”

“Tony thought so. He was my roommate. He came here to visit her and was murdered with her.”

“Here is the number,” he said, indicating it. “You want me to call? I don’t know if her father speaks English.”

“Would you?” Woods said.

The soldier dialed the phone and waited for an answer. He spoke rapidly into the receiver in Hebrew, then he stopped, and held the receiver out. “He would like for you to come to their house. Would you like to go?”

“That would be great.”

The soldier spoke into the receiver again, then hung up.

“What did he say?”

“He said he would be honored if you would come to his house. He would come to get you, but I told him I would show you where they live. It is not far from here.”

“Thanks. We really appreciate it. This was kind of a spur of the moment thing.”

“Follow me… Oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Jesse Sabin.”

“Sean Woods, and this is Big McMack.”

“You named after a sandwich?” Jesse said, smiling as they left the train station coming out into the bright sunlight.

“Exactly. My parents named me Big so I could take crap from people all the time. Actually it’s a nickname. My real name is Joseph.”

“Ah, the favored son,” Jesse said and then added, “I should warn you, Irit’s father did not take her death very well.” He unslung his M-16 and carried it at his side by the handle on the top of the rifle. Woods could see that the rifle’s ammunition clip was in place. Jesse continued, “The family hasn’t really gotten over it. Use wisdom. When you think it is time to go—”

“We won’t stay too long. Thanks for the advice.”

They walked for several more blocks through neighborhoods and streets filled with pedestrians and children playing, many of whom stopped what they were doing to stare at Woods and Big in their white uniforms.

The Americans and their Israeli escort entered a narrow street and stopped at a gate in a low wall.

“This is it,” Jesse said. “You can go knock on the door. I have to go.”

Woods and Big both extended their hands and Jesse shook them.

“Shalom,” Jesse said, smiling. He turned and headed in the direction of the water.

Woods and Big went through the gate. The building was unremarkable, a slab-sided, sand-colored condominium. They knocked and waited. The door opened slowly, and a little man in his sixties appeared. He had bushy eyebrows and sad eyes, thinning gray hair, and stooped shoulders.

“Hello,” Woods said cautiously. He wasn’t even sure why he had come. His enthusiasm and impulsiveness had gotten the better of him. Now, here he was, about to remind this poor old man of the death of his daughter. Woods suddenly felt deeply sorry for her father. “I’m Lieutenant Sean Woods. This is Bi… Joseph McMack…”

“Come in,” the man said, leaving the door open and moving toward the inside of the house. They followed him into a small living room off the kitchen. There was an unusual smell to the place that Woods couldn’t identify. He glanced into the kitchen as they passed it to see if food was being prepared, but he saw no food at all. A square patio surrounded by a fence was on the other side of a sliding glass door at the far end of the living room.

The old man motioned them to the couch and sat down in a dilapidated leather chair. He breathed deeply as he studied them.

Woods didn’t know how to start. He formed a few sentences in his mind, but none of them worked.

“So,” the man said. “You knew my daughter.”

“I spent a little time with her, but Tony Vialli — you met him?”

“Yes.”

“He was my roommate on the Washington. I spent some time with Tony and Irit in Italy.”

“Tony,” he replied. “Good boy. Handsome, but not one of us…”

Woods looked at Big for help but got back only a blank stare. “He was a great guy. I’m glad you got to meet him. Was he here long?”

“Only couple of days. He and Irit were together the whole time.” He stared at the tile floor. A woman walked into the room from the front of the house. Woods and Big stood up. “Hello,” she said in a friendly voice with an English accent. “I’m Miriam Hirschman.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Hirschman.”

She said suddenly, “You didn’t give them something to drink?”

He answered quickly in Hebrew at which she just waved her hand. “Can I get you boys something?”

“Whatever you have would be fine,” Woods said for both of them.

“How about some lemonade?”

“That would be great.”

“So you met her,” Mr. Hirschman said.

“Yes, sir, but I only saw her once,” Big said, trying to participate.

Jacob Hirschman pointed with a crooked finger to a picture frame on a corner table by the couch. “There she is,” he said.

They both looked where he was pointing. “She was gorgeous,” Woods said.

Jacob nodded his agreement, smiling just slightly with the corners of his sad eyes.

The picture captured Woods’s attention. He crossed to the table and picked it up. Something was different. He looked at her smiling face and her dark hair. Her hair was shorter in the picture, she was a little thinner… Suddenly he noticed her hand. It was completely normal. Woods looked at Jacob. “Her hand.”

“Yes. It was a tragedy.”

“What happened? I thought it was from birth…”

Jacob was puzzled. “Oh, no. Only for the last eighteen months. Since the accident.”

Woods looked at Big, who was very confused. He asked Jacob, “What accident?”

“The one where her hand was hurt.”

Woods waited. He had a strange feeling he was opening a door he hadn’t even known was there.

Jacob shrugged. “I don’t really know. She didn’t talk about it.”

“Did it get caught in something?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was she working at the time?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But she was a schoolteacher. What could—”

“A what?”

“Schoolteacher.”

The old man’s bushy eyebrows lifted in confusion. “Why do you say that?”

“That’s what she said.”

“She never taught school,” he said with finality.

“What did she do?”

“She worked for the government.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m not really sure. All she ever told me is it was the defense department. It was her business.”

“Was she working for the government when her hand was injured?”

“Yes, of course.” Jacob paused. He spoke to Big. “So you two are pilots.”

“Yes, sir,” Big said. “We’re stationed on the Washington. We pulled into Haifa this morning.”

Miriam came back into the living room, bringing the lemonade. She gave each of the men a tall cold glass and then sat in the only empty seat, a cloth-covered chair with shiny spots from years of use. “It was very nice of you to come and see us,” she said “We don’t get many visitors in white uniforms from the American Navy.”

“Thank you for having us,” Woods replied. He sipped his lemonade and complimented Miriam on the flavor. “I was just telling your husband, Tony Vialli was my roommate. I wanted to come see what he saw, and visit where he went.”

“That’s nice…”

“In fact, I got a postcard from Tony just the other day. It took a while for the mail to get there. It was from Nahariya.”

They smiled weakly, remembering.

“It was sent the day before he and Irit went to Tel Aviv for her interview.”

Miriam looked at Jacob. “What interview?”

“With the airline. El Al,” Woods said.

“She didn’t have any interview.” She looked at Jacob. “Did she?”

“No. What interview? What for?” he asked.

“Flight attendant.”

They both looked mystified. “No, she didn’t have an interview.”

“Then why was she going to Tel Aviv?”

“She didn’t say, really. I guess she wanted Tony to see some of the sights. And I think she had some business.”

Woods’s mind raced around considering the implications. “Government business?”

“I suppose.”

“She still worked for the government?”

“Of course.”

“And that was one of the reasons she wanted to go to Tel Aviv?” Woods drank from his glass. “Well, that’s interesting. But it probably doesn’t mean anything. Tony must have misunderstood her.”

“Yes, that must be it.”

“Well, we don’t want to take up all your time. We were on our way to see where Tony and Irit were murdered,” he said. The words chilled them.

“Why?” Miriam asked, her eyes moistening as her husband fought back his own emotions.

“I have to. I owe it to him.”

“Not much there,” Jacob said.

“You’ve been there?”

He shrugged.

“When?”

“When it happened.”

“Were you glad you went?”

He sighed. “I’m not glad about anything. I’ve lost too much. You have children?”

“I do,” Big said as Woods shook his head.

Jacob looked at Big. “Ever lost any of them?”

“Only in the store,” Big said, smiling, then immediately regretting it.

“She was everything to me. I don’t know how to say it.” He drank his lemonade with a shaking hand. “She was the family. It is the only thing you leave… You know what I am saying?” he asked anxiously. “When you leave the world, you leave only your family. Even then, after fifty years, nothing. But at least for fifty years, you have people. You made a difference.”

Woods didn’t know what to say. Then to Jacob, “Would you like to come with us?”

Big stared at Woods, his eyes enlarged in warning.

“You mean to where it happened?”

“You’ve been there. You’d find it faster than we ever would.”

Jacob looked at Miriam, who smiled gently at him. She said, “I can’t, Jacob, it’s too hard for me. But you go if you want.”

“All right,” he said. “You stay here tonight. I will drive you there first thing in the morning. Tonight, I will tell you stories about Irit, my little girl. Our only daughter.”

“So?” Ricketts asked, somewhat annoyed that he had to ask at all.

“So what?” Kinkaid replied. He had gone over to the DO, out of the task force area, to find Ricketts. Kinkaid had gone to the Director to talk to him about Ricketts. He had a bad feeling about Ricketts’s mission. He had to acknowledge to himself that it was probably because he didn’t know how the mission was to be carried out. But there was something else about it that gnawed at him. He had asked the Director of Central Intelligence, who was in charge not only of the CIA but all intelligence, to read him into Ricketts’s mission. He had refused. Not only had he refused but he said that the agreement he had with Ricketts was that no one else could be read into that mission, and Ricketts had to be personally notified if anyone else even asked to be read in. The DCI had told him that he now had to notify Ricketts of Kinkaid’s interest.

The idea had made Kinkaid so angry he had almost quit the Agency on the spot. He was fed up with the distrust, the over-the-top concern for secrecy, especially when it involved an area that was supposed to be under his control as the head of the task force. It drove him nuts. He was able to extract one promise from the DCI though, one that he thought might just drive Ricketts crazy — which at this point would be okay in Kinkaid’s mind — the right to decide whether Ricketts could go at all. The go, no-go decision was Kinkaid’s. Just as Ricketts had implied when they’d talked in the parking lot. Kinkaid knew Ricketts had pulled that early morning stunt just to imply that Kinkaid had the power, knowing all the time that only Ricketts and the Director really had the clout to call off the mission. He had made Kinkaid lower his guard by making him think he had power he never really had. Well, now he did.

Ricketts had decided he had to go now, and he had told the DCI so. The DCI had then informed him that that decision was now in the hands of Kinkaid.

Kinkaid had found him in the coffee room.

“Tell me why it has to be now,” Kinkaid insisted.

“Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m not going to approve it.”

“I’ll see the DCI,” Ricketts argued.

“He gave it to me.”

“Then he can un-give it to you.”

“Maybe.”

Ricketts hated these games. “The location I have for our friend is only for an hour. Two at the most. I don’t decide when to do this, he does. I have no idea where he’ll be before or after. Just during that window. That’s it. If I don’t get him then, I’ll probably never get him.”

“You sure?”

Ricketts sneered. “You know better than that. We’re never sure. The whole thing could be a trap. But I’m prepared to bet my life it’s not a trap, and he’ll be there. That’s as sure as I ever get.”

Kinkaid sighed. “Look, I know I’ve been hard on you. I just don’t like it when things I’m responsible for are outside of my control.”

“You’re not responsible.”

“The hell I’m not. This will come down on my head if you fail.”

“I won’t fail,” Ricketts said.

“When we get him back here, you going to do the interrogation?”

“Personally. I’d like Sami to help.”

Kinkaid was surprised. “Seriously?”

“Yes. He understands.”

“I’ll think about it.” Kinkaid turned, then Ricketts spoke again.

“I don’t have to bring him back at all.”

“We can’t do that,” Kinkaid replied, understanding exactly what he meant.

“I can get someone else to do it.”

“Nope. Bring him. We need to have a chat.”

Ricketts nodded and walked past Kinkaid.