Headhunters

Chapter Two

They had two safe houses. The first was in Merrydale, north of Baton Rouge. Both properties had been rented two months earlier by a Mossad advance agent working with a local sayan. This house was designated Moaz, or “stronghold.” It was a nondescript property in a middle-class street. It had been chosen because it was average, and because the neighbourhood in which it was situated was known for housing transient workers. It was the sort of place where newcomers would attract little in the way of attention. Perfect for what they had in mind.

The two agents had been in the country for three days. Their papers recorded them as Mr. and Mrs. Rabin, a young couple from Tel Aviv who had come to Louisiana for a holiday. They had landed at New Orleans, checked into a hotel, stayed there for long enough to be noticed by the staff, and then made their way west.

Malakhi and Keren Rabin were two of the Mossad’s most effective kidon. The word meant “bayonet” in Yiddish, and the kidon comprised the Mossad’s assassins. The unit included forty-eight men and women. They were all in their twenties and all of them were fastidious in ensuring that they remained in the best physical condition possible. They lived and worked outside Mossad’s headquarters in Tel Aviv and in a restricted military base in the heart of the Negev desert.

The Rabins often worked together. Their status as a married couple had proven to be an excellent cover. Their last assignment had been in Paris. They had once again posed as tourists and had assassinated a prominent Iranian arms dealer who was alleged to have supplied Hezbollah with the Katyusha rockets it had been firing into northern Israel. They had carried out their orders and blended back into the background, just another couple of tourists enjoying the hospitality of the City of Light.

The house in Baton Rouge had been readied for their arrival. The equipment for the operation had been sourced and was waiting for them beneath the floorboards in the second bedroom. There were six Beretta 70s firing .22-calibre rounds. They had half-powder loads and suppressors to make them as quiet as possible. There were four Tavor assault rifles with plenty of ammunition. They would often have loaded out with Uzis, but, even though the Uzi was a great weapon, it was chambered in 9mm and a handgun round was less effective when shooting at vehicles. Glass and metal could cause round deflection, a problem that would not be encountered with the Tavor’s high-velocity 5.56mm ammunition. There was a rolled spike strip fitted with a series of two-and-a-half-inch-long metal alloy spikes. The spikes were rugged, with three sharp-cornered edges, a half-inch wide at the base. Finally, there was a small netbook that had been installed with the software to monitor the GPS beacon that had been given to the man whom they had been sent to collect.

The advance agent had also rented two cars and a van for the purposes of the operation. The van and one of the cars had been put in long-term parking at the airport. The transport for the Rabins was a 2013 Honda Accord. It had been delivered to the house overnight, the keys posted through the letterbox.

They transferred their equipment to the trunk of the car before dawn when the street was quiet. They had a large breakfast, not knowing when they would be able to eat again, and then phoned to check whether the operation was still proceeding.

It was.

They locked the house, got into the car and set off.

The Rabins arrived at the waiting area near the Tunica Hills State Wildlife Park at half past seven. It was a wide space that offered parking for a dozen automobiles. The lot was empty this morning save for their Accord. There were picnic tables, an information board that had been bleached by the elements, and a trail that led away into the trees.

Malakhi Rabin opened the driver’s side door and stepped out. It was already hot, despite the early hour. He could see the buildings of a refinery in the distance, the smokestacks wavering in the hazy, polluted air. They called this part of Louisiana “Cancer Alley.” The landscape was baked dry, the vegetation as brittle as tinder. Cicadas buzzed and birds, already addled by the heat, murmured their songs.

Malakhi was six feet tall and obviously muscular beneath the linen shirt that was already damp with his sweat. He reached into the car, took his sunglasses from the dash and put them on. He gazed at the horizon and the thick bank of black clouds that was gathering there.

His wife got out of the car. Keren Rabin was five eight and slender, her toned bare arms suggesting that she spent a lot of time in the gym. That was true, but she also owed her physique to hours of gruelling training on the wrestling mat. She was a skilful Krav Maga fighter. Many of the men that she had eliminated had taken one look at her striking appearance and assumed that she was just another pretty face. She came onto them, flirted with them, and they let their guards down. They took her somewhere quiet, somewhere they wouldn’t be disturbed. And that was the last mistake that they made.

“Storm coming,” Malakhi said.

Keren looked down at her cell phone. “They’re saying it’ll be here in half an hour.”

“Going to get wet, then.”

“Better wet than this. It’s hotter than Hell.”

Malakhi nodded his agreement. “Storm might be a good distraction, too.”

Keren glanced at the road. A van was approaching. It was an off-white Chevrolet Express. The Rabins watched as the van slowed and pulled off the road. Dust billowed from the wheels as it bounced across the uneven ground and drew to a halt alongside the Accord. There were four people inside the van: three men and one woman.

This was the second team. They were codenamed Mural. The four agents had been in the country for a week. They had arrived under the cover of students visiting Louisiana State University as part of an exchange programme. Their pseudonyms were Levy, Peretz, Biton and Dahan.

Malakhi went over to the van and opened the driver’s side door. “Morning,” he said.

Dahan stepped down. “We have a green light?”

“We do.”

“How long?”

“Thirty minutes.”

“Just in time for the storm.”

“We were just saying that.”

“It’ll reduce the vis. That’s no bad thing.”

“We were saying that, too.”

The female agent, Peretz, came around the van to the car. She nodded a greeting. “Do you have the gear?”

“In the trunk.”

She reached into the Accord to pop the lid and then went around the back to open it. She took out the Tavors and the Berettas and distributed them to the other members of the team.

Dahan checked the mechanism on the submachine gun. “Same deal?” he asked.

Malakhi nodded. “I don’t see any reason to change it.”

“We know what we’re looking at?”

“Not for sure. They think a van and an escort vehicle. Probably a sedan.”

“And guards?”

“They’ll take him seriously. At least two, possibly four.”

Peretz racked the slide of her Beretta. “Rules of engagement?”

“As we discussed. The priority is getting him out. Anything you have to do to accomplish that is fine. We have carte blanche.”

“Including lethal force?”

“If necessary.”

“And that’s from the top?”

“That’s right.”

She whistled her surprise. All of them shared the sentiment. This was an unusual assignment. Not the scope of it — that was routine — but the country in which it was taking place.

“It’s not for us to ask why,” Keren reminded them.

Dahan looked up at the sky. The clouds were closer now, a rolling shroud that was throwing shadow over the landscape.

Keren went back to the car. The netbook was open on the dash and an alert bleeped.

“Target is moving,” she called out. “Ten minutes out.”

It was eight o’clock.

“Move,” Malakhi said.