Headhunters

Chapter Forty-Two

They landed at Ovda. The airport was north of Eilat and the second largest in the country. It would have been easier to take a flight straight to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion, but Milton wanted to minimise the risk that they might be detected. He didn’t think Bachman and his stooges would suspect that he would run to Israel, straight to the bosom of the Mossad, but he couldn’t be sure. And, he knew, the passive security at Ben Gurion was state of the art. There was a good chance that he would be identified; his photograph would be captured and sent up the chain. Ovda had always been a little less advanced than its sister facility to the north, more concerned with welcoming tourists to the country than businessmen and diplomats.

That didn’t mean that it would be a walk in the park. Milton’s working knowledge was out of date and there was a very good chance that the security had been improved since the last time that he had visited.

Nothing to be done about that now, he thought, as he thanked the attendants at the front of the jet and stepped over the sill onto the waiting air bridge. The air was hot, and it washed over him like soup after the artificial chill of the plane.

“You all right?” he said, turning back to Matilda.

“Never better,” she said wryly. “Always wanted to visit Israel.”

Milton led the way across the air bridge into the terminal building. Their fellow travellers were mostly tourists, with a smattering of businessmen and women. Milton had managed to get a little sleep, but it had not been satisfactory and he knew that he would benefit from a few extra hours. He didn’t know whether that would be possible.

They made their way into the terminal building and joined the line for an immigration check that he expected to be particularly rigorous. He knew, from experience, that all Israeli airports had a practice of sending all military-age males with backpacks to secondary screening, regardless of where they were flying from or where they said they were going. They did not fit that profile, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t nervous as they shuffled forward. He had reminded Matilda of their cover story and emptied his bag of anything that might have contradicted it. He had been equally rigorous with the litter in their pockets.

He leaned over to Matilda and reminded her quietly, “Be natural.”

The border guard looked up at her and beckoned her forward before she could reply.

“She any good at this?” Ziggy said quietly.

“She’ll be okay.”

“You still want me to head off on my own?”

They had spoken about what Milton wanted Ziggy to do during their conversation on the flight. It would have looked unusual for a couple and a third traveller with no apparent connection to them to check into the same hotel, so Milton had told Ziggy to book into the nearby Hilton. The procedure that they had agreed upon was that the first of them to make it through security would make the arrangements for the trip to Tel Aviv, and then to communicate that information to the other.

“Yes,” Milton said. “Just as we discussed.”

“Fine.”

Milton and Ziggy waited in line as the man checked her papers, scanning the barcode and then looking from her picture to her face and back again. She stood there, her face blank and impenetrable, and Milton silently urged her to smile, to look impatient or irritated, to be anything, but she did not.

It was a relief when the man nodded at her to go through and called Ziggy forward.

Milton pretended not to watch too closely. There was nothing for it but to hope that Ziggy wouldn’t say anything stupid and that there was nothing in his bag that would have caused him a problem. The guard asked questions, the words muffled by the tinny speakers that broadcast them, and Ziggy answered. He took a little longer than Matilda had, but, finally, the guard gave a nod, slid Ziggy’s passport back through the slit in the glass and bid him through.

The man looked up and nodded to Milton.

“Passport.”

Milton handed it over.

The man looked at it.

“Mr. Anderson,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“What is your business in Israel, Mr. Anderson?”

“Holiday.”

“Where?”

“Eilat.”

“Hotel?”

Milton felt the buzz of nerves, but he hid it. “Herods Vitalis Spa.”

“You have a reservation?”

“Yes.”

The man looked back down at the passport. There would be a button beneath the desk which, when pressed, would summon the agents who performed the secondary screenings. Milton tried not to watch as the guard’s hand crept back towards the edge of the desk, paused there for a moment, and then went up to attend to an itch on his nose.

“Good day, Mr. Anderson. Enjoy your vacation.”

Milton pulled his suitcase behind him and made his way through customs and into the arrivals hall. Matilda was waiting for him on the other side of the sliding doors. She looked at him with a quizzical expression. He gave a shallow nod and reached down and took her hand as they made their way through the arrivals hall and into the warmth of the evening beyond.

“Ziggy?”

“He got through.”

“I didn’t see him.”

“I told him to go on. We’re not staying together. He’ll meet us tomorrow.”

There was a taxi rank outside. Milton found a vacant car and waited beside it for the driver to disengage himself from a group of drivers who were chatting over cigarettes. He told the man that they wanted to be taken to Eilat. The man grunted his assent and opened the rear door for Matilda. Milton slid in next to her and relaxed a little as the driver pulled out into traffic. There was no need for Matilda to continue with their masquerade now that they were out of sight of the airport’s security, but she reached across and took his hand again. Milton squeezed her hand and didn’t move to take his away.

The hotel was to the south of the airport. The driver followed Route 12, which cleaved close to the border with Egypt. It was quiet, given the late hour, and they made good time, arriving after an hour. Their destination was a big, lavish hotel occupying an envious position overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba. The driver pulled off the main road and slowed as he approached the entrance to the lobby. A uniformed bellboy emerged as the car drew to a halt, opening their door for them and then going around to the trunk for their luggage. Milton paid the driver with three hundred of the shekels he had converted from his Australian dollars at Bangkok.

Ziggy had already checked into the Hilton and left a message for them at the reception of their own hotel. He suggested that he would pick them up tomorrow morning at nine for the drive to Tel Aviv. Milton was happy with that.

They finished the formalities of registration and a bellboy took them to their room. It was a high-end hotel, and Milton had booked a suite so that they had enough space for them both. There was a large double bed and, in an adjacent sitting room, a comfortable sofa.

“You take the bed,” he said as he dropped onto the sofa.

“We can share it,” Matilda said.

“No. You have it. I’m fine here. Go on. I sleep better alone.”

She shrugged, wished him good night, and went through into the bedroom. She didn’t close the door, though, and made no show of modesty as she undressed. Milton felt his self-control erode and, to prevent himself from doing anything that he would later regret, he collected his cigarettes from the coffee table and took them outside onto the balcony for a smoke.

He lit one and inhaled deeply as he looked out across the water. He knew that behind him, 350 kilometres to the north, was Tel Aviv and, at its heart, the headquarters of the most dangerous secret service in the world. It was the reason he had brought Ziggy halfway around the world.

Tomorrow, Milton was going to have to try to infiltrate it.