Jet

Chapter 17

A Falcon 7 sat near the private jet terminal of Vnukovo 3 airport — more a small office with a waiting area than anything remotely resembling a true terminal. Eight hardened men sat in silence, waiting for the baggage to be loaded, their chiseled faces stony, veterans of the elite Spetsnaz GRU, now part of a private army of specialist mercenaries.

Light snow floated from the gray sky, the sinking sun having failed to warm Moscow that day. A stretch Mercedes limousine pulled to the curb outside the building, and a trim man in an expensive hand-tailored suit got out, the driver holding an umbrella over his head as he opened the door for the passenger.

The pair made their way to the twin glass doors of the waiting area, and then Yuri entered, the driver returning to the vehicle.

Yuri clapped his hands together to fend off the chill, brushed a few errant snowflakes from his shoulders, then walked to the front of the waiting area and looked at the men.

“Gentlemen. You will take off in fifteen minutes, stopping once to refuel in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Preparations have already been made for your arrival in Belize. Weapons have been sourced locally — there is no shortage of guns in Central America, so everything is ready. The temperature is ninety degrees with seventy percent humidity, so you’ll get a chance to vacation in the tropics on this one. Remember the rules. No fraternization with the local population, everyone stays in the camp unless specifically authorized to leave, and no conflicts of any sort. I want you in and out as quickly as we can manage this. You’ve been briefed. Are there any questions?”

The men sat silent, without moving a muscle. The leader shook his head.

“Good. I don’t need to belabor how important this operation is. You are the best of the best. Each one of you has been handpicked for this duty. Pay is double your usual rate. Feel free to eat and drink as much as you like on the flight, but once on the ground, you will remain dry until we are through. Pavel?” Yuri looked to the leader.

“All right. You heard the man. Time to mount up.”

The fighters stood, each reaching down and hoisting a small black duffle bag with a week’s worth of clothes in it. The flight wasn’t going to transport any weapons — they didn’t want to risk a search. The leader nodded, the door to the tarmac opened, and the group filed out, trotting to the plane once out in the cold night air.

“Call me when you’re on the ground. I’ll be right behind you with the second group,” Yuri said to Pavel, then shook his hand.

Pavel nodded and rubbed the scar on his neck, a souvenir from Afghanistan, pulsing red even after all these years.

Yuri watched the men climb the fuselage stairs and enter the private jet. A few minutes later, it began rolling to the runway, the snow having been cleared recently by an unlucky snowplow. It slowly taxied to the far end of the tarmac and sat awaiting takeoff clearance.

An explosion of sleet blasted from behind the plane as the jets ignited, then it was hurtling down the strip, lifting into the ominous sky before it had traveled three quarters of the length. Streaks of white vapor trailed from its wings as it pulled confidently upward, its lights blinking as it disappeared into the overcast.

Yuri pulled an encrypted cell phone from his pocket and placed a call. Grigenko answered on the second ring.

“The first group is en route, sir.”

“Very good. Any update on the other matter?” Grigenko asked.

“Our contacts in Israeli intelligence are turning over rocks, but so far there’s nothing new to report. He hasn’t shown up in any healthcare facilities. You know…he might just be dead,” Yuri offered. “He was badly wounded according to the survivors.”

“I don’t believe we got off that light. He’s still alive, and he’s out there. I feel it in my bones,” Grigenko snapped.

“We are proceeding with the assumption that he is still alive. I have four more men on the ground now in Israel, so we will be ready within a matter of minutes from when he turns up.”

“And the woman?”

“That is a bigger problem, although it has no impact on our operation. She has dropped off the radar. If she is still on the island, she’s living in a cave or has successfully evaded not only our men, but the police. I think it is probably diminishing returns to keep that hunt active. I would suggest we keep her on our watch list and wait for her to surface, if she ever does.”

“Yuri. I thought I was clear. Put whatever resources on this you have to, but I want her. No giving up. I don’t care about the expense or how long it takes. I want specialists whose only reason for living is to find her. She is not going to get away again.”

Yuri considered possible responses. He could argue with his client about the number of people on the planet, and the tiny fraction of a chance they would ever pick up her trail at this point — a highly skilled operative, alerted that she was being pursued, who could literally go anywhere in the world to hide. He could argue, or try to convince Grigenko that the odds of getting her now were less than being struck by lightning — twice. Or he could continue to spend the oligarch’s money, a few million dollars a year, on maintaining an active search, pocketing forty percent of the take as profit.

“Of course, sir. I have my best people on it. It will just be a matter of time. Whatever is required, we will do it.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.”

The line went dead, and Yuri smiled, his features taking on a reptilian cast from the unfamiliar expression.

Jet spent the morning trying to get into the Mossad’s network using David’s information as the gateway. His password still worked so it wasn’t as difficult as trying to get in cold. She’d found his security clearance adequate to move beyond his immediate operations, but not sufficient to access everything she was after.

One of the biggest obstacles was that the team didn’t exist in any records, so beyond David’s encrypted notes, suitably ambiguously worded so even if decoded it would be impossible to glean specifics, there wasn’t any obvious place to begin.

She decided to start at the internal description of the attack on the safe house, and quickly found that the account was nothing more than a repetition of the police report, along with a few tersely worded sentences inserted by the agent in charge of the scene. It spoke in generalities, and studiously avoided mentioning David as anything more than ‘the occupant’.

There was no new information, other than a glimpse into how the agency was thinking.

She noted that there was an addendum, which contained one of the assistant directors’ speculations on the attack, commenting that the most likely explanation was that it comprised some sort of a reprisal. No elaboration was forthcoming.

David had given her a series of areas to nose around in, but she kept getting security denials that she had to hack around, which was tedious and time consuming. She’d masked her IP address so it would be impossible to track her location, so she wasn’t worried about being traced — more that she would trigger some internal alert that would then shut down access.

She leaned back in the chair and rolled her head, trying to loosen her neck muscles, rigid from hours of immobilization. It would be a lot easier if they knew what they were looking for.

David shuffled into the room, and she leapt to her feet. He was pale — the effort had obviously cost him a lot.

“You aren’t supposed to be out of bed.”

“I know. But I had an idea, and I need to use the computer for a while. Are you in the network?”

“Yes. But I can’t say I’ve found much.”

“Give me half an hour. It won’t kill me to sit here.”

“It might.” She saw the look of determination on his face. “I’ll tell you what — I’ll compromise. Let’s get you back to bed, and I’ll bring the computer in for you. It’s on the wireless network, so you can use it there.”

She helped him back to the bedroom and then brought him the laptop. After showing him what she had accomplished so far, she left him to his research and went to take a shower.

Forty minutes later, David called to her from the bedroom. She rose from the dining room table, where she was brushing her damp hair, and went to him. He was sitting up in bed, looking a little better than he had earlier.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like a horse kicked me in the stomach.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten up. That was stupid.”

“I actually feel a little better. I stopped the morphine this morning, and I can think more clearly. I won’t be taking any more of that shit any time soon.”

“You know I hate drugs. Speaking of which, just how bad is the pain?”

“Scale of one to ten, it’s a six, down from a nine yesterday. I’m hoping it will drop quickly from here on out so I can get back on my feet. We can’t stay here forever.”

“Where are you planning to go? I mean, since you’ve got people looking to kill you and you have no idea who you can trust…”

“I haven’t worked that part out yet.”

“I see. You want a smoothie? I have strawberries and more bananas.” She knew there was no point in asking him whether he’d found anything on the computer. He would tell her when he was ready.

“I think I’ll vomit if I have to eat more blended banana.”

“Okay. I’ll do a strawberry, then. Need any help getting to the bathroom?”

“No, I should be fine. I’ll yell if I fall and break my hip.”

She smiled at the attempt at humor. “You’re not young, poor thing. Be careful.”

“Very funny.” His tone changed. “I want to thank you for taking care of me while I’m down. You didn’t have to stay.”

“Where would I go?”

“Anyplace I’m not. There’s no reason you can’t start fresh wherever you want. You’re still dead.”

She sighed. “No, I can’t. Because I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. And that’s no way to go through life. I thought that was all behind me after Algiers, but I suppose that was wishful thinking…”

“I already apologized.”

“I’m not blaming you, David. The odds of anyone figuring out I was alive, much less where I was living, were miniscule.”

“But I should have known better,” he said bitterly.

She eyed him.

“Truthfully, yes, you should have — isn’t it you who told me to assume nothing but the worst at all times, and that would be the optimistic view? But that’s water under the bridge. I’m okay here in Israel, so nothing irreparable happened. But I won’t run and hide from these pricks, David. If they want a war, I’ll bring it to them. The way I see it, it’s either them or me, and I don’t intend to lose. You know me well enough. I’m not going to let go of this now that I’ve been dragged back into this world.”

“I know that. But there’s no point in going off half-cocked. We need to figure out why the whole team was killed. A vendetta against you doesn’t explain that, and until we have the whole picture, it’s impossible to know if you’re taking the right steps.”

“So you’re saying I can’t just kill ’em all and let God sort them out.”

“Something like that.”

“You’re no fun anymore since you got shot.”

“I hear it’ll do that to you.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long moment.

“Do you ever think about getting out of the game, David?”

“I’m afraid it’s not so easy. Unlike you, I’m not in the field, so I can’t contrive a car explosion to reset the clock.”

“But do you think about it?”

“Sure. And then I also think about what I would do instead of this, assuming I could get out. I’ve got nobody. No career other than this. Nothing to go home to. So then I have a couple of drinks and stop wishing I was somebody else, and get back to work.”

“You’re wounded now. What would happen if you just never resurfaced? Wouldn’t that be exactly the same as if you had been killed and then dumped into the sea with an engine block tied to your ankles? Maybe this is actually an opportunity…”

He shook his head, then conceded her point.

“That could be. But not until we understand what’s actually going on. I’m like you — I don’t want a future where I’m never sure whether the next car to drive by is going to unload an Uzi at me. That’s not a life, and we both know it. Maybe if all the pieces fit together and we figure this out…well, then maybe there’s something to talk about. I’m not worried about the Mossad — I know their tracking capabilities and how to stay gone. It’s the unknown that’s the problem,” he explained.

She came over and sat down next to him.

“That’s fine. But once it’s all over…what then, David? If we’re both dead to the world, then we could go anywhere, do anything. Maybe Indonesia, disappear on an island and never be seen again.” She hesitated. “It doesn’t have to be a world where you have nobody to come home to. We used to be good together. Do you remember? My greatest regret, in fact, the only regret in leaving the team was knowing I’d never be with you again.”

He didn’t speak for several beats, then the trace of a blink betrayed his eyes.

“I remember. And yes, we were good. The best. I can’t tell you how hard it was to let you go…”

She took his hand and held it, sitting in silence.

They stayed that way, peacefully, moment following moment until Jet let out a sigh, rose to her feet and softly kissed his forehead.

“Get better, David. Everything else will work itself out.”

He tried for a grin, but his eyes were moist.

“It always does, doesn’t it?”

She carried her computer back to the living room, more motivated than ever to get answers, even as her head swam from the possibility of a new, different future. One with David by her side.

Was it even possible after three years? Had too much happened? Nobody stayed the same. Was it foolish to believe they could just pick up where they had left off and craft a life together?

Maybe it was.

But she’d long ago learned it could all be over at any moment, and nobody gave you a refund at the end of the ride, long or short. If the universe had given them a second chance, then it would be foolish to ignore it. And from what she saw in David’s eyes, he meant it when admitting that it had been hard to see her leave for good.

Perhaps that was enough. There were only two of them in this. She saw no reason why he couldn’t stay gone and put the whole ugly covert world behind him. The Mossad had him documented as having been wounded, with a fair amount of his blood at the scene. If he never made it back, he could well have died.

There would be the problem of her logging in using his password, but that could be only a one-time deal, then never again. Just as would have occurred if he had survived the attack and was trying to figure out who was after him, even mortally wounded.

Then he would go dark. End of story.

It wasn’t perfect, but it could be good enough.

In the end, it would be David’s call.