Pinnacle Event

36

“You are lucky we maintain all the phone records for a year,” said the Brigadier General from Unit 8200, the Israeli equivalent of America’s NSA, the signals intelligence unit. “It takes a lot of storage to keep all of those records.”

“Thank you for coming, General, as the deputy of one intelligence agency to the deputy of another, I thank you,” Danny Avidar said as the two men sat in Avidar’s dimly lit office.

“Not a problem. Next time you will visit our house, maybe come to see our base in the Negev.”

“Perhaps. So, the question was last August fifteenth, at 0726 in the morning at the Haganah train station a man, Dawid Steyn, was murdered. We gave you his mobile number. Were you able to see if there were any mobiles of any interesting people at the time near Dawid Steyn in the station?”

“We got the list of all the people Shin Beth thinks work for this Olympus Security you mentioned. We pulled up all of their mobiles. None of them were in the Haganah Station at 0726 on fifteen August. Or if they were, they had their mobiles turned off,” the General said.

“Shit.”

“But wait, it’s not over,” the General added. “We did what you asked us to do and what do we get, we got nothing. But we are the experts on these things, yes? So, we do what we would do. We expand. We expand the time period we are looking at and we expand the radius of where we are looking. This is what we do. You see, Danny, you asked the question wrong. But not to worry, we corrected the question for you, even though you did not know enough to ask us to do that. We did it anyway.”

Avidar endured it. “Well, of course, you know much better than we how to do these things. Thank you for correcting the question. If we had asked the question right, what would you have found?”

“If you had asked the question right, what we would have found is what we found when we asked the question our way. At 0734, a mobile called a number in Cyprus. The mobile was moving at the time and at the speed of and in the direction traveled by a local bus, probably the Dan line fifteen, which leaves the Haganah Station at 0730. I know your next question. Was the mobile one that belonged to someone from this Olympus? Yes, it happens that it was. Mobile number 52 612 is registered to Efrim Brodsky who is on the list of Olympus employees given to us by the Shin Beth.”

Danny Avidar leaped up and struck out his hand to shake with the general from the 8200. The General remained seated and held up his hand to indicate stop. “It’s not over, yet. Do you think we at 8200 stop when there is more to collect? Never.”

Avidar sat back down. “Of course not.”

“‘Of course not’ is right. We are very professional. We may not get all the credit and all the fame that you guys do in the Mossad, but often it is us that provide you the leads that you need to do what you do. Without us, many times, Danny, you know you would not be able to track these bad guys.”

“We appreciate all that you do,” Avidar said, quietly, politely. “As an intelligence officer and a professional, you know that often what we do, what you do, must never be known, and no one can get the credit.”

“Exactly,” the General agreed.

“So tell me what the fuck more you know, all of it, now.”

“All right, all right. No need to be nasty,” the General replied. “That mobile was last heard from when it pinged a mobile tower on October twenty-sixth. It didn’t call anyone. It just was turned on and it pinged the tower.”

“Where?”

“Odd. The tower was in the Comoros Islands.”