Sniper's Honor

Interlude in Tel Aviv VII

The bad news was that the satellite had filmed imagery of six tractor-trailers, each with oceangoing containers, leaving the Nordyne site and transporting their cargo to a Iranian freighter in the Astrakhan harbor. The trucks completed loading. The ship was ready to go. What was holding it up?

“It’s Russia. Paperwork.”

Cohen explained: “The Russians run their import-export very tightly. Nothing goes in or gets out without close examination. That’s why this puzzles me. Those containers will be examined, that load of extremely hazardous material will be discovered, and there will be an immediate emergency. Any kind of damage could set that stuff off, and there’d be a huge tragedy. The Russians will have to disassemble it very carefully.”

The eureka moment. The banging of drums, maybe the ringing of a doorbell, maybe just a weird tremor, brain to toes. Gershon experienced it at that second. Dots all connected. “I have it,” he said.

All eyes went to him.

“The minister of trade can issue arbitrary waivers on the inspection process. That’s why he wanted the job.”

Silence in the room.

Gershon summed up: “We now know that Strelnikov was the son of the traitor Basil Krulov, who was himself a student of the insane Dr. Hans Groedl, may he not rest in peace. It’s a straight line from the coils of Groedl’s infected brain to that ship full of Zyklon B sitting in a Russian harbor, waiting for shipment to Iran and then, by means yet unknown, to Israel. The boy Vassily idealized his father, Basil, and wanted to be just like him, wanted to continue his work in the holy war against the Jews. Now he’s elderly and absurdly rich and feeling disappointed that he hasn’t done enough. So he uses his wealth to set up this insanity as a tribute to his father’s wishes. Now all that’s left for him to do is to sign the documents and sit back and enjoy the fun.”

“When does he become minister of trade?”

Gershon looked at his watch, calculated Moscow time from it, and replied, “In about twenty minutes.”

“Options,” the director asked.

“Limited, I’m afraid,” said someone. “We have no military assets in the area. Even if we did, attacking something in a Russian harbor would be a policy disaster. The ship will be vulnerable for the eight hours it takes to travel from Astrakhan to the Iranian harbor. We could hit it with Phantoms if we could get permission to meet them on the way back in someone else’s air space with tankers for refueling. Even then we’d catch hell for bombing a ship in the Caspian, and if there were consequences of the gas, we’d catch hell for that. Not the makers of the gas but us, the Israelis, as usual.”

“Once it’s unloaded in Iran, we’ve pretty much lost it,” another executive continued. “Our only responses are defensive. Heightened border and air security. A posture of readiness. A suspicion of any large-bulk transport near our borders. All reactive, not proactive.”

“Gershon, you’re the genius who came up with this. Tell us what to do.”

“Everything just mentioned. Prayer would also be an excellent idea.”

“Strelnikov will sign the documents, the ship will leave, we will watch it disappear, and then we’ll wait for the inevitable. We—”

“Sir,” said someone.

“Please don’t interrupt,” said the director. “I’m trying to—”

“Sir, please. Look at the monitor.”

All eyes went to the silent newsfeed on the screen of the television mounted in the corner.

“Mystery blast in Moscow,” ran the crawl under the image, which depicted the common sight of first responders working a site of excessive destruction while red lights flashed.

Someone turned the sound up.

“—have confirmed that the limousine contained the controversial Vassily Strelnikov, on his way to the Kremlin to be sworn in as the new minister of trade. He is among the four dead on the scene outside the Strelnikov mansion in this fashionable section of Moscow. Just who is responsible — terrorists or Russian Mafia figures or other actors — is unknown at this point but—”

“Nice work, Gershon,” said the director.

“I had no idea I was on such good terms with the Almighty,” said Gershon.

“He doesn’t even go to synagogue,” said Cohen.