The Kill List

Chapter 7

A twin-engined, propeller-driven Beech King Air took off before dawn from Sde Dov, the military airfield north of Tel Aviv, turned southeast and began to climb. It passed over Be’er Sheva, flew through the no-fly zone over the atomic plant at Dimona and left Israeli airspace south of Eilat.

Its livery was snow white, with the words “United Nations” down the fuselage. The tailfin bore the large letters WFP for World Food Programme. Had anyone checked its registration number, the latter would have revealed it was owned by a shell company lodged in Grand Cayman and on long-term charter to the WFP. All of which was nonsense.

It belonged to the Metsada (Special Ops) division of Mossad and lived in the Sde Dov hangar that once housed the black Spitfire of Ezer Weizman, founder of the Israeli air force.

South of the Gulf of Aqaba, the King Air followed a course between the landmasses of Saudi Arabia to the east and Egypt/Sudan to the west. It remained in international airspace the length of the Red Sea until it crossed the coast of Somaliland and on over Somalia. Neither state had interceptor facility.

The white plane recrossed the Somali coast with the Indian Ocean north of Mogadishu and altered course southwest to fly parallel to the coast at 5,000 feet and just offshore. Any observer would have presumed it came from a nearby charity/aid base, since it had no external fuel tanks and therefore limited range. That same observer would not have seen that much of the interior was occupied by two huge fuel tanks.

Just south of Mogadishu, the cameraman readied his equipment and began to film after Marka. Excellent images of the entire beach were obtained from Marka to a point fifty miles north of Kismayo, a total stretch involving two hundred miles of sandy shore.

Then the cameraman shut down, and the King Air peeled away. It retraced its flight, switched from internal fuel tanks to main supply and returned home. After twelve hours airborne, it just squeezed in to Eilat airport, refueled and went on to Sde Dov. A motorcyclist took the camera pack to the Mossad’s photographic analysis unit for study.

What Benny wanted, and got, was a clearly unmissable rendezvous spot along the coast road where he could meet Agent Opal with fresh instructions and the necessary equipment. The spot he wanted would have to be unmistakable for someone motoring up the highway and a fast inflatable coming off the sea.

When he had his spot, he prepared his message for Opal.

Warden Doherty tried to run a decent penitentiary, and, of course, it had a chapel. But he did not want his daughter married there. As the father of the bride, he was prepared to make her day truly memorable, so the ceremony was planned at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, with a reception at the Clarendon Hotel downtown.

There had been mentions of the wedding, time and place, in the social diary column of the Phoenix Republic, so it was no surprise that a crowd of both the curious and the well-wishers had gathered outside the doors of the church when the happy couple emerged.

No one paid much attention to the swarthy young man among the crowd, the one with the long white robes and faraway gaze. Not until he burst through the press of onlookers, ran up to the father of the bride with something in his right hand, as if he were offering a gift. It was not a gift; it was a Colt .45 handgun. He fired four times at Warden Doherty, who was thrown backward by the force of the impact and went down in a heap.

There were, as always when a true horror has not yet impacted, two seconds of uncomprehending silence. Then the reactions. Screams, shouts and, in this case, more shots, as two on-duty Phoenix police officers drew and fired. The assailant also went down. Others threw themselves flat amid the ensuing chaos; the hysterical Mrs. Doherty, the weeping bride ushered away, the wailing police cars and ambulances, the panicking crowd running in all directions.

Then the system took over. Crime scene taped off, firearm recovered and dropped in an evidence bag, identification of the assassin. Newscasts out of Arizona that evening told all the U.S. that there had been another one. And the recovered laptop of the fanatic, found in his room above the garage, where he worked, disgorged its long list of online sermons by the Preacher.

The U.S. Army film unit is called TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command), and it lives at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Normally, it makes training films and documentaries, explaining and extolling every aspect of the Army’s work and function. So the commanding officer had no hesitation in acquiescing to a request to meet with a certain Col. Jamie Jackson, serving with J-SOC headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base, outside Tampa, Florida.

Even within the military, the Tracker saw no reason to reveal he was really Col. Kit Carson, came from TOSA and was assigned only a few miles away in the same state. It is simply called need to know.

“I want to make a short movie,” he said. “But this would have a classification of top secret, and the finished product would be seen by an extremely limited group of people.”

The CO was intrigued, slightly impressed but not fazed. He was proud of his unit’s talent for filmmaking. He could not recall such a strange request before, but that could make the offered assignment more interesting. He had filming facilities and sound studios right on the base.

“It will be a very small, short movie with one scene. There will be no location filming. It will involve one set, probably off base. It will involve no cameras save a single camcorder — sound and picture. It will be seen, if at all, only on the Internet. The unit will therefore be extremely small, probably no more than six, all sworn to secrecy. What I need is a young filmmaker steeped in movies,” said the visitor.

The Tracker got what he wanted: Captain Damian Mason. The CO did not get what he wanted, which was an answer to his numerous questions. What he did get was a call from a three-star general, telling him that, in this man’s army, orders are obeyed. Damian Mason was young, eager and a movie buff since he was knee-high in White Plains, New York. When he had served his time with TRADOC, he wanted to go west to Hollywood and make real movies, with stories and stars.

“Will this be a training film, sir?” he asked.

“I hope it will be instructive, in its way,” said the Marine colonel. “Tell me, is there one single directory with the photographs of every available actor in the country?”

“I think you mean the Academy players directory. Every casting director in the country has one.”

“Is there one on base?”

“I doubt it, sir. We don’t use professional actors.”

“We do now. Or one, at least. Can you get me a copy?”

“Sure, Colonel.”

It took two days to arrive by FedEx, and it was a very thick book, page after page of the faces of aspiring actors and actresses, juveniles right through to veterans.

Another science that police forces and intelligence agencies employ across the world is face comparison. It helps detectives trace down runaway criminals who try to change their appearance.

Computerization has codified what used to be little more than a policeman’s hunch into a science. In the USA, the software is called Echelon, and it is lodged with the FBI’s Engineering Research Facility at Quantico, Maryland.

Basically, hundreds of facial measurements are taken and stored. Ears alone are like fingerprints — never the same. But with long hair, they are not always visible. The distance between eye pupils, measured to the micron, can eliminate a match in a fraction of a second. Or help confirm. Echelon has refused to be deceived by felons who have had extensive plastic surgery.

Terrorists caught by the cameras of drones have been identified in seconds as the real top target and not some bag carrier. It saves an expensive missile. The Tracker flew back east and set Echelon a task: Scan every male face in the players directory and find me a doppelgänger to this man. He offered them the face of the Preacher without the full beard. That could go back on later.

Echelon scanned nearly a thousand male faces and came up with one who, more than any other, looked like the Pakistani called Abu Azzam. Ethnically, he was Hispanic. His name was Tony Suárez. His résumé stated he had had bit parts and walk-on parts, appearances in crowds and even a few words to speak in a commercial for barbecue equipment.

The Tracker went back to his office at TOSA. There was a report from Ariel. His father had found a store selling foreign foodstuffs and brought him a jar of Masala pickles and another of mango chutney. The computer revealed that almost all the fruit and spice ingredients were grown in the plantations of the Lower Juba Valley.

There was more. Commercial data banks revealed Masala was highly successful in Pakistan and the Middle East, and also Great Britain, with its taste for spicy foods and Indian curries. It was wholly owned by its founder, Mr. Mustafa Dardari, who had a mansion in Karachi and a town house in London. Finally, there was a photo of the tycoon, blown up from a boardroom “smiley” picture.

Tracker stared at the face. Smooth, clean-shaven, beaming — something vaguely familiar. He took from his desk drawer the original print of the photo he had brought back from Islamabad on his iPhone. It was folded over to eliminate the half he did not want. He wanted it now. The other grinning schoolboy, fifteen years ago.

As a single son, the Tracker knew that when two such form a schooltime friendship of best buddies, the bond sometimes never dies. He recalled the warning from Ariel — someone sending e-traffic to the warehouse in Kismayo. The Troll responding to acknowledge receipt with thanks. The Preacher had a friend in the West.

Captain Mason studied the presumed face of the Preacher, former Zulfiqar Ali Shah, former Abu Azzam, as he would now look. And by its side the picture of the unsuspecting Tony Suárez, out-of-work bit-part actor dwelling in a squat in Malibu.

“Sure, it can be done,” he said at length. “With makeup, hair, wardrobe, contact lenses, script with rehearsal, autocue.” He tapped the photo of the Preacher.

“Does this guy ever speak?”

“Occasionally.”

“Can’t answer for the voice.”

“Leave the voice to me,” said the Tracker.

Captain Mason, in civilian clothes and calling himself Mr. Mason, flew to Hollywood with a block of dollars and came back with Mr. Suárez. He was lodged in a very comfortable suite in a chain hotel twenty miles from Fort Eustis. To ensure he did not wander, he was assigned a minder in the person of a stunning blond corporal, who was assured all she need do to serve her country was prevent the Californian guest from wandering out of the hotel or into her bedroom for forty-eight hours.

Whether Mr. Suárez believed his services were really desired because of preproduction for an art-house movie being made for a Middle East client with a lot of money to spend was irrelevant. Whether the movie had a plot did not concern him. He was simply content to be in a luxurious suite with a champagne bar, enough dollars to purchase several years of barbecue equipment and the companionship of a blonde who could stop traffic. Capt. Mason had reserved a large conference room in the same hotel and told him the “screen test” would take place the next day.

The team from TRADOC arrived in two unmarked cars and a small van. They took over the conference room and covered all the windows with black paper and masking tape. That done, they constructed the world’s simplest film set.

Basically, it was a bedsheet pinned to the wall. It, too, was black, and there were Koranic inscriptions on it in cursive Arab script. The sheet had been prepared in the workshop of one of the sound sets at Fort Eustis. It was a replica of the backdrop to all the broadcasts of the Preacher. In front of it was placed a simple wooden chair with arms.

At the other end of the hall, chairs, tables and lights created two working spaces for “Wardrobe” and “Makeup.” No one doing any of this had the faintest idea why.

The camera technician set up his camcorder, facing the chair. One of his colleagues sat in the chair to assist with range, focus and clarity. The sound engineer checked levels. The autocue operator set up his screen just under the camera lens so that the speaker’s eyeline would appear to be straight into the camera.

Mr. Suárez was led in and taken to Wardrobe, where a matronly senior sergeant, in civvies like everyone else, was waiting with the robe and headdress he would wear. These, too, had been selected by the Tracker from TRADOC’s enormous resources, with alterations performed by the wardrobe mistress, studying photographs of the Preacher.

“I don’t have to speak any Ayrab, do I?” protested Tony Suárez. “No one mentioned Ayrab.”

“Absolutely not,” he was assured by Mr. Mason, who now appeared to be directing. “Well, a couple of words, but it doesn’t matter about the pronunciation. Here, check them out, just to get the lip synch about right.” He gave Suárez a card with several Arabic words on it.

“Shit, man, these are complicated.”

An older man, who had been waiting quietly against the wall, stepped forward.

“Try and imitate me,” he said, and pronounced the foreign words like an Arab. Suárez tried. It was not the same, but the lips moved in the right direction. The dubbing would complete the job. Tony Suárez moved to the makeup chair. It took an hour.

The experienced makeup artist deepened the skin tone to make it slightly more swarthy. The black beard and mustache were applied. The shamagh headdress covered the hair of the scalp. Finally, the contact lenses gave the actor those arresting amber eyes. When he rose and turned, the Tracker was sure he was facing the Preacher.

Tony Suárez was led to the chair and sat down. Camcorder and sound levels, focus and autocue, received minor adjustments. The actor had spent an hour in the makeup chair, studying the text he would be reading off the autocue. He had most of it memorized, and though the Arabic did not sound like an Arab speaker, he had ceased to stumble over it.

“And cue,” said Capt. Mason. One day, he dreamed, he would be saying that to Brad Pitt and George Clooney. The film extra began to speak.

The Tracker murmured in Mason’s ear.

“More solemn, Tony,” said Mason. “It’s a confession. You’re the Grand Vizier telling the Sultan he got it all wrong, and he’s sorry. OK, roll again. And cue.”

After eight takes, Suárez had peaked and was fading. The Tracker called a halt.

“OK, people, it’s a wrap,” said Mason. He loved that phrase. The crew dismantled everything they had built. Tony Suárez was restored to his jeans and sweatshirt, clean-shaven and smelling faintly of cleansing cream. Wardrobe and Makeup were repacked and went back to the truck. The bedsheet came down, was rolled up and removed. The windows were cleared of black paper and tape.

While this was going on, the Tracker had the camcorder technician give him the five best takes of the brief speech. He chose the one he wanted and had the others erased.

The voice of the actor was still pure Californian. But the Tracker knew of a British TV mimic who had his audiences in stitches with his uncanny imitations of celebrities’ voices. He would fly across for the day and be well paid. Technicians would get the lip synch exact.

They handed the rented conference hall back to the hotel. Tony Suárez regretfully checked out of his suite and was driven back to Washington National and his night plane to Los Angeles. The Fort Eustis team was much closer to home and were there by sundown.

They had had a fun day, but they had never heard of the Preacher and had not the faintest idea what they had done. But the Tracker knew. He knew that when he launched what was in the cassette in his hand, there was going to be absolute chaos among the forces of Jihadism.

The man who descended with a smattering of Somalis from the Turkish airliner at Mogadishu airport had a passport that declared him to be a Dane, and other papers in five languages, including Somali, that identified him as working for the Save the Children fund.

His real name was not Jensen, and he worked for the Collections Division (general espionage) of Mossad. He had flown the previous day from Ben Gurion Airport to Larnaca in Cyprus, switched name and nationality, then flown on to Istanbul.

There was a long and tiresome wait in the business-class transit lounge for the flight south to Somalia, with a staging stop at Djibouti. But Turkish Airlines was still the only national flag carrier to serve Mogadishu.

It was eight a.m. and already hot out on the tarmac as the fifty passengers straggled into the arrivals building, the Somalis from economy class shouldering the three from business out of the way. The Dane was in no hurry; he waited his turn in front of the passport officer.

He had no visa, of course; visas are purchased on arrival, as he knew, having been there before. The passport officer studied the previous entry and exit stamps and studied his list. There was no ban on anyone called Jensen.

The Dane slipped a fifty-dollar bill under the glass screen.

“For the visa,” he murmured in English. The officer slid the note toward him, then noticed another fifty-dollar bill in the pages of the passport.

“A little something for your children,” murmured the Dane.

The passport officer nodded. He did not smile but stamped in the visa, glanced at the yellow fever chit, folded the passport, nodded and handed it back. For his children, of course. An honorable gift. Nice to meet a European who knew the rules.

There were two dilapidated taxis outside. The Dane hefted his single grip into the first, climbed in and said, “Peace Hotel, please.” The driver headed for the gated entrance to the airport compound, guarded by Ugandan soldiers.

The airport is in the center of the African Union military base, an inner zone of the Mogadishu enclave, surrounded by barbed wire, sandbags, blast walls and patrolled by Casper armored personnel carriers of the Union. Within the fortress is another fortress: Bancroft camp is where the “whiteys” live, the several hundred staff of contractors, aid agencies, visiting media and a few ex-mercenaries working as bodyguards for the fat cats.

The Americans lived inside their own compound at the far end of the runway, home to their embassy, some hangars of undisclosed contents and a training school for young Somalis being schooled to, one day, slip back into dangerous Somalia as American agents. Those who knew Somalia from long and disenchanting experience felt this to be a very fond hope indeed.

Also in the inner sanctuary, passing the windows of the moving car, were the other minisettlements for the United Nations, African Union senior officers, European Union and even the dowdy British embassy, which insisted with passion and mendacity that it was not another “spook central.”

The Dane Jensen did not dare stay inside Bancroft. He might meet another Dane or a real worker with Save the Children. He was headed for the one hotel outside the blast walls where a white man might stay with reasonable security.

The taxi passed through the last manned gate — more red-and-white-striped poles, more Ugandans — and out on the one-mile strip to central Mogadishu. Though it was not his first trip, the Dane was still amazed at the sea of rubble to which twenty years of civil war had reduced the once elegant African city.

The cab turned up an alley; a paid street urchin hauled aside a tangle of barbed wire, and a nine-foot-high steel gate creaked open. There had been no communication; someone was watching through a hole.

With the cab paid off, the Dane checked in and was shown to his room; small, just functional, with frosted windows (against occupant recognition) and curtains drawn (against the heat). He stripped off, stood for a while under the tepid dribble from the shower, did his best to soap and dry, and changed clothing.

In flip-flops, rough canvas jeans and a long, no-button cotton shirt, he was wearing much what a local Somali might wear. There was a satchel slung over one shoulder and wraparound dark glasses. The hands were tanned from the Israeli sun. The pale face and blond hair were clearly European.

He knew a place that rented scooters. A second taxi, summoned by the Peace Hotel, took him there. In the cab he removed the shamagh from his satchel. He wrapped the basic Arab headdress around the blond locks and drew the trailing tail across the face, tucking the hem into the fold on the other side. There was nothing suspicious in this; those who wear a shamagh often protect the nose and mouth against the constant dust and sand gusts.

He rented a rickety white Piaggio moped; the renter knew him from previous visits. Always requiring a substantial dollar deposit, the vehicle always returned intact, no need for silly formalities like a license.

Joining the stream of donkey carts, falling-to-pieces trucks, pickups and other scooters, avoiding the occasional camel or pedestrian, looking exactly like a Somali going about his business, the Dane puttered down Maka al-Mukarama, the highway slicing through the center of Mogadishu.

He passed the gleaming white Isbahaysiga Mosque, impressive for its lack of damage, and glanced across the road to something less attractive. The Darawsha refugee camp had not been moved or improved since his last visit. It was still a sea of hovel/squalor, housing ten thousand hungry and frightened refugees. They had no sanitation, food, employment or hope, and their children played in the urine pools. They were truly, he thought, those Frantz Fanon had called the wretched of the Earth, and Darawsha was one of eighteen poverty cities inside the enclave. The Western aid agencies tried, but it was an impossible job.

The Dane glanced at his cheap watch. He was on time. The meetings were always at twelve noon. The man he had come to see would glance at the usual spot. If he was not there — ninety-nine percent of the time — the other man would get on with his life. If he was there, the signals would be exchanged.

The moped took him to the ruined Italian Quarter. A white man going there without a large armed escort would be a fool. The danger was not murder but kidnapping. A European or American could be worth up to two million dollars. But with Somali sandals, African shirt and shamagh around his head and face, the Israeli agent felt safe if he kept it short.

The fish come ashore every morning at a small horseshoe bay opposite the al-Uruba Hotel, where the surge of the Indian Ocean throws the fishing skiffs out of the swell and onto the beach. Then the skinny dark men who have fished all night carry their jacks, kings and shark up to the market shed, hoping for buyers.

The market is two hundred yards from the bay, a ninety-foot, unlit shed stinking of fish, some fresh, some not. The Dane’s agent was the market manager. At noon, as he was paid to do every day, Mr. Kaamal Duale stepped out of his office and surveyed the crowd gazing at the market.

Most had come to buy, but not yet. Those with money would get the fresh fish; in one-hundred-degree heat, without any form of refrigeration, it would start to smell quite quickly. Then bargains were to be had.

If Mr. Duale was surprised to see his handler in the crowd, he did not give a sign of it. He simply stared. He nodded. The man astride the Piaggio nodded back and raised his right hand across his chest. Fingers spread, closed, spread again. There were two more slight nods, and the scooterist wheeled away. The rendezvous was set: usual place, ten tomorrow morning.

The next day the Dane descended for breakfast at eight. He was in luck, there were eggs. He took two, fried, with bread and tea. He did not want to eat much; he was trying not to use the lavatory.

His scooter was parked by the compound wall. At half past nine he kicked it into life, waited for the steel gate to open and let him out and headed back toward the gate of the African Union camp. As he approached the concrete blocks and the guardhouse, he reached up to snatch off his shamagh. The blond hair at once gave him away.

A Ugandan soldier emerged from the shelter, rifle unslung. But just short of the barrier pole, the blond rider swerved away, raised a hand and called, “Jambo.”

The Ugandan, hearing his native Swahili, lowered his gun. Another crazy mzungu. He just wanted to go back home, but the pay was good, and he would soon have enough for cattle and a wife. The mzungu swerved into the parking lot of the Village Café beside the entrance gate, stopped and went in.

The fish market manager was at a table, taking coffee. The Dane went to the bar and ordered the same, thinking of the rich, aromatic coffee he could get at the cafeteria back at the office in Tel Aviv.

They did the exchange in the men’s room of the Village Café, as always. The Dane produced dollars, the world’s common currency even in the hostile lands. The Somali watched with appreciation as they were counted out.

There would be a portion for the fisherman who would carry the message south to Kismayo in the morning, but he would be paid in virtually valueless Somali shillings. Duale would keep all the dollars, saving for the day when he had enough to emigrate.

And there was the consignment, a short aluminum tube like the sort used to protect fine cigars. But this was custom-made, stronger and heavier. He secreted it inside his waistband.

Back in his office, he had a small, rugged generator, secretly donated by the Israelis. It ran on the most dubious kerosene, but it made electricity. This could power his air conditioner and his fridge/freezer. He was the only man in the fish market who always had fresh fish.

Among these was a yard-long kingfish, purchased that morning and now frozen rock-solid. In the evening his fisherman would take it, with the tube rammed deep into its entrails, and sail south, fishing all the way, landing two days later at the fish dock at Kismayo.

There he would sell the kingfish, no longer quite fresh, to a tally clerk at the market and say it was from his friend. He did not know why nor did he care. He was just another poor Somali trying to raise four sons to take over his skiff when they were able.

The two men in the Village Café emerged, finished their coffee separately and left, also separately. Mr. Duale took his tube home and rammed it into the deep stomach of the frozen kingfish. The blond man wrapped his shamagh around his head and face and motored back to the rental garage. He returned the Piaggio, recovered most of his deposit, and the renter gave him a lift to the hotel. There were no cabs about, and he did not want to lose a good, if irregular, client.

The Dane had to wait until the departing Turkish Airlines flight at eight the next morning. He killed the time reading a novel in English in his room. Then a bowl of camel stew and bed.

In the dusk the fisherman put the kingfish, wrapped in wet sacking, in the fish locker of his skiff. But he slashed the tail to mark it out from any others he might catch. Then he put to sea, turned south and spread his lines.

At nine the next day, after the usual boarding chaos, the Turkish airliner lifted off. The Dane watched the buildings and fortifications of Bancroft camp fall away. Far to the south, a fishing skiff, lateen sail bending to the wind, plodded past Marka. The airliner turned north, refueled at Djibouti and in midafternoon landed at Istanbul.

The Dane from the Save the Children fund stayed airside, raced through the transit procedures and caught the last flight to Larnaca. He changed name, passport and ticket in his hotel room and took the first flight the next day back to Tel Aviv.

“Any problems?” asked the major known as Benny. It was he who had sent “the Dane” down to Mogadishu with fresh instructions for Opal.

“No. Routine,” said the Dane, who had now become Moshe again.

There was an encrypted e-mail from the Office to Simon Jordan, head of station in Washington. As a result, he met with the American known as the Tracker. He preferred hotel bars, but not the same one twice in a row. The second meeting was at the Four Seasons, Georgetown.

It was high summer. They met in the garden bar under the awnings. There were other middle-aged men taking cocktails with their jackets off. But they all looked rather plumper than the two who sat right at the back.

“I am told your friend in the south is now fully briefed,” said Simon Jordan. “So I must ask you: What exactly is it you want him to do?”

He listened intently while the Tracker explained what he had in mind. He stirred his club soda thoughtfully. He had not the slightest doubt as to the fate the former U.S. Marine next to him had in mind for the Preacher, and it would not be vacationing in Cuba.

“If our man is able to assist you in this way,” he said at length, “and there is any question of terminating him along with the quarry in a missile strike, there would be a serious refusal from us to cooperate with you for a long while to come.”

“I never had that in mind,” said the Tracker.

“I just want us to be clear on that, Tracker. Are we clear?”

“As the ice in your glass. No missile strike unless Opal is miles away.”

“Excellent. Then I will see the instructions are given.”

You want to go where?” asked Gray Fox.

“Only London. They are as keen to see the Preacher silenced as we are. His apparent outside man is in residence there. I want to be nearer to the center of events. I think we may be moving toward closure with this man Preacher. I have mentioned this to Konrad Armitage. He says I would be welcome, and his people will do everything they can. It’s only a phone call away.”

“Stay in touch, Tracker. I have to report up to the admiral on this.”

On the fishing dock at Kismayo, a dark-skinned young man with a clipboard scanned the faces of the fishermen arriving from the sea. Kismayo, lost to government forces in 2012, had been regained by al-Shabaab after bloody fighting the following year, and the vigilance of the fanatics was ferocious. Their religious police were everywhere to ensure absolute piety from the population. The paranoia regarding spies from the north was pandemic. Even the fishermen, normally boisterous unloading their catch, were subdued by fear.

The dark young man spotted a face he knew, one he had not seen for weeks. With his clipboard and pen poised to note the size of the catch being landed, he approached the man.

“Allahu-akhbar,” he intoned. “What have you got?”

“Jacks and just three kingfish, inshallah,” said the fisherman. He gestured to one of the kings, which had lost the silvery glitter of the fresh-caught and had a slash across its tail. “From your friend,” he murmured.

Opal signaled that all were permitted for sale. As the fish were removed to the stone slabs, he slipped the marked one into a burlap bag. Even in Kismayo it was permitted for a tally clerk to take a fish for supper.

When he was alone in his cabin by the shore, just out of town, he extracted the aluminum tube and unscrewed the top. There were two rolls, one of dollars and one of instructions. The latter would be memorized and burnt. The dollars buried under the earthen floor.

The dollars were one thousand, in ten hundred-dollar bills, the instructions simple.

“You will use the dollars to acquire a reliable scooter, trail bike or moped and canisters of fuel to attach to the pillion. There is motoring to be done.

“Second, acquire a good radio with a range able to pick up Kol Israel. On Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, there is a late-night talk show on Channel Eight. It comes on at 23.30. It is called Yanshufim (The Night Owls).

“It is always preceded by the weather report. Somewhere up the coast highway toward Marka, there is a new rendezvous spot marked out for a face-to-face meeting. You will find it on the attached map. It is unmistakable.

“When you hear the coded instruction, wait until the following day. Set off at dusk. Motor to the RV spot, arriving at dawn. Your contact will be there with fresh funds, equipment and instructions.

“The words in the weather report you are waiting for are: ‘Tomorrow there will be slight rain over Ashkelon.’ Good luck, Opal.”