The Plan

Chapter 57.

THE PASSENGER IN SEAT 25B OF EL AL FLIGHT 3476 went into a convulsion at 7:37 A. M., just as the El Al flight attendants were beginning to set up for breakfast. His name was Leonard Greenberg, he was fifty-six, and he owned a jewelry store in Burbank, California. His legs shot out and kicked the seat in front of him; then he jackknifed forward and hit his head on the back of the tray table. The woman sitting in the seat in front woke up with a start, turned, and glared around the seat at him. What she saw immediately alarmed her. Leonard Greenberg looked at her with half-lit brown eyes and said, "So sorry." Sitting beside him were Leonard's wife, Hanna, and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Sasha. They were all going to Israel for the first time.

"Get the stewardess! Get a doctor!" Hanna Greenberg shouted at her daughter Sasha, who scrambled out of her seat and ran to get the flight attendant.

"His shunt is failing," Hanna said to the startled woman in the seat in front of him. Hanna had seen this happen twice before and she knew the results would be fatal if Leonard didn't get immediate surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain.

A man from a row behind them, across the aisle, came forward and kneeled beside Greenberg. He carried a small, black briefcase.

"I'm a doctor."

"It's his shunt. I've seen these convulsions before. He has to get to a hospital immediately."

"What is a shunt, for God's sake?" the flight attendant said.

"Everybody has cerebral spinal fluid that surrounds the brain," the doctor explained. "Some people don't have the proper drainage and fluid gets trapped in the brain causing what is known as hydrocephalus. To fix this, we install a plastic tube in the lateral ventricle called a shunt. Occasionally the shunt gets clogged, causing extreme pressure on the brain. This man needs immediate surgery!"

"You need to explain this to the pilot. Come with me." She led the doctor up the aisle, past the first-class passengers.

The Ghost woke up as they brushed past on the way out of the cockpit. He caught a glimpse of the strained expression on the flight attendant's face and knew immediately something was wrong. He grabbed the flight attendant's arm and flashed his goofy, harmless salesman's smile.

"We got a problem?"

"Sick passenger. We're probably diverting to London, Heathrow."

"But that's gonna take hours. I gotta be in Tel Aviv. I have important business…"

"There's a phone aboard. I'm sure you don't want a fellow passenger to die so you can keep a business appointment." She pulled away, picked up the intercom, and announced the change in destination.

The Ghost retrieved the air phone on the wall in the front of the cabin. He used one of his Harry Meeks credit cards and walked back to his seat with the phone.

He dialed the number for the Hotel American in Tel Aviv and asked for Akmad Jarrar's room. In a minute, he heard the Arab's voice.

"Thank God you're there," the Ghost said, without preamble.

"Yes, my friend, I have just arrived. I took the first flight I could get."

"I need help. I'm being diverted to Heathrow because some passenger is sick… Our CEO is arriving at Ben Gurion Airport at eleven on El Al Flight 2356. He's traveling with three accountants; at least one is a beautiful woman. They should be met but not escorted. We're scenario dependent until I can get there. The C-cube is your hotel." This was a code they had used before. "CEO" would sound like chief executive officer to anybody picking up the open telephone signal, but to the Ghost and his team of assassins, it stood for covert elimination objective, or target. "Accountants" or "CPAs" were collateral personal assistants. In espionage circles, they were generally men or women with briefcases who worked with or for the target. "Met but not escorted" stood for follow but don't apprehend. "Scenario dependent" meant they would be dependent on the chain of events. "C-cube" stood for communications command control center. Akmad said he would handle it, and the Ghost gave him a brief description of Ryan and Lucinda, mentioning. that Ryan would most likely be on crutches and was blond and handsome, the girl dark-haired. The Ghost said he had no descriptions of the other accountants.

"Are they prepared to do business?" Akmad asked.

"Definitely," the Ghost said, indicating that they were dangerous and should be treated as such. As they rang off, the Ghost felt the plane banking to the left for Heathrow. He would probably be in Tel Aviv four hours later than planned. But he was invigorated by the unexpected problem. He loved improvising. He loved the chase. But most of all, he loved the kill.

Ben Gurion Airport was in Lod, outside Tel Aviv and ninety minutes by car from Jerusalem. The airport was small but modern. Security was stringent.

The planes didn't taxi up to ramps, but were left out on an expansive tarmac, where the travelers deplaned, then got aboard big buses to be taken to the terminal. Cole explained that the process of open tarmac deplaning allowed for fighter security.

Kaz, Cole, Ryan, and Lucinda stepped off the El Al plane and were struck by the heat and humidity. It was over 100 degrees and moist. Their clothes immediately stuck to them as they moved down the steps of the plane to the ground transportation. Cole knew Israel well. He'd covered a lot of stories there. He had decided they would stay in the Hotel Carlton in Tel Aviv. The international bar there had always been a news hangout. Then he would find somebody at Reuters he could pump for information. He needed to find out everything he could about Gavriel Bach's family… Was his widow still alive? Where were his children? Where would his personal effects be? Cole knew they had damn little to go on. They were ten thousand miles from home, looking for a bunch of illegal wiretaps given to a dead Israeli prosecutor twenty-five years ago. Even if they still existed, the tapes might have nothing of value on them. Yet, they were following that feeble lead halfway around the world.

Customs took an hour. Finally, they walked through the turnstiles, past the uniformed Israeli guards with their shiny jackboots and shoulder-mounted Uzis. On their way to the taxi stand, they passed a short, skinny Arab in khaki shorts and a T-shirt, smoking a Turkish cigarette.

Akmad Jarrar saw the four Americans and assumed they were the ones he'd been looking for. The handsome man wasn't on crutches, as the Ghost had said, but he moved with a slight limp. The girl was indeed beautiful.

He followed them out into the sunlight and watched as they got into a Subaru taxicab that pulled out into the traffic, heading toward Tel Aviv. He waved his hand and his own rented blue Mitsubishi screeched up to the curb with two men inside. Behind the wheel was Frydek Mistek, a German terrorist who was ideologically damaged by his love of money. He had worked on several hits with the Ghost in the old days when the CIA was doing covert sanctions. Frydek was a good second man. He was nondescript, average in every way except for his aptitude for violence. In the backseat was Yossi Rot, a slender man with Jewish good looks and dark curly ringlets. He had once been a "powder man" for the Mossad, but he'd drifted into the netherworld of freelance operators.

They all spoke in English. Akmad pointed to the car with the Americans. "Stay close… Taxis are easy to lose."

Frydek accelerated and followed the Japanese taxi into the City of Mirrors.