Good and Dead (An Avner Ehrlich Thriller Book 2) Read online

  She looked at me bleakly and said nothing, but I could see something unfortunate passing through her eyes.

  * * *

  5The Shin-Bet, often nicknamed “the Service”, is Israel’s internal security service.

  6.

  Camp 80 in Kurdistan is perched atop the Zagros mountain range, not too far from the city of Sulaymaniyah, about fifty klicks from the Iranian border. The Zagros mountains are over two and a half miles high in places, and its hidden valleys and gorges have provided secret paths and hiding spots for smugglers, rebels and thieves since the dawn of history.

  In one of these spots, hidden even from the ever-watchful eye of the Iranian (and Russian and American and Israeli) satellites, the Pêshmerga6 built the secret facility – weapons and training happily provided by us – that served as the base for operations, intel gathering and others, carried out in Iran.

  The surrounding scenery is reminiscent of the Golan Heights: rough mountain terrain, scrubland dotted by huge dark rocks. On the eastern edge of the facility are ten air-conditioned, portable structures, which O’Driscoll, the CTC director, has commissioned as the main headquarters for his task force – American Delta Force fighters supported by the big American airbase in Erbil. The airbase provides them with recon aircraft, combat and transport choppers, and a whole squadron of UAVs for targeted assassinations. The Americans run the camp and its activities, and supplies weapons, ammo, and other logistical goodies.

  They also have a lovely, air-conditioned commissary, with a well-stocked beer fridge, mountains of ham and cheese sandwiches, leaning towers of bacon cheeseburgers. God bless America.

  The Kurdish women live separately from the men. Most are fighters, though some do combat support, either dressing wounds or feeding the healthy with thick goat yogurt with olive oil, lamb pilaf with heaps of carrots, fried mantou dumplings filled with lamb, and thick goat milk sauce. Most of them wear a blue pinafore and tie their hair in thick black braids.

  In this same facility we placed a unit of Iranian students from the Mujahedin Khalq underground, whom we’ve trained to ride motorcycles, attach small explosive devices to the cars of nuclear scientists, and flee under the cover of assist teams who block the paths of the police cars and the Basij militia and the hidden VAJA patrols7 using stolen vehicles that they flip over or set on fire and leave in the middle of the escape routes. Moshe, the DM, was counting on these Mujahedin Khalq guys to provide a strong basis for the Iranian political revolution – the fifth and final step of his plan.

  “Until that happens, we keep hitting their infrastructures and their scientists, securing the time we need to broaden our window of opportunity,” he said at one of those meeting that I was forced to attend, and Mordechai the Jew had a glint in his eye that only a religious experience can provide.

  When Moshe was done talking, Mordechai said, “We’ve been trimming the fat,” and casually mentioned most of the successful operations carried out since we slipped the Stuxnet worm into their centrifuges, going on to count off the neutralization of nuclear scientists and the targeted explosions in nuclear facilities as if these were all his achievements, rather than Froyke’s.

  After that we went over the material that had just arrived from the field.

  “Just one more to go, RP,” Mordechai said, and passed me a folder with an SD card inside. I took a deep, calming breath. Now this putz was calling me RP, as if we’d eaten from the same mess-tin?

  “Motti,” I said, pointedly, “People at your pay grade are not authorized to use ‘RP’.”

  He didn’t respond, instead saying, “This is from the last twenty-four hours. Same pattern. Your plan is approved.”

  “So Froyke authorized this?” I asked, knowing that he couldn’t have.

  “I did. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Hardly,” I said. “I’ll check with Moshe.” Truth was, I had spoken to him the previous evening and, being his usual precognitive self, he had foreseen this very situation and told me to cooperate with Mordechai. “Don’t forget he’s the head of the Iran division,” the DM had said.

  “Fine. Check with whomever you want. Check with Hashem almighty for all I care, but starting right now, I expect total obedience!” said Mordechai, who by now had discarded any semblance of good humor.

  “What if your almighty doesn’t approve?”

  He glared at me for a moment in silence, then said, “Everything is recorded, and everything is reported.”

  “Excellent. Please put on the record that while you do head a division, it is not my division. And as non-operational personnel, you’re not even supposed to be here – this should also be mentioned in your report. There is only one operational authority, and it isn’t you, and it isn’t him either,” I said, pointing upwards at his big imaginary buddy.

  “We’d better get going,” said Nora, and took Digital Albert and Uzi, who joined as my lieutenant. The putz skulked away wordlessly. His presence was meant to be a demonstration of power and nothing else, and I needed to shut that nonsense down. It was obvious that he would take advantage of Froyke’s absence to try and get his foot in the door – together with his zealous passion about all this awfulness being done according to God’s will and in His name, this placed him squarely on my bad side.

  After he left, Nora came back in and handed me a burner with a local SIM.

  “Phone home, RP.”

  “Something happen?”

  “Should it?” she shrugged, and sauntered out of the room, her hand waving behind her. I immediately made a video call, heart pounding.

  “Hey, sweetie. Everything okay?”

  “Hey,” said Verbin, unsmiling.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “As expected.”

  What the hell was hiding behind that ‘as expected,’ I wondered. As expected when one’s partner leaves in the eighteenth week of one’s pregnancy? As expected when he is out in the field, though he promised he wouldn’t be until after the birth at the soonest?

  “Do you know already?” I asked, and pointed at my own belly.

  “I told you, it’s too soon. We won’t know until the –”

  “Twentieth week,” I quoted her.

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “Peaches. It’s 24/7 backgammon and lamb osh palov.”

  “Wonderful. You be sure to stock up on saturated fats and empty carbs. Everything a growing boy needs.”

  “I was just kidding.”

  “Well, I’m not laughing.”

  Garibaldi, who had apparently been laying at her side until that point, stood up and shoved his huge snout between Verbin’s face and the camera. She didn’t move. He promptly started licking my screen-nose. A laughed in spite of myself. Verbin didn’t even blink.

  “Garibaldi, go to you room!” I rumbled in my business voice and he got up and went over to the corner.

  “At least you two are getting along,” she said.

  “Yeah. How’s Froyke?”

  Something in her face subtly changed and suddenly she was my Verbin again; heat glowed from her eyes, but also some sadness.

  “Not so good. We finished a series of radiation treatments and didn’t get the results we were hoping for. We’re still trying. Yesterday we had a video consultation session with Professor Fishman over at Johns Hopkins. There’s no magic bullet here, no easy solutions, and… well, he’s not a young man anymore.”

  “Hebrew, Verbin. Speak plainly.”

  “He asks about you all the time. Things aren’t good right now, RP, they aren’t good, and we’ve been hoping… for a miracle, honestly,” she said and at once shut the lid of her laptop, disconnecting the call.

  “Verbin?” I said, but she was no longer there.

  I felt as though I’d been punched in the liver. Not Froyke. The best man I know, the smartest, the most honest. My mentor, my
superior, the father I never had. I made an exception and addressed God. Listen, I said. I don’t know you. I’m pretty sure there isn’t even a you to know. But if you take Froyke from me, I swear I’ll kill you.

  * * *

  6The Kurdish people’s militia, which evolved from the Kurdish warrior tradition of rebellion.

  7The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence - the primary internal intelligence agency of Iran.

  7.

  Moscow. In a small cul-de-sac bordering on Losiny Ostrov National Park is the headquarters of RET, Russia Export Technologies, the Russian corporation for the export of munitions and advanced weapon systems. The office of Colonel Yuri Rasputin – special advisor and corporation bigwig – lies deep in the basement, on floor -6, impervious to everything, from electronic surveillance to biochemical and nuclear attack, unlike the offices of the other bigwigs, located on the topmost floors. An elegant suite is attached to the office with a gym and a small boxing ring. Rasputin is 45, solidly built, muscular, and short – just how Putin likes the people in his immediate vicinity. Under the thick blond hair are narrow grey eyes and high cheekbones, ending in a strong, decisive chin. To enter to the room one must pass through a security x-ray machine, and if necessary, submit to a search. The room contains a long military conference table with metal legs, topped with green felt. The front wall is covered in heavy wooden slabs, and a huge flag of Russia is nailed to it, as well as a photograph of a Spetsnaz unit with three men standing side-by-side in the center: Rasputin, Sergei Naryshkin, who is these days General Naryshkin, head of the FSB8, and another officer whose face has been blurred. Next to the photo are the famous portraits of Putin from 1920 and 1941, apparently meant to support the myth that has recently swept through the Russian media – Putin is a mythological being, an immortal, who travels through time and hops between decades at will.

  Putin, the ex-KGB officer who became president by seizing the position amidst the death throes of the collapsing Soviet empire, presented his followers with a vision of returning Russia to its former glory – and Rasputin had taken it upon himself to double Russia’s military export within two years. In order to accomplish this, he was given free rein from the president, and his resounding support, as well as that of General Naryshkin.

  Rasputin pounded the punching bag hanging in the corner of his private gym. After a series of jabs, elbow strikes, kicks and combinations – right fist and left elbow, then the other way around – he began a series of head-butts into the bag. On the thirteenth head-butt he suddenly stopped, and addressed the microphone in the ceiling: “Grisha, get me the black monkey, now!”

  “Good morning, Colonel. Which black monkey would that be?”

  “The chjernozhopyje with the beard. Oh, wait. Before you talk to him, get the administration to run the interview with the Jew professor in every Arab network in the Gulf, and in Iran especially, with lots of ridicule regarding the stupidity of Iran. It’s important to remind them how the Jews are kicking their asses both in Syria and inside Iran itself, in their own facilities. Who was that chjernozhopyje the Jews killed not too long ago…?”

  “Mustafa Mughniyeh.”

  “Have them mention him, too.”

  “Sasha and his digital poets demand a clearly defined message.”

  “Here’s your message: The Iranians are idiots. And the Jews are humiliating them and fucking them right in their assholes. How’s that for clearly defined? If they give you trouble, connect me to Naryshkin. He’ll light a fire under their asses.”

  “Yes, sir. With your permission, I’ll civilize your message just a bit, sir.”

  “You civilized baboon. Half an hour after the poets blow up the internet, get me the Major General,” said Rasputin, took off the boxing gloves and gave his bandaged hand a satisfied once-over. “Of course, sir. It should be a couple of weeks before it reaches effective exposure.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for, Grisha? Life is a versatile bitch. It can always get shorter,” Rasputin chuckled, as he unwrapped his hand from the elastic bandage and put on a shiny Rolex he’d taken from an ornamented wooden box.

  He put the box back into the safe and took out an old photo showing a man in a Red Army general’s uniform, lifting a newborn into the air. He looked at it for a moment, lost in thought, and then fixed his posture and snapped to attention, saluting the man in the photo, his father, General Yefim Rasputin.

  * * *

  8The Federal Security Service – the new Russian secret service that has replaced the KGB

  8.

  “You guys want me to leave?” asked Jesus, the American in charge of the commissary, who had just began closing up for the day.

  “Why? You know any Hebrew, Jesus?” Uzi asked.

  Jesus smiled. “Little bit. Just Kusemeq buba sheli.9 But I know how to press ‘Record’,” he grinned, waving his cellphone.

  “You’re the best, Jesus. Go, your buddies need a fourth player.”

  “I’m off, then. Turn off the lights and the A/C when you leave. You can leave the money if you like – if not, drinks are on me.”

  “Go on, man. It’s all good.”

  “Kusemeq buba sheli,” Jesus said with a smile, and left.

  A total silence, accompanied by the pleasant hum of the air conditioner, settled over the empty commissary. Uzi, my lieutenant, was confident in his opinion that the operation should be carried out on bikes, and he had a point. As part of our “early retirement plan” for the leaders of the Iranian nuclear plan, we had successfully executed more than ten targeted attacks, all of them, without exception, performed with upgraded motorcycles. It was tempting to continue with the same proven strategy – but for that precise reason I preferred to avoid it. The Iranians are an intelligent people, thorough and exact, the Germans of the Middle East – I had no doubt that these days, every unregistered motorcycle moving about in Tehran would be tracked and checked within minutes.

  Uzi did an excellent job on my Berlin team, when we were chasing Imad Akbariyeh. He was a quiet type, exceedingly efficient. He had a shiny bald head and wore black horn-rimmed glasses. On a good day he looked like a neurosurgeon; on a bad day, like a pissed-off wrestler. After Luigi was killed in Berlin, Uzi took his place as my number two.

  “Just ask yourself – what would Froyke say? Probably zat you don’t change a chorse in midstream, Ehrlich,” he said in a mostly unsuccessful attempt at Froyke’s accent. “How is the old man, anyway?”

  “Couldn’t be better.”

  He gave me a look.

  “I’ll tell you what Froyke would say. He would say that in this business you don’t develop habits. He would also say that to avoid collateral damage, we need to get close. Which means…”

  “Syringe?” Uzi looked like a frog had just been forced down his throat. “Or that… spray shit? Like that shit from Amman? People still give the Mossad shit for that botched mess.”

  “No, no, this is good shit, I got it from the KGB surplus store.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am. Come on, let’s get to work. Mafeesh motorcycles, forget about them. It’s two against one,” I added, trying to soften his disappointment.

  Uzi swallowed his objections and got to work.

  We started going over our ORBAT10: the Israeli side consisted of five recon specialists from the Iran Division, all of them native Farsi speakers, deeply embedded and holding real IDs. They reported directly to Mordechai and to Nora, who was in charge of managing the command center and the incoming intel.

  Albert was in charge of our digital front. Mordechai was also there, and so far seemed to be keeping out from under everyone’s feet, and of course Uzi, who was in charge of our partners.

  Uzi allocated the five Kurds, headed by Jimbo, to handle the mobilization. They had the most experience in combat driving, and knew the desert escape routes be
tter than anyone.

  The plan was for most of the combat activity to be carried out by the local Mujahedin Khalq team. I already knew some of them from previous ops, like Rassan the Raven and Jojo, twins whose father was murdered by the Ayatollah police. We nicknamed Rassan “the Raven” because of his excessive love for shoulder-perched missile launchers11 which he treated as a personal firearm. With his personal, customized RPG, which he fitted himself with a laser-guidance system, the Raven could hit pretty much anything. He contemptuously dismissed any suggestion to replace it with the far friendlier Lau missile.

  Most importantly, Rassan would kiss every missile before loading it, which is perhaps why his accuracy/distance numbers made a laughingstock of the marines’ statistics – the man boasted a 96% hit ratio even from 550 yards. His twin brother, whom we nicknamed Jojo, was the group’s demolition specialist. Like many other demo specialists that I’d gotten to know over the years, Jojo was a bit slow – but decisive, and alarmingly fearless.

  The third member of the local team was Fatima, a gifted sniper, deeply versed in the technicalities of wind direction, moisture levels, and anything else that affected her shot. Much of this education was provided by her father, who had no sons, but did have a history with the Shah’s army and the benefit of an IDF sniper course. Fatima had a septum ring and close-cropped hair, and she always wore black leather combat boots, certain that she was the true Iranian Lisbeth Salander. To supplement her income, she dabbled in dealing cocaine.

  There was also Miriam, who studied Farsi poetry and theater, and Muhammad, the paramedic, who had a degree in the history of Islam. Their home-field advantage was obvious, and I intended to exploit it fully. The first mission I tasked them with was to confirm and upgrade our map of the professor and his wife’s patterns of behavior and their movements throughout the day, initially prepared by Mordechai’s team. I demanded distance signatures and travel times for every 330 yards of all possible travel and escape routes. I also wanted data on the traffic expected at the time of the op, and the presence of police cars and heavy vehicles.