She wanted the hit. Yes, she could prove otherwise after the fact with her e-mail, but she’d only thrown up a caution flag because she was trying to protect the Metsada men. To make sure no one else inside was armed or a threat.
She never thought for one moment her target was anything other than guilty as sin. She wanted him dead, and she did not give a damn if his friends in the house died with him. Even though she hadn’t had time to ID them, she felt sure that their association with him made them guilty as well.
She had no idea an innocent family was inside the house, but that did not exonerate her in her eyes. It was her job to know.
She’d gotten away scot-free because her e-mail had been worded vaguely enough to vindicate her. On top of this, she felt that the investigating committee in the Knesset wanted to find one shining light in the entire mess, and they latched on to the uplifting narrative of a young female officer who spoke truth to power and did her best to save lives, and help the tarnished image of her organization.
She’d always known she was one half-assed bitching e-mail away from the same fate as all the others involved in the Rome catastrophe.
And now this. Mother of God. Now this?
She put her head in her hands.
“I’m so sorry, Mike.”
It took Aron fifteen minutes to slowly and carefully search the train. When he was finished he came over the net. “Ruth, I think he’s with you. I can’t find him on board.”
Ruth stood from her seat, unsure if she should try to find Gentry. No. She sat back down. That was too chancy. She would sit here and monitor the stops to see if he disembarked. She picked up a route brochure in the pocket of her chair and looked it over. She fought to calm her voice again. It took considerable effort to do so. “Understood. We’ll hit Copenhagen at eleven ten A.M. Get on a plane; I want you guys there waiting for us when we arrive. If he gets off before Copenhagen, we’ll adjust.”
“Roger that,” said Aron.
“Understood,” said Laureen.
Several seconds later Aron said, “Mike, you hearing us?”
Aron waited patiently for a response.
Ruth sat in her seat in the rear car of the train. She had the row to herself, but directly in front of her a man sat facing her, reading a newspaper.
Ruth put her hands on her knees, felt a quiver in her body. Acid in her stomach surging up into her chest. Slight at first, but growing.
Laureen came over the net. “Something is going on here at the station. I’ve got sirens. An ambulance and several police cars just pulled up.”
Aron called now. “Ruth. Can you raise Mike?” She heard alarm in his voice.
And then, almost suddenly, it became too much.
Ruth Ettinger lost it.
She launched out of her seat, turned to the rear of the car, and rushed through the door to the tiny gangway. She slammed the bathroom door shut and vomited into the sink.
Tears flowed along with the vomit, and her sobs continued long after.
Twenty minutes later, Ruth Ettinger stood outside the bathroom in the gangway section at the back of the train, her phone to her ear, her face red from crying, and the hood on her coat up in an attempt to cover her emotions to anyone who might come back here to use the restroom.
On the other end of the line was Yanis Alvey. She had told him everything. She had told him about finding Mike, about lying to her two subordinates, but that was not all. She revealed to him that she had seen Gentry the morning before and had purposefully let him slip away from the Townsend kill team.
She put up little defense of herself. She muttered something about not wanting a massacre at the hands of Beaumont and his Jumper team, but she could have argued her point more vigorously.
Her self-loathing did not allow it. This was not going to be Rome all over. She would not snake her way out of the blame.
When she had nothing left to say, when the crying had stopped, Yanis spoke gently yet forcefully. “Ruth. It’s over. You are being recalled, and you will be replaced. I will notify Metsada that their target is on the train and I will green-light a kill/capture operation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I just want you to sit there until the next stop, then get off, and we’ll send someone to pick you up. I’m heading to Copenhagen, leaving within the hour. I’ll meet with you there and I will put you on a flight back to Tel Aviv.”
Ruth nodded at the phone. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. Then, “I’m sorry for Mike.”
He hung up.
She took her earpiece out of her ear and slipped it in her purse, then turned off her phone and put that in as well. She headed back into the bathroom to wash her face.
Rome had clouded her judgment. Since the day the family was gunned down by the Metsada operatives in Italy, Yanis had told her he worried about her being back in the field, and she had scoffed at his concerns.
But he was right, and she was wrong. Rome had ruined her.
She was off the Gentry operation. She could accept this; she had no choice. And Yanis clearly had no choice in recalling her.
But with the realization that she was done came the knowledge that she now had no masters. No one to report to.
Nothing to lose.
Somewhere ahead of her on the train was the man who had murdered her colleague. He was still free, and whether or not Townsend killers were en route, she knew Gentry had overcome Townsend men before and escaped to kill again.
Ruth decided she would not leave the surveillance to them. The takedown? Of course, as much as she would like to wrap her own hands around his throat and choke the life from him, she knew that would not happen. When Beaumont and his men got here, she would get out of the way.
But until then, she wasn’t getting off this damn train until Court Gentry did.
FORTY-THREE
Court sat in the fourth car on the train, a second-class coach only half full with passengers. He’d boarded without a ticket, but that was not uncommon in Sweden. He purchased a full-fare ticket when the conductor passed, telling the woman in German that his final destination would be Hamburg.
He had no idea if he would stay on the train all the way to its terminus; he’d feel out the situation as the day went on, but he was hoping to put as many miles as possible between Stockholm and himself.
As he sat with his head against the window and his hood up, his phone began vibrating in his backpack in the rack above his head. He stood up and dug it out, and decided to answer it in case Whitlock had intel about the hunt for him.
Court answered his phone. “Hey.”
“You okay, brother?”
He spoke softly, although there was no one close by. “I saw the Mossad woman again this morning, but I think I got away from her. What do you hear from your friends?”
After a slight pause, Whitlock said, “I’m off the op.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not getting intel from Townsend House at the moment.”
“Well, that sucks for me, doesn’t it?” Court growled. “I gave up Kiev and now you are saying you can’t help me? You don’t know if they are tailing me now?”
“Last I heard Jumper was looking for you at the bus terminal.”
Court nodded, pleased that the ruse had drawn any surveillance from the train station, but also aware that this misdirection would have expired the moment the bus to Gothenburg left the station without Gentry on board.
Whitlock added, “The Mossad did have static coverage on the train station.”
Court cocked his head. “What train station?”
“The train station where you caught the oh five fifty to Hamburg.”