No one, however, could spy like the Israelis. In terms of engineering skill, operational creativity, and sheer audacity, they had allies and enemies beat by a mile.
For years Gold had led the unit, turning raw recruits into the savviest band of surveillance artists the world had ever known. But that was then. A man had to make a living. He had to support a family. A life on a government salary held little appeal.
So when David Gold left the army, he took his recruits and their skills with him and founded a company to sell those skills to the highest bidder. He named the company Clarus. And it flourished.
The flight attendant closed the forward door. Minutes later she requested that they all take their seats and attach their safety belts. The plane trembled as it began its transit to Runway 29er. The captain welcomed his esteemed cargo aboard and announced that flying time to Austin, Texas, would be seventeen hours, including a refueling stop in Tenerife, Canary Islands.
The plane was lightly loaded and took off steeply into a royal-blue sky. The men gazed out the windows and took a last look at their home, the land of Isaac and Abraham. The plane banked to the west and in minutes was cruising at an altitude of 41,000 feet over the Mediterranean Sea.
The executives from the Clarus Corporation relaxed and retreated deep into their thoughts. They would not be coming home for a long while. Yet not one regretted his choice.
They were all about to become enormously wealthy.
30
Up at first light.
Mary was a sailor’s daughter, trained to rise without lingering. By the time her feet hit the floor she had a dozen tasks lined up and ranked in order of importance. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and combed her hair. She avoided her eyes. It was not a day for soul-searching and self-pity. Joe wouldn’t have it. It was a day for action.
Finished in the bathroom, she padded down the hall and checked on the girls. Jessie lay on top of her sheet, legs splayed, phone within reach of her hand. She was like a secret agent who never slept without her gun hidden beneath her pillow.
Mary left the room and continued down the hall. Grace lay solemnly beneath her sheet, her breathing measured, her position unchanged from when Mary had tucked her in.
Squirm. Struggle. Knock off the sheets.
If she wanted Jessie calmer, she prayed that Grace be more forceful. One child fought too much, the other not nearly enough.
Gently she pulled back the sheet. She saw it and her breath caught. There on Grace’s thigh, where she’d hit the side of the trampoline enclosure, was a bruise the size of a tennis ball. Or was it something else? Something that had weakened Gracie’s system so that she had vomited when she’d taken her new medicine?
The disease was known as acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL. In its most basic form it was a cancer of the white blood cells. Some mutation in Grace’s DNA caused her body’s bone marrow continually to produce malignant immature white blood cells, which crowded out the normal blood cells in the marrow before spreading to other organs. The overall cure rate in children was 80 percent, but the doctors worried that Grace might have a more aggressive variety of the disease, one that had the potential to go crazy really fast and be fatal in weeks or even days. Though the illness had been under control, Mary could never stop worrying. Every bruise was a cause for concern. The perpetual uncertainty was a mother’s worst nightmare.
Mary rearranged the sheet as it had been. Grace didn’t move a muscle.
Mary kissed her fingers and touched her daughter’s forehead. “Love you, mouse.”
–
In the kitchen Mary brewed a pot of coffee, then powered up the desktop and entered the address for the local paper. She was anxious to learn what new information the FBI had revealed about Joe’s death and in particular whether they’d released the name of the informant. To her bewilderment, there was no mention of the shooting on the front page. She had to go all the way to page nine to find an article about Joe, and even then it was unsatisfying. There was no news about the informant’s identity. The only new material discussed Joe’s career at the FBI. One line in particular gnawed at her. “Grant was passed over for promotion to headquarters earlier in the year and transferred from Sacramento to aid in the Austin residency’s criminal investigations.”
Mary fumed. Who were they to say Joe was passed over? Again she felt Don Bennett’s hand at work. She shifted in her seat, recalling his pat explanation: “The investigation is closed. I told you what happened.”
Liar.
Mary checked the New York Times and Washington Post websites. Neither offered further insight into her husband’s death. Worse, both carried the same line about Joe’s being passed over for promotion. It was a smear, pure and simple, a purposeful effort to besmirch his reputation and shift blame for the shooting away from the Bureau and onto him.
Mary opened her drawer and took out the boarding pass stub for the flight from Austin to San Jose. In the past Joe had traveled frequently with a fellow agent named Randy Bell. Randy had been over to the house dozens of times. He was a kind, avuncular man ten years Joe’s senior. It was only then that she realized that Randy hadn’t called to offer his condolences.
She still had his number programmed into her phone. Six a.m. in Austin meant four a.m. in Sacramento. She made a mental note to call him in a few hours.
She spent a few minutes reading e-mails, checking her bank balance. Thoughts of the future elbowed their way to the front of her mind. Worries about money, about Grace, about…well, everything.
A knock on the sliding glass door made her jump. Carrie Kramer stood in her running gear, pointing at her watch. Six a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays was their designated run time. Once the sun rose above the treetops, it grew too warm for anything but a brisk walk.
“Not today,” said Mary as she unlocked the sliding door.
“What do you mean? It’s six. Let’s motor.”
Mary thought of Grace and the blasts and the boarding pass and the call she needed to make to Randy Bell. “I can’t. There’s too much-”
“Three miles before it gets hot. Come on. You need to do this.”
Mary put aside the iPad. Carrie was right. Running cleared her mind and kept her sane. Today she needed that respite more than ever. “Give me a second.”
She returned in five minutes. She looked at Carrie and laughed. Both were wearing blue shorts, white T’s, and white caps, ponytails pulled through the hole. “Twins,” she said.
“And the girls-still sleeping?”
“No one opens an eye until eight,” said Mary lightly, refusing to worry about Grace until she got back. “You’re right. I need to do this. Let’s go out the front.”
“Twenty-nine minutes,” said Carrie.
“You’re on.”
31
“We’ve got some action,” said the Mole.
He and Shanks sat in the work area of the Mercedes Airstream. The interior was a hive of high-definition monitors and state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. The van was engineered for use by law enforcement and built by Guardian TSE (“technical surveillance equipment”), one of hundreds of companies owned by ONE Technologies. Images from the camera the Mole had installed the day before lit up the screen. The men watched the women leave the house and start their run.
“Which one you want?” asked Shanks. “Me, I like the one with the yellow shoes and the nice ass. You can have the one with the big rack.”