David stepped out of the shadows. “Hello, Eli.”
The blood drained from Eli’s face. “You.”
“That’s right. So let’s not play any longer. I have some questions, and I need answers. You will answer the questions. If you aren’t cooperative, I’ll torture you until you’ll wish you had died ten times over. You know I’ll do it, so let’s make this simple. I know you betrayed the team. I know you had a hand in them being killed. I know Grigenko is behind it. My first question is, why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you betray them?”
Eli spat on the floor. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I swear I didn’t know he was going to sanction them…”
“Really? What did you think he would do? Send them flowers?”
Eli had nothing to say.
“My question stands. Why?”
Eli raised his head. “I’m not saying anything. You can’t do this, and you know it. You’re one of us. One of the good guys. This isn’t how we behave.”
David moved back behind Eli and picked something up, then turned back to Eli.
“You know what this is? Of course you do. This is a soldering iron. I just plugged it in. Within thirty seconds, it will get hot enough to light a cigarette. I’m going to start with your head and work my way down your torso. I’m not bluffing, and you’ll be very sorry if you decide to test me. Once I’m done with the iron, I’ll switch to using electricity, then acid. You know what I’m trained to do. Now I’m going to ask you one more time. Why did you betray the team? Why did you betray me?”
Eli gritted his teeth, refusing to speak.
David turned to Jet.
“Go watch out front and make sure that nobody is around. I don’t want to be interrupted.”
She nodded, and then paused, looking at Eli. “I guess next time I see you, you won’t have much of a face left. I wish I could say it was nice meeting you, Eli, but it wasn’t.”
She turned and walked to a door behind Eli. He heard it open and then slam shut. It echoed. They were in a large space — some kind of abandoned warehouse or industrial building.
“Don’t do this. There’s no coming back once you do this,” Eli pleaded in a quiet voice.
“That’s right. Just like there was no coming back from the hit squad that attacked me at one of the safe houses. Just like none of the team will come back from the dead.”
David moved closer to Eli.
“Last chance. Why?”
Jet returned to the room fifteen minutes later. The stink of burned flesh hung like a pall in the air, and David was leaning against the wall, sweating and breathing heavily. Eli’s head was resting on his chest, what remained of his mouth burbling incoherently.
“We should leave, David. It’s just a matter of time till they shut the town down and start searching every vehicle. You know there had to be a protocol for him to check in once he was settling in for the night. They’re sure to send someone around, and when they find his car…”
David looked up at her. “Okay. I’m finished with him, anyway. He told me everything I need to know.” He spat on Eli.
“What about him?”
“I’ll deal with it. Give me a minute. I’ll meet you by the car,” David said.
When he walked into the main section of the abandoned warehouse they’d commandeered for the interrogation, he looked grim. She studied his face before turning to the vehicle.
“Eli?”
“No longer with us.”
“That will save the Mossad the work of making him disappear, I suppose. There was no way he could have faced any sort of formal charges, was there?”
“Not a chance. He knew where far too many bodies were buried. This way is best. He won’t be talking to anyone about us, or helping the Russian any longer, and whenever someone finds him, the Mossad will keep it under wraps.”
“So now what?” she asked.
“We’ll need to get out of the country as soon as possible, but I don’t like our odds going through the border to Jordan on foot. Unlike Rani, I’m in databases, and for all I know, I’m already on a watch list because of the shooting at the safe house. And airports are obviously out. That means I’m going to need to make a few calls.”
“Tonight?”
“No better time I can think of.”
David walked over to the roll-up door and pulled the chain, raising it five feet. Jet started the car and inched out with the headlights off, and David ducked under the door as it dropped shut.
“What did he tell you?” she asked as they moved towards the highway.
“He confirmed some things I suspected, and some others I didn’t. For him, it was all about money. He claims Grigenko’s people got in touch with him two years ago and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Millions of dollars for helping, or a bullet to the brain if he didn’t — not just for himself, but also for his daughter, who lives in New York. They seemed to know about the existence of the team, but not our identities. The payment was blood money to sell us out.”
They rode in silence for a minute, then Jet pointed to the road signs. “Where to?”
David thought about it. “Haifa. There are a lot of hotels where we can get a room and we won’t be bothered…and they’ll take cash.”
She took the road north.
“Eli swore that the only information he provided them was the identities of the team members who participated in the Algiers attack. So Rain wasn’t the Russians. It was just coincidental timing. Looks like the cell figured out it had a problem and decided to do something about it.”
The road rumbled beneath their tires as she changed lanes.
“Eli also said that we were too late. That the Mossad had gotten wind of something in Belize. It wasn’t specific, but I think we can guess it has to do with the oil find.”
“Did he say why the Mossad was involved in that?”
“He didn’t know. It’s possible that there are others on Grigenko’s payroll in the agency. I believe he told us everything he knew. But he did say one thing that’s disturbing. He told me just before you came in. Right before he lost consciousness for the last time.”
“What was it, David?”
He adjusted his position in an effort to get more comfortable in the cheap seat.
“Eli said that whatever was going on in Belize was already in play. That there was no stopping it now.”
Chapter 22
The staff at the Leonardo hotel in Haifa were professional and courteous, and within minutes, Jet had paid for a mini-suite on the seventh floor overlooking the sea. The bellboy waited patiently to escort her to the room while she walked to the bank of pay phones near the lobby restrooms and slipped David a room key and a small brochure with the room number scrawled on it. On the outskirts of town, they had stopped at a store to buy a calling card for him to use, and now David was deep in conversation, the telephone handset locked to his ear.
The room was lavish compared to the dumps she had been staying in, and she spent a few moments on the balcony, watching the distant lights of boats in the Mediterranean, before returning inside and closing the curtains. She quickly undressed and then moved into the bathroom, where she stood under the pulsing shower spray, savoring the warm stream of water on her skin. She was in the process of rinsing the floral shampoo out of her hair when she heard the room door close and David’s voice call out.
“I’m taking a shower,” she called, and then the bathroom door opened.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude. I’m done downstairs, so let me know when you’re finished. I want to rinse off, too.”
She caught his glance darting at her nude reflection in the mirror even as he appeared to be averting his eyes.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
She reluctantly turned off the water and then stepped out of the shower. After rummaging through the hotel hospitality kit, she brushed her teeth, then realized that she’d left her clothes in the other room. Fortunately, the towels were oversized, and after blotting her hair, she wrapped one around her torso and opened the door.