CIA, Langley, Virginia (5:30 p.m. EST / 2230 Zulu)
“Sir, you are not going to believe this!”
As Jason Duke knew well, the use of such a breathless phrase was not the most judicious or professionally sophisticated way of approaching a veteran CIA leader—especially if delivered while leaning into his office doorway in early evening. But with all the mind-numbing routine intelligence traffic he’d handled over the past few months as the man’s overeducated gopher, breaking the news of this unfolding situation was almost a breath of fresh air.
Walter Randolph—a rumpled-looking, 40-year veteran spook and now deputy director of Central Intelligence—motioned the younger intelligence officer in with an unmistakable gesture to close the door behind him. Randolph took the reading glasses off his craggy face and sat back in his chair, focusing on the younger man while nibbling on the earpiece of his glasses.
He looks ridiculously like Lyndon Johnson when he does that, Jason thought.
“What, exactly, am I not going to believe, Jason? You sound like an overly exuberant intern.”
“The Pangia flight, sir. We pulled the passenger list. Moishe Lavi is aboard.”
Randolph carefully closed a classified folder he’d been studying and leaned forward to place it on his blotter before responding. He looked up, studying Jason Duke’s face, his hands folded in front of him.
“You are correct, Jason. I don’t believe you.”
“I confirmed the inbound information with Homeland Security. It’s an Israeli passport, non-diplomatic, but it’s the number we have in our database.”
“What the hell would Lavi be doing aboard an American flag carrier? He only flies El Al.”
“Don’t know.”
“Who’s with him?”
“A secretary, apparently, from the Israeli Defense Force, by the name of Ashira Dyan. Her passport checks as well.”
“We know Ashira. She’s his official IDF mistress. Any idea why Lavi is inbound?”
“Well, why he was inbound, we think, may have something to do with the UN, but we’ve found no appointments or arrangements for him yet. Not even a car company to pick him up at Kennedy, which is a bit odd.”
“You think?” Walter Randolph rolled his eyes. “Newly defeated warhawk prime minister of Israel who’s used to an entourage of dozens buys a commoner’s ticket to the US, and, what, a cousin is going to meet him in a beat up Ford?”
“We’re checking all the car companies.”
“I don’t doubt that, I’m just… holy crap! And this airplane is headed right back to Tel Aviv?” Randolph was on his feet and pacing.
“The airline says their airplane is electronically reporting that it’s still westbound toward New York, and all the reported GPS coordinates are fiction as well. They’re saying it’s not possible for someone to mess with that automated datastream in flight, so they’re clueless as to what’s happening. But European air traffic control confirms that if the aircraft remains on the same eastbound course, it will pass over Tel Aviv hours from now. The aircraft came from Hong Kong before Tel Aviv, so if there’s no one in control up there and the computers steer for Hong Kong after passing Tel Aviv, they’ll pass just south of Tehran.”
“Wonderful excuse for the Iranians to overreact. Do the Brits know Lavi is aboard?” Randolph asked.
“Not yet, I think. But I need you to sign off on informing MI-6 formally.”
“Do it. They’re on our side… usually.”
“Okay.”
“Where’s the director?”
“Home, sir.”
Randolph took a deep breath. “Very well, I’ll wake him.”
“It’s that serious, you think? They’re still hours from the Mediterranean.”
Walter Randolph fixed Jason with a questioning gaze which quickly morphed to amusement. “A little reality test, Jason, if you please. The man who wanted to commit Israel to a preemptive nuclear strike on Tehran in the last few months is thrown out of office when his government collapses and even his supporters react to the exposure of his plan with utter horror. The head of the IDF revolts, and the president of the United States has to publicly flail and repudiate our ironclad ally for even momentarily thinking such thoughts. Iran remains on what for us would be DEFCON 2,” referring to the nation’s defense readiness condition, “a hair-trigger from launching one of the nukes we know the mullahs have to wipe Israel off the map, which is their stated goal. Then Moishe Lavi leaves office ranting and raving that he will not give up until they are neutralized. Now this same wild-eyed man ends up on a rogue jetliner with an American flag on the tail… and did I mention that the mullahs don’t trust us? So the damned French-built A330 is headed back toward the Middle East with no radio contact and apparently a clueless crew, and even though the plane is still over the English Channel, and, as you say, hours away from the Med, it’s headed straight for Tel Aviv, which, coincidentally, is a very short distance from Tehran, geopolitically speaking. So, who do you think we should notify? Walter Cronkite?”
“He’s… dead, sir.”
“Which is a damn shame, but you get the point.”
“Yes, sir. I do see your point. Ah, points.”
“I’m not beating you up, son… you brought me into it immediately… but this is potentially a very big problem. A White House Situation Room level problem. And guaranteed, Defense Intelligence is all over this as we speak. We can’t let them get ahead of us.”
“I’ve got a team coming together, sir.”
“Good. Give me a conference room number, and I’ll be there inside thirty minutes. You’ve got anything you need on this, okay? But for God’s sake, and mine… and, for that matter, the director’s… please let me know instantaneously or sooner if they turn that bird around or land it somewhere safe.”
“Got it.”
Walter Randolph waved his arm in mock dismissal. “Go forth and sin no more, my son!”
“Excuse me?”
The deputy director was chuckling and looking down as he replaced his glasses and adjusted them on the bridge of his nose. “Just something a past director used to say to me in my intelligence infancy. Ignore my nostalgia. I’ve been here far too long.”
Randolph sighed and settled back down in his desk chair, feeling both the years and his lack of regular attendance in the gym. The weight was creeping back onto his otherwise considerable frame, and he was becoming vertically challenged. Officially, the agency still thought he was six feet two, but at age sixty-nine, he was compressing vertically and expanding laterally.
He picked up the receiver and pressed the buttons that bypassed everything else to connect him with the director’s secure phone at his home in Arlington. Chuckling to himself, he waited for the familiar voice to answer with the same expectant “Yes?” one uses when each ring of the instrument is a potential announcement of Armageddon or an unhappy POTUS.
“Jim? Walter here. You are not going to believe this!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Aboard Pangia 10 (2230 Zulu)
Carol Crandall still liked being called “Head Mama” whenever she served as chief of the cabin crew, although at the age of thirty-two she was hardly a grizzled veteran. She thought of her lead position now as one of her more junior flight attendants, Kate Guthrie, pushed through the first class divider curtains to see her. Carol motioned Kate into the forward galley as she moved back into the cabin to refill the wine glass of an elegantly coiffed lady who had been buried in a book since takeoff from Tel Aviv.
Still not drunk, Carol thought. She was one of their million-mile frequent fliers who had already downed the better part of a bottle of Chablis, the aura of very expensive perfume surrounding her.