Yosef shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talk—”
Paled reached out with a quick hand and cuffed Yosef in the face. “How much did you decipher?” he repeated. “And who did you send it to?”
Yosef stood there with his hand to his face, the thrill of espionage no longer a romantic ideal, as reality set in like an anchor. His gut was churning.
“If I have to ask you again, Yosef, which I doubt is your real name, then I’ll break every bone in your body until I get what I want, starting with your fingers. Is that clear?”
Yosef didn’t respond, his tongue bound by paralytic terror.
“Case in point,” said Paled, removing three Polaroids from his shirt pocket and splaying them across the table in the glow of the computer monitor. Even in the feeble light, Yosef could see the brutally battered face of his LAP contact, David Gonick. His features were bloodied, his mouth slightly agape, teeth missing. His eyes had rolled up into their sockets before he died. “He was caught on tape dropping the data off on your level,” Paled added. “And you were caught on tape picking it up.”
Yosef’s eyes traveled back to the photos.
“If I don’t get what I want, Yosef, then I’ll be adding three more Polaroids to this set.”
Yosef broke down. Some spy, he thought, crying like a ten-year-old child. But he held true, revealing nothing, even until the moment Paled took Yosef’s pictures to add to his collection.
Spurred on by a single hand gesture from Paled, the two toadies grabbed Yosef and forcefully ushered him out of his apartment.
“If you play, Yosef, then you have to pay.” It was Paled’s final statement to a man who held no hope of seeing dawn’s early light as he had anticipated.
With a gloved hand Paled shut off the security monitors and wondered who Yosef’s liaisons were. To find out, he would take the PC, examine it at Mossad Headquarters, and get the answer that way.
Once he did find out, he’d instruct Mossad’s department heads to deny everything on the document to all United States constituencies, especially the FBI and CIA.
Removing the data stick from the PC, Paled examined it, turning it over between his fingers as adeptly as a magician passes a coin from one digit to the next. It was incredible how something so small could hold enough information to start a war, he considered. Then, with little effort, he snapped the data stick between his fingers and placed the broken pieces in his pocket.
One of Shari’s team members heard the annoying ping indicating that an email had been received. Taking immediate notice that it had been sent to the FBI and the CIA, she burned the document onto two CDs. Per protocol, she then deleted the email to minimize the risk of misappropriation by hackers, despite the FBI’s state-of-the-art firewalls and anti-theft software. She marked one CD to be placed into the vault as a backup file.
The other CD was placed into a jewel case marked VITAL and hand delivered to Shari’s team leader, who, after signing the chain of custody log, hand delivered it to Shari per departmental procedure.
Within moments, Shari was in possession of the disc that initiated from Tel Aviv.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Laces of red stitching had formed within the whites of Shari Cohen’s eyes. Not even her fourth cup of coffee was strong enough to drive away the exhaustion, as she operated on compulsion and willpower alone. The only thing that kept her motivated was her direct communication with national and international intelligence agencies, including the DST from France, the SIS from Britain, the BND from Germany, the AISI from Italy, the SVR and FSB from Russia and, of course, Mossad. Not a single moment was wasted.
“So now what?”
Shari turned to Paxton, whose face sported the beginning of a new beard. “Go home,” she told him. “Get some sleep.”
“And miss the biggest day of your career?”
She immediately picked up the undertone of sarcasm. “Look, this wasn’t my call, okay? So get over it. If you can’t, then take it up with the attorney general or deputy director.”
Paxton stared her down for a brief moment before turning away. “I’m just tired,” he said. It was a poor cop out, but he didn’t care.
Shari glanced at her watch; it was 6:15, a new day.
The conference room staff, in communication with Mossad throughout the night, remained at full force. The emailed encryptions given to Shari regarding the Soldiers of Islam were at best incomplete.
According to the compiled dossiers, the Soldiers of Islam were only marginally capable of any type of military sophistication. Although they did spend time training in al-Qaeda camps, they were primarily groomed for their computer expertise. Their central purpose was to search for soft spots in the American defense system and then relay those weaknesses to their superiors for possible exploitation.
Paxton saw the wheels turning. “Got something?”
Deep lines of deliberation creased Shari’s forehead. “The Soldiers of Islam,” she said, “or at least what we know of them, doesn’t make any sense.”
“How so?”
“You read the files, the dossiers. These guys are computer geeks. They hardly have the military capacity to take out the president’s Special Security Force.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe Mossad doesn’t have all the answers?”
Shari shook her head. “Mossad is legendary,” she said, “and thorough. I don’t think these files are incomplete. I think we have everything there is to know about the Soldiers of Islam.”
“Meaning what?”
She chewed softly on her lower lip for a moment before answering. “I don’t know; I’m not sure. I just don’t see these guys, outnumbered as they were, taking out such a highly trained force. I just don’t.”
Paxton leaned forward and rubbed his raw, fatigued eyes. “Well, apparently they did.”
Shari wasn’t totally confident in this assessment.
Paxton loosened the knot of his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “Maybe you should head home for a bit,” he told her. “I’ll call you if we hear anything.”
“Sure you don’t want to go home?”
“Positive. There’s no point in both of us falling asleep on the job, right?”
She feigned a smile. “I guess.” She gathered the files and placed the recently-burned CD into its jewel case.
“Where’re going to need those,” he said.
Shari shook her head. “I’m going to the DHS Building to see if they can help me with these encryptions.”
“They’re just dossiers.”
She smiled out of cordiality. “Maybe. But ask yourself this question: why are there encryptions in these dossiers?”
Paxton agreed with her in principle. Encryptions exist solely for highly-sensitive information, and dossiers are open biographical histories of certain subjects — not exactly top-secret material.
“Shari, you need to take a break. I can handle this.”
“I’m sure you can, Billy. But I’m still in charge.” She gathered the files and the disc before heading toward the door. “Call me if something comes up.”
And then she was gone, moving rapidly toward the elevators at the end of the hall.
Paxton immediately got on his cell phone, punched in a speed-dial number, and waited for a response. When the line was picked up on the other end, Paxton spoke in a tone that was flat and emotionless. “We may have a problem,” he said.
“And what would that be?”
“Cohen is starting to think that something’s wrong. She took the files and the encrypted CD from Mossad. She plans to take the disc to DHS for them to break it down.”