“Salome.”
Etra knew her real name. But both he and Duberman usually used her cover name, which she had borrowed from a famous biblical vixen. According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Salome danced before her stepfather Herod so seductively that he offered her whatever she wanted. She demanded the head of John the Baptist. Despite his misgivings, Herod gave it to her.
For a dance.
She had picked the name as her legend almost ironically. She was no one’s courtesan. She could have been pretty, but she didn’t want to be. She didn’t wear makeup and left her brown hair in a boring shoulder-length cut. Though she had an athlete’s body, trim and fit, she hid it behind neutral-colored suit sets. She wore a wedding ring, too, discreet white gold, though she had never married. The clothes and ring were the female version of camouflage, her way of making herself forgettable.
Nonetheless, she had grown to love her chosen name. Lately, as her plan moved ahead, she found herself wondering if it didn’t carry its own biblical magic. A foolish thought, but one she couldn’t shake.
“Gideon.” She reached for the Ferrari’s door. “Want to go for a ride?”
Etra blinked, then computed that she was joking and smiled. Humor wasn’t his strong suit. He was in his early fifties, with close-cropped gray hair, an old-school bodyguard. He could have passed for one of Duberman’s executives. He wore tailored gray suits and carried a Sig Sauer P238, an undercover officer’s weapon meant for close-range use, easily hidden but short on stopping power.
Nonetheless, underestimating Etra was a mistake. His nickname was Chai-Chai, though only Duberman used it. Etra had earned it as a sniper for the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. The name was more than slightly ironic. In Hebrew, chai had two meanings. Eighteen, and life. Etra had finished Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon with thirty-six confirmed kills, more than any other IDF soldier.
“Any problems?”
“The plumbing and I had a fine time.”
“That means no?”
“Not that I could see.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“Phones. Burners. For your boss. And a picture. For you.”
She tossed him the bag. He unzipped it, pulled out a photo.
“Who’s this?”
“His name’s John Wells.” She had taken it in Istanbul. The only smart decision she’d made about Wells. “He’s not a friend.”
“Can I share this with my team? Or is it just for me?”
“They can see it, but don’t tell them who he is.”
He opened the house door, and she followed him inside.
The house had been cantilevered over the mountainside, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the city. This view always awed Salome. Enormous skyscrapers soared from Hong Kong Island and the mainland, looming over a forest of smaller towers. Hovercrafts, ferries, fishing boats, and even a few antique Chinese junks churned across the roiling gray waters of Victoria Harbor. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles fought for space on the causeways. When the sun set, the city’s neon would glow in the dark and the view would be even more spectacular.
“Boss’s running late. Be here in a few minutes,” Etra said.
“Few meaning five? Or an hour?”
Etra didn’t answer. He treated even basic questions about Duberman as state secrets.
“You’re so helpful, Gideon.”
“Thank you.”
She wasn’t sure if he knew she was mocking him. She nodded at the city below. “You know, this is what we’re trying to protect.”
Out of necessity, a dozen mid-level functionaries at 88 Gamma had helped support Salome’s operation. They were the lawyers who created shell companies that she used for safe houses and vehicles. The accountants who funneled money to the accounts that paid her mercenaries and hackers. Even the pilots who shuttled her from country to country.
But none had any idea what she was doing. She and Duberman had chosen employees whose evaluations showed that they followed orders unquestioningly. Inside 88 Gamma, Salome was known as an independent consultant who worked with the company on development projects in countries where it couldn’t advertise its presence.
But she and Etra could speak honestly. He had known what they were doing as soon as Duberman agreed to fund her plans. The men spent nearly every hour together. And Salome didn’t worry about Etra’s loyalty. A decade before, Duberman had spent two million dollars on an experimental leukemia treatment for Etra’s son Tal, a prototype gene therapy. The treatment, which no insurer would cover, saved the boy’s life.
“Hong Kong is what we’re trying to protect?” Etra parroted back to her. “Not too many Jews here.”
Salome wondered if she should explain. Of course, a city of eight million Chinese wouldn’t be at the top of the Iranian hit list. But like Tel Aviv and New York, Hong Kong stood as a monument to modern civilization. Iran’s mullahs pretended that they hated Israel and the United States. Salome knew better. They hated freedom in all its forms. Religious, economic, sexual. They hated women. They hated success. They couldn’t compete, so they threatened to lash out with the most destructive tools they could find. A few kilograms of dull yellow metal would tear a hole in this city, kill hundreds of thousands of people. Worst of all, the Iranians could never have invented a nuclear bomb on their own. But they had no shame about stealing the West’s discoveries and using them against their creators.
“It’s not just us. They hate all this.”
“I don’t care who else they hate. Or who else they love. They hate me, that’s enough for me.”
Etra’s phone buzzed with a text message.
“He says fifteen minutes.”
“But he’s here, right? In the house? You’re here, he’s here.”
“I guess.”
Not exactly a definitive answer. “And what’s keeping him? Casino business?” Of course, Duberman wouldn’t poke his head out and tell her himself. Billionaires rarely explained. And never apologized.
A shrug.
“Gideon. You probably know him as well as anyone.”
“Maybe.”
“Ever met his friends?”
“Maybe.”
“I mean, his real friends. People he grew up with.”
Etra shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she’d had the audacity to ask the question. And walked out holding her bag of phones, leaving Salome to consider what she knew about her boss.
Duberman’s parents had arrived in the United States in 1946 and settled in Atlanta. After escaping the Holocaust, they dreamed no great American dreams. Or just one: to keep their heads down and survive. Nathan managed a rent-to-own store in Oak Knoll, a poor neighborhood southeast of downtown. Gisa taught kindergarten.
After five years, they had scrimped enough money for a down payment on a fourteen-hundred-square-foot house in the city’s Midtown District. They quickly had three sons. Aaron was the youngest and by far the most ambitious. He attended the University of Georgia on a wrestling scholarship, majored in business, moved to Las Vegas to work for Hilton.
I was tired of the South, he’d told Fortune for a cover profile a decade before. It had all this history that didn’t have anything to do with me. I liked Vegas from the minute I saw it. Empty space, blue sky. It seemed like anything was possible. He rose quickly at Hilton, but he didn’t stay. When you work for a company that has somebody else’s name on the door, you know there’s a limit to how high you can get. At the tender age of twenty-six, he and two other junior Hilton executives struck out, buying a scrubby hotel-casino in Reno called The Sizzling Saloon.