The Prophet Conspiracy (7 page)

The Sabbath Day meant Godwin wasn’t in the office. She had a secure telephone line and data connection in her home in case of emergency, but Israel’s culture of observing the Shabbat was so thorough even national security personnel like Godwin stayed home at least one day a week. She might get Sundays off, too, if there were no crises.

Her apartment was large, and she had the space all to herself. Sometimes, Maya wished she had met a man to share space and life with but, at the moment, she felt nothing but relief over the absence. It was one less person from whom she had to keep her secret.

There were two bedrooms, but one of them served as a home office. Her encrypted phone sat on a luxuriant teak desk, along with a computer. The two pieces of equipment were the only interruption to the gleaming, lacquered wood. Now, she sat in the leather executive chair in front of her desk, but the electronics were completely unused.

She spent the morning contemplating her new life. Toma tried to make it sound hopeful, but Godwin was not so naive as to trust a terrorist.

Professional blackmail operations usually included both a carrot and a stick. This was no exception. The stick was obvious: disobey Toma’s orders, and everyone above her in the chain of command — from the Director of the Shin Bet all the way to the Prime Minister — would get a copy of those old pictures of her using cocaine.

The carrot was somewhat more creative.

Toma, apparently, had an operation running. He intended to destroy an archaeological site. Godwin didn’t particularly care about archeology. Tourists came to see the things archaeologists dug up, but there was already so much of it Israel would never run out of tourists.

This dig was different. If Toma was telling the truth, there was war buried under the City of David; all out war between Israel and every single one of her neighbors. If he was telling the truth — with a terrorist and blackmailer, that was always a big if — then he was right. That dig needed to disappear.

Obviously, she didn’t particularly like bombs going off in Israel. It was her job to prevent such things. However, it was also her job to prevent threats to her country.

Incidents of what could even be called terrorism from Israeli extremists were on the rise. If the dig in the City of David came to light, those people might do something so drastic it could upend the fragile balance of Middle Eastern politics. Israel lived with regular rocket attacks, but there was a big difference between that and all-out war. Israel had won many wars with the surrounding Muslim nations, but it had been very close sometimes. Godwin believed it was far better to prevent a war than to be overconfident about winning one.

And, of course, Toma had those pictures.

The other element of the plan — not of any interest to Toma, except it allowed him to create a carrot for her — was it created an opportunity for Cameron Dorn to look bad.

Godwin and Dorn had clashed over Dorn’s desire to launch a new operation against Hamas. He and the agents he’d been working with had developed intelligence about terrorists gathering up equipment for underground operations. They were gathering this in Jerusalem.

Dorn had made the logical conclusion and had assumed they were planning to extend their tunneling operations. In Gaza, Hamas dug tunnels across the border with Israel to sneak operatives past security. Dorn had thought they were doing the same thing in Jerusalem and had wanted to strike the storehouse.

Godwin had resisted the idea. She didn’t like the idea of launching a first strike; she had wanted to wait for Hamas to commit a crime before acting. Dorn had made the usual argument about it being better to hit the bad guys before they hit you, rather than after.

If the fight hadn’t taken place in a room full of politicians, Godwin might not have let it affect her so much. But any time members of the Knesset were involved, it affected her chances of being the next Director. He’d made her look weak in front of them. That had made Godwin so angry she couldn’t think straight. She’d fired Dorn and still enjoyed thoughts of proving he’d been wrong.

Now, Toma’s operation would prove Dorn wrong. Hamas wasn’t building tunnels in Jerusalem at all. They were simply preparing to destroy one of the dozens of archaeological digs going on that year.

Proving that — to the current Director of the Shin Bet, to the Knesset, to the Prime Minister — would undo a lot of the damage Dorn had done to her reputation.

And it would feel good to show him up.

So, she had accepted the terms. They were good for Israel and good for her as well. She insisted on only one point: telling Toma she would rather be exposed and deal with the consequences otherwise. She wasn’t really sure how much of a bluff it had been, but it had worked. He promised to fulfill her condition.

In return, she had already given the orders to close down the archaeological dig Toma asked about. It was the Shabbat, so the academics who worked there wouldn’t be coming in today anyway. But the next time they did try, they would find their project was completely closed.

That was the easy part. But the second part? The part where he wanted her to build the bomb he would use for his plans? That was a much harder sell with Godwin.

Toma had to prove he was telling the truth about that dig.

**********

Siobhan said, “Do you need me as a witness or something, if this is really something the government should investigate?”

Cameron shrugged. “I don’t know, I hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Why?”

“Well, my plane leaves today. If you need me to speak to Shin Bet — the real Shin Bet — we better go do it now before I have to get to Tel Aviv to catch my flight. It’s not like I don’t care. I do. I really want to know what happened. I can hardly stand leaving a puzzle like this unsolved.

“But I’m not crazy. If this is Hamas, I don’t want to do anything but read about it in the newspapers. People are getting real-world killed. I just want to go home. I want to be safe.”

Cam smiled at her. “That’s exactly what you should want. This isn’t your fight, Siobhan. It’s mine. The fact the other archaeologists from your dig are dead will be enough evidence I think. Let’s get you to the airport and back home to America.”

Siobhan smiled. “It’s all I can think about. I never want to go through something like being tied up in that room again. But still… I want to know what exactly happened. I want to know if you catch the terrorist. And… I’ll miss you.”

Cameron smiled at her. “I’ll email you to let you know what happens, and we can keep in touch.”

The words were like a repeat of his gaze in the hotel lobby. The promise of future contact left her mind unable to take any other path. It was a fool’s errand to fall for a man to whom she’d never speak again. But if there was hope… if they might speak again…

“When do we need to go?”

He replied, “It’s only a 45-minute drive. You said your flight’s at four? We’re nowhere near late yet. Are you thinking about going back to the hotel for your luggage?”

“Oh, I didn’t really think about it. I guess I shouldn’t. I mean, I would assume whoever kidnapped me, Hamas terrorists or whatever, I suppose if I went to the hotel it’d be easy for them to catch me again.”

He smiled at her. “Well, you’d have me with you this time, which makes a difference. But yes, if you can bear to part with your personal possessions, the wisest course is not to go back to places you’ve been before. Is your ticket in your smartphone app?”

She nodded, but after a moment’s thought her expression changed to a frown.

“I’ve been completely focused on getting back home. It’s like a talisman for me. If I can just get back to America, everything will be alright. But the way you talk about them makes me think they’ll never quit chasing me. Do you think they’ll leave me alone once I get home?”

Cam replied, “Tracking down one innocent civilian in America is a much bigger operation for them than tracking her down in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is home court for them. Operating in the U.S. is a whole different ballgame.

“Once I tell Shin Bet the evidence about that dig site and the tunnel, and you’re in America, then you won’t be the main source of their problem anymore, and you’ll be too hard to get to anyway. Yes, you’ll be safe there. All we have to do is get you safely to the plane.”

She liked what he said about the security to be found in the U.S. but didn’t like the bit about getting her safely to the plane.

“Do you think they’ll be waiting for me at the airport?”

Cam said, “Maybe, but the airport is swarming with security agents. Real ones, not Hamas impostors like you’ve been dealing with. And like I said about the hotel, you’re a lot harder of a target today than you were yesterday. You have me with you.”

Siobhan smiled at him.

“I’m glad I do.”

Cameron had a spare helmet and leather jacket, the latter of which was much too big for her, but Siobhan wore it anyway. She’d never been on a motorcycle before he rescued her last night, and the idea of riding one on the open road scared her. She wanted all the protection she could get.

When he got up to cruising speed on the road, all her fears stood up at once and said “I told you so!” in a mocking chorus. She had to fight the instinct to squeeze her eyes shut. Cars roared by beside them. The ground was uncomfortably close and seemed to be rushing past at the speed of light. Sitting behind him on the bike felt anything but safe. Clinging to him like Velcro only helped a little bit.

The road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem felt to her like a rural freeway back home. There were enough cars to make it seem menacing not to have any walls around her but not enough for a proper traffic jam. Occasionally, they passed an unpaved path between the two directions of traffic for use in case of emergencies or by the police.

Siobhan tried to distract herself from thoughts of imminent death, but everything going through her head was unhelpful. From her flight through the underground waterway to her kidnapping, her thoughts were universally unproductive, so she went back to watching the traffic.

A white minivan pulled up alongside them and matched their speed. She had never been out of the country before and still found it surprising to discover the ways in which the foreign country was different from America and the ways it was the same. Minivans seemed like such an American thing, but it turned out they were common all over the world – or at least in Israel.

She looked at it, just for something to keep her mind off the dangers of motorcycling. The minivan had dark tinted windows and a dark stripe down the side. It looked no different than something an American mom might use to drive her kids to little league baseball.

Then the side door slid open.

Siobhan screamed as the man sitting in the seat aimed a gun at them. Cameron heard her over the rushing air and looked back toward her. As his head swiveled, he caught sight of the van with its door open and the gun.

He braked hard. Siobhan felt her body pressing forward into his back and lifting up as if she was going to fly over him. She clung to Cam with every muscle in her arms as the tires squealed and the bike slid sideways.

A car behind them honked as it, too, braked hard to avoid hitting them. All around them, a chain reaction of squealing brakes and angry horns erupted as if someone had thrown a switch.

Once the bike stopped, Cam yanked on the throttle as hard as he could to get going again. It leapt forward with a jolt so hard Siobhan lost her grip.

She slipped off the back and thumped to the pavement on her rear. Her mouth hanging open in shock, she saw Cameron look over his shoulder, having noticed the change in the weight of his bike. Now he brought his motorcycle to a screeching stop again, turning it around as fast as he could. His face was hidden behind his helmet visor, and the roar of the traffic was too loud to hear if he said anything.

The high-pitched wail of rubber brakes locking up behind her drew Siobhan’s attention backward, where she saw a blue sedan trying to stop before it hit her.

With a shout, she threw herself into the ditch between the two different directions of traffic. She barely had time to take a deep breath, though, when the white minivan pulled up and skidded to a stop. Apparently, they had circled back. The side door opened again, and a man with a gun shot at her.

Siobhan buried her face in the ditch, pressing herself down as far as she could go. The sonic crack of rifle bullets breaking the sound barrier over her head hurt her ears, it was so loud. It was easy for her to imagine if she were anywhere but pressed against the bottom of a deep ditch, she would have been shot already. Then she heard the roar of a motorcycle engine racing toward her. She risked a glance up to see Cameron’s bike racing toward the van.

He brought the bike to a stop, produced a handgun from somewhere, and fired it over and over again at the van’s windshield. Siobhan had no idea whether he hit anything or not, but the gunman in the van stopped shooting. She seized the opportunity to get to her feet and sprint toward Cam.

She climbed back on the bike. He twisted the throttle and worked the clutch like crazy as he merged into traffic going in the other direction.

She managed to stop screaming, but Siobhan couldn’t bring herself to ease her grip on Cam’s chest. It didn’t seem to bother him as he swerved around other vehicles, sometimes missing them by what seemed like inches.

Siobhan shouted to make herself heard over the noise. “How did they find us?”

Cam shouted back, “Is your phone on?”

“I don’t know!”

“We need to know, Siobhan. If it’s on, that’s how they found us.”

With one arm, she figured out how to grip Cameron even tighter. With the other, she reached inside the pocket of Cameron’s overlarge jacket. She pulled the phone out far enough to peek at it, and then held down the power button until it vibrated to indicate it was shutting down.

“It’s off now!”

Cameron didn’t respond. He just leaned forward, twisting hard on the throttle, and weaved his two-wheeled rocket through traffic.

**********

Maya Godwin and Haaris Toma sat in the back seat of his black sedan. Toma observed her fidgeting nervously, squirming in the leather seat. He grinned without saying anything. No doubt she was afraid of being observed in his car. People would ask questions if a Division Director in the Shin Bet were caught in the car of a known terrorist. He, of course, had his own men watching; no one from Israel was spying on them.

He could have told her and eased her fidgeting. But where was the fun in that?

“I’ve had a wrinkle in my operation,” he said.

Godwin said nothing. Toma could see the muscles in her jaw clenching.

He laughed.

“Maya, you’re always so hostile. You should be friendly. You’re going to love this.”

Still no response.

“I told you I intend to destroy that dig in Jerusalem. The things they are digging up are abominations! They cannot be allowed to see the light of day. But some stupid American has taken a picture of them. She still has it.”

Godwin still said nothing.

Toma turned to look at Godwin, watching her face intently. He expected to enjoy the reaction.

“Now, this American has teamed up with Cameron Dorn.”

Godwin didn’t disappoint. Her teeth showed for a moment before she clamped her jaw shut again.

“Smile, Maya. Smile! Because now, in addition to dealing with the woman, I plan to deal with Dorn as well. And you get to play a part in it.”

She sighed.

Toma went on.

“I sent men to kill the American on her way to the airport. A moment ago, I learned they failed. But I also learned they identified the motorcycle carrying her to the airport. It belongs to your old friend Cameron Dorn.

“Since he’s involved, I can’t simply depend on your good graces to keep the government out of this. Dorn will be trying to tell his former colleagues as soon as possible. He won’t go through ordinary channels, and he certainly won’t go through you. Most likely, he’ll approach friends or even his old partner. Together, you and I have to prevent that.”

Godwin finally spoke.

“I hope you’re not planning to ask me to kill him. I hate him, but I’m not going that far. I might like to see him dead, but I’m not going to do it myself.”

Toma laughed.

“Don’t be stupid. You’re not trained for it. If killing him was the plan, I would do it myself or send the job to an underling. Most of the talent we recruit is only skilled enough to walk into a crowded building and push the detonator button but even they are better killers than you. I have a better idea, though.”

“I’m listening,” she whispered between her grinding teeth.

Toma said, “We’ll set off a bomb at the airport. We’ll leave some materials at the scene with Dorn’s DNA on them; we’ve already been to his apartment and collected some. It’s clear the two of them were there last night, by the way. Meanwhile, we’ll leave identifying information about the woman in the pocket of the pants we’re about to leave there. Our technicians have already used what we learned about her cell phone to construct a fake log of calls between her and known operatives. Hamas operatives, that is. Not yours.”

Godwin replied, “If you expect me to help set off a bomb and kill hundreds of innocent—”

Toma cut her off.

“Spare me your self-righteousness. I won’t make you get your hands dirty. Believe me, I’ve already figured out you’re no field operative.”

She said, “Let me guess: Dorn won’t be able to take his story to anyone in the Shin Bet if he’s a known terrorist, and they all have orders to shoot on sight.”

Toma said, “Now you’re getting there. The Shin Bet does not train its people to shoot on sight except in extreme circumstances. We need someone in authority there to give that order. Can you guess who I might have in mind?”