briefcase. He stuffed the coins into the slot and waited. After the second ring, the Ghost was on the line.
'Hello.' His voice seemed surprisingly close.
'Whatta ya got?'
'We secure?'
'More or less; it's a pay phone.'
'I found out who everybody is. The two late entries include a guy named Cole Harris, an ex-newsman. .' 'Never heard of him.'
'The other guy's an ex-fed named Solomon Kazorowski.'
'Fuck! When's that labonza gonna leave me alone?' 'You know this guy?'
'Yeah, I know him. He's been walking around in my asshole with a government searchlight for twenty years.
He got fired for busting everybody's balls. What's he doing over there?'
'I don't know. That's why I called. They're looking into something to do with a guy named Gavriel Bich. Ever heard of him?'
'No'
They met with an old woman, Bach's widow. I followed 'em to a house in a pricey suburb. They're inside now. I got an Israeli with me says Gavriel Bach was a big shot, ended up as a Supreme Court judge. I just figured before I closed this off, I'd check in with you, see if you got any last-minute instructions. I'm on a package rate. I'll do 'em all. Cost you nothing but the fallout.'
'Just a minute, let me think.' Mickey held the phone against his chest; something was buzzing around in his head. Bach's name was familiar but he couldn't place it. He put the phone to his ear again. 'Tell me more about this judge. .'
'I'm gonna put the Israeli on.' The Ghost handed the phone to Yossi Rot. 'He wants to know about Bach.'
'He was very big here,' Yossi said in his soft voice. 'He was a Supreme Court justice. Made the news when he died, maybe six years ago.'
'Before that …?'
'I don't know. . prosecutor, I think.'
Mickey slapped the buzzing thought down. 'Put the other guy on.' After a second, the Ghost was back on the line.
'If I remember, this Gavriel Bach tried the case against Meyer Lansky back in '71. He kept Meyer out of Israel, but what could that have to do with anything?'
'You want me to ignore it? I can just hit these people and get outta here.'
Mickey wondered what they were after, but decided too much time had already passed. The presidential election was just three weeks away. It didn't matter what they were looking for. And if they died halfway around the world, it would remain a mystery.
'End it,' he finally said, not giving a second's thought to the fact that he was ordering his sister's death.
The Ghost hung up the cell phone and moved back to the blue Mitsubishi. He looked at Frydek, Yossi, and Akmad Jarrar, who was leaning against the rear bumper. Inside the trunk was enough C-4 to blow the entire dock at Jaffa.
'Okay, Yossi, I want you to get up the driveway and put a physics package under that taxi. . Use a radio detonator in the C-four. When I hit the switch, I wanna shoot that fucking cab into space.'
Yossi nodded, opened the trunk, and grabbed a satchel. Then he jumped over the wall at the foot of the property and, after picking a sheltered route, moved toward the house.
Chapter 61
The photo albums were on the coffee table in Misha's sitting room and Lucinda flipped through them while Kaz, Cole, and Ryan moved through the house looking for the missing contents of the Haliburton suitcase. There were lots of shots of the grandchildren. Somebody, probably Misha, had written an identifying line under each one and dated it.
The photos were well organized. On a whim, Lucinda started searching for the album that contained pictures taken in 1971. She found it in its logical place, between 1970 and 1972. It started with January but she skipped to March, the month the trial had taken place, where she saw a handwritten caption that said, 'Gav builds 'crooked' pillars after Lansky trial.' These shots showed Gavriel Bach stripped to the waist and grinning at the camera. In several pictures, he was troweling concrete onto a large pedestal at the head of the drive, next to the house. Lucinda moved with the album out into the living room. She could hear the men somewhere in the house, opening and closing drawers.
'Could you guys come here a minute. .?' she called. Ryan came first, moving out of a guest room. 'What is it?'
'I may have found something,' she said.
Within seconds, they had all gathered in the living room. Lucinda held the open photo album out to them.
'These were taken right after the trial.'
They huddled around the album and looked at the photographs of Gay working on the pedestal.
Kaz was already moving to retrieve the empty Haliburton suitcase from the pantry where Ryan had left it. He returned with it and set it on the coffee table, opened it, and started to look carefully at the inside.
'What're you doing?' Ryan asked.
'If he took the tapes out of here and put them into that pedestal, I was wondering if he got any plaster dust in here.' Kaz licked his finger and pressed it on several specks of white powder in the bottom of the case. He pulled his finger out and showed it to the others. 'Like this. .'
They all smiled at Lucinda.
'Pretty damn sharp, honey,' Kaz said and Lucinda blushed. Cole had seen some tools in the garage and he and Kaz went off to get them. Ryan was waiting at the open front door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He swung just in time to catch a glimpse of a man in a white shirt and khaki shorts running down the drive. Kaz and Cole reappeared with a. hammer and tire iron.
'Somebody was just here. I saw him running down the driveway,' Ryan said.
'What'd he look like? Was it the guy in the ball cap?' Kaz asked.
'I hardly saw him. He looked slender. . In a T-shirt and shorts.'
'Let's go check it out,' Cole said.
'No,' Kaz said softly. 'Always assume the worst. That way we don't get surprised. Let's assume we were followed from Jerusalem. If we go down there, they're gonna know we saw him and we're gonna lose what little advantage we have. Hang on a minute.' He moved to the taxi and started to look at it carefully. When he got to the front, he saw a handprint on the dusty chrome bumper. Kaz lay down on his back and slid under the car to examine the frame. Wedged in next to the gas tank, he saw about two pounds of plastic explosives connected to a detonator. He carefully reached up and pulled the detonator out of the plastic. It was a sophisticated radio unit with a 'hot' wire that ran into the explosives. Kaz took his beeper off his belt. It was a state-of-the-art satellite communication system used by the federal government. He had stolen it when he'd been fired and faithfully replaced the battery every two weeks. It had never rung, but he was ready if they ever needed him. He knew it was stupid but it felt good riding on his hip. He removed the back of the instrument, yanked the hot wire off the detonator and twisted it onto the battery pole of his beeper. He pushed his beeper and the wire back into the plastic, shoved the detonator into his pants pocket, and shinnied out from under the car.
'Find anything?' Cole asked.
'Nope. Let's get that pedestal down.'
While each took a turn holding the Uzi and scanning the driveway, the others went to work with the hammer
