into the parked cars. He inched past, narrowly missing the sedan’s mirror, and was rewarded with an outthrusted middle finger in a universal symbol of insult offered by a wizened old woman barely able to see over the dashboard.
The corners of Jet’s mouth twitched, and the tension broke. She lowered the gun, glancing at David before returning her attention to their pursuers. David accelerated to the end of the block and executed another turn, and then they were on a large boulevard, headed for the freeway, no sign of the SUV anywhere.
Once they were a few miles down the highway, she relaxed and turned to face him.
“Still think I’m being rash?” she asked.
“How…how do you think they found us?”
“There are only three things I can imagine. Either they traced the supposedly-untraceable IP mask I used, or Rani told them, or they somehow found out about him and followed him.”
“No way he would tell anyone, and you’re the only person I’ve ever told about him. So that leaves technology. Can you think of any way they could have tracked you?” he demanded.
“Not really, but then again, I’m very, very good, but I don’t know everything that’s possible, especially at the Mossad level. I think a better question is who was that?”
David frowned. “What do you mean? It’s got to be the Russians.”
“I tend to agree, but how did the Russians know we were nosing around in the Mossad servers? It has to be the mole. There’s no other explanation, unless you believe that the entire agency is working for Grigenko.”
They were quiet for a long time. The implications were nothing but bad. David glanced at her with a dour expression then pulled off after two exits.
“David. What are you doing?”
“We need to warn Rani.”
“There’s such a thing as a phone.”
“He won’t take it seriously unless I do this in person.”
She hated that he was probably right.
They stopped at Gabe’s deli, pulling around to the back, and David called while she inspected the vehicle for damage. He had a short conversation then returned to the car.
“He’s coming. I told him it was an emergency and to meet me at the last place he met my friend.”
“We got lucky. No bullet holes in the car,” she said.
“That’s what happens when you have an expert driving.” They both rolled their eyes and laughed together.
Rani pulled up six minutes later, looking flustered. They watched the lot to make sure he wasn’t followed, and then Jet walked into the building. Rani followed and edged close to her by the sodas.
“What’s the emergency? Are you all right?”
Jet gave him a brief synopsis of the shootout on the street in front of his guesthouse. By the time she was done, he was white as a ghost. David joined them as she was finishing her summary, and put his hand on Rani’s shoulder.
“You need to disappear for a while, Rani. Now. It’s just a matter of time until they figure out whose house that is. I wouldn’t even go back to the office. Just go somewhere you can melt into the background.”
“Are you nuts? I can’t just leave without giving my patients notice!”
“A small army is dead in the street in front of your house. The cops are already there. Some of the bad guys got away. You’ll be the natural place they’ll be looking. They have no other leads,” Jet explained.
“How will they know I own the house?” David just stared at Rani. “But I don’t have my ID…”
David pulled out ten thousand dollars and handed it to him.
“This will keep you for at least a month, maybe a month and a half. Don’t go within five miles of the guest house. Go directly to your place and get your passport, then get the hell out of there, and I mean in seconds, Rani. My guess is you have fifteen minutes at most, but if I’m wrong, you don’t want to find out the hard way. Then drive to your bank and pull out a bunch more money. Head to any of the border checkpoints and walk across, and then get to an airport and go somewhere far away. I would suggest something tropical and third world. Someplace where there isn’t a lot of recordkeeping and you can pay cash for a hotel and sign in without ID under a phony name.” David paused, taking in Rani’s shocked expression. “Don’t use your credit cards. Leave your cell phone in the trash here — it can be tracked. I’ll send you an e-mail when this is over and it’s safe to go home. I’m sorry, buddy. I’m really sorry. But there’s no other way…”
When Rani left, he looked like a condemned man.
They both knew the feeling.
Jet and David went back to the car and sat inside, lost in their own thoughts.
Jet took his hand. “How are you holding up?”
“Great. What’s for dessert?” he quipped.
She smiled. “Rani did say he wanted you to get out and move around a little.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t mean this.”
They took pause for a while, holding hands, and then she leaned over and kissed him softly on the cheek.
“You still think I’m crazy?” she whispered.
“Always.”
“Ready to put my plan into motion?”
He sighed, defeated. “Do I have a choice?”
“Not really. Not after all this.”
He turned the key and glanced at the gas gauge.
She pushed her other hand through her hair, brushing it out of her face, and gave him a small shrug. David nodded and put the car into gear.
“Looks like you win,” he said.
“Let’s hope so.”
Chapter 21
“Goodnight.”
Eli Cohen waved to the two guards at the back entrance of the unmarked building as he walked to the parking lot, tired after another long day of infighting and bickering. He carried his briefcase like it held nuclear launch codes instead of the remnants of his lunch and a few odds and ends — a nervous habit, one of many he’d developed over the years.
His twelve-year-old Renault coughed blue smoke before it sputtered to life, the engine sounding ominously like a cement mixer with rocks clattering around in it. He’d been meaning to have the oil changed for weeks. Months, actually, but he had been busy. He was a man with obligations, and each day seemed to be just a little too hectic for him to get it into the shop.
The last car he’d owned was a Citroen. It had lasted him eighteen years, which had convinced him that only the French knew how to build a decent car. Yet another one of his oddities, given what he knew about their reliability. But he was too old to change now, at sixty-two.
He carefully fastened his seatbelt and shook out a cigarette from the ever-present package he carried. His lungs felt like they were half-filled with molten lead much of the time, but it was another habit he had no interest in breaking. Sometimes the very things that destroyed a man were also those he would miss most when the grim reaper came. The damage had already been done. No point in quitting now.
Eli lit the filterless tobacco tube and blew a noxious cloud of smoke out his window, then shifted into reverse, backing the car out of its stall.
Another long day.
A shit day. In a shit year.
The sun was setting as he pulled onto the artery that led to his modest community. Elijah lived in a simple home with few creature comforts. His wife, God rest her soul, had died a decade before from a heart attack that
