Pandora's grave

Even if the mission was a success, if they made it back to the extraction zone with the missing archaeologists, they would receive none of the credit for it. They would slip away like wraiths into the night, going back to their jobs until the call came again. Glory was dangerous.

There was no one waiting for him back in the States, no one to inquire into the circumstances of his death. He had a brother-but he lived in Montana. They saw each other only a few times a year, and all too often Harry was gone when his brother came calling. A brother, a sister-in-law, a nephew, they were all the family he had left. Little enough.

He had known brief relationships with women in the past, sometimes with women he had known in Cypress, other times with female analysts at the Agency. Never anything of a lasting nature-as much as he had tried. The girls from Cypress couldn’t be told what he did for a living. The analysts knew all too well, and the skills that enabled him to survive in one world barred him from the other.

“Roger, Charlie-Bravo-Six-Papa-Niner, taxi to Runway Three.” The air traffic controller switched his headset off and turned to the man at his side.

“They’ve arrived, sir.”

Colonel Luke Tancretti nodded. “I’m going out to meet them.” He pushed the tower door open and strode out into the darkness. Qayyarah-West Airfield looked a lot different than it had when he had first been deployed four years ago. Then the runway had been pocked with huge craters, craters made by American bombers during both Gulf Wars. This was his first visit since his transfer to AFSOC. In truth, he had never expected to return.

But this was where he was needed, and so this was where he was. It was as simple as that.

By the time he got to the back of the huge transport, the five men he had been expecting were already descending the ramp, spread out, moving as though they were already on the battlefield, their stance belying the uniforms they wore.

“Colonel Henderson, I presume,” Tancretti said, looking to the man nearest to him.

The tall man nodded. “That’s right. Here are my identification papers.”

He took them, glancing over them briefly. They were forged, of that he was sure. The Air Force Academy had never produced a colonel like the man that stood before him. He looked up and managed a smile, playing out his part of the charade.

“Everything appears to be in order, colonel. I’m Colonel Luke Tancretti and welcome to Q-West.”

6:34 A.M. Local Time

A cottage above Lake Galilee

Israel

“So, that’s the situation at the moment, sir.”

“Nothing’s changed.” General Avi ben Shoham brought his clenched fist down onto the desk beside him, swearing angrily. “Eight days. And nothing. Just this blasted game of chicken with the Iranians, wondering who in heaven’s name is going to blink first!” He glared over at the young man standing before him. “Read me the last transmission again.”

The chief of the Israeli Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, popularly known as Mossad, closed his eyes as his aide began to read the transcript, the words burning themselves into his memory just as they had done every time he had heard them, ever since they had first been uttered, eight days before. The day when one of his prime intelligence assets had disappeared off the face of the earth. He knew them by heart.

“… three of the Americans are dead… The Iranian military will be here soon… I am initiating the destruction of all mission-pertinent files. Nothing will be left for them to find… Good-bye and Mazel tov.”

Good luck. The last words known to have been spoken by their agent, a man he had known and respected for years. A man who at that moment had needed more than his share of luck.

Shoham turned back to the window, gazing out over the lake below him, a lake of darkness, a lake of turbulence. In ancient times, the Jews had called it the abyss. For him it had always been a symbol of the country he had sworn to protect. Dark, turbulent, teetering on the brink of destruction, of the abyss. Of Galilee.

He had conceived the operation, overseen its execution, watched as it started to produce some of their best intelligence on exactly what the Iranian government was planning. The best since the fall of the ayatollahs and the rise of the Shirazi as military dictator. Six months. That’s how long it had lasted. And now this. His aide’s voice brought him back to the present.

“Sir, I don’t think the Iranians know he was working for us.”

“Why?” the Mossad chief turned on the young man, fire flashing in his dark eyes.

“Well, sir,” he began, suddenly hesitant under the general’s gaze, “every time in the past that they have burned our agents, they’ve immediately exhibited them to the world as a sign of Zionist treachery and duplicity. This time, they have been completely silent.”

“Then what did happen to him?” Shoham demanded, his voice filling the room like an echo of thunder.

“Sir, I have no idea.”