Pandora's grave

“Easy, love,” Gideon replied. “What were you able to get?”

“I ran a trace on some of the diplomatic communications channels that American intelligence typically uses. Sure enough, he’s using one of them. Here’s the thing-it’s a satellite phone, so I can track the satellites he’s using to bounce the signal.”

“So?”

“So, I was able to ascertain that he’s placing a call to someone here in Israel. Another couple minutes and I could have run a locator trace on their phone as well.”

“You’re saying he may have back-up here in Eilat?”

“Maybe. Just two or three more minutes and I could have known for sure.” She glared at the laptop as though it was responsible for the failure.

Gideon placed his hands on her shoulders and began to knead the tight muscles there. “Don’t be so tense,” he admonished, leaning over her. “Just relax.”

“Right…”

4:15 A.M. Eastern Time

NCS Operations Center

Langley, Virginia

“What’s the latest?” Barney Kranemeyer demanded, arriving in the NCS op-center like a gust of wind.

Carter looked up from his terminal. “Not much. According to a call we got from Nichols about thirty minutes ago, everything’s still on course. He’s got a Mossad agent tailing him, but that’s to be expected.”

“As much for his protection as anything else,” Kranemeyer added.

Carter acknowledged that comment with an affirmative nod. The senior analyst yawned and took another sip from the coffee mug at his desk. The clothes he wore looked like they had been slept in, his tie pulled loose from his throat, the shirt wrinkled like an accordion, his pants devoid of crease, giving him the over-all appearance of a bedraggled starling.

Kranemeyer stared at the bank of screens filling one wall of the op-center. “We should have positioned more assets,” he stated, filled with sudden misgivings.

“How?” the analyst asked rhetorically. “What did you want to do, activate Station Tel Aviv’s strike team? The Israelis don’t miss that much. I think we were lucky to get Richards in the back-door.”

“Maybe so.” Kranemeyer never looked away from the screens in front of him. “It’s important that we emerge from this one on top. This isn’t a game anymore.”

Carter drained his mug and cast a weary look in the direction of the DCS. “I don’t think you need to worry. Nichols doesn’t know how to play games.”

11:25 A.M. Local Time

Crowne Park Plaza Hotel

Eilat, Israel

The cleaning cart rumbled down the hall on the fifth floor of the hotel, its wheels creaking ponderously.

Fayood al-Farouk’s eyes roved from left to right as he proceeded along the hallway, scanning for threats.

A door opened behind him and he looked carefully back just in time to see a young couple exit, the man’s arm wrapped around the waist of a dark-haired Sabra girl. Farouk smiled. Such would serve him in paradise.

Five rooms down, he stopped and knocked on the door. The rattle of a chain greeted the knock and the face of a young man stared out.

“Salaam alaikum.”

“Alaikum salaam, my brethren.”

With another judicious glance down the corridor, he pushed the cart inside and closed the door behind them, hearing the lock click into place. Two men occupied the hotel room, both young Palestinians in their early twenties.

The bag on the side of the cart held a pair of stripped-down Kalishnikov assault rifles and loaded magazines for both. With a quick, cat-like movement, Farouk moved to the balcony door of the suite, pulling the blinds aside just long enough to glance out.

It was eighty, maybe a hundred meters to the courtyard where he had been told the meeting would go down.

“Remember,” he instructed, turning back to his men. “Do not fire until our brother has given his life.”

11:45 A.M.

“He’s at your eight o’clock,” the voice in Sarah’s ear observed. The young woman withstood the temptation to turn her head in the direction indicated. Instead, she focused her attention on massaging the sunscreen lotion into the skin of her arms, protection against the sun beating down upon her body through the spotty shade of the palm fronds above.

“He’s coming your way,” Yossi’s voice announced once more through the earbud.

She glanced over to where Gideon reclined on a pool chair a few feet from her own. He looked deceptively relaxed, the sunglasses hiding his eyes.

“Do my back,” she asked, extending the bottle of lotion toward him. Gideon stood and walked over to her, suddenly alert at her use of the prearranged code. She handed him the bottle of lotion and sat up, leaning forward on the lounge chair.

“Where?”Gideon asked, his mouth close to her ear.

“Ten o’clock,” Sarah whispered back. “Moving this way.”

“Coming in early?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“That would be Nichols,” Gideon admitted with a wry smile. He wiped his hands on the front of his khaki shorts and turned back to his chair, deliberately not looking in Nichols’s direction.