Russell Blake - Jet

The bus rolled into the next station a few minutes later. Taking her backpack with her, Jet descended to stretch her legs, relieved to be out of the toxic atmosphere, if only for a brief while.

The food the vendors were selling was so questionable that she bought some potato chips and a bottle of water instead, resigning herself to saving her digestive system until they arrived in Caracas.

When the bus lumbered back onto the highway, an idea came to her with such suddenness it surprised her.

There was one place she could probably find one of the team.

The operative known only as Rain had been in deep cover during the Algerian mission, preventing him from joining them. It was a long-term penetration that had taken him out of the active team for years. She’d connected the dots when she’d been told that Rain wouldn’t be part of the Algiers operation — she’d been part of the insertion group that had set up his cover in Yemen, and had later been sent in for a sanction of a member of the cell he’d penetrated, who Rain had been afraid was suspicious of him. The man in question had suffered an apparent heart attack a few days later, and the problem had been solved.

She might be able to find Rain again if he was still in Yemen. The Mossad wouldn’t pull him out unless it absolutely had to after all the work they had spent on his insertion and cover. Depending on what his assignment was, he might still be there.

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a place to start.

Jet powered on the cell phone and busied herself searching for flights to get her to the Middle East from Caracas. It looked like her best bet would be through Germany — Frankfurt, then on to Riyadh, then finally to Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. She’d have to spend a day or two in Frankfurt to get a Yemeni visa, but that wouldn’t pose a problem — as the poorest country in the region, any tourist dollars at all were welcomed.

Jet’s memory of the last time she’d been in Sana’a was less than pleasant. The place was a verifiable shithole, filthy and crime-ridden, run by crooks, where misogyny was institutionalized and barbarism was the national pastime.

But if Rain was still there, she could use him to get in contact with David. What happened from there was anyone’s guess.

For the first time in the last forty-eight hours, she felt proactive. It wasn’t standing in the middle of the street with a Heckler and Koch MP7 laying waste to her adversaries, but it was something.

Right now, she’d take it.

Present Day, Sana’a, Yemen

Jet peered through the window of her hotel at the glowing minarets of the Al-Saleh mosque, amazed that such beauty could exist in such a squalid place. The whining buzz of motor scooters and badly abused car engines from the street below had none of the charming musicality of some cities. The traffic sounds here were more akin to buzz saws and tractors — ugly and strident, as if to complement the foulness of the high-altitude desert metropolis.

Getting into Yemen had proved simple — a quick trip to the consulate in Frankfurt had produced a thirty-day visa to travel as she required, although there had been dire warnings about the rebel factions who were in possession of large tracts of the country, and admonishments to stay in the major cities, preferably with a male escort.

Her Belgian cover ID was that of a freelance journalist. She had long ago discovered that nobody really understood or cared what freelance journalists did, and therefore their travel requirements and lifestyles weren’t questioned too closely.

Jet spoke flawless Arabic, as well as seven other tongues. She’d always been fascinated with languages and had spent her childhood and teen years collecting them, as she thought of it. Yet another trait that had made her an attractive candidate for the team — young, angry, multi-lingual, with a significant physical edge due to martial arts study. It was no wonder that the Mossad had snapped her up when their recruiters had gotten wind of her.

While waiting for her visa in Frankfurt, a city with a substantial Muslim population, she’d been able to get her hands on an abaya and niqab , the black full body robe and veil worn by many Yemeni women. She’d worn mannish slacks and a button-up safari shirt for the trip, in keeping with what most would guess a freelance journalist would favor.

Rain had been staying in a building with eight flats near the 26 September Park, and had one that faced onto the street. She had no way of knowing whether he was still there, but she was hopeful that, if he was still in Yemen, he had kept the one-bedroom apartment.

It was late afternoon by the time she cleared customs and checked into her hotel. It had been over three years since she’d been in Sana’a, but she still remembered the layout of the city well enough to navigate the streets on her own — a dangerous proposition amid the civil unrest that had plagued the capital for the last few years.

Sana’a was even worse than the last time she had been there. The atmosphere was anxious, the stress level palpable. In spite of the facade of cursory civility, this was a city at war, where violence could erupt without warning at any time. There was a substantial military presence on most corners, but instead of being reassuring, the sight of soldiers toting machine guns added to the sense of imminent chaos that seemed a constant. She debated going to Rain’s building that evening, but decided to err on the side of prudence — being out after dark was an invitation to disaster in the current environment.

She’d start early tomorrow and reconnoiter the apartment, taking up a watch, if necessary, until she could be confident that Rain either did or didn’t still live there. It could take days to know definitively, but it was her only lead, and she had few choices — and nothing but time.

Dinner in her room was barely edible, which was not unexpected based on her memory of her prior trips. Fine dining was only one of the many civilities that seemed to have bypassed the grim nation.

The air-conditioning groaned like an old drunk throughout the night, but it kept the room cool enough to sleep so she considered herself lucky.

First thing the next morning, she decked herself out in the abaya and veil and studied her image in the mirror. There was only one more thing to do before she went out. She carefully placed brown-colored contacts in her eyes so that their natural startling green wouldn’t be a giveaway. Doing so was second nature after years in the field.

She walked for three blocks before flagging down a taxi on the dusty street, then had it drop her at the park, opting to walk from there to Rain’s last known apartment so she could reacquaint herself with the area. She approached it from across the street, paying no particular attention to the building — to a casual observer.

As her eyes drifted up to the window on the second floor, the hair on the back of her neck prickled. A cardboard box sat on the table just inside, by the sill — and the shade was pulled halfway down. She kept moving to the end of the block then stopped at a little cutlery store, pretending to study the offerings while she scanned the street more thoroughly. A VW van sat parked fifty yards from the apartment; she could see the driver’s outline but nothing else. All the other cars were empty. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not.

The box was a metaphor from her past. She remembered all of the emergency signals clearly. A box in the window with a half-drawn shade meant danger, abort, return to base.

Then again, it could also have just been that the tenant had left a box sitting on the kitchen table. Not everything was sinister. And she didn’t even know whether Rain still lived there.