Gregg Loomis - The Sinai Secret

Lang was watching Jacob hand a credit card to the man on the dock. "I'll remember that."

He glanced around, unable to distinguish anyone suspicious among the boaters, picnickers, or others out to enjoy a beautiful day.

Once on the river Jacob opened the little motor all the way, propelling the craft at what Lang guessed was slightly less than three knots. The river was as crowded as the lock. Racing hulls, rowboats, and other small craft, along with an occasional long, slender canal boat, all traveled at the same stately pace. Lang noted the number of houses along the water, as varied as the boats on it. A small cottage there, a Tudor mansion here.

From his seat in the bow, he turned to where Jacob was steering with one hand and talking into a cell phone held by the other. "This is swell, but I don't see how a river cruise is going to-"

Jacob took a hand from the motor's handle to wave him into silence. The little boat rocked dangerously.

Without speaking, Jacob made a sweeping U-turn and continued to retrace their course for a minute before turning back around. Lang was about to risk another near swamping when he realized Jacob was making straight for a willow-framed boathouse in front of a white-frame Georgian. The door swung upward and the rowboat's motor went silent as the little dinghy's momentum carried them inside. Immediately the door came down again.

Lang was letting his eyes adjust to the relative gloom that had replaced the bright sun reflecting from the river when Jacob spoke. "Guess you thought I'd gone round the bend, turning around out there."

"The thought crossed my mind."

Jacob was tying the craft to a cleat next to the slip. "Wanted to make sure our friends hadn't had the time to rent their own pleasure craft and crash the party." He climbed onto a wooden deck. "C'mon inside."

Lang did as he was bidden. "But I thought we wanted them to know where I Was."

"They'll find us soon enough once we return the boat. Come along, now."

Lang followed his friend along the tree line to the house. A door opened as though by magic as they approached. Inside, a man held the door open. Despite the warmth of the day he wore a tatty wool sweater. The white of the shirt underneath showed through a network of holes. Wordlessly he led Lang and Jacob along a corridor devoid of furniture or furnishings. The rooms were equally empty.

Safe houses all had a certain barren similarity, Agency or Mossad.

At the end of the hall their guide opened a door, revealing a flight of stairs. Halfway down a wave of cool air washed over them. They entered a room totally dark other than the flickering screens of banks of computers. In the murk Lang got only the impression of operators.

Jacob seated himself in front of one, motioning Lang to sit beside him. Their guide disappeared into the darkness.

Jacob began booting up. "Nice country estate, don't you think? Office extension for those weary of the city."

How a computer room in the English countryside differed from the one at Mossad's part of the Israeli embassy in London escaped Lang.

Jacob's machine flickered to life. Lang watched the screen. To his surprise Jacob called up the Internet just as anyone with the capability might do.

"Don't tell me we're shopping on Amazon."

Jacob didn't turn his head from the monitor. "Nothing that complicated. You'll note I'm calling up Google."

"You're going to Google Zwelk?"

"Not exactly. But I am using a site any bloke connected to the Net can use."

Lang watched as what appeared to be a satellite picture of brown earth filled the screen. "What are we looking at?"

"Israel. More specifically, a part of it near the Gaza Strip."

Lang watched as Jacob narrowed the focus with each click of the keyboard. He could see the brown of the desert that was Palestinian Gaza meet the green of Israel's cultivated fields and orchards. Many people remarked on the success of Jewish agriculture in the desert while the land across the border remained empty sand. The reason, he knew, was not a difference in desire or ability; it was the irrigation system that fed Jewish farms but was denied their Arab neighbors.

A cluster of ten or so flat roofs was now clearly visible, with a little whitewashed wall showing. The angle of the satellite was directly overhead so that shadows, rather than profiles, defined objects.

"Maximum resolution," Jacob announced. "This is Zwelk's kibbutz in real time. If he has your lady friend, she's in one of those buildings."

Fascinated, Lang stared at the screen. "You mean anyone with a computer can look down anywhere?"

"If he has the coordinates or, in the civilized world, an address. Of course, the system isn't so helpful at night or on cloudy days."

Privacy: available only during the evening hours or inclement weather.

Silently the two men watched a small herd of animals, Lang guessed sheep or goats, being driven somewhere. A person, sex undeterminable at this angle, walked out of one of the houses and into another.

Jacob pointed to a building in the middle of the compound. "See the extra vehicles? Something's going on in there. Unusual for Shabbat. I'd guess if she's there, those cars belong to her guards."

"That or they're celebrating the Sabbath."

"Possible," Jacob conceded, "but these people are ultraconservative, believe in strict observance. That would prohibit all work, including driving. I'd bet those cars and trucks have been there since sundown yesterday, and there's only one reason I can think of why there would be more than one per house: alternating guard duty."

Lang agreed. "Can you print this out?"

"Better. I can print out what you're seeing as well as everything within a couple of miles. Surely you're not thinking what I think you're thinking."

Lang grinned. "Of course I am. You coming along?"

Jacob sighed as he centered the cursor on the print icon. "Why not? I haven't been back home in a long, long time."

"What about Rachel?"

Jacob looked into Lang's face. "You don't really think I'd tell her where I was going and why, do you? Why, the old love would have a fit." Or worse, Lang added mentally, insist on coming along.

Ben Gurion International Airport

Lod, Israel

Fifteen kilometers south of Tel Aviv

Monday Evening

The Gulfstream slid down the glide slope in the early evening darkness. The western horizon still bore the angry red scar of the desert sun. Across the aisle, soft snores came from one of the seats that reclined to horizontal. Lang had offered Jacob the use of the single small bedroom suite on board the aircraft, but he had protested that flying in such luxury was too unique an experience to be so wasted.

An hour out of Marseille, he was sound asleep.

In view of the police's interest in him, Lang had insisted on driving from London to Dover, then through the Channel to Paris, where they met the foundation's jet at a fixed base operator at Charles de Gaulle rather than risk the scrutiny of security in the main terminal.

Israel was another matter.

Without Jacob, no matter whom Lang's passport declared him to be nor how large the private jet on which he arrived, he would be subjected to identification by thumbprint, facial recognition scanning, and other procedures of which he would be unaware. The Couch identity on his passport was backed up by the best false information the Agency could provide when it had been issued two years ago.

Israeli security rarely stopped at the obvious, though. Lang knew that even the most cursory investigation of worldwide computer records would show that, for at least twenty-four months, Joel Couch of Macon, Georgia, had used none of his credit cards, made no bank deposits, and incurred no utility bills. Without the intercession of Jacob's Mossad friends, facial identity and fingerprints alone would match those of a man in whom the Vienna police had an interest.