Christopher Reich - Rules of Betrayal

The day’s work was done. The countersurveillance exercises in downtown Tel Aviv had been followed by spatial recall and memorization drills. An abysmal beginning had been followed by a miserable second act and capped with a mediocre finale. Still, Jonathan could tell himself that his performances had improved over the course of the day. Progress was progress.

Danni steered the BMW sedan along the curving road leading down to the Mediterranean with finesse. It was raining harder now, a downpour that blurred the windows and made it difficult to see outside. Seated so close to Danni, Jonathan had the impression of being in a cell, and felt the cellmate’s forced camaraderie.

“How do you know him?” he asked.

Danni shot him a sidelong glance.

“No one’s listening,” Jonathan went on. “It’s just you and me. I’m talking about Frank Connor.”

“I know who you’re talking about.”

“Well?” Jonathan’s tone was insistent, bordering on insubordinate. For the past seventy-two hours he had been on the move, following others’ instructions without question or complaint. To obey meant to survive. Connor’s arrival on the scene changed nothing. His proposal of service was an order concealed as a request. Emma was Division’s trump card, and Connor had waited to the end to play it. Jonathan had had no choice but to comply, as a husband and as a citizen singled out by his government as the sole individual capable of performing a service essential to his nation’s security. It was his role as the reluctant operative that rose up inside him now and demanded an explanation. Every minute in Danni’s company magnified the peril of his assignment. “Need to know” didn’t cut it anymore.

“We worked together,” said Danni.

“Are you Mossad?”

“Names aren’t important. Let’s just say that most governments have their own equivalent of Division. I work for Israel’s.”

“How did you get into it?”

Danni looked at him, her blue eyes appraising him yet again. But instead of dodging the question, she smiled. It was Jonathan’s first victory of the day. “Now we’re getting personal?” she asked.

“Yesterday I was lying buck naked on the floor with your knee in my back and your mouth at my ear. I’d say we’ve gotten past the embarrassing part.”

“In Israel, military service is compulsory for men and women. Turn eighteen and off you go. Two years in uniform. I guess I liked it more than most. Maybe I was just better at it. Does it surprise you to see a woman doing this?”

“Are you serious?” Jonathan began, realizing only then that Danni knew nothing about Emma. “Need to know” went both ways. “No,” he said. “Not at all. I’ve climbed with lots of women who are stronger than me.”

The blue eyes narrowed. “Only stronger?”

“Okay,” said Jonathan. “Smarter, faster, safer. And stronger.”

Danni nodded, her lips curling as if to say “That’s better.”

“You climb?” he asked.

“Me? No, thank you. I’m afraid of heights. It’s my one phobia. I washed out of jump school because of it. I made it as far as the doorway of the plane, looked down at the ground a thousand meters below me, and had an absolute fit. I wrestled the jumpmaster to the floor and nearly knocked him out. That’s when they decided I might have other skills they could use.”

“Funny how things work out.”

Danni chuckled, and for the first time all day, Jonathan felt as if he were seeing the real woman behind the carefully constructed facade. “My sport is orienteering,” she said. “You ever do it?”

Jonathan said he hadn’t.

“Map, GPS, running shoes, and off you go. It’s good fun.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“No one’s tailing you. You might just be good at it.”

They both laughed. Jonathan allowed himself to look at her. For once, her mouth wasn’t so firmly closed, the jaw not so rock-solid. Her eyes had softened, and seemed a lighter shade of blue. She brought her left hand to the steering wheel and he saw that she did not wear a wedding band.

“You’re not married?” he said.

“No.”

But when Jonathan was going to ask her why, he saw that the mouth had tightened and the jaw had resumed its combative stance. Her eyes were locked on the road ahead, as relentless as ever.

Jonathan rolled down the window. A gust brought a fresh wave of rain into the car. The air smelled strongly of salt and brine. Danni said nothing.

The satellite was a Lockheed Martin KH-14, a next-generation reconnaissance unit the size of the Hubble Space Telescope (or, in layman’s terms, as big as a Chrysler Town amp; Country) weighing two tons and built at a cost to the American taxpayer of $1 billion. Recent advances in optical coatings applied to the satellite telescope’s lenses multiplied their resolution tenfold. The KH-14 could not only read a newspaper headline, it could tell you the name of the reporter who’d written the lead story.

“We’re looking at an area five miles by five miles from an altitude of fifty thousand feet,” said Malloy, pointing at the monitor before him, which displayed an area on the Pakistani-Afghan border. “The broad, smooth swaths are the valleys, the sharper lines are the spines of the mountains.”

“Take it down to a thousand feet,” said Connor. “Look for any signs of human activity. This time of year, there shouldn’t be any.”

Malloy uploaded the commands. The camera zoomed in, and Connor was presented with a bird’s-eye view of a snow-covered landscape. White, white, and more white, a monotonous vista interrupted by shadow, rock, and fields of crumbling talus.

“I’ll start a search program,” said Malloy. “It will break up the surveillance field into a search grid measuring five hundred feet by five hundred feet, roughly one city block. Every thirty seconds we move to the next location.”

For fifty minutes they remained glued to the screen. Not once did they spot anything that might indicate human presence.

“How many more grids?” asked Connor.

“We’re halfway done.”

“Keep it going.”

“Ten minutes, Frank. Then you’re on your own.”

Connor scooted closer to the screen, as if proximity to the picture might improve their chances of spotting Balfour or his associates. The grid moved over a particularly steep peak. A caption appeared giving the name as Tirich Mir (7708 m). The camera continued its sweep. More rock. More snow. A glacier.

“Stop.” Connor’s voice was a whisper as he pointed to a smudge of gray against the white panorama. “What’s that?”

Malloy zoomed in and the gray smudge gained definition. There was a sharp line, and the line became a long metallic plane. The surface led to a larger, tube-shaped object.

“It’s a chopper hidden beneath camouflage netting,” said Malloy.

“At that altitude?”

Malloy manipulated the camera and the helicopter’s tail numbers were visible. “Looks like it’s a private aircraft. I make it an Aerospatiale Ecureuil.”

Suddenly a figure appeared from beneath the netting. A man carrying a backpack walked twenty paces before disappearing.

“They’ve got shelters set up,” said Connor. “How much closer can you get?”

Malloy took the camera down further, so that it was possible to see tracks in the snow. Transfixed, they studied the screen. Another figure emerged from the shelter. Someone slimmer, walking briskly. The figure stopped and lifted its head as if to study the sky.

“Closer,” said Connor.

The camera zoomed in. The figure’s face remained tilted toward the sky. Then it took off its cap and shook loose a mane of tangled auburn hair. Connor felt the world slip from beneath him. “My God,” he said. “Emma.”