David Hagberg - End Game

“Leave me alone,” she said. She pulled her arm away and scurried downstairs.

Otto left a fifty-dollar bill on the table and followed her just as she was leaving through the front door.

She turned and spotted him, then darted out into traffic at the same time a black Range Rover accelerated down 15 E Street NW, hitting her full on, tossing her body in front of a taxi coming in the opposite direction.

The SUV continued up toward Union Station, its license plate light out.

It was seven in the evening local when their Gulfstream landed at Ben Gurion and taxied to an Israeli Air Force hangar. As soon as the engines spooled down, the wheels chocked by two ground crewmen, the hatch was opened and the stairs lowered.

“We’ve been instructed to remain aboard,” Roper called back from the cockpit.

“As soon as possible, refuel and work out a flight plan for Ramstein,” McGarvey said. “If we’re not back in twenty-four hours, leave without us.”

A dark-green Mercedes C–Class pulled up, and a short slightly built man wearing khaki slacks and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up, got out from the driver’s side and came aboard.

“Mr. Director, welcome to Tel Aviv. My name is Lev Sharon, and we met once a few years ago just before you moved off the seventh floor.”

They shook hands. “You’re Ariel’s son?” McGarvey asked.

“Nephew, actually,” he glanced briefly at Alex. “The fuel truck should be here in the next five or ten minutes, so we should be able to get you turned around and out of here well within the hour. But we’re curious as to why you came, unannounced.”

“We called ahead for permission to land, and were given it.”

“Yes, of course. But this is an unscheduled visit, and you certainly didn’t come as tourists. So we’d like to know why you’re here.”

“Are you still working for the Mossad?”

Sharon was young, but his shoulders were already sloped, his face filled with lines as if he were a man in his sixties, and not in his late thirties. “I can tell you this, of course. We’re all friends here. Yes, I am.”

“Then you have heard about the problems we’ve had at Langley.”

“We heard some back-burner rumors, that there may have been a murder on your campus.”

“Four.”

Again Sharon glanced at Alex, who stared back. “What does this have to do with Israel?”

“We’ve traced a former CIA NOC to a Turkish Airlines flight from Paris scheduled to land in about an hour,” Alex said. “She’s traveling under the work name Lois Wheeler.”

Sharon’s expression of mild interest did not change. “Yes?”

“She sent a message through VIP World Travel on the Champs-Élysées to a man she only indentified as George, who she wanted to meet. He replied she should come.”

“What does this have to do with us?”

“The travel agency is a tool of the Mossad — has been for years, since the Eichmann business — and there was a pro phrase she had been instructed to use if she wanted to initiate contact.” A pro word or phrase was a code of the sort Alex had used.

“Does the CIA have any idea who this George might be?” Sharon asked McGarvey.

“We think he works, or may have at one time worked, for the Mossad. We’re simply following a lead to see where it takes us.”

“And here you are. And what do you expect will happen?”

“We’d like to meet the flight without her knowing we’re here, and find out who she meets and where she goes.”

Sharon, who’d been leaning over the back of one of the seats, abruptly turned around and got off the airplane.

“That didn’t go so well,” Alex said, but McGarvey held up a hand for her to keep still.

From where he sat, he could see Sharon standing next to his car. The Israeli was talking to someone on a cell phone.

At one point Sharon looked up and spotted McGarvey in the window. He turned away.

“He doesn’t know what to do with us,” McGarvey said. “He’s called for orders.”

“What do you think?” Alex asked.

“He’ll either let us in, or he’ll order us to leave.”

“If the latter?”

“We’ll give Pete the heads-up, and have the chief of station here meet the plane.”

“Then we lose.”

“We’ll have gotten their attention,” McGarvey said noncommittally. He was more interested in her reaction than in Sharon’s or the Mossad’s. But her expression was neutral.

Sharon got off the phone and came back aboard. “We’ll see if someone meets the plane and pulls your NOC aside when she presents herself at immigration.”

“George?” Alex asked.

“It won’t be one of us. No one knows who George is. Nor was any message received from the travel agency. We’re just as mystified as you are.”

“We’d like to be there,” McGarvey said.

“Are you armed?”

“Yes.”

“Your weapons stay here,” Sharon said. “I want your word on it.”

McGarvey took out his Walther PPK and laid it on the seat table.

Sharon smiled. “We wondered if you still carried the Walther.”

“An old friend.”

The Turkish Airlines flight arrived at the gate in Terminal 3 exactly on time, eight minutes later. McGarvey and Alex watched an overhead monitor one level up from the immigration hall as the first-class and business passengers began emerging from the arrivals gate.

Sharon and a female introduced as Sheila, in jeans and a khaki military shirt, the sleeves rolled up and buttoned above the elbows, waited with them.

When those passengers were off and the tourist class began unloading, Sheila stepped up. “Maybe she’s not on the flight.”

“She’s a professional; she’s biding her time,” Sharon said.

“She got a reply from George, so she’s expecting someone will be meeting her,” Alex said. “Could be she thinks she’ll be assassinated.”

Sharon was surprised. “Here, in the airport?” he asked.

“No, wherever George is waiting for her.”

“There may be no George,” Sharon said.

“Then who answered her message at the travel agency?”

“I have no idea,” Sharon said. He turned to McGarvey. “And neither do my signals people who monitor such traffic. Which either means she was lying, or your information is unreliable, or the reply came from Paris.”

“Either that or your signals people are unreliable or you’re lying,” Alex shot back.

“Lev?” Sheila said.

“I thought your people were more efficient than that,” Alex said.

Pete came from the gate area.

“It’s her,” McGarvey said.

She was tucked in behind a knot of a dozen tourist passengers, and she glanced up at the ceiling camera and winked.

“Resourceful woman,” Sharon said. “She knows someone is watching her.”

“George,” Alex said. “How long before she’s through with immigration and your people grab her?”

“Maybe twenty minutes. Depending on how fast her luggage is delivered.”

“She only has a purse and a carry-on.”

“Ten minutes,” Sharon said.

“Good, because I need to take a pee,” Alex said. “Would you like to come and watch?” she asked Sheila.

“I’d be delighted,” the Mossad operative said.

“Not such a good idea,” McGarvey said.

“Go with her,” Sharon told the woman. “I’m not having anyone wander around the airport unescorted this morning. Especially no one from the CIA.”

Cameras were everywhere in the terminal, and as Pete approached the passport lane, she was certain Mac and Alex were watching a monitor somewhere near. The issue was who else was here, waiting for her.