David Hagberg - End Game

She got in line, and when it was her turn, the uniformed officer merely glanced at her passport, stamped it, and handed it back. He hadn’t paid any attention to her photograph, nor did he ask her the purpose of her trip.

On the other side, she joined the line for one of the customs agents to check her bag and purse. An older man in civilian clothes emerged from an office to the left and came to her.

“Ms. Lois Wheeler?” he asked politely.

“Yes, are you George?” Pete asked. He was about the right age, but he didn’t seem to have the kind of fire in his eyes she figured George would. Especially if he were the killer, or the man who had directed the killer — or killers.

“No,” the man said. “If you would just come with me, I have some questions for you.”

A few of the other people in line were curious, but most of the passengers looked away. What was happening was none of their business.

“May I see some identification?”

The man pulled out an identification wallet and showed his badge. He was airport security, but she didn’t quite catch his name before he pocketed the wallet. “Ms. Wheeler?”

Pete glanced up at one of the cameras in the ceiling and followed the man across the hall to the windowless office that was furnished only with a plain metal desk and a couple of chairs.

The security officer took her bag and purse and quickly searched them before he motioned to one of the chairs and sat down across from her. “May I see your passport, please?”

Pete handed it to him, and he studied it, comparing the photograph to her face.

“This is not yours.”

“No, it was last-minute in Paris, and the amateur who’d come highly recommended did a botched job.”

“What is your real name?”

“That doesn’t matter. I assume you’re here representing George, which of course isn’t his real name.”

“Give me a name that will be of some use.”

“Alex. George and I knew each other some years ago.”

“Yet you thought I was George.”

“No, I was merely testing the waters. I wanted to see what your reaction might be.”

The security officer stared at her. “Why did you come here?”

“I sent a message to George and he replied: Come .”

“Yes, but why do you want to see him? What is so urgent to you now, after all these years?”

Pete suppressed a smile. There was a George after all, and he was somewhere here in Israel. Alex had been right. “There have been a series of incidents at Langley, and in Athens and yesterday in Paris. I need some answers.”

Again, the man playing the role of an airport security officer hesitated. “Give me your work name.”

“Alex Unroth. What do I call you?”

“Mr. Smith will do for now.”

He took a small tablet from his jacket pocket, brought up an e-mail address, and entered the Unroth name. A minute later he glanced up. “You were a member of the CIA’s Alpha Seven team in Iraq.”

“That’s right. I’m the last one.”

“Last one?”

“The others are dead. Murdered. It’s something George knows about.”

“And you think he is somehow responsible?”

“I do.”

Smith nodded, a little sadness in the gesture. “That said, you came here, which means you are a very brave woman or a stupid one. And I only say that because if you truly understood the importance of what happened in Iraq, you would have disappeared. With your skills, you could have gone very deep. But then you’re not really Alex Unroth. In fact, your real name is Pete Boylan, and I expect Alex directed you in what to say and how to act. Perhaps it was even you who sent the message from Paris.”

“Will you take me to him?”

“Of course, if that’s what you really want. But I think you will be disappointed, because you will not find the answers you came looking for. But you might find some you don’t want to hear.”

As Smith got to his feet, the door opened.

Pete looked over her shoulder. A man in civilian clothes who she had never seen before was there, McGarvey right behind him. Mac winked and she grinned, but the man in the doorway did not seem happy.

Smith said something in Hebrew. He, too, was angry.

The man in the doorway stepped aside, and Smith followed him out of the office. Mac came in and closed the door.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“So far so good, but I’m glad to see you. Where’s Alex?”

“She took off. Mossad’s looking for her. What’d you tell this guy?”

“That I was looking for George. He checked with someone online, and he knew my real name. But he said he would take me to George if that’s what I really wanted. Said I would be disappointed. But how’d Alex give you the slip?”

“We worked it out ahead of time. Soon as we saw you wink at the camera, you had to know we were watching. She went to the bathroom with her female minder, and got away.”

“She didn’t hurt the woman?”

“Not seriously except for her pride. She left her half-unconscious in one of the stalls.”

“But why?”

“I think this guy who pulled you out of the line might take you to George, or someone claiming to be George, but they’re going to want more out of you, and us, than they’re willing to give. Alex will try to make her own contact.”

“You trust her?”

“No other game in town,” McGarvey said. “She’s the only one who can ID George.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door, then bent down and kissed Pete on her cheek just beside her right ear.

She looked up, surprised.

“These guys are scared shitless; it’s the only reason I let Alex go. Whatever song and dance they give us, we’re going along with it. I think our lives could depend on it.”

Lev Sharon came back with Smith.

“I think we have it straight now,” Sharon said. “You’ll be taken to see General Yarviv. He played the role as an adviser for Aman during the Iraq war.” Aman was the Israeli military intelligence directorate.

“Be careful with what questions you ask, Mr. Director,” Smith said. “If you step over the line, you could be subject to immediate arrest and prosecution under the Israel Secrets Act.”

“Don’t threaten me and my people,” McGarvey shot back. “We’re dealing with a serial killer on campus. Some kind of a psychopath, and at this point everything has led us here to George — if indeed General Yarviv is the guy who came to Alpha Seven in the hills above Kirkuk.”

“This isn’t the United States, you son of a bitch,” Smith said, his temper at the edge.

“Do you want to know how the four guys at Langley were killed?”

“I don’t care—”

“The same way George killed his victims on the oil installations outside of Kirkuk. He ripped out their carotid arteries, and as they were bleeding to death, he chewed off their faces like some animal.”

“You have no proof linking the general to those acts.”

“If I find it, and the reasons, you won’t dare bring this to a court of law. The Iraqis were soldiers, but it was before any declaration of war had been given. And there was no reason to kill the Alpha Seven team just to keep them quiet. They’d kept their part of the bargain. They were simply trying to forget and to survive.”

“So let’s go talk to General Yarviv,” Pete said, and Smith glared at her.

Alex got up from where she had been sitting for the past fifteen minutes with the people waiting for the early morning British Airways flight to London. First- and business-class passengers, along with the frequent flyer members, were already shuffling past the gate agent and into the Jetway.

A lot of airport security uniformed officers and a number of guys she spotted as plainclothes cops had streamed by, but not one of them had thought to check out the passengers waiting to board a flight at a gate that was just steps away from the women’s room she’d used.