David Hagberg - End Game

She moved forward in line as the zone one passengers were invited to board. When it was her turn to present her boarding pass, she pushed past the man ahead of her and raced down the Jetway.

The female boarding agent shouted something, and when Alex reached the aircraft’s open hatch, one of the male flight attendants stepped off the plane and got in front of her. He tried to grab the strap of her shoulder bag, but she strong-armed him, shoving him backward, and slammed open the Jetway’s exit door and clambered down the steps to the tarmac.

A siren sounded from behind her as she ducked under the fuselage and ran inside the baggage processing area. Around the corner she slowed down and strode normally across the big open space as if she belonged there.

A tractor hauling three carts filled with baggage for the London flight trundled past, momentarily blocking the view of a cop who appeared at the open service door at the foot of the Jetway’s stairs, giving her time to slip behind a pile of luggage coming down a conveyor belt. Two men in white coveralls were loading suitcases, boxes, and other things on the carts of a second tractor.

Glancing over her shoulder to make sure the cop wasn’t coming around the corner, she waited until both ground crewmen were looking the other way, then took a wheeled suitcase from the pile and walked in the opposite direction, keeping in the shadows as much as possible.

Someone was making a commotion behind her, and she sped up, coming to the entrance of a luggage carousel that wasn’t in use.

After climbing up on the slideway, she parted the rubber curtains and looked out to the baggage hall, where checked luggage that had already passed security was being routed to the proper flights. Two men were loading luggage three slideways to the left, intent on their work, their backs turned to her.

She ducked out on the slideway, hurried to the right, and continued to the far end of the hall, where she opened a door a crack and looked out. The conveyor belts coming from the ticketing area two levels up, the ones used to send checked luggage down to the preliminary sorting area, were idle.

Stepping out, she crossed the large room and slipped out a door on the other side, where she found herself in the arrivals hall, busy at this hour of the evening.

She was on the outside of the secured area now, and she pulled the suitcase behind her as she went outside and then climbed into a taxi. The driver put her suitcase in the trunk and got behind the wheel.

“The Hilton, please,” she told him.

“You’re an American?” the driver asked, pulling away.

“Canadian, actually,” she said. She took out her phone and called Otto.

He answered on the first ring. “You’re not at the airport,” he said.

“I’m in a cab heading to the Hilton. Is Pete okay?”

“Yes. An Aman officer met her at customs, but Mac and Sharon are with her. All hell has broken loose at the airport. Sharon is convinced it was Mac who engineered your escape.”

“They can’t prove it,” Alex said. “But right now I need you to do a couple of things for me.”

“I thought you were going to stick with Mac so you could identify George, who, as it turns out, now might be an Aman general?”

“I’m going to do exactly that, but my own way. I value my hide more than to simply walk into wherever this guy wants to meet.”

“I’ll have to let Mac know.”

“Naturally.”

“You didn’t have time to make a reservation at the Hilton, so I’ll take care of that right now. What else?”

A bright flash lit up the early morning sky far to the southeast, behind them.

“Hezbollah,” the driver said. “And right on time.”

“A Hezbollah rocket just landed,” Alex said.

“It’s been happening just about every night for the past week,” Otto said.

“Are Mac and the others still at the airport?”

“Yes. They’re still trying to figure out what to do about you. They know Pete’s real identity, and Mossad wants to throw her in jail for traveling under a false passport.”

“What about Aman?”

“The general has been told, but he still wants the meeting.”

“Has Walt Page been informed?”

“The chief of station in Tel Aviv sent a flash message to Marty, so I’m sure he’s called Page.”

The situation was unfolding exactly the way she wanted it to. She needed the delay. “I want to know the moment they leave the airport, and I’ll want to know exactly where they’re going — that’s if they haven’t taken Mac’s sat phone.”

“He still has it. I’ve booked you a suite for three days, under Pete’s name, with a Congolese Faith Ministries Gold Amex card.” It was a sometimes-used CIA front.

Alex had to laugh. “I didn’t think we still used that one.”

“They’re saying now that you injured one of the Mossad officers. They’re going to issue a warrant for your arrest.”

“I just put her down. She couldn’t have been out for more than ten or fifteen seconds.”

“If the warrant is issued, and the cops try to pick you up, you’ll surrender peacefully. No one gets hurt.”

“Sure, if it goes down that way. But if George sends some of his muscle like he tried in Paris, I will defend myself. I just want to get a look at his eyes, and then I’ll back off. You have my word on it, because the next thing I need from you is a piece of equipment I couldn’t bring into the country.”

“A gun.”

“Yes. And I’ll need a car.”

“The car is easy,” Otto said. “I’ll have to think about the other.”

“Don’t think too long about it,” Alex said. “We’re coming to the end game.”

“We could cut to the chase right now, if you’d confirm what’s buried out there and what became of it.”

“You’ve figured it out. Christ, Roy practically drew you guys a picture.”

“I want to hear it from you,” Otto insisted.

“I want Mac to hear it from George.”

When they reached the Hilton, a bellman took the suitcase from the trunk. Alex paid the cabby, and once inside, she showed Pete’s passport and checked in. The morning desk clerk didn’t bother looking at the photo. He just had her sign, and then gave her the key card.

Her suite was on the twelfth floor, overlooking the Mediterranean. She gave the bellman a good tip, then ordered a pot of coffee and a plate of sweet rolls.

She figured that whatever was going down would happen within the next hour or two. She didn’t think that George, or the Israeli authorities, would let it drag out any longer than that.

Her coffee and rolls came, and she’d sat down to eat when someone else knocked lightly at her door.

No one was visible in the peephole, but when she opened the door, a man was rounding the corner to the elevators halfway down the corridor. He’d left a small leather valise.

Otto had arranged for her to have a standard U.S.-issue 9-mm Beretta with a decent suppressor but with only one fifteen-round magazine. She field-stripped the weapon to make sure it was in working order, and then reloaded it.

She sat by the half-open slider, smelling the Med and drinking her coffee, nothing else to do but wait until Otto called.

The Aman officer identified only as Mr. Smith rode shotgun in an eight-passenger Mercedes van, a taciturn young man in jeans and a T-shirt driving. McGarvey and Pete sat in the second row while Sharon sat in back. Sheila had remained behind to help airport security with the search for Alex.

“Leave her alone, and she’ll show up on her own,” McGarvey had told Sharon. “No one will get hurt.”

“That’s not acceptable,” Sharon had said, and Smith had agreed.