John Nance - Lockout

“A little. I’m sorry.” she said, dabbing at an errant tear. “I just want to get back to work and convince myself the world isn’t a hall of mirrors with nothing as it seems.”

“Well-l-l, to a certain extent it is, but I anticipated that you’d feel this way, so…” he reached over to the corner of his desk and picked up an intimidating stack of papers and binders. “This is your assignment for the next week or so. I need intercepted electronic intelligence traffic out of southern China carefully analyzed and compared to determine whether we are seeing a substantive shift in the encoding routines used in snap-on transmissions—especially important given their island building activities.”

She shuddered as he placed the stack in her lap. “Really? Is this a thinly-disguised re-entry program?”

“Maybe a little, but I really do need your expert analysis. When you’re ready, I’ll get you briefed on the background political reasons.”

“Okay.”

“Why don’t you stay in here for a few minutes until you’re ready to go plow through all the adoring fans out there. I’m going upstairs for a meeting.”

“Seth, one question.”

“Sure,” he said, standing.

“Do we, does anyone know, whether Moishe Lavi was behind all this?”

Seth pursed his lips and nodded slightly. “We’re all suspicious, and what I pick up from those way above my pay grade is that this just couldn’t have been a wild coincidence. But do I either know, or have a need to know, what undoubtedly the president now knows? In a word, no.”

“You’d tell me if you knew?”

“Not if I’m told not to. Of course, I might wink at you and stomp the floor a few times, but, no need to know equals no formal information for Jenny.”

“Okay.”

“My guess? Not having enough info?”

“Yes, I trust your guesses,” Jenny said.

“So, my guess, based on the fact that Mr. Lavi had access to the best intelligence operatives in the world and was determined to have it out with Iran, my guess is that his last act was a magnum masterpiece of deception, and only a brilliant and intrepid southern gal who doesn’t think she has an accent got in his way. That’s what I think.”

“Thanks, Seth.”

“Oh, one more thing. Pick up my desk phone and punch ‘3.’”

“Seth, not another accolade, I hope.”

“Naw. Just someone who wants a word with you.”

She lifted the receiver as he closed the door behind him, and an instantly familiar voice filled her ear.

“Will! How are you?”

“Actually, pretty good, Jenny. They stopped shooting people over here before they got to me.”

She hesitated, and he jumped in.

“Just kidding! We weren’t guilty, it seems, and for some reason they think I saved the world. I told them it was you, but they doubted a female could pull it off.”

“What?”

“Okay, that’s a joke, too.”

“You’re in rare form this morning.”

“And I’ll be in rarer form this evening, depending on you. Where are you?”

“I think you know. I’m in my boss’s office.”

“Yeah, and that was the wrong question. I was going to drop into a Barry White voice and ask what you’re wearing.”

“What I’m wearing ?”

“Don’t answer that. Just meet me at the same place in the same shopping center at the same time tonight. And this time we’ll really do dinner and a movie.”

“Really?”

“To start.”

“Pretty bold, Bubba, thinking I’d automatically accept putting myself in peril with you again,” she laughed.

“Didn’t you, somewhere in that safe house, say, ‘Coffee now, seduction later’?”

“I guess I did.”

“Well, did I not deliver on the coffee?”

“You did.”

“So, do we have a date?”

“Very well, I will agree to dinner and a movie, and I will agree to listen to you plead your case. Beyond that, no guarantees.”

“Cool.”

“Same time, same place, and two more requirements.”

“Shoot.”

“This time, no sneaking up on me and no idling black SUVs mysteriously waiting in a loading dock.”

“Promise.”

One week later

Tel Aviv, Israel (11:15 a.m. local)

Two men walking slowly through Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park in deep conversation in late morning had attracted no one’s attention, save for the security detail protecting the prime minister of Israel and trying to keep a discreet distance.

Gershorn Zamir gestured to a park bench and they settled onto it, the prime minister sitting slightly sideways as his slender, six-foot-two companion leaned back and sighed, his words spoken with an Oxfordian British accent.

“Thank you, old chap. My back has been giving me a bloody run for it these past few months. I could blame it on rugby, but in truth it’s too much mucking around at home lifting heavy things the wrong way.”

“I completely sympathize. I’m too heavy for much exercising, but just walking takes its toll these days after too many hours at a desk.”

“Or at the head of a crisis center table, I expect.”

“Yes. So, tell me, please, what you trundled here all the way from London to impart.”

The man looked over and smiled slightly, then straightened up and looked around carefully, before continuing.

“The letter, or more properly stated, the email that Moishe asked me to destroy after he sent it in flight didn’t mention how, just why.”

“I would expect that.”

“And, you understand, there’s nothing new in the ‘why’: the same old fact that the mullahs would happily die and go collect their virgins if the loss of their country was accompanied by the vaporization of Israel; their first strike on Israel was anywhere from hours to days away; how he had a duty to make sure their ability to attack was destroyed, et cetera, et cetera. But the key was the statement I mentioned. The statement that he had commandeered a commercial airliner full of innocent people only because he had no other method of showing the world Iran’s murderous intent. He said he regretted the impending loss of civilian lives, but that they, too, were dying for a great cause.”

“Commandeered was the word?”

“Yes.”

“Are you planning to publish the letter?”

“To what end, Gershorn? Even if I hadn’t been on Israel’s side my entire life, what would such a revelation do? I don’t particularly care about Lavi’s legacy, but it would stir up anger and distrust of anything Israel says or does regarding Iran, and put them in the role of victim of Zionist aggression.”

“I appreciate your decision, especially since I know you’re giving up a coup.”

“Not really. I might be giving up an opportunity to sabotage the very interests I want to help. More than anything, I’d be driving a stake through your political heart if I revealed that letter.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There were a few people thanked in a veiled way in Lavi’s verbiage, Gershorn, and based on who they might be and the positions potentially involved, it would not take a Sherlock Holmes to discern the presence of a host of confederates in Mossad, IDF, your government, and a couple of very key people in the US.”

“He named them?”

“No, no. Only implied. He was a master at espionage and subtlety even if he was also the proverbial bull in the china shop. But from those implied confederates come inescapable conclusions.”

The PM looked away for a few moments, letting his mind run through the thicket of possible reactions from the world.

“You realize I have to search for these turncoats,” Gershorn replied quietly.