Angels Don't Die (Madeleine Toche Series Book 2) (8 page)

             
“No, we have a few men on the ground here.  We met briefly in a bar on the edge of the market square.   It's not confirmed and the information may be old.  It's the last good intelligence MI6 has.  At Hartmann’s age, he could have died by
now.  He'd be in his early 80s
.  He was already in his mid-twenties when the First World War started,” Jack said.

             
“I didn’t think my intuition was failing me in my old age,” Madeleine said with certainty.

             
“Your old age?  You are more beautiful to me every day, Madeleine Toche,” Jack said reaching down to cup her face and kiss her.

             
“Me? Every shop clerk, hatcheck girl, secretary, that you come across, looks you over.  Then they hear that British accent and they're instantly in love,” Madeleine said giving Jack a tender punch in the shoulder.

             
“Well, such beauties as we should survive to live a long life then,” Jack said with a chuckle.

             
“Are you worried about me on this mission, Jack?”

             
“I always worry, even when you drive to the store.  But you are the best at what you do.  The best the world has ever known.  The
SOE
were the best.  You were our best.  You’re little different than during the war.  We both still do physical training that's never been a limitation for you,” Jack said.

             
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the field.  I feel confident, but time has a way of wearing down your resolve,” Madeleine said.

             
“All those years trusting only yourself, your conviction and courage is something that surrounds you like an aura, it became part of you.  I have no concerns.”

             
“You have none at all?” Madeleine said.

             
“Only for the enemy,” Jack said without sarcasm.  As he held Madeline tight he was able to feel the hard core of iron she always seemed to have.  It was one of the things that made him both love her and respect her.

             
“We better get back inside,” Madeleine said.  “I have to gear up for later.  I’ll watch the Mossad building for the next few nights.  Your men on the ground here need to find me at least one or two known PLO bases of operation.  I'll have to get inside to get the information or at least a lead on where they have Tracy.”

             
“British Intelligence also believes that they may be holding him for something later.  There’ll be a war here soon, Madeleine.  It might be days, weeks or months away, but they won't waste a valuable asset until they see if he can be of any strategic use,” Jack said.

             
“Just like we would,” Madeleine said.

             
Jack just nodded as they turned to walk back inside.

             
Well past midnight, Madeleine moved cautiously through the dark streets toward Mossad HQ.  Her familiarity with memorizing maps, entrance and exit from target areas was honed long ago.  She wasn’t wearing her tourist clothes, nor the black head scarf and long caftan-like dress she planned to use as a disguise to help her infiltrate a PLO operations center. She was back in the field and needed to be as camouflaged as possible.  She had on dark, loose fitting pants, a black shirt, and light hiking boots.  She didn’t expect to see any police patrols and if she did, they would never see her.

Madeleine wanted to see her old friend again, and hoped he would be an ally.  She was anxious to make contact with her old mentor, Berthold Hartmann. They had developed a bond during the relentless training he put her through.  He was then the most dangerous man she had ever known, a decorated German officer from World War One. His family was massacred by the Nazis for their Jewish heritage, despite his stature as a war hero.  After that, Hartmann became a terrorist and assassin in his own country.  He worked for the British, the Russians, any allied country that required his skills.  He was chosen because of his experience to train an
SOE
recruit to be an assassin inside France.  It was Winston Churchill’s idea.  He wanted to strike at the heart of the enemy. In his own words, he wanted… to ‘set Europe ablaze’.  Out of hundreds of
SOE
candidates, Hartmann had chosen Madeleine.  He had chosen well.

             
Madeleine easily located the address.  Like most of the surrounding buildings, it was fairly new, having been built in the recent past.  It was a blocky six story structure with a gated courtyard and mundane architecture.  The single sign advertised that it was a financial firm.  Nothing distinguished it as anything other than what it seemed to be.

             
They must be trying to hide in plain sight, Madeleine thought to herself.  I wonder what the 'official' Mossad headquarters looks like, she mused.  Probably looks like a fortress.

             
Madeleine watched the front of the building, briefly noting that a light was still on in several of the offices, giving the impression of diligent investment advisors at work.  I wonder if he's in one of those, she thought, but I'll never be able to see anything from this vantage point.  Madeleine crossed the street to a row of buildings of similar design.  She wanted to get to the top of one.  She looked for a way to get to the top of the roof from the outside.

             
She walked down an alley and worked her way along the side of one of the buildings. It was almost directly opposite of Mossad HQ.  Unfortunately, it didn’t have a fire escape or exterior stairs. She searched for a way up.  Madeleine moved farther back down the alley and saw what she was looking for, a drainpipe that flowed down from the roof.  Madeleine moved toward the pipe and inspected it for strength.  It wouldn't do to fall, and injure or kill myself, she thought smiling. It was made of black coated iron and seemed firmly attached to the building.

             
Without hesitation she began to climb the six stories to the top.  She moved with precision and ease, glad that she had kept up her regimen of calisthenics. She moved like a lithe spider as she climbed unnoticed, hidden by the dark of night.

Once she reached the top, Madeleine hesitated and watched the roof for several long moments before she slid over the small wall that surrounded the roof top.  It was just that, a stark flat expanse of tar embedded with gravel.  At one end there were a couple of air-conditioning units, speckled with bird droppings, like the rest of the roof.  She looked around for the telltale light of an armed security system, but with no practical way up from below, she assumed their security was internal and no night watchman would bother her.

   
             
Madeleine moved in a crouch, never running but moving quickly as she approached the end of the roof facing the Mossad's clandestine location.  They might have cameras trained on this roof top as a point of potential attack.  I had better stay hidden; she thought and made her way over to an air-conditioning unit, one that was large enough to easily hide behind.  She removed a pair of binoculars that she had gotten from John. They were small and compact for field observations and had an illuminating effect.  They were called 'night binoculars', and were in use by the US military in Vietnam. 
             
Madeleine trained the binoculars on each window in turn.  It was amazing the degree to which the new binoculars helped her to see.  It wasn't like looking during daylight, but the effect was amazing.  God, I wish I'd have had a pair of these in the war, she thought.

             
Most of the windows had their shades drawn and Madeleine couldn’t detect any movement within.  One of the windows near the top was larger than the others.  As she watched, she could see shadows moving around behind the closed shade.  It looked like 5 or 6 people were moving around. They’re not having a board meeting at two a.m., she thought to herself, something important must be going on in that room.

As she had so many times in the past, Madeline could sense that hers weren't the only eyes watching the building.  She looked behind her to see if someone was searching for her.  Madeleine looked across the street at the roof of the Mossad building.  To her trained eye she could see several things that distinguished that roof top from the others.  First, there was a helipad that could easily be explained given that the investment firm needed to fly in important clients from time to time.  But it was the way there were several reinforced positions on the wall surrounding the roof that told Madeleine that there were gun turrets there.  When she looked more closely, she saw the glow of a cigarette. At least one sentry was on duty.  But it wasn’t the sentry that Madeleine could feel watching the Mossad building, somebody else was.

Lowering her body to the floor of the roof, Madeleine moved from one location to the next searching the adjacent rooftops.   Within a short time, she found what she was looking for. Two men were watching the Mossad building from a diagonal vantage point two buildings to the right of her location.  They were dressed as she for night work.  One of the men was using binoculars, while the other lay prone behind a scoped sniper rifle, trained on the window that she had been watching.  They have to know those are bullet proof windows, she thought, but maybe not.  The men seemed only to be interested in the window they were watching. They were not aware of their surroundings.  They had no idea that she could see them.   If they had been cautious, they would have been checking the adjacent rooftops, like she did, hoping to avoid being seen.

             
Madeleine stayed and watched the men for more than two hours.  They seemed restless and were not able to remain still, one even moved back from their position to urinate behind some rooftop structure.  She remained motionless, positioning herself to avoid the strain on her arms that holding the binoculars demanded.  She only moved her eyes to check the luminous dial of her watch.  Sunrise came early in this part of the world and she would need to get off the roof soon.

             
Madeleine watched as the sniper folded down the tripod stabilizers of his rifle and the two men moved off the roof.  She breathed a silent sigh of relief.  The men had been simply observing and practicing for a subsequent mission or perhaps to determine whether such an attack was feasible.  They would be back and so would she. 

             
Once she was sure the men were gone, Madeleine scanned each adjacent building for movement before moving herself.  She lay flat on the roof and checked that her equipment was properly secured for the climb down.  She reached her hand to the small of her back and felt the hard metal of the semi-automatic pistol she carried.  Tonight was for watching and not killing, but one never knew. 

             
As she climbed slowly down the drainpipe, she thought about what she’d seen.  Those men were certainly agents of an enemy, but their lack of discipline told her that they were not professionals, which pointed to the PLO. The PLO had not reached that status.  Those men were members of the group that held her godson.  I’m sure to meet them again, she told herself silently in her mind.

C
HAPTER FIFTEEN

             
Madeleine was sitting at the kitchen table when the others woke up. She was dressed in her tourist clothing and a fine breakfast of coffee, rolls and a colorful platter of fruit sat in the center of the table.

             
“I didn't hear you come in,” John said sitting down pouring two cups of coffee.  He took one back to Karen who was still recovering from jet lag but was starting to stir.

             
“I didn't even feel you getting back into bed.  How did it go?” Jack said.

             
“I saw plenty,” Madeleine said.  “But let's wait for John and Karen before I tell the rest.”

             
“The coffee's good,” Jack said teasingly.  He loved to give Madeleine little jibes now and then about her cooking.  She came from a long line of restaurateurs and was a fine cook.  But he still found it amusing to watch her roll her eyes when he did it.

             
John and Karen came into the room and sat at the empty seats around the table.

             
“Did you find what you were looking for?” John said, reaching for a roll.

             
“I was on the roof of the building directly across from the Mossad operations center.  They are heavily fortified, so Jack's information is correct.  I can see little chance of making my way inside undetected given our short time frame.  I must make contact with Hartmann.”

             
“Hartmann?  The man who trained you?”  John said.

             
“Yes. It’s possible that he’s the leader of the Mossad, and not the man the public believes is in charge. That’s not out of the ordinary, other governments do the same thing for security reasons,” Madeleine said.

             
“But you have no confirmation that he is at this point?”  John continued.