Tsunami Connection (3 page)

Sam and Yochana went on to explain that, as their adoptive
parents, they had groomed the two of them, Zak, and Kefira, for what they were
to become from childhood. Sam also said that Zak had followed a more traditional
path in the Mossad. He was an experienced field officer who might one day run
the organization.

"We want you to work with his team," said both Sam
and Yochana in unison. "Your mission is first to catch MacAuley. Second,
you must be constantly aware of other intrigues that your search uncovers and
follow them up as well. There is a great deal of 'chatter' in the air
recently."

"Do I let on regarding this little revelation
concerning him and me?"

"That's your call. You're the ranking officer on this mission.
Zak's a Captain. Technically, you're a politically appointed Colonel, but he
has years of experience in the field. Try to tread lightly."

They all looked at each other. Sam reached under the table,
produced a half bottle of Duval-Leroy's
Cuvée Femme
, and popped the
cork. They once drank from the bottle, savoring the sensation of bubbles
pouring down their throats and flowing over their lips before Sam got up and
looked in the outdoor cabinet for some glasses. He returned with three wine
glasses in his hands and said, "It's a new beginning."

The conversation turned back to the mission. Yochana
explained that Zak and his team would meet Kefira either in Paris or a small
town near Birmingham, England, in a few days. Sam made his apologies and left,
as he had a meeting in the early hours the next day with the Prime Minister.
After he left, the two women looked at each other; tears moistened both of
their eyes.

"Hold me, please," asked Kefira.

"Are you holding up?"

"It's an awful lot for three days. I'll go to Great
Britain. Now I need to sleep."

"Just to be clear, your mission is to neutralize those
responsible for this nightmare. Try to get information from this MacAuley
before you terminate him. I'll arrange a military flight for you at noon. Sweet
dreams."

February 10,
2012

On Love Lane, outside Redditch,
England, Kefira's driver accelerated abruptly. Untrimmed sections of hedgerow
clattered against the body of their racing green Austin Mini. Laneway entrances
and exits flashed by as Kefira glanced again at the young woman driving. She
down shifted yet another time, spurring the car's engine into a leopard-like
whine.

"I never would've guessed you could drive like
this!"

"Aren't you the one who lectures on appearances being
deceiving?"

"Touché … someone's been talking about me."

"You got it. Anyway, driving is like putting on a glove
for me. It was second nature from the first time I drove my father's car at 14
years old," added Sarah, downshifting once more.

"Is it necessary to drive so fast now?"

"Never know when you'll be havin' to run from the 'Old
Bill'," replied the driver, using an Irish lilt.

"Forgive my ignorance, but who's the 'Old Bill'?"
asked Kefira.

"It's possibly a reference to a popular World War I
cartoon character, or maybe Sir Robert Peel, one of the founders of modern
policing. Nobody really knows for sure," said Sarah.

Sarah used the handbrake to lock the rear wheels.
Immediately after, she released the handbrake and accelerated into a
perpendicular laneway directly on her right. The car stopped and Kefira raised
her hands to protect herself from bending into the dash. Her belt snapped hard
enough against her chest to bruise.

"Really nothing to it – just car rally stuff. This car
has what they call a fly-off handbrake, specially made for doing that turn. I
just couldn't resist."

"Spare me the details. I am sure your skills will come
in handy. It was great feeling your positive energy behind the wheel,"
replied Kefira as she stepped out of the low-lying Austin, rubbing her collar
bone.

The red brick, Tudor-style, country manor in front of Kefira
and Sarah displayed stability and security. Hardwood smoke curled from the
hearth inside before an isolated temperature inversion swept the smoke back
towards the ground. It smelled divine.

Kefira reacted to the odor as though it was comfort food,
sparking memories of off-season visits to her family's island home on Paros,
near the small ferry landing to Antiparos, in the Cyclades Islands of Greece.
Kefira sighed. Wood smoke always brings out the nostalgia in me. The smoke made
her think of her father's penchant for building fires in every room to keep the
wintery dampness out of their home. The home had a nickname. It was called the
Pirate's Den, after an old story of pirates plying the Cyclades Straits in that
part of the Mediterranean. Swells near Paros have been recorded between three
and ten meters in height, seriously endangering sailors who did not seek refuge
before these afternoon winds picked up. What were those winds called again,
miltemi, in Greek.

Kefira remembered her father's pirate stories at bedtime.
These memories surprisingly triggered her biological clock, tugging at her
heartstrings.

The front door of the manor opened, and the inside lighting
cast a glow of warmth and welcome while outlining the large frame of their
host, inadvertently reminding her of her life choices. How could he let the
inside light leave him outlined like that, making himself a target in the
doorway?

"We thought you'd never get here, girl. Yar driver's
'barmy'," Doctor John blurted in a pronounced Brummie, the dialect of
Birmingham, England. "I saw that turn. Come on up here," he added
again in dialect, laughing at Kefira's confusion.

"Is that what they call the King's English? If it is, I'll
be a monkey's uncle," she retorted.

"Yar a sassy wench.″ The Doctor overwhelmed her
with welcome, gave her a beery hug, despite it being their first meeting, and
then whispered into her ear.

"You'll have to excuse my exaggerated accent. Your
friend's in the billiard room. I'll say he's got less spunk than you. Takes all
kinds, doesn't it?" he added, pointing the way towards a wainscoted
hallway that led to an oak stairwell.

The scene was only missing a lamplighter preceding her up
the stairs. Launching Kefira back into this century, motion sensors lit the
passageway and the stairs, and then the sound of billiard balls, clattering on
a large table, led her on up.

The door to the game room was open. Cigar smoke filled the
air. Overhead lamps cast shadows around the only table in use. Darkness between
the tables obscured the players from Kefira's line of sight. A cue stick rolled
onto the table and a serious looking, completely bald, young man about Kefira's
age stepped into the light he had activated with a switch near the table.

"Kefira, I'm Zak. I've been looking forward to meeting
you," he said taking her in, slowly scanning her from top to bottom, just
his eyes roaming. His speech halted as she got close to him and her musky,
oiled scent rose up to his nostrils. Noticing her reaction, he added,
″Your file picture didn't do you justice."

"Shouldn't we be talking business?" said Kefira.

"Maybe we can start over again and–"

"And get it right this time," Kefira jousted.

"Ok. Ok. Please come out on the balcony and I'll give
you my assessment of our situation. Yochana sends her regards through
Sam.″ He opened the balcony door for her and the evening air gave her a
shiver. "I saw you give that martial arts demonstration. You were
astounding," said Zak, trying to change the tone of his shredded opening
gambit.

"I don't recall seeing you there," she said, a
questioning look darkening her expression. "No, wait. You had long curly
hair, didn't you?"

"Yep. I did. Sam pulled me out before the end. When I
go in the field I always shave my head. We need to work together on this. I'm
not sure what I did to spark you the way I did, but I apologize. Okay?"

"Maybe it was just the drive here with that maniac
behind the wheel. Where did you get her, anyway?"

His warm laugh filled the night air followed by hers and
both of the agents, at least temporarily, reconciled their differences.

"I have a lead. It's Mac–" said Kefira, as Zak
interrupted her saying, "Yochana told me, MacAuley. I took the liberty of
looking his name up on all of the Mossad databases. He's a nasty number. I know
someone who worked with him before. The guy I know's a double for Mossad now.
We can go see him in Edinburgh. We know exactly where he is. I already booked
two vans, one with full surveillance equipment."

Zak's presumption of the value of his authority surprised
her, though, despite the implied slight to her command, she appreciated his
efficiency. She was about to start sparring with him again when Sarah, the
round-faced rally driver, stepped out of the billiard room onto the balcony.

"Okay, you two. Let's put the games behind us and get
to work."

"I don't know what you're talking about," blurted
both Zak and Kefira at the same time.

Sarah continued, "We all respect your rank Kefira,
Colonel, but don't forget Zak, Aden and I have been working undercover for
years together and sometimes experience trumps rank, especially in the field.
Your little spat let me approach the balcony and overhear you. That's bad
tradecraft. I may be just the equivalent of an IDF Sergeant, but I want to
live. Got it?"

Zak started to speak, but became tongue-tied and a little
overwhelmed. Not like me to let emotions run wild. His personal feelings could
have endangered the whole team. Yet, something was opening up inside him. He
wanted to recount the feelings that had been bubbling up inside him for the
first time since his first wife's sudden death five years earlier, but he knew
better.

Zak was smitten that day, some months earlier, when he had
first seen Kefira. Sarah went on speaking to him, but he was drifting back in
time in his mind's eye. His behavior was totally out of character and it
surprised Sarah.

She knew Zak bottled up his emotions and had never really
accepted the death of his parents. Then, years later, his wife's murder had
almost crippled him emotionally. He was far from even contemplating closure,
and all of his relationships over the last five years and for much of his life
had been governed by these two poignant sore spots. Kefira's arrival on the scene
somehow gave him no options. Her presence near him made him face up to reality,
but their shared operation obliged him to control himself.

November 2011

Orphaned at a young age, Kefira
involuntarily became an instrument, Mossad's contrivance. Yochana, a Mossad
Director, orchestrated Kefira's indoctrination into HaMossad as part of a
program for the development of deep-cover agents, sleepers. The Director's
incentive for her actions was a childhood friendship with the orphaned girl's
mother. Yochana's HaMossad Department, which was responsible for intelligence
collection and covert operations that allegedly included targeted killings and
paramilitary activities beyond Israel's borders, devised the spear or
'Vanguard' agent development program. In its role as the protector of Jewish
communities worldwide, HaMossad is tasked with bringing Jews to Israel from
countries where official Aliyah or Zionist agencies are forbidden. It is one of
the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with Aman
(Military Intelligence) and Shin Bet (Internal Security).

Yochana, who reported directly to the Prime Minister,
investigated the premature death of Kefira's parents at the Israeli Embassy in
Argentina when the child was fourteen. When Yochana concluded that Kefira was,
in fact, the daughter of her best friend from Yochana's early days, she acted
on her legal responsibilities by rescuing Kefira from the tragedy of her
parent's untimely death at the hands of a terrorist bomber. Yochana's control
of the young girl included enrolling Kefira in a program of clandestine agent
development. This act was the beginning of a long-term plan to make Kefira the
next Director of all of Mossad. It was the vicarious recognition of Yochana's
unrealized personal ambition.

Sam and Zak, who behaved as though they were stepfather and
stepson, were standing in the open doorway at the back of a large amphitheatre,
looking at the stage at the bottom of the room. They were focused on a
stunning, young woman who was herself positioned on the stage, staring up at
the two men. Remarking on the intensity of energy unexplainably connecting Zak
and Kefira, even over the 20 meters between them, Sam, also a Director of
HaMossad, spoke up. Kefira exuded a hint of Botticelli, and a presence
reminiscent of Brigitte Bardot. She was exquisitely wrapped in olive skin, but
her soft flesh disguised underlying muscle tension.

"Zak, have you ever read Aesop?"

"Fables. You know better Sam," answered Zak.

"Anyway, take your eyes off her and remember Aesop: He
goes to great lengths to prove that appearances can be deceiving."

"I have to know her name. How old is she?"

"Your age, same background, but she's a
goy
."

"Impossible, not in HaMossad. There're no
goyim
here. You must be misinformed."

"Remember in the desert when we were training …
remember what we did with cigarette ends?"

"Of course, we shredded them and let the wind take them
as it pleased."

"All comes to he who waits. I'm talking too much. I
care for you. She's an exception to the rule."

"Didn't you used to say all is lost to he who
hesitates? Turning melodramatic in andropause – you've spent too much time in
Washington. Is it true you cry during films now? You like to eat too much,
Samuel, and we both know all about unasked-for advice."

"You are like a son to me, but, even to my son I have
spoken too much.
Oleh
,
Olah
and
Olim
."

"Why use that expression and talk of being one? I see
no sure signs of death here. I see only beauty."

"Let us say, she came to Israel and it is almost
impossible for one to avoid hitting their head on a few clouds on the way up.
She will hit many more.″ 

"Why the riddles, Sam. Her name?"

"Kefira." 

"The lioness, how appropriate."

"Do you purposefully choose the less common
interpretation of her name?"

"More enigmas?"

"The more common meaning is heresy. Now I have to
go," said Sam, the thickness of his chin betraying the years since he had
worked in the field. He nodded at someone nearby. As Sam turned to leave, the
young man at whom he'd nodded bumped Zak, spilling coffee on his crisp olive
uniform. Anger flared in Zak's eyes as he prepared to demonstrate the chutzpah
that so many unknowing visitors to Israel find difficult to deal with.

"You," he said, looking his oldest friend in the
eyes.

Zak shook his head rolling his long, thick, curly locks
around the etched angular lines of his face. His dark eyes flitted around
uncontrollably.
Where's she gone?
he thought, as his eyes caught
movement in the back of the room. Sam let Kefira out ahead of him, partially
blocking her from the side of the room, but Zak caught the unmistakable
honey-colored calf in low red heels, surrounded by gladiator-style red leather
straps.

Sam, Sam. What are you up to?
he thought as he turned
back to his friend. "Since when are you playing games for Sam?"

"Sam, who's Sam?" asked Zak's friend.

"Forget I ever asked," replied Zak, shaking his
head.

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Come my
friend, the seminars 're starting," said the other young man, while he
threw his wiry right arm around his friend's neck, whispering under his breath:
Sam has a sixth sense.
″It's all water under the bridge,"
said the friend.

Their seminar started and worked them dutifully on their
mastery of English, especially idiomatic expressions. They were the last of a
previously much larger clandestine agent development training school. The
purpose of the program was to insert its graduates anywhere that the state of
Israel might be threatened. All were in an ongoing indoctrination curriculum
that had started years ago. Most of the students shared one common background:
suicide bombers or terrorists had killed their parents. There were twenty-one
of them.

When Kefira walked past Sam in the doorway, he took in her
perfume, made from musky spices. Around her neck, she wore beads from Saharan
Africa, necklaces worn by the Berber women of the Blue Men, the Tuareg of
southern Libya. The beads absorbed and enhanced the natural scent of the body
and were used by nomadic tribal women in their preparations while waiting for
their men to return to the marriage bed. The women would rub oil scented with
cinnamon, clove, and sometimes cardamom into their skin while sitting in a tent
warmed by a small burning stove. Sam's eyelids lifted as she passed, her aroma
creating a mixture of arousal and therapy in the older man.

"We must go the auditorium now," said Sam.

"Why were you talking of me to him?" she asked.

"Who are you talking about?" replied Sam.

"As if you didn't know that one of my strongest
abilities is lip reading at a distance–″

"He is like my son and he asked about your name. I
tried to discourage him. You two have no time for distractions. Something is
brewing. I can feel it."

"Was he trained like me?"

"Not really. He has been working for Mossad under my
direct tutelage. Like you, he is being groomed, but by a more traditional
approach, up through the ranks and in the field. There is one more thing. You
must not tell Yochana that you have seen him or me. This is 'need to
know′. I am ordering you as your superior outside your chain of command.
Rest assured she will know of this soon enough."

"It's all good," Kefira replied, raising a dark
eyebrow, removing her military shirt, and exposing her exercise practice suit
as she started to move in preparation for her Capoeira demonstration.

She stood in the center of the auditorium as the twenty
filed in from other seminars. Though much older, she was the twenty-first, the
one they knew of only as the spear. However, this group did not yet know of her
identity, as she had been a distant leader. This was the first time she would
admit her previously clandestine leadership role. Their training had centered
on protecting Israel since childhood. They were undercover warriors. Mossad
would use them in any country in the world where Israel was threatened. When
the room was full, the African drums started. Someone in the back whistled, but
Sam hushed that reaction.

The drums beat. She moved, arching and twisting as if in
competition with someone in front of her. A mirror at the back of the stage
reflected her movements. The faster the drums rolled, the more fluid her
movements. It stopped as quickly as it started. Kefira's skin shone, but she
had not broken a sweat despite twenty solid minutes of workout.

The lights went up. "So, what do you think?" asked
Sam to the twenty.

There were no takers. No one answered, but three young men
in the back row snickered and the young woman to the left of them joined in.

"Unlike you people to mock," admonished Sam.
"The four of you in the back, please come down to the stage."

They looked at each other, got up, and strutted down the
middle aisle.

"Perhaps we should start with introductions: Kefira,
would you care to introduce the topic of the day?"

"Today is an object lesson in appearance. For your
information, I am the spear."

"Impossible, you are a
goy
and a woman,"
spurted the most vocal of the group on the stage with her.

Kefira motioned to him and the others with an extended
finger. The music started again. She flexed, bent, arched, jumped, and made
gestures at her opponents, but they had not yet realized her disguised
threatening pose. Three flips head over heels landed her at the feet of the
most aggressive young man. A second turn, at blinding speed, executed into an
arch that caught him unawares and knocked him to the ground, unconscious. The
other three now grew more uncertain. She continued to spin in arching upper and
lower movements. The other three spread out and all took on defensive poses.
Now they understood. All three attacked at once. Her body now glistening,
Kefira took down the three attackers in under thirty seconds. The drums
stopped.

"Their arrogance defeated them. Appearances can be
deceiving," stated Kefira to the astonished group.

Sam doused the young people on the floor with water.

"Capoeira holds the day. Brazilians developed it to use
against the Portuguese Conquistadors. It is a survivalist martial art. At that
time, groups of African slaves escaped to the jungle. After some time fending
for themselves, the freedmen discovered the advantage of getting together to
establish
quilombos
, primitive settlements, in far and hard to reach
places. Starting humbly, some
quilombos
eventually developed, attracting
more runaway slaves, Brazilian natives, and even Europeans escaping the law or
Catholic extremism. In some instances,
quilombos
became independent,
multi-ethnic states. Everyday life in a
quilombo
offered freedom and the
opportunity to rescue traditional cultures lost due to colonial oppression. In
this kind of multi-ethnic community, constantly threatened by Portuguese
colonial troops, Capoeira evolved from a survival tool to a martial art focused
on war. You will start to learn Capoeira today," said Sam.