Tsunami Connection (7 page)

Shafiq understood that Yochana's purpose was to make certain
that an unnamed member of the training group in the helicopters should feel
threatened and become more ambitious as a result. Details would follow. As
recognition of his long service in Egypt, in a program known to few and started
by Shafiq's father just after the Camp David Accords were signed, Yochana
arranged to make Shafiq comfortable at Mossad's expense in Buenos Aires.

Shafiq thought of MacAuley as the go-between.
That
treacherous bastard still owes me and now money is less of an object,
thought the Lieutenant Colonel. He typed on secure email and organized a
meeting between MacAuley and Amir in Edinburgh, Scotland at MacAuley's
convenience. Shafiq also arranged for Amir to deliver Yochana's instructions to
MacAuley. The double agent would meet MacAuley. Shafiq also told MacAuley that
Amir's name had changed to Tony. The meeting place: 15 Stenhouse West,
Edinburgh, Scotland, Amir's house.

Amir and MacAuley had worked together before, so the
location would make MacAuley less jumpy than usual. All this was set in motion
while hacking software automatically copied all messages and forwarded them to
another secure server in the offices of the nascent security services of the
Moslem Brotherhood, the likely next government of Egypt. This unknown sharing
of information made Shafiq's well-intentioned plans suspect, but neither Shafiq
nor Yochana knew of the Moslem Brotherhood's subterfuge and likely treachery to
come.

Now Shafiq had to get out of Egypt before the maelstrom
engulfed him. The gist of the message from Yochana revealed a tunnel into the
Gaza Strip as a likely means of exiting the morass of Egypt in revolution for a
GIS officer. She gave him some codes he would be required to enter into the
fresh one-time-use cell phone she had given him to confirm his crossing on the
day of making the move.

Shafiq was grateful, but skeptical. He knew he needed to
make his own way to Israel. He would make the call codes when the time came,
but implement a more secure tactic. Luckily for him, he decided not to use
Yochana's exit strategy. Without Shafiq's knowledge, the new secret police of
the Muslim Brotherhood had recorded the conversation with Yochana and planned
to booby trap the tunnel she had mentioned. Had Shafiq used Yochana's exit
strategy, he would have perished. His paranoia saved his life.

Shafiq's next stop was to visit the apartment of a
co-conspirator from Shafiq's trips to Afghanistan as an arms procurement officer
for Yochana and Mossad. During these clandestine trips, Shafiq often worked
with a man called Kamal.

On this night, at the end of President Mubarak's reign,
Shafiq could change into business attire while in Kamal's home and contact a
senior executive at Royal Dutch Petroleum. Over the years, he and the Dutch
Petroleum executive, called Haqikah, a name ironically meaning 'honest', had
often used a company-sponsored airport near the oil development sector of
Egypt, and a Learjet available to Haqikah to transport people, but never
weapons, to many different parts of the world.

Since recent political instability was forcing Royal Dutch
to move people out of the country, Shafiq could be part of the exodus and go
unnoticed using one of the three legends, or false personalities, including
safe cell phones, credit cards and passports that he had built up over the
years for just this purpose. Money he had put aside from arms purchases in
Afghanistan for Yochana would cushion him.

His Egypt was gone. It was time to accept reality and move
on. Oddly, for someone who prided himself as a patriot, the prospect of
changing allegiance appealed to him, yet the speed of his acceptance of his
betrayal surprised him. He had always thought of himself as above treason, an agent's
agent.

Despite years of taking Shafiq's money, Kamal received the
GIS man less warmly than he had expected. At the door to a luxury villa in Al
Rehab City that Shafiq's lucrative payments had helped finance over the last
few years, there was the sound of modern music and the scent of freshly cooked
food. Spices filled Shafiq's nostrils.

"There's no work needed here, father," said a
slender, Indian-born gentleman, whose bearing suggested military training gone
soft. His Arabic accent betrayed time spent in Pakistan. He moved to close the
door in Shafiq's face, but the GIS man anticipated his gesture and forced the
hardwood switch that he held under his
gellabiya
between the frame and
the door. Shafiq uttered a previously agreed upon code word and a surprised man
looked again as he opened the door.

"We agreed never to meet at my home," said the
man, as he reluctantly let Shafiq through the door.

"
Salaam
Alaikum,
" answered the GIS
man, using a Somali pronunciation of Allah that Kamal and Shafiq had shared on
another mission together.

"The tongue of the Prophet always sticks in your
throat. Though I expected you might be required to break our understanding, I
would never have recognized you. You even stink like a camel."

The yielding voice of a young woman cooed an affectionate
name from the next room, "Alby, Who's that?"

A soft-skinned, round, young woman in her early twenties
came into the entranceway. Her dark, watery, eyes took in the scene in front of
her and her nose flinched, but her good manners took over. She glanced
downward, taking her eyes from the two of them, the picture of submission.

"I told you never to come to the door," snapped
the older man. "This is business, child. Prepare coffee for my guest.
Leave the coffee on the kitchen table and go downstairs to watch one of your
music videos. We must not be disturbed."

Shafiq's eyes roamed over the young woman as she turned and
left the two of them alone in the entranceway. Always the consummate actor,
Shafiq imitated the young woman's tone and repeated her affectionate name for
the middle-aged Indian.

"Alby," he said, using exactly the sensuous roll
of the tongue that the young woman had expressed.

"So you caught me. My wife is visiting her sick mother
in Alexandria. I am only human."

"She must be expensive to keep."

"You heard that tone in her voice. I don't care if it's
false. It stirs me to the point that cost is no object."

"So this is what our little projects have
financed."

"Among other things."

They walked to the kitchen and took in the black coffee and
sweets on the table. Kamal bent under the kitchen sink and produced a plastic
garbage bag.

"Your clothes," he said, "Put them in here. I
assume you are here for a change of clothes. That madness downtown last night!
You are lucky you escaped."

"I have been walking for hours. Do you have tape to
seal this bag? I must take these garments with me. Where I am going I may need
them," said Shafiq.

"Come with me to the guest room. Your change of clothes
is in there."

"I need a phone as well."

"There are four one-use phones beside the locked box
you gave me last year, above the clothes on the right. The phones are still
sealed in their original packaging, as per your strict instructions."

"You are always competent."

"The Jewess contacted me today. I thought you may be
paying a visit, otherwise I would never have opened the door," said Kamal,
lapsing into the singsong intonation pattern of India, his head bobbing from
side-to-side.

"You knew I would break it down if you didn't
answer," replied Shafiq.

″I suppose I did," said Kamal, the double agent.

"Your debt is paid. This is the last visit. There will
be a bonus if I get out of the country safely. I will deposit 1000 Euros in
your Swiss account when I arrive at my destination."

"Allah be praised. There is only one God," he said
and added, "there is an American expression I learned from a US marine in
Pakistan near the Afghan border that seems appropriate: It's been business
doing pleasure with you.″

"Your memory fails you, but not me. I remember where you
learned that expression," said Shafiq, anger rising in his voice.

"No insult intended. No insult intended, even if I did
learn that expression from a pig selling filth, heroin, to children for his own
profit," said Kamal, his tone betraying his distaste with working with
non-believers like Shafiq.

Some years earlier in Afghanistan, Shafiq, a circumcised
Coptic Christian, was on one of a series of missions buying Russian made AK-47s
and Czechoslovakian Semtex plastic explosive for Yochana. Mossad wanted to
frame some alleged terrorists using it. Kamal was Shafiq's in-country
connection. Kamal, who pleaded that he had never wanted to lead Shafiq into a
trap. The double agent swore he had not known of the ambush that ensued.

At that time, the Taliban had captured Shafiq and Kamal.
Kamal had suffered a grazing gunshot wound to the head that left him dazed. For
no apparent reason, the young Taliban captor pulled down Shafiq's pants, then
exclaimed aloud that Shafiq was an Infidel, a 'Jew'.

While the second Taliban guarded Kamal, the younger
assailant then moved to strangle Shafiq. Shafiq demonstrated years of
special-forces training. He jumped through the space between his bound hands,
head-butted his accuser and managed to stab both of his attackers with their
own knives. All this with his hands tied in front of him.

Shafiq and Kamal barely escaped with their lives, due
entirely to Shafiq's skill and training. Shafiq had no proof, but he never
completely trusted Kamal again. Since that time, Kamal had been working off the
debt of getting them into that situation. The money that they were siphoning
off was just
bach sheesh
, or bribery, common in Egypt. Shafiq had never
really forgotten what he was sure was Kamal's treachery because Shafiq was a
Christian.

As he walked toward the shower, he admired the Tombolini
linen suit he carried. He also brought one of the phones. Kamal went
downstairs. The GIS man washed quickly. He picked up the shrink-wrapped boxes
and checked the seams of the packaging. All seemed new. He opened one phone's
wrapping and dialed a number from memory. An answering machine asked for a
message. As per his own instructions, he said, "Airport in 84 hours."

The person, who checked the message machine every 24 hours
at 8 am, verified the time of the call. This phone operator then automatically
ordered a Learjet to be waiting in two days, February 5, 2011, for a man using
a pre-arranged code word. Ironically, Mubarak was the word arranged at a time
when no one could have imagined a time without President Mubarak. Shafiq took
the contents of the locked box, his three legends, and left Kamal's home
without saying goodbye.

February 5,
2011

The city of El Minya lay on the
Nile, not too far from Cairo. It serviced the Eastern Desert oil industrial
complex. Shafiq fit in seamlessly. His suit, though light colored for an
oilman, was appropriate to the climate. His arrival by helicopter completed the
picture, suggesting a visit to a drilling rig deep in the desert. He had pulled
in many favors to get the helicopter ride; many more than would have normally
been required for such a favor, but these were not ordinary times.

His arrival at El Minya Airport was internal, so there was
no customs check. He was leaving by a private Learjet under an assumed name.
The transport was provided by his old friend, Hakikah, at Royal Dutch
Petroleum. Shafiq was using documentation that would see him through to
Argentina and freedom from the turmoil that his Egypt had become. The flight
was a forty-five minute hop. Arrival in Be'er Sheva, welcomed by his old
partner, Yochana, would be a breeze.

The Learjet settled down in Be'er Sheva, Israel, and an
armor-plated Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows pulled up beside it. The man
disembarking from the plane in Israel covered his face with large dark glasses
and a baseball cap, sporting USS Ronald Reagan on its brim. The cap had what is
often called 'scrambled eggs′ at its base. He was dressed in khaki pants
and a crisply ironed thick black cotton shirt, but his military stance and
posture led any but the most interested to believe he was a visiting American
Military officer. In the airport hangar in Egypt, Shafiq had stenciled an
American flag on the port side of the aircraft, now facing the airport
buildings. The passenger side door opened and Shafiq slipped into the frosty
air-conditioning of the Cadillac Escalade. Once the door closed, he took off
his cap and sunglasses. Yochana leaned over from the driver's seat and embraced
him, somewhat more warmly than he was expecting. She raised her hand before he
could speak.

"You are accomplishing a miracle for me. Your actions
are my thanks. Now tell me what you have arranged."

"I contacted an old adversary of yours. Do you remember
Michael MacAuley?" said Shafiq.

"That bastard is on our most wanted list. He was
spotted in Aceh Province several times since 2006, but like all the terrorists
seen entering Indonesia since the Twin Towers went down, they seem to elude us
once they are in the jungle."

"He has the ability to accomplish what you asked. That
is why I used him. I have the keys to his sister. He becomes surprising easier
to manipulate when it comes to her safety. It is a card I've played carefully
but successfully once before."

"Maybe you are right, but still, how can you trust
him?"

"I own him."

"You?"

"In 2009, when I bought weapons for you in Afghanistan,
he and I were there at the same moment. Call it serendipity, happenstance. My
American counterparts had picked him up in a raid on a Taliban enclave near
Kandahar. The thing was that they didn't know who they had, and MacAuley was
heavy on the denial. As well, he was carrying a valid Canadian passport under
the name of Kenny, John Kenny, a primary school teacher, supposedly on a
fact-finding mission for an obscure, oddly funded, small, non-governmental
organization headquartered in a small town just east of Montreal. If my memory
serves me, the name of the town was North Haterick or something like
that."

"He certainly gets around, that one," replied
Yochana.

"Anyway, he was released into my custody. I acted as a
go-between to his freedom in return for his silence about the water boarding
he'd received at the hands of the Americans. God knows how he didn't give in
under interrogation. He is one tough nut to crack," said Shafiq,
impressing even himself with his Americanisms.

"Get on with it. How are you using him in this
action?"

"He will provide the suicide bomber you requested of me
in our earlier discussions. The bomber will be in the Sinai, near the coast on
February 2, 2012. All is ready. MacAuley has assured me that there will indeed
be a suicide bomber in place at the required time next year when your
helicopters pass. I will provide the weaponry from the stockpiles I got for you
in Afghanistan. The RPG will misfire, as will his vest bombs. The explosives
will be good, but the mechanisms faulty."

"How can you trust such slime to do what you
wish?"

"As I said earlier, I know the whereabouts of the only
thing Michael MacAuley cares about in this life, his sister, a beautiful young
woman with the selfsame name. He knows that I have her under surveillance and
have had for several years. In fact, she is in Buenos Aires. I will be able to
watch her very intimately, thanks to our new agreement. In the past, I used
Egyptian undercover people that I directed from Egypt. Now I'll be in Buenos
Aires and able to oversee the woman much more directly.″

"I have personally verified all of the documents I gave
you today. There are no holes in your new legend. Your monies have been
deposited safely in Buenos Aires and Geneva, as per your instructions. I am
grateful. It is too bad that history has forced us to end such a mutually
beneficial, long-standing relationship. Incidentally, it is lucky you exited
Egypt by your own means," said Yochana.

"Why is that?" asked Shafiq.

"It may be just a coincidence, but those tunnels I
suggested to you for your way out were blown up today after you sent the codes.
I was sure you were dead," answered the Mossad General.

"There is much going on in Egypt. Just look at the
disruption of natural gas supplies to Israel. For once, I think we can safely
say that the tunnels being destroyed are just a coincidence, even though I
don't like coincidences," added Shafiq.

"At any rate, watch your back. Good bye," said
Yochana.

At that, Shafiq edged up, put on the USS Ronald Reagan cap
and made for the door of the Escalade. He walked briskly back to the Learjet,
boarded and sat alone in the jet. There was bottle of Tobermory Single Malt,
its yeast and water drawn through the dark aromatic Isle of Mull peat of the
Highlands of Scotland. He grinned as he cracked the cap open and toasted his
new life. He savoured the light smoky smell and fruity taste as he thanked his
lucky stars for having worked all these years as a Mossad double agent.
She
was always as good as her word,
he thought, as the plane broke over the
Mediterranean on the first leg of his long journey to Argentina.