The Ghost said, “You don’t know either?”
Khalil said, “No. We know more than Sardar thinks, through my leadership in Lebanon. What’s left of it, anyway. But we were using this meeting to decide our path forward here in Argentina. Why even send you if you can’t discuss the mission?”
The Ghost said, “Maybe it’s in the envelope.”
Khalil looked puzzled for a moment, then remembered. He pulled out the envelope and opened it. The Ghost and Fatima waited while he read. He folded the letter and placed it in the envelope, then put it back into his pocket. Fatima waited a beat, then said, “Well?”
“He’s asking for a meeting on our terrain. In Brazil, at the Islamic center. He wants the entire team we propose to use there, and he’ll explain it all.”
Fatima said, “That’s it? Why did we meet here, then?”
The Ghost said, “He knows you don’t trust him. He sent me to show his sincerity and his capability. I’m to convince you he’s serious, and that he can be counted on.”
Khalil thought for a moment, then nodded, saying, “Okay. You can tell him we agree. To the next meeting only.”
The Ghost nodded, saying, “Thank you.”
They rode in silence for a moment, then the Ghost said, “What did you mean when you said you know more than Sardar thinks? About your leadership in Lebanon?”
“There are whisps of something else, besides this attack in Argentina. Something big.”
The Ghost said, “There’s more than just this attack?”
“Yes. Something is planned against the Great Satan.”
“They’re going to attack the United States? That’s insane. It will bring about their own destruction.”
“It’s an attack, yes, but it’s subtle. They’ve got some insiders to help them. Men who work for pay.”
The Ghost remembered the biker gang that had gotten him across the border. He said, “What is the target?”
Khalil shook his head, saying, “That I don’t know. It’s something that will paralyze them and allow the Pasdaran to surprise the Zionists in a final battle.”
The Ghost said, “That makes no sense. What final battle?”
Khalil chuckled and said, “You really do know nothing. The battle they brought you here to start.”
Chapter 30
I knocked on the apartment door and grinned at Jennifer, showing her I was cool as a cucumber. In truth, I was a little nervous, as any sane man would be when meeting Shoshana. How Aaron was able to sleep next to her every night was beyond me. I found it impossible to get meaningful rest when I had to keep one eye open. At least that’s what I’d be doing if I had to try to sleep with her in the bed.
Shoshana and Aaron were assassins who worked for Mossad on a contract basis. Before they’d formed their own little killing business, they’d been members of an official Mossad Kidon team tasked with global assignments. Aaron would tell you that he was a private intelligence consultant, trying to cloak his company in a veneer of respectability, but the fact remained he was only called in when all other methods had failed. He could talk a good game about his core competency as an ex-Mossad intelligence agent, but it didn’t alter the obvious truth that whenever he and Shoshana arrived, somebody usually died.
We’d first collided years ago, when they were both formally with Mossad, working both ends of the same mission. Shoshana had tried to kill me, and I’d tried to return the favor. Neither of us had succeeded, and because of it, we’d developed a grudging respect. Later, it had grown into genuine friendship, mainly through the efforts of Jennifer.
I didn’t know Shoshana’s complete story, but whatever had happened to her in her youth had twisted her into a shell, wringing almost any semblance of humanity out of her. From the time we’d first met, she’d been consistentlystriving to regain what she’d lost. Like a little girl playing dress-up in her mom’s closet, she tried to emulate the mannerisms of what she perceived as “normal,” and like the child in the oversized dress, she usually failed.
Jennifer had seen through the scars in her psyche and had taken a shine to her. She tolerated Shoshana’s endless quest for normalcy because she saw a truth deeper than most. In the end, Shoshana was simply the bare metal, without the paint the rest of us wore.
Both she and Aaron were at the pinnacle of their chosen career path, and, when our interests had dovetailed, I’d worked with them on multiple missions. During one they’d both acted as full Taskforce members, and because of it, they’d gone through a mini-Taskforce indoctrination. Part of that had entailed gathering biometrics for postmortem identification or proof of life, should the worst occur in the line of duty.
I would have never thought that their data would turn up like this, but I was convinced of one thing: If Aaron and Shoshana were in Argentina, it had something to do with the Ghost.
We’d boarded the Rock Star Bird right after the Oversight Council meeting, starting the fifteen-hour journey to the other side of the equator. I’d let the rest of the team get some sleep while I bounced ideas off Knuckles and Jennifer about how to contact Shoshana and Aaron.
The problem was that the Israelis were operating in cover. We knew that because they’d entered the country using Lebanese passports. Having worked extensively with them in the Middle East, I knew they could pull off the subterfuge without any problems. Both spoke fluent Arabic, and both had clashed with Hezbollah enough that they could open a shop in Beirut and nobody would be the wiser, but there was no easy way to contact them without exposing that very cover.
I said, “Any ideas how to get a message to them before we land? One that won’t burn what they’re doing to the ground?”
