I saw Jennifer thinking and let her brain work for a minute. She finally said, “Do we know their cover?”
“No, but I can find out what they told immigration.”
“Do it.”
She went to get her laptop and I called Creed. In short order, I had the supposed company they worked for, a bland import-export business. She looked at me expectantly and I said, “What are you going to do?”
“They’ll have a covert communications link with Mossad, and they’ll also have a backstopped cover, which means that company is going to have a web presence. Anything less, and they’ll look fake in today’s world.”
She typed for a few seconds. I waited, then said, “And?”
She turned the computer around and said, “Instagram. I’ll send them a direct message on their company page.”
I thought about it for a second, then said, “Yeah, that might work. A rando putting a comment on an Instagram page can be explained away, but Mossad will be monitoring all of their web presence for protection and backstopping.”
Knuckles said, “What are you going to send that will break through Mossad’s instinct to ignore the true randos that are out there?”
“I’ll use her callsign. Carrie.”
Everyone in the Taskforce worked with a callsign, and it was chosen by the teammates, not you. Usually for something that wasn’t flattering. In Shoshana’s case it had come from a unique ability she had. She seemed to be able to read a man’s heart just by looking at him. See into his soul and understand his intent. She’d tried to describe it to me one time as seeing an aura around all people, and I’d told her I thought it was bullshit—but after it had saved my life once, I believed.
My whole team had seen her use those abilities, and it was downright spooky to behold. Because of it, Brett had anointed her with the callsign Carrie, from the Stephen King novel, because that’s pretty much what she reminded us of.
Jennifer typed,Carrie, we talked about linking up on your trip down south, but I lost your number. Please give me a call. You have my number. Thanks, Koko.
Koko was Jennifer’s callsign, given to her by Knuckles after a mission in Indonesia. Diving into her love of history, she’d been trying to explain the origins of humanity to our team and failed miserably, because we were allNeanderthals at heart. All it had gotten her was a callsign taken from the talking gorilla that had passed away a few years ago. She absolutely hated it, but it was something Shoshana would definitely understand.
Knuckles said, “You think that’ll work?”
Jennifer said, “Yeah, I do. Mossad is going to see that message and get spooked by the reference to a trip ‘down south.’ They’ll contact Shoshana before they do anything, to see if she knows what it means. Shoshana will see the callsigns and know it came from me. She’ll blow off Mossad, saying it’s just a coincidence and that she doesn’t know anyone named Carrie or Koko. They’ll dismiss it as a random stranger on the internet or an attempted spam bot, but she’ll call or text on my cell.”
I smiled and said, “Pure genius. Let’s let that percolate. We may be holed up in a hotel for a day or two in Iguazú before they answer. In the meantime, I’m getting some rack. You guys should do the same.”
It happened quicker than I thought, with Jennifer waking me only two hours later holding her cell phone. She had a text.
They’d given us the address where they were staying—someplace that was a cross between a hotel and an apartment—and we’d agreed to meet as soon as we’d landed.
After arriving in Iguazú it had taken very little time to locate the apartment. I’d left Brett, Veep, and Knuckles in a rental car out on the street, choosing to meet Shoshana and Aaron with Jennifer.
Now, standing outside her door, I was wishing I’d brought everyone with me. The Israelis hadn’t seemed particularly happy that we’d cracked their cover—especially because we’d used Instagram to do it—and the one thing I didn’t want was a pissed off Shoshana.
While I wouldn’t admit it to Jennifer, and tried to appear calm while banging on Shoshana’s door, the truth of the matter was she scared the shit out of me.
Chapter 31
I knocked again, saying, “Maybe we have the wrong place.”
Jennifer said, “She said we had a limited window because they were tracking somebody.”
I knew whatever mission they were on would take priority, but thought we’d arrive before they were required to commit. Although we’d flown throughout the night, we’d arrived right at dawn, and it hadn’t taken too much longer to get here. I glanced at my watch, seeing it was a little past seven in the morning.
I said, “They couldn’t have left this early,” and raised my hand to knock again. Before I could strike the door with my knuckles, it opened, startling me. Standing in the doorway was a broad-shouldered man I didn’t recognize at first. My brain took the image in front of me and made connections in my memory.
I said, “Aaron?”
He smiled and said, “Come on in, since you’re apparently determined to destroy our cover.”
We entered and I said, “What’s up with the hair?”
