“Have you seen this footage yet?” Harvath asked Ryan as it began playing on one of the large flat-panel monitors along the wall.
The Deputy CIA Director shook her head. “We were waiting for you.”
From what he could see of it, Clifton was an amazing estate. Not only was there the manor house and the rolling manicured grounds, there appeared to be a fully functioning farm with lots of animals, pastures, and support buildings. The estate even had its own road system.
“Not bad,” Harvath remarked.
Nicholas toggled a small joystick and sped the footage forward. There was a man standing outside the main house near its long infinity pool. Pulling up a file photo of Pierre Damien, he ran that piece of drone footage through their facial recognition system. A blue digital overlay appeared and announced “Match.” Seconds later the words “Match ID” appeared, and columns of data pertaining to Pierre Damien unspooled.
“This is definitely our guy,” stated Nicholas.
Harvath leaned forward and studied his face. “How did you know where to look for him?”
“As soon as you came up with his name, we started searching. He had flown in the day before and cleared passport control and customs via private aviation at Dulles International. We had a time stamp, so all I did was pull the surrounding CCTV footage.”
Nicholas brought the footage up on another monitor as he continued speaking. “That also gave us the vehicles meeting him at the airport and their license plates. Traffic and other CCTV cameras got us as far as Berryville, Virginia, outside Leesburg. Then we lost him.”
“How did you pinpoint him to Clifton Farm then?”
“Architectural Digest,” the little man said with a smile. “Damien is a publicity hound. He posed for a spread six years ago. It came up in a generic web search. There was a satellite scheduled to be overhead about that time, so we requested some pictures and voila.”
Nicholas punched a few keys on his keyboard and satellite images of the same SUVs that had picked up Damien and his party at the airport were shown parked at the manor house. Close-ups of the license plates confirmed it.
“Wait. Back up a second,” said Ryan. “The woman travelling with Damien. Can you isolate her from the CCTV footage and run it against Passport Control and Customs?”
The little man nodded and got to work.
Moments later he popped several images up on the screen and replied, “Helena Pestova. Thirty-seven years old. Czech national.”
Ryan studied the images and smiled. “She may be a Czech national, but she’s technically an Israeli intelligence asset.”
“You know her?” Harvath asked.
“We crossed paths multiple times in the sandbox. Amman, Beirut. The last time was in Doha. The Mossad uses her for their honey traps.”
Nicholas brought up the drone footage of her and ran all the images through his facial recognition system. The blue overlay popped up instantly declaring “Match ID.” Unlike Damien, there was no publically available information about her. As far as they could tell, she didn’t even have a social media account.
“So the Mossad are looking at Damien as well,” said Harvath. “Same reason? Or something else?”
“There’s one way to find out,” Ryan replied as she opened a new window on her laptop and hopped on the secure network back to Langley. After a few seconds, she had what she was searching for and turned her screen so the others could see it.
“Who’s that?”
“Ben Zion Mordechai. Bentzi for short. He’s part of the Metsada — the Mossad’s Special Operations Division. According to our people, he’s also Helena’s handler.”
“Do we know where he is?” said Harvath.
“Probably in Israel. Most likely Tel Aviv. Unless he’s on assignment somewhere.”
“Can you send his picture to my screen?” Nicholas asked.
Ryan nodded and sent it over.
“Do you have anything else? Date of birth? Military service? Aliases and known associates?”
Ryan scanned the file, copied what she felt comfortable sharing, and sent it to Nicholas who had received Mordechai’s picture and now put it up on the screen.
Harvath looked at Ryan and asked, “Who do you have in Israel who can reach out to Mordechai to find out what’s going on?”
“Knowing the Mossad,” she replied, “they may not want to tell us.”
“If they want to be that way,” Carlton interjected, “tell them we’re going to bounce her. And make sure they know that we’re going to be very loud about it. If they don’t want their op blown, they’re going to have to share. We don’t care if they like it or not.”
“Okay. I’ll have to make some phone calls. The first thing we need to do is find out if Mordechai is in Israel.”
“He isn’t,” stated Nicholas who had been working furiously at his keyboard.
All eyes in the room turned and focused on him.
“What do you think?” he asked, popping up an image from a European airport’s CCTV camera. “Is that him?”
Before anyone could answer, the blue overlay appeared with the words “Match.”
“It looks like you’ll get to ask Bentzi Mordechai your questions in person,” Nicholas stated as he read the information on his screen. “He’s inbound from Switzerland. His flight arrives at Dulles in two hours.”
CHAPTER 30
In the world of intelligence, biometric technology was a blessing and a curse. Facial recognition made it easier to identify and locate terrorists, but it also made it very difficult for spies to slip in and out of different countries while using an assumed identity.
After the 9/11 attacks, the United States cracked down particularly hard, requiring biometric scanning of visitors at its ports of entry. Only U.S. citizens were allowed to bypass these requirements, which was exactly why Bentzi Mordechai had acquired an authentic American passport under the name Vincent Geller.
The real Geller was an American Jew from Miami who had wanted to do his part for Israel and had been recruited by the Mossad. In exchange for surrendering his legitimate identity, he was set up in a new life with a monthly stipend. The U.S. Government had never been the wiser.
“Excuse me, sir,” said a pair of ICE agents at Dulles as they approached Mordechai. He was standing in the U.S. citizen lane, waiting for his passport to be inspected.
Mordechai acted as if they were addressing someone else, but it was obvious that they were speaking to him. “Me?”
“Yes, sir. Please step out of the line.”
Mordechai showed them his passport. “I’m in the right spot.”
Both agents put their hands on their weapons. “Right now, sir,” the lead agent ordered.
The people standing near Mordechai nervously backed away from him.
“No problem,” Bentzi said, making sure the officers could see his hands.
Once Mordechai had stepped out of the line, they closed on him. One agent covered him while the other put him in handcuffs.
Flying often exacerbated his arthritis. Despite having taken two pills, plus downing a handful of Scotches en route, his hands were still killing him. The force with which he had been cuffed, in addition to how tightly the cuffs had been applied, sent ripples of red-hot pain shooting through his entire body.
The agents walked him out of passport control and down a small corridor to a series of interrogation rooms. Unlocking one of the doors, the agents showed him inside. It wasn’t very large, just fifteen by fifteen. It was all white, with bright fluorescent overhead lighting. There was no two-way glass. Just a boring Formica table and four plastic chairs. Mordechai was instructed to sit.