Handing him the phone, Ashby put the car in gear and pulled out into the street.
As they drove, Mordechai didn’t speak. Their destination was an area several minutes north called Rutherford Crossing. It was a commercial shopping area with several big box retailers and plenty of parking.
Two surveillance teams had stayed behind to keep an eye on Damien. By the time Ashby pulled into the lot near the home improvement store, Nicholas and Harvath were already there. Chase Palmer arrived a couple of minutes later.
“Do you want us to join you?” Ashby asked.
“Just Mr. Mordechai,” Harvath replied. “You and Chase stay out here.”
She nodded and handed him the memory card she had recovered from beneath the sink of the ladies’ room at La Niçoise.
Mordechai stepped out of the car and followed Harvath over to the van.
“Do you like dogs?” Harvath asked as he reached for the handle.
“I don’t really have a problem with… Jesus!” he exclaimed upon seeing Argos and Draco sitting inside.
When he looked up and saw Nicholas, he added, “Son of a—”
But Nicholas cut him off. “Not two sentences you want to be putting together.”
“You!”
The little man smiled. “Me.”
“So this is why we haven’t been able to find you,” said Mordechai. “The Americans have been hiding you.”
“First of all, I didn’t know the Mossad was looking for me. Second of—”
“Like hell you didn’t. It was you who tipped the Emiratis about the Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh operation.”
Harvath looked at Nicholas. “You two know each other?”
“Only by reputation.”
“Al-Mabhouh. Wasn’t he the founder of Hamas’s military wing? The one you guys got caught whacking in Dubai?”
“Cofounder,” Mordechai asserted.
“Whatever,” Harvath replied. “Get in the van.”
Once the Israeli was inside, he climbed in behind him and shut the door.
Mordechai took one of the seats in front of the racks of electronic equipment.
Argos and Draco didn’t care for him. Each of the enormous white dogs began to growl the moment he stepped inside.
Nicholas ordered them to be quiet, but they refused to obey, and the growling continued. Harvath had never seen that before.
Nicholas repeated the command, and the dogs finally fell silent.
“With or without assistance,” the little man clarified, “Emirati intelligence would have figured out what happened.”
“So you admit it came from you,” Mordechai seethed.
“I had nothing to do with it. But considering what an embarrassment it was for the Mossad, I can understand your professional desire for a scapegoat.”
Mordechai looked at Harvath while pointing his finger at Nicholas. “He is a global criminal wanted by more countries than I can count. America should not be giving this man safe haven.”
“They gave me more than safe haven. I even received a Presidential pardon.”
The Israeli couldn’t even look at him. He continued to address his remarks to Harvath. “How could your country even consider bestowing the protections of its sovereignty on someone who blatantly traffics in stolen intelligence?”
“I don’t know,” Nicholas continued. “Why don’t we ask the American intelligence analyst serving life in prison a hundred and fifty miles south of here for selling classified information to Israel? Remember him? He’s the guy your government has made an official Israeli citizen. If I could only remember his name.”
“Jonathan Pollard,” Harvath replied.
“That’s right, Pollard.”
“Completely different,” Mordechai snapped, turning to face Nicholas.
The dogs started growling again.
Harvath had had enough. “Listen, you two can meet at the bike rack after study hall. Right now, I want what’s on this memory card.”
Nicholas began to say something, but Harvath silenced him. The dogs seemed to sense his mood and fell quiet.
Harvath handed the card to him. “How long is this going to take?”
The little man responded, but did so while looking at Mordechai. “Piece of cake. This won’t take long at all.”
The pissing match notwithstanding, the reason Harvath had brought Nicholas and his rolling TOC to the exchange, was so that he could immediately go to work on the memory card.
Out of professional courtesy, Harvath had invited Mordechai into the van. He didn’t have an axe to grind with him. He wanted him there when Nicholas examined the card. It was both a sign of respect and the right thing to do.
As Nicholas inserted the card into his Toughbook, Harvath reached into the cooler, withdrew a bottle of water, and offered it to Mordechai.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
The Israeli slowly curled and uncurled his hands. It was obvious he was in a tremendous amount of pain.
Harvath pulled the bottle back, twisted the cap off, and then offered it to him again.
“Thank you,” Mordechai said.
“Ein be’ad ma,” he replied. Don’t mention it.
The Israeli smiled. “You speak Hebrew.”
“A little.”
“Have you been to Israel?”
“Once or twice,” Harvath lied. He had been there many times.
“Business or pleasure?”
“Are you interrogating me, Mr. Mordechai?”
“Please, call me Bentzi.”
“So this is a recruitment then.”
Mordechai winked at him. “That depends. Are you recruitable?”
“No, he’s not,” said Nicholas from behind his laptop.
Bentzi leaned in closer and whispered to Harvath, “It would drive me crazy working with him.”
“He’s changed.”
The Israeli laughed. “Even the smallest of leopards do not change their spots.”
“Trust me, this one has. And a word of advice? Don’t make short jokes.”
“He’s that sensitive?”
Harvath gestured toward Argos and Draco. “And these two haven’t eaten all day.”
“I’ve heard stories about his dogs.”
“All true.”
Mordechai shook his head and kept his voice low. “Primordial dwarfism. He should be dead by now.”
“So should we, yet here we are.”
The Israeli nodded, conceding the point. After taking a long sip of water, he changed the subject. “What’s going to happen to Damien?”
“That depends on what your colleagues back in Tel Aviv pull off the mirror of his hard drive.”
Mordechai curled and uncurled his free hand.
“Arthritis?” Harvath asked.
He nodded. “Courtesy of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh.”
“What did you do? Break both of your hands against his head trying to help him get into a police car?”
Harvath expected a smile from the Israeli, but he didn’t get one. Instead, Mordechai replied, “Many years ago, there was a member of the Knesset. He was popular in Israel, particularly when it came to his opinions on Gaza and the West Bank. He was a good man, a fair man. Even a majority of Palestinians liked him. He seemed poised not only to become Prime Minister, but to achieve something even more important — peace.”
As peace had yet to come to Israel, Harvath knew the Knesset member’s attempts had somehow been dashed and waited for Mordechai to explain.
“The man had two daughters,” he said, taking another drink of water. “Beautiful girls. Young, stupid, beautiful girls. They liked going out to clubs and they liked doing drugs. They were Israeli royalty who could do no wrong. Their father was warned, repeatedly, about their behavior, but their celebrity fed his as much as his fed theirs. It was the dysfunctional epitome of a vicious cycle. Instead of throttling back, even a little, so that he could focus on his family, he admonished his daughters and turned his attention right back to his own career.”