Margolis looked at her. He was not happy. “Is that what Dov told you?”
“Oops, am I not supposed to know that?” She reached across and caressed his right forearm. “Does that mean you have to kill me now?”
“No, it means I have to kill Dov.” Enya laughed openly, almost choking on a sip of champagne. Amit pulled out his wallet, retrieved a business card and handed it to her. “That’s my business.” He pointed to the name on the card. “I own a financial consulting company. Dov likes to bullshit. Still like me?”
Enya wasn’t sure who was being honest. Her girlfriend had told her that both Dov and Amit were Mossad agents and that thought was exciting. But as she looked at Amit she concluded that it didn’t matter at this moment. “Yes, very much.”
Amit Margolis woke up at a little after 8 a.m. on Friday, January 1, 2010, with a dry mouth and a slight hangover. The room was not familiar to him, but he knew he was still in the apartment of Dov Hirsch. He turned on his right side, his body gliding easily under the single tan sheet. He reached across the short distance of space between him and the naked body next to him. Enya was lying on her right side and still asleep. He ran his hand gently through her long soft hair, down her shoulder, coming to rest on her hip. He knew from that simple act how dangerous this woman was. He was no stranger to waking up with a woman by his side, but his usual emotion was to get out or get her out. His emotional response this morning was the opposite. He had not felt that in a very long time.
Amit rolled back over to check his cell phone. He lifted his slacks off the floor, reached in the pocket and pulled out his phone. A red light flashed in the upper right hand corner. He pressed the power on button and pushed the icon for email messages. He had one email waiting. Amit touched the screen and the message opened.
Conference call with client anytime this morning. You set the time.
There was no day off for Amit, and his employer wanted him to stop by the office sometime this morning. He did not get this email too often and he did not want it now. But he had a job and that job had ruled his life since he returned to Israel from Durham, North Carolina and joined Mossad in September 2002.
7 — Back to Work
“You don’t look too good, Amit.” Shlomo Fiegelbaum was the no-nonsense director of the Collections Department of Mossad, the Israeli equivalent of the CIA’s deputy director of operations. This was not the man who usually gave Amit Margolis his assignments, so Amit was more than curious as he sat down. “You need coffee?”
“No, sir. Just a late night. I’m fine.”
“You weren’t hanging out with Dov Hirsch last night?” The question from Fiegelbaum was rhetorical. “I miss Dov’s, shall we say, ‘liveliness.’ His skills, however — I must admit — are perfectly suited for his role at Rafael.” Fiegelbaum paused and sized up his underling. He felt a fatherly attachment to every man and woman he sent out on missions. “Enough about Dov. We have a new assignment for you.”
“Sounds good.”
Fiegelbaum shook his head. “I have always thought that to be an odd expression. You haven’t heard what your assignment is yet.” Margolis smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “You have done a great job in Russia. This has been noticed and appreciated. We need you to do something very important, but it might compromise your ability to return to Russia.”
Margolis was excited. He was tired of being assigned to operations in Russia and ready to spend time back home. “It sounds important.”
“It is. And you are the one who made it this important. The operation you handled a few years ago when you got the chips into the Iranian Tor systems was a huge success. Now we need you to keep the value of that mission intact.
“As I am sure you are aware, the Russians signed a contract in December 2007 to sell the S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran. This was a billion dollar contract, enough to make the Russians eager to see the deal through. Since then there has been intense pressure on Russia from the USA, us and Europe to kill the deal. Unfortunately, the Russians have been using this deal as leverage and we are afraid that they are getting close to going ahead with delivery. We need to stop that from happening.
“Your assignment is to meet a Russian FSB operative named Dmitri Arkanov. You will be negotiating on behalf of Israel. We need to figure out what they will take in order to call off the deal permanently. You understand Russians and you understand business. You are the right man for this job.” The FSB, or Federal Security Service, is the Russian descendant of the Soviet Union’s KGB.
“Sounds exciting. I’m on board. Timing?”
“Here’s the deal. We want the negotiation to be between us and Russia. No Americans. No Europeans. No one but you and Arkanov. You will need to be very discrete and very careful.”
“Then I suggest that either I go to Moscow or he comes here. Since the headquarters of FSB are no secret, I should go there. If he doesn’t have to travel, we cut out at least half of the traceable chain.”
“Exactly my thoughts, except that I’m not sure about you going into the Lubyanka. The Americans watch that place closely and it wouldn’t surprise me if the NSA can listen in on most of what goes on in there.”
“I will have to think about that,” replied Margolis. “To be honest, I would be happy to die without ever seeing the inside of the Lubyanka. There must be a million ghosts in that building. Makes me ill thinking about it.” Both men thought about the bloody history of the building, which had housed Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD, before being home to the KGB and now the FSB. This was the same building where Lavrentiy Beria in the late 1930s built a drainage area for the more efficient cleaning of blood from the execution of prisoners every night, typically dispatched with a bullet to the back of the head. The same place where Beria was himself executed shortly after Stalin’s death.
Amit came back to the issues of the moment. “May I ask why me? You realize that once I show up in Moscow and make contact, I am blown for future operations there.”
“First, this has been discussed. You have done your duty in Russia, Amit. It is time for you to change venues. As for why you were picked. That is easy. You speak fluent Russian. You know how Russians think. You clearly know how to negotiate. You are trusted and this is a critical mission. By the way, you will be alone. No team. No backup. If you have trouble, you will need to get to a friendly embassy on your own. Can you accept that risk?”
“When do you want me to go?”
“I have your tickets.” Fiegelbaum opened a drawer in his desk and passed an envelope to Amit. “You fly out Monday to London. London to Moscow. The first passport is for here to London. The second passport will be your identity once in London. You will become a Brit named Roger Wilkinson. Your meeting in Moscow is this Wednesday. The information you need to know is in there. It includes a couple of reports. One on the S-300. It is a world-class system. We do not want that system in Iran. The other is everything we know on Dmitri Arkanov. I would like to tell you we have leverage on him or that his grandmother is Jewish. But this guy is clean and as goy as it gets. Both of those reports are to be left here. Background only.”
They spent another half hour discussing the mission, including the level of authorization Amit had and the methods of communication for Amit to use. Margolis was surprised at the amount of latitude he was being given. In the middle of the discussion, he realized that this mission would probably be the last time he could travel to Russia. By the time it was over, he was sure the FSB would have his fingerprints, his DNA, his voice print and many photographs.