“But what’s the window, Mr. Secretary?”
Pennington paused and blew a sigh of disgust and subtle irritation out of his mouth.
“Seventy-two hours… tops.”
Lyon International Airport
Lyon, France
Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines was thrilled to be out of uniform and dressed in casual attire as she exited the jet bridge and walked into the beautiful and modern terminal at Lyon. She had already cleared customs at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and was tempted to take advantage of the duty free shops, boutiques and spas that adorned the terminal.
Raines sported a tight pair of designer blue jeans tucked into a new pair of suede UGGs with her straight brunette hair pulled back in a pony tail. She wore an expensive white, fine gauge cotton cable sweater with a plunging neckline and just a hint of a tan t-shirt below. Raines was turning heads, and she knew it. She couldn’t afford a massive wardrobe on military O-5 pay, but she made sure every piece that made it to her closet counted. She was the queen of thrift stores, outlet malls and second chance stores. Leslie Raines was not a woman who would pay full retail for brand names and designer labels. But she sure looked like it.
A crowd of people that had gathered beneath one of the overhead flat-panel TV screens pulled her away from any self-indulgent “duty free” ideas she may have been contemplating.
The breaking news was broadcast in French, a language she knew precious little about. But the subtitle of the news story screamed at her in Latin: Francisella tularensis.
The television images were from a city on the Caspian Sea coast of Iran, a thriving somewhat modern-looking town called Rasht. Raines saw images of Iranian medics carrying sheet-covered bodies out of their homes. The number featured in the on-screen graphic was 42. She didn’t need to be fluent in French in order to understand that 42 people were dead.
Raines pulled out her cell phone and took a wild chance of connecting with Camp on his Afghan cell.
He answered.
“Hey, I know this number,” Camp answered.
“Camp, I just got off my flight here in Lyon.”
“France?”
“Yes, I’m standing here looking at some breaking news coming out of Iran, looks like it’s a story about tularemia. Do you know anything?”
“On this telephone line I can’t really say anything, Les. But let’s just say whatever you’re thinking is probably correct, and it’s probably worse than you think.”
“Are you driving? I hear cars.”
“Yes ma’am, on the way to the airport.”
“Where are you off to?”
“Can’t say that either, darling. How long will you be in Lyon?”
“Two weeks, maybe four months. Who knows. Wanna come visit?”
Camp smiled and thought about the last time they had been to France together, a fancy restaurant in Marseille.
“Les, remember that restaurant in France?”
“The Sofitel Marseille Vieux Port hotel, at Les Trois Forts restaurant with Chef Dominique Frerard.”
Camp was stunned.
“Good God, woman, how do you remember that kind of stuff?”
“Because I am a woman, and I pay attention to details, Mister SEAL. What did I drink that night, Camp? Or do you not pay attention to details?”
Camp did not hesitate.
“There we were, in the south of France along the Mediterranean, a romantic dinner with twelve of our closest SEAL friends and CIA spooks, and Raines orders an Italian Pinot Gris.”
Now Raines was shocked.
“You remembered,” she said softly, almost romantically as bodies from the tularemia poisoning were being carried out of more houses in Rasht on the TV screen in front of her.
“I remember every detail, Les… especially when it’s important… see you soon?”
Raines heard the line click off. She folded her phone and held it close to her heart as her thoughts filled with tularemia. The Iranians weren’t bluffing, and Raines knew it.
26
Palmachim Airbase
Rishon LeZion, Israel
The C-17 carrying Ferguson, Camp and Billy Finn from Kabul to Kuwait and into Israel landed and taxied to a stop on the tarmac closest to the military terminal.
The faces of Camp and Finn were glued to the small portal windows in the back of the military transport as they tried to get glimpses of the famous Palmachim Base.
Palmachim Air Force Base was an Israeli military facility and spaceport located near the cities of Rishon LeZion and Yavne on the Mediterranean Sea, named after Kibbutz Palmachim on the Mediterranean shore.
The base was home to several Israeli Air Force helicopter and UAV unmanned drone squadrons, and served as the rocket launch site for the Arrow missile. The Israelis used Palmachim to launch the Shavit space launch vehicle into retrograde orbit by launching over the Mediterranean. It was their primary spaceport. The strategic location allowed rocket debris to fall harmlessly into the sea, and away from Israel’s regional enemies that might have wanted access to their technology. Palmachim was also used to test ballistic missiles, including the Jericho 3.
Ferguson, Camp and Finn were escorted to a black Mercedes for the ride to Tel Aviv. The Israeli Defense Agency asked that the initial meeting be held at Shabak’s Non-Arab Affairs Department offices in Tel Aviv. Shabak, or Shin Bet as the Americans referred to it, was responsible for internal security, but their missions often took them around the globe. Shin Bet served Israel as almost a mirror image of the FBI and Homeland Security in America. Special Agent Chaim Yariv was the lead investigator with Shin Bet, which made Billy Finn feel like he was back in the game.
General Ferguson had been briefed on the plane that his counter-part, Major General Moshe Shalom would represent Aman, the overarching military intelligence body of the Israel Defense Forces. Though Major General Shalom was an intelligence expert, he couldn’t match the combat command experience of Brigadier General Jim Ferguson.
Mossad had at first declined to attend the meeting. But while the C-17 was refueling in Kuwait, word came that Mossad was sending two people. No ranks or titles were provided, just simply Yitzhak and Reuven, first names of two people from Mossad, one of the worlds’ most ruthless, efficient and surgically precise intelligence agencies, easily on par with the CIA and MI6. Camp did not have the intelligence credentials and suspected that he would be an observant, perhaps subservient, bystander.
Originally, the Americans thought they would be meeting their Israeli counterparts in the Ben-Gurion Complex Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem. But the Israelis were known for conducting a cat and mouse game of moving meetings from location to location. They had been fighting for their own self-preservation since 1948 and for centuries before that.
All the Americans knew was that they would be driven to an undisclosed location in Tel Aviv.
Leaving the Mercedes, Ferguson, Camp and Finn were led up 75 marble steps to an impressive building that was both ancient and modern. Once inside the expansive lobby, the three were consumed with an endless abyss of nothing. A few statues carved from marble seemed to hint at biblical characters. Sporadic and sparse oil paintings filled a few walls between enormous amounts of glass, modern steel and marble. It wasn’t the least bit clear if the building was old or new, completed or still under construction. There were no names, no logos, and no signs.
Two sets of floor-to-ceiling, 16-foot wooden doors adorned both the north and south sides of the lobby. Two Israeli security officers greeted them in the middle of the room and politely asked them for identification and then asked each to power down their cell phones and place them in a velvet bag. The officers turned and led them to the north wing where they opened the large doors and ushered the three into a chamber off the main lobby. Two rows of tables faced each other in the middle of the room. Five Italian leather office chairs were on one side behind two mahogany tables. Four Italian leather office chairs were neatly arranged behind two mahogany tables on the other side.