The entire room was silent. Two Mossad agents with first names and no titles knew as much about the situation as Camp did. Camp pushed his chair back and stood.
“Hey Reuven… how far along are you Israelis with this vaccine? Or are you just holding back and waiting for Uncle Sam?”
Reuven was silent.
“What’s that? You’re doing nothing? Just sitting back and waiting for the Americans to cover your ass again? Listen pal, next time, you boys get on a plane and come brief us. I’m not interested in your juvenile schoolyard games designed to prove that you know everything about jack shit. Millions of people are about to die while you play ‘I’ve got a secret’ with human scorecards. You may have some great intelligence, I grant you that. But if you even remotely understood the Age of the Coming, the Twelvers, or the Mahdi, you wouldn’t be sitting here with half-shit-faced grins on your faces. Go play with somebody else.”
Ferguson and Billy Finn fidgeted as Daniels dropped his head. Agent Fallon Jessup allowed a soft smile to percolate across her high cheek-boned face as Camp jumped out of his chair and walked out of the chamber toward the two 16-foot wooden doors. He ripped the velvet bag out of the hand of the guard at the door.
“Give me my damn cell phone,” he said as he reached in and grabbed his phone shoving the bag back into the man’s chest as he walked through the expansive lobby and down 75 marble steps to an approaching taxi.
“Hilton Tel Aviv,” Camp said to the taxi driver as he pushed the car into gear. Within a few minutes they had turned down Arolzorov Street and into Independence Square where the Hilton Tel Aviv overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, less than a minute’s walk to the beach.
Camp walked in through the double-wide revolving glass door and into the well-appointed lobby with exquisite leather seating and recessed golden glow light boxes. He looked through the glass walls against the back of the lobby. Tables and small living room suites filled the veranda lit by tiki torches painted up against the blue backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea. The view was simply spectacular. It was an oasis of relief given ISAF headquarters, Ashgabat, FOB Lightning, Chergotah and the laboratory and barbaric surgical suite in Datta Khel Village.
“Good afternoon and welcome to the Hilton Tel Aviv,” the front desk clerk said with a warm and inviting smile.
“Hello, Seabury Campbell,” Camp said as he handed her his tourist passport and an American Express card.
“Dr. Campbell, I have five in your party all together. Are you the first arrival?”
“Yes, they’re probably behind me in another taxi. My meeting got out a little earlier than their meeting did.”
“Your rooms are direct-billed. Would you like me to keep your card on file for incidentals?”
“Please.”
Camp checked into room 711, threw his bag on the bed and opened the sliding glass door to the balcony. He closed his eyes and inhaled the sea salt air and temperate breeze. He had never been to Tel Aviv before. The modern city set against the sea grew on him by the moment until he was overwhelmed by the notion that another country was planning its total and complete annihilation.
Camp walked back into the room, fell face-down and sprawled spread-eagle out on the bed as he dozed off into a deep sleep.
When his phone started ringing at 8:45pm Camp reached up and tapped the top of his nightstand clock, hoping from the depths of his slumber that he was hitting some type of snooze button.
The phone kept ringing.
“Hello,” he finally said sounding fully asleep.
“Captain Campbell?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Fallon Jessup.”
“Oh, who?… ah, Fallon… what’s up?”
“Listen, the four of us were going to have dinner in the King Solomon Restaurant, but it looks a bit stuffy, so we’re going to meet down at the Sea View Terrace in about 15 minutes. Thought you might like to join us, if you’re hungry, or anything.”
Camp rubbed his eyes and sat up in bed.
“Yeah, um, maybe, we’ll see… I’m working on some reports right now.”
“Okay, well, the invitation stands.”
“Fallon, was Ferguson pissed?”
She laughed.
“Not really. He said you’ve been going off like that since the day he met you. Says you’re a ‘loose-cannon’, but your shots always hit the mark, whatever that means.”
Camp bolted for the shower and unrolled his tactical 5.11 khakis and a purple Ralph Lauren polo and hung them on the hook behind his bathroom door. The hot water soothed the tension in his troubled skin as the steam smoothed the wrinkles in his clothes.
Outside the elevator and into the lobby, Camp saw the sign pointing toward the Sea View Terrace. Fifteen feet from the door to the restaurant a man stepped out from behind the massive marble wall and approached within inches of Camp’s face.
“Reuven… well, if it’s not my favorite intelligence spook. Are you here to tell me where I’m going or just where I’ve been?” Camp said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
“Your Fallon Jessup is quite attractive, young and naïve, but definitely attractive.”
“Is that your official intelligence report?”
“If you go in there you’ll have to do battle with three other men and an array of waiters for her attention. Besides, she and Daniels have a thing going on.”
“Do you have an alternate suggestion that you already know I’ll choose?”
“Perhaps a brief walk and chat along the sea. My favorite bar is just a few hundred yards down the beach. They serve seafood scampi that will amaze you. Then perhaps a Macallan single malt whisky, served neat, and a fine 54-gauge Cuban cigar?”
Camp shook his head and laughed as Reuven smiled for the first time.
“You certainly do your homework, Reuven. I’m all yours.”
Reuven and Camp walked south along the beach on a warm August night and made small talk until they came across a taxi stand at the next hotel down the coast.
“Let’s get in,” Reuven said.
“I thought you said your favorite place was within walking distance?” Camp asked.
“I lied. Besides, an Israeli never goes to the place he mentions first. Life is an endless series of back-up plans.”
Reuven handed the driver a slip of paper, and four minutes later they pulled up in front of Molly Bloom’s, directly across from the US Embassy.
Molly Bloom’s was an Irish pub, an Anglo-establishment with real beef and stout whisky in their Shepherd's Pie. Reuven and Camp took a wooden booth against the back wall of the very loud and raucous pub.
“Kind of hard to talk in here,” Camp said above the din.
“Harder for others to listen to us, as well. No agencies or countries while we’re in here, okay?”
“Got it.”
The waitress rolled up and threw two drink coasters down on the table. She didn’t bother to greet her two new customers and nothing about her convinced Camp that she really wanted to be waiting tables, especially theirs.
“I’ll take a pint of Guinness,” Reuven said, “and two menus.”
“Newcastle Brown if you have it,” Camp said as the waitress left without speaking.
“You might be the first American I have ever met who gets it.”
“I thought we weren’t mentioning agencies or countries.”
“Touché.”
“Get what?” Camp asked.
“Twelvers. All the men and women who sit in elevated and elected chairs across the world can’t fathom such an irrational act with mutually destructive consequences. ‘Who would even consider such a thing’ they say as they rattle their sabers and authorize more sanctions. No one in their right mind purposefully triggers mutual annihilation. It defies logic. It defies game theory. No one would do it… no one other than the Twelvers.”