Stratton put the paper down on a seat, picked up his bag and joined Gabriel at the door.
‘You get any sleep?’ he asked.
‘A little.’
Gabriel looked much the same: tired, red-eyed, stressed. Stratton was almost getting used to the sight of his unhealthy condition and thought of it as normal.
‘You know, if you wanted to pull out of this, you could,’ Stratton said quietly, checking they were out of earshot of everyone.
‘I have to see it through.’
‘Why? If it’s written, if you’ve seen the end, why do you have to go? Let the end come to you.’
‘I don’t claim to understand everything about this phenomenon. We’re here to stop this madman from doing whatever it is he feels he needs to do, and we must continue to try.’
‘But you said you saw the end.What does it matter? We will fail.’
‘You obviously understand this better than I do,’ Gabriel said harshly.
‘Then tell me.’
‘I did see the end. An end. My end. And it will come, and soon. But that is all the more reason why we must find him. Why do you look so worried, Stratton? I did not see your end.’
Stratton wanted to tell him that where Gabriel went, he went, and that if he saw the light, heard the pop and felt the wind, then he would too, but Stratton didn’t want to even hint at the calamity. ‘As long as you’re okay to continue . . . Let’s go.’
They stepped down out of the aircraft and on to the tarmac. It was sunny but not as warm as Stratton had expected, even for a Middle East winter.
Manachem Raz sat beside his driver, both watching the two men leave the aircraft and walk towards them. Raz climbed out of the car and his driver did likewise.
Raz had been told he would be meeting two men, one British intelligence, the other American, and the Brit had the seniority. As Raz watched them approach, however, it was an unexpected picture. He had an image in his head of a slick pair of polished prep-school types but that was completely erased as this odd pair walked towards him, one old and the other more like a field operative than an intelligence officer. Raz’s eyes never left Stratton, dissecting and gauging every aspect of him, and continued to do so even when his face broke into a smile and he offered his hand.
‘Welcome to Israel,’ Raz said in strongly accented but confident English. Stratton shook his wiry hand.
‘My name is Manachem Raz.’ The words rolled off his tongue as if through a gorse bush. ‘I am head of Shin Bet, Islamic Division, Jerusalem.’
‘John Stratton, and this is Gabriel Stockton.’
Raz shook Gabriel’s hand and immediately noted how unwell and distracted he looked. ‘Can I have your passports, please?’
Stratton and Gabriel dug their passports out and handed them to Raz who quickly flipped through them, examining the pictures and details and finally checking the stamps. He looked at Stratton as if he knew the passport had just been manufactured on the C130.
‘Are you carrying arms or anything that could be considered as contraband?’ Raz asked.
‘No,’ Stratton replied.
‘Please excuse me, but we all have rules to live by.’ The driver stepped forward holding a metal detector and moved the device over Stratton, then did the same to Gabriel. He checked each time the bleep went off before continuing, finding nothing illegal. Raz kept his smiling eyes on Stratton, both aware he was merely pissing on his territory and ensuring Stratton understood who was in charge. When the driver finished, Raz stepped aside and gestured towards the car.
‘Let’s go,’ he said brusquely. ‘We can talk in the car.’
Gabriel was about to follow Raz when Stratton put a hand on his arm to stop him. ‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ he said, looking Raz in the eye. Gabriel looked between the men.
Raz understood the move was simply intended to snatch the control away from him, if only for a moment, to make a point. He admired anyone who took a stand against him but only if they could carry it off. It remained to be seen if this younger man had any metal to him.
Raz stepped away and stood beside his car out of earshot while the driver climbed inside.
‘Did Sumners ask you not to confide in the Israelis about any aspect of this operation?’
‘Yes,’ Gabriel said, then he turned to glance over at Raz who was watching them.‘This a power-pissing contest?’ Gabriel asked, seeing through Stratton’s reason for holding back a moment.
‘Something like that.’
‘He’s a pushy-looking son-of-a-bitch,’ Gabriel agreed.
‘I did want to say something to you,’ Stratton said.
‘I think you’re a brave bastard for continuing with this op, in the light of what you know. A lot of people would have folded. I’m still not sure why I’m here.’
‘Don’t bullshit me, Stratton. Anyway, this might be a bit premature. I’d like to run for the hills, and I just might yet.’
‘I’m coming with you if you do.’
Gabriel smiled, this time looking Stratton directly in the eye. Whatever he felt about Stratton, he knew he was not the kind of man who would desert a partner under any circumstances. That was no small thing. In fact it was pretty damn big in his eyes.
‘We pissed on him long enough?’ Gabriel asked, good humouredly.‘I’m looking forward to a nice bath and a comfortable bed.’
‘Yeah,’ Stratton said, tapping him on the side of his shoulder, and they headed for the car.
As Manachem Raz watched them he wondered how he was going to deal with this unexpected and, frankly, strange development. That morning, during the weekly meeting between senior members of Mossad, Shin Bet, the army and police, he had been handed this assignment which required him to look after two characters from MI6 and the CIA arriving in Israel on the scent of a Russian mercenary explosives expert. The unofficial feeling of some of the council members was that the visit was another example of the post-9/11 programme of commitment by the West to combat international Islamic terrorism and show solidarity with Israel. Not that there was anything wrong with that, nor did the Israelis not take it seriously. All and any help was appreciated. However, the general ignorance and insensitivity of the Europeans, British and Americans to the Israeli cause never failed to astound Raz, and, more often than not, anger him. But he was forced to suffer it, not only because Israel needed the West’s support, but also their approval, more so now than ever, and Israel had to accept the various pros and cons that came hand-in-hand with that support.
Things had changed a great deal in Raz’s twenty-one-year career in Shin Bet, and the army before that. In the early days of Middle East terrorism, it appeared to most other nations to be primarily an Israeli problem and so they were left pretty much alone to deal with it as they saw fit. But now that the West was as much a target as Israel, the big two in the fight, namely America and Britain, wanted to show Israel the correct way to deal with the situation, as if they suddenly knew what they were doing and possessed all the answers.The British should have been the easiest to deal with since they were the most experienced in terrorism and the Middle East, but that was not always the case, as far as the Israelis were concerned. Ironically, the Israelis had modelled Mossad on British military intelligence after spending several years as their bitter enemy. It was no secret that the current international intervention was due in part to the perception that Israel, with its heavy-handed tactics, was in many ways as much a part of the problem. Israel had little choice but to bow to outside pressure or at least to be seen to, since the country practically depended on an annual three and a half billion dollar handout from America, and much more than that in recent years. There was also the perceived increased threat to Israeli national security due in no small part to the stirring of the terrorist pot caused by the American-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq,Western threats against Iran and Syria and the ‘occupation’ of the Middle East and North African oil states by Western companies. Mossad and Shin Bet had enjoyed a great deal of assistance from British and American intelligence over the years; however, any help these days often came at a price in the form of concessions to the Palestinians and Israel’s other Arab neighbours. That ran counter to everything the average Israeli had been indoctrinated with from childhood concerning the threat from its neighbours to their very survival. This resentment of Western tampering was even stronger in Shin Bet because of its more right-wing politics. It was Raz’s nature, as well as a prerequisite of his employment, to be suspicious, but when he laid eyes on this odd pair, he became convinced that the American and British story about a Russian bomb-making instructor was bullshit.