as it possibly could, but that’s where it ends. No one gets hurt, except for maybe a bruised ego. No one shoots at me. And I’m happy that way. I’ve had enough of maintaining order, as you say. Order can maintain itself without me.”
Moore took a step toward him as he passed. “Please, Simon. This isn’t you.”
Simon stopped at the door. “You know something, D’Art? This feels like the best decision I’ve made in a long time.”
Chapter 4
Tel Aviv
The chartered Gulfstream jet landed at Ben Gurion Airport at one minute past nine o’clock in the morning. It had been an eight-hour flight, two hours faster than commercial. The pilot had his instructions. Deliver the package as quickly as possible. He’d chosen the most direct route, a straight shot from Bangkok over the Bay of Bengal and across Central Asia, clipping the no-fly zones of Iraq and Iran, altitude 45,000 feet, speed 590 knots with a rare 60-knot tailwind.
A panel van waited on the tarmac. Its driver stood alongside a customs official and a member of IDF airport security, Uzi submachine gun hanging from one shoulder. They had received word, too. Formalities were to be carried out without delay.
The plane came to a halt, the fore passenger door opening before the engines spooled down. The driver climbed the stairs the moment they touched the asphalt. He disappeared inside the aircraft. When he reappeared, he carried a sealed pouch beneath one arm. As per international regulations, he handed the flight manifest over for inspection. A nod of the head and he was free to go. A longtime member of the Israeli Defense Forces and veteran of Unit 8200, the country’s top-secret intelligence-gathering organization, he fired off a salute before hurrying back to the van.
He took Route 1 west, leaving the main highway at Ganot and turning north to skirt the easternmost suburbs of Tel Aviv past Ramat Gan and into the Shama Hills. His destination was a nondescript two-story office building, gray, windowless, a staple of industrial parks around the globe. There was no marking above the door, no corporate sign or logo, nothing to indicate the identity of the building’s tenant. The only evidence that it was occupied at all were the numerous satellite dishes arrayed on the rooftop and the intimidating antenna that looked like the mast of an interstellar spacecraft.
“She’s waiting,” said a bleached-blond receptionist whom office lore claimed held the IDF women’s marksmanship record. The driver ran upstairs and entered his superior’s office, setting the pouch on the desk. Mission completed, he turned about-face and left the room. He knew better than to expect a thank you, or any acknowledgment at all.
The woman seated at the desk slid the pouch toward her. From her drawer, she took her paratrooper’s KA-BAR knife, blooded in the line of duty, and with care sliced open the pouch. She was forty-two years of age, raven-haired with hard, unflinching blue eyes, her once considerable beauty eroded by the rigors of twenty years’ toil in the service of her country. She was dressed in a tailored navy-blue suit and white T-shirt, a Star of David hanging from her neck. It was a nicer uniform than the one she’d once worn but a uniform all the same. Her name was Danielle Pine, but she was known to anyone who mattered in the business as Danni. No last name needed. She replaced the knife in its sheath and returned it to her drawer before continuing.
After completing her obligatory military service, Danni had earned a degree in applied mathematics before returning to the army as a signals intelligence officer, a code breaker. She possessed other talents and before long was snapped up by the darker side of the game, the Mossad, Israel’s spy service. At some point she’d disappeared entirely, gone “deep black,” working as a covert operative on missions so secret few others knew about them even today. And then, after six years, she was back, spat out the other end of the tunnel. “Blown,” she’d said, on the rare occasion she discussed her work.
Today, her job title, if she had one, would be president of the SON Group, a cyber-intelligence firm founded by her father, retired general Zev Franck, himself a former spy and pioneering member of Unit 8200. The SON Group’s technology wasn’t just cutting-edge. It was past that. Way past.
Danni drew the pouch toward her, already uneasy about the job, and removed the two items inside. First, a late model iPhone. No protective