Chapter 12
Present Day, Sana’a, Yemen
Jet peered through the window of her hotel at the glowing minarets of the Al-Saleh mosque, amazed that such beauty could exist in such a squalid place. The whining buzz of motor scooters and badly abused car engines from the street below had none of the charming musicality of some cities. The traffic sounds here were more akin to buzz saws and tractors – ugly and strident, as if to complement the foulness of the high-altitude desert metropolis.
Getting into Yemen had proved simple – a quick trip to the consulate in Frankfurt had produced a thirty-day visa to travel as she required, although there had been dire warnings about the rebel factions who were in possession of large tracts of the country, and admonishments to stay in the major cities, preferably with a male escort.
Her Belgian cover ID was that of a freelance journalist. She had long ago discovered that nobody really understood or cared what freelance journalists did, and therefore their travel requirements and lifestyles weren’t questioned too closely.
Jet spoke flawless Arabic, which had been a requirement when qualifying for the team. She’d always been fascinated with languages and had spent her childhood and teen years collecting them, as she thought of it. Yet another trait that had made her an attractive candidate for the team – young, angry, multilingual, with a significant physical edge due to martial arts study. It was no wonder that the Mossad had snapped her up when their recruiters had gotten wind of her.
While waiting for her visa in Frankfurt, a city with a substantial Muslim population, she’d been able to get her hands on an abaya, niqab and hijab, the black full body robe, veil and headdress worn by many Yemeni women. She’d worn mannish slacks and a button-up safari shirt for the trip, in keeping with what most would guess a freelance journalist would favor.
Rain had been staying in a building with eight flats near the 26 September Park, and had one that faced onto the street. She had no way of knowing whether he was still there, but she was hopeful that, if he was still in Yemen, he’d kept the one-bedroom apartment.
It was late afternoon by the time she cleared customs and checked into her hotel. It had been over three years since she’d been in Sana’a, but she still remembered the layout of the city well enough to navigate the streets on her own – a dangerous proposition amid the civil unrest that had plagued the capital for the last few years.
Sana’a was even worse than the last time she had been there. The atmosphere was anxious, the stress level palpable. In spite of the façade of cursory civility, this was a city at war, where violence could erupt without warning at any time. There was a substantial military presence on most corners, but instead of being reassuring, the sight of soldiers toting machine guns added to the sense of imminent chaos that seemed a constant. She debated going to Rain’s building that evening, but decided to err on the side of prudence – being out after dark was an invitation to disaster in the current environment.
She’d start early tomorrow and reconnoiter the apartment, taking up a watch, if necessary, until she could be confident that Rain either did or didn’t still live there. It could take days to know definitively, but it was her only lead, and she had few choices – and nothing but time.
Dinner in her room was barely edible, which was not unexpected based on her memory of her prior trips. Fine dining was only one of the many civilities that seemed to have bypassed the grim nation.
The air-conditioning groaned like an old drunk throughout the night, but it kept the room cool enough to sleep so she considered herself lucky.
First thing the next morning, she decked herself out in the abaya and veil and studied her image in the mirror. There was only one more thing to do before she went out. She carefully placed brown-colored contacts in her eyes so that their natural startling green wouldn’t be a giveaway. Doing so was second nature after years in the field.
She walked for three blocks before flagging down a taxi on the dusty street, then had it drop her at the park, opting to walk from there to Rain’s last known apartment so she could reacquaint herself with the area. She approached it from across the street, paying no particular attention to the building – to a casual observer.
As her eyes drifted up to the window on the second floor, the hair on the back of her neck prickled. A cardboard box sat on the table just inside, by the sill – and the shade was pulled halfway down. She kept moving to the end of the block then stopped at a little cutlery store, pretending to study the offerings while she scanned the street more thoroughly. A VW van sat parked fifty yards from the apartment; she could see the driver’s outline but nothing else. All the other cars were empty. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not.
The box was a metaphor from her past. She remembered all of the emergency signals clearly. A box in the window with a half-drawn shade meant danger, abort, return to base.
Then again, it could also have just been that the tenant had left a box sitting on the kitchen table. Not everything was sinister. And she didn’t even know whether Rain still lived there.
The sun baked down on her as she struggled with conflicting impulses. Two sorry-looking pigeons scurried down the gutter, dodging empty soda bottles and food wrappers, the male strutting, ruffling feathers in a mating dance as the uninterested female tried to slip past it and into the allure of the shade.
Getting out of the heat wasn’t a bad idea, she reasoned. She needed to do something. She couldn’t stand there all day.
She was just talking herself into taking another walk past the building, this time on the same side of the street so she could see the names on the battered mailbox slots, when the front of the flat disintegrated in a blast of stone and glass. The concussion from the explosion rocked her – she clutched the wall for support, ears ringing from the detonation. She shook her head, attempting to clear it as she watched smoke belch from the smoldering cavity, where moments before she’d been looking at a window.
A window with a box.
The van’s engine roared, and it barreled down the street at her. As it approached, she caught a glimpse of two men. Thin, both obviously natives, hair closely cropped, bearded. The van passed her vantage point, and she noted that it didn’t have plates – not unusual in a city where nobody paid anything they could avoid, but to her, a telltale.
A crowd gathered as rubberneckers emptied out of the surrounding dwellings to survey the damage and watch the show. Another woman edged next to her and asked in a soft voice what had happened. Jet shook her head, feigning ignorance.
No good would come from her remaining there. She needed to leave. Leave the street with its burning wreckage, and leave Yemen as soon as possible.
Get back to base.
The sign had been clear, there to warn whoever Rain had been working with.
Jet’s mind churned furiously, trying to remember where base had been for the Yemen operation. It had been a while ago, but the memories came back to her. Base had been a small home on the outskirts of Pardes Hanna-Karkur in Israel, near Netanya. One of a number of safe houses David used – he’d told her that he had dozens at his disposal and moved between them depending upon what operation was active at the moment. When he didn’t have anything on the board, he simply disappeared. Nobody knew where. It was during those down times that he and Jet would rendezvous, but never in the same place twice.
After a mission went sideways, the likelihood was that he would be at the designated house to collect the pieces and debrief anyone who made it out. Jet had no idea how large a group was now working the Yemen assignment, but after three and a half years, it had to be more than just Rain. An asset wouldn’t have been kept in place for that length of time if it wasn’t important, which meant that the intelligence he was gathering was critical. And operations rarely came apart like this, so when one imploded, David would need to know why.
Which was the opportunity she’d been hoping for.
After the cab dropped her off at her hotel, she veered down the str
eet to an internet café she’d spotted the prior day. Within ten minutes, she had confirmed she could get a flight out of Yemen the following morning to Jordan, and then take a bus across the border. It was a long and circuitous route to get into Israel, but she knew from experience that it was the only practical way to avoid the facial recognition software the Mossad used at airport immigration.
With any luck, she could be at the safe house by tomorrow afternoon. Then, hopefully, she would get some answers.