Chapter 30
I knocked on the apartment door and grinned at Jennifer, showing her I was cool as a cucumber. In truth, I was a little nervous,
as any sane man would be when meeting Shoshana. How Aaron was able to sleep next to her every night was beyond me. I found
it impossible to get meaningful rest when I had to keep one eye open. At least that’s what I’d be doing if I had to try to
sleep with her in the bed.
Shoshana and Aaron were assassins who worked for Mossad on a contract basis. Before they’d formed their own little killing
business, they’d been members of an official Mossad Kidon team tasked with global assignments. Aaron would tell you that he
was a private intelligence consultant, trying to cloak his company in a veneer of respectability, but the fact remained he
was only called in when all other methods had failed. He could talk a good game about his core competency as an ex-Mossad
intelligence agent, but it didn’t alter the obvious truth that whenever he and Shoshana arrived, somebody usually died.
We’d first collided years ago, when they were both formally with Mossad, working both ends of the same mission. Shoshana had
tried to kill me, and I’d tried to return the favor. Neither of us had succeeded, and because of it, we’d developed a grudging
respect. Later, it had grown into genuine friendship, mainly through the efforts of Jennifer.
I didn’t know Shoshana’s complete story, but whatever had happened to her in her youth had twisted her into a shell, wringing almost any semblance of humanity out of her.
From the time we’d first met, she’d been consistently striving to regain what she’d lost. Like a little girl playing dress-up in her mom’s closet, she tried to emulate the mannerisms of what she perceived as “normal,” and like the child in the oversized dress, she usually failed.
Jennifer had seen through the scars in her psyche and had taken a shine to her. She tolerated Shoshana’s endless quest for
normalcy because she saw a truth deeper than most. In the end, Shoshana was simply the bare metal, without the paint the rest
of us wore.
Both she and Aaron were at the pinnacle of their chosen career path, and, when our interests had dovetailed, I’d worked with
them on multiple missions. During one they’d both acted as full Taskforce members, and because of it, they’d gone through
a mini-Taskforce indoctrination. Part of that had entailed gathering biometrics for postmortem identification or proof of
life, should the worst occur in the line of duty.
I would have never thought that their data would turn up like this, but I was convinced of one thing: If Aaron and Shoshana
were in Argentina, it had something to do with the Ghost.
We’d boarded the Rock Star Bird right after the Oversight Council meeting, starting the fifteen-hour journey to the other
side of the equator. I’d let the rest of the team get some sleep while I bounced ideas off Knuckles and Jennifer about how
to contact Shoshana and Aaron.
The problem was that the Israelis were operating in cover. We knew that because they’d entered the country using Lebanese
passports. Having worked extensively with them in the Middle East, I knew they could pull off the subterfuge without any problems.
Both spoke fluent Arabic, and both had clashed with Hezbollah enough that they could open a shop in Beirut and nobody would
be the wiser, but there was no easy way to contact them without exposing that very cover.
I said, “Any ideas how to get a message to them before we land? One that won’t burn what they’re doing to the ground?”
I saw Jennifer thinking and let her brain work for a minute. She finally said, “Do we know their cover?”
“No, but I can find out what they told immigration.”
“Do it.”
She went to get her laptop and I called Creed. In short order, I had the supposed company they worked for, a bland import-export business. She looked at me expectantly and I said, “What are you going to do?”
“They’ll have a covert communications link with Mossad, and they’ll also have a backstopped cover, which means that company
is going to have a web presence. Anything less, and they’ll look fake in today’s world.”
She typed for a few seconds. I waited, then said, “And?”
She turned the computer around and said, “Instagram. I’ll send them a direct message on their company page.”
I thought about it for a second, then said, “Yeah, that might work. A rando putting a comment on an Instagram page can be
explained away, but Mossad will be monitoring all of their web presence for protection and backstopping.”
Knuckles said, “What are you going to send that will break through Mossad’s instinct to ignore the true randos that are out
there?”
“I’ll use her callsign. Carrie.”
Everyone in the Taskforce worked with a callsign, and it was chosen by the teammates, not you. Usually for something that
wasn’t flattering. In Shoshana’s case it had come from a unique ability she had. She seemed to be able to read a man’s heart
just by looking at him. See into his soul and understand his intent. She’d tried to describe it to me one time as seeing an
aura around all people, and I’d told her I thought it was bullshit—but after it had saved my life once, I believed.
My whole team had seen her use those abilities, and it was downright spooky to behold. Because of it, Brett had anointed her
with the callsign Carrie, from the Stephen King novel, because that’s pretty much what she reminded us of.
Jennifer typed, Carrie, we talked about linking up on your trip down south, but I lost your number. Please give me a call. You have my number.
Thanks, Koko.
Koko was Jennifer’s callsign, given to her by Knuckles after a mission in Indonesia.
Diving into her love of history, she’d been trying to explain the origins of humanity to our team and failed miserably, because we were all Neanderthals at heart.
All it had gotten her was a callsign taken from the talking gorilla that had passed away a few years ago.
She absolutely hated it, but it was something Shoshana would definitely understand.
Knuckles said, “You think that’ll work?”
Jennifer said, “Yeah, I do. Mossad is going to see that message and get spooked by the reference to a trip ‘down south.’ They’ll
contact Shoshana before they do anything, to see if she knows what it means. Shoshana will see the callsigns and know it came
from me. She’ll blow off Mossad, saying it’s just a coincidence and that she doesn’t know anyone named Carrie or Koko. They’ll
dismiss it as a random stranger on the internet or an attempted spam bot, but she’ll call or text on my cell.”
I smiled and said, “Pure genius. Let’s let that percolate. We may be holed up in a hotel for a day or two in Iguazú before
they answer. In the meantime, I’m getting some rack. You guys should do the same.”
It happened quicker than I thought, with Jennifer waking me only two hours later holding her cell phone. She had a text.
They’d given us the address where they were staying—someplace that was a cross between a hotel and an apartment—and we’d agreed
to meet as soon as we’d landed.
After arriving in Iguazú it had taken very little time to locate the apartment. I’d left Brett, Veep, and Knuckles in a rental
car out on the street, choosing to meet Shoshana and Aaron with Jennifer.
Now, standing outside her door, I was wishing I’d brought everyone with me. The Israelis hadn’t seemed particularly happy
that we’d cracked their cover—especially because we’d used Instagram to do it—and the one thing I didn’t want was a pissed
off Shoshana.
While I wouldn’t admit it to Jennifer, and tried to appear calm while banging on Shoshana’s door, the truth of the matter
was she scared the shit out of me.