The Broker

The bag meant freedom for Marco Lazzeri. He would guard it with his life.

He found the bookstore on Via Ugo Bassi. The magazines were on the second level. He stood by the rack for five minutes, holding a soccer weekly while watching the front door for anyone suspicious. Silly. But it was a habit now. The Internet hookups were on the third floor, in a small coffee shop. He bought a pastry and a Coke and found a narrow booth where he could sit and watch everyone going and coming.

No one could find him there.

He pulled out his Ankyo 850 with as much confidence as he could muster and glanced through its manual. He reread Neal’s instructions. He followed them nervously, typing on the tiny keypad with both thumbs, the way it was illustrated in the owner’s manual. After each step he looked up to check the movements around the cafe.

The steps worked perfectly. He was online in short order, much to his amazement, and when the codes worked he was looking at a screen that was giving him the okay to write a message. Slowy, he moved his thumbs around and typed his first wireless Internet email:

Grinch: Got the package. You’ll never know how much it means to me. Thank you for your help. Are you sure our messages are completely secure? If so, I will tell you more about my situation. I fear I am not safe. It’s about 8:30 a.m. your time. Til send this message now, and check back in a few hours. Love, Marco

He sent the message, turned the machine off, then stayed for an hour poring over the manual. Before he left to meet Francesca, he turned it on again and followed the route to get online. On the screen

he tapped "Google Search," then typed in "Washington Post." Sand – berg’s story caught his attention, and he scrolled through it.

He’d never met Teddy Maynard, but they had spoken several times by phone. Very tense conversations. The man had been practically dead ten years ago. In his other life Joel had butted heads a few times with the CIA, usually over shenanigans his defense-contractor clients were trying to pull.

Outside the bookstore, Marco sized up the street, saw nothing of interest, and began another long walk.

Cash for pardons? What a sensational story, but it was asking too much to believe that an outgoing president would take bribes like that. During his spectacular fall from power, Joel had read many things about himself, about half of them true. He’d learned the hard way to believe little of what got printed.

At an unnamed, unnumbered, nondescript building on Pinsker Street in downtown Tel Aviv, an agent named Efraim entered from the sidewalk and walked past the elevator to a dead-end corridor with one locked door. There was no knob, no handle. He pulled a device that resembled a small television remote from his pocket and aimed it at the door. Thick tumblers fell somewhere inside, a sharp click, and the door opened into one of the many safe houses maintained by the Mossad, the Israeli secret police. It had four rooms-two with bunk beds where Efraim and his three colleagues slept, a small kitchen where they cooked their simple meals, and a large cluttered workroom where they spent hours every day planning an operation that had been practically dormant for six years but was suddenly one of the Mossad’s highest priorities.

The four were members of kidon, a small, tight unit of highly skilled field agents whose primary function was assassination. Quick, efficient, silent killing. Their targets were enemies of Israel who could not be brought to trial because its courts could not get jurisdiction. Most targets were in Arab and Islamic countries, but kidon were often used in the former Soviet bloc, Europe, Asia, even North Korea and the United States. They had no boundaries, no restraints, nothing to stop them from taking out those who wanted to destroy Israel. The men and women of kidon were fully licensed to kill for their country. Once a target was approved, in writing, by the current prime minister, an operation plan was put into place, a unit was organized, and the enemy of Israel was as good as dead. Obtaining such approval at the top had rarely been difficult.

Efraim tossed a bag of pastries onto one of the folding tables where Ran and Shaul were plowing through research. Amos was in a corner at the computer, studying maps of Bologna, Italy.

Most of their research was stale; it included pages of mainly useless background on Joel Backman, information that had been collected years ago. They knew everything about his chaotic personal life-the three ex-wives, the three children, the former partners, the girlfriends, the clients, the old lost friends from the power circles in D.C. When his killing had been approved six years earlier, another kidon had worked urgently putting together the background on Backman. A preliminary plan to kill him in a car accident in D.C. had been jettisoned when he suddenly pled guilty and fled to prison. Not even a kidon could reach him in protective custody at Rudley.

The background was important now only because of his son. Since his surprise pardon and disappearance seven weeks earlier, the Mossad had kept two agents close to Neal Backman. They rotated every three or four days so no one in Culpeper, Virginia, would get suspicious; small towns with their nosy neighbors and bored cops presented enormous challenges. One agent, a pretty lady with a German accent, had actually chatted with Neal on Main Street. She claimed to be a tourist and needed directions to Montpelier, the nearby home of President James Madison. She flirted, or tried her best to, and was perfectly willing go further. He didn’t take the bait. They’d bugged his home and office, and they listened to cell phone conversations. From a lab in Tel Aviv, they read every one of his office e-mails and those from home as well. They monitored his bank account and his credit card spending. They knew he’d made a quick trip to Alexandria six days earlier, but they did not know why.

They were watching Backman’s mother too, in Oakland, but the poor lady was fading fast. For years they had debated the idea of slipping her one of the poison pills from their amazing arsenal. They would then ambush her son at her funeral. However, the kidon manual on assassination prohibited the killing of family members unless said members were also involved in threats to Israeli security.

But the idea was still debated, with Amos being its most vocal proponent.

They wanted Backman dead, but they also wanted him to live a few hours before passing on. They needed to chat with him, to ask some questions, and if the answers weren’t forthcoming they knew how to make him talk. Everyone talked when the Mossad really wanted answers.

"We have found six agents who speak Italian," Efraim said. "Two will be here this afternoon at three, for a meeting." None of the four spoke Italian, but all spoke perfect English, as well as Arabic. Among them there were eight other languages.

Each of the four had combat experience, extensive computer training, and were skilled at crossing borders (with and without paperwork), interrogation, disguises, and forgery. And they had the ability to kill in cold blood with no regrets. The average age was thirty-four, and each had been involved with at least five successful kidon assassinations.

When fully operational, their kidon would have twelve members. Four would carry out the actual killing, and the other eight would provide cover, surveillance, and tactical support, and would clean up after the hit.

"Do we have an address?" Amos asked from the computer.

"No, not yet," said Efraim. "And I’m not sure we’ll get one. This is coming through counterintelligence."

"There are half a million people in Bologna," Amos said almost to himself.

"Four hundred thousand," said Shaul. "And a hundred thousand of those are students."

"We’re supposed to get a picture of him," Efraim said, and the other three stopped what they were doing and looked up. "There’s a photo of Backman somewhere, one taken recently, after prison. Getting a copy is a possibility."