Shadow of Death (16 page)

CHAPTER 49

Shimon

The four of them sat in the small kitchen at the high-top table. Shimon sat with Kim and Darren seated behind him so they could watch the monitor over his shoulder. Yehuda stood casually against the wall, taking it all in, reading the faces and body language of their guests.

Shimon’s fingers began flying over the keyboard. The man could seriously type. Several screens began opening up, stacking up behind each other, so Shimon could flip back and forth and show Darren and Kim what he was working on. While the Mossad and the CIA often assisted each other and shared information, to sit and show each other actual live operations and classified technologies was pretty much unheard of. The significance of this “big reveal” wasn’t lost on Darren or Kim. Two Mossad agents had more or less admitted that they were foreign spies, operating on US soil, and if Darren Davis made a phone call, FBI agents would be swarming the house arresting them and seizing everything in the apartment.

Shimon pulled up an e-mail account written in Arabic. He looked at Kim and Darren. “Can you read it?” Darren understood a little Arabic, but reading and writing the language wasn’t his strong suit.

“Translate, please,” asked Darren.

“This is a phone we hacked into a few months ago. The big US news story of the moment is about the ‘right to privacy’ versus protecting the world’s largest phone manufacturer’s customers. Well—the codes your FBI wants to get into these phones—the ones that supposedly don’t exist? We have access to whatever we need.”

That
was a small bombshell that would have to later be revisited by the CIA, NSA, FBI, DOD, and whoever else in Homeland Security that would be clamoring for a chance to grab those codes from the Mossad. The fact that the Mossad had cracked and hacked their way into phone technology without anyone in the world, including the phone manufacturer, knowing it was big news. If they were willing to share it with the US, it would be a game changer in the war on terror as well as a new revolution about rights to privacy.

Shimon studied the faces of his American guests. They were cool customers, but he was confident he’d already blown their minds, and would continue to do so for quite a while yet. “There are e-mail exchanges between Daesh and Las Zetas in Mexico from this and other phones we’re monitoring. We’re inside their e-mails and texts as well. We’ve got IP addresses in Mexico in contact with IP addresses in Syria. They’re bouncing them all over the globe, but we can follow them every step of the way. Some of these e-mails ended up in Iran.”

Kim held up her hand. “Wait—Las Zetas is communicating with Iran?”

“Not directly, no. And I want to be one hundred percent accurate in my information to you, without any ‘interpretation’ of what I
think
I found. I will re-explain as clearly as possible—just the hard data. You’ll draw your own conclusions and conduct your own investigation, of course. We’ve been putting together the table of organization of Daesh, same as you.

“And, while Iran is fighting ISIS and supports Iraq in their fight against the regional ISIS threat, there
has
been direct communication between the highest levels of ISIS and Iran.”

That was another surprise. Darren’s face couldn’t hide his frustration. “You’re saying Iran is
cooperating
with ISIS? That runs counter to every piece of information and accepted knowledge of the regional situation. I’m sorry, but I call bullshit.”

Shimon nodded. “I told you, this is chaos. These same IP addresses have had contact with servers in Mexico, Syria—that’s both western
and
eastern Syria with rebels
and
government forces. And while the computer signals are using sophisticated programs to bounce their signals, our software can follow them, as I said before. To the best of our knowledge, they have no idea that we’re reading everything they’re sending.”

Shimon took a breath and continued. “The Russians are obviously supporting Bashar al-Assad, but we have them communicating with rebel forces as well.”

Darren made a face. “The Kremlin is in contact with the rebels opposing Assad?”

Shimon leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Don’t you miss the Cold War? I liked it better when there were only two sides.” He chose his words carefully. “It’s chaos, my friend. Russia backs Assad against the US-backed rebels. For the most part, the US-backed rebels fight the Russian-backed Assad troops, and the ISIS troops just kill everything they see. And then, of course, you have the Kurds, who are backed by the US against the wishes of the Turks. And while you’d think the Russians would be opposed to the Kurds for the mere fact that the US supports them, a Kurdish separatist movement that weakens Turkey makes the Kremlin happy purely because it complicates NATO.

“The war being fought at the moment isn’t some organized campaign of battles. It’s endless battles that may or may not have anything to do with an overall clear picture of any
war
, per se. Every battle . . . every bomb . . . every complication—they change the overall strategy daily to the point that there can be no overall long-range plan. To try and think past a week’s worth of outcomes is almost impossible.”

Kim snapped at him. “Oh come on, Shimon! That’s ridiculous! Of course we need long-range plans. Long-range strategy, and diplomacy, and the cooperation of every country in the region.”

“What you say is logical, of course. And yet . . .” his voice trailed off and he threw out a new fact. “Yesterday, Putin pulled out almost all of his troops without warning. Do you know why?”

Kim and Darren looked at each other. “It’s being assessed now.”

“There’s nothing to assess,” Shimon said flatly. “He pulled out because he knows it’s expensive to stay and it’s not worth it. For
now
. And
next
month, if oil prices go up a hundred dollars a barrel, all of a sudden Russia will decide that Assad needs more help again. But that’s such a tiny piece of this whole mess. Who cares? Russia can get plenty of cheap oil from ISIS at the moment. ISIS, who, by the way is supplying the Syrian rebels—their own enemy—with oil. They’re also selling oil to the Kurds. And the Turks.”

Shimon shook his head at his own comments. “Quite honestly, this may be the single most hysterically funny war in the history of the world, except for the parts about a small genocide being carried out and tortures coming back into fashion that haven’t been around since the Spanish Inquisition. A bunch of thugs sitting around saying ‘business is business,’ swapping cash and weapons and oil, and then annihilating each other. Quite frankly, the Syrian civil war and development of ISIS as a regional power is probably good for Israeli security.”

Darren folded his arms and waited. “How do you figure that?”

“Well, with everyone killing everyone everywhere, a lot of the Arab nations tend to forget about us. The Palestinian problems are the same ones every year. We can deal with them. It’s finally occurring to the Sunni world that Israel poses no threat to them. If your president can put together a coalition of Arab nations like in the first Gulf War, you can have the whole thing sorted out within a year. Of course, the downside would be a redrawing of the Middle East maps, which won’t be very popular with anyone except maybe the Kurds, who deserve their own country.”

Darren crossed his legs. “Shimon, we came over because you have information that can help our team on the ground. We aren’t here to come up with some geopolitical solution to the Middle East at the moment. I appreciate the risk you’ve taken in being so forthcoming—I really do. You’ve got balls. I’m pretty sure if I went to the White House with this conversation, you’d be in jail awaiting deportation if you were
lucky
, firing squad if you weren’t so lucky. Now—we need what you have in those e-mails.”

“Of course. And understand, our candor—the risk we have taken with this meeting—is a gesture of our willingness and ability to help the Unites States. The prime minister’s instructions to me were very specific. I was to use this time together to emphasize some of the issues that your president refuses to discuss with him. I’m not asking for favors; I’m asking for an ear that listens and
understands
. I’m afraid the president and secretary of state have left Israel in an impossible position, and I see no signs of improvement.”

“You’re referring to the Iran treaty again, I assume?” asked Darren.

“Naturally. Your president is so determined to leave a legacy behind to show he brokered an important peace deal that he’s going to ensure a nuclear Iran which
we
will have to deal with. And quite frankly, in another year, I’m not so sure how successful we’ll be in knocking out Iranian nuclear targets.”

Kim finished his thought. “Because of the new radar and missile defense systems they’ll be purchasing from Russia with the cash they now have access to.”

Shimon bowed slightly. “Thank you for listening and understanding. This is the message I was to deliver. And as for your unwillingness to accept the idea of Iran and ISIS working together, you have to ask yourself the all-important question: Why? Why would two enemies communicate with each other and work together? The obvious answer is because they have a mutual enemy that they’d both like to see destroyed. Your president doesn’t have a love affair with the Kremlin, and yet you’ll both occasionally attack the same ISIS targets. And then a day later, you supply anti-Assad rebels and the Kremlin supplies pro-Assad troops. You keep trying to see a ‘big picture’ that looks like two armies lined up two to toe with a long list of allies on each side. Forget that. It doesn’t exist in the Middle East.

“These aren’t two armies made up of staunch allies. Instead, think of them as two American baseball teams that play against each other every day. The two teams trade players every other day, based only on finances. The game remains the same but the players are different every game. After a while, it kills the excitement over the game, doesn’t it? You still play the game, but you start to wonder why. There’s certainly nothing to cheer about no matter who wins or loses because the players have zero allegiance to their team, anyway.

“And now back to the matter at hand.” He began typing again.

“Rather than read each e-mail, I will paraphrase and then give you the actual e-mails and phone recordings for your own people to listen to later on. Your people can verify all of this information when you return to Langley.”

“Thank you,” said Darren.

“In Syria, one of the officers in the Daesh chain of command is a man named Qassim Bayazid. Your man Apo Yessayan made contact with him.”

Darren stared at Shimon, wondering if Apo would have divulged such information. “I can’t comment on what Apo was doing if he was ever in Syria.”

“Stop wasting time. Apo was there, and I
know
he was there because we had one of our
own
people there as well. They never knew each other at the time. But what they
did
find out was that a Las Zetas captain named Antonio Reynosa travelled from Mexico to Syria to meet with Daesh and secure their heroin shipments.
Your
man escaped through Kurdish lines into Turkey. Our man was Ori Levy—may his memory be a blessing. He was killed in a firefight between Daesh fighters and Syrian rebels. But not before he got to Qassim’s phone. Ori died getting inside their network, a network which proves a shipment moved from Iran to Syria to Mexico, and we can’t get your president to even talk to us about it!”

Shimon took another deep breath. He leaned forward, looked at Kim and Darren and then spoke barely above a whisper. “We’re just middle managers, you and us. But why is it we know what’s going on and the people who are running the show seem to be oblivious to the obvious? I
knew
Ori. Tough as nails. He had a saying nailed over his locker. It read, ‘Someday, someone may kill you with your own weapon, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it’s empty.’ That boy was a lion.”

“The clock is ticking, Shimon,” said Kim. “We have our people out in the field, too.”

“This morning, e-mails and phone calls were attempted from Arista, Mexico, to Qassim’s phone in northeastern Syria. Qassim doesn’t know his phone and e-mail have been compromised. He doesn’t even know that anyone tried to call or e-mail him, because we cloned his phone and IP address. You understand? With the phone we have—or maybe that we don’t have because such a phone doesn’t exist—
anyone
can be Qassim on that end of the phone. When someone calls Qassim’s phone or e-mails him, they get
us
. Qassim’s phone doesn’t ring—you understand?
Ours
does. His e-mail doesn’t arrive at his phone or computer, it arrives at
ours
.”

Darren’s stomach did a small flip and he shot a glance at Kim. “So you’re offering to let us borrow such a phone, if it exists, and you would allow us to make contact directly with whoever’s at the other end of that phone.”

“I can even tell you who it is,” said Shimon, looking so serious he appeared angry. “Some low-level Daesh trash called Mustafa is currently with the Sinaloas in Arista. The Sinaloas have gotten ahold of that shipment from Syria, which originated in Iran, and are looking to renegotiate with Daesh in Syria for their heroin supply. We had understood the contact to be Las Zetas, but something changed.”

Darren decided to shoot straight with Shimon. “It
was
Las Zetas. The US was running a joint operation with the Mexican Marines to grab El Gato, head of the Zetas. We were supposed to help the Mexican government knock out one of their biggest drug cartels in exchange for their assistance in tracking down that package, which could potentially contain a WMD. The plan went to shit because the second in command in Mexico ended up being on the take. Fast-forward a day or two, and now we’ve got the Mexican Marines and the cartels fighting over who gets to kill my team.”

“Is Apo with your team in Mexico?” asked Shimon.

Darren’s face was blank. “You know I can’t answer that question.”