The Tenth Cycle: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 1) (38 page)

Shortly after Akiva left, Luke took a call. None of the others paid much attention until Luke's sharp voice broke into their thoughts.

"How the hell did that happen?" He demanded.

After listening for a moment, he said, "All right, we’ll be on the lookout. Are you sending more guards?" He listened for a moment more, then disconnected the call. Finding the others all staring at him, Luke said, "I have some bad news."

Various expressions of dismay went around the group, but Luke continued, "David is dead, one gunshot wound to the forehead, in his sleep."

No one was going to mourn David, at least no one in the present company, but the question on everyone's mind was the same as what Luke had asked. How the hell had that happened? David was in CIA custody. Luke explained that the guards at the safe house where David was being held for questioning had been taken out as well, leaving the way open for the assassin to get to David. Lewis, who had called Luke personally, was livid. Not only was their witness gone, but three of his hand-picked men were in critical condition and one dead. The only explanation was that there was indeed another mole at CIA headquarters.

Agitated chatter broke out as the research group questioned Luke as to their continued safety under the circumstances.

"Lewis is sending for more CIA guards to join those who are watching already," he said.

"How do we know one of them isn't the mole?" Sarah said, frightened.

"We won't have to worry about it very long," Daniel soothed. "Akiva promised to get us out of here as quickly as possible." Nevertheless, the group was less than productive that day, concerned that they had nowhere to hide and nowhere to go and that time was running out.

In fact, they were already out of time, but they didn't yet know it.

~~~

Daniel and Luke had finally managed to calm the rest of the team and they were making good progress with the translation of the index, when another interruption rocked the group. On the second day after Luke had learned of David's death, Akiva returned unexpectedly. He brought the news that an all points bulletin had been issued for them and that they were no longer safe in this small town where new faces were easily noted.

"The word went out that you’re associated with Al Qaeda," he said. "It was done so well and so professionally that I almost believed it myself, especially when I saw pictures of Sarah smiling and laughing with a couple of Egyptian men."

"Oh good grief," Sarah said. "Those were a couple of scholars that I've known for years. I have no inkling that they are associated with Al Qaeda, and all we were talking about was the theory among some Egyptian scholars that human history has gone through a number of cycles."

"A picture is worth a thousand words, especially if one or two of those words are Al Qaeda. It doesn't take much to strike fear into your countrymen and anger into the hearts of mine," Akiva said. "But, I checked with my agency, and they cleared you."

"They what?" Daniel asked. "What do you mean, they cleared us?"

"It turns out that we have been tracking your activities as well," Akiva said. He had the grace to look ashamed as Daniel and Sinclair both exploded with oaths of dismay. Sarah and Martha just looked at Akiva emotionless – no swearing or outbursts could shock them anymore – they were becoming immune to that. Nevertheless he went on, "I have clearance, you will be welcome in my country, and my government has pledged your safety, but first we must smuggle you out of the US."

"How do you propose to do that?" Daniel said, still seething at the notion of a foreign government tracking his activities. Raj was right, he reflected. Everyone has been watching us, there's no such thing as privacy anymore.

"Leave the details to me but be ready to go at any time after darkness falls," Akiva said.

While the Rosslerites once again packed up their meager belongings, including only the external hard drives and flash drives with data and programs copied from Raj's laptop, Akiva made a visit to an old friend. With him, he carried the passports of the four team members and Martha.

Beckman walked into the office of his old friend Bernie Cohen, captain of the Canadian border patrol station in Stanstead. Beckman's team had use this crossing several times over the previous years, assisted by the Jewish head of station whose sympathies lay with Israel. Whenever he could get away, Akiva indulged in the rustic pleasures that Bernie enjoyed; fishing and a good Scotch. Today he carried a brown paper bag in one hand while the other protected the five passports concealed in his pocket.

"Shalom Aleichem, Bernie," Akiva said, placing the brown bag casually on Cohen's desk.

"Aleichem Shalom, my old friend. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Ah, my friend you wound me. I am here merely to greet an old friend as I was passing through." As he spoke, Akiva placed the five passports on Bernie's desk and spread them out. Bernie flicked his eyes toward the dark blue folders and raised one eyebrow. From his drawer he took a self-inking stamp, and drew the first passport toward him, placing an entry stamp upon the appropriate page. The two friends continued their casual conversation as he repeated the process with each of the other four.

"Have you had any good late-night fishing?" Akiva asked as he slipped the passports back into his pocket.

"What would you consider late at night?" Bernie responded.

"Oh, anytime after, say, ten p.m."

"Oh yes, the fishing is great after ten p.m.," said Bernie.

“I’ll have to try it. Where would you suggest I go?”

Bernie named a spot a few miles out of town, and the two exchanged goodbyes when Akiva stood to go.

“Mazel tov,” said Bernie, wishing him good luck with a wink, as he put away the brown paper bag in his lower desk drawer.

Akiva turned up again at the safe house at about dinnertime and gratefully accepted Sarah's invitation to stay. After dinner, he handed each person his or her own passport. He then instructed the group to be ready by nine-thirty that evening, when he and two of his men would pick them up and take them to the border crossing where he expected to be able to smuggle them out of the United States and into Canada with no further trouble.

~~~

All was in readiness when Akiva and his two men arrived to transport the team to the border crossing. It was a moonless night, quite chilly. Everyone but Martha had on dark down jackets. Martha had brought her ski gear, but the jacket was white with pink trim. Akiva regarded it with disfavor, and asked if she had another. Martha responded that she had not expected to play cops and robbers when she purchased her fashionable jacket. Akiva shrugged. There was no help for it, Martha would be a liability in that jacket but the others refused to leave her behind.

Akiva and Luke rode in the front seat of one SUV, with Sarah, Daniel and Raj in the back. The other two Mossad operatives drove a second SUV, with Sinclair and Martha. While they were in town, the drivers maintained normal driving procedure, but as soon as they had reached the outskirts, they doused the headlights and continued with nothing but the parking lights to guide them. Sarah was nervous; it was too dark a night to be driving unfamiliar roads without headlights. She could only hope that Akiva knew the roads.

Moments later, Sarah's question became moot as a roaring noise approached. Before she could ask what it was, Daniel shouted, "Sarah, get down!" Seconds later, brilliant white light illuminated the interior of the SUV as the helicopter overhead spotlighted them. Akiva shouted in Hebrew into his radio, and the SUV following them quickly turned off even their parking lights and left the road for the cover of the hedgerow. Inside the lead SUV, pandemonium broke out as a tracer round flew in Raj's window and out the other side. Daniel flung himself over Sarah, while Raj, being smaller, slid off the seat and crouched on the floor board, wondering if this was going to be the day he has always feared.

Akiva stepped on the gas, and began weaving, as Luke pulled out a fearsome looking semi-automatic weapon and returned fire at the helicopter. If Daniel had seen it, he would have admired Luke's ability to hit his target with the car weaving as it was. The helicopter prudently backed away and Akiva began shouting for his passengers to gather their stuff and be ready to dive out of the car when he stopped. Each time the helicopter approached again, Luke fired a burst at it, until Akiva found a densely wooded area in which to ditch the car. Everyone tumbled out, clutching their belongings, and ran, following Akiva.

He led them through the dense woods and to a small cabin where he had them wait while he collected the others. Sarah clutched Daniel and sobbed with worry for Martha.

As soon as the helicopter lost the lead SUV, it returned to the area where the pilot thought the second car had dropped out of the chase. Because the cover was not as dense, he located the abandoned car immediately. On the off chance that the occupants were still hiding there, he sent several rounds into the stopped vehicle, and was gratified to see two people scurry from the back seat and run. To his astonishment, one of them was wearing a bright white jacket, fully visible even on the moonless night. He had orders to bring back his quarry alive if possible, so he maneuvered the chopper to cut the figure off from deeper cover.

Martha was paralyzed by the racket the chopper was making and the fear of the bullets she expected any moment. In her too-visible white jacket, she knew that if the occupants of the chopper wanted to kill her, there was no way she would escape. Suddenly, shots rang out from her left, pinging off the chopper audibly. In response, it rose, and from nowhere, Sinclair appeared, throwing his own jacket over Martha's shoulders. Sinclair put his arm around Martha forcing her to duck, and ran with her to the deep cover only yards away. But the chopper was back, and bullets began to fly, causing Martha to scream.

As they gained the cover of the dense bramble of wild cranberry bushes, the two Mossad operatives went on the offensive with their semi-automatic weapons, finally chasing the chopper away, at least for a while. The four remained where they were, unsure of their location, until a commotion from behind them revealed Akiva.

"Follow me," he said. "Mrs. Simms, you must not let your jacket show, or they will spot us immediately."

In response, Martha shrugged out of her jacket and allowed Sinclair to help her on with his again, though she protested that he must be cold.

"I'll be okay," he said.

Martha, Sinclair and the two Mossad operatives followed Akiva more than a mile through the cold woods, until they reached the cabin where Sarah and Daniel awaited anxiously, along with Luke and Raj. Once they were all inside, Akiva made certain that the windows were tightly covered before lighting a gas lantern he found on a shelf in the cabin.

As soon as the lantern flared to life, Martha noticed some blood stains on her blouse. When she looked around the room, she saw that Sinclair was nursing his left hand with his right and demanded to see it. Reluctantly Sinclair presented his hand for her inspection.

"You're bleeding!" She exclaimed.

"It's nothing," he said. "Just a flesh wound."

"I've heard that one before," she said. After a pause, she added, “In a Monty Python sketch."

Despite the tense situation, that drew a laugh from everyone, no one's heartier than Sinclair's. Akiva searched the cabin for a first aid kit, and insisted that Sinclair bring his wounded hand to the kitchen sink where the lantern revealed that, rather than a flesh wound, it was a through and through hit to the fleshy part between his thumb and forefinger.

"Thank God it missed the bones," Akiva said. "We need to disinfect it, and that's about all we have the supplies for."

Martha dressed Sinclair's wound, while Luke and Akiva consulted a map that Akiva drew from one of the pockets and his fatigue pants.

"It looks like we've made it across the border," Akiva said. "You have about a three mile walk across the fields to reach the nearest small town. Luke and I will go back to Stanstead and I'll call operatives in Canada to pick you up."

A brief consultation revealed that Sinclair felt he could navigate by the stars and the group decided as a whole that it would be less dangerous to attempt to cross the fields in the dark where the helicopter would have less chance of locating them than during the day. They could always lie down in ditches or under trees if they heard the helicopter approaching, so that even the searchlight would fail to reveal them. The only trouble, was that Sinclair had no jacket, having given his to Martha. Martha tried to give it back, but Sinclair wouldn't hear of it. Eventually Sarah had the bright idea to search the cabin for anything that would help, and they found an olive drab wool blanket that Sinclair could drape around his shoulders.

Luke hugged Sarah tightly, shook hands with the men, and kissed Martha on the cheek before making his departure with Akiva. A few minutes later, the five researchers departed the cabin also, after Daniel made sure that everyone knew the code words in case they were separated.

Akiva led Luke and his other team members back to the lead SUV where he radioed his Canadian counterpart to be on the lookout for the researchers as they entered the small town where someone could pick them up. They then dropped the two operatives off at their abandoned vehicle, and both cars made their way back to Stanstead.