Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (diy ebook reader TXT) 📕

“Yes. I assume he entered the United States with false identity papers.”

“He may never have put a foot in the country. It may possibly be that he has been on his ship ever since.”

“That also is a possibility. Laura’s team should be able to locate him. He can’t be far.”

“What about Murat Lenika? Have you managed to locate him via El Desconocido?”

“Even El Desconocido couldn’t locate him. But thanks to the tapping devices we put on him, we have a long list of telephones he may be using. At the moment we are tracing seventeen of them.”

“Have you passed this information on?”

“Yes. I have to say, we are not happy about sharing our tactics, but it appears we have no choice. The American team has received the phone numbers.”

“What is going on with the suitcases we bugged?” I inquired.

“We have no update. According to our last report, the wife decided that she and her son were not going. They disappeared.”

“Had they already been sprayed?”

“Yes. That’s the bad news. If they aren’t found, we have no way of giving them the antidote.”

I sat down on the bed. “That is not good news at all.”

“No, he agreed. “If they get sick too fast, then they definitely will postpone their trip and our plans will be thwarted.” And then, as if to end on a positive note, he said, “But there is still a chance she will change her mind. Her maid reported that she still hasn’t unpacked her bags and the surveillance devices in the suitcases are still broadcasting.”

I was silent. Despair had no place in our plans right now. There were so many other aspects we had missed. Not only regarding Jonathan, but also the planned attacks. As if Gideoni had read my mind he noted, “It would help if we had a timetable of some sort, but to know ahead of time to expect an attack is a kind of luxury.”

“If our assumption is correct and he is calling them to join him on the fatal day, then he is planning the attack in a day or two at the most.”

“I hope that we are wrong and that we will have more time. On the other hand, a bit more time and the holidays will begin.”

“And countless people will be flying domestically. What about the Israeli flight companies?”

“They are on red alert. They are always on the alert, but now they are especially careful, more than usual, abiding very strongly by the rules.”

“Foreign companies?”

“We have passed on the information. We can only hope they have prepared themselves accordingly.”

“Is there conjecture on how they will attack?”

“We are trying to think of every possibility. The assumption is that, because we have a small fleet of planes and a few helicopters, the access will be through them. At the moment, they are isolating the Israeli flights more than usual. All the preparations for the flights are made far from the eyes of the potential spectators.”

“How long can this emergency procedure last?”

“It will have to last as long as is necessary. What is routine for us other companies only do in emergency situations. But a few things have changed for us too. The most important thing is that the enemy doesn’t know about this little secret of ours.”

***

“He has an identical twin?” I heard the disbelief in Laura’s voice.

“No. A double. Why does the idea sound so far-fetched to you?”

“Someone giving his life up for someone else… Hmmm. It’s a risk, no?”

“The king and the pauper?”

“Something like that.”

“But this is not the life he wants for himself. The man is a fanatic Islamist and the life he wants for himself is disaster and destruction.”

“It is hard to believe…”

“Look, I believe that my theory is correct. See. About a year and a half ago there was a halt in his notifications.”

“Because he was injured in a ski accident and was lying in the hospital for a few weeks.”

“He didn’t have a ski accident because he couldn’t have skied at that time.” I cleared my throat and asked, “Do you know what he did do, during that period of time?”

“I didn’t go so far back,” she admitted, chagrined.

“He was training in Iraq. He joined ISIS.” I threw that at her and waited.

“Are you sure about that?”

“He was there for half a year.”

“But the notifications continued during that period. There wasn’t such a lapse in time.”

“Because by then he had found his double. Maybe not ‘found’ him but ‘created’ him. Check thoroughly. If you look closely, you can see it is another person.” I let her go over the time period of Yassin’s whereabouts. I then added, “He looks a lot like him, but it isn’t him. And it’s ingenious, really. Just to avoid questions, he invented the story of the ski accident in the hospital. Maybe because of the scars from plastic surgery. If you look really closely, you can see it is not the same person.”

“He grew a beard, he put on weight…” She still found the situation unbelievable. “His tattoos are exactly the same. It has to be the same person.”

“But it isn’t. The real Yassin is on a ship, somewhere in the middle of the ocean. I suggest we stop looking into his private plane and his uploads on Instagram and start by finding overlapping points between him and Murat Lenika.”

“We did that already.”

“Were you looking for Murat Lenika with Yassin the millionaire? Now look for Murat Lenika with Yassin the terrorist, who looks like a religious fanatic.” I took a sip of my coffee, the only thing keeping me awake and added, “I have reservations about the timetable. You are looking at the starting point from the time his plane landed in the United States and I am telling you that he arrived long before that. Again, under a pseudonym. I will try to give you a more accurate date later on today.”

I hoped he was arriving to the United States from England and not