Game changer, p.23
Game Changer, page 23
“So you’ve been trying like hell since he left to clean up your own mess,” said Henry.
“Yes. Without success.”
“And now without any fly drones of your own,” said Davinroy.
“We had a number in the field when the factory and inventory were destroyed,” replied Wortzman, “so we still have some capability. We had one assigned to Jafari for several months based on other fly drone intel we had gathered. We were about to reassign the drone to more important work when Jafari announced his grand plan. We lucked out on the timing.”
“Jafari was an American citizen,” said Davinroy. “So you were spying on our citizens on our soil. And I have to believe you didn’t limit these activities to suspected terrorists. Why do I have the feeling the Oval Office may have had a pest problem the last four years?”
“Unlike your NSA,” replied Kish smoothly, “which has acknowledged spying on leaders of countries allied with you—including a former prime minister of Israel—we wouldn’t do that.” He shook his head as if the very idea was unthinkable. “Even if ethics would allow it, if this were somehow discovered it would forever drive a wedge between our friendship.”
“Uh-huh,” said Davinroy, glaring at the prime minister in disgust. “I’m not buying it. I’d say you’re full of shit but diplomacy and decorum prevent me.”
The president paused. “But let’s move on. For now. I’ll want to come back to this at another time.”
“Of course,” said Ori Kish.
“So have you made any progress finding Kovonov?” asked O’Malley, who along with Hurwitz, Wortzman’s second-in-command, had remained silent until this point.
“Almost none,” said Wortzman.
“I’m surprised,” said Henry. “The Mossad’s bloodhound skills are legendary.”
Wortzman frowned. “Kovonov knows all of our secrets. Our methods and the identities of our agents. We don’t know how much spying he did on us before he left, but we believe it was extensive. Since the fly drones were our technology we didn’t monitor their possible use against us. So we have to assume Kovonov knows everything we do. The most classified Mossad data. Not just on our methods and intel, but all the data we have on our friends. On joint programs with the US. The identity of the American agents involved. Classified data on US methods.”
“Are you kidding me?” shouted Davinroy. “And you’re lecturing us about leaks! You’ve just opened up Pandora’s box!”
Ori Kish’s face hardened. “No question this is a spectacular failure on our part. But you’ve had yours as well. All governments have. We humans are fallible beings, and mistakes happen. But while you’re rightly angry, please try to keep this in perspective. Yes we’ve created a problem. But we also saved Israel. Saved Washington and five other American cities. Even after our failure, we helped you stop Azim Jafari.”
“So what do you want?” said the president. “Just to warn us? To rip off the Band-Aid of secrecy from an episode that will have severe repercussions between our two countries? Or did you bring us in to get our help with your hunt for Kovonov?”
“We would like your help, yes,” replied Kish. “But before we discuss this further there is more we need to talk about.”
“Right,” said Davinroy. “The second order of business that you alluded to. At least it can’t be as bad as the first.”
Wortzman grimaced. “That remains to be seen,” he said. “You’ve been briefed on how Agent Quinn was manipulated into trying to kill you.”
“Yes. And I only believe it because I was told your side insisted something similar happened to two of your agents.”
“That’s right. I won’t give you all of the details, but I’ll paint as much of a picture as I can.”
Wortzman spent several minutes sharing a sense of what had happened and how the Mossad had become convinced these agents’ memories had been tampered with. He then gave the floor to Kevin Quinn, who described his own experiences in colorful detail. How these nightmarish memories, almost certainly tied into the rage centers of his brain, had begun to emerge days earlier. He described how real they had felt, bubbling up through a memory erasure drug he had thought had been forced on him by the president. His emotions and description of these events were quite compelling.
Quinn went on to detail his journey to a secluded shack and his encounter with two mercenaries there. How he had turned the tables, and how he had learned of the Russian behind it. “I know now that this man was Dmitri Kovonov,” said Quinn. “At the time, of course, all I knew was that he was Russian, and that his hired hands had been told to address him as 302.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. This was the first she had heard of this.
“302?” repeated Henry. He stared at the head of Mossad. “Does that have any significance?”
“None that we know of,” replied Wortzman, “but you should run it yourself and see if you turn up anything in your databases.”
Rachel locked her gaze on Avi Wortzman. He may have been in Jerusalem, but he was also ten feet away at the virtual conference table. “Does Kovonov have a neuroscience background?” she asked for the second time that day.
Wortzman appraised her carefully. “None at all,” he replied, the same answer Eyal Regev had given.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes, very certain. I know why you’re asking, Professor Howard, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We should let Agent Quinn finish his report.”
Quinn picked up the story where he had left off, describing how he learned of the danger to Rachel Howard and had sought her out. He then passed the baton to Regev, who went on to describe his own activities and how he had come to cross paths with Quinn.
When he admitted he had been spying on the professor, and why, Wortzman jumped in. He was quick to point out that until Quinn had gone off the rails, they had thought the problem was confined to Israel, which explained why the US had not been told of it.
When he finished there was a lengthy silence, as the Americans digested all that had been said.
The president leaned back and locked his hands behind his head. “So you—we—have two major crises occurring at the same time,” he said, breaking the silence. “A Russian named Kovonov ran off with your spy drones. And someone is manipulating the memories of agents. So how are these related?”
“We aren’t sure,” said Wortzman. “Despite the timing, we thought they were separate. Until today. We have people turning over every rock to find Kovonov. And we have Agent Regev taking the lead on our false memory investigation. Imagine our surprise when Kevin Quinn intersected with Regev and we realized these two thorns in our side were somehow connected. We were stunned to learn that Kovonov was behind Quinn’s capture, and that he planned to murder Professor Howard.”
“Which is why the professor asked if Kovonov had neuroscience expertise, right?” said Henry. “She was wondering if he was behind the memory implantation also, and not just the theft of your drones.”
“Yes,” said Wortzman. “But this isn’t possible.”
“I know we’re all alarmed by these events,” said Cris Coffey. “But I’m not sure we’re alarmed enough. Let’s not forget that whoever is behind this memory trick wants President Davinroy dead.”
The president frowned deeply as this point hit home.
“So we’re looking at two different people?” said O’Malley. “This makes no sense to me. The odds against Kovonov just magically finding someone able to screw with people’s heads are astronomical.”
“Not magically finding them,” said Wortzman. “Only through considerable effort, I’m sure.”
“Right,” snapped Davinroy coldly. “When you can be a fly on the wall anywhere, at secret commercial, university, and government labs, you can learn about a lot of interesting projects, can’t you?”
“That’s undoubtedly how this came about,” agreed Wortzman. “Our agents’ memories had been tampered with before Kovonov left. Something he would have learned about. So he must have set his sights—or the sights of his swarm of fly drones to be more precise—on learning who was behind it.”
“So he’s teamed up with this other party, hasn’t he?” insisted the president.
“Unclear,” said the head of Mossad. “He may have. But it could also be that he hasn’t even found this other party yet. His actions with respect to your Secret Service agent and Professor Howard may represent an effort to learn more, or to flush out the person responsible.”
“What if Kovonov’s memory was tampered with?” said O’Malley. “Maybe he was loyal. Maybe he went off the reservation after a false memory emerged about his poor treatment at the hands of the Mossad.” He gestured at Avi Wortzman and raised his eyebrows. “Who knows, maybe you tortured and killed a wife of his that he doesn’t have.”
Wortzman shuddered. “A chilling possibility. I don’t think this is the case, but I suppose we can’t rule it out.”
“If Agent Quinn’s report is accurate,” said Davinroy, “this Kovonov is in the continental United States, even as we speak. And we know what he looks like. If we use facial recognition and put our people in airports and train stations, I would think we could snare him fairly readily.”
Rachel thought she detected the head of DHS reflexively rolling his eyes at what she guessed was Davinroy’s naiveté. She knew nothing about these matters, but it was clear even to her that if it would have been this easy, the Mossad would have captured him already.
“Can you address this, Avi?” said Henry, passing the duty of making the president look stupid to his Israeli counterpart.
“It’s a great thought, Mr. President,” said Wortzman, “but Kovonov is very slippery. Top agents in both of our intelligence agencies have multiple methods to defeat facial recognition technology. This won’t be a problem for him. He can pilot both helicopters and planes and has the means to purchase small private aircraft. If he chooses to use commercial transportation, he has a number of ways to change his appearance, with forged documents to match.”
It seemed to Rachel that Wortzman was about to say more but had stopped himself. She suspected he was going to remind the president that Kovonov also had intimate knowledge of how the US conducted manhunts, which made it easier for him to elude them, but had decided not to pick at this sensitive scab yet again.
Ori Kish cleared his throat and all eyes turned in his direction. “I think we should stop here for now. We’ve now disclosed what we came to disclose. So I wanted to make a proposal.”
Everyone around the virtual table gave him their undivided attention.
“We’re prepared to give you everything we have on the fly drone technology. Full specs. No need spending years reverse engineering any drones you find.”
“And in exchange?” said Davinroy.
“First, you agree to institute extraordinary measures to keep this technology closely held and secret so we can both benefit from it as long as possible.”
“Again,” spat Davinroy, shaking his head, “do you really have the balls to sit there and lecture us?”
“Yes, I get the irony,” said the Israeli Prime Minister. “We’ve been breached. But we have to operate under the assumption we’ll take out Kovonov and return to full stealth mode.”
“Go on,” said the president.
“We’ll be giving you at least four major breakthroughs. Nano-scale computer chips and electronics, miniaturized and advanced sensors, miniaturized and more efficient energy systems, and advances in flight mechanics. You agree to let us file patents when our governments decide—jointly—to go public with these advances, to the benefit of the Israeli economy.”
Davinroy rubbed his chin in thought. “Since these were your inventions, we wouldn’t have a claim anyway. Go on.”
“You rush to build your own factory, so between us we’ll have two. Again, we’ll give you the exact specifications. Most importantly, you help us find the Russian. But we need you to agree to pull out all the stops. We want this to be a very, very, very high priority for you.” Kish paused. “Have I used enough verys to get my point across?”
“Believe me,” said Henry, “we understand how dangerous it is to have Kovonov on the loose.”
“Good,” said Ori Kish.
“Not to interrupt the prime minister,” said Wortzman, “but it’s vital I make it clear that if your side does find him, this is to be a kill on sight mission. Kovonov pulled off some real magic when he made his move against us, and he’s proven more clever and dangerous than any man we’ve ever hunted. So there is no capture—only elimination.”
Rachel found it interesting that the prime minister had outlined every other term of his proposal, but it had fallen to Wortzman to insist that Kovonov be assassinated. Wortzman’s delivery of this requirement must have been planned ahead of time so Kish wouldn’t have to sully himself.
“One last thing,” said the prime minister, retaking the stage. “We propose placing our man Regev in charge of a joint US-Israel op aimed at stopping whoever is behind the false memory implantation. We’ll get a bigger task force together, but for now we believe it’s critical that Rachel Howard be part of our efforts. As we’ve said, that was what Regev was doing in the States. We’re convinced she’s our best hope of discovering how these false memories were implanted and developing detection methods and countermeasures. Provided she’s willing, we’re prepared to accommodate her however she would like, at whatever compensation she would like. Given her stature, I’m sure Harvard would be willing to let her go on a year sabbatical, beginning yesterday, as long as they think they’ll get her back.”
Rachel still couldn’t fully assimilate the magnitude of this meeting, of these people, but no one could ever have convinced her that she might one day be part of a proposal made by the Prime Minister of Israel to the President of the United States. She couldn’t quite get it to sink in that these powerful men were deciding her future. If she was willing.
“Is that everything?” said the president.
“Oh, sorry,” said Kish. “Not quite. We’d also like you to assign Kevin Quinn to this effort. He’s already in place, he has an extremely personal interest in this matter, and Agent Regev tells me he’s as good as it gets.”
Davinroy waited for several seconds to make sure Kish was really finished this time. “You’re asking an awful lot in exchange for sharing technology we’ll be able to crack on our own,” he said in disgust. “And tech you should have given us anyway. Or do I need to remind you of what we give to you?”
“We’ve already been through this,” said Kish. “I could remind you of what you get in return.”
“With all due respect, Mr. President,” said Wortzman, jumping in to help defray the growing tension, “we spent a decade on this fly drone tech, getting out the, ah . . . bugs. And there are tricks that reverse engineering won’t teach you. You might crack this on your own, but it really will take years.”
“Look,” added Kish, “we aren’t asking anything that isn’t in your own best interest, that we wouldn’t expect you to want to do in the first place. These were our problems. But you know that they’re now yours as well.” He paused. “And I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded again, Mr. President, that whoever is behind the memory implantation seems to be gunning for you.”
The president’s demeanor remained ice-cold. “I believe we understand your proposal, Prime Minister Kish,” he said. “I’m going to have my side temporarily sign off so we can discuss this privately. I’ll have my answer for you when we return.”
37
The massive virtual conference table collapsed once again into Eyal Regev’s small square table and Rachel and her two companions were now alone with their thoughts. The call had been even more remarkable than she had expected. This time she had been the fly on the wall when some seriously historical discussions were taking place.
“What do you think, Kevin?” she said. “Will the president agree?”
Quinn nodded. “Absolutely,” he said, not caring that Regev was privy to his analysis. “He’s just pissed off at the entire situation and doesn’t want to seem to be caving too easily. But don’t let him fool you, he’d give Israel the state of Texas to get such game-changing technology. And the prime minister was right, he’s only asking the US to do what it should want to be doing anyway, for its own best interests.”
Rachel considered. “If the Mossad is so legendary,” she said, this time directing her question at Regev, “why do you need our help with Kovonov?”
The Israeli laughed. “Are you kidding? The resources America can bring to bear on something like this are staggering. The Mossad is a miracle of efficiency and cleverness. But if we’re the best bantamweight fighter who ever lived, the US is a dozen heavyweight fighters in one.”
They continued discussing what they had just witnessed for about twenty minutes, when the president signaled that his party was ready to return to the meeting. When everyone reappeared around the virtual table, President Davinroy wasted no time getting to the point.
“Prime Minister,” he began with a look of contempt, “I want to make it clear that I’m outraged by the actions you’ve taken. And I have to assume your country has spied on me and my government over many years. This is something I will not forget, and something we need to address further.”
Davinroy paused for effect. “But given the position your mistakes have put us in, and in the interest of our two countries, I am forced to agree to your proposal.”
Kish was clearly chomping at the bit to respond to Davinroy’s barbs, but visibly stopped himself. “Good,” he said, managing to keep any anger from his voice. “I think this is the wisest course of action.”
“I assume you have this proposal in writing?” said Davinroy.
