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  He listened, heard nothing, so he put his shoulder to the door and pushed hard. The safety chain popped off the door and landed halfway across the living room.

  The Ghost closed the door behind him and began a careful survey of the apartment, checking to confirm it was empty. The dresser top paid a pictorial tribute to Ryan Bolt. One photo was taken at the studio; in it he was smiling, sitting in the front seat of an electric golf cart. Nameplate read THE MERCENARY. A few pictures were taken at industry banquets-Ryan and formally attired table mates with their chairs pulled together flashing manufactured smiles. The Ghost found a back door in the kitchen, whic h e xplained how the chain could be set on the inside. He checked the closet for men's clothing, checked the bathroom, but found no evidence that anybody was living with her. He discovered a small alcove off the kitchen from which he could watch the rear door. He pulled the Ruger.22-caliber automatic out of his bag and worked the slide, putting a round in the chamber. He made sure the silencer was screwed on tight. Then he settled back to wait.

  The key turned in the lock at seven-thirty.

  Elizabeth Applegate moved into her kitchen carrying a bag of groceries. The Ghost put the cold steel of the automatic behind her ear.

  "Set down the bag and put your hands over your head.'. .? Who?"

  He pressed harder with the barrel. "Do what I said."

  Elizabeth set down the groceries and tried to turn around to see who was behind her, so he grabbed her roughly, threw her onto the floor, then landed hard on top of her. Before she could say anything or scream, he shoved a dishrag in her mouth and secured her hands behind her with plastic strip cuffs he'd brought with him. He rolled her over and she found herself looking into the cold, blue eyes and round face of a red-haired man who she thought looked a little like Jerry Colonna without the mustache.

  "Okay, Elizabeth, I don't want to hurt you, but I will if that's the way you want it. Your only chance of surviving me is to do exactly what I tell you. You understand?"

  She nodded, her eyes blank with desperation. He smiled at her, then pulled her to her feet and pushed her, on numb legs, into the bathroom, where he closed the door and undid the cuffs around her wrists.

  "Take off all your clothes," he commanded.

  The Ghost had learned that stripping a subject before an interrogation made getting information easier. You eliminated resistance and introduced a sexual threat for both men and women.

  She started unbuttoning her loose-fitting print dress, then let it fall to the floor. She was in her bra and panties.

  "Let's go. All of it. I'm losing patience." With a shaking hand, Elizabeth undid her bra and removed her panties and stood naked in front of him.

  "Isn't that better? Look at you," he said, smiling.

  He grabbed her roughly and retied her hands with the plastic cuffs. "Now get into the tub." She moved backward and stepped into the tub.

  "Lie down, Elizabeth, on your back."

  She was about to vomit. Fear had turned her stomach to acid and she started to gag. The Ghost had been waiting for it. It almost always happened. He yanked the gag out of her mouth as she threw up on herself.

  Then he forced her to lie in her own stomach fluid. She was lost in terror. "Don't kill me," she rasped at him through a throat burning with aspirated vomit. "That depends how good a girl you decide to be." "I'll be good."

  "Wonderful. I'm here to find out about Ryan Bolt." "Who?" she said, not even knowing why she said it. He struck her across the mouth with the gun. She screamed as she felt her lip split open. Her mouth fille d w ith blood.

  "What did you say?" he asked softly.

  "Okay, okay, don't. . don't. ." And she started gagging on the blood flowing in her mouth.

  "Where does Ryan do his banking? I went out to his condo on the beach; there's no financial records there. I need to know what charge cards he has. . who pays his bills. . stuff like that," he said.

  "Uh. . Who pays his bills?"

  "That's right. Simple little answer to that question gets you home free, Elizabeth."

  "Uh. . uh, Jerry. . uh, Jerry, uh. ." She was beginning to hyperventilate.

  "Slow down, take a breath. Jerry who?"

  "Jerry Upshaw, his agent. They had like a business managing service where they'd do the bills and stuff for an extra five percent."

  "So, where's this guy's office?"

  "He's in a private building called The Mayflower on Vine. Jerry dropped Ryan as a client. But he's still doing his bills until Ryan gets back in town." She was looking at the redheaded man hopefully. "Can I get out now?"

  "Hell yes. We're through, and Elizabeth, I want to thank you for your splendid cooperation. It's really been a huge help."

  She struggled to get up. He waited until she was in a crouch and then fired the Ruger. The silenced automatic jumped in his hand. The bullet hit Elizabeth in the forehead. The back of her head exploded; and her brains flew up onto the tile splash. She reeled backward and hit the wall just under the shower head, then slid down and finally came to rest in her own vomit and blood.

  The Ghost unscrewed the silencer and did a quick survey of the apartment to make sure he'd left nothing behind. He left by the front door, got into his car parked a few blocks away, and drove into the summer night.

  Upshaw's office was on the first floor of The Mayflower building at Mayflower and Vine. The Ghost found the alarm in an outdoor utility box. Ridiculous, he thought. The alarm didn't even have a police dialer on it. He disarmed it and found a back window, worked it open with a screwdriver, and shinnied in. The computer he was looking for was in an office marked CLIENT ACCOUNTING. He turned it on and punched in "Bolt." Magically, there on the screen was Ryan's financial history. He moved quickly through the data bank until he found Ryan's credit card accounts. He started to scan them and then saw something that turned his mood black. Ryan had used his AmEx card in San Diego. He'd withdrawn ten thousand dollars.

  "Damn," the Ghost said. With that much cash, Ryan wouldn't leave a paper trail. He scanned the computer for Ryan's airline mileage card numbers and wrote them down. Then he shut off the computer and left the way he came in, closing the window and resetting the alarm.

  Back at his small hotel in Hollywood, he went to the phone book and looked up airlines in the Yellow Pages. One by one, he would check them all.

  The flight from San Diego landed at Phoenix International Airport. Ryan walked down the ramp without crutches. Lucinda was at his side. Kaz and Cole greeted them at the gate, and as they shook hands, the ex-fed and the ex-IR were amazed that Ryan could walk at all. Both Ryan and Lucinda were the color of walnut. They made a spectacular couple. With Lucinda's long black hair and Ryan's white-blond, they were turning heads in the airport as they moved down the corridor to the airline counter.

  "I wouldn't' ve believed it if I wasn't seeing it," Kaz said, looking down at Ryan's left leg as he walked with only a slight limp.

  "I'm not gonna be making any sharp cuts over the middle, but I'm not bad if I move straight ahead."

  Ryan and Lucinda had packed only carry-on luggage, just one change of clothes and their toilet articles. They'd left the boat at a Mexican marina and paid the dockmaster to watch it for a month.

  Kaz had the airline schedules in his hand.

  "We take a two o'clock United flight to Atlanta and then connect with the El Al transatlantic direct to Tel Aviv," he said as they moved up to the United Airlines desk, where Ryan paid for all the tickets with cash. The ticket agent found Ryan's name in her computer and automatically credited his mileage account without mentioning it. An hour later, they were boarding the first leg of the flight.

  "United Airlines," a man's voice said over the phone. "You guys are screwing me on my MileagePlus. I fly on your airline and you don't give me credit?" the Ghost said. This was the fourth airline he'd called.

  "Couldyou give me your name sir and your MileagePlus number? I'll get your account on the screen."

  "Ryan Bolt," he said and then ga
ve the number he got from Jerry Upshaw's office. He waited as he heard the computer keys clicking over the phone.

  "Well, sir, I have your account here. This is odd. . We just credited your account with forty thousand miles."

  "That's impossible." The Ghost grabbed for a pen on the nightstand.

  "No, sir. . Four tickets from Phoenix to Atlanta and then continuing on from Atlanta to Tel Aviv on El Al Flight 2356. Is this Mr. Bolt? Where are you calling from?" The man was starting to get suspicious.

  "My mistake." The Ghost hung up abruptly.

  Then he called El Al Airlines. "You have a flight from Atlanta to Tel Aviv?"

  "Yes, sir, Flight 2356, leaving at seven P. M. arriving at eleven A. M." a man informed him.

  "Can you get me out of LAX so that I can meet that flight in Israel?"

  Computer keys clicked.

  "Yes, sir. Flight 3476 leaves LAX at four this afternoon and arrives in Tel Aviv at nine A. M. That would be two hours ahead of the Atlanta flight. Do you want me to book you?"

  "Yes, please. The name is Harold Meeks."

  The Ghost packed his small suitcase, then called a cab. Before he left, he placed a call to Mickey Alo on the scrambled line.

  "I just found out they're going to Israel."

  "Really?" The mobster had left the dining room table to take the call. He still had his monogrammed napkin in his hand.

  "Why would they be going to Tel Aviv?" the Ghost asked.

  "Don't know."

  "There are four of them traveling together. Do you have any idea who's with them?"

  "Just get it done. I thought you were the best. What's taking so long?"

  "Mr. Alo, it's much easier for me to take care of it in Israel. I have contacts over there. People die unexpectedly in that country all the time. Don't worry, it's better this way."

  After he hung up, he dialed a man named Akmad Jam Jarrar in Paris. Akmad wasn't in, so he left a message in his hotel voice mail that said, "I need to get the old crew together. Meet me immediately in Tel Aviv, the Hotel American. Same terms as always. The Ghost."

  Chapter 57

  UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS

  The passenger in seat 25B of El Al flight 3476 went into a convulsion at 7:37 A. M., just as the El Al flight attendants were beginning to set up for breakfast. His name was Leonard Greenberg, he was fifty-six, and he owned a jewelry store in Burbank, California. His legs shot out and kicked the seat in front of him; then he jackknifed forward and hit his head on the back of the tray table. The woman sitting in the seat in front woke up with a start, turned, and glared around the seat at him. What she saw immediately alarmed her. Leonard Greenberg looked at her with half-lit brown eyes and said, "So sorry." Sitting beside him were Leonard's wife, Hanna, and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Sasha. They were all going to Israel for the first time.

  "Get the stewardess! Get a doctor!" Hanna Greenberg shouted at her daughter Sasha, who scrambled out of her seat and ran to get the flight attendant.

  "His shunt is failing," Hanna said to the startled woman in the seat in front of him. Hanna had seen this happen twice before and she knew the results would be fatal if Leonard didn't get immediate surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain.

  A man from a row behind them, across the aisle, came forward and kneeled beside Greenberg. He carried a small, black briefcase.

  "I'm a doctor."

  "It's his shunt. I've seen these convulsions before. He has to get to a hospital immediately."

  "What is a shunt, for God's sake?" the flight attendant said.

  "Everybody has cerebral spinal fluid that surrounds the brain," the doctor explained. "Some people don't have the proper drainage and fluid gets trapped in the brain causing what is known as hydrocephalus. To fix this, we install a plastic tube in the lateral ventricle called a shunt. Occasionally the shunt gets clogged, causing extreme pressure on the brain. This man needs immediate surgery!"

  "You need to explain this to the pilot. Come with me." She led the doctor up the aisle, past the first-class passengers.

  The Ghost woke up as they brushed past on the way out of the cockpit. He caught a glimpse of the strained expression on the flight attendant's face and knew immediately something was wrong. He grabbed the flight attendant's arm and flashed his goofy, harmless salesman's smile.

  "We got a problem?"

  "Sick passenger. We're probably diverting to London, Heathrow."

  "But that's gonna take hours. I gotta be in Tel Aviv. I have important business. . "

  "There's a phone aboard. I'm sure you don't want a fellow passenger to die so you can keep a business appointment." She pulled away, picked up the intercom, and announced the change in destination.

  The Ghost retrieved the air phone on the wall in the front of the cabin. He used one of his Harry Meeks credit cards and walked back to his seat with the phone.

  He dialed the number for the Hotel American in Tel Aviv and asked for Akmad Jarrar's room. In a minute, he heard the Arab's voice.

  "Thank God you're there," the Ghost said, without preamble.

  "Yes, my friend, I have just arrived. I took the first flight I could get."

  "I need help. I'm being diverted to Heathrow because some passenger is sick. . Our CEO is arriving at Ben Gurion Airport at eleven on El Al Flight 2356. He's traveling with three accountants; at least one is a beautiful woman. They should be met but not escorted. We're scenario dependent until I can get there. The C-cube is your hotel." This was a code they had used before. "CEO" would sound like chief executive officer to anybody picking up the open telephone signal, but to the Ghost and his team of assassins, it stood for covert elimination objective, or target. "Accountants" or "CPAs" were collateral personal assistants. In espionage circles, they were generally men or women with briefcases who worked with or for the target. "Met but not escorted" stood for follow but don't apprehend. "Scenario dependent" meant they would be dependent on the chain of events. "C-cube" stood for communications command control center. Akmad said he would handle it, and the Ghost gave him a brief description of Ryan and Lucinda, mentioning. that Ryan would most likely be on crutches and was blond and handsome, the girl dark-haired. The Ghost said he had no descriptions of the other accountants.

  "Are they prepared to do business?" Akmad asked.

  "Definitely," the Ghost said, indicating that they were dangerous and should be treated as such. As they rang off, the Ghost felt the plane banking to the left for Heathrow. He would probably be in Tel Aviv four hours later than planned. But he was invigorated by the unexpected problem. He loved improvising. He loved the chase. But most of all, he loved the kill.

  Ben Gurion Airport was in Lod, outside Tel Aviv and ninety minutes by car from Jerusalem. The airport was small but modern. Security was stringent.

  The planes didn't taxi up to ramps, but were left out on an expansive tarmac, where the travelers deplaned, then got aboard big buses to be taken to the terminal. Cole explained that the process of open tarmac deplaning allowed for fighter security.

  Kaz, Cole, Ryan, and Lucinda stepped off the El Al plane and were struck by the heat and humidity. It was over 100 degrees and moist. Their clothes immediately stuck to them as they moved down the steps of the plane to the ground transportation. Cole knew Israel well. He'd covered a lot of stories there. He had decided they would stay in the Hotel Carlton in Tel Aviv. The international bar there had always been a news hangout. Then he would find somebody at Reuters he could pump for information. He needed to find out everything he could about Gavriel Bach's family. . Was his widow still alive? Where were his children? Where would his personal effects be? Cole knew they had damn little to go on. They were ten thousand miles from home, looking for a bunch of illegal wiretaps given to a dead Israeli prosecutor twenty-five years ago. Even if they still existed, the tapes might have nothing of value on them. Yet, they were following that feeble lead halfway around the world.

  Customs took an hour. Finally, they walked through the turnstiles, past the u
niformed Israeli guards with their shiny jackboots and shoulder-mounted Uzis. On their way to the taxi stand, they passed a short, skinny Arab in khaki shorts and a T-shirt, smoking a Turkish cigarette.

  Akmad Jarrar saw the four Americans and assumed they were the ones he'd been looking for. The handsome man wasn't on crutches, as the Ghost had said, but he moved with a slight limp. The girl was indeed beautiful.

  He followed them out into the sunlight and watched as they got into a Subaru taxicab that pulled out into the traffic, heading toward Tel Aviv. He waved his hand and his own rented blue Mitsubishi screeched up to the curb with two men inside. Behind the wheel was Frydek Mistek, a German terrorist who was ideologically damaged by his love of money. He had worked on several hits with the Ghost in the old days when the CIA was doing covert sanctions. Frydek was a good second man. He was nondescript, average in every way except for his aptitude for violence. In the backseat was Yossi Rot, a slender man with Jewish good looks and dark curly ringlets. He had once been a "powder man" for the Mossad, but he'd drifted into the netherworld of freelance operators.

  They all spoke in English. Akmad pointed to the car with the Americans. "Stay close. . Taxis are easy to lose."

  Frydek accelerated and followed the Japanese taxi into the City of Mirrors.

  Chapter 58

  CITY OF MIRRORS

  The highway sloped down, losing elevation as they headed east toward Tel Aviv. To the south, a jagged coastline framed Jaffa Harbor where the first Zionist pioneers had landed in 1882. Ancient stone buildings stood guard along the coast, baking in the somnolent heat. The city of Tel Aviv blended into the outskirts of Jaffa.

  They dropped down farther and soon were on the broad, paved streets of the city. Tel Aviv was as modern as L. A. and as ancient as the Bible. It reflected the best and the worst-a city of mirrors.

  They moved down Shenkin Street and turned onto Allenby Road, and, before long, they pulled up to the hotel. The Carlton was a five-story architectural mistake that had been located in what became a business district when the city grew to the north. Journalists liked it because the switchboard was secure, the location was central, and you could get sloshed on two or three drinks at the "international bar," where the policy was to pour doubles for anybody with a press pass.