Chapter 6
Yaakov left the arrival area of Chicago Airport Terminal 5 in the early afternoon. Just outside of the gates, among the crowd, he spotted his contact, a tall, muscular Afro-American weighing almost three hundred pounds. He was holding a tablet with the “Park Inn Motel” sign flashing on the screen. Yaakov stopped in front of him and asked, “Who are you waiting for, svartser goy?”
The reply was immediate “Yiddish is no longer popular here in Illinois, Sir, but I can take you to a place in South Chicago where you can still speak it. My name is Traynor and I do not like rap.” Yaakov followed him silently to the parking lot, where another Afro-American was waiting next to a green hotel van. The man exchanged glances with Traynor but he did not bother introducing himself.
“Before we go,” Traynor told Yaakov, “just leave anything suspicious you might have with you here with my buddy, from weapons to pills. Flights from India land at this time of the day and it is very easy to be stopped and searched also outside the terminal perimeter, especially if you have an exotic look and travel with Latinos or Afro-Americans.”
“I am perfectly clean, we can go,” Yaakov replied, only slightly upset at the prospect of another in-depth search after the one he had just gone through at the US Customs. The check promptly happened at the security roadblock placed at the entrance of Interstate 90. Yaakov had to re-open all his bags in front of a police officer, while two other servicemen were keeping Traynor and him at gunpoint. They were eventually let go.
After a few hundred yards on the highway, Traynor broke the silence. “Is the security in Israel like this? I was told it is pretty professional too.”
“I would say it is a bit more lax, at least they let you out of the airport quickly…” Yaakov replied thoughtfully, “have there been many accidents recently?”
Yaakov knew the answer, but he wanted to give his biased opinion.
“Plenty. At least two or three big shoot-outs per week in Chicago alone. Dealers and ordinary people alike go out of their minds to smuggle Telomerax into America. So when the police catch them, more often than not they overreact with whatever they have on hand. It’s more or less like this at all US entry points, it’s an outright war, with tens of casualties every month. To try to fix that, those motherfuckers of Bioguard, that own the Telomerax detector market, have come up with the underskin chip, that automatically records if you have been taking Telomerax in the last eight weeks. Many people decide to implant it to fast track the security checks. The rich as well, they go to India or, recently, Brazil and Venezuela, to have their Telomerax beauty farm holiday and come back when they have no more traces in the body. So if you do not have your skin chip, it’s either because you are a dropout or because you are possibly involved in the trade. And you know what? Ninety-percent of my black brothers, myself included, do not carry the chip. It’s the new slavery. We are automatically on the suspect list of the government, no matter if we wear Calvin Klein suits like me!” he laughed.
As Traynor continued his monologue, Yaakov was watching the endless sequence of single family homes that were lining the Interstate 90 from Chicago O’Hare Airport to downtown. At the end of November, the leaves had long fallen and only a relatively small ridge was protecting them from the highway noise, elevating them a few feet from the valley where the traffic was flowing. Out of habit, he kept checking in the rearview mirror of the van if someone was following them, but so far everything was fine. They went past the city center, and left Interstate 90 at the Oakwood Cemetery exit, heading into the South Chicago streets. At one traffic light, Yaakov noticed a motorbike that was waiting at the intersection on his right, just next to an ambulance. Wasn’t it too cold to drive a bike in late November? As they went past the traffic light, Yaakov checked his side mirror and saw that the motorbike remained at the red light. He glanced at the road ahead, then again in the mirror. The bike had disappeared, but he could now see the ambulance turning in their direction, as the light had become green. Where was the bike then? He did not see it pass ahead, nor turn toward their direction.
“Traynor,” he demanded, “Look at your mirror, there' s something wrong here..”
He could not finish the sentence before a shower of heavy gunfire blew the right window away, spraying the brains of Traynor on to the front window. Yaakov tried to duck under the windshield, out of the line of fire, while the van banked to the right, and crashed into a parked car. Yaakov’s door was blocked. He had just fractions of seconds before being an open target for the attacker. He tried to scramble for his bag to use it as a shield, when he realized that the motorbike sped away without bothering to finish the job.
He was still wondering why the killer had given up, when he heard a siren go off and saw the ambulance stop just in front of their crashed van. A team of four paramedics dashed out of the vehicle. Two of them extracted the body of Traynor, while another one was talking on a walkie-talkie and keeping passers-by at a distance. Was it luck or what? The answer came right away, as the fourth man reached out to him with a spray bottle in his hands, released its content on his face and spoke to him with a strong Latino accent:
"Mr. Mayer, I believe you understand our precautions.."
Halfway into the sentence, Yaakov had already fallen asleep.
When he woke up, he was in a windowless room, lit by a fluorescent light. As he expected, his kidnappers had taken his watch to deprive him of any time reference. The anesthetic was a good one, he did not feel any headache or hangover, it was just like waking up after a good night’s sleep. The bed was also relatively comfortable. The more he looked around, the more Yaakov thought this was the most luxurious jailroom he had ever seen with a full-size bathroom and dining table. Then the door lock switched open, and before he could stand up, three armed men wearing balaclavas entered the room, keeping him at gunpoint with their brand new Uzi machine guns. Their gesture was clear, he could continue to relax sitting on his bed. Yaakov studied their complexions, they were most likely all Latinos. They were very different sizes, so Yaakov decided to dub them the Tall, the Thin and the Small. Right after them, Helena entered the room and the door locked behind her. The sound of the door closing made it clear to Yaakov that it was heavily armored. He tried to break the ice.
"Apparently, we always have to talk in dark, closed rooms. At least, here it is not as hot as in Rio."
"He's a really clever bastard," Helena thought, "he made sure to remind me of the deal we have in place, meaning that it would break apart if he does not get out of here alive."
"Mr. Mayer, you can't believe how much trouble I went through to persuade my friends here in Chicago to keep you alive." Helena addressed him in Hebrew, "they are now expecting something in exchange for not sending you to hell right away with your driver."
Yaakov appreciated the language choice. The conversation was being recorded and would be quickly translated by the automatic translating ear pieces the three Latinos were wearing, but like this Helena was preventing her partners from jumping in the negotiation.
"I thank you very much for your courtesy, but I cannot guarantee I can satisfy your wishes. I have been a simple Israeli citizen for a long while, you know. A simple, expendable Israeli citizen, to be more precise."
"We have three requests. Let's start from the one of our guests. It took us a while find out that Mossad was behind the Telomerax shipping from Venezuela to Florida, but we did it. You know, my business partners do not like those that enter their market without asking permission and, worse still, without explaining why."
"The reason is simple," Yaakov replied, "Mossad needs money, just like any other secret service. A lot of money. To do what? I do not know nor I would tell you if I did know. I do agree we should have found an agreement beforehand, but if we are having this conversation I think there is still room to work something out. We have an excellent network that can support you and your friends when needed. Next?"
Helena looked satisfied, and after some delay due to the ear
piece translation, also the Tall, the Thin and the Small grinned in agreement.
"This next one is more about us," Helena continued, "and the help we are giving you and your country with your...experiments. Louis needs some live examples of your fly. He said he has to verify some hypothesis but cannot do that with the dead samples he is getting from time to time. He needs the real thing."
"Helena, this is not feasible at all. You better shoot me now..." Yaakov blankly stated.
"Hang on, let me finish and don't get unnecessarily emotional." Helena rebuffed, "We do not need the fully equipped version, with the toxin and the electronics. Just the basic shell of it."
"I still see this very difficult, and why? It is just an ordinary fly.." Yaakov felt genuinely puzzled
"You hired Louis as a consultant on Telomerax. Now your consultant has some doubts on the way you are using the drug with the flies and would like to carry out some additional tests. It's in your interest, really." Helena ended charmingly.
"This bitch can be really persuasive," Yaakov thought, and then he questioned back.
"understood, it sounds reasonable and I will bring it forward. But what if it is not accepted?"
"Then our deal is broken, and consequences will be nasty for all of us," Helena commented icily.
"Yes, for all of us," Yaakov echoed. "How about your last request?"
"To your knowledge, has the fly ever been tested or used here in the States? There have been a few deaths in the past we could not quite explain. Had it been a single episode, we could have ignored it, however a handful of cases deserves a bit more attention.."
Yaakov's body stiffened, Helena could see he was looking for the best answer. He finally said,
"When I was in charge of covert operations abroad, one thing that was absolutely forbidden was selective target neutralization in the United States, no matter how you did it. I do not think that has changed over the last few years."
"Do not take a round about, Yaakov. Answer the damn question. I did not ask if it was you. I asked you if you know anything about its usage here." Helena raised her tone, and the three men tightened their grips on their guns.
"You can figure it out by yourself, among secret services. Nowadays everybody knows we have this new...how can we call it...this tool...and everybody is trying to copy or get access to it. It is the same situation when your best and strongest friends become your biggest problems, because it is way more difficult to resist the pressure to share the discovery."
"You are telling me the CIA has access to it? Full access? What exactly are they doing with it?" Helena was growing impatient.
"I see you have a definite interest in this," Yaakov replied calmly. "Let's put it this way, I think I can persuade people back in Tel Aviv to give me more information about the...diffusion patterns of the flies. But only if you persuade your friends here, to allow us to keep a small share of the North American Telomerax market."
Helena waited for the translations to process, and then looked at her partners. They exchanged glances, then the Small nodded in agreement.