Ops Files II--Terror Alert Read Free Page A

even a methodical investigation would yield nothing.
    Abreeq would leave it to his contractor to claim responsibility for the attacks, or not, as they liked. Fanfare and credit weren’t his style and didn’t interest him.
    His was a pure ambition, his motivation simple: to rid his world of the interlopers who’d lied to his people for generations, who’d robbed them of their heritage and their birthright. Every explosion, every death, was another step toward that goal, and he wouldn’t rest until he’d achieved his aim or died in the process.
    But not today. Today he was striking a blow that would have his enemies quaking in fear. Today it would be others who paid the ultimate price in blood, while Abreeq slipped away like a ghost.

Chapter 3
    Dhaka, Bangladesh
     
    Trash blew along the boulevards of the urban sprawl that was Dhaka, colorful brochures scattered to the winds comingling with discarded wrappers, plastic bags, and bits of unidentifiable material best left unexamined. The entire city suffered from a stench often described as a combination of raw sewage and rot. The Buriganga River, which flowed past the outskirts, was little more than a polluted greenish brown sluice dotted with smokestacks belching poison into the heavens, rendering the stinking water in which the locals bathed and dumped their waste an environmental hazard that could blister skin.
    The capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka and its surrounding suburbs were home to over fifteen million souls, many of whom lived in extreme poverty. A pall of pollution blanketed the city as the sun rose, coloring the sky orange and mauve. The juxtaposition of modern green glass skyscrapers against a backdrop of shanties served as a constant reminder of the economic disparity that defined the nation.
    Uri Efron shifted on the uncomfortable seat of an ancient Nissan sedan as he and his companion, Gil Rubin, thirty-two years his junior, watched the doors of one of the city’s many mosques. As a senior operative of the Mossad, Uri had been stationed all over the world, but it was difficult to mistake his current posting as anything but a career backhand that he endured with stoic calm. Gil, on the other hand, only with the Mossad for nine years, was less accepting of his fate, and spent a large amount of his day cursing his luck for winding up in a fourth-world slum that made hell sound appealing.
    An endless parade of rickshaws streamed toward them on the street, their operators pedaling in the dank heat of morning with the resigned acceptance of prisoners serving life sentences. The sheer press of humanity most days, at any hour, was onerous even in the relative comfort of the car, which was made worse by Uri’s endless smoking of the local cheap cigarettes to which he was addicted.
    The older man coughed, an ominous, wet sound that transitioned into a wheeze, and stubbed out his seventh cigarette of the morning. Gil eyed him without comment, knowing it was pointless to complain about his superior’s repellent habit.
    “This isn’t working,” Gil griped. “We need to get into the mosque, not sit out here wondering what they’re doing inside.”
    “Huh, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe you can slip in, looking as much like a native as you do and speaking perfect Bengali, and linger around where the great man’s holding court?” Uri spat in a tone corrosive as battery acid. “You know, see if he’s handing out ‘terrorist wanted’ cards or anything.”
    “Then what’s the point of monitoring his movements? He could be digging a tunnel to Jerusalem and we’d never know it.”
    “Because I said so.” Uri eyed the younger man and his tone softened. “I understand this is frustrating. I’ve asked for more support, but budgets are lean. You know the story. We’re to do the best we can and notify headquarters if we learn anything.”
    “How can we learn anything sitting out here?”
    “Well, we saw the great man go to Western Union and get money, so