“I told you specifically there was to be no engagement. This man is someone we need!”

“With all respect, sir, your instructions were narrow. The man was to be contacted, given a phone, and we were to track him afterward if we could do so discreetly.”

“And this is what you call discreet?”

Veron stepped in, “We don’t know what happened. One of the men was from my section, and he would not have engaged without cause.”

Nurin stared at Veron. The old soldier headed up his recent creation, a cell uncompromisingly called Direct Action. DA took on special projects for, and reported solely to, the director. It kept in its ranks not a single analyst or interpreter, but was comprised of individuals handpicked from IDF Special Forces units, Shin Bet, and Mossad’s own operations arm. Direct Action, as the name implied, was a group of individuals who got things done. Except, it seemed, today.

Nurin said, “Whatever his reasons, your man made a fatal mistake.”

The turret that was Veron’s head swiveled. “The target was fortunate.”

“No, we are fortunate to have sent only two.”

“Who is he?” Veron asked flatly.

“I’ve already told you, I can’t say.”

Veron stiffened, but demurred to Nurin’s authority with a stony silence.

“What about the girl?” Nurin asked. “Have we made any progress in finding her?”

This was Zacharias’s ground. “We have four operatives in country and eight on the way. The embassy provided six. So far they’ve found nothing.”

“She is an amateur! How could she disappear so completely?”

“Sometimes to be an amateur is the best thing,” Veron suggested. “They are unpredictable.”

Zacharias added, “The Swedes have no record of her exit, so she’s still there somewhere. We’ll find her, but I can’t say how long it will take.”

Nurin drummed his fingers on the table. He’d completely misread Anton Bloch’s loyalties, and now the man had thrown a wrench into the most important operation in years. “Do we have anything new on Bloch’s condition?”

“No change,” said Zacharias. “The embassy is keeping a discreet eye on him. At the moment, I would say it’s in our favor that he’s in a coma. It will give us time to arrange his extraction.” Clearly trying to set a more hopeful tone, he added, “We did recover the phone.”

“Where was it?”

“We tracked it to an old pensioner’s flat. One of our people slipped in and found it on the kitchen counter. The target had clearly ditched it.”

“Did he access the file?”

“He looked at it once.”

Nurin felt a ray of hope in an otherwise dismal situation.