When Nir could wait no longer, he said, “Let’s rein it in. Believe it or not, we still have jobs to do.”

Yossi quickly sliced off seconds of the cake for himself and Lahav, then sat down. All attention was on Nir.

“First, congratulations to all of you. Because of this team’s hard work in Syria, getting that evidence of the suitcase nukes, the prime minister has okayed an operation to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.”

The team cheered. Due to their intel work day by day, more than most people in the country they knew why it was so important to stop Iran now before they achieved weaponized nukes.

“The Saudi crown prince is even going to let us use his airspace. But he wants something in return.”

“A hot tub?”

“A cricket team?

“A penguin?”

“No, he wants a man killed.”

By their expressions, it was evident that they hadn’t been expecting to hear that. But why would they? He hadn’t.

“What? Are we the royal Saudi hit squad all of a sudden?” Liora asked.

“I thought he’d just want some technology thing,” Dafna said. “Like turbo camels or the latest in beard oil science or something.”

“Ooh, I’d take some of that beard oil stuff,” Yossi said while stroking his long hipster facial hair.

“Who is the he the crown prince wants killed?” asked Nicole.

“I don’t know much about him, and the crown prince wouldn’t say why he wants him killed.” Nir held up the folder he’d been given. “This is all we have, and it’s just the basics. Name, age…assorted facts. You know, like drinking piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.”

“I don’t even want to know what he likes to do in the dews of the cape,” Lahav said, wagging his eyebrows.

“It’s dunes on the cape,” Yossi said.

“What do you mean? It’s dews. It’s midnight, and the dew has settled on the sand, and—”

“Hey!” Nir sailed his party hat at them. Unfortunately, it caught air and fell to the floor well short of its target. Still, it was enough to get their attention. “Don’t make me regret letting you eat sugar. Focus.”

The whole team mumbled their apologies.

“Anyway, what I’m saying is that this folder contains what we would expect from a basic Mossad examination of this dude’s life. It’s more than anyone else could get, but way less than we can get. So I want the CARL deep dive.”

The analysts all broke into a cry. “CARL!”

“Exactly. I’m giving you two hours. When I get back, I want everything about him those other guys aren’t smart enough to uncover.”

He could see they were excited and ready to go. Time to drop the final bomb.