“I hear you, Nicole. But you need to remember one of the Mossad’s other commitments. As far as is possible, we will kill no innocents. Think of Fakhrizadeh. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to drop a hellfire on his car from a drone? Instead, we went through this elaborate scheme with a robotic rifle because we didn’t want to harm his wife. Did she know all that he was involved with? Probably. Does that make her morally complicit in his actions? Maybe. But maybe isn’t enough for the Mossad. We err on the side of innocence. So we took out the guilty and spared the possibly innocent.”

“And that’s top-down? You’re saying the ramsad never would have agreed if the target wasn’t a bad guy—and everyone around him too?”

“That’s what I’m saying. And if I personally ever feel this new operation is at all iffy in that regard, I’ll pull out. The ramsad has four other options for someone to run with it.”

Nicole smiled. “Thank you. That’s what I needed to hear.”

He watched her go to her workstation, then left CARL. His next stop was the boys who’d be pulling the triggers.

Chapter 51

CHAPTER 51

11:30 / 11:30 A.M. IDT

The rest of the cake didn’t stand a chance once the ops guys arrived. They divided the remaining two-thirds into four massive slabs as soon as they sat down at the conference table. The analysts were still working, and Nir had been looking at something on Lahav’s computer when he turned around just in time to see Yaron drop the last of the cake onto a plate and slide it down to Imri. When Lahav saw the arrivals, he walked over, and they all fist bumped him.

That’s good to see.

Nir waited a few extra minutes to call the meeting so the ops guys could get rid of the evidence of their cake theft. But when Yossi turned and asked, “You ready for us, boss?” he felt compelled to call them in.

The analysts came over, and Liora and Dafna just stood behind their chairs. The ops guys were grinning with full mouths, chewing away at Dafna’s cake.

“This is metoraf,” Dima said, pointing at the cake with his fork. “Seriously—so good!”

“Really? The whole thing?” Liora asked.

“There wasn’t that much left,” Yaron said, his mouth still full.

“Like way more than half,” Dafna said in her most accusing tone. “Come on, that was my cake.”

“Happy birthday,” Dima said. His heavy Russian accent and mouth stuffed with cake made his words barely understandable.

The women dropped into their chairs.

“I don’t even get it,” Liora said. “How do you even eat that much cake? You got a llama back there you’re feeding?”

“We’re growing boys. We need nourishment,” Dima replied.