Lahav replied with a placating tone. “No, you’re right, you’re right. It’s true that we don’t always give you boots-on-the-ground guys enough credit. Just tell me this, though. What if you’re all set up, the target is coming, and you suddenly realize your flux capacitor has gone down and you don’t have enough jigawatts to power it back up? What would you do?”

“I can’t tell you right now,” Yaron said with a condescending tone. “But if you do your job, then by the time of the operation, I will know exactly how to get enough jigawatts to start up the flux capacitor.”

“There’s no such thing as a flux capacitor, you mefager,” Lahav said as he leaned back in his chair and spread his arms as if he’d just announced “Checkmate.”

This time the hands were on Yaron’s shoulders before he could clear his chair.

“I heard you can only get that many jigawatts using lightning,” Yossi said amid the ensuing chaos, still focused on his laptop.

Efraim stood and slammed one palm on the table. “Okay, everybody stop. I’ve got a limited amount of time, and you guys are wasting it. Lahav is going with the ops team, so shut up and accept it.”

As he sat back down, he turned toward Nir and whispered with a wink, “It’s all about influence, achi. I’ll get you a copy of Carnegie’s book.”

Nir shook his head and sighed. “Okay, can we please act like adults? We’ve got six weeks before we’re on the ground in Iran. We need to be a solid team watching each other’s backs. You don’t have to agree with all the decisions made. You just need to make them work. Understood?”

Nods of agreement all around, some more emphatic than others.

“Okay, now I have something else to run past you all. And that’s why Efraim’s in here. Yossi, close your laptop before it follows the flight path of the pistachio bowl.”

The full-bearded, man-bunned analyst gave an exasperated sigh and obeyed.

Nir began by giving them the background of walking the streets of Milan with Nicole, ignoring all the catcalls and kissing noises from the Millennials who made up his team of analysts. When he got to the part about seeing the Alicia Marcos painting, he clicked a remote, and a photo of the painting appeared on a large double monitor set that hung over Liora and Dafna’s joined workstations. The Kidon members had to turn around in their chairs to see it.