Operation: Tel-Aviv (Saimum Series #1)

CHAPTER 4

Nighttime in Tel-Aviv. The hustle and bustle of the city streets have decreased.

The road is smooth - recently paved with asphalt. The street lights on one side faintly illuminate the darkness. The wind is not felt on the skin, but a tinge of cold is sensed. It has a taste of sea-drenched breeze. Gentle strokes of the breeze can drift one to drowsiness.

A posh residential area. Only a couple of windows are glowing. It wouldn't be wrong to say the road is empty of people. At times, cars speed past dazzling the eyes. A narrow street begins from D.B road and ends a few meters south. The place where the street ends, stands a beautiful two-storey house.

A far away pendulum clock strikes twelve. A car stops in front of the dark house, and a silhouette garbed in black steps out of it.

The closed window's hard glass is softly knocked three times.

The silhouette walks past the front garden and stands in front of a closed ground floor window.

Silence. His forefinger strikes the window again - knock, knock, knock.

One part of the window slowly opens to reveal a darker shade of darkness inside. A hand stretches out. The silhouette places a piece of folded paper on it. The window shuts.

Closing the window from inside, Colonel Mahmud climbs up to the second floor balcony. A large meteor shoots down the sky. It disappears behind the twenty-two storey building close by.

D.B road is visible from the balcony until it bends out of his sight. Mahmud observes the black car driving into the main road from the narrow street of this house. The radiant red rear lights of the car gradually elude his view. Just when he is about to look away, something seizes back his gaze. He frowns at a smaller car exiting the same street and entering D.B road.

Mahmud's eyes widen. His mind thunders to him: track the car. He runs down the stairs. He drives his car out of the garage and past the open gate. His car slides onto D.B road; the red rear lights of that small car can still be seen at the far end of the long road. Colonel Mahmud's little sedan accelerates. The car preceding his moves at an average pace. Quickly his sedan reaches a distance of 200 m from the car.
A short while later, the slow-moving car suddenly flares up its speed. Colonel Mahmud further increases his. It is clear to him that the car in front has suspected him of tracking them. He smiles as he infers that it will now cease to follow Saimum's other vehicle and take a different path, because he believes its driver wouldn't risk being attacked from both front and rear. However, he soon realizes that he is mistaken. It returns to following it's prey at the same medium speed. Being ahead of Mahmud's car by 200 m, it is at least a hundred meters behind the vehicle that it has been following.

At this moment, Mahmud glances at the rearview mirror only to get struck by what he sees - a pair of enflamed headlights storming down at him. Now, the situation is clear to him. The front car belongs to Mossad (Israeli intelligence agency), and using a wireless, it has leaked news all around. And like the behind, there may be more intending to him from other sides.

Within an instant, Colonel Mahmud decides his next move. The speedometer travels from pointing at 50 to pointing at 90 kmph. The Mossad car after the Saimum one is driving at the same speed as his. Within minutes, the head of Saimum's Tel-Aviv unit Colonel Mahmud gets parallel to the Mossad vehicle. A few seconds, and an egg-like object flies out of Colonel Mahmud's car. It strikes the vehicle of Mossad next to his. Immediately, a loud, explosive noise is created.

Mahmud, by then, is driving parallely to his colleague's car. He turns around to see his victim car, which is now on fire. The new car that was tracking him from behind halts next to it. A smile of satisfaction breaks through his lips. The two vehicles of Saimum are advancing side-by-side.