"And this is the moment of truth," I murmured while stepping off the plane and onto the jetway. There were no bags to check, only the carry-ons we had from Belarus and the clothes we had to buy to get around undetected.
Sneaking guns through airport security was a perfectly choreographed routine that included one person to distract and the other to move backpacks around, kick boxes across the floor, and change the order of items on the lineup. It was designed and engineered down to the tenth of a second, perfectly organized to get past the watchful eyes of the airport security and Interpol agents. It was like something out of Now You See Me, but instead of cards, we were playing with loaded weapons.
You might think I'm lying, but just remember how the American TSA misses 94% of the illegal items passing through their scanners. That's not even taking into account that there have been CIA agents crossing borders with weapons for decades. Now you see how it's possible for Ashton and me to have handguns in our carry-ons.
The only issue was if we got manually searched by the Israeli airport security. It wasn't until Ashton got pulled out of the security line for questioning first, that I felt the slight irk in my stomach. I should be worried about myself, but I couldn't help but want to scratch the underlying itch of Ashton's history with the Israeli government. He defected from one of the best military units in the world; of course, they were trying to track him, or at least maintain his file in their database. That's the equivalent of a Navy Seal escaping to Russia; of course, they are going to keep a close eye on him.
The thought of an Israeli prison was more than enough to push thoughts of the dead body I left in a church out of my mind.
I knew I shouldn't be worried, though. Both Ashton and myself had years of training and experience that led us to be masters of cover stories and lies. In the CIA we were tested to make sure we could create strong covers; today would be the biggest test.
The metal chair I sat in was still warm from the last person occupying it. I stared ahead at the stone-faced security officer in front of me, casting his cool brown eyes down at the pieces of paper in front of him. Sitting between us at the side of the square table was a blonde translator with a slightly calmer and more friendly-looking face. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't making a conscious effort to look intimidating.
"What is your name, nationality, and age?" The man asked in Hebrew. It wasn't until recently that the official language was changed to exclude Arabic. As I'd mentioned before, I only knew enough Hebrew to get by in passing, not to speak confidently and fluently. Hence why I didn't understand him completely until the woman translated it to Russian.
"Anastasiya Setojonovich, I'm Russian and I'm 26," I answered while a straight face, my tone assertive and sure but not outwardly dominant. I watched the man across from me make check marks and write something down on his papers but I didn't attempt to be interested in it. I couldn't read Hebrew anyway.
"What are you doing in Israel?" The woman translated after a moment.
"My husband and I are going to Jerusalem to see the Holy Land for vacation." This was the easy part. All of these questions were things that were straight forward, things Ashton and I had talked about. The real problem could arise when we get asked questions that involved each other that we hadn't planned out. That would make our guessing game a lot harder.
"What religion are you?" She asked after hearing my mention of the Holy Land.
"Eastern Orthodox Christian," that wouldn't score me points, but in the eyes of the Israeli government, at least I wasn't Muslim which in the scale of risk factors was worse than being too western to this government. It was a shame, but it was reality. The best option would have been to be Jewish, but I didn't know enough Hebrew to make that possible.
"Where did you receive Chrismation?"
"Church of the Savior on Kamenka in St. Petersburg," I lied smoothly. This line of questioning wasn't putting me at ease after what happened two days ago. I had told Ashton what I'd done when he found me praying outside on the balcony when he knew I wasn't religious. My eyes were glued to him as I watched Ashton perform a prayer of repentance. Quran 2:286. I'd quoted it for him after he'd said how 'confession' was an individual thing, but it was still a kind gesture to pray for others.
An atheist praying for another atheist, what a sight.
When he asked how I knew that I lied through my teeth and told him I'd memorized it because we used to read the Quran to practice our Arabic in the Ops. While that was true, that wasn't why I knew that line, but I refused to get into that with him.
"Where are you staying?" The woman asked.
"Leonardo Plaza."
"What were you doing in Belarus before your flight?"
"It was connecting. We stayed the night because we wanted a break from travelling." That was the only way we could get onto the flight without being from Belarus. International connecting didn't require a stamp from the connecting country, but we had to get through security and into the international zone meaning our passports needed a Belarusian stamp.
The questions rattled on slowly but surely. It must have taken at least half an hour by the time they were done asking me what my parents did for a living, who officiated my wedding, where I grew up, what car I drove, and where I lived. The only thing that could possibly cause a problem was the question of who officiated our wedding. If Ashton got that question he would have to make it up completely. He could be very convincing, but if for some reason they checked his answers against mine, then we would have a major problem.
I was incredibly relieved when the officer stuck the barcode sticker on the back of my red passport. When I was led out of the room and to the security line for baggage checks, my warm brown eyes shielded by blue contacts immediately locked on Ashton standing at the end of the line right before me. I couldn't help but smile at him a little, showing my relief. This would be the easy part. The security scanners here were the same, if not older, than the ones in Belarus so it would be a piece of cake for us to get through as long as Ashton didn't have a five or a six as the beginning number of his barcode.
"What did you get?" I asked him quietly while flipping my own over to see the four printed on mine. Not bad for a Catholic Russian.
"Two."
My eyes almost bulged out of my head in surprise while my brows furrowed. "How the fuck did you get a two?" Ones and twos were reserved almost indefinitely for Israeli citizens or extremely low-risk persons.
Ashton smirked a little while intertwining our hands for show. "Well, unlike some sorry asses, I can speak and read Hebrew making my Jewish background very convincing. Also, apparently when you take away my black hair and my European adaptations tend to show."
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. "I don't believe that," I told Ashton honestly. I don't think his looks were fooling many people. He somehow just knew how to swindle his interviewer perfectly.
"You can just believe I'm better at this than you. That seems to be a win-win situation for me."
"Oh, fuck you."
"Fuck you too, Mrs. Setojonovich. Now let's get through this line so we can get the fuck out of here," Ashton murmured the last part under his breath.
"Stealing a car here would be risky," I pointed out. Israel had too many military checkpoints, especially as we headed closer to the Palestinian border. I can't express how glad I am that we aren't heading to Gaza or Jerusalem. That's just asking for trouble. "We're going to have to take a train as far as we can then backpack the rest."
"We have to get off in Be'er Sheva and take a hard turn south-east to Dimona. We need to avoid Hebron like the plague. At least it's not Gilman Heights up north, though. If the military was present in the West Bank, we don't even want to think about the Heights," Ashton reminded me. "It's only an eight-hour walk from Be'er Sheva to Dimona. It's best we avoid public transport and stealing cars when we get close to the city."
At least we weren't walking to Demarcus, Syria. That's the only upside here.
"It will take us about a day and a half if we only sleep six hours, and that's assuming we don't run into any hiccups." Today was already mostly over. Our best choice was to get a train first thing in the morning then walk through the afternoon and early night.
"Then I hope you like walking because we're going to be doing a lot of it."
My legs hurt just thinking about it. I can't fucking wait.