Charlie Thorne and the Curse of Cleopatra by Stuart Gibbs

Author:Stuart Gibbs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

Tel Aviv, Israel

The Israelis weren’t the only ones who could run operations in another country.

While the Mossad had agents operating inside Egypt, the Mukhabarat had agents operating inside Israel. In fact, they even had a mole inside Mossad headquarters.

The mole was a young woman named Ellie Kallner. On the face of things, she appeared to be the perfect Mossad agent, born and raised in Israel, an excellent student in school, and an outstanding soldier during her mandatory two years of military service. Her background had been carefully vetted before her Mossad recruitment. But Ellie had a weakness: Her grandfather, who lived in the United States, was very sick, and his health insurance didn’t cover all of his bills. That meant her grandparents were desperate for money; without it, her grandfather couldn’t afford the treatments he needed to survive.

The Mukhabarat had money.

Ellie had been slowly cultivated by a Mukhabarat field agent operating in Tel Aviv, another woman who had first approached Ellie as a friend. Her name was Yifat. It had been six months before Ellie learned the truth, and while she felt angry at first, the fact was, she would do anything to help her grandfather. Besides, the Mukhabarat never asked her to directly betray her country; it had been a long time since Egypt and Israel were actively at war. All the Mukhabarat wanted was the occasional piece of information. Sometimes months went by between asks.

But they wanted something now.

Ellie had seen the telltale chalk mark on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building as she left for work that morning. If someone had drawn a hopscotch board that had the numbers jumbled in a specific way, that meant Yifat wanted to meet for lunch.

Ellie followed the usual routine. She walked down to the beach, which was only a few blocks from Mossad headquarters, grabbed a sandwich at a take-out café, and sat down at a prearranged spot along the seawall to eat it.

It was a good place to meet, as the location was a popular lunch spot. Hundreds of other people were lined up along the seawall, some in business attire, some in more casual clothes. It was a hot summer day, and everyone was relishing the breeze off the Mediterranean Sea. The beach was crowded with sunbathers, volleyball players, and boogie boarders. A few of the businesspeople had even taken off their shoes, rolled up their pant cuffs, and waded ankle-deep into the surf.

Yifat came along and sat close to Ellie on the seawall. She wore sunglasses and a sunhat, like many other people out that day, and she only had an iced tea in her hand, indicating that she wouldn’t be staying for long. If she really needed to talk, then she would have had her own lunch. A copy of Haaretz, the Tel Aviv newspaper, was tucked under her arm. She set it down on the seawall beside her and looked out at the sea rather than at Ellie.

Ellie didn’t look at Yifat either. She continued to stare at the sea as well.

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