Free Tsunami Connection by Michael James Gallagher

an
air-conditioned hallway, lit by overhead neon. Emergency lighting boxes sat
ready every ten meters. The communications room was at the end of a
thirty-meter walk. Another keypad glowed on the door at the end of the passage.
The lights flickered and auxiliary power took over.
    The disguised Lieutenant Colonel entered a partially compartmentalized
room lit mostly by computer screens. There were no women in the room. The men
were all about Shafiq's age and dressed in civilian clothes. The hardness of
their bodies gave away strict training regimes, marking them as military men.
    No one took notice of him as he sat in front of a terminal
and prepared to dial into a secure Military Intelligence server. Once on the
server, he dialed the number Yochana had given him in the bottom of her cup of
tea. It was February 2, 2011. An unrelated message flashed on his screen:
President Mubarak Resigns.
    A pop up window demanded secure code numbers. Shafiq ignored
the instructions on the general security screen; he spoke into his encrypted
device, closing the door behind him, believing he was making his message secure
even in this office. Unknown to Shafiq, as the message from Yochana played out,
a traitor to the Mubarak regime inside Military Intelligence, was recording
everything at every terminal in the room, using hacking software planted the
night before, even at this secure, officers-only location.
    Yochana's talk of the need to have a training exercise
threatened the following year. It was essential that Shafiq arrange to plant a
suicide bomber with an explosive vest and an RPG that Yochana would provide.
The bomber would use a faulty rocket launcher.
    In exactly one year, in the Sinai, near Nuweiba next
February 2, 2012 at dawn, the bomber must pop up from the sand, aim his RPG at
the passing helicopters and pull the trigger. It is imperative, and explicitly
stated by Yochana, that the rocket launcher must fail.
    Shafiq understood that Yochana's purpose was to make certain
that an unnamed member of the training group in the helicopters should feel
threatened and become more ambitious as a result. Details would follow. As
recognition of his long service in Egypt, in a program known to few and started
by Shafiq's father just after the Camp David Accords were signed, Yochana
arranged to make Shafiq comfortable at Mossad's expense in Buenos Aires.
    Shafiq thought of MacAuley as the go-between. That
treacherous bastard still owes me and now money is less of an object, thought the Lieutenant Colonel. He typed on secure email and organized a
meeting between MacAuley and Amir in Edinburgh, Scotland at MacAuley's
convenience. Shafiq also arranged for Amir to deliver Yochana's instructions to
MacAuley. The double agent would meet MacAuley. Shafiq also told MacAuley that
Amir's name had changed to Tony. The meeting place: 15 Stenhouse West,
Edinburgh, Scotland, Amir's house.
    Amir and MacAuley had worked together before, so the
location would make MacAuley less jumpy than usual. All this was set in motion
while hacking software automatically copied all messages and forwarded them to
another secure server in the offices of the nascent security services of the
Moslem Brotherhood, the likely next government of Egypt. This unknown sharing
of information made Shafiq's well-intentioned plans suspect, but neither Shafiq
nor Yochana knew of the Moslem Brotherhood's subterfuge and likely treachery to
come.
    Now Shafiq had to get out of Egypt before the maelstrom
engulfed him. The gist of the message from Yochana revealed a tunnel into the
Gaza Strip as a likely means of exiting the morass of Egypt in revolution for a
GIS officer. She gave him some codes he would be required to enter into the
fresh one-time-use cell phone she had given him to confirm his crossing on the
day of making the move.
    Shafiq was grateful, but skeptical. He knew he needed to
make his own way to Israel. He would make the call codes when the time came,
but implement a more secure