"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.
