Baksheesh (Bribes)

by D S Kane

  Cassie knew she was no longer in charge of Swiftshadow. Her lips moved but no sound left her. Finally, she said, “Of course. We’ll get back to you.”

  * * *

  O’Toole took her cellphone from her pocket. “We need expert assistance and someone in law enforcement to help us.” She smiled at the other three. “I know where we can get both.” Her mind drifted to her source at the FBI, a special agent in charge named Eugene Zmudoerski. “Mud,” as she remembered him, had used her services as an investigative reporter to break a story of FBI corruption recently, and had become her lover for a time. She smiled, remembering him.

  Wing, Ann, and the Butterfly exchanged glances. Tyler just sat at the dining room table doing nothing. He probably wished he didn’t have to be involved with any of this. Ann looked at April and shrugged. The other two smiled back at April.

  O’Toole punched in a number and hit the Talk button. “Mud, it’s April. I need help.” They all heard Mud’s reply, claiming unhappiness at not being called sooner. “Yeah, yeah. Tough titties. Remember the story I told you I was working on?” She nodded as she listened. “Yeah, that’s the one. Well, I’m sitting in the home of the woman who died. With her daughter and two hackers from her consulting company.” Tyler listened and sighed. Probably relieved his presence wasn’t mentioned.

  O’Toole scanned her handwritten notes. “Apparently, there’s a funds-transfer system our intelligence agencies use to fund black operations when they don’t want even Congress to know. It’s called SafePay. And it was recently updated with new bank endpoints. One of these connects to a Russian mafiya bank account in Vladivostok, owned by Nikita Tobelov.”

  She listened for a few seconds. “God, you’re so dense. You think I’m telling you all this for my health? No! It’s obvious, Mud-brain.” She got up and paced around. “Of course I have evidence. But when I’m ready to use it, I’ll need someone who can arrest a President for treason.” She threw her gaze to the ceiling, and then placed the phone back against her ear. “No! Not the ex-President. It’s Mastoff. We think Mastoff is about to start World War Three. He has a suitcase nuke ready to explode somewhere in the Arab world.”

  * * *

  As he walked through the maze of cubicles at Langley, Special Agent in Charge Eugene Zmudoerski saw his reflection in the glass walls and realized he looked like hell. Not enough sleep. Too much work. And lonely without April. She’d been gone for days. He still didn’t know where she was. And the strange phone call had him worried. If what she knew was true, then danger followed close behind her.

  He approached the director’s office and smiled at the secretary. “Hi, Wilbur. I need to see Harry. Is he available?”

  “No appointment?”

  “None, but it’s urgent. Something about a world war.”

  “Have a seat. I’ll see what I can do. A world war might actually get you face time.”

  Mud waited outside for ten minutes. Ushered inside the holy of holies, he smiled as the director pointed him to a chair.

  “What’s so urgent, Gene?” The director frowned.

  Mud took a breath before he spoke, giving him time to think. “Sir, I believe something big and very bad is about to go down.” He pulled the forelock of long hair from his face where it had fallen. “Um, I have received a tip from a reliable informant. Looks like President Mastoff intends to, ah, well, he plans to explode a suitcase nuke somewhere in the Arab world.”

  The director smiled back. “Right. How could you know this? Before you tell me, I want to remind you that you’ve been more trouble to the FBI than you’re worth. So, how, Gene?”

  Mud realized he was past the point of no return. He cringed. “Well, I heard it from an investigative reporter.” His brow was moist from nerves.

  The director frowned. “I’ll need the name of your source or this goes nowhere.”

  Mud hesitated, his wheels spinning.

  “Well?”

  Mud sighed. “April O’Toole.”

  “That bitch?”

  He waved his arm. “Listen, Director, she’s been reliable in the past. I know you don’t like her, but—”

  The director’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t like her? Gene, it goes way past that. I hate her. She’s embarrassed the FBI before. Many times. Why should I trust the opinion of this woman?”

  Mud stared at his shoes. “You don’t have to. Just assign someone other than me to look into the matter.”

  The director shook his head and pointed back at Eugene. “That’s crazy! If we started an investigation and it leaked, it’d start the largest scandal since Watergate. No, I’ll not do that. In fact, I don’t want you in contact with her again. Are we clear on this?”

  Mud focused on out-staring the director. “Well, I’m not sure how listening to her is bad for the FBI.”

  At this the director’s face reddened like a flame. “Gene, don’t try my patience. And don’t give me any more reasons to distrust you. Don’t call her again. Ever.” The man waved him from the office, and Mud got up and left, shaking his head.

  He took the elevator down two floors to his own office and closed the door. He dialed April’s cell. “It’s Mud.”

  “Oh, shit, I can hear it in your voice. He told you to fuck off.”

  “Yeah.” He sat and swiveled his chair to face the window. The view was pleasant enough, but he felt sadness overcoming him. “And he doesn’t want me calling you, or even talking with you ever again.”

  “Well, that’s plain stupid. Why not?”

  The door to Gene’s office opened and two officers flashed their homeland security badges. One said, “Hang up the phone, sir, and hand it to me.”

  He continued holding it. “Why? Am I under arrest? If so, for what?”

  The officer grinned like a poker player who was “called” while holding a winning hand. “The intelligence you are discussing is classified, and the party you are talking to has no clearance for this. No clearance at all.”

  Mud handed him the cellphone. But he prayed April had heard the whole exchange.

  * * *

  Shimmel terminated the call. He shook his head. The information Wing had given him about O’Toole’s FBI boyfriend was worse than disturbing. He couldn’t decide whether to tell Ben-Levy what he knew or wait for the rest of what would be coming in. In the end, he figured that time was the most critical factor. He picked up the receiver. “Judy, get me Ben-Levy.” He waited for a few seconds, composing his thoughts. “Yigdal, it’s Avram. I need a few minutes.”

  “I’ve been expecting your call. What’s your status?”

  He rose from his desk and paced the office. “I know what was sold. But I don’t know where the goods will be used. I also know the United States isn’t willing to recognize that two Presidents in a row have exceeded their charters.”

  “Wait! You have me totally confused. Tell me everything.”

  Shimmel frowned. “Not from a landline. Call me back on the GNU Radio I left with you. I’ll wait.”

  Two minutes later they were connected again. Shimmel started with the things they already knew. “Yigdal, something very bad will happen soon. Something worse than very bad. And we don’t yet know where.”

  “Yes, yes, but until we know what, when, and where, we are running blind.”

  Avram looked through the window onto the K Street below, watching lobbyists and their ilk purposefully stride to appointments. “That investigative reporter has a friend at the highest level in the FBI. When he suggested to his superior that President Mastoff is about to commit a treasonous act, instead of investigating, they had Homeland Security arrest him.”

  “What? Even in Israel, where politics are truly byzantine, that could never happen. Do you know this for sure?”

  Shimmel frowned again. “He was arrested while on the phone to her. She heard it happen. What the Russian mafiya sold was a set of Cold War-vintage suitcase nukes. And Mastoff bought them, paying for them with Sashakovich’s life as well as the covert funds wired
through Project SafePay.”

  “You’ve no idea where they are to be used?”

  He shook his head. “None at all. But as you know, Ainsley is trying to get the intel for you by hacking the Bug-Lok records. If we get lucky, we’ll find the connection between what Greenfield knows and what Mastoff is doing.”

  “All right. Keep me informed. If you need Mossad’s help, just ask.”

  CHAPTER 30

  June 10, 2:45 p.m.

  The house behind Abdul’s Revenge,

  just off Highway 1, Devil’s Slide, California

  They’d been working on the protections that were embedded in the agency’s server firewall for over three hours. Lee blinked his eyes fast. “The screens are making my eyes tear.” He shook his face.

  Cassie snickered. “Poor boy, tires much too easily.”

  “Shit, woman, I’ve been at this for four hours before you got started. Sheesh, I need a rest.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t. Grab a cup of coffee. It’s Illy dark roast. I made it twenty minutes ago and turned the heat off to keep it from burning.”

  He nodded and left for the kitchen. She could hear dishes clinking and the pour of liquid as she scanned the location of Bug-Lok transcript files. “Lee, there’s something here I need you to see.”

  He returned, balancing a cup filled to the top and carefully setting it down on the desk. “What?”

  She pointed to the password box blinking against the file listing. “This is something I remember from my days in the agency. There was a password generator that McDougal once told me about. Back when he taught me how to hack bank firewalls. But I can’t remember. Help me here.”

  He leaned forward and read the file descriptions, his lips moving with each word. “Yeah, now I remember. The actual password is separate for each file. The last four bytes of the record are the encrypted password. To decrypt it, we use the employee number and employee date of birth as the key for the first part. We eventually dumped this security program ’cause it used too much space. Newer, cheaper hard-disk storage became available later that year. So maybe they reinstalled that old program again.”

  He sat and sipped the coffee, his eyes staring at nothing. “And if it is the old protocol, maybe the administrator’s backdoor password is still this.” He keyed one word: “GOD,” followed by a string of numbers.

  The file unlocked and he copied its contents from three thousand miles away in Washington DC to Ann’s desktop computer.

  Her jaw dropped. “Wow.”

  He smiled, facing her and touching his lips to hers. “Yeah. And the best thing about this is that every file can be copied by ‘GOD’ in batch, not one at a time. And the rest of the password is GOD’s employee ID, 666, and his date of birth, which is all zeros.” He copied and decrypted each one of over fourteen thousand files. “Most of these take a second or two. The entire lot could take a few hours. Soon, we can forward them to Ben-Levy. Get the GNU Radio, sweetie.” He began deleting old files from the computer to make room for the terabytes of data that were streaming in.

  * * *

  When Lee finished, he found that it was dark outside. His watch told him it was just after nine. Ohmigod, she’d had to cook and serve dinner to fifty people all by herself. Alone. Something Ann and he had always helped her do. He rose from the seat and ran down the staircase.

  She faced away from him, standing at the kitchen sink, humming one of the old blues tunes he’d learned long ago from listening to her. As she washed dishes, she seemed not to notice he was behind her. That was unusual. She’d always had a sixth sense about people behind her, but not tonight.

  “Cass, I’m sorry I left you fending for yourself. Is there anything left for me to do?”

  She remained turned away. “Nope. You owe me. A week of backrubs. And you’ll be my sex slave, too.” She turned but no smile was on her lips. “Did you find what Ben-Levy wanted?”

  “I’m finished, but I haven’t a clue what’s in those files. There was also an internal encryption algorithm, and it was way past my skills. Ness Ziona probably built it and they’ll be able to decipher it in a flash.”

  She faced him, leaving the water running. “At least you won’t be traveling. I want you here, all to myself. And I want Ann back. Right away. It’s after midnight in Washington, so I’ll wait until morning. But I want them to rent a jet as soon as I speak with Shimmel.”

  * * *

  Yigdal Ben-Levy sat ramrod straight in his desk chair, reading the transcript on his monitor:

  “Hello, Mr. Tobelov. This is President Mastoff. The Russian President told me to contact you. But haven’t we spoken before? Please tell me why you contacted me prior to receiving his permission, since that’s what I’m sure you did. Or should I call your President and tell him about our previous contact?”

  “Uh, Mr. President, I, uh.”

  “Just as I thought. Your original contact with me was before your President granted permission. I assume it would damage your position were I to tell him. Correct?”

  As he read, Ben-Levy could feel Tobelov seething on the other end of the line, ten thousand miles away. Tobelov continued:

  “So, then, Mr. President, what it is you want me to do?”

  “I want all the nukes. For the price we already agreed for the four I ordered. Same price for all the rest. All twenty-four of them. And I’ll have you deliver them to very specific sets of locations. Are we agreed? Or do you wish to find out what your President will do to you when he finds you’ve exceeded your charter?”

  “Nyet, do not disturb him. I will comply. Where do you want them delivered?”

  “The first one goes to a group in East Jerusalem called the Prophet’s Revenge, for use in the Al Aqsa Mosque. The second to the Ayatollah Youseph in Tehran. The third…”

  Ben-Levy muttered under his breath and stopped reading. He picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  * * *

  As Shimmel sat at his desk reading reports, the phone rang.

  “Avram, It’s Yigdal. I just read the Bug-Lok transcripts from Greenfield. What O’Toole told you is true. Mastoff wants to start a global war, Christians against Muslims and Jews. His first step is to blow up the mosque in Jerusalem.”

  Shimmel’s jaw dropped. “We can’t let that happen.”

  “Of course. But it’s you, not we. Israelis cannot go into a mosque. Especially this one. Al Aqsa. It has to be you. Your mercs. Assemble a team. Right now!”

  Shimmel shook his head. “I have everyone just back from Oman. They’re tired, Yigdal. No one slept for several days.”

  “Another two days and there won’t be an Israel. And the world will be up to its tits in nuclear fallout. The Bug-Lok transcripts indicate there is a suitcase nuclear device under the ancient Al Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, set on a timer to explode in less than three days. I will have an aircraft ready for transporting your troops on the tarmac at the private air services terminal at Dulles. Ready in under two hours. Israel cannot be seen having anything to do with a bomb in a mosque. Your mercs can sleep on the flight over. How long for you to get load-out for your mercs?”

  Shimmel knew none of the mercs would be ready for deployment without at least two days’ rest. He sighed. “Is there any other resource available?”

  “No. You know about the Jericho Alternative? If a nuclear bomb explodes in Israel, that computer program automatically sends over forty missiles carrying nuclear warheads into every Muslim country from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon to Pakistan within seconds of the attack.”

  Shimmel knew. Everyone at a senior level in Mossad knew. He sighed. “I’ll alert the mercs right away.”

  “Wait. That’s not all. The FBI is unwilling to stop Mastoff. He has Homeland Security working for him, as well as the Secret Service. To keep anyone from stopping the suitcase nuke it is your mission to find them and prevent them from detonating. To keep him from sending out any of the others, we must kill him.”

  Shimmel hadn�
��t tumbled to this obvious conclusion. His brows furrowed. “Assassinate a sitting President of the United States? That’s crazy! How are we to do that?”

  “It isn’t your problem. I just want you to know how serious this is. When you get back after retrieving the suitcase nuke, we’ll talk more.”

  As he hung up the phone, Avram Shimmel wondered if there was a better way to make a living.

  CHAPTER 31

  April 20, 3:47 p. m.

  Dulles International Airport,

  Washington, DC

  As the aircraft rose into the sky from the private air terminal, Avram Shimmel sat looking out its window, thinking about what he could do to help Cassie recover her life once and for all. For an hour he thought without any ideas coming to him.

  But, in the end, it became obvious. He’d already decided to buy The Swiftshadow Group, sure that this would ensure she could live her own life and not a life put upon her by others.

  He wanted to find a way to protect her from the mistakes she seemed to make by becoming emotionally entangled with dangerous people who then drove her decisions. Buying Swiftshadow would at least take her out of the most dangerous job she had ever stepped into. Since he was now running the company, this would simply formalize the situation that already existed. Another problem solved. He sighed.

  Then he focused on logistics for the upcoming missions.

  He’d need to staff three of the five missions that were pending. New faces, more training, and he’d have to get them up to speed fast. Avram wondered how to cut to a bare minimum the lead time from a position’s vacancy to deployable staff.

  He had adequate resources for some of the missions, but he’d need at least twice the mercenary force for some of them. He rubbed his eyes. Well, anything was simple compared to the Riyadh and Afghanistan missions he’d coordinated for Swiftshadow eighteen months ago.

  He closed his eyes. Soon his world would flap free in the breeze. After all, no battle plan ever survived first contact with the enemy.