Spies Lie Series Box Set

by D S Kane

  Sands led him through the security doors to a conference room big enough for a tiny table and three chairs. There was no window, but there were two cams positioned so he couldn’t avoid both. This was an interrogation room. He felt perspiration dripping down his torso.

  He took a deep breath to center himself. “We believe the Stillwater explosion is related to the one at Antron in Bern.”

  She focused her eyes on him like laser beams. “Yes. I know that already. We have a team in Bern.”

  He’d thought this might happen. It was inevitable, but he’d hoped he’d get to the United States Interpol office before they could get a team to Switzerland. This could prove to be a fatal problem. “I understand. But to facilitate the investigation, I’d appreciate it if I could see the video cam tapes the facility made at Stillwater before the explosion. Perhaps I can find someone related to those we’ve seen on the tapes in Bern.”

  She continued staring at him as if he was a suspect in the investigation. Houmaz prepared to pounce. Even if she’d been trained for combat he was sure his chances were better than even. The office had disgracefully minimal security. He prayed to Allah he could convince her of his identity, or, if he failed, subdue her and flee.

  “That’s what our team in Bern is doing right now.” She cast her eyes down and away to her left. “Please wait here.” She left the tiny room and closed the door. Somewhere in his head he could feel the impending torture of rendition.

  Had Gault taken photos when he was recovering at the hospital in Istanbul? But of course he did. He rose from his seat and paced the room.

  While he sat at his desk at the agency’s Washington headquarters, Bob Gault’s cell phone buzzed. He dropped the report he was reading, rose from his cubicle desk and walked to a dark, empty conference room. After first shutting the door, he pulled the cell from his pocket. The screen flashed “no identity.” Who has this number? “Gault.”

  “Mr. Gault, my name is Morgan Sands of Interpol. We have someone at our San Jose office and the note on his photographic record lists his identity as ‘Tariq Houmaz’ and states we should talk to you before we process him.”

  “Are you calling from the San Jose office?”

  “Yes. Should we detain him?”

  That could be a disaster; the asset was a trained killer. Bob weighed the few alternatives open to him. “Do you have any infrared tagging devices?”

  “Yes. So we tag and release?”

  “Yeah. You have to delay him as long as possible. Let him see what he came for, but don’t let him leave with anything. I’ll get myself to your area before the end of the day. Don’t let him know you’ve tagged him. And send the tag identity to my cell so I can track him as soon as I get off the plane.” He ran the carpeted hallway to his cubicle and assembled the things he’d need for his trip. Then he rode the elevator to the armory and selected a SIG Sauer 9mm and ammo. As an afterthought, he pocketed a mini-EMP

  While he flagged a taxi to Dulles, he called McDougal to alert him. From the taxi he called the agency’s private airline company. They assured him they could have a Cessna ready in under half an hour.

  Tariq Houmaz heard the footsteps approaching the conference room. It had taken more time than it should have for her to return. If she’d vetted his creds, he was doomed.

  But she returned holding a small case. She pressed a button and a screen descended from the ceiling. She took her time before she pulled a notebook computer from the case. “Forgive me for moving slow, but I’m exhausted.” She smiled, then attached cables from the table to the computer. After stopping a few seconds, she placed a DVD from the case into the computer’s drive bay. “Watch. If you see anyone you recognize, tell me and I’ll produce a photo from the DVD.”

  It took more than two hours, but now he held a single photo of someone he recognized. A woman from Mossad with blond hair. From his previous hacks of the Mossad’s servers, he knew her name was Ruth Cohen. He already had identified the other person from Antron, also a female, and also from the Mossad. Her name was Shulamit Ries. He thanked Sands and stood. She tried making small talk but he shook her hand and headed from the building. It had been over four hours since he’d entered the building.

  Once outside in the bright sun, his mood improved. He almost smiled. His car was parked in an office lot, a few blocks away.

  He felt his stomach growl and decided to stop for a cup of coffee and a bite at one of the cafeterias now filled for dinner with office nerds. He bought coffee and a vegetable sandwich of some kind at the counter, found a couple leaving their seats, and took their table.

  While he ate, he used his cell phone to copy the two photographs he’d taken in the Bern and San Jose Interpol offices into his cell phone. He crafted and posted a note in the draft email folder on their secure website for Pesi to read, the next time he logged in:

  Brother,

  I have attached two photos of people responsible for the upset of our plans for Bug-Lok. I want you to kill each of them. I have different instructions for how I want their terminations done. Follow my instructions to the letter, to ensure they look like my work.

  He detailed notes on his desires, signed and sent the email. This time he smiled. He took his time with the sandwich and savored the coffee.

  When he was finished, he walked to the rental car. The engine wouldn’t start. He tried several times, with growing anxiety.

  There was a knock on the curbside window. Houmaz’s head lurched up and saw Bob Gault smiling at him. The pudgy spy held a small EMT device. Houmaz recognized the unit from his brother’s researches. Gault motioned for him to open the door. He complied.

  Gault’s other hand was in his pocket and Houmaz was sure it held a gun. “This car isn’t going anywhere, compadre. We need to talk.”

  He thought of running, but knew there was little point. At best it would provoke a country-wide manhunt. At worst, he’d be dead. He held his hands up, where they were visible, as he exited the car.

  Gault put plastic cuffs on him and led him to another vehicle where he placed him in the passenger side seat. “You’ve been a bad boy. Not sure what we’re going to do with you, but I’m sure you won’t like it.” Gault started the car and drove away with him.

  Avram Shimmel sipped coffee at a Starbucks in Monterey, California. He viewed the screen of his cell phone, reflecting the balance of his bank account. More than six million US dollars. Enough for the task at hand. He opened the spreadsheet on the cell, a punch list of military skills he needed and the officers he could hire to fill them for his new mercenary force:

  •Major Alister McTavish, British, Tactics Command

  •Major Ralph Giondella, American, Tactics Command

  •Major Jacques LeFleur, French North Africa, Battle Operations

  •Captain Carlos Cassavilla, Italian, Sniper, Detachment Command

  •Captain Henry Sadler, American, Detachment Command

  •Captain Halid Sambol, Saudi, Detachment Operations

  •Sergeant Ina Boric, Israeli, Detachment Command

  •Sergeant George Casselton, British, Detachment Operations

  •Corporal Charles Isley, American, Sniper, Detachment Command

  •Corporal Cheryl Swartz, Israeli, Bomb disarmament, Detachment Operations

  •Private Harry Tonsis, Swiss, Small arms, Detachment Operations

  He’d need a total of sixty for this to work. There was a good possibility that after he hired the first four or five, they’d find most of the remainders and earn bonuses for each subsequent hire.

  He looked at the total salaries column. He had enough for almost six months’ worth of salary and materiel. Avram entered the phone number for the first soldier into his phone. “Alister, it’s Avram Shimmel. I’m in town and would like to meet at your convenience.”

  “Avram! What brings you here?”

  “I have a business proposal. Can you meet me for lunch? I’m buying.”

  At the family compound outside Riyadh, Pesi Houmaz
woke to the chiming of prayer call. He shook the sleep from his eyes and grabbed the cell phone at his bedside. It wasn’t the muezzin, it was his ringtone. A coded message from a secure phone. Only one person could do that. It was Tariq.

  He smiled as he examined the screen. But it turned into a frown, then his eyes hooded and his brows arched. Tariq wanted him to murder two more women. Since his failed attempt with Cassandra Sashakovich and his successful attempt with the other woman who worked for the American spies, that would total four, all female. He dressed and prayed to Allah for guidance.

  He had to succeed this time. He had to please his brother.

  Pesi rushed to the conference room to set up the two assassination teams.

  He frowned. A complex assignment. This would be the first time he’d coordinated simultaneous assassinations.

  Chapter Thirty

  Parking garage under Mossad headquarters, Herzliyya, Israel

  August 8, 5:32 p.m.

  Shula Ries brooded about her recent assignment for the Mossad as she walked to her car in the guarded garage. She was about to pull open the door when she noticed a smudge on the door handle.

  Her mouth dropped in surprise. She’d always wiped the handles clean as part of her counter-surveillance tradecraft. She stepped away, worried it might mean someone broke into the vehicle. She found it incredible that someone could enter the Mossad’s parking garage without passing through security. It had never happened before. But during the changeover of guards…maybe. Who could manage something like that? A bomb maker?

  She walked to the passenger side and door and examined it, her face inches from its handle. She saw a fingerprint.

  Ries backed away and pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She took a close-up photo of the print and emailed it to the duty desk officer at Shabak security:

  Ries in garage. Car in parking space number 349. Unknown fingerprint on passenger door handle. Identify and call me back immediately.

  She stood about fifty feet away from her car and called the security guard. “Ralph, someone entered my car since I arrived this morning at 7:45. Were you on duty then?”

  The guard said, “My tour started at noon. I replaced Asher. He said he was sick. Stomach flu.”

  She stood stock-still in thought. “Don’t let anyone come close to my car. It may contain a bomb.”

  Her phone buzzed. “Shabak desk. Confirmation of your print. It’s Abdul Fazad, one of the people who works terminations for the Houmaz family.”

  Her lips clenched. “Send a bomb squad for my car. Keep me informed.”

  Ries guessed it was Houmaz’s retribution for destroying his Bug-Lok production facility. He must have seen her on the video cam tapes. But how?

  She called Mother. “Notify everyone on the Bug-Lok missions. I’ve been targeted by the Houmaz family. We are probably all in danger. I’m getting out of here, then going dark, per protocol.”

  Mother replied with one word. “Acknowledged.”

  Protocol included only encrypted text messages to Mother. No other cell phone use. She marched toward the elevator. She exited the elevator at the fourth floor and walked to the cubicle where motor pool requests were processed. “I need a car for at least two days. Maybe more.”

  The man working the third shift handed her a clipboard. “Fill it out and hand it in.”

  While she waited twenty minutes for the man to process her request, she wondered how someone had been able to sneak in and how they found the car she owned. She hadn’t any time to seek answers. She’d do that tomorrow.

  While she adjusted the mirrors on the Nissan subcompact, her cell buzzed. She read Mother’s email acknowledging her report. She noted with an irritated scowl that he didn’t offer help.

  Ries drove to her small apartment just north of Tel Aviv. She parked the car and used a surveillance detection route to see if she’d been followed. Nothing.

  At her front door, she found a fingerprint on the door handle. Someone had broken in while she was at work. Ries cursed in Hebrew and retreated to the Nissan. She drove a surveillance detection route and saw nothing suspicious before she arrived at a tourist hotel near the beach in north Tel Aviv. When she stopped at a traffic light, she spent the seconds with her lips clenched, grilling herself about how she’d let this happen. While she waited for the light to change, her head swiveled, and she scanned everything in view.

  When he received the secure coded text from Mother on his cell, Jon Sommers was about to board his flight to San Jose. Instead, he turned around and ran from the terminal at the airport in Munich to the taxi line. He pushed to the front of the line, screaming, “Emergency!” No one moved. He cursed. They were all so German.

  He pushed a businessman away from the cab he was about to enter and dived into it, slamming the door behind him. He could always have the airline send his unclaimed bags to his apartment later. He scanned his wristwatch. Seven minutes since he’d exited the airport.

  He gave the cabby his address and told the man to hurry.

  The mattress in Jon’s bedroom was too hard. Ruth shifted in the bed and fell back into a dream. A noise alerted her. Three men in ski masks had entered the bedroom of her apartment.

  For just a second, she thought it was part of a nightmare, but one of them brushed against the bed jarring her awake.

  Before she could pull the Beretta from under the pillow, two of them had her arms and legs pinned and the third placed a piece of duct tape over her mouth. She wondered how they’d disarmed his alarm system and countermeasures. They had to be professionals.

  Assassins.

  One of them pulled a broomstick from a long go bag. He placed it on the bed beside her. One of its ends was sharpened to a point. Ruth felt her eyes go wide. She’d heard stories of what they did to their targets, an ancient sharia torture.

  She struggled harder against the flex-cuffs they’d used to tie each arm and leg to one of the ends of the bed. Spread-eagled, she couldn’t move.

  Ruth could feel her heartbeat accelerate as the one who’d placed the stick beside her now pulled a dagger from the bag. She recognized it immediately: ornamented, its purpose was ritual killing. She would be executed. This wasn’t torture for information. They wanted her to serve as an example.

  “Hurry.” He must be their leader. She struggled again but couldn’t budge. The other two forced her down against the mattress as he sliced the nightgown from her.

  She was sure they intended to rape her before slaying her. She bucked as hard as she could, but together they were stronger. Within minutes she was exhausted, shimmering in perspiration.

  Their leader cradled the knife. He moved his face inches from hers. His breath stank so much she almost vomited into the duct tape. “Don’t worry. We have not come to rape you. Just kill you slowly, punishment for what you did. You destroyed my leader’s plans for glory.” She felt her stomach disgorge the remains of her dinner and she choked.

  He waited, smiling. “We must take proof. Your DNA.”

  He placed the knife against one of her nipples. “By the time you feel the pain, you’ll already be dying.” With a movement so swift she didn’t even see his hand move, he sliced her right breast from her. She watched him place it in a zip-lock bag. Then the pain hit like a wall of knives falling on her, and her consciousness swirled away.

  Something stank. Her eyes opened. Smelling salts. Her urine and feces. She looked down and saw her own blood, pulsing from her chest. The bed around her was wet with a mix of odors. Her strength was gone.

  Their leader’s mouth was visible through an opening in the ski mask. He smiled. “Good. You will serve as an example to others.” He held the sharia knife up to her face. “Hold her still.”

  She no longer had the strength to resist. The leader used the knife to rip into the flesh of her chest, the side still holding a breast. In a state of drifting detachment, she thought he was slicing a Thanksgiving turkey.

  “I will read the words as I carve them into you. Such i
s the fate of Israeli spies who steal from the family Houmaz.”

  His voice seemed to come from somewhere far away. The pain was unimaginable, and her consciousness faded.

  She was assaulted by another dose of smelling salts. “We wouldn’t want you to miss your termination.” He reached into the go bag and removed a hammer.

  She’d read about this termination procedure at the Mossad. She knew what was about to happen and began crying. She would die, and with her, the baby she and Jon had conceived. It will make Jon crazy. First his parents. Then Aviva. Now me and the son or daughter he would have had. The Mossad had taught operatives how to deal with their own pending deaths, but the loss of the child and the result for its father had taken hold of her, and she thrashed in useless panic.

  Their leader reached for the broomstick. His accomplices forced her legs as far apart as possible, until she felt her hips snap. The pain sent her unconscious again. She heard pounding from the hammer. It went on and on and she drifted away, but the smelling salts pulled her back into the moment.

  They had pounded the broomstick through her vagina, up through her uterus. Its tip was within inches of her heart, and each heartbeat hit its tip.

  “We must hurry. Get her upright.” They cut the flex-cuffs and pulled her vertical. She watched in dizzy confusion as they jammed the bottom of the broomstick into the gap between the bed frame and the mattress. It held her sagging body upright.

  Her eyes blinked, the wall of pain so awesome that she wished death would greet her right now. She wanted to cry, but her breathing was so shallow, she couldn’t even moan.

  Their leader pulled the duct tape from her mouth and they vanished from Jon’s apartment, leaving her slowly bleeding out, dying in the darkness.

  She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It might have been hours, except she knew she would be gone in less time than that.

  When the door opened again and Jon ran in, she tried to speak. She was too weak.