by D S Kane
Ann said, “Sure I do. I never forget anything.” She sat in an armchair across from him and Gizmo bounced into her lap, purring.
He looked away. “Mom’s in trouble. We have the entire company of mercenaries out in Hawaii now, trying to help her. I’m not sure what will happen next, but I’m hoping for the best.”
Ann’s face froze.
Inside, Ann screamed silently. When she trusted herself to speak, she sat on the couch next to him and demanded, “Tell me everything.”
Lee slowly faced her. As he told her what had happened since Ann had returned from her vacation with Cassie, the teen felt her stomach roiling in agony. Gizmo jumped from her lap as she twisted. When he finished, she asked him, “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Probably not. All we can do is pray.”
She nodded and went silent for some time. “Will the people that are trying to kill mom try to kill us?”
Lee shook his head. “Not likely. Still, it’s possible. That’s why we have bodyguards covering us 24/7. Listen, I want to teach you more of handguns and martial arts, so you can protect yourself. I’m okay with firearms but not good at martial arts. Michael, our bodyguard excel at both, so I’ll schedule most of the training to be done by him. Cancel all your after-school stuff. We’ll do this in the late afternoons, before dinner every day. Okay?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to learn how to kill.” But she could see where it might be good for her to know how to defend herself.
Lee started to object, pointing his finger. She cut him off. “Okay. But what about my English composition tutor? I’m supposed to meet her after school.”
He nodded. “I’ll talk with her. I think it may be possible for you to do both. Leave the rescheduling to me.”
She silently shook her head, thinking, what can I do to help Cassie?
Chapter Twenty-Six
October 29, 6:22 p.m.
The Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, Muscat, Oman
William Wing sat on the couch in his room at the hotel in Dubai, watching CNN. The Al Bustan Rotana Hotel’s name translated to “The Lost Camel” in English. A fitting name, given the chase for their prey, he thought.
Situated near the airport and a few minutes taxi ride to Deira, the city center shopping mall, the hotel had over 250 elegantly decorated, medium-sized rooms. Wing was reminded of his days as an independent hacker, when his father had demanded he visit Beijing to help the CSIS, the Chinese Secret Intelligence Service, defend itself against hackers and he stayed at the Oriental Bay International Hotel in Beijing, instead of staying with his father at the family compound. Although it avoided a potential conflict of interest problem for his father, it also had three excellent restaurants. “Ah, the good old days,” he sighed.
Wing looked with jealousy at the mercs, sitting around a table by the kitchen. For the first two hours, the mercs each cleaned and recleaned their weapons. William watched them while he set up the notebook computer and scanned for traces of Watson. By watching the mercs, he had learned how to disassemble and reassemble several types of weapons. He’d rarely touched military hardware.
The mercs got bored. Horst pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and flashed a predatory grin. He dealt the cards.
William saw they were playing Texas Hold ’Em poker. It finally occurred to him what caused his jealousy: they were having fun and he wasn’t.
His electronic equipment continued to search for a signal that wasn’t there: email he could use to backtrace Watson’s location. The computer program worked without his assistance. All he had to do was wait until the notebook beeped. And then he could run several utilities he’d stolen from DARPA to perform the backtrace. He was tethered there, unable to leave except to run quickly to the loo.
When Horst had snatched the last dollar from Sylvia, she called him a cheat. He simply shrugged and handed her back a stack of bills. But this turned out to be a sign that the mercs had bored of straight poker. They now played strip poker in his suite.
Gretchen was winning. She poked her tongue smugly at Horst, a grin spreading across her face. She wore Jillian’s bra over her blouse and had Horst’s underpants on her head like a hat. The rest of the clothing she’d won from the others was piled all around her.
Jillian shivered, naked except for her panties. “The air conditioning is set too cold.” William glanced back at her and smiled, seeing what the chilly air had done. Jill’s erect nipples were almost as big as the end joint on William’s ring finger.
Horst’s expression showed his dejection as he sat naked. He’d lost all his clothing and shook his head. His oversized penis drooped over the edge of the chair, seemingly unaffected by the air conditioning.
Alphonso was about even; so far he’d only lost his boots and socks. He copied Gretchen, wearing Sylvia’s panties on his head, like a hat.
When Sylvia lost, she had chosen to take off her blouse first, then her trousers, and now her panties instead of her bra. William agreed with her decision. She sat profile, angled toward him, and when she took a card, her legs opened. Her breasts looked too big and saggy; not very attractive. But her crotch was perfect, as far as he could tell, dark bushy hair like a wild field of tall grass. Her clitoris was large enough to play peek-a-boo through the hairy crown of her crotch.
William could feel his arousal, painful against his pants leg. He knew that Cassie would call him soon and after almost an entire day he didn’t have anything to tell her. He sighed, thinking he’d failed.
Another hour passed. As Wing waited for something—anything—to happen on his computer, his frustrations—both physical from his erection, and psychological from his failure to detect Watson’s location—grew.
The mercs teased each other. When Alphonso reached for Jillian’s breast and tweaked her nipple, she screamed, “Stop!” Wing stared as Alphonso rose from his seat and motioned to the door. They dressed and left the room together. William saw the look they exchanged, as if a deal had been brokered. He guessed they hadn’t gone for coffee.
Gretchen was bargaining with Horst about what he could do to get his clothing. They spoke in German, a language William didn’t understand. Horst said something and Gretchen laughed and handed him back his pants. Then they left together, leaving Sylvia alone with him.
She walked the five steps to the desk, where William sat forcing his eyes to the notebook’s screen. Still naked from the waist up, she said, “Eet looks like you and me. Do you have to watch zee bloody screen every second, or can we talk like humans?”
William smiled at her. “I’m a geek, Sylvia. Not muscled. The best part of me is here.” He pointed to his head.
She nodded. “I already guessed that. Look, I’m not proposing marriage. But I am needful. Are you not? Just a quick roll on the bed, as they say in America. I’m tense, waiting for the mission to commence. Besides, I know you will enjoy it. No?” Standing very close, she leaned over his head and unbuckled her bra, letting her breasts drop in front of his face. “You want me, of course. I am young and pretty. I can give you pleasure without wanting what you call ‘commitment.’ No?”
William thought for a second. Just for a second. Betsy was at home in Iowa and he hadn’t seen her in months. He didn’t get many opportunities and she was cute as she claimed.
He reached a hand toward her breast and she grabbed his other hand, placing it between her legs. She was moist and he was past the point of conscious thought. She dragged him to the bed. Her hands worked furiously, removing his clothing in record time. Then she dropped on top of him, making contact with her hands, her lips, and finally, her crotch. In seconds he’d slipped inside her. She rode him like a jockey taking a racehorse on a trot.
He felt the wet heat of her overflowing his consciousness. She began to breathe hard before he even knew what was happening to him. Her fluids came in spurts over his lower body, on the bed, the smell of her sex everywhere. William felt it slicing into him like a burning knife blade, heat, passion building
to crescendo. It was a race to climax, and she won. Her voice was a growl as she hyperventilated, then screamed in a low voice, then growled again as she built up toward a second climax. Hearing her animal sounds took some getting used to. William was finally peaking to ejaculation when she climaxed the third time. As he emptied into her she fell on top of him. Sylvia whispered, breathing hard into his ear, “Thank you. See, Wheelyam, I don’t bite.” She looked at the red marks she’d left across his chest and smiled again. “Only a leetle.”
She dismounted and began to get dressed. William sat up, panting. It occurred to him she’d just raped him. Before he could even think of something to say, his cell phone started ringing. He knew it was Cassie. He tried to calm himself by taking a deep breath before he answered. “Wing here.”
“Any luck?” she replied.
He smiled at the unintentional pun. “Uh, no. Not yet. I think that—” He heard the notebook computer begin chirping an alarm. William interrupted, “Wait! He’s sending email right now.” He raced from the bed to the notebook computer and read the screen. His fingers—still coated with her fluids—pounded out several commands. “I’m backtracing it as we speak.”
Cassie replied, ten thousand miles away. “I copy that.”
Wing said, “He’s in Oman, in Muscat, again at the Airport. At Seeb International. And he’s got a smartphone. We can trace him now. If he found the cash to buy one, he has at least a little money. If he stole the smartphone, then the authorities in Oman can find him. Most of the smartphones sold in Oman have embedded GPS chips. They’ll be able to find him within a few inches of where he’s standing.” William smiled. “The penalty for stealing in a Muslim country is removal of a hand.” He got up from his chair.
Ann sat at the table in the cafeteria eating a peanut butter sandwich she’d made at home. Charles was out sick and there no one else was sitting near. It was as if she had a contagious disease. She focused on keeping herself from crying. She assumed by now the whole school hated her. First the sex video, now the news about Cassie.
A group of fourteen-year-olds from her Algebra class sauntered by and sat at her table.
One, with a pink stripe of hair, sat opposite her. “You’re Sashakovich.” She smiled. “I’m Susan.”
Another of them, a chunky stub of a girl with heavy goth makeup and bleached black hair, sat on her right side. “Mary.”
The one sitting on Ann’s left was tall, with a long sweep of bright red hair. She smiled. “Julie.” She leaned across the table and in a voice no louder than a whisper, said, “We heard about your mother. It’s on the Internet.”
Ann’s head fell into her hands.
Mary reached out and hugged her. “My ma died of breast cancer last year. But maybe you’ll be luckier.”
Susan touched Ann’s cheek. “I read about you mom. Her background and what she did for our country. She’s a real heroine.”
Ann’s head lifted. “Thanks.” She tried to smile. The other three held out their hands to her. She extended hers.
With all their hands together, Julie scanned Ann’s face. “Friends?”
Ann nodded. New tears fell but now she was smiling.
He thought, Vladivostok stinks like a sewer.
Exiting the airport, Shimmel sniffed the air and wanted to vomit from the foul stench of bus exhaust and the sulfur of a nearby refinery. This city was so polluted he’d been advised before his first visit a few years back, not to eat, drink, or even breathe here. He’d dreaded being in Vladivostok since takeoff from Frankfurt.
During the taxi ride from the airport, he thought about the city as a battleground, and prayed it would be a simpler mission than he already knew it would be.
Shimmel thought about the street layout of the city, as he and the mercs walked from the taxis up the steep hill toward their hotel. According to the local ecological specialists—Ecocenter—some areas, such as those near the printing works in Pokrovsky Park and the Far Eastern National University campus, were so polluted that they were defined as ecological disaster zones. It was no better than during his previous two visits.
Only a few areas had “permissible levels” of contamination, according to Professor Boris Preobrazhensky, a top ecologist at the Pacific Institute of Geography. The professor
concluded there was nowhere in the city healthy enough to live. Shimmel suspected this was the reason that though the city had a population of about six hundred thousand, it had never grown into the commercial port the Russians had hoped.
But the dirtiest secret was that the Russian mafiya was the largest industry in Vlad. It was therefore a city where government—and anything else—could be bought. Shimmel wondered how to succeed when the mafiya was the target for him and his mercs in this mission.
The thirty men and women climbed up the hill overlooking the Amursky Bay to the door of the Hotel Vladivostok. While he waited for the last member of his team to catch up, Shimmel looked around the seaport. They stood at the southern extremity of the Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, just off the coast of the Sea of Japan. Too close to both the Chinese and Korean borders. They gathered in the lobby of the hotel at Ul. Naberezhnaya 10, above the corner of Naberezhnaya and Tigrovaya. He estimated it would take four minutes to walk downhill to the harbor and another two minutes to the spot on the wharf where both submarines sat waiting.
Shimmel had a bad feeling about this operation. He looked around at the hotel’s signage indicating it was really two hotels. The mercs moved through the lobby to the registration desk. Shimmel smiled at the registration clerk. “I’m with Asian Tours Limited. We booked thirty doubles and two singles for one night.”
The clerk told them their rooms were on the fourth floor, named the Hotel Visit, the separate hotel within a hotel, where they put foreigners letting them bypass the desk on the main floor.
Shimmel checked them in for the night. He paid in advance and told the clerk they’d likely leave before sunrise in the morning.
The clerk printed a receipt and handed it to him. “Spasibo. Thank you, Mr. Smith.”
His cell phone showed “No Connection.” Shimmel cursed in Hebrew. Then he saw a computer in the lobby with a slow voice-grade telephone connection to the Internet. He knew it was monitored by the Russian mafiya. He sent Cassie an email:
Sashakovich—
I am in Hotel Vladivostok. Can be called through the hotel switchboard at (4232) 41-28-08. No cell phone signal here. That means only public, non-secure email. I have a satphone but it will take a bit of time to set up, so don’t try contacting me. Remember, the landline isn’t secure. Let me know status of device pick-up as well as current contact info for uncle Misha.
—Shimmel
While he keyed and sent the email, his mercs stood silent, waiting him to signal before they walked to their rooms. Shimmel inserted a USB flash drive into the rent-a-computer and used the stored program William had created to remove all traces of the email he’d sent. Shimmel signaled and the mercs carried their mission bags up the stairs to their rooms on the fourth floor. Within five minutes the thirty men and women were crowded together in Shimmel’s room.
The room phone buzzed, a pathetic noise. Avram put down the partially assembled sat phone and its battery, and picked up the hotel room’s phone receiver. “Shimmel.”
“It’s Cassie. Are you ready? What’s the plan?”
Shimmel cut her off. “I’ll have the satphone set up in about three more minutes. I’ll call you back.” He didn’t want her saying anything over the mafiya-monitored room phones that might jeopardize the lives of his mercs and their mission.
After he and Cassie connected via satphone, she asked, “What’s your status?”
He thought about her question as he walked to the room’s window. Below the fourth floor, down the hill, he could see the subs and the guards on the pier just a short walk from the hotel. “Our hotel affords us a view of the wharf and I can direct ops from here.” He examined the pier from his room’s window and saw twin g
uard towers. Shimmel closed his eyes, conjuring the reconfigured operation. “When mercs reach the pier, I’ll leave the hotel. As soon as we control the subs, we’ll leave fast. If necessary, we’ll kidnap the two submarine crews, but I’m hoping to make them an offer they can’t refuse. We need them or we’ll never get the subs out from the harbor. I’ll call you later, after the theft, when we’re underway. If you don’t hear from me, well, then, ah… Shimmel out.”
The corporate jet William Wing rented landed and taxied down the runway at Seeb International. It headed toward the corporate terminal hanger. Wing, Horst, Gretchen, Sylvia, Alphonso, and Jillian picked up their mission bags and stood by the aircraft’s door as it stopped. The door popped open and an airport worker stood aside to let the mercs pass down the stairs, followed by Wing. They all dressed as tourists, wearing their STF-treated Hawaiian shirts and walked slowly toward the terminal.
The desert heat felt extreme, but less oppressive without humidity. Oman was much cooler than Dubai. Once within the terminal and out of the sun, Wing was quite comfortable. He led them to one of the Western-style restaurants. The menu looked like one from Denny’s, but without any pork product on the menu. They ordered meals while he set up the notebook computer and began exploring the back-traces he’d planted since they took off from Dubai. Wing’s eyebrows arched when he saw the results. “Holy shit, I have to call
Cassie right now.” The others looked at him, but he said no more.
Wing’s face reflected his emotions: excitement, distress, urgency. He said, “Cassie, this is Wing. I have solid intel for you.” Now the others stared at him.
“Cassie here. Talk fast and loud. They’re launching another attack. About fifty of them this time, coming from both sides of the hall. So it’ll be noisy and you haven’t much time. Lester can see the elevator lights with his night scope and the elevator’s on its way up right now.”
