by D S Kane
Meguro Parasitological Museum, 4-1-1 Shimomeguro, Tokyo, Japan
Using their Bluetooth headsets, Shimmel reminded the team about the telecom problem. “We have one shot in a very narrow window.”
Corporal Billie-Jo Casselton smiled at his unconscious pun as she watched the corner below for Maru’s arrival. Just after 1 p.m., she saw a group of seven Japanese, all but one of them with an obvious bulge in the waistbands of their smartly-styled charcoal gray suits, indicating handguns.
Casselton lifted her M40A3 rifle and peered through the AN/PVS-10 scope at the only person in the group not armed. From the photos Shimmel showed here before she left the hotel, she knew it was Maru. “General Shimmel, I’ve got him centered for the kill shot.”
Shimmel said, “Okay. Hold until I tell you to go.”
Casselton silently cursed. How long before Maru moved and her perfect shot fell away?
The Riyadh team exited the taxi and went through security at the Ministry’s building. They entered the elevator. Less than a minute later they were outside Houmaz’s office. Shariff, his secretary, had them wait for almost five minutes while the director finished an earlier meeting. McTavish pulled the GNU Radio from the pocket of his Watson-Freeman pinstriped suit and contacted Shimmel and Drapoff via a conference call. He whispered, “We’re still waiting for Houmaz to call us into his office. I’ll need operational silence on telecom for an extra five minutes, possibly more.”
From Tokyo, Shimmel replied, “Not likely. We’ll begin our op in three minutes. If we went by the original plan, you’ll have two minutes after we start our mission to complete yours.”
Drapoff interrupted them on the party line from Tel Aviv. “I think I might be able to squeeze you another five.”
Less than five hundred miles away, McTavish looked at his wristwatch. They would now have just under eleven minutes to complete their mission. “Okay. Please do, Michael.”
Seconds later, the receptionist took them into Houmaz’s office. McTavish and Houmaz shook hands. The major looked around as the receptionist left and closed the door. The office was huge, decorated to look like the inside of a Wahhabi desert tent. Houmaz motioned for them to sit at a large brown leather couch and he sat in a plush armchair across a coffee table from them.
Still standing, Sandra Schmidt asked, “Is there a slide projector and screen that we can use to show you the report?” Assembling a slide show would give her a way to work herself behind the Arab for the kill shot with the Medi-Jector.
Houmaz replied, “No. Just give me the report and tell me what is in it. No formal presentation is necessary. I’m busy today. I’ll read the report when I have sufficient time. Several urgent matters have come up.”
Schmidt looked at McTavish. He blinked his eyes twice, the signal for her to proceed with the kill. She gulped. “I need to use a rest room. Jet lag, and I haven’t yet adjusted. Where?”
Houmaz frowned, pointing to a door behind him. “Go.”
Just then his phone rang and he reached behind him to pick up the receiver. “Yes?”
As he turned back, Schmidt got up and slowly walked behind him. She touched the right sleeve of her blouse with her left hand and the injector slid into her palm just as it should. She came closer, right behind him.
She pressed the arming button. It failed to show its green LED. Didn’t work! She shook her head at McTavish as she left to enter the restroom.
Moorish-style tiles decorated the walls of the huge, ornate restroom. Schmidt set down the injector and examined its battery connections.
With the battery drained from her too-frequent testing of it, she needed a way to override the dead battery and work the injector manually. Schmidt cursed silently. No way force the plunger; it was integrated into the mounting so that it would function only through the battery. She removed the battery from her cell phone and tried to force the connection from that to the syringe, but was short about one inch of wire. She ripped apart her cell phone trying to recover a bit of wire, but the connections were wired directly into circuit boards and used no wire. “Fuck!” she whispered.
She flushed the toilet for effect and returned to the office. As she emerged behind Houmaz, she shook her head and silently mouthed the word “NO.”
McTavish thought about alternatives open to him. He’d never thought of a back-up plan, and knew of none that might work. No way to make it look like an accident, and if it didn’t look accidental then the Saudis would suspect Cassie was responsible for Houmaz’s death. He looked at his watch. They had less than seven minutes before telephone communications would be restored. If they left right now, they’d have five minutes to exit the office-building, find a taxi, and race for the plane to get away from the scene of their failure.
McTavish, gulped, and extended his hand to Houmaz as he rose from his seat. The rest of the Riyadh team rose with him. “Thanks for letting us hand over the report face-to-face. So much more personal this way. We know, Director, your schedule is full.”
Houmaz shook McTavish’s hand, looking somewhat mystified at their swift departure. They exited in seconds, and before he could pick up the report, his phone rang yet again.
When Shimmel ended the conversation with Drapoff, he watched the Japanese gangsters, waiting for the right moment. The gangsters stopped at the corner. Maru looked at his wristwatch and said something. Most of the bodyguards chuckled and laughed in response. As they laughed, they moved away from Maru, leaving an unobscured shot. Shimmel said, “Kill him now!”
Casselton closed her eyes in meditation for less than a second. Maru stood in the center of her shot. She slowly squeezed the trigger, and watched through the scope as Maru’s head exploded in a blur of blood.
“Leaving now, sir.” As planned, she terminated the call, dropped the rifle atop some papers Shimmel had given her, written in Arabic, and then ran to the door to exit the rooftop. She opened the door and ran down the stairs as fast as she could while she removed the surgical gloves from her hands, placing them into a zip-lock bag and then put the bag in her pocket. She pocketed her Bluetooth ear bud.
By the time she entered the coffee shop in the building’s lobby, she looked like a hungry tourist. She ordered and ate a Kobe beef hamburger and a diet soda, watching the restaurant’s window to see the action following her kill. People were shouting and running. She smiled. When she had finished the burger, she paid the bill, swallowed the last bit of her drink and left, walking past the policemen who were starting to rope off the area around Maru’s headless corpse.
Casselton hummed “Macavity,” a tune from the Broadway musical, Cats, as she walked to the subway station. She took a train to Tokyo Station, to rejoin the rest of the team on their way out of Tokyo.
The Tokyo team arrived at their prepaid rooms at the Tokyo Station Hotel and waited for Casselton. Shimmel handed them each documents and reminded them, “Leave the papers I have here in your rooms. Scatter them around and make it look like you left in a hurry. Pack everything else.” The mercs returned to their rooms and each put on surgical gloves. They “cleaned” their rooms, and then left a paper trail of traces—evidence—leading back to the Saudi Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, implying the Ministry’s guilt in the Maru’s assassination. Shimmel hoped that this might be the final straw to draw the Yakuza and the Saudi Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources into a war that neither could win.
It took less than five minutes before they all returned to the lobby. Just then, Casselton entered the lobby and headed back to her room. She cleaned her room and picked up her packed luggage. Now all were ready to check out. The Japan team left the hotel, each taking the JR Narita Express to the Narita Airport. There, they found their “tourist” hotel and simply walked in to spend the night.
Houmaz impatiently drew the phone to his ear. “Yes?”
From outside his office, his receptionist said, “Phone service is restored.”
Houmaz looked up from his desk and replied, “But my phone has been working, S
hariff. I’ve had two calls. You called me twenty minutes ago to let me know that the Brewster Jennings consultants arrived.”
“Director Houmaz, our domestic service was operational but international service was down for almost a half hour. International service is now working again.” The receptionist hung up his phone.
Seconds later the phone on Houmaz’s desk began to ring again.
From the reception area outside his office, Houmaz’s receptionist answered the phone. Shariff buzzed the intercom and said into the telephone receiver, “A man named Nikita Tobelov wants to speak to you. He says he has personal information you might want to hear.”
“Tobelov? I know no one by that name.” Houmaz began to hang up the phone and then thought better of it. “Okay, Shariff, put him through.”
Tobelov said, “I have heard you have an interest in the death of Cassandra Sashakovich.”
“How could you know my business?”
“We have spies among the other crime syndicates. We are interested in everything that can affect our organization.”
“Who are you?”
“Russian mafiya. Vladivostok. Sashakovich sent a team of mercenaries who stole two conventional World War Two vintage submarines from us two weeks ago. I just found out that you want her dead. So do we. One sub is the S-13, about 600 tons, and the other is larger, the S-56, about 840 tons. I don’t know where they are or why she wanted them. Maybe our intel can be useful to you. If so, and you do kill her, we’ll be grateful. Consider the intel free.” Tobelov terminated the connection and Houmaz slowly dropped the phone back into its cradle, wondering what relevance this “intel” could ever possibly have for him. He’d found the idea of becoming intimate with the Yakuza repulsive, but having a relationship with the more brutal Russian mafiya was especially frightening.
Houmaz saw the message light on his phone begin to blink. He picked up the phone and keyed his password. A voice he barely remembered said, “Director Houmaz, this is Omasu Maru. I just wanted to thank you for sending me your team of experts on Saudi bidding and building. I have scheduled a meeting this afternoon. It will make our dealings much easier, and is a great show of good faith.” As the message ended, Houmaz heard the time when the message came in.
Maru’s message was over an hour old. He grew alarmed, wondering what it meant. He’d sent no one to speak with the Yakuza kingpin. Before he could draw any conclusions, the phone rang again.
“Who? Oh yes, put him through.”
From thousands of miles away came the voice of the Saudi Ambassador to Japan, a man that Houmaz had seen and met only twice before. “Director Houmaz? This is Ali Samid Al-Zhomah. We met in Mecca the year before last.”
“Yes, Ali, I remember you. We were on Haj together at the tomb of the Prophet in Medina. How are things in Tokyo?”
“Ah, not good. Less than a half hour ago, the police arrived at the embassy. They just finished here. A man named Omasu Maru was murdered early this afternoon by a sniper in Tokyo. And, a man named Chiro Hashimora claims to have witnessed the assassination. The Tokyo police have uncovered evidence that leads them to believe it was you who ordered his killing. Uh, Director, the worst, uh, well, the worst is that according to the police, Hashimora is one of the ranking members of Maru’s Yakuza branch. He was second in command, and now Maru’s successor.”
Achmed Houmaz reached the point of panic and without thinking raised his voice almost to the point of shouting into the telephone. “How do you know all this?” And then, in panic he yelled, “Was it on the news?”
“No, Director. The police told me during their visit. They arrived within minutes of Maru’s assassination, as if they had been alerted before the shooting. I don’t understand it. The police were here for only a few minutes. They told me they believe the Yakuza will start a war with our officials on Japanese soil. They posted extra guards outside our embassy entrance, as if they expect trouble to start any minute. The officer in charge received telephone records from Hashimora containing a list of Maru’s phone conversations and there are several phone calls between you and him. Please, sir, tell me what is going on.”
“Ali, all this is news to me. Yes, I have talked twice to Mr. Maru, about what they might do to bid successfully on projects in our country. He and I never met. I just spoke to him out of courtesy. Could someone have hacked these telephone records?”
“Sir, I don’t know. But if you really have no connection to Maru and the Yakuza, you will have to prove it to the King. The Tokyo police claim that the evidence they have is conclusive. According to them, there’s a lot more than just a few telephone calls.”
“What else?”
“Director, I’m sorry but the police have not let me see the evidence.”
“Uh, I see. Of course.” But he didn’t see. Rage blinded him. He needed to calm himself before he said something that might incriminate him further in a killing he hadn’t committed. “Ali, let me think about this. Of course, I’ll talk with the King so he can say what he requires of me. Thank you for letting me know what is coming.” He didn’t wait for a response. Houmaz hung up the phone and pushed his chair back from his desk.
His head dropped into his hands and he took several unsteady breaths. His mind slowly cleared. He looked at his desk as if it held the answer, and then saw the report that the consultants had left for him. With growing concern, Achmed Houmaz opened the report. His jaw dropped when he found the first page was blank. So was the next page. The entire document was nothing more than blank pages. They’d never intended him to live long enough to see the report. But, something had gone wrong.
He slammed the document back on his desk and picked up the telephone. “Shariff, get me Saudi state security. No, I don’t have the telephone number.” He waited for over a minute wondering if it was too late. “This is Achmed Houmaz. Can you find the consultants from Brewster Jennings anywhere in my building? They left in a taxi? Stop them! Don’t let them leave the country until I have the chance to question them.”
Houmaz sat back in his chair, trying to assemble pieces of the mystery. The last time that international telephone service went down, my brothers were assassinated. I’m sure there’s a connection. I was set up. Why didn’t they kill me when they had the chance? Well, they didn’t even need to assassinate me. Yakuza. I’ll be dead soon now, anyway. My head is spinning. He considered his options.
He knew he had to flee. He opened his office door, speaking to his receptionist over his shoulder as he jogged toward the elevator. “Shariff, I must leave now on urgent personal business. I won’t be back today.” Houmaz thought, and not tomorrow either, as he watched the elevator doors close with him within. Maybe never. As the elevator rode to the lobby, he began to craft a plan.
As the taxi approached the airport southwest of Riyadh, Lisa Orley asked Schmidt, “What went wrong?”
“The jet injector failed. Battery out. I checked it this morning and it was okay then. And there’s no way to manually override it.” Schmidt scowled, “Fuck!”
“We should have just slit his throat,” said Orley.
McTavish let them bicker. He kept looking at his wristwatch. The phones had come back on less than two minutes ago. The cab pulled to a stop at the airport hangar and they all bolted. The major tossed money at the cabby.
There would be no second chance.
Minutes later they had their seatbelts locked in place and the plane was moving from the terminal. The team was still squabbling, not used to failure.
As the aircraft taxied into position, McTavish looked out the window and saw the blinking lights of Saudi police cars grinding toward them at high speed. He shouted to the pilot, “Get us out of here now!”
The plane was now first in line and he felt it power through the runway. The police cars formed a barricade on the runway a few hundred feet away but the aircraft was already gaining altitude.
As the Cessna lifted off the runway, McTavish shook his head. How would he tell Sashakovich the Riyadh miss
ion had failed?
The Tokyo assassination team enjoyed a celebratory dinner at a local sushi bar. The mercs were ebullient, especially Casselton. She made toasts with her green tea: “To the things we do for love! One shot, one clean kill!” And then, “To sharp aim!” She seemed intoxicated even though she hadn’t had anything that could make her drunk or stoned. None of the mercs ever drank alcoholic beverages or used drugs when working combat conditions.
The next day, shortly after dawn, they boarded jets from American Airlines, United, and Japan Air, and left Japan individually, using tourist identities different from either of those they’d used before. They were all flying indirectly to Reagan to await further instructions.
Shimmel sighed with satisfaction. The Japanese mission had succeeded.
He needed information right now. Had McTavish’s team been successful in Riyadh?
Cassie listened to William’s report, her face rigid. “So, he’s still alive and he might know we targeted him?” Her stomach lurched. It was likely Houmaz would go after Lee and Ann. Damn!
“Not heard yet from General Shimmel?” So things might be even worse. He head fell into her hands. “Okay. Thanks, William. We’ll figure this all out a bit later. I need to make a few phone calls.” She terminated the call that had brought her the bad news.
Chapter Thirty-Six
November 5, 8:21 p.m.
Saudi corporate jet, heading west over the Mediterranean Sea
chmed Houmaz reclined in one of the plush seats of the Cessna corporate jet he’d hastily chartered for this trip. He moved his back off the leather sticking to him from the perspiration seeping through his shirt. He’d hastily packed a bag in his apartment, called to rent the jet and then took a taxi to the airport.
He’d found out from the airport flight control administrator that, just over two hours ago, the plane in which he sat had been in the same private terminal that the assassination team had used to leave Riyadh.
