Love Is For Tomorrow
MICHAEL KARNER
ISAAC NEWTON ACQUAH
Published in 2015 by Katalyst
Copyright © 2015 by AuthorLife LTD
Michael Karner and Isaac Newton Acquah have asserted their right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1998 to be identified as the authors of this work.
Despite extensive research and insight provided by key experts, this novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the products of the authors’ imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Katalyst
Castletown Road
W14 9HQ
London
United Kingdom
www.loveisfortomorrow.com
ISBN: 1519368380
ISBN-13: 978-1519368386
CHAPTER ONE
FALLEN HEROES
“And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) - CIA Motto
Washington D.C, The United States of America
Don stood drenched in a place you never wanted to be; Arlington National Cemetery. It was a place of fallen heroes; heroes who took their secrets with them to the grave. Sunlight shone down through the light rain. Willow trees formed huge umbrellas that sheltered the gathered mourners. As the chaplain’s blessing faded, Don sunk deeper into thought. Hat in hand, he walked to the grave.
Section Chief Brenneman looked pissed. Don had never seen his superior so personally involved in any other mission at Langley. He stood in the rain, his hands shoved tightly in his pockets and enduring the cold wind. Brenneman stepped forward and rested a hand on the coffin. His face relaxed for a moment.
Don knew the dead man, fresh from the farm, like the two other colleagues they’d buried earlier today. The fiction doled out by Brenneman made sure that no one would ever know what really happened that night in Paris on the Champs-Elysees. So much for the truth about the mission they were on.
But Don knew. He was in the car, when the shots were fired. These now decorated heroes had been pulled out of the Seine days later, bloated and pale. His stomach clenched.
The mission, Don thought, would lead to them hunting the prey. Now he wasn’t sure if they were the hunters or the hunted. He dreaded to think of what would happen next. What if the one who killed his team members wasn’t done and would come here to erase anyone connected with his case? Were they all lined up? Apart from the section chief, who else might be targeted?
Shots nearby tearing the air startled him. The honor guard gave their salute. Birds flew up. Three shots for each of them, just like that night in Paris. The mourners dropped handfuls of earth onto the casket as it sank into the grave. A wife wept. A mother cried. A son stared in silence.
“God damn it,” Brenneman said.
The chaplain cleared his throat.
“Language, Colonel,” Don murmured.
Brenneman lowered his voice to a whisper that only Don and the priest could hear.
“Sorry Father, but I will let this murderer burn in hell”, he said. “You might say prayers of forgiveness and may God be the one who judges every man’s deeds when he meets him. But I am going to be the one that sends him there.”
Brenneman stepped closer to Don, so close that he could see the wrinkles under the chief’s silvery hair.
“Did we get anything new on the bullets? Fingerprints? DNA? Camera footage? Give me something. Was it Dwayne?”
Don let out a sigh. This was the reason he had hoped not to be here. Three weeks on and not a step closer. For all he knew Dwayne Carter was long dead, buried somewhere in the Mexican desert. Yet, his boss was relentlessly obsessed with the idea that these killings were connected to him.
“Whoever did this is working against us,” Don said. “He is… thoughtful in his approach. But it seems like we’re missing something. We need to slow down.” Our men aren’t even buried but we’re already planning to follow them. “Give it time... After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“As cold as their bodies?” Brenneman said. He gestured toward the graves with a weak smile that turned into a frown. “Look, this isn’t about revenge. It’s about survival. We kill him or he kills us. It’s that simple.”
The bitterness of Brenneman’s words made Don pause. Someone wanted them dead and Don had no idea why.
***
London, United Kingdom
Don was in the shotgun seat of the van. He didn’t like it at all. Everything was wrong here. The wheel was on the wrong side of the car. They drove on the wrong side of the road. Everything in London was backwards and the jet lag didn’t help.
His coffee nearly sloshed over the CIA issued dossier in his lap. He clung to the grip above the open window as his hat slid across the dashboard.
“Slow down a little, would you,” he said to the driver.
Don opened the dossier with his thumb, leafing once again through the pictures.
According to the observational notes, the target’s eating habits and whereabouts were easy to predict. They drove around the block several times, looking for possible parking spots.
“There’s that clown,” Don said, pointing a finger. Nigel Sheppard, a reporter who was working for The Guardian on Mexico Cartel stories a few years back. No guardian would save him today.
Nigel walked in his Burberry check khakis with slick hair. Sandwich in hand, he waited at the red lights like a good law-abiding citizen.
Don shook his head. “What a hipster. Can’t believe he held out against the Cartels for so long.” He nodded toward the side of the street. “Pull over here right next to him but don’t get too close. We don’t want to scare him away.”
Don took his hat from the dashboard and got out of the car. He walked over to the red light. From the corner of his eye, he saw the driver getting out and heard the familiar sounds of boots pounding onto concrete from the back of the van.
“Mr. Sheppard?” Don yelled.
The reporter turned his head.
“Yes?”
From the look on his face, Nigel realized he shouldn’t have confirmed his identity. The two other agents were already behind him.
Don nodded to them, before a smile spread across his lips. Nigel’s escape routes were cut off. He must have known that this day was coming but fear kept him from running.
Don strolled over to him, arms crossed.
“And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” Don murmured.
Don stretched out his hand. “Blake Griffin.”
The reporter didn’t take it.
“Alright. We can do it the easy or the hard way,” Don said. “But you’re coming with us.”
Nigel swallowed, then built himself up in front of Don so that he reached his height. He got so close that only his dirty glasses separated eye from eye.
“You can’t do this,” Nigel said. “I have rights.”
Don fixed the brim of his hat. He wanted to make sure that Nigel could see the expression in his eyes.
“Not today. Understand Nigel, you and I are just two men looking for the truth.”
The reporter baulked. He flinched and tried to run. The other agents grabbed him underneath the armpits and pushed down his shoulders with the weight of their bodies. Nigel convulsed, his back giving in.
Don bent down to him.
“Choosing the hard way, then? I hoped you would.”
***
London, United Kingdom
They drove him to the north-west of London. Don kept the reporter in the dark about where they were going. It wasn’t to make him believe he was being kidnapped, but to shock him once he saw their destination.
The van came to a stop in a parking lot. The other agents pulled the reporter out the back door. Don led them into a side alley and down a flight of stairs next to a building.
The entrance was a metal door. Don pressed a buzzer under a cipher lock. He didn’t have the need or the memory to know the code.
“Hey, it’s us,” he said after a click in the intercom. “Let us in, will ya?”
The door automatically clunked open into a corridor. Yellow fluorescent tubes flickered overhead. The fractured stone floor smelled of old age, mold and concrete. Their steps pounded over the concrete, echoing in the emptiness of prison cells left and right.
Don turned to Nigel, whose face had grown paler and paler since their arrival.
“Our London colleagues were kind enough to let us use their premises for holding scum like you.”
“Scum?” the reporter said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Wrong? Tell that to the judge.”
They turned right and entered a room with a soundproof door. Decrepit wallpaper peeled away from three walls. A large mirror covered the fourth. A table and stools stood in the center.
“What? Who are you?” Nigel asked.
Don spoke as if every word was one too many.
“You will find out soon enough.”
He was too annoyed and exhausted to repeat himself. The bad news was, the interrogation was only about to begin.
Don offered Nigel a chair. Nigel hesitated. The other agents were happily obliged to help him sit down and cuff him for the trouble.
Don pulled out the opposite chair and sat down. He took off his hat and placed it on the table, between them. He folded his hands, drew in a deep breath, then looked at him with steely composure.
“Listen pal,” Don said without blinking. “You were investigating the Dwayne Carter case. Three of our men have been killed as a result. So please, take your catheter, sit down and answer my questions.”
CHAPTER TWO
NOIR
“They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds.” - Mexican proverb
Istanbul, Turkey
The women here in Istanbul would be the death of him. Antoine was in for the kill. The target was in his grasp, literally. His hand moved to the small of her spine where skin met skin over the line of her backless evening dress. Goose bumps rose at his touch.
Deniz turned and looked deep into his soul.
“You wear Chanel,” Antoine said. “Coco Noir.”
Deniz raised an eyebrow.
“How do you know about Noir?” she asked.
Antoine smirked. Noir meant black and was also a genre of crime literature with tough cynical characters, bleak settings, danger and violence.
“It’s the one I know best,” he said.
Sitting next to Deniz, he felt like a character in a noir script. She was a natural beauty. He was the work of surgeons. His face, his eyes... nothing was the same as God gave him. It reminded him of what God took from him. Yet the colours of Istanbul suspended reality, even if for only a brief moment.
Pink and blue neon lights bled from Reina club onto the water. They reclined in its breezy open air lounge on the river. The soft music was in stark contrast to the pounding beats inside. The smell of shishas competed with designer perfumes, tobacco and the sea for ascendency. The women were beautiful beyond compare.
“Don’t you have any friends?” Deniz said.
The last time I was traveling I had my partner in crime with me, Antoine thought to himself. Water shared amongst friends just tastes sweeter.
Antoine clutched his beer tighter.
“A monk’s life must be lonely, is that why they invented beer?” he said. “The best thing since holy water.”
“So why don’t you get holy water then?” Deniz said.
“Well, maybe because I have to do some unholy things first,” Antoine replied.
Deniz rolled her eyes.
The waitress moved toward them. Her sashaying hips faltered as she came closer. She had something for him that wasn’t part of her job. Her arms were tense, as if she were trying to hide something from everyone else in the bar.
“Mr. Springer?” she said. “Excuse me for the interruption.”
She bent over, revealing the ear-piece she carried on a plate. Antoine followed her movements as she laid it in front of him on the table. He stared at it for a moment. They had found him. Even taking the battery out of his phone didn’t stop them. They’d presented themselves on a silver platter.
“A friend from Lance Private Banking said you would be interested in hearing the daily special,” the waitress said.
He glanced at the receiver for a moment, then looked around the people in the Reina club.
“I thought the daily special were the fashion models. I was just getting to know one.”
For a second he played with the device in his fingers, then put it in his ear.
“Antoine?” Rose Mensah said.
Antoine’s beer just got a little bit sweeter. She was the only person who could find him here. The mastermind whose quote he just cited had kept a watchful eye over him ever since he started his new life in Austria. “Rose, I was just thinking about one of your sayings.”
The aftertaste, however, turned bitter. Antoine thought of his phone in pieces. There must be a reason for this call and it wouldn’t be a good one. “I came here to lay low, so I don’t know how you found me. I thought I was unreachable.”
“You’re a wanted man,” Rose said.
“Not just by you,” Antoine said.
“We have code red, Antoine.”
Her voice was smooth and flowed in an amalgamation of Oxford English and Ghanaian tones. “Smith is waiting for you at the airport. One of our agents needs your help.”
“Jesus, that bad?”
“Worse,” Rose said. “Smith will let you know. We have an extraction at twenty three-hundred hours. Greenwich meridian time plus four. If you leave now we have thirty minutes to hit the window.”
Antoine shook his head. “Rose, I don’t even know what day it is today.”
“A working day,” Rose said.
“Does Rose Mensah ever have any other days?” he said.
“Never,” she reminded him.
Antoine dropped the earpiece into his drink, got up and winked at Deniz.
“Leaving?” Deniz lifted her eyebrows. “Isn’t this when you ask me for my number?”
Antoine could see that she wanted him to ask.
“No need. I’ll find you. Trust me, I’m good at this.”
He scudded across the dark wood panels. The orange glow of fitted floor lamps illuminated his face as if walking on embers. A shuttle boat, the Axantha II, came to him as soon as he waved. Antoine jumped over the railing before the ship’s master could berth. When the company called, it had one advantage. They spared no effort or expense to get him back into the field.
“I have a plane to catch.” Antoine said to the man. As the ship’s master steered them away from the kais, Antoine watched the Reina club and Deniz disappear.
Every city felt different. It was the small things that made a difference: The view of mountains in Hong Kong, the vast expansions of water and sand in Dubai. Istanbul had Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Each of them was unique and became a part of him, never to be forgotten.
Antoine reassembled his phone on the backseat of the car. It vibrated as soon as the power was on. There were four missed calls from Rose and one message from Nigel.
It was time to call Smith. He dialled without thought.
“From vacation straight to needing sniper support. What’s happening?”
“Extracting an agent,” Smith said. “Unknown environment.”
“Who is he?”
“Goes under the name of Jason.”
“So we are sending in the cavalry. I take it Kovac is with you.”
“No, he’s busy with the cross border deal. It’s just you and me old chap.”
“He’s been undercover since before your time. Ex Mossad Arab Israeli. Our inside al Qaeda guy.”
“Inside al Qaeda? When did we last hear from him?”
“Three hours ago. We have an extraction in--”
“I know,” Antoine said. “Rose told me. “Paying the taxi double. Wasn’t this supposed to be handled by MI6?”
“Yeah, there is more to that too,” Smith replied. “Rose will tell you all about it.”
Then this is not going to be a walk in the park.
Smith continued. “By the way you are going to love Usman’s new gear we have here. And I have a surprise for you. Tell the driver to head straight to plane lot L4. Ta for now.”
Holiday was over, he had to accept that. It meant going back to work now, being constantly on the move and long sleepless nights.
Istanbul gave the impression that everyone was on vacation. That’s what made it so dangerous. It fooled him into believing he was safe when he wasn’t. The next stop in Hatay would be different. There the danger would be obvious.
The airport brought back a distant memory of returning home to his family. On a previous trip to Istanbul he had bought a devil’s eye talisman in the Grand Bazaar for his son. Antoine longed for the days when all he had to worry about was seeing his son’s face light up when he and his wife met him at the airport. Antoine would never have that again, at least not anytime soon.
The car halted in front of Usman’s latest Gulfstream. Smith waited for him at the top of the boarding stairs.
As he approached, a stewardess held out a hand to him. Her name tag read "Marlene".
“Welcome aboard Mr. Springer,” she said. “I hope you and Mr. Smith will have a comfortable time with us.”
Antoine exchanged glances with his colleague. “Definitely.” It could be our last.
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