Final Mission: Zion - A World War 2 Thriller

by Chuck Driskell

  Neil Michael Reuter is capable, intelligent and dependable. Risk factors include his possible alcoholism, his ongoing affair, and instability over his wife’s murder. An additional risk factor is the likelihood of additional government dealings, all of which seems to have been scrupulously cloaked. All things considered, especially taking in his Germanic and Indian heritage, his superior military experience, and lifelong friendship with Jacob Herman, he would make an ideal operative for the mission’s needs.

  Neil didn’t look up from the final page. He read it and reread it, his mouth parting several times, but no words ever escaping. Affixed inside the back card-stock cover of the report was a small manila envelope with the word “Reuter-Stone photo” typed on the bottom. Neil lifted the flap and used the fingernail of his thumb to slide out a black and white photo, captured in exceptional clarity. He knew, the instant he saw it, when it had been taken. It had to have been captured only three months earlier in Los Angeles, at Santa Monica’s Edgar Hotel.

  The picture showed Neil, on his back, in one of the hotel’s signature massive poster beds. Silken sheets were swirled around him, two pillows jammed under his head. Astride him, and quite nude, was the alluring Lana Yance, her head and body arched backward in laughter, her perky, upturned breasts pointing skyward. In the photograph, Neil certainly did not appear the part of the grieving husband.

  Neil pushed the picture back into the envelope and turned his eyes to the Fausts. They both now stared at him the way they might watch the climax of a good Saturday matinee—their faces bright with anticipation. Neil searched for words but found none. He turned the drink up, draining every drop before carefully placing it in the brass sink. Finally, report firmly in hand, Neil walked to the door and let himself out.

  Petra turned to her husband, her expression betraying nothing. Without a word, she retired to the sleeping berth, unclasping her pearls as she went.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE MASSIVE CLOCKS OF THE SHIP STRUCK MIDNIGHT as August 5th was ushered in. The clocks’ deep tones even rattled the assorted stemware in the Observation Bar Lounge. The RMS Queen Mary was scheduled to adjust time by one hour on each of the first five days to offset the five-hour time change that would be experienced on the voyage to London. Those who remembered were busy adjusting their timepieces while an attendant dragged a chair to the giant clock. He stood on the chair as he manipulated the hands one hour ahead to one in the morning.

  Neil Reuter didn’t remember to adjust his watch.

  He was at the curved walnut bar, facing his sliver of reflection in the mirror between a bottle of Beefeaters and a single malt scotch he’d never heard of. With heavy eyelids, Neil listened to the soft music played by the heavy, raven-haired woman on the stark-white grand piano.

  Perched precariously between Neil’s fingers was a tall glass, ordered special, containing vodka, ice, and two lime wedges. The ice had caused condensation on the outside of the glass, something Neil was grateful for as he rubbed it on his warm forehead and cheeks. He turned the glass up, drinking all but a third and becoming concerned because he hadn’t seen the bartender in quite some time. After a minute of frantic scanning, he saw him pass at a distance, carrying a carton of supplies. Neil snapped his fingers, then yelled, motioning for another as he finished off the one in his hand. He crunched the ice and ate one of the lime wedges, peel and all.

  “What a night,” he muttered, loving and hating how he felt.

  Neil didn’t know what bothered him more: the falsehoods in the report—or the report’s deadly accuracies. He opened it again, flipping the pages as he skimmed their contents. This had been prepared by a team of highly educated assholes, probably Ivy Leaguers. They had undoubtedly spent weeks, maybe even months, turning out something that, in the end, was nothing more than a sleazy blackmail piece. They had to know their little coup de grace, their finishing touch of the purported long-term affair with Lana Stone, was nothing more than reckless speculation. There could have been no other evidence. None.

  Because Neil had never engaged in an affair with Lana Stone.

  He finished turning the pages and came to the rear cover, touching the envelope that contained the photo. After the bartender placed another heavenly drink on the bar, Neil slid the photo out and held it carefully between his thumb and forefinger. At the angle the picture had been taken, someone with a camera had to have been in the room beforehand and either hid behind a drape, or concealed the camera and operated it by wire. Neil had seen cameras of that sort before and, in either instance, the premeditation of the act concerned him.

  The detail of the sordid photo was not only disturbing, it shamed him to no end. The muscles of Neil’s stomach could be seen as he tensed in a half sit-up position. Lana’s dark lipstick contrasted with her pearl-white teeth as she was caught laughing, making the moment seem all the more decadent, like something captured from the guiltless debaucheries of a Roman orgy. Her hands were on Neil’s chest, the tone of her arms displayed as she held on like the rider of an unbroken steed. The satin sheets were swirled around them, and from the angle of Lana’s thighs, it seemed she had opened her legs as wide as humanly possible.

  But the look on Neil’s own face bothered him more than anything. In contrast to Lana, he wasn’t smiling. His expression, as a tangle of dark hair hung over his glistening forehead, was one of immense concentration and effort. His lips were pressed tightly together, his brow lowered almost menacingly. To the unknowing observer, it would appear Lana Stone was in sheer ecstasy while her gentleman lover concentrated with all his might to please her.

  But the sad part, at least to Neil, was that he had been too drunk that night to remember all the particulars.

  Oh, he remembered the incident, and what led to it, not unlike the foggy familiarity of a mediocre book he’d read years before. The basic plot was still there, but the intricate detail—especially the climax—that the author languished so hard to create was long gone, awash in the many threads of life that had since come and gone—or, in Neil’s case, had been cleansed away by copious gallons of Russian vodka. He closed his eyes, searching for a better recollection, trying to grasp the minutiae from the recesses of his mind.

  It had been unpleasantly cool and damp in Los Angeles that week. It was either at the end of April or early May; Neil couldn’t recall. The sun had barely showed itself during his visit.

  Neil recalled chemical magnate Yancey Stone’s bullish attitude as they had lunched on Monday. After Emilee’s murder, Stone had never mentioned a word of condolence, and he certainly didn’t break the trend on the Los Angeles trip. During lunch, Neil recalled his disgust over Stone’s sheer greed as they discussed his latest ventures. He could remember watching the man as he sat there, cracking crab legs and sucking melted butter off their meat, taking great delight in the detailing of how his pricing practices after the market crash had crushed three of his competitors and how, once the competition had eventually failed, he inflated his prices to never-before-seen levels. He told his customers it was due to the unfortunate phenomenon known as depression inflation. And what could his customers do about it? He was the only one left.

  Neil wouldn’t forget how, deep into the morning hours after the first night of the retreat, Yancey Stone had ordered his efficient Japanese assistant to rush out and retrieve three women, one African and two Asian, like he might order species of lobster for tomorrow evening’s feast. Neil wouldn’t forget the devilish look on Yancey’s face as he disappeared to the penthouse with the women, pinching one on the bottom as he licked the nape of another’s neck, leaving a sparkling trail of drool. Neil wouldn’t forget seeing Lana Stone arrive from back east the following day, and watching as Yancey pecked her on her cheek without a trace of contrition for what he had done the night before. Neil wouldn’t forget Yancey Stone’s leaving the retreat early, probably rushing back to Philadelphia to take care of whoever his mistress of the month might have been. And Neil Michael Reuter would never forget how, on that cool a
nd vaporous Tuesday night, his suite had echoed as someone had pounded on the door, snapping him from his near-religious communion with the tall bottle of 90 proof.

  It had been her. Yancey Stone’s wife, Lana. And she was drunker than Neil.

  He’d never paused to try and recall the details of that embarrassing night, but now as he did, the particulars were clearer than he might have thought. Lana Stone pushed her way into his suite, wearing a sequined cocktail dress and a matching head wrap. The dress hung on her, and although he tried to look away, Neil could see the outline of her breasts and nipples just below the plunging neckline of the look-at-me getup.

  A tall, lithe woman, she’d immediately kicked off her heels. While she had no doubt looked better earlier in the evening, Neil was still taken by the affluent woman’s unhurried, unworried presence. He had asked her if she was okay, wondering if she’d been crying due to mascara trails on her cheeks. Lana Stone, as she always did, appeared to be without self-consciousness, simply laughing at his question.

  When he offered her a damp towel for her mascara, she wiped her face and then tossed the towel out the open window. Without speaking a single word, she grabbed Neil’s bottle and turned it up, chugging three ounces like she might guzzle cool water on a hot day, leaving a sticky ring of lipstick around the neck. She lowered the bottle and wiped her lips with her forearm, turning her animal eyes to Neil. Her first words were a shock:

  “I’m very sorry about your wife, Neil.”

  Neil had nodded his thanks and glanced at the door. “Lana, if someone saw you come in here…”

  Lana Stone, the personification of an upper-class upbringing at the finest schools—the wealth, the exposure to culture, and a hint of typical rich-girl flouting—began to giggle. Her giggles grew to belly laughter, making her snort as she held a finger under her nose and clutched her trim midsection with her other hand. Finally, containing her hilarity, she stepped to Neil and kissed him, pressing her warm tongue into his mouth as she squeezed his cheeks tightly in her hands.

  Oddly enough, that had not been their first-ever kiss.

  Neil pulled back, shaking his head back and forth as confusing, drunken-dampened emotions raged war in his body and mind. “Lana, stop…”

  “Stop?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  Neil paused his recollection, finally understanding one of the main reasons for his giving in. Like a good battlefield commander, Lana had flanked him. Every single woman that had come at him after Em’s death—and there had been mobs of them—had approached him as if he were an injured bird. They’d tried to soothe him, baby-talking him, treating him as if he might shatter to pieces at any moment. But Lana had come on to him full-bore, using all the subtlety of Mae West as Diamond Lil.

  “What? I shouldn’t run around on my husband?” she had asked, stepping away and opening the bar under the radio, from which she spirited a bottle of scotch. “Ahhhh,” she said. “How about some joy juice?” She broke the seal and poured three fingers in one of the crystal tumblers, taking a mighty pull and afterward licking the rim with her long tongue.

  Neil had resumed his spot in his chair and held his own drink. He had been quite unnerved, watching her as she prowled his suite, padding silently in her bare feet like a tigress. She stopped on the far side of the bed and unpinned the wrap from her head. She poked her lips out in a pout and ruffled her streaky blonde hair, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Lana pulled one of the pillowcases off its pillow, dipping it in the icy water of the vodka’s bucket. She turned her head slightly as she used the damp linen to wipe the remainder of mascara from her face. After winking at herself, Lana Stone crossed the room and perched herself in Neil’s lap, running her long fingers through Neil’s dark hair, mussing it.

  “My husband sleeps with nearly every woman he meets. He has for years. If I were to challenge him, I would be both divorced and shunned, even by my own blood relatives.” She drank half of the scotch and allowed her hands to move to Neil’s chest, unbuttoning his shirt before rubbing the thin cotton of his undershirt. “In our nine years of marriage, I’ve been a good wife to him, always appearing where he wanted me, offering him children in case he wanted them…and always…always,” she said, turning Neil’s chin to her, “…looking the other way.”

  Neil shuddered as she ground her bottom into his lap. She cooed and told him she knew he liked it. He did like it—and he was ashamed of himself. Neil had felt the blood coursing through his body, warming his neck and face as glass-shattering images of Emilee flashed through his mind.

  He swallowed thickly before he spoke. “Lana, I’m not judging you. Not at all. But we can’t do this. My business, all of my workers, depend on your husband’s trust in us. In me.”

  She leaned to him and moved her lips to his ear, whispering. “But he’ll never know. Ever. And you need something to take your mind off of your wallowing grief. It’s been too long, Neil. The time is right. The time is tonight.”

  Neil had stared into her eyes, his breaths coming quickly. He could smell her perfume and the faintest hint of her tart perspiration. She moved her hand down his stomach, reaching underneath herself, gripping him softly.

  Then she abruptly changed tactics, grasping him roughly as she nibbled on his lip.

  He held off for another ten seconds before carrying her to the bed and making torrid love to her. She was an expert lover, bawdy and unafraid, doing things with him, to him, that he had never even heard about, even from the most coarse of soldiers during his days in the Army. She had taken him into her mouth, clawing at his chest and stomach while turning her body to accept his pleasuring. Lana licked him all over, giving instruction of where she wanted his hands at all times. In the end, she liked him behind her, adjusting the tilting mirror so they could watch themselves. They went on that way for nearly an hour and, after more drink, repeated the act. Lana was insatiable.

  And Neil, drunken Neil, a grieving man, was still a man after all.

  Since that night in Santa Monica, he withdrew into himself even further, ignoring three phone calls and a less-than refined telegram from Lana.

  But there had been no long affair. That part of the report was entirely inaccurate. There had been only the one interlude before the night in Santa Monica.

  Neil stared at the photo before sliding it back in the envelope. The bartender asked him if he wanted another; Neil waved him off.

  Now his mind was busy recalling his first kiss with Lana—the first piece of the puzzle. It had been years before Emilee’s death, in Philadelphia, back when he was happily married, before his business had grown, before other activities he participated in had matured. He and Emilee were at the Stones’ Christmas party. It was a celebrated affair, known through all of northeast society as one of the most exclusive, and just to have received one of the gilded invitations was a distinct honor. He and Emilee made a week of it. They’d stayed in New York, seeing the shows, eating well. The party was their last event before going home. At the soiree, late in the evening, Lana was on the verge of passing out from too much champagne. Neil caught her, literally, on his way back from the side courtyard where he and some of the other men had been sharing cigars and speaking of world events. Lana had been staggering down a columned hallway and he steadied her just as she was about to careen into an ornate table.

  Just after he gently led her to a sofa in one of the sitting rooms, Lana grasped the lapels of his tuxedo and kissed him, pulling herself up to him as she locked her mouth on his. She couldn’t have been but, what, maybe twenty-three at the time? Neil remembered the way she expertly clamped her legs on both sides of him like a vise. He pulled back, carefully, and was wiping her lipstick from his mouth as Yancey Stone’s top operations man walked by, pausing with his mouth open as he viewed the shocking scene.

  “Wait!” Neil called after the man, but he was gone, scurrying down the long hallway like a child running to tattle on an older sibling. “Shit!” Neil growled as Lana giggled, holding her fi
nger under her nose the way she later did in Santa Monica. As far as Neil knew, the ops man never mentioned it to anyone, at least, so Neil thought. He’d never heard one peep about that incident. Not one.

  Until Faust showed him the report.

  That must have been it. The investigators had somehow talked to the man and, after getting the pictures of Neil and Lana in Santa Monica, they made the deduction that the affair had been long-term. Two rich assholes ignoring their marital vows and carrying on like teenagers in heat.

  But it wasn’t true.

  Neil had never once been unfaithful to his wife, and his actions with Lana Stone in Santa Monica shamed him. Two-timed or not, she was still married. He tried to blame her, in his mind, but he couldn’t pull it off. Though he was drunk, he’d known exactly what he was doing that night. He had been complicit.

  And that’s why he was stinking drunk on this night.

  In the depths of brain, in an uncontrollable recess of his true self, Neil hoped this mission would be his undoing. In a perfect world, he would accomplish the objective just before someone put a merciful bullet through the back of his head. Or, better yet, Neil would safely move the children and then come back for Lex Curran. When he found Curran, Neil would bring along two bullets: one for Lex, one for himself.

  Neil placed the glass behind the bar and staggered back to his cabin, cursing himself for weakness.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The detective’s FLAT BLACK coupe sat on Vallejo Street, parked in front of Neil Reuter’s former mansion, Hillside. The orange setting sun was slung low, nearly below the horizon in the direction of Half Moon Bay. The unusually warm weather had begun to dissipate on this day and, as the sun dove for the Pacific, the chilly bay air settled over the hilly city like a familiar blanket.