Light of the Sun: They always make a mistake and when they do, we kill them...

by David Costa

  ‘You’re not giving away any secrets David, that’s exactly as we are taught. Alpha Two let’s keep this distance they seem to know where they are going.’

  Palo waved from across the road and continued walking at the same pace as Reece and Anna.

  The three men continued their walk, and Reece could see that they were relaxed by the way they kept walking straight ahead, not looking around, confident that they were in a city where no one knew them. The city was now a mixture of office workers going home and people going out for an early dinner in one of the many restaurants or perusing the tourist shops and buildings that were still open. Although the sun had gone down the evening was cool, but not cold; the street lights now bright against the dark blue sky. Once more the three men stopped while Shafi studied his mobile phone screen. Pointing, he said something to the men before they turned right into the next street.

  ‘All call signs they’ve gone into San Pawl Street. Alpha Four be aware when you go into that area,’ said Reece.

  ‘Roger Alpha Three,’ replied Simons.

  The three men continued along San Pawl Street, then turned left into the next street.

  ‘OK, everyone that’s them into San Gann Street,’ said Reece.

  Palo and Simons replied ‘Roger.’

  Reece turned to Anna. ‘I know this street. It leads up towards the centre and there are more shops and restaurants with a small Boutique hotel near the middle on the left as we go up.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where they’re heading for?’ said Anna.

  ‘One of us must be psychic Anna, that’s exactly where they’re going.’

  The three men had gone into the only hotel on the street. The last man of the trio, the one in the leather jacket, stopped for a moment to look up and down the street.

  Reece was confident they were far enough back for comfort and not raising any suspicion. Appearing satisfied, the man had turned and entered the hotel.

  ‘Alpha Four we have them at the Casa Ellul Hotel on San Gann Street. Can you park up nearby?’ said Reece.

  ‘No problem. I’m just round the corner in San Pawl Street,’ replied Simons.

  ‘What do you want to do now?’ Reece asked Anna.

  ‘Do you know this hotel?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a slightly upmarket one with a small reception area and a cocktail bar to the left when you go in. The rooms or suites as they’re called are on three floors around an inside courtyard where they place some chairs and tables for dinner. There is a fountain in the centre of the courtyard with a statue of Heracles at the back end. I think there are only about twelve suites. It’s called a boutique hotel because it’s small but expensive.’

  ‘You seem to know it fairly well. Have you stayed there?’

  ‘No. I took Mary to dinner there once because the chef had a reputation for good food. The meal was nice but a bit too expensive for my liking. I hate it when chefs try to show off giving you microscopic portions which they call cuisine by using a special name of their own. I like the food to fill the plate. We didn’t go back. As I said if we go in there and they’re still in reception they’ll clock us and that will make it difficult to follow them in the future; they might remember our faces.’

  ‘We don’t have a choice, David. We don’t know who they might be meeting in there. I need to get close with the little device in my bag which might give us an indication if they have the plutonium with them.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that, and a man and a woman together will register less interest than one of us on our own.’

  Anna spoke into her mic.

  ‘Alpha Three and I will go into the hotel and find out what we can. Everyone else stay alert if we need you to come running.’

  The affirmative replies from Palo and Simons came back.

  ‘OK, David let’s go and sample a cocktail, shall we?’

  Colonel Ali Shafi was confident that, so far, his mission was safe, and he was now where he should be at this time. He did not need to approach the reception desk which at that moment was unmanned. He knew the room number and stopping to tell his two minders to wait, he turned to the stairs on the right of the reception with an arrow notice on the wall pointing up which said Suites 1 to 5 first floor. As he was talking to his minders, he noticed behind them, a man and woman coming in through the revolving doors: the couple continued past the men and into the cocktail bar. There was nothing special about them as they appeared to be smiling into each other’s eyes and holding hands. He did not pay much attention to the man, but he did notice the woman, she was exceptionally beautiful, if only he had the time. A couple very much in love, he thought before he started to climb the stairs.

  Reece and Anna were lucky, there was only one table which gave a view of the reception area, and it was free. Anna sat at the table, her back to the reception. Reece sat opposite Anna looking over her shoulder. Anna lifted her bag onto the table, looked inside and then at Reece.

  ‘No alarm signal, nothing showing, he doesn’t have the plutonium with him.’

  ‘Provided your little device is working properly.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  A waiter came to the table.

  ‘Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Can I have a Bloody Mary,’ said Reece.

  ‘Make that two,’ said Anna.

  When the waiter left Anna looked at Reece once more.

  ‘I think I heard him tell his men the room number. He said five. What are they doing now?’

  ‘Sitting in reception,’ said Reece looking over her shoulder.

  ‘When the drinks come, I’ll go to the little girl’s room and update Palo and Matthew. Then we sit and enjoy our drinks for a while.’

  The drinks arrived and Anna took her walk.

  Reece watched the men without letting his eyes fall on them for too long. He could see they looked fit and were pretending like him, to be natural without drawing attention to themselves.

  Reece pressed his elbow against his side and could feel the hard metal of the Smith and Wesson reassuring at his waist. He could also feel a slight stab of pain in his right shoulder the shrapnel from the wound received in that shoot-out with Sean Costello years before.

  Ali Shafi knocked lightly on the door which after a few seconds was opened by Yasmin. She was always a light sleeper and the time she’d slept had rejuvenated her strength, she felt ready for the next part of her mission.

  ‘Yasmin, I am the Colonel.’

  It was the agreed approach, the one the Arab had told her, and she gave her reply.

  ‘I am the daughter of Allah.’

  ‘As-Salaam Alaikum, Yasmin.’

  ‘Wa’alaikum salaam, Colonel,’ replied Yasmin.

  Introductions over, she opened the door and waved him into the suite.

  ‘You have a nice place here. Will you be staying long?’

  She knew his mission brief would only take him as far as where he stood now.

  ‘Not long. You have the package for me?’

  He noticed by her tone that she did not want to take any longer to complete the handover than she had to. A pity, he thought. She was quite pretty, and he would have liked to get to know her more intimately if they had the time. As a Colonel in the Republican Guard, he was used to getting his own way, giving orders that were obeyed instantly and having his way with women even though he was supposed to be faithful to his wife. He smiled as he remembered an old saying. ‘There’s no such thing as a married man a hundred miles from home.’

  ‘The package as you call it you may already know, this is it.’ He held out the walking stick in both hands like a Samurai handing over his sword. She took it from him and immediately she could feel that it was heavier than she expected.

  ‘You notice the weight, I’m sure. That’s because the outer shell is made of a special form of lead.’

  She noticed that apart from the weight, the walking stick looked like it was made of silver with Arabic engraving on the outside.

 
; He held out his hands once more and she placed the stick back in them.

  ‘You are right, the outer casing is, as I say lead but, covered by sterling silver and the engraving you also noticed is very special too.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘The Light of the Sun.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  He walked over to the bed and beckoned her to follow him. Laying the walking stick on the bed he started to unscrew the silver knob at the top.

  ‘As you can see you unscrew the top clockwise, this is opposite to the normal anti-clockwise as a simple security measure should anyone try to see if they can open it. Inside the hollow tube wrapped in another material to protect you is the weapons grade plutonium which if used in the way we want will answer your last question, it will light up the sky with The Light of the Sun. The lead of the outer shell and the material inside will protect against the x-ray machines and explosive detectors at airports and security checks from finding the plutonium. Is it your job to deliver the walking stick to its destination?’

  ‘That is none of your concern. We each have our own part to play in this operation and to protect its security we only need to know our own part, no more.’ she replied sharply using the words of the Teacher.

  Again, the Iranian Colonel felt as if she’d slapped him across the face and he wasn’t happy. Maybe this woman needed a lesson, he thought. Throwing the walking stick on the bed he pulled her two arms down by her side then pulled her in close to his body and tried to kiss her on the lips. To his surprise she didn’t resist instead putting her arms around him, returning his kiss with her lips for a longer time than he expected. He relaxed his grip and when she pulled back from him he was surprised once more that when she stood in front of him, she was holding his gun in her hands. She’d removed the weapon easily from his shoulder holster when his attention was elsewhere. Now it was aimed at the centre of his chest.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘A certain gentleman tried to force himself on me once before and I had to let him know his approach was not welcome.’

  ‘That was not my intention. I thought you would like some company to help relieve the stress of your part in this operation.’

  She smiled as she noticed the sweat on his forehead and the nervousness in his words. Suddenly he realised who he was dealing with, not the timid little woman he expected.

  ‘I know about stress, and I agree. Maybe we should relax a bit to complete our part in the mission. At least let us lie on the bed and get comfortable.’

  ‘I don’t think I could relax with you pointing my gun at me.’

  ‘It’s a German Glock isn’t it, with one in the chamber I presume.’

  He just nodded never taking his eyes off the gun in her hand.

  Waving him to lie down on the bed she moved to the opposite side.

  ‘Now let’s lie down and relax and to help I’ll put the gun under the pillow until we are finished, then you can have it and be on your way no more to be said.’

  ‘It will take a lot of foreplay to help me relax after this,’ he said before lying down. She bent forward slowly slipping her gun hand under the pillow. This relaxed the Colonel seeing the gun placed out of sight and the fact that his two minders knew where he was helped reassure him.

  Kneeling on the bed Yasmin placed her legs astride him and once more leant forward to kiss him. She could feel his manhood start to go stiff between them and his arms searching for her waist closing his eyes in response to her lips. At the same time, she stretched her right hand under the pillow and bringing out the gun she lifted a pillow with her left placed it over his face. The sound in the room was loud to her ears but she knew the pillow had deadened it to anyone outside. She left the scorched pillow in place, while the dark red blood spread slowly below it, then placed the gun on top of the body and pulled the duvet over it covering it up so it would look like someone sleeping there. Looking down at the form on the bed, she now remembered her final briefing from the Arab at his poolside in Tehran.

  ‘When you receive the package, you will kill the Colonel. He is an enemy of the holy Jihad and a spy for our great enemy that is Israel.’

  She had not questioned his instructions, if the Colonel was such a spy, then he should die. She was a soldier of the Jihad and that was her mission to kill the enemy no matter who and where she found them. She had been wondering how she was going to do it and once again in her lifetime due to the arrogance of a man, the weapon had been provided.

  Quickly collecting her things in her backpack and checking she had no spots of blood on her clothes, she slid the walking stick down the inside of her jeans. When she walked, she was unable to bend her leg so she would pretend she had a slight limp. She would only have to do this until she was far away from the hotel. Placing a Do Not Disturb sign on the outside of the suite door handle, she took the stairs to the ground floor and reception. Leaving her key at the empty reception desk she walked past the two men sitting beside each other and without making eye contact walked out of the hotel to find a taxi from the stand at the end of the street.

  ‘Malta airport please,’ said Yasmin as she threw her backpack onto the rear seat then took her time to sit behind the driver and stretch the leg with the walking stick across the seat.

  Anna sat back down at the table.

  ‘Anything happen while I was away?’ she asked.

  ‘Not much, our two boys ordered coffee and a young woman left the hotel. What about the guys?’

  ‘I updated them and told them to meet up somewhere near the hotel where they can observe the front door. Palo had already found a café with tables outside it with such a view and Matthew is going to meet up with him. Did the young woman leave the hotel because the coffee’s bad?’ Smiled Anna.

  ‘She didn’t seem to want to wait around to find out.’

  ‘Shall we order another one while we wait? We don’t know how long we will be here?’

  ‘Good idea I like my Bloody Mary spicy and this one is exactly right. But we will have to take it slowly we need to keep our heads alert for this.’

  ‘You’re right let’s make them Virgin Marys without the vodka. We will have to use our imagination instead.’

  ‘Yuck. It will have to be good to imagine a Bloody Mary without vodka but let’s go for it.’

  Chapter 16

  Having received the text from Hassan that he had arrived safely in London, the Arab closed his villa and left his car at the airport before catching a flight to Rome, then a connecting flight to London Heathrow. The new false British and European Union passport he was using identified him as Doctor Ali Hussein Mohammad. His cover story was that he was a pediatrician at Guys Hospital in London. The documents and the cover story put together by the Iranian Quds Covert Operations Directorate were of the highest quality. The one thing the Arab was sure of was that the British always respect their police and their doctors without question. As he had expected, the documents and his experience in using false papers allowed him to pass through airport security with ease. The fact that he only had a small cabin bag made the experience even easier. When he had landed at Heathrow, he took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station in central London then, after a quick text message exchange with Hassan, took a taxi from the station to Edgware Road where, when he knocked on the door, it was opened by Hassan. The mission is progressing to plan, he thought, each playing their part as he had asked. At the same time Yasmin had arrived in her taxi at Malta airport. She made her way to the ladies’ room and inside a cubicle she removed the walking stick from her jeans. Now she could bend her leg and using the stick as it was meant to be used walked to the departures desk to book in for her flight to London with Malta Airlines. If everything went well, she would be in London by midnight.

  Back in the boutique hotel in Valletta, Reece tried to keep the conversation casual, smiling across at Anna each time one of the men in reception started to look around checking his surroundings.

>   ‘These Virgin Bloody Marys don’t taste all that bad.’ He tried to smile once more as he took a sip.

  Anna could only laugh. ‘They are terrible, and you’re not a very good liar, Mister Reece.’

  Reece laughed back.

  ‘You’re right, it’s terrible. Our friends are looking a little nervous. Maybe it’s the coffee?’

  ‘Shafi is upstairs meeting someone we don’t know maybe handing over the package. When he leaves, we will know the handover may have taken place. Hopefully, he walks out with the contact.’

  ‘I hope it’s soon. I don’t think I could drink too many of these,’ said Reece, holding up the glass that was now almost empty.

  Palo and Matthew were into their second pot of coffee and getting to know each other while watching the front door of the hotel which gave them a good view of anyone coming or going. In the last hour, the only one leaving was a woman on her own, carrying a rucksack and walking with a limp. She was wearing some sort of scarf pulled in tight over her head. Looking round she spotted the taxi stand and left in one of them. Since then, there had been no one in or out. The evening stars were coming out. Although the temperature had dropped it was still warm enough to sit outside and the few tables that there were, were increasingly being taken up by the customers of the night. Those same customers of the night were also filling up the streets, making an atmosphere of the flowing life of Malta, with locals, tourists and business owners coming and going.

  ‘I’ve never been to Malta before, but from what I’ve seen I would like to come back as a tourist sometime,’ said Matthew.

  ‘I’ve never been here myself. In a way it reminds me of Jerusalem, the buildings; the history involving the Mediterranean. Have you ever been to Jerusalem?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t. That’s another place for my list.’

  ‘If you ever go there let me know and maybe we can meet up. I’ll show you around the sites the tourists do not get to see, the ones protected by the security and the IDF, sacred sites to the Jewish people if you really like history.’