Give Us This Day

by Tom Avitabile

  Brooke scanned and read aloud. “Subject name unknown, likeness not available, physical description not available, alias: ‘Sheik of Araby.’ Referenced four times in decrypted messaging. Suspected theaters of operation: Austria, Sweden, Czech Republic, and Western United States.” Brooke thought for a second. “Stockholm, Prague, and Denver!”

  “And maybe something we haven’t caught wind of yet in Vienna, Salzburg, or Innsbruck, Austria.”

  “I see. Okay, what kind of threat are we facing here?”

  “I’ll encapsulate the fourteen single-spaced pages of analysis.”

  “Thank you, you are very kind. Coffee? It seems like we are going to be up for a while.”

  “Tea, if it’s no trouble?”

  “Of course, I should have guessed.”

  She put on the kettle and set up a cup and a tea bag. She popped a K-cup in the coffee maker and pressed the button. She went back to the table. “All I have is Lipton. Is that okay?”

  “Brilliant.”

  She sat and looked at the report as Nigel started in.

  “The cell is thought to consist of muscle men, engineers, technicians, and intelligence types,” he said.

  “Engineers? Is that British intelligence for bomb makers?”

  “No, it literally means engineers, but in groups like this, bomb makers are ubiquitous.”

  “So if it isn’t a bang or a boom, then A, why are they active, and B, why were you watching them?”

  “ISIS is gaining more and more footing in Africa. We believe they are following in the footsteps of Bin Laden and others who have used parts of Africa for staging and training for foreign attacks.” He brushed his finger on the pad as he scrolled down the report, scrutinizing the paragraphs as they slipped by. “Where is it . . . ? Here, ‘the capability of the engineers may lie in electromagnetics, induction, or generation.’”

  The kettle went off and Brooke moved over to the kitchen counter. As she prepped the tea and sugared her coffee, she thought aloud. “Electromagnetics . . . electric power plants? Nuclear power plants? We don’t have any mag-lev trains yet, so they can’t attack those . . .”

  She brought the cups to the table.

  “Mag-lev trains? How do you know of things like that?” he said.

  “I used to work for a science guy, Dr. Bill Hiccock. He was always war gaming technological attacks on America. Sounds like this one would fit his niche nicely.”

  “Hiccock. Is that the chap you were working for on the sub op?”

  “Yes, the Quarterback Operations Group. It was a presidential action team.”

  “QUOG, I believe it was called.”

  “My compliments to MI6.”

  “Sorry to keep tabs, but I’m afraid it is necessary, because even a friendly ally can have rogue elements.”

  “I totally understand. Trust but verify.”

  “Exactly. Are you and the captain planning on a family?”

  It was a little out of left field, but Brooke went with it. “That would be nice. Maybe once his tour is over. Why do you ask?”

  “Apropos of our discussion in the elevator, could you do it, Brooke? Could you commit to family and close the door on all this?”

  She reacted before she thought. “You don’t think I can have both?”

  “The question is, do you?”

  Brooke sat, and all thoughts of the mission at hand cleared away from her brain as she was suddenly holding her pink, sweet-smelling daughter, little eyelashes, small, delicate fingers. In her mind, she held her close while rocking her in her arms. She heard gentle cooing as she focused on her baby’s angelic face. Even that imagined scene raised an emotional need and desire for a child in her heart. Her reverie ended in a sigh, and she was back in the room with Nigel. “How about you. Do you have children?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  “But Nigel, in today’s world you can have your pick, a dashing man like you.”

  “Dashing is another word for old, I take it.”

  “No . . . not at all. I mean, there are lots of men your age having children.”

  “I might offer that there may be men having another baby. I’ve not had one, yet. It’s a wholly different proposition to get on the horse at an advanced age rather than never forgetting how to ride in the first place.”

  “I cede your point, but I still think if you want something bad enough, you can make it happen.”

  “Excellent advice; make sure you remember that.”

  “Duly noted.” She could see he was thrown by her terse, unemotional response to his genuine expression of concern. “Sorry, Nigel, that was a very nice thing to say. I’m just not comfortable having this conversation with someone I barely know.”

  “I quite understand, but one old warrior to a younger one, allow me a final word: Don’t do what I did, Brooke. I risked much for Queen and country, faced danger and lived to have the nightmares, but the one thing that scared me to my bones, my greatest fear, was that all that could be taken away from me, not by a man with a gun or a bomb, but by a little baby armed with a rattle.”

  Brooke closed her eyes, letting his words sink in.

  There was a knock on the door. Brooke opened her eyes. “Come in, George, it’s open.” She turned to Nigel. “I texted him to come over while I was making the tea. No reason not to get a jump on tomorrow.”

  They went back to the report from London and worked for another hour, then called it quits for the night.

  George and Nigel shared a cab.

  .G.

  “We have our work cut out for us tomorrow,” George said as he rolled down the window.

  “With a little luck, my man on the inside will shed more light on how they are running this.”

  “So how do you like working with Brooke?”

  “She’s got what you American’s call grit. If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t be too disappointed if she were half the woman Brooke is.”

  “Grit . . . yeah, that’s it.”

  .G.

  “Damn hand.” Dequa cursed under his breath. Every once in a while his hand involuntarily trembled. It was a result of the nerve damage he’d sustained in the early eighties from a piece of white-hot, razor-sharp Soviet shrapnel that had been embedded in his forearm. A souvenir he’d received while beating the elite Spetsnaz Brigade back into their mother Russia, north of Kondüz, in Afghanistan. The shaking made it hard for him to focus on the Le Monde newspaper he was trying to read in French. As he sat in the Starbucks on Sixth Avenue, no one would have guessed that he was a revered and famed mujahid. A fierce warrior and brilliant strategist, his victories earned him the equivalent of a general’s rank . . . if the side he fought for wore uniforms and had ranks; but to his men and his cause he was proud of the title Commander Dequa Quraisha.

  The headline of the Montreal Gazette and the subsequent story of the Galerie Nouveau’s explosion was all the verification Dequa needed to know that the job he had ordered was done, and done well. No loose ends and no traces of their real intent. The authorities discovered the cause of the explosion just like the American, Paul, said they would—a loose gas main fitting. French police explained that everyone in the gallery had already been rendered unconscious from the gas at the time of the explosion. Then he read that the delivery girl, who also died in the blast, rang the old electric bell on the back door. Police theorized that that action, that ringing of the bell, created a small spark. And in the heavily contaminated air, it caused the gas built up in the entire gallery to explode.

  Dequa was pleased to see no mention of any further suspicion, no discovery of tampered computers or missing files. So he knew that all traces of the eight hundred million dollars in bogus payments and the corroborating paper trail were gone. And with them another potential thread to expose their cell, their plot, and their mission, was cut. This mission and the ones he’d
just completed in Prague and Stockholm was proof that the American convert, this former infidel, Paul, was good at his deadly craft. It eased Dequa’s concerns about the next assignment he’d given him in the Caribbean.

  He got up, collected his coffee cup and newspaper and placed them in the trash, then exited onto the avenue. He headed for Forty-Eighth Street to buy a guitar case from one of the few music stores that remained on that block.

  Chapter 7

  Natural Woman

  13 days until the attack

  Marsha was so excited she could hardly eat a thing for breakfast at the Grand Cayman Marriott on Seven Mile Beach. Paul was due to arrive before noon. There’d been a package awaiting her when she checked in. It was from him and it was a very thoughtful and wonderful gift for their Caribbean getaway together. He had sent her tortoiseshell Gucci sunglasses, Louboutin lady’s flat sandals, and an aqua-and-white Hermès Beverly Hills beach wrap. With a little note, “For the sun and sands as we hold hands.” The newly retired bank transaction officer actually clutched the card with the sweet sentiment to her chest.

  So far this morning, enthused by his little present, Marsha got up really early and got the full salon treatment, a new hairstyle, a mani-pedi, and a facial. The song “Natural Woman” was playing on the spa’s music system, and as her confidence in her attractiveness increased from all the attention she was getting, the refrain, You make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman. kept rolling around in her head. Then she spent an hour in the hotel surf shop agonizing over a new bikini she’d dare to try. Although she was normally a one-piece wearer, Paul was really excited by her body. He had said he liked a woman with some meat on her bones, and since he was the only person she knew down here on the island, she thought she’d go a little wild. . . . like a natural woman. She’d also just endured a Brazilian wax to go with her new skimpier bikini; she wanted everything to be perfect for him.

  She felt like she was sixteen again. Her body tingled just thinking of his arms around her and his touch. He was the most sexually skilled man she had ever been with; not that there’d been that many. Over the years she had gravitated away from men. Shunning the bar scene and focusing more on her work and Facebook.

  Everything changed the day she met Paul. She couldn’t believe that it was less than a month since she had met him. She remembered how surprised he’d been on their third date to learn she was in banking. He was a curator for a few smaller art museums around Europe. Places like Prague, Stockholm, and Vienna. He has such innocent, childlike eyes, she thought. She couldn’t resist helping him. Especially after he told her how disreputable his former partners were, cheating him out of all those commissions. She had to admit it was all so exciting: having sex by night and setting up the electronic fund transactions by day. They’d spent almost two entire weeks together. Then he had to return to Prague, with a few other stops in between, before joining her here in the Caymans.

  He was so sweet about it. Sharing his commissions with her. There was a lot of money in being a curator. Just one EFT alone was more than 750 million dollars, of which he munificently gave her ten percent of his ten percent. Tomorrow they’d go to the bank down here in the Caymans and withdraw their money. Thanks to him and his generosity, she’d be a millionaire. Seven and a half million would go a long way. She saw herself in the best spas in the world, a face-lift, maybe getting her breasts done . . . Paul would like that. And now that she was outside the jurisdiction of the US, any bank regulator’s findings could not touch her. Part of her confidence was based on the fact that her little EFT for Paul was a needle in the trillion-dollar haystack of daily global transactions. She was sure his dirty former partners, those horrible cheats he’d told her about, weren’t going to go to the authorities, lest they bring down prosecution on themselves.

  The waiter came by and motioned with the teapot. She demurred, “Just the check, please.”

  Her phone rang and she dug it out of her purse. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello? Paul? Darling are you here, at the hotel?”

  “At the airport. My plane was late. Listen, Marsha, I was originally intending to surprise you with this, but now time is very limited,” he said.

  “Surprise? I like the sound of that.”

  “Silly me, I rented a boat for us; a little picnic on a shoal out in the middle of the aqua-green sea. I saw it on a TV show.”

  She smiled as she held the phone close to her ear. “Sounds wonderful. We can’t reschedule?”

  “No, dear, they are booked solid; 11:30 is the cut off, then they’ll rent the boat to someone else.”

  Marsha had planned a big welcome for Paul, in the room, mostly just champagne and strawberries, and her in a new negligee. But he was being cute, and spontaneous.

  “I have the perfect new bathing suit to wear . . .” she whispered conspiratorially. “A bikini!”

  “Now I’m surprised!”

  “And beautiful new sunglasses and sandals and a silk wrap. You really shouldn’t have.”

  “It was nothing, and I figured a woman never has enough sunglasses.”

  “Especially on a boat, you wonderful man.”

  “It is you who are wonderful. Thank you for going along with my crazy idea; it’s just that it looked so romantic and it would just be the two of us.”

  “Mmmm, I like the sound of that.” . . . like a natural woman . . .

  .G.

  Paul was on a public phone. He smiled. “Grab a cab from the hotel, and tell them to take you to the public pier in George Town. Look for me in a red thirty-foot Sea Ray, called Sun Seeker Seven. But darling, it’s eleven now; could you possibly be there by eleven thirty?”

  He pulled his cell phone from his pocket as it was vibrating. He refocused on the call with Marsha. “Great . . . I can’t wait to see you too . . . marvelous Marsha.” He then returned two blown kisses and hung up the pay phone. He immediately switched to the cell. “So sorry, I couldn’t find my phone . . .” He continued the call as he walked away from the public phone and down the rocking slip of the Sun Seeker Boat Rentals’ dock to the red motorboat.

  .G.

  At 11:25 a.m., Marsha got out of the cab with her beach bag, sun hat, new Gucci sunglasses, Louboutin sandals, and her Hermès beach wrap covering her new, shockingly revealing Carmen Marc Valvo bikini. There was a Sun Seeker Charters sign spanning the pier to her right. As she walked, she saw Paul checking the gas and waved.

  He reached up and grabbed her by the waist and lifted her in his arms, swinging her into the boat, kissing her deeply and passionately. She melted into the embrace, her hat falling back off her head.

  When they broke the embrace he once again apologized. “Dear, again so sorry not to have come and met you at the hotel, but I think you’ll love this.”

  “It sounds lovely, and I adore the fact that you planned this . . . that you went through all this trouble.”

  “No trouble. Let’s have a little toast before we head out.” He gestured towards a champagne bucket sitting next to a tray of strawberries.

  “Oh, Paul. Sometimes I really believe we are soul mates.”

  .G.

  At 12:15 they had been running at quite a clip over the serene clear ocean. Paul checked his heading.

  Marsha came up from the cabin after using the bathroom. “Paul, there’s scuba equipment down there.”

  “It was the only way to get a boat. It was the last one they had for rent, so I had to buy the Scuba package because all the excursion boats were already booked. It was only a hundred dollars more. But we’re almost there.” He checked the chart. By his reckoning he was right in the middle of the spot they called the Maze. He throttled back the engine and took out his phone.

  Marsha looked around. “Why are we stopping here?”

  “Marsha, go sit up on the bow. Let me get a shot of you in that very sexy bikini.”r />
  “Paul . . .” She dismissed him, but then, “You really like me in this?”

  “I wanted to make love to you the minute you got on the boat. I can’t wait another second.”

  She kissed him and stepped onto the cushion and out onto the front of the boat. Make love on the boat? Out here? She looked around seeing nothing but horizon in all directions. Why not? She slid down one shoulder of her cover up, exposing her new underwire top. “How’s this?”

  From behind the wheel, Paul said, “Perfect.”

  .G.

  At 1:30 p.m. exactly, he pulled up to the hotel’s dock. She was smiling. She liked the way he was always prompt. She had flown all the way from England and left her suite twenty minutes early and walked down here just to be on time to meet him. It was crazy. Paul was always doing spontaneous things like this, wherever in the world she met him, but that’s what she liked about these clandestine meet ups, as they called them.

  When they spoke on the cell this morning, he’d told her to bring sunscreen. They were going to a small shoal where they’d have a very private lunch, then dinner tonight at Balla Qui. She hadn’t seen him in a few weeks and he looked so good steering the red motorboat right to her at the dock.

  He lifted her from her waist right onto the boat. They kissed and embraced as he swung her down to the deck.

  “Oh, Paul. This is going to be magnificent. Thank you so much for the new sunglasses, this fabulous wrap, and these very sexy sandals. I was breathless when I opened your gift in the room. Oh and look, champagne and caviar. You are definitely a lady killer!” Her non-descript European accent was the mark of aristocracy.

  An hour later they were spread out on a blanket with a picnic basket and cooler on the little isolated pink sand shoal that was a dot in the crystal-clear aqua water.

  “I have to pee,” Elanna said as she adjusted the elastic of her bottoms. She got up and walked over to the boat and climbed aboard.