by Ed Kovacs
She looked at the goon. If they had to remove him physically it would definitely disrupt the speech and maybe anger the wife of Michelle’s boss, the President. She signaled the goon to wait, and they crouched down behind Wilder.
“I’ll close by saying, while the most recent UNHCR budget broke nine hundred-million dollars, even that isn’t enough. There is so much more that needs to be done, and will be done, thanks to the support of generous individuals like Simon Forte, and also, I was just told before I came up here, by Doctor Pete Vander Zalm of Toronto, Canada, who is providing a matching donation of one hundred-thousand dollars. Where are you Doctor Vander Zalm?”
Applause as Wilder stood and the spotlight found him. He waved a fat bundle of hundred dollar bills to the crowd, then handed them to the Egyptian teen as he took the microphone from the techie. Michelle and her goon looked ridiculous squatting there, so they duck-walked away from the table then scurried to the side of the room. The First Lady returned to her seat and Fakhry to the podium.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here,” said Wilder, with all eyes upon him. “I know the importance of the work you’re doing. I was in Burma three days ago, in the Shan Hills, and I saw the refugee problem firsthand.
“Simon Forte was there, too, he saw what I saw. If we can go there, then why can’t the UNHCR? There are over a hundred-thousand Burmese and hill tribe refugees still living in squalid camps on the Thai border, but the UN hasn’t recognized them, they haven’t been given anything.” Sky couldn’t help but think of Lien Zou and his dead infant son.
“Although the situation has recently improved, the Burmese government for years was one of the most repressive regimes on earth, carrying out torture, killings, forced labor, forced relocation. Don’t believe me, ask Amnesty International. I humbly urge the First Lady to look into this and consider helping those people.” Sky paused to hearty applause.
“Anyway, I apologize to all of you for speaking some very strong words. I’m not here to put anyone on the spot... except for Simon Forte. I have to tell you about your patron for the evening. He’s truly a man for the New Century. Well, not really a man, more like a transnational entity.”
There were a few nervous chuckles in the room, but only because they didn’t know where Sky was going with this.
“Mister Forte renounced his American citizenship. He pledges no allegiance to any one country, that’s an outmoded concept to him. He’s a new kind of creature: a criminal, spy, businessman, philanthropist, racketeer... hatched at the crossroads of money and power.”
Forte stared daggers at Sky as murmurings rippled the previously hushed room. People shifted uneasily in their chairs, including the First Lady.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to attack Mister Forte because he’s rich, I like making money, too. But do you Egyptians want to keep your national sovereignty? Because people like Simon Forte are creating a world run by giant corporate cartels, acting through and corrupting governments and international institutions. That’s the New World Order, right Doctor Fakhry?”
Shouts erupted, rumblings in many different accents: “Get rid of him,” “Shut up!” “Take your money and go home.”
Then counter-shouts rang out. Hassan leapt to his feet where he’d been sitting at a table with four pretty ladies. “Let him speak! Are you afraid to hear the truth?!”
Diana approached the podium, locking eyes with Fakhry. She shouted, “Doctor Fakhry, do you remember me? Shall I tell them about your illegal business dealings with Simon Forte, who started blackmailing you five years ago?”
Fakhry shrunk back from the podium and looked like he was ready to run.
Wilder glimpsed Michelle Stark hurry toward the audio tech, motioning for him to cut the sound. Security people were also on the move and he knew his time was quickly running out. “Anyway, refugees just want to live. Simon Forte, who murdered my friend in Burma three days ago right in front of my eyes, wants to live forever. That’s why he’s in Egypt tonight, to perform black magic, and that’s why I’m asking the Secret Service to please remove the First Lady, because I have information that she is in danger from Simon Forte!”
Wilder barely got the last words out before he was grabbed by three security goons. Two more men grabbed Diana. A buzz of intrigue swept the crowd. As two Secret Service agents pressed in close to the First Lady, Forte leaned in and whispered something to Rene, who rose from the table.
Stark was suddenly in Wilder's face as he was being dragged away. “Congratulations, ‘Doctor Pete.’ You are under arrest.”
“Please, Michelle, get the First Lady out of here!”
Almost all eyes in the room followed the commotion around Wilder. No one saw Rene approach Marcus Townsend and hold out her wrist like she was showing him her watch. No one heard the three tones, two short high, one long low, that came from her watch. But Marcus heard them.
In a voice not audible over his comm-link, Rene whispered, “The woman masquerading as the First Lady is dangerous. Kill her now, and anyone who gets in your way.”
###
Marcus strode purposefully toward the round white linen-covered banquet table where the First Lady sat with the wife of the Egyptian President, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt and other top dignitaries.
At first the two agents standing next to the First Lady thought little of the sight of Marcus approaching... until they saw him draw his mini-Uzi from only a few meters away.
“GUN!”
Everything went into slow motion. One agent tried to shield her with his body as the other pulled his own mini-Uzi.
Forte and Rene ducked under their table. Security men around the room pulled their weapons.
Then the champagne bottles started popping. At least it sounded that way as Marcus Townsend sprayed a long burst toward the First Lady and her guards. The agent pulling his gun took five slugs up his torso and stumbled back onto the banquet table in a spray of blood and flesh.
Slugs from the same burst stitched the spine of the agent who had thrown himself in harm’s way. One of the bullets blew apart his right kidney, exited his body and entered the First Lady’s thigh, but the momentum of the rounds striking the agent ironically had the effect of propelling them under the collapsing table.
The mayor of Cairo was lucky. A round sheared off his lower right earlobe, while the American Ambassador caught a bullet in his elbow which would forever end his tennis game.
Diana struggled with her two captors who suddenly loosened their grips from the shock of the attack on the First Lady.
Wilder also broke free, but before he could move, Townsend’s twenty-round magazine clicked empty and he calmly stood above the carnage and changed magazines.
Pandemonium gripped the ballroom. Quirky sounds from musical instruments as orchestra members dived for cover. Shrieks and screams from bejeweled socialites who lost control of their bowels.
Amazingly, the first blow to Townsend came from an Egyptian waiter, who saved the First Lady’s life by slamming a wine bottle onto the back of Townsend’s head. The waiter’s aim was slightly off so it was only a glancing blow, but distracted Townsend long enough for a Secret Service agent to fill him and the hapless waiter with lead, sending them sprawling.
Before agents could kick the Uzi away from Townsend, he fired into his own head, disintegrating his skull and wounding three guests nearby.
Security agents grabbed Wilder again. He struggled, but could only watch as Forte ran over to the First Lady, no doubt to get her blood.
###
“Dammit, Michelle, I warned you the First Lady was in danger! Have your goons let me go. And my partner, too, over there.” Sky nodded to where Diana stood arguing with her security escorts. “That’s Captain Diana Hunt, she’s active duty army intelligence, and we need to stop Forte before he can do what he’s come to do.”
“I thought you said he was here to hurt the First Lady?”
“I can explain later, just bring him over here if you do
n’t believe me! I mean, where did he go?”
They scanned the room; Forte and Rene were nowhere to be seen. Michelle hesitated, then into her comm-link. “This is Stark, seal the facility, detain Simon Forte and his associates for questioning in the attack on the First Lady.”
CHAPTER 28
By the time Michelle Stark issued her order, the delivery truck that had been waiting at the kitchen loading dock had already pulled out of the Mena House driveway, carrying Forte, Bailey, six bodyguards and a highly agitated Dr. Fakhry.
“That woman in the ballroom, she’s CIA! Did you hear what she said in front of everyone?! I’m exposed! She was the whore the CIA used. Why did you allow this! She implied it was you who set me up!”
“Doctor, over the years I have made enemies,” said Forte, as he put a reassuring hand on Fakhry’s arm. “They will say and do anything to stop you and I from taking the elixir and becoming immortal. But they have failed and we have won. You’re about to experience your true destiny, so please relax and take a breath.”
The truck motored along Pyramids Road for the short drive to Fakhry’s new offices where Daniel Pratt had everything ready.
###
Full moon glow refracted off the smooth silica-rich sand of Giza, bathing Forte's party in a soft seductive shimmer suggestive of the magical possibilities that lay ahead.
“Doctor Fakhry, send your guards to the main road. Have them use any means necessary to block all access, I mean everyone, from this building. Offer them a large reward for doing so.”
As Fakhry spoke to the building’s security men in Arabic, Forte turned to Pratt. “The arrangements have been made, Daniel?”
“Exactly as you instructed.” The Mercedes limousine sat parked on the other side of the building. Pratt had placed the athanor—a small furnace used by alchemists—and other lab equipment and ingredients into Hui’s chamber. He also wore his ever-present comm-link and had monitored the frantic transmissions of the various security agencies from the Mena House. “Should we expect company, Mister Forte?”
“We weren’t followed, but there have been complications. Keep the men ready. Nobody enters the chamber until we emerge, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” said Pratt, as Forte and the others hurried into the building. What Pratt really meant was, “screw you.” He smelled big trouble. Not for a second did he believe in any of this immortality nonsense, it was a sign to him his boss no longer had both chopsticks in the chow mein. If the Secret Service or the Egyptian army showed up, what did he expect them to do, fight to the death to guard the chamber entrance?
Pratt spat on the ground. He disliked being in the field with Forte, whom he hated with a passion, though he'd never revealed a scintilla of his true feelings to anyone. Because, of course, he had his own secret agenda.
###
Fakhry’s office looked like a million others, but it was surely the only one whose four-drawer file cabinets swung aside at the touch of a button revealing a staircase down into a secret chamber below the Giza Plateau.
Forte went first, straight down twenty-eight steps, the entranceway lit by bare bulbs attached to drooping electrical wire. Followed by Bailey and Fakhry, he entered a medium-sized room whose walls were decorated with hieroglyphics and bas-relief carvings of ancient Egyptian gods. One stone table centered the room, another stood against a wall.
“Rene, don’t you think Doctor Fakhry should be the first to become immortal?”
“Yes, I think he deserves it.” She turned and shot him twice.
“The soul doth live forever.”
The doctor’s eyes couldn’t have gone any wider as he collapsed to the cold stone floor.
###
Two covert operators, disguised as police officers, pulled over Athanor Managing Director Frank McCoy three blocks from his Arlington, Virginia home, handcuffed him, retrieved his two cell phones and a concealed Glock 36 pistol, then put him in the back of their patrol car. The black officer sat next to him, opened a laptop, and showed McCoy a digital photo of a very fresh dead body.
“Recognize this man?”
As soon as McCoy saw the photo, his eyes flashed to the black officer. “Who are you? What do you want with me?”
“It’s Jim Rizzo, Athanor’s Director of Security. Good friend of yours. He died in his condo about fifteen minutes ago. Heart attack.”
The white officer leaned in from the front seat. “Even if there’s an autopsy, they won’t find anything.”
“Now we have this man.” The black officer clicked the mouse and real-time streaming video showed another dead body, this one with a bullet wound to the head, being loaded by hooded men into a body bag. “Can you confirm his identity, please Mister McCoy.”
“If you think that you can get away with this—”
The white officer slapped McCoy hard, knocking off his glasses. “Shut up and do what you’re told. ID the victim.”
McCoy paused to compose himself as best he could, then said, “That’s David Cain, Director of Operations.”
“Correct. This body will never be found, but we have a pretty good look-alike right now boarding a plane to Munich with Mister Cain’s passport. In a few days that gentlemen will suddenly disappear, and evidence will suggest that your friend, Mister Cain, met with foul play.”
The white officer leaned in and spoke casually. “We’re here to inform you that Simon Forte has relinquished his ownership of Athanor to our company. And today, you are going to help us with the transfer of power. Show him the last shot.”
With trepidation, McCoy lowered his eyes to the video screen, and saw a close shot of a three-year-old girl playing outside a day care center with other children. It was his daughter.
“Make an investment in the future, Mister McCoy. Complete your assignment successfully today. That way, there will be a tomorrow for you and your family.”
McCoy swallowed hard, then looked like he was ready to pass out.
###
Frank McCoy performed flawlessly, assembling Athanor management in a conference room for an emergency meeting and giving the stunned executives their walking papers. Their company smartphones were seized on the spot, and without being allowed to access their office computers, they were escorted out by security guards no one recognized. All computer passwords, entry codes, key cards and other information pathway security measures were immediately reconfigured by what seemed like an army of replacement workers. But only about fifteen percent of the staff lost their jobs. For the rest it was business as usual, but with a new master.
After gaining entry to the secret lower levels, Major Spinks, wearing her best Cheshire cat smile, and other WOR operators tapped into the treasure trove of data bases, the heart and soul of Forte’s global dealings: the front companies, the bank accounts, lists of who had been bribed when, where and for how much. The time had come for the WOR to do what had to be done in a world gone mad.
So it was that Major Spinks sat in Daniel Pratt’s $2000 ergonomically designed chair as she scanned his computer files, holding an encrypted cell phone to her ear. “Your source was correct. I’ve confirmed the identity of the killers here on the Athanor mainframe.”
“So the leader of the op that shot down the C-37 over the North Atlantic was Claude Daubert?”
“Yes. It was brought down by a ship-mounted nuclear-powered particle beam weapon. Daubert personally executed the procedure from a trawler, the Sven Carlsson. He also shot down the C-21, AFKAI-1 77, over Virginia. He seems to have carved a niche for himself shooting down air force jets.”
“So he literally killed my son,” said General Klaymen, very much alive and sitting in an SUV with two other operators on a rural Virginia highway. For the thousandth time in the last ten days he rolled around in his mind how horribly his son and the others on board must have died as the plane broke up and plummeted from high altitude. “Do we have his research?”
“We do.”
“Thanks, Major.” Klaymen hung up the call and
turned to the men in the van. “Gentlemen, we have a go.”
Back at Davis-Montham Air Force Base in Arizona, Klaymen had deplaned into a service truck on a far runway, shielded from prying eyes. He’d left human bones and a set of his false teeth on board, even though he had no specific information the craft would be brought down. It was a test, and he felt very sorry for the pilots. His “death” enabled him to clandestinely finalize the details for today’s action, a coup against the power of Simon Forte and his corrupt allies.
###
Engineers receive reduced auto insurance rates, and Claude Daubert demonstrated the wisdom of that policy by rounding a curve on State Route 3 in his new Citroen at ten m.p.h below the posted limit. Sitting beside him, Carol Swann perused the brochure of the bed-and-breakfast where they were going to hole-up for the weekend instead of attending the scientific conference where Daubert’s wife thought he would be. As Daubert began to accelerate slightly onto a straightaway, the Citroen suddenly died.
“Merde!” he cursed, wrestling with the power steering that had lost it’s power.
“What happened?”
He ignored Swann, shifted into neutral and attempted to restart the car, but nothing happened. The electronics were out and the car slowed on the straight stretch. “A rotten way to start our weekend!”
“I can call the auto club.”
“Let me take a look, first.”
As the Citroen rolled to a stop on the shoulder, a semi with a forty-foot trailer pulled over in front of them.
“Maybe we’ve got help.”
“This is a state-of-the-art French luxury car. What could some stupid American truck driver do?” Daubert tried to open his door, but it remained tightly closed. “What?” He kept struggling with the door. She tried hers, but it was also frozen.
“Are the doors electronic?”
“They should open manually, of course!”
Daubert and Swann looked up to see three men in coveralls exit the semi. As one man opened the trailer doors and extended ramps, the other two unspooled two chains from a winch inside the trailer. Each chain had a large hook on the end.
