'ASSASSIN 4 - FIRST SON' (Assassin Series)

by Bryan Murray

  “I’m listening, go on?” Both the President and Mulroney were listening attentively

  “Then perhaps the abduction of the boys was just a cover for these Arabs to get their hands on Jeff, maybe as a long shot to use him as a bargaining tool to release their leader, but with the main objective to program him to be their weapon to kill you!”

  “My God! Those devious bastards!”

  “Exactly.” Jake replied.

  “So, what do you suggest we do now, Mr. Harrigan?” Mulroney asked.

  Sarah was the first to answer. “Well, sir, the first thing is to try and figure out what the trigger was that switched Jeff on to try this outrageous act, because if we don’t he could try it again, without even knowing!”

  “And how do we do that?” the President asked.

  “Well, first, we need to keep him in isolation as far away from you as possible, sir. We need the discreet services of a top clinical hypnotherapist to start digging into Jeff’s mind while we try and find what the trigger was that set him off in the first place.”

  “And will you do that?” the President was almost begging.

  “Of course, sir,” Jake replied. “And we must also make sure that we also monitor Andrew in the same way and hope that he is not a part of this plan. Hopefully, he was snatched by mistake, but in the event that he was tainted, we need to pray that he is not carrying a different trigger!”

  The President’s mind was now made up. “Then let’s get on with this as soon as possible!”

  Jake and Sarah nodded. “And may I suggest, Mr. President that this is all kept ultra-confidential, to be discussed by nobody outside this room, and that includes even the Vice-President and immediate families?”

  The President shot a glance at Mulroney who nodded in agreement. “All right, if you think it will help, let’s do it!” the President replied.

  Jake and Sarah then prepared to leave just as Jake’s cell phone rang. He looked at the President who signalled him to answer it.

  It was Peter Barnes on the line from Langley. “Yes, Peter?” Jake inquired.

  Barnes was brief and to the point. “Hi, Jake. We did the full scan on all the faces and only two came up with a match.”

  “I’m listening?”

  “The first was a positive ID of Genaro Viducci, one of the top Capos for the Cagliari Mafia family in Central Italy, now being led by Don Lorenzo Cagliari, following the recent death of his grandfather Don Luigi Cagliari.”

  Jake was scribbling as Barnes continued. “Go on?”

  When Barnes started to describe the second ID match, the hairs on the back of Jake’s neck were already standing up.

  “The second ID was that of Igor Strapinski, the Eastern European looking guy in the photos.

  “Who’s he?” Jake asked as the President, Sarah and Mulroney were all listening.

  “He was a former KGB Doctor and according to intelligence feedback, he had been working on cutting edge technology on pre-programming assassins during the cold war, so that totally unsuspected, ordinary people could be pre-programmed as killing machines once the trigger mechanisms he had planted in their subconscious minds had been activated!”

  Jake was still in shock. “Hey, thanks, Pete, great job, mum’s the word!”

  “You bet, bye!” Barnes went off the line.

  Jake looked at the trio who were waiting for him to comment. “Well, Mr. President,” he began. “Sarah was absolutely right about the pre-programming!”

  “She was?”

  “Yes, sir, we took pictures of the people we terminated in the building where we rescued the boys and asked the CIA to do a facial recognition scan.”

  “And so?” the President was really curious.

  “It seems one of them was Igor Strapinski!”

  “Who’s he?” Mulroney asked.

  “Apparently he was a former KGB Doctor and his specialty was pre-programming cold war assassins by planting trigger mechanisms in their brains!”

  “My God!” Mulroney was in shock.

  “So, he was probably working on Jeff from the minute they grabbed him until you rescued him?” the President added. “And the other man?”

  Jake took a further breath, his mind reeling. “This was the one that got me, sir. He was Genaro Viducci, a senior Mafia Capo working for the Cagliari Mafia family in Sicily!”

  The President was more than familiar with the Cagliari family. “That bastard Don Luigi!” he exclaimed.

  “But now his grandson, sir, Don Lorenzo Cagliari!”

  The President nodded. “Yes, I’m familiar with that little bastard as well!”

  Sarah was also thinking aloud, still in shock at the news. “So, Jake, that means that those who we originally thought were Arab soldiers were really Italian mobsters?”

  The President was deep in thought. “My God! I knew we’d been hitting the Mob pretty hard, but not so hard they’d get stupid and go after me. So, what do you think, Jake?”

  “Well, sir, they were obviously working on a two option plan, because Al-Qaeda must have been involved to allow their name to be used in the kidnapping for the release of their leader.”

  “Exactly,” Sarah added. “No doubt the Mob had agreed to grab Jeff and let Al-Qaeda use him as a tool to get their leader released and knowing the Mob, Al-Qaeda paid them a bundle!”

  “Right,” Jake added. “But the Mob hedged their bets, so that if we didn’t release al-Midari, which was pretty much a foregone conclusion, they would then settle for the boys being rescued by which time Jeff would be their secret unwitting assassin once he got within the impregnable confines of the White House past all security.”

  “Correct,” Sarah continued. “And by taking you out, they were hoping that they would remove a major obstacle to expanding their operations here in the US!”

  “Those devious bastards!” Mulroney was incensed.

  Sarah was still thinking out loud. “That’s why our task of eventually rescuing the boys wasn’t as hard as we expected. They actually wanted us to rescue them!”

  Jake was in agreement. “I agree and when we arrived in L’Aquila for the rescue, the last two guards we killed weren’t taking the boys anywhere, they must have been told to leave them behind and head out to where there would no longer be a trace back to the Mob!”

  The President and Mulroney had been listening to Jake and Sarah explain the logic of the saga with open mouths at the devious complicity of the Mob. Mulroney was trying to think straight. “So, once we get the boys cleared medically, the status quo has been restored, right?”

  Jake did not agree. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Mulroney. First we need to find the trigger words used on Jeff and maybe on Andrew and in the process we need to pay this Lorenzo character a visit.”

  “A visit?” the President looked curious.

  “Yes, sir, I need an uninterrupted one on one conversation with him, if you know what I mean?”

  “I agree.” the President replied.

  “And without anybody outside this room knowing about it.”

  The President liked the idea. “Does that mean you’ll be going back to Italy, guys?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir and we may need some help from the CIA when we get there.”

  “No problem,” Mulroney added. “And if you’re going after this Lorenzo Cagliari, Jake, you need to know that he lives in this fortified fortress of a villa above the steep cliffs on the coast of southern Sicily, with only one well-guarded approach road from the city below. Almost impregnable!”

  Jake shrugged. “Well, they’d better brace themselves. They probably think they’re in the clear right now, because they don’t know if the attempt on your life has been made and we still have the element of surprise!”

  “So, when would you like to leave, Jake?” the President asked.

  “How about right now, sir?”

  “No problem,” Mulroney replied. “What help do you need?”

  “We need CIA discreet boots on the ground when we l
and in Palermo with full plans of this guy’s fortress and some solid ideas on how to get inside undetected.”

  “No problem, we’ll have you on a flight before midnight.” Mulroney was already dialling a number on his cell.

  Sarah looked at Jake. “We’d best get back and pack. Can you please e-mail us the flight details, Mr. Mulroney?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have a safe trip, guys,” the President added. “Get back safely and let’s put this incident behind us once and for all?”

  “Thank you, sir and one more thing, we must not let a soul outside this room know where we are. If anybody asks, we’ve gone back to complete our vacation in Hawaii.”

  Both the President and Mulroney nodded in agreement as Jake and Sarah prepared to leave. When they reached the door of the Oval Office, the President added. “And Jake, when you get your hands on this Mobster, extreme prejudice is the order of the day!”

  Jake nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Driving along in the car, Sarah looked at Jake and smiled. “Thank goodness we’ve got a spare change of clothes!’

  CHAPTER 26

  In his villa in Sicily, Don Lorenzo was now involved in his own brand of damage control. He was hoping against hope that with the massive profit potential at stake, the plot to kill the President would work, but unfortunately there had to be collateral damage.

  In this case it was the loss of Genaro, not the smartest card in the deck and his men. Lorenzo’s painstaking sanitation of the two sites in the ski area had gone to plan and there were now no links to him, but the bodies had to be discreetly buried by their families and they were all grieving the losses of their loved ones.

  His offer to split the one million dollars he had donated from the Al-Qaeda profits had gone down well with the families of the deceased and as he had expected, they were all now eternally grateful to the Godfather.

  The sun was setting across the Mediterranean and Lorenzo was finishing supper alone when his private cell phone rang and once again he listened to the disguised voice on the line.

  He threw his glass of wine against the wall in anger when the caller told him the master plan had backfired and he used every swear word in Italian he could think of, particularly when it was explained to him that it failed because of one man ...Jake Harrigan!

  Maria explained that the interfering Harrigan had shot the gun out of the boy’s hand, when the woman with him had realized what was going on.

  “I am so sorry,” Lorenzo apologized. “But our son is now safe, so you need to keep a low profile, let the incident blow over, since the Americans obviously still think it was Al-Qaeda who programmed the First Son to do what he attempted and all the evidence over here has now been sanitized. I love you and take good care of our son.” he added.

  “I will.” she replied.

  Another thought occurred to him. “So, where is this Harrigan now?”

  “They went back to finish their vacation in Hawaii.” she replied.

  “Let me know the location when you can? It’s time this man realized that nobody crosses the Cosa Nostra and lives! Goodbye, my love!”

  “Bye.” the line went dead at the other end.

  CHAPTER 27

  After landing in the early morning from the commercial night flight from DC into the Falcone-Borsellino Airport in Palermo, Sicily, Jake and Sarah cleared customs, grabbed their bags and were met in the ground transportation area by Giancarlo Franco, a young, dark-haired agent from the Rome CIA office.

  “Can I get you a taxi, folks?” he asked Jake with a smile on his face.

  “Depends where you want to take us?” Jake replied.

  “I know a nice villa for rent on the south coast.” Giancarlo replied.

  Jake smiled. “Hi, Jake Harrigan and this is Sarah.”

  “Giancarlo Franco, Rome office. I have my car outside, let’s go.”

  They all shook hands and followed Giancarlo out of the terminal towards the parking lot. As they left the airport into the busy traffic, Giancarlo, who seemed to be driving like Mario Andretti, turned to Jake.

  “So, what’s the game plan, Jake?”

  “Do you have the things we requested?” Jake asked.

  “Some of them. The others won’t take long.”

  Jake nodded. “Good, we need at least today to plan this and if it’s going to work, I need to go in tomorrow night.”

  Giancarlo smiled. “I always heard you Americans were suicidal, but I never met one for real until now!”

  “Meaning?” Jake asked.

  “Trying to get into the Cagliari villa is like getting into your Fort Knox - impossible!”

  “I’m listening?” Jake stayed calm.

  “I will show you when we get to the hotel!”

  * * *

  Later, as the sun was rising slowly across the verandah of Jake’s room, the three of them were finishing an appetizing lunch from room service. Giancarlo then began to explain what he meant.

  “The Cagliari family have been in business for generations and if there is one smart thing that these guys did, it was to choose the right location for the family villa!”

  “I’m listening?” Jake prompted.

  “They built it on very, very high cliffs overlooking the beach in Pozzallo on the south coast of the island and there is only one approach road up to the villa from the city below. As you can imagine, Don Lorenzo has enough fire power to hold off an entire army if he had to make a quick getaway, or simply refuse entry to anyone who wasn’t expected.”

  He unfolded a plan of the villa and also an aerial shot of the villa that looked almost like Hitler’s Eagles Nest up at Berchtesgaden.

  Giancarlo pointed to the photograph. “On the Mediterranean side of the villa, there are these almost un-scalable cliffs that lead up to the Don’s private helipad about halfway up, only accessible by chopper and with steps up to the villa from there, but with a steep drop below the helipad.”

  He smiled at Jake. “So, are you still interested?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Jake replied. “First question, is Don Lorenzo currently there now?”

  Giancarlo nodded. “Yes, since we knew you were coming, Director Grover organized satellite scans and he was seen on the balcony of the villa just hours ago!”

  Jake let out a sigh. “Okay, half the equation is in place. So, tell me about the cliffs, have they ever been climbed?”

  Giancarlo nodded affirmatively. “Yes, we had a couple of guys try it to get some intel a couple of years ago. Apparently, they made it to the top, but they were intercepted.”

  “What happened?” Sarah asked.

  “Their bodies were found smashed on the rocks below by local fishermen the next day!”

  “Hmm,” Jake was thinking aloud. “So, local fishermen are allowed to fish below the cliffs without getting their ass blown away by Lorenzo’s artillery?”

  “Yes,” Giancarlo replied. He suddenly looked at Jake. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of climbing the cliffs, Jake?”

  “What option do we have? We’d be blown away if they saw us coming up the road and we need the element of surprise at night!”

  Giancarlo looked incredulous. “You mean you’re thinking of climbing them in the dark? You must be insane!”

  “Yeah, right,” Jake began. “So I need a detailed layout of the villa and multiple photographs of the cliffs so that I can try and plot a way up without killing myself!”

  Giancarlo was still in shock. “Let me ask you, Jake, how good a climber are you, say on a scale of one to ten?”

  Jake thought a moment. “Oh, I’d say about a five.”

  Giancarlo raised his hands in supplication. “In that case you won’t even get to see Lorenzo, because the climb will kill you first!”

  Jake touched him on the shoulder. “Have faith, my friend. Now, you said fishing boats can operate below the cliffs without being suspected?”

  “Correct, I will show you, follow me.”

  They went outside the hotel an
d got in the car. Within a couple of minutes, Giancarlo pulled up at the wharf by the beach where the brightly-colored fishing boats, a little bigger than a row boat with a motor, were all moored at the wharf.

  They had obviously unloaded their catches earlier in the day and the small fish market across from the wharf was proof that the local fishermen were doing a reasonable business.

  Jake was eyeing the scene and turned to Sarah. “So, if we rented one of these boats at dusk and you and I sailed across to the rocks below the cliffs, you could stay with the boat while I did the climb and wait for me till I got back?”

  Sarah didn’t look too happy. “And what if you don’t make it back?”

  He put his hand on her arm. “You’re beginning to sound like Giancarlo here!”

  She thought for a moment. “Okay, assuming we could do that, how could you do that climb in the dark and what’s even scarier is how would you get back down those cliffs in the dark, because you wouldn’t have a long enough rope you could use to come back down?”

  Giancarlo was thinking out loud also. “I’ve got a way round that, but I agree with you, Sarah, how in hell is he going to do the climb up in the dark in the first place?”

  Jake had it all figured out. “If you can get me the detailed photos and contours of the rock face that I can put on a sheet of paper, I can memorize each move as I go up. I can fix it on a frame strapped to my chest so that when I look down at it with a small light strapped to my climbing helmet, I can see where I’m going and still keep my hands free.”

  Giancarlo nodded his head. “I can do that and at the same time I will order the flowers.”

  “Flowers?”

  “Yes, for your funeral!”

  Jake smiled, happy now with his game plan. “Okay, now you need to get me all the climbing gear I will need and then we need to organize a fishing boat with a good engine and assuming I make it back down in one piece, we need to know where we head for to meet up with you for a quick getaway.”

  Giancarlo smiled. “That part I can take care of, Jake. One of the fishermen is on the payroll, watches the villa from his boat, and notes the comings and goings to the helipad. He will be happy to lend us the boat.”