Critical Error

by Murray Mcdonald

  Deif gave in and hit the buzzer. He didn’t want to attract attention and if she kept up her theatrics that was exactly what she was going to do. He didn’t want to kill one of Yousif’s friends; particularly one so cute but he had no choice. He had warned them but their persistence was their downfall. He could not be exposed. He’d deal with those two idiots and move to one of his alternative safe houses. Italy was just as nice this time of year, he thought. He walked towards the door and held it open slightly. The silenced pistol was hidden by the door. As soon as they got inside, he’d kill them.

  She really was very beautiful he thought. Yousif was going to be very pissed off. He had always liked the ladies and could imagine this one was one of his favorites. Both laughed and joked as they neared the house. Deif actually felt quite guilty as he began to open the door to Yousif’s friends who were just looking to laze by a beautiful pool.

  If he had to tell you what happened next, he’d swear he had no idea. One moment he was opening the door and preparing to shoot the two as they walked in and the next, he was lying on the floor, his arm most obviously broken as the pain and angle of his elbow joint proclaimed.

  It had been quite simple. As they neared the door, Rebecca had begun to remove her t-shirt, catching Deif’s attention. Sam launched himself at the door and smashed through it and Deif like a tornado. Deif crashed to the floor and landed on his arm in a most unnatural position, instantly blacking out as the pain overwhelmed his nervous system.

  He woke up to find his arm hanging limply and the pain searing through him. The very beautiful woman was staring at him with nothing short of absolute rage and it seemed was being restrained with some difficulty by the man. Deif was in trouble, a great deal of trouble.

  Chapter 55

  Port of Haifa, Israel

  Saul kicked off his boots and sat back in his chair. He had refused to work late. He needed to be home that evening. His daughter was coming over with their granddaughter and they had not seen nor heard from them since the blackout. All communications had now been out of action for a week. His wife normally spoke to his daughter twice a day. To say she was looking forward to the visit would have been an understatement and something Saul had been assured by his wife, in a tone that left no room for maneuver, he did not want to miss.

  Saul had heard snippets from other dock workers that the blackout was not just in the Haifa area, contrary to what the police and army had informed them. Rumor was spreading that it was in fact the whole of Israel that had no communications. His daughter worked for the Intelligence Department and he was very keen to know what her take was on the situation. If anything untoward was really going on, she would know. Only that day, Saul had talked to one of the truck drivers, something the army were keen to avoid but when you’ve got to go to the bathroom, you’ve got to go! He had told Saul that Tel-Aviv was also blacked out, no phones, TV, radio, nothing. He said it was like living in the 1800s. So it was confirmed, Haifa was not on its own. If Tel-Aviv was out, the rumors about the whole country were probably true. Saul began to piece everything together. The massive increase in work at the docks, the total lack of communications across the country, the lack of food. They weren’t heading for war, he thought, they were already at war! He prayed for his sons and wondered if they were even alive.

  He watched and waited for the door to open but nothing. His daughter and granddaughter never arrived. They couldn’t call to check where they were. They couldn’t contact the hospitals or police to find out if she was OK. They just sat there and at midnight, turned out the light and went to bed. Neither slept. His wife cried into her pillow while Saul grieved for his perhaps already dead sons.

  At 2 a.m., both were startled by a knock at the door. Saul feared the worst. His worst nightmare had come true. He rushed to the door pulling on his dressing gown and undid the dead bolt. A key turned on the other side and his daughter stood in front of him.

  “Jesus, Dad, you don’t need a bloody deadlock. What’s the point of me having a key if you deadbolt the door?”

  Saul reached out to hug his daughter but was unceremoniously shoved out of the way by his wife who, on hearing her daughter’s voice careered towards her, arms outstretched. After almost squeezing the life out of her, she set about preparing her a plate of food for her “too skinny” daughter who wasn’t looking after herself properly.

  Satisfied that her daughter was not dying from anorexia and getting all of the news on her grand-daughter, she eventually let Saul find out the news on what was happening to the country.

  “I’m afraid I know very little,” she said, trying to answer her father’s tirade of questions which all came down to two — what was happening and was there any news on her brothers? “Every day we go through a list of action plans, it’s like some massive project. We each have very specific duties and none of us know what the others are doing but the workload is massive. I didn’t get finished until gone midnight tonight and I’m due back at 6.00 a.m. It really is crazy.”

  “And your brothers?” prompted Saul.

  “They’re fine,” she answered nonchalantly. She was more interested in unloading her issues. “My department’s moving in the next day or so. We don’t know where to yet, maybe one of those new fancy buildings in Jerusalem.”

  “What? The whole department?”

  “Yep, in fact we’re the last ones left. All five floors below us are now empty.”

  “It seems everyone is moving!” blurted Saul’s wife.

  Both looked at her. “What do you mean?” asked Saul.

  “The supermarket. Every day I go. It’s the only way to get food. Anyway, every day, the line is shorter and shorter. When I ask where so and so is, I just get a ‘oh they moved away’ but nobody ever knows where!”

  Saul looked at his daughter in search of an answer but she simply shrugged her shoulders adding. “I’m stuck inside an office all day long. People are in their beds when I go to work and when I get home.”

  The more they talked, the more mysterious it all became. Eventually, as she was leaving, Saul returned to her brothers.

  “So have you heard from your brothers?”

  “Not since they went overseas!” she replied, opening the door.

  “When did they go overseas?” both parents asked in unison.

  “Months ago,” she replied.

  “No, you’re mistaken,” said Saul taking a note from the side table in the entrance hallway and passing it to his daughter.

  She read it and looked at them in bewilderment. The note was from her brother and showed him pictured on a tank on the Israeli border. She looked at the date, it was just two weeks earlier. Saul handed her another two, likewise, showing her brothers and all dated at a time she knew they had been posted overseas.

  Chapter 56

  “Rebecca, Rebecca! Calm down! You have to remain calm!” Sam held her back but it was futile, the moment he let her go, she’d go straight for Deif.

  Deif it seemed had resigned himself to his fate and sat quietly in the small kitchen chair they had perched him on. A small grimace appeared as each wave of pain from his broken arm hit home.

  “Just five minutes, just leave me alone with him for five minutes!” she pleaded. Ultimately she knew that the information he had was far more important than her vengeance but she could try.

  Sam was watching Deif as he fought to contain Rebecca. Something was wrong. The man looked serene. In fact, almost happy. He held information that would undoubtedly ruin his plot to destroy Israel and yet he wasn’t in the least annoyed or frustrated.

  “Stop!” shouted Sam, shocking Rebecca into doing just that. She stopped pushing and stood still.

  Sam walked towards Deif and felt the bullet whistle past him before it tore Deif’s right knee cap clean off. The second he had turned his back on her, she had whipped out her gun and taken the shot. Sam turned towards her as Deif crumpled to the floor, a contented smile revealing her thoughts. She placed the gun in the rear of her shorts a
nd folded her arms. OK, she’d behave.

  Sam lifted Deif whose arm and leg were obviously causing some discomfort. He struggled to sit up straight but did as well as he could manage. He was going to die the big man, thought Sam, for which he had to give the guy some credit. He had come across a lot of hard bastards who, when the chips were down, shat themselves and cried like babies. Deif was a man who believed in his cause.

  “This can be easy or even more painful than it already has been and trust me, she’s just started. Where are the weapons?” asked Sam reasonably.

  Deif just smiled in response. It was not the smile of a man panicking but a man smiling because he knew they’d never get it out of him. That was not an option. Everybody talked, no matter how hard or how much people thought they could tolerate pain, everybody talked and more importantly everybody in the game knew it.

  Sam began to worry. Perhaps they did have the wrong guy. Maybe Deif wasn’t behind it all.

  He tied Deif to the chair and walked Rebecca out of the room to speak to her privately.

  “Are you sure this is the guy?”

  “One hundred percent. I watched him plot this thing from the start. It’s definitely him.”

  “He’s certain he’s beaten us. That is not a man accepting defeat through there. That’s a guy who knows we won’t beat him.”

  Rebecca was no fool and she had picked up the same vibes. She had caught many of Deif’s men and made them all talk. This was very different from any one of those.

  “Let me speak to him?” offered Rebecca.

  Sam shook his head. “No, it’s too personal for you.”

  “I’ll behave,” she said, ignoring Sam. Ultimately, this was her operation and Sam was a bystander. She walked back towards Deif, removing a few unsavory looking implements from a kitchen drawer on the way. The corkscrew seemed to catch Deif’s eye she thought and selected that first.

  As she neared Deif, he smiled through the pain. “Rebecca, Rebecca Cohen I presume?”

  Rebecca was taken aback at Deif knowing her name.

  “I see you are surprised I know your name. Trust me, you are a very famous woman in our organization. To be honest, your beauty has been undersold. Had we known of your true beauty, we may have caught you ourselves. It makes you memorable. However, your talents and abilities I fear from my capture have certainly lived up to their reputation. To die at your hands will be an honorable death.”

  “Who said anything about dying?” said Rebecca, lighting a lighter and heating the end of the corkscrew.

  “The man responsible for killing your son, the man responsible for you having to watch your precious Joshua be blasted.”

  Sam caught Rebecca as she flew at the mention of her son’s name. Despite Sam’s best efforts, her foot swung and caught Deif squarely on the jaw, sending him still tied to the chair across the room, emitting an ear piercing scream as his knee-capless leg crashed into the floor.

  “He wants you to kill him, you fool!” screamed Sam as he put Rebecca down and straightened Deif once again.

  Rebecca tried to maintain her breathing and heart rate as both were racing. She lit the lighter again and began to heat the corkscrew once more. She looked at Deif and figured which of the two was his biggest weakness, balls or eyes. It always came down to the balls and eyes with the really tough ones. She figured on the eyes. Deif liked to see the outcome of his actions, blindness for him would be his biggest weakness.

  As Rebecca placed the tip of the white hot corkscrew next to his eyeball, Deif smiled. “You do not disappoint.” She had found his weakness almost straight away. “You were a worthy adversary,” he said moving his jaw.

  Sam dived across the room, knocking Rebecca aside as he went to grab Deif’s mouth but it was too late. Deif had succeeded. He had beaten them.

  Rebecca tried to understand what had happened but as Sam got up, the small white bubbles foaming from Deif’s breathless mouth said it all.

  “Cyanide! The sneaky bastard had a cyanide pill! Shit!!!” exclaimed Sam.

  “But we checked his mouth, it was empty,” said an exasperated Rebecca. Their only lead and probably the only person on the planet who knew where all the weapons were lay dead at their hands.

  “False tooth, how fucking cold war is that?!”

  Rebecca looked down at the dead Deif who had congratulated her. Cheeky bastard, she thought, kicking him in frustration. She called in the rest of the team. Hopefully they’d find something in the house that would help them. She needed some good news for Ben. This was their last hope.

  Chapter 57

  President Russell welcomed the small group into his office. Henry Preston, Jim Gates and Allan Johnson had maintained a somber mood while waiting in the Oval Office’s anteroom. Finally, they were called and entered the office. As the door closed behind them, Henry and Jim rushed forward to congratulate their man on becoming President. Both looked at Allan, surprised at his lack of enthusiasm for their President. Allan stepped forward and shook the President’s hand. Neither Jim or Henry were aware that he had already met and congratulated their President. Jim and Henry shared a look, there was something they were missing. It had always been a cat fight with Johnson. He always wanted to be the one that pleased Russell, always wanting to be favorite and now they had their man as President, he seemed very relaxed and most comfortable. The eager to please attitude had disappeared.

  “Gentlemen, at last I can relax,” announced Russell, kicking his shoes off and sitting on a large sofa in front of a blazing fire.

  Preston walked to the drinks cabinet. “A drink, Mr President?”

  “Excellent idea. A scotch, please. No, sorry, scratch that, Champagne Henry!”

  “Jim? Allan?” asked Henry, raising the bottle.

  “Absolutely,” replied Jim enthusiastically.

  “Please,” nodded Allan.

  Jim and Henry shared a look as Henry poured the champagne and Jim got up to pass them around.

  “The President,” announced Henry, raising his glass.

  Allan and Jim joined and toasted their man.

  “Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you guys.” Neither Jim or Henry missed the look that Allan got as the President accepted their toast. They were definitely missing something.

  “Well gentlemen, down to business. I believe Allan has some news that may make our day even more special!”

  “Yes I have, Sir,” he beamed. “I’m pleased to announce that earlier this evening, a certain thorn in the President’s side was removed once and for all!”

  Jim and Henry looked at each other. Henry, as ever, took the lead. “Senator Baker?”

  “The now dearly departed Senator Baker. So sad ” confirmed the President.

  “Fantastic!” said Henry, looking at Allan, who reported to him. The look made it clear this was something that he should have known.

  “Oh there was a little collateral damage, I think that’s how you guys term it.” The President reached over and hit a buzzer. “Can you send in Tom, please.”

  “Gentlemen, you all know Tom. Thanks Honey,” he added, dismissing the young secretary who had shown Tom in, a young secretary that none of the men could take their eyes off.”

  “You can’t call her Honey, Mr President,” said Jim, as the stunning young blonde closed the door behind her.

  Russell laughed at the confusion. “I know, but that really is her name, fantastic eh, certainly brightens the place up!”

  As the laughter died down, he resumed. “You know Tom, our excellent Deputy Secretary of Defense and a man who shares our goals in life?”

  They all nodded, understanding that Tom was one of them, one of the President’s men.

  “Well it seems that Tom here is in line for a promotion following the tragic demise of Secretary of Defense James Murphy.”

  Henry and Jim quickly computed the link, the Secretary of Defense was the collateral damage. So the rumors of James Murphy’s mysterious disappearance were true, they both thou
ght. There was a lot happening that they knew nothing about.

  All congratulated the soon to be announced new Secretary of Defense.

  “What are you going to say happened to James Murphy?” asked Henry, beginning to think beyond the moment.

  The President looked at Allan. “Allan.”

  “A tragic accident, a gas explosion at Senator Baker’s hunting lodge in Montana has robbed America of two wonderful statesmen, something along those lines. We’re still working on it but that’s the gist.”

  Henry did not miss the President’s interaction with Allan, they had obviously been working closely on this.

  “Only one thing I’d note, it was a ski lodge, not a hunting lodge. Charles Baker was no friend of the hunters so a hunting lodge may sound a little strange,” offered Henry. It was all in the details and it made the point to the President that if he were getting too close to Johnson, detail was not his forte, unlike Henry.

  “Why don’t we just go for Senator Baker’s lodge, lest we upset any skiers!” retaliated Johnson, pathetically enough that everybody just moved on.

  “Have you had any thoughts about a VP?” asked Henry moving onto more important issues.

  “Not yet, there are quite a few roles I want to shuffle around,” replied Russell ominously.

  “I would remind you, should anything happen to you just now, we’d have the Speaker of the House inaugurated as President,” warned Henry. The Speaker of the House was a particularly fierce woman who ruled the House of Representatives with an iron fist and to make matters worse, was a Democrat. To say she put the fear of God into people, understated her position. The Speaker of the House was second in line in the presidential line of succession. Without a Vice President, she would be the heir apparent.

  Henry could see the President hadn’t considered this and the very subtle look at Johnson suggested he had not reminded the President of this point.