The 4 Phase Man

by Richard Steinberg

  RAVES FOR RICHARD STEINBERG

  NOBODY’S SAFE

  “A compulsively readable story that crackles with narrative energy.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Picaro is a terrific character; whenever he comes near a safe or a sensor, the tension holds brilliantly.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A wild and enjoyable ride.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “Steinberg creates lively, diverse characters, then embroils them in a complex plot that keeps the reader guessing. His skilled writing and cutting-edge subject matter have produced what may become the year’s most talked-about thriller.”

  —Colorado Tribune

  GEMINI MAN

  “Consistently gripping.”

  —Kirkus

  “An unusual and elegant first novel with Darwinian overtones—The well-written and disturbing book combines high excitement and thought-provoking concepts.”

  —Toronto Sar

  “Starting out in Hannibal Lector territory, The Gemini Man thankfully takes a right turn at midpoint and finds some ground of its own—Steinberg sets a nice pace.The Gemini Man reads like a movie-in-waiting.”

  —Detroit News

  ALSO BY RICHARD STEINBERG

  The Gemini Man

  Nobody’s Safe

  To Shawn Coyne,

  editor and guide,

  Who fights for what he believes and, luckily,

  believes in me

  A one phase man’s a keeper;

  Two phase man’s no sleeper.

  A three phase man’s a man of old;

  But a four phase man’s worth his weight in gold!

  —CIA verse

  In another world, at another time, they would’ve been hailed as angels or damned as demons. Songs would’ve been written, stories handed down, their likenesses reproduced into the finest art of their period.

  Considered good or calculated evil, they would most certainly have been noticed.

  But not today.

  Today they are hoarded like gold and food in a poor and starving land. Hidden from the light, denied existence—simply and completely not there.

  But they are there.

  Men of cold intellects, colder viewpoints, and an implacable relentlessness beyond conception.

  The Four Phase Men of whispered legend and mythic shadows.

  Since the creation of modern intelligence agencies there have been only seven of this special breed. Men who could, by themselves, carry out all four pestilential skills most prized in the unacknowledged black wars of our times.

  Gather intelligence.

  Carry out counterintelligence.

  Implement the highest technological forms of warfare. Kill…dispassionately, cleverly, cleanly, and without trace.

  The four phases of modern intelligence field operations. Seven… Four Phase Men.

  Seven men who had risen to the heights (or depths) of the black ops world. Whose very presence made the world’s governments nervous, their masters confident, and all who knew about them very much afraid.

  Seven men in sixty-three years.

  And in the early days of a century that threatened to make the twentieth seem to be a time of rampant peace and tranquillity, only two left. No longer under anyone’s command and control; no longer tethered safely to flag, God, and country. Now outside, looking in.

  At us.

  One

  There was no place left to go.

  But the sun was going down, the weather turning, and the soldiers had lately begun to enforce the curfew. So Aegri Somnia (The Sick Man’s Nightmares), the only place in the district that a stranger could go without questions being asked, it would have to be.

  The hostess just inside the taverna’s door never looked up from her paper.“Ti alismonitos ehos.”

  “Mu fanatay tsutayros.” The man dropped some gold coins on her table. “That a good enough sound for you?”

  At the American-accented English words, the woman looked up. Tourists almost never came to this part of the island. “Who you?” she asked cautiously, her cigarette dangling from her upper lip.

  “Xenos Filotimo.”

  The old woman laughed; using the moment to study the flat expression, the callused hands, the knife in the climbing boot. No emotion or feeling came off the big man. Just a blank, somehow foreboding wall.

  But with the curfew, rich Americans or English (and they all were rich, she thought) were few and far between. The soldiers and the mercenaries, well, they had their own places. And the local toughs were too busy running from the soldiers—when they weren’t robbing unwary European and American college students—to bother with a place where they had to pay.

  So this man who spoke Greek like a Greek, but reeked of America and closeted disaster, was unusual.

  She made up her mind.

  “To look, ten thousand and more,” she said as she assessed his nonreaction. “To rent, fifteen thousand and more. To stay night is … more.”

  “Thay prape na mirasto to domatio mu me aluis skorpeues?” The man tossed thirty thousand drachmas (about $100 U.S.) on her table. “I hate scorpions.”

  “No scorpions here, sir.” The woman quickly counted the bills before sliding them off the desk into a drawer. Next to a loaded and cocked Tokarev. She left the drawer open as she smiled up at the man.

  “Filoxenia, Xenos Filotimo. Parea,” she said in broad welcoming tones, then stood and unlocked the door behind her. She held up three arthritic fingers to the bartender inside. “Only scorpions are those you bring with.”

  She relocked the door as soon as the man had gone through. She instantly picked up the phone to call the taverna’s owner.

  A man like that, he would want to know about.

  It took a long moment for the man’s eyes to adjust to the dinge of the place. Lanterns and lamps on the walls gave off a mixed red and green tone. A few candles flickered on fewer tables, occupied by maybe six or seven people in the near dark. The sound of a bouzouki strumming softly somewhere floated over the place, neatly mixing with the odors of Greek tobacco, burned lamb, and sex.

  “Milk.”

  The bartender nodded, then poured a glass of the thick, barely chilled goat’s milk. He hesitated as he handed the glass across the bar. He’d seen the type before: men who could go from docile to violent in moments. Men past caring, the aeiramenê doupêsen they were called in the islands.

  Walking corpses, devoid of human emotions, compassion, or clemency of any kind.

  Xenos slowly swirled a sip of the sweet liquid in his mouth before swallowing. He briefly closed his eyes as his scarred neck pulsed with the effort. A smile played across his lips, then was instantly exiled as he opened his eyes.

  “You want now, mister?” the bartender asked carefully.

  “Amesos.” He took another sip of the milk. “Not a child, parakolutheô? A woman.” His voice was hard, stone, inhuman.

  “Understand.” The bartender swallowed hard, picturing what lay ahead for the woman he selected. What lay in store for him if he chose wrong. He waved to the back of the room and three women came forward.

  They wore the long slit skirts and tight button-front sweaters that were the virtual uniforms of the whores of the islands. Maybe in their thirties, maybe older, they all looked at least fifty, and an old fifty at that. Their practiced smiles, pale olive skin stretched tight, their eyes all begging “pick me, I need to feed my family.”

  He selected the cleanest of the group. The one who preened the least, arched her back the least, seemed to care the least.

  “Bring the milk.”

  Carrying a pitcher of the milk in a bowl filled with ice, she led the way to the back. “Emai Eleni. I make you real happy,” she
said tonelessly, in a rehearsed fashion, as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. She let them into a small room with a bed, chair, dresser with a radio, a crucifix, and a tiny mirror.

  As Xenos walked to the heavily curtained window to look out at the street below, the woman knelt in front of her crucifix, mumbling a nearly silent prayer for strength and forgiveness. Then she stood and looked over the stranger. “What do you want me call you?”

  Xenos allowed the curtain to fall back as he turned to her. “That’s not important.” He dropped his pack on the floor to the side of the bed.

  He reached out to her, gently stroking her cheek with the back of his hand, surprised by the real softness there. She turned her head into his hand, professionally but effectively; like a kitten arching into its owner’s caress.

  He inhaled her hair, her fragrance, felt her warmth. Slowly slid his hand down her neck, finding she had already unbuttoned the old, worn sweater—she probably always did, to keep it from being torn. His fingers found her firm smallish breasts, slid over her warm nipples, felt the regular, completely detached beating of her heart.

  “Jerry?”

  “Yeah, boss!”

  “See you a moment?”

  The boy—barely a man—jogged over to the older man. “What d’you need, Herb?”

  The older man gestured at a nearby couch in the half-empty rec room. “Got something to show you.”

  Jerry looked pained. “God, it’s Sunday, man. Can’t we put off more training videos until…”

  “Now, son.” Herb’s voice was the perfect mix of professional discipline and paternal disapproval.

  Jerry sighed, then sat down.

  “I thought you’d be interested in this,” Herb said simply as he started the video. “Thought you might learn something.”

  The picture on the projection television resolved itself into a small bedroom. A woman in her forties lay naked on the bed, holding out her arms to someone off camera.

  Then a nude, erect Jerry walked in front of the camera.

  “Hey!” someone from the back of the room called out. “Dirty movies!”

  “Herb,” Jerry said in a pained whisper, “turn it off. Please,” he begged.

  But Herb just pointed at the screen as a crowd gathered round.

  On the screen Jerry first sat on the bed, then gingerly lifted himself over the woman. He fumbled around, trying but failing to enter cleanly, requiring the woman to reach down and guide him in.

  “Hey, Goldman,” someone in the crowd called out. “I never knew you was Jewish.”

  “Need some help there, did you, Jerry?” from another.

  The boy/man shrunk in his seat as his image continued to awkwardly be helped by the woman. “God, Herb, please!”

  The image froze, then was shut off.

  “Gentlemen,” Herb said, looking at the blank screen, “may we have this room?”

  A minute later they were alone.

  The older man took a deep breath. “She’s one of ours. One of our little, I don’t know, tests?” He shook his head.

  “One you failed.”

  Jerry couldn’t look at the man.

  “You are never alone, Jerry,” the man said firmly.

  “Never off duty.” He paused. “Never safe.”

  He looked into the ashamed boy’s eyes. “Jerry?”

  “Yes, Herb?”

  “For you to be what we know you can be,” he said gently, “for you to do what we know you can do, you must never let up. Never take unnecessary chances. Never”—he hesitated—“allow any vulnerability.”

  He smiled supportively. “Do you understand, son?”

  “I…”

  “We never get second chances, my boy. Never.”

  “I understand,” the mortified but committed boy muttered.

  “Good, son. Good.”

  “Mister? Mister? What you want?” she whispered. “Possos?”

  “Lock the door.” She did, as he sat on the bed. “Now take off your clothes.” She slowly undressed.

  Xenos lay back on the bed, propped against the pillow, his heavy boots pushing against the fragile footboard. He didn’t undress, didn’t move, just lay on top of the covers… watching.

  Her blouse. Her skirt. Her skin.

  No reaction, no reaching out to her or quickened breathing; no masturbation or vulgar commentary.

  Just his eyes darting back and forth along her body. Probing. Examining. Devouring.

  “Turn around,” he whispered.

  Shrugging, she did as she was told.

  “Ayfaristo, Eleni. Thank you.”

  The man’s voice seemed to trail away as if he was momentarily transported away from the small brothel into a place of, well, Eleni couldn’t really describe it. But she knew it must be a better place than she’d ever seen. Then, like a horse throwing off flies, he was back.

  He nodded toward a chair after a few long minutes. “Put that by the door and sit down.”

  Puzzled, but sensing the barely suppressed violence of the man, she did as she was told. Then watched as the man fished around in his boot. He pulled out a wad of drachmas and the biggest knife she’d ever seen. He loosened his shirt, unholstering a large chrome and steel revolver.

  Petrified, she felt like screaming for help; stopped only by an unreasoned logic that no sound would ever escape her lips if she tried. And the certainty that she would be dead a second later.

  Xenos noticed her discomfort, shook his head sadly, then tossed her the wad—50,000 drachmas, almost three times the going rate for all night. He turned on his side, put the knife under the pillow—still gripped in his right hand—cocked the gun, then laid it across one of his boots.

  “If anyone tries to get in before morning,” he said in a tired voice as he closed his eyes, “you stop them. For at least thirty seconds. Parakolutheô?”

  She nodded. “I … understand.”

  “If you don’t,” he said through a yawn, “pray to your God that they kill me.” He settled himself more comfortably on top of the bed. “You can get dressed if you want to.”

  And he was asleep.

  She quickly dressed, never taking her eyes off his sleeping form. No matter how he tossed or turned (and his sleep was deeply troubled), the right hand never came out from under the pillow and the expression on his face never reflected any of the inner turmoil that his body clearly spoke.

  Eleni readjusted the chair so that it was jammed under the doorknob as a brace against any unexpected opening, then moved to the window, barely moving the curtain aside to peek down at the street as twilight crept across it.

  Every ten minutes or so, she would move to the door, listen closely to the sounds of urgent couplings in the rooms around hers, to soft footfalls on the threadbare carpet; to anything that might spell a threat.

  And she did that for the remainder of the night.

  Praying and wondering in equal measures throughout.

  The dream came right away, before his breathing could shallow and even; before his body could settle and unwind. As always, it came with blinding speed and life-crushing impact.

  He stood in the sanctuary of the hundred-year-old temple. The men in their dark suits, gray beards, tallisim and kepas in place, swaying to their own rhythms as the ancient prayers were recited. An odd cacophony of English, Yiddish, Russian, and German mutterings rising out of them.

  Upstairs, the women sat. More still, more controlled than the men; they prayed with equal fervor but less demonstrably, as was the tradition. The old women in black, the middle women in navy or pale blues, the young women and girls in a few bright colors. But all had their shawls over their heads, their hands cupped over their eyes, their mouths moving almost silently with their prayers.

  Xenos would move among them, looking into their eyes, tasting their breaths, inhaling the women’s soapy-clean fragrances, feeling the submerged power of the men.

  He stood for the longest time by his mother—who couldn’t have been there, si
nce she had died years before—watching as she tried hard to suppress a grin of pride and, well, ownership, in her son below. It was the one comfort in the dream. A mother that he had barely known approving, supporting, loving.

  He would move to his father, sitting proudly, stiffly, on the dais next to the president of the synagogue. His freshly altered suit—worn only for the most special occasions—paling in comparison to the other man s. But he prayed with more fervor, with an extra something that had been reserved for this moment when he would sit in front of the congregation. A proud father’s one and only embracement of his son’s accomplishments.

  Xenos would reach out, try to touch the old man with the scar across his forehead from a soldier’s rifle butt. But he could never quite make it. Somehow, no matter how close the dream allowed him to move, it was never close enough. So his fingers would stretch and reach and beg; but never find the man whom he most wanted to please, whom he had most disappointed.

  Then he would find himself standing beside his younger self.

  Thirteen, clear-eyed, acne-strewn innocent face, studying the ancient text spread before him. Sneaking glances up to the balcony at his sister; to the side at his father; out at the men who knew the text by heart and who would criticize or praise his performance for years to come.

  And he heard his voice—breaking and cracking with youth—singsonging the age-old words with as much feeling as he could. Praying that his fear of screwing up couldn’t be heard between the Hebrew and Yiddish.

  “Vayomer, a’donai el Moishe. Koh tomar, el b’nai yisroyel. V’mru chi, ani, a’tem re-etem; keey, meen ha’shmiem.”

  Then it began.

  A slight trickle of blood from his left cheek where a knife would one day almost take his eye.

  A crack and distortion in his right arm where grenade fragments one day would destroy much of the bone, requiring three operations to repair.

  Flames and the bittersweet smell of burning human flesh rising up from the floor, mixing with naphthalene from the napalming that he would barely survive.