by JT Sawyer
Von saw the first sentry to the left of the nearest shipping container. He slowed his sprint to a slow trot and fired off two rounds into the head of the stocky figure. He heard Mitch doing a double-tap into the other guard who was near the helicopter then following up with precision shots at the three cameras mounted on each shipping container.
While Mitch and Von reached the windowless shipping container, Petra moved up to the front hatch and squatted down, preparing a charge of thermite near the massive hinges. Mitch peered into the rebar-lined windows of the command center and could see three men inside poring over a large wall map. Mitch pressed himself against the wall of the shipping container, preparing for the blast as he scanned the boot prints on the ground. He differentiated the tracks of the guards as both men were wearing waffle-soled Danner boots. The other tracks were a jumble but he could see three distinct heel imprints, each with unique patterns, which probably belonged to the men inside. Just as he got the signal from Petra to brace for the blast, he spied a set of tracks that were lacking in tread and resembled pointy-toed men’s dress shoes without any tread pattern. Where do I know those from?
The brief explosion rattled his head and he heard the cumbersome steel door careen forward into the sand. He swept inside the smoky confines of the dark interior first, with Von behind him. Mitch shot the man at the rear in the temple and throat before he could finish reaching for a 1911 on the table. His head shattered, sending a spray of bone fragments and blood onto the wall map behind him.
The second man was on one knee, trying to regain his footing while blood leaked out of his ears from the blast. Mitch kicked him in the ribs and drove the butt of his rifle into the man’s head, sending him into a water dispenser, which burst and splashed over the steel flooring. Von had dispatched the third mercenary with two headshots.
Mitch removed his night-vision goggles and dragged the injured man by his shirt collar to the entrance. As the man tried to stand, Mitch kicked him down into the sand. He lay groaning and shaking his head while sand matted against the blood oozing from his injury.
“Petra, you sweep the inside for any pertinent intel. Von, check the helo for recent GPS coordinates and anything else we can use.”
Mitch moved alongside the bearded figure, who was trying to slither away on the ground, and stepped on his ankle. “Now, friend, I want you to answer two questions: who do you work for and where is your resupply ship? If I get what I want, I’ll leave you with a med kit, some water, and stow your ass in that other container. If not, then the hyenas would sure like to do a number on you.”
“Fuck you,” he said, trying to crawl away. “He’ll kill me.”
“You mean the guy with the fancy dress shoes who visited here recently? We already took care of him,” said Mitch, trying to bluff the man.
The man stopped writhing and looked up at Mitch. “Shit.”
“Yeah, ‘shit.’ Don’t you just hate when all your well-laid plans fall apart and you’re the one left holding the bill.”
“Bollousa was just one cog in the machine, like me. We were all kept in the dark about what the other knew in case of situations like this.”
“Martin Bollousa,” Mitch said, scratching the whiskers on his chin. He knelt down next to the man. “That bug-eyed gimp who works for Uri Belkin. That makes sense—Uri’s campaign financier and probably the guy who trickled the funds here to put this leg of the operation together.”
Mitch took a deep breath, listening to the hyenas, whose cackles were growing closer. “Damn, those critters sound like they’re famished.”
Von returned from the helicopter carrying a small transponder. “This helo has only flown back and forth between here and some coordinates about forty miles off the coast of Israel. It’s all set to fly and the gas tank is near full.”
Mitch tapped the man in the stomach with the muzzle of his rifle and then nodded. “Which brings me back to my other question.”
The man peered up at Mitch then over at Von and to the wreckage of the command center. He lay his head back down in the sand and swallowed hard while staring up at the night sky. “I’m a professional like you. This was just another job. Nothing more.”
“I don’t murder people and discredit honorable businesses for money,” said Mitch. He stood up, grabbing the man by his ear and dragging him over towards one of the pallets of water.
“Von, would you mind securing this yellow rat bastard to the planks.” Once the man’s wrists were lashed behind his back, Mitch opened the storage container and rummaged around through the food crates, emerging a few minutes later with a package of beef jerky. He tore off the plastic wrappers and then jammed the foot-long sections into the man’s collar, shirt pockets, and beltline. “Those hyenas are gonna have quite a feast tonight. And I hear they like to start with the soft flesh around the nose on their victims.”
“You son of a bitch,” said the man, who kept trying to wriggle free of his restraints while his face turned further pale under the scrutiny of Mitch’s flashlight. “Alright, alright. You’ll cut me loose if I tell you the location?”
Mitch gave a slight nod. “I’m listening.”
“There’s a ship in the Mediterranean not far from the coast of Israel—a small frigate where we resupply and where they’re working over some guy for intel on Devorah Leitner.”
“Who—who is it?” said Petra, who had stepped outside of the command center.
“Some fucking gorilla—a big guy with a dark mustache. Took four men to bring him down.”
“David,” blurted Petra.
“And what about Dev Leitner?” Mitch said.
“Her head is gonna be on the chopping block soon enough. That Israeli bitch is the reason I’ve been sweating in this sandbox for the past month.”
Mitch was about to kick him in the face when he heard the approaching cackle of hyenas. He turned and saw their shadowy forms crest the top of the dune near where they had inserted.
He looked at Petra. “You got what we need?”
Petra nodded, then removed his pistol and pointed it at the head of the man in restraints. “Allow me to finish off this filth.”
Mitch raised his hand and waved Petra off. “He’s got dinner plans tonight.”
Von and Petra slowly backed away and walked towards the helicopter. Von entered the pilot’s seat while Petra climbed in back with his pack full of confiscated laptops and hastily folded maps.
“I answered your questions like you asked, now cut me loose,” said the man, who was nervously thrashing his feet, trying to stand.
Mitch yanked out three more pieces of jerky and flung them out in the direction of the hyenas. He removed a sheath knife off the belt of one of the dead men inside and then flung it in the sand between the legs of the squirming figure. “Maybe you’ll have enough time, maybe not.”
He pivoted abruptly and walked to the helicopter, climbing in beside Von, who was scrunching his eyebrows together and glancing at Mitch in between checks of the console as the rotors fired up.
Petra leaned forward as fine particles of sand began blasting the windshield. “You should have let me finish him. You show mercy when none is required.”
“The desert will dish out its own justice,” Mitch said. He looked over at Von, who shook his head.
“What?”
“Nothing,” said Von. “I figured you were gonna stick to your word and free him.”
“I’d planned on it but then he insulted Dev. End of deal.”
Von held back his grin and focused on the view out the front as he mulled over the satisfaction from seeing Mitch’s hand play out before him.
Chapter 35
After Victor killed the last mercenary at his home in Switzerland, he retrieved his master computer, evasion pack, and passports then retreated down the concealed passageway leading to the spillway.
Dev and the others were gone and the police sirens were nearing. Victor hobbled through the familiar corridors of the neighborhoods until he had cl
eared the edge of town. After patching up his wounded shoulder and with periodic breaks to relieve his aching hip, he finally made it to the train station and fled across the border to France.
It was nightfall when he settled into the cot in his private room at the international hostel. Hostels were affordable, took cash, and didn’t require any identification so he preferred such lodging to hotels when he was traveling.
Victor turned on his laptop and placed the scrambler for his router alongside the computer. He pulled up the newsfeeds for Israel and studied the headlines. He was looking for the first reports that came out on Gideon’s takeover by the Shin Bet.
The cached video of the broadcast pulled up and he listened intently to the woman journalist. When he was done, he jotted down the name of the reporter. Jill Albright, eh. I think you need to get your facts a little clearer. It was Uri Belkin, not the Shin Bet behind the seizure of Gideon.
He knew there’d be no way to prove that. Uri must have something on the Shin Bet agent in charge to make a law-enforcement operation like this happen so quickly. What was it?
Victor pulled up the federal homepage for the Shin Bet and then hacked into the site until he found the personnel records. “Benjamin Abadi—so you are Uri’s puppet,” he whispered to himself.
He scrolled down over the agent’s work record. “Exemplary, and he seems like someone who worked his way up the ranks in the customary time it would take to reach his position.” He continued scanning the personnel record, noting that there were a rash of sick days taken over the past two months. “But there’s always a jelly spot somewhere.”
His eyes settled on the names of Abadi’s wife and daughter. He pulled up another screen and implemented a darknet database search for Tel Aviv with either of the names. The wife worked part-time as a community college math instructor and nothing appeared out of the ordinary. She had a steady work history, verifiable tax records, and…
“Ah,” Victor said with raised eyebrows as he scanned the health records from Anna Abadi’s pediatrician which had showed up in the search. She had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. The reports were dated from early June. He cross-referenced the chart with the start of Abadi’s sick days.
Not unusual for a concerned parent, he thought as he rubbed his chin and stared at all the information. Then he glanced back at Abadi’s work history and his valorous conduct. Why would a respected field agent like him toss out protocol and thrust himself into a corporate takeover without waiting for the proper warrants. There’s no way a judge would sign off on a warrant hours after that leaked footage from Romania emerged. Not for something on this scale.
Victor sat back, wincing from the pain in his tender shoulder. He mulled over the information, letting the details sift through the well-oiled gates of his analytical mind.
A few minutes later, he returned to typing. He breached the firewall for the pediatrician’s office and pored over his personal and professional financial statements. His eyes settled on a particularly large deposit that occurred nine weeks earlier.
Victor made a copy of the files then initiated a search in his facial recognition program. He knew it would take a while to locate Dev, but hopefully he could achieve it before others had done the same.
Chapter 36
“This is the spot,” shouted Von over the noise of the rotors as he circled the helicopter around the choppy black waves below.
“Well, these are the GPS coordinates alright, but no boat,” said Mitch, glancing at the numeric display on the console and then swiveling his head in either direction.
Petra’s face pressed against the glass as he frantically tried to search the waters below for a vessel or some sign of David’s presence.
“They must have pulled up anchors already,” Von said. “They could be anywhere.”
Mitch felt the cellphone in his pocket vibrate. He reached down and looked at the text. His eyes went wide and his pulse quickened. “Thank God.”
“What—is it about David?” said Petra.
“No, Dev.” He dialed her number and waited to soak up the sound of her voice. A few minutes later, after speaking with her above the noise of the engines, he hung up.
He leaned back so Petra could hear what he had to relay. “She’s got what she needs and wants us to meet up at her location, then it looks like we’re gonna be off on another adventure.”
Mitch tapped Von on the shoulder. “Let’s do another sweep around these coordinates then we’ll head northeast.”
“How far away is Dev?” said Von with an impatient look.
“Just across the Mediterranean, that’s all. Say, three hundred miles or so to one of the Ionian Islands, then we have to figure out a way to get to Sierra Leone.”
“That’s a bit of a haul for me.”
“I know it is and I’ll tell you what. You can keep the bird after this is over and I’ll also owe you one.”
Von nodded and licked his lips. “That’s not so far after all.”
Chapter 37
After talking with Dev in Greece and seeing the photo evidence, all of them knew that the critical part of the puzzle was to identify what was in the canvas bundles that Uri had stowed in the mysterious cave near the Sierra Leone coastline. The flight to that country was going to take six hours and would only be possible with Von’s assistance. However, without solid evidence about the contents of the cave, they wouldn’t possess any more leverage against Uri than they had when they fled Israel. This was going to be a gamble they would have to take.
Von had arranged for their passage using one of the agency’s weekly cargo flights that were employed for delivering food to the war-torn regions along the Liberian border. They flew out of an unmarked airstrip in Cairo a few hours after returning with Dev. Much of the flight was over the monotonous desert terrain along North Africa. Nearing the early evening, Von headed on a southerly course, hugging the coast of Senegal where they stopped to refuel at a small shanty town before proceeding on.
As the trying flight was coming to a close, Mitch rubbed his shirt sleeve along the dusty window pane and glanced out at the setting sun, which looked like it was being devoured by the Atlantic Ocean. Mitch could hear the waves crashing against the shoreline in the rickety cargo plane as it hugged the rocky coastline along Sierra Leone. Mitch only hoped that the corroded fuselage with the missing bolts near his head would stay intact long enough for them to touch down soon. He had already gotten the shout back from Von that the primitive landing strip along the beach was twelve minutes away and he felt like his stomach was keeping track of each passing second as they smacked into another air pocket.
He looked at Dev, who seemed to be in a daze. After all they had endured in the past few days, he wondered what they were going to find at the mysterious cave in the desert.
Mitch pressed his arm into hers. “Hey, you still in this time zone?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Just keep cycling through the same things over and over in my head. All these lies that I never knew about—my mother keeping Victor’s letter from me, the safehouse in the islands, and now this cave.” She glanced at him. “When does it end—all the deception?”
“I think it’s endemic to the field you’re in, to be honest.” Mitch motioned his thumb towards the cockpit. “Look at Von, his work demands it—thrives on it. Yet, he’s still managed to stay afloat and not let it consume his soul.”
“Like Uri—that son of a bitch.” She tightened the grip on her seat. “He will pay for what he has done.”
He placed his hand over hers, caressing her fingers. “Yes, he will, but not with a bullet to the head.”
She moved her hand away from his and narrowed her eyes. “You of all people can’t talk to me about the way to dish out justice, given how much you push the virtues of your frontier code, where it’s an eye for an eye.”
“Dev, whatever we find in that cave is probably enough to bury Uri’s career and send him to prison. That’s why he has been on this hunt
and why Victor went underground initially.”
“You’re right, but that is not enough. This is about retribution.”
“Killing him won’t undo the wrongs of the past or bring back your father.”
“Don’t mention him—this isn’t about him.”
“It is—every part of your waking day revolves around his memory and what happened to you both in that alley a year ago.” They heard Petra shout back, giving them the two-minute warning until touchdown.
She shook her head, sliding away from Mitch as he continued, “Ever since I’ve known you, the weight in your rucksack has grown heavier and heavier. It’s like you just keep jamming it further with more guilt as time goes by, and now you can hardly move an inch without it dragging you down.” He could see her face growing taut with each word from his mouth. Mitch was afraid it was too much for her to hear but felt she needed someone to hold up a mirror before her anguish imploded, taking with it the woman he knew.
“Don’t you get it—everything I’ve ever trusted in my life has been a lie on a grand scale. My mother, Victor, and Uri. Now even Gideon, the only thing of my father’s that I have left, is being stripped away from me piece by piece.”
“But putting Uri’s head on a pike before the halls of Parliament while yelling bloody vengeance won’t stop the nightmares.”
She sighed and lowered her head. “No, but that young man in Romania, the miners in Uri’s camps, and my father who was trying to put an end to all of this—they may rest easier.”
“And what about us? This is going to tear you apart until there’s nothing left inside. I don’t want to lose you, goddammit. I’ve seen what this kind of rage can do to a person—it consumes them and everyone around them.”
Dev wanted to reach her hand out to him but she found herself shutting down. She struggled to raise her arm but forced it forward, interlacing her fingers with his. “I won’t let that happen. I just need to finish this.” She started to loosen her hold on him but felt his grip tighten.
