by Dakota Banks
“The secret weapon is an assassin. An unstoppable one.”
“Why unstoppable?”
Elizabeth went to a laptop computer at the other end of the table and plugged in a USB flash drive. Fred leaned over her shoulder—too close—as she started up a video.
“See the woman kneeling on the ground? Watch her.”
In a moment, the woman vanished.
“Are you seriously trying to sell me some goddamned magic act?”
“No. Watch again, slower this time.”
“My God! Does anyone else have this video?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s been destroyed. Thoroughly. Do we have a deal?”
“You haven’t said what you want in return.”
“I want to be your advisor. As you rise, so do I.”
Fred tipped his glass to her. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Six
With her team scattered because of the police video, Maliha decided to leave her Chicago home in her private jet. For once the jet happened to be located in the United States, if not in the state of Illinois. She had a habit of leaving it in foreign locations. Indianapolis was less than two hundred miles away, so by the time she’d packed a few essentials and taken a thirty-mile limo ride to the Gary Jet Center in Gary, Indiana, the jet had arrived. The jet center was an FBO, a fixed base operator, that served as a truck stop for private planes and jets. Her pilot preferred to avoid major hubs like O’Hare and Midway.
The second refueling stop, this one in Lisbon, almost sidetracked Maliha from her destination. Although it was December, it was sunny and mild, 62 degrees the day she was there. Very nice for a lingering meal outdoors at a café or a quick visit to the beach. The water might be too cold to enjoy swimming, but the sand would be warm. Maliha closed her eyes and imagined lying on the beach without a care in the world.
With Jake. I haven’t seen him since I got back from New York. She sighed. Some other time.
They took off into blue skies with another 2,500 miles to go, a nonstop flight for her midsize executive jet. The drive from the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv to her friend’s home was 9 miles of steady rain in a cab where the windshield wipers had only one speed: super slow. She wondered how the driver could see in the long intervals between swipes, but she wasn’t about to get out in the rain to switch cabs.
Fingering Lucius’s key to the shard in her pocket, she hoped she might get information about it and come home from this trip with the third shard. It had special significance to her because it marked both her first and last time with Lucius—when he’d stolen the shard from her and when he’d freely given her the key to its hiding place.
The cab let her out at a white apartment building that stood up on piers, as if flooding were a concern. It was a cooling device, not necessary at 40 degrees but welcome during the brutal summer heat. Winds sweeping under the buildings eased the temperature and the residents liked to think they made the humidity more bearable.
Maliha glanced up. Her friend, Abiyram Heber, was sitting on his covered balcony. He appeared to be looking elsewhere, but she had no doubt that he’d seen her, even in the gloom of the rain and approaching darkness. He was a retired commander in the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. At the age of sixty, the only thing retired about Abiyram was that he no longer went on field missions. Maliha had turned to him for tracking down some information on her last case. It was a touchy situation.
Abiyram had known her thirty years ago, when they’d worked together on a number of missions and had been close friends. Then she turned up three decades later looking the same. She had to give him some vague hints about her story and told him that perhaps he could join her band of do-gooders.
She had also asked him, in payment of a life-debt for a time she’d saved his life, if he would try to find out about Jake’s past. She hadn’t heard anything from him about that, so she assumed there was no success.
He opened the door to her with a warm smile on his face. They hugged. He was still a lean and hard desert man of action, and his eyes, though now set in a wrinkled face, showed that thirty years hadn’t diminished the spirited man inside the physical shell. His breath smelled of olives and his clothing of the sun.
“I hate to just show up like this,” Maliha said. She glanced down at the luggage at her feet. “The heat’s on a bit in the States. Mind if I stay with you for a few days?”
“My friend, you are always welcome in my house. Come, wash off the dust of the journey.”
Do I look that dirty?
Chapter Seven
Maliha remained out of contact with her team, but she did check Internet news. The only thing that showed up said that a female suspect might have fled the scene, although one of the victims claimed the person wasn’t a suspect but was helping the injured. No description of the fleeing woman was given, and Belle was disputing that there was even a woman present. She said the person was a black man.
Atta girl, Belle. Although she might have fainted before figuring out what sex I was, and only saw the color of my clothing.
There was no mention of the camera in the police car. One of the brothers confessed to the attack. The police had played them off against each other. She was glad to see that Steve had survived. Steve and Belle Hanson were tourists, as she’d guessed, and they would be going home to Kansas City as soon as Steve was discharged from the hospital and paid his parking tickets.
So far, so good. Amaro’s got them running after their tails.
Abiyram didn’t press her for any reason for her visit. After dinner, she decided she was ready to give him all of her background and recruit him for her team—if he was still interested. In the past he’d told her that, as dedicated as he was to his country, it was time for him to do something of his personal choice.
They relaxed after dinner, sipping Nescafé, the popular at-home coffee. Maliha didn’t care much for instant coffee, but she knew better than to complain to her host.
“I have something I’d like to talk about,” she said.
“Me too.”
“You go first, then.” Maliha was glad to have the extra time to phrase her thoughts as best she could.
He sat with her and said nothing for a time. The streets they could see from the sliding door to the balcony were filled with cars with their headlights on. If she relaxed her eyes just right, she could get a streaming effect that was very pleasant to watch.
Like liquid cars flowing along in a highway river.
“It’s about Stackman.”
Maliha’s eyes closed and her heart sank. His tone wasn’t happy.
“I can stop at this point and forget that you ever asked me.”
She gave it serious consideration. Without Abiyram’s help, it was unlikely that she would come up with anything independently. Even Amaro had spun his wheels.
An unbidden whisper in her mind: Do I need to know or want to know?
And another: Why can’t I trust Jake to tell me when the time is right?
“Continue.”
Abiyram sighed and sat back in his chair. He reached to the side and in a moment, she saw that he was tamping and then lighting his favorite pipe.
“I was very lucky to find anything on him. His partner during that period is dead, killed on the first leg of the missions. Stackman continued on alone.”
“But what are the missions? For whom?”
“Ah, that has cost me dearly. I hope the information is of great value to you. First, let us go back to 2001, the first year of Stackman’s vanishing act. By the way, at no time were his actions unknown to a few in the U.S. government. A few at the top. What occurred that year? Besides 9/11, since he’s clear on that one.”
I have no time for guessing games. In a desultory tone, she said, “SARS.”
“First thing I looked at. Was the introduction in China deliberate and did it come from outside? To the best of my knowledge, no. Look to a different continent. In the Democra
tic Republic of the Congo, President Laurent Kabila was gunned down inside his office, supposedly by a bodyguard, but the details are slippery. He was succeeded by his son Randall, who some say was not his son at all, and in fact not even born in D.R. Congo. Details? Again slippery. Randall managed to put an end to the Great War of Africa that had six different countries’ armies and a couple dozen militias traipsing around his country. Peace at last, or at least a better situation.”
“I know my history.” The Great War of Africa was chaos wreaked by the demons, with humans paying the price—like so many events in our history. “What . . .”
“What does your man have to do with it? The assassination of the elder Kabila was blamed on a bodyguard in the room with him, but the shot came from outside the room, fired by a sniper. By Stackman.”
Maliha’s mind was racing. “Is that so bad? It was a targeted assassination to put into power a man who eventually was able to bring a semblance of peace to the region.”
Abiyram puffed on his pipe for a while before continuing. The aromatic smoke drifted her way and she inhaled. Even though she was a nonsmoker, she loved the scent of a pipe.
“In 2002, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela was thrown out of office by a coup. Two days later, he was back in office, restored to power by the loyal Presidential Guard. Much fuss was made about possible U.S. involvement in deposing him, at the very least prior knowledge, at the most collusion. Stackman worked his way into the Presidential Palace. The Guard retook the palace with little resistance because Stackman had prepared the way for them. He was instrumental in getting Chávez back into office, and quickly.”
Maliha opened her mouth to ask questions, but Abiyram held up his hand to forestall them.
“2003. Military men took over a hotel in Manila in the Philippines and raised a mutiny against President Gloria Arroyo at a sensitive moment in her young presidency. The hotel was rigged with high explosives. Some hostages were let out, but the press and others remained. One mutineer decided to blow the place, actually pressed the button, but there was no detonation. Stackman, posing as a journalist on the inside, had defused the bombs. After killing the firebrand, he then talked the rest of the mutineers into surrendering.”
He puffed on his pipe while Maliha bit her tongue.
This is a good thing too, isn’t it?
“2004. The Sudanese government and the militia group Janjaweed—”
“Stop! Skip this one.”
Abiyram’s eyebrows rose but he did as she wished.
“2005. The year following the tsunami. The central government of Indonesia had a long-standing issue with a northern territory named Aceh, where rebellion brewed for independence. Aceh happened to be the closest point to the earthquake’s epicenter and was particularly weakened by the tsunami. Many of its rebels and military died, and quite a few of those who weren’t killed by natural causes or the Indonesian army were killed by Stackman in a systematic wipeout. The citizens of Aceh, hit by the double whammy of nature’s devastation and no defensive capability, decided that peace was in their interest and an agreement was signed ending twenty-nine years of war. That was it. In 2006, Stackman resurfaced at the DEA.”
“The things you’re telling me don’t sound completely negative. I’m confused. Why didn’t you want me to hear this? You know I’m not naïve about black ops missions. We have done these same things together and separately.”
“You’re looking at these as individual events. You need to put them together to see the big picture, the pattern. D.R. Congo, Venezuela, the Philippines, Sudan, Indonesia. What links them? Put your brain into it.”
She thought for a while. “Gold.”
“Excellent. You’ve heard of blood diamonds?”
Maliha didn’t want to know where this was going, but she nodded.
“Beginning in roughly the year 2000, the dirty little practice of using siphoned-off diamonds to fund arms sales and rebel activities began to get the spotlight on it, in the UN, the diamond industry, and elsewhere. There are still conflict diamonds on the market now, but they are greatly diminished. The world spotlight sent the cockroaches scurrying, only to emerge elsewhere. Gold from these five countries and others is flowing into maintaining some of the most heinous dictatorships and presidents-for-life in the world. That’s not all. I know there’s a link to America. Gold is flowing there but I haven’t been able to find the end of the rainbow yet. In some cases the gold-producing countries know about it, in other cases all that was needed was a stable environment to support the shadowy operation. Stackman was crucial to the setup. To turning on the faucet.”
“Blood gold?”
“If you wish.”
Not Jake.
“Any chance you’re mistaken?”
“None whatsoever. I would stake my life on this.”
Maliha remembered something he’d said at the beginning of the conversation: At no time were his actions unknown to a few in the U.S. government. A few at the top.
She leaned back in her chair to think while Abiyram puffed on his pipe. Suddenly the pipe smoke revealed the pencil-sized red light of a laser gun sight. Her hand flashed out to tip his chair, to move him out of the way, but it was too late. As her push propelled him and the chair over, there was already a bullet in his brain.
Maliha turned the table on its side to block the sniper’s view through the window, and then she crouched next to Abiyram and felt for a pulse.
“Old friend,” she said. His eyes lost the light of life as she watched, helpless to stop the shutdown of a brilliant mind.
When a violent death happened, there was a psychic scar left at the location. As Maliha understood it, the victim’s spirit left a remnant of itself behind in the sudden transition to its next destination. Most people would walk through the location and not notice anything, but Maliha could detect the imprint if she was paying attention. It was similar to her ability to see auras, but this viewing was intensely personal. It required her to go through the death experience of the victim.
She pushed Abiyram slightly out of the way so that she could lie down in the spot he died. She shifted slightly, and she found the correct spot. Her eyes remained open, but the input to her sight and other senses lessened dramatically. She relaxed and let another scene come into focus. Slipping into his death experience, she looked through Abiyram’s eyes as he sat across the table from her in the last moments before his death.
From his perspective, she saw that he was scanning around him, an old habit for a Mossad operative. Through his eyes, she saw the origin of the laser sight through the sliding door. It was a window on the top floor of a building a block away. She dropped the pipe. Then she felt pressure and pain on her forehead as the bullet arrived and penetrated her skull. Right after, so close in time they seemed to happen as one, she saw a hand as a blur in front of her eyes. Her head snapped back and she swayed and then tumbled out of the chair to the floor. She heard the comforting words “old friend” before her vision went black and she felt her heart beat for the last time.
Maliha remained in position and in a moment, Abiyram’s traumatized, scattered spirit coalesced around her like a loving embrace, grew whole, and moved on.
She called a friend in the Mossad, explained what had just happened, and said she would stay until he arrived to make sure no one looked through Abiyram’s office. Although Abiyram kept most of his information in his head, she couldn’t guarantee that there weren’t secret documents in his home. She found out that Abiyram had a younger brother, something she’d never known, and that he would be brought in to be the guardian of the body so that it was never alone, a Jewish custom. As a friend, she stayed with Abiyram until the brother arrived.
A man like Abiyram must have enemies, but he said that this information had cost him a lot. What did he mean by that? We were talking about Jake’s past. Was Jake the sniper? He has the skill to do it. He could have found out that Abiyram was poking around in his past. Do I find him and try to force the answer
out of him? If I did that, it might break us both.
Maliha shuddered at the form such a confrontation would take. The Ageless felt pain, as she well knew, but their rapid healing made them ready for another torture session in a short time.
If he’s not guilty, he’ll hate me for suspecting him and going behind his back to learn about blood gold. Can there be another explanation? If he is guilty . . . what then?
When the Israeli agent arrived with the younger brother in tow to take over from her, she packed her few things. Then she left without a word, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
Chapter Eight
The next day Maliha attended Abiyram’s funeral. The Mossad had photographed his body and removed the bullet for their investigation, then released his body for burial. In accordance with Jewish custom, he wasn’t embalmed. There was no viewing, and his body was wrapped in a shroud inside a plain wooden coffin. His body was in the ground fifteen hours after his death.
Later Maliha investigated the top floor of the building where the sniper’s shot originated. She found several scratches on the windowsill. An experienced sniper left no trace—the scratches indicated that the rifle had been moved around, as if the shooter was hesitant.
An experienced sniper like Jake wouldn’t hesitate, she couldn’t help thinking. Is this proof enough that he wasn’t here?
In the aftermath, she found that Abiyram had changed his will to include her, since she came back into his life. Anything in his apartment related to the intelligence business was hauled away by the government, as expected. Abiyram’s money went to his brother. What was left, the personal accumulations of a brilliant, worldly, and well-traveled man, belonged to Maliha. Unable to stay in his apartment to sort and appreciate her newly acquired treasures, she had everything packed and sent home to Chicago on her jet.
