by Jack Gardner
The operation in France was a perfect catastrophe to begin with. It got off on the wrong foot, and should have been stopped and cancelled much before it utterly failed. An information security debacle led to the fact that the French security services discovered the operation in the early planning stages, and all they had to do was wait for the team to fall into their hands like a ripe tomato.
At the time, I was part of the Special Forces at the Bureau. Or, in more direct terms, if you wish, I was part of a small team whose role was to assassinate international terrorists who worked against us.
The action in France was meant to target a terrorist who was a rising force, who in less than eight months managed to plan and carry out two attacks, the second of which fatally harmed an important political figure. No one had any doubt that this terrorist was embarking on a dark career—but a promising one, for him—and that we must nip it in the bud, before it produces more damage. So, once we discovered the man’s address in Paris, the Bureau quickly arranged for a team to go there and finally solve the problem.
Only that early on, while they were working on hiding the team members and caring for their escape through the Paris embassy, the information reached an informer for the French Security Police, who was planted at the embassy as a local maintenance man. An alert French commander who received the information took it with utmost seriousness, and had surveillance placed on the team’s safe haven and the car rental business that would later provide the team with a car. Another tracking team was sent to Charles de Gaulle Airport and managed to recognize two of the three team members who arrived in separate flights. I was one of them.
According to the plan, we were going to eavesdrop the terrorist’s phone in order to learn his every move. It was also an opportunity to look at the area and the building disguised as telephone service technician facility, and get an impression of the security and sketch out possible entrance and retreat paths.
At first, things took their course undisturbed. Two of the team members, dressed as France Telecom employees, walked into the building’s cellar without casting any doubts with the concierge. I knew this for a fact because my job was to watch the concierge and the surrounding area from a hiding spot, and warn them of any suspicious behavior.
In a matter of minutes, the team connected a small transmitter to the phone line—whose 1,000 feet radius allowed us to position ourselves in one of two cars that waited for us in a side street—and record every conversation that took place on the man’s phone line. At that stage, we had no idea that we were under surveillance. For two whole days, we had a routine of wiretapping while documenting the man’s every move as they were communicated in his phone calls. We managed to build a behavioral profile, according to which the man spent most of the day in his home. He never left the house after dark, and from his calls, it didn’t seem like he was going to, either.
He had a kind of routine: around 11 am, he would leave his house in a black Volkswagen Golf and drive to the Champs-Élysées, where he would sit by the Arc de Triomphe at a café called “Romance” and order a café au lait and a croissant. Around 12:15, a man would join him, who was photographed by the surveillance team a number of times for future reference. He was not familiar to us. There they would sit for about two hours, talking while eating a multi-course-lunch. According to their body language, it did not seem like they were discussing any operational activities. It seemed more like a friendly meeting between tasks. At around 2:30 pm, the two would separate, whereas our object would take his car from the restaurant’s parking lot and return to his apartment. At around three, he would walk into the building, not leaving it until the next day.
This routine lasted for three days. We decided that we had seen enough and that we would act on the fourth day, upon his return to his house.
My job was to pull the trigger. I was supposed to wait for him at the garage under his house. A distraction maneuver would bring me there, and I was to keep constant radio communication with the team members who were following him outside. I got to the parking lot at 2:20 pm, and was informed ten minutes later on the walkie-talkie that the object had left the restaurant and was making his way to the car. Every three minutes, my device approved, in one word, that the object was progressing toward the house as planned. At 3:03 pm, I received the last message, according to which the object was opening the electric gate to the building and driving in.
At that minute, I turned off the radio communication and waited for him crouched behind a large Citroen which was parked adjacent to his parking spot. I was holding my gun, loaded and unlocked, with a twelve-bullet magazine, six of them hollow-point, for maximum damage. The parking lot was lit by a dim yellow light, which was more than enough for me to carry off my mission. I rehearsed my movements again and again in my head.
The plan was to let him drive undisturbed to his usual parking lot and quietly wait for him to leave the car. Then I would instantaneously rise from behind the Citroen and shoot at least four bullets from a ten-foot range. When he collapses, I would approach him and finish the deal with one zero range bullet to the skull. My silenced gun shouldn’t cause any noise, so that I could quickly escape to the getaway car that would await me outside. This was the scenario I was repeating in my mind.
Less than a minute following the last message on the walkie-talkie, a car’s lights illuminated the parking lot. I focused and recognized a black Golf. The car approached the usual parking spot, made a half turn, and reversed into it. So far, everything was going according to the plan. Still kneeling, I was focused on waiting for the sound of the door opening. The engine roar was silenced, and it was quiet in the parking lot. I heard the lock click and the squeak of the doorframe as it started opening. At that second I rose in quick motion, the gun in my hand, ready to shoot.
And then, before I even saw the man’s shadow rising from the seat, a white light blinded me. It was so strong it must have come from a high power light projector, and I instinctively shot three bullets right at its center. Three whispers and the white light was gone, only that at that moment the barking sound of machine guns without silencers was heard, and I felt a horrible kick in the chest, which threw me into welcome unconsciousness.
Then there was a hospital and a long surgery, where they saved my life only to throw me in jail. Three months later, the governments finished discussing the price of parole, and the three members of our team (I later realized that the two others were captured outside, before they even managed to warn me) were released and sent home.
For me, “home” was a rehabilitation hospital were I had to spend six months, some in agony, and where I also learned that I was left alone. The time bomb that waited for me at home triggered off and left me with nothing. Once rehabilitation was over, I went back to work, and since then it was no longer the main thing in my life, but the only thing. I never got to return to special services—I was sent to a course for intelligence officers and was designated as an intelligence gathering officer.
They say that true love never dies. Maybe, but fact is that I waited for two more years before I tried to return to my abandoned lover.
To be true, that is not exactly how things happened in that January when I became an available, and very lonely man. That week in January left an unresolved issue. To this day I can’t point my finger at it. I suppose I wasn’t ready yet. But now, as happens after dramatic events that pinpoint the importance of things in our lives, I knew that if I got out of this alive, I would try to sort things out. I hoped that by then I could reach the inner peace I so lack. Hopes give one strength, and I needed strength.
5
The Millionaires’ Head of Security, Sergei Zisafel, or “Ziso,” as his friends call him, looked at the abandoned foyer at the entrance level, and felt a certain agitation in his stomach, unaccounted for and unexplained, but one that he could not ignore. Past experience taught him to pay attention to his gut feeling.
He was born forty-five years earlier in Moscow and discovere
d when he was a boy that he has the will power to spend much of his time developing his body mass. He then turned this hobby into a career, when he started participating in bodybuilding contests and even won the distinguished title of USSR Vice-Champion Under 18. Nearly three decades later, his body remained impressive: he had a thick, sturdy neck growing from his wide shoulders and completed the image with enormous, muscly arms and a barrel-like chest. Whoever looked at him knew not to mess with this man.
Only those who knew Ziso knew that underneath the frightening exterior hid a good, tender soul and that the claw-like hands that seemed meant to shatter loved to build and create in gentle movements, in perfect contrast with the amount of strength they contained. Clearly, the man’s size and character made him the ideal candidate for this sensitive position, which he has been filling for over ten years, held in high regard by his bosses and employees alike.
‘True, this is a special day,’ Ziso thought, ‘even a historical one.’ In all likelihood, it is the largest lottery he would ever safeguard, but, on the other hand, when thinking about it, apart from the curious element that is the size of the prize, there was no reason that anything should go wrong in the lottery itself.
It was around 3:00 p.m. on a Saturday and the building was empty and calm, like its surrounding. The Millionaires’ downtown building, where the lotteries took place, was in a small two-story building that served as a kind of barrier between an older residential neighborhood and a new business and finance district that included a number of banks and insurance companies. The area changes at nighttime, when neon lights from the numerous restaurants on its strip mix with the dim red lights coming from the pubs and bars scattered throughout it.
The building was located in a side street and had a small, seventy-car parking lot in front of it reserved for the audience who came to watch the weekly lotteries. At this time, on a Saturday afternoon, the whole area was quiet and peaceful with no cars or people walking down the street. But it was only a temporary illusion, a time off for a few hours following Friday night’s boisterous parties that would resume after sunset.
Once again, Ziso went over the agenda in his mind—from the parking arrangement and the guests’ entrance to the main hall where the lottery took place and the position of the television crew that would broadcast the lottery. He saw nothing wrong with the plan. In the end of the day, he pondered, it’s the usual crowd security, no more than a hundred and fifty people for no longer than an hour, a routine procedure like that of keeping order in a small movie theater. There was no real temptation there to make someone do anything dangerous—after all, there was no money in the building! At the worst case scenario, there’ll be a few people outside who would want to be part of this historical moment and there might not be enough room for them in the main hall; those will be cared for politely but firmly by the security officers at the main entrance.
Due to the importance of the lottery, invitations were sent out and RSVPs were required, which wasn’t traditionally done for the open to the public weekly lotteries. Even the smoke detectors were examined, according to his request, a day earlier, along with the line connecting the building to the nearest fire station. He was so thorough that he updated the police, the fire department, and the medical emergency services about the lottery.
Zisafel massaged his temples with both hands and reprimanded himself for being nervous. In any case, he will be there to keep an eye on all that goes on. All he wanted was for it to be 9:00 p.m. already, for it to be all over.
At 3:00 p.m., as the employment agency promised, a temporary security officer that was sent as back up to the usual security team arrived in the building. Ziso scrutinized him with his eyes and reached the conclusion that the tall and skinny guy in front of him, who wore fashionable thin frame glasses, was twenty-four or twenty-five-years-old, the sort of student-type who temps for a living and does not practice any kind of sport that requires strength. His body was too frail and Ziso could recognize that in a split second. Still, the guy was clean-shaven, his clothes presentable, and his hair brushed in a way that would look good on the television screens and in the eyes of those who pay Ziso’s wage. Judging by his smile and the way he tilted his head while getting directions, it seemed that he had a tendency to follow orders and a will to cooperate. ‘And that’s all it takes, in fact,’ thought Ziso.
As requested of him, he arrived at the building five hours before the lottery. Ziso appreciated punctuality, and gave the guy extra points for that. On the other hand, Ziso also knew there was no need for reinforcement, especially considering how experienced the staff security officers were in keeping the order in the entrance and the main hall. But the lottery was going to be screened on national television so it was only appropriate that the security arrangements would be clearly visible.
It was quite early, a lazy Saturday afternoon, and the place was almost empty. Zisafel decided to use this time to take the guy on a tour of the facility surveying the security exits, the elevators, the stairwells, the fire extinguishers, and everything else whose location he needed to know.
“What’s that big door?” asked the new guy with natural, healthy curiosity as they passed by a large and heavy wooden door that had a digital keypad to open it. He pulled out a blue piece of cloth and in a smooth movement took the glasses off his nose, polished the lenses, and put them back on.
“This is the main hall. Come, I’ll show you,” said the Head of Security, and punched in the code to open the door. He was busy with the four-digit code, and did not notice that through his shimmering lenses, the guy was focused on his fingers’ movement. The door opened, revealing the main hall: ten rows of seats and a large stage where the lottery machine stood. At that point, the rest of the stage was totally empty, but two enormous bouquets of flowers would be placed on both sides before the lottery. There was also a screen in the back of the stage on which background movies were screened during the lottery in order to give it a more glamorous look on television.
The new guy whistled admiringly, “So this is the dream machine, huh?”
“This is the machine that makes dreams come true,” agreed Zisafel.
“It doesn’t look that sophisticated,” the new guy dared to say.
“It isn’t,” the Head of Security agreed, “just an air bellow that shifts the balls around. The idea is for things to be simple and plain for everyone to see—otherwise people would have a hard time believing that the lottery is not fraudulent.”
“But I don’t see any balls…”
“Those are kept in a closet,” Ziso pointed at a small brown closet to the side of the stage. “I put them in the machine an hour before the lottery. We used to leave them in there all the time, but it made the employees and cleaning staff play with the machine.” He smiled a smile without a hint of wickedness. “To play ‘what if.’ In any case, that way it breaks down less.”
“This whole thing stops working?”
“Almost never. The air bellow’s engine is reliable, and the machine barely has any moving parts, which leaves almost no room for malfunctions. It’s a psychological issue—it can’t be good for the Millionaires’ reputation if something happens during the lottery.” He scratched his head. “Except for a power outage, of course, which can happen. But that hasn’t happened in six years.”
The new guy nodded his head, signaling that he got the picture. “My backpack, where can I put it?” he asked Ziso, pointing at a blue backpack that was slung on his shoulder.
The Head of Security looked around him and pointed at another closet, left of the stage. “If you don't mind putting it there, that’s where the cleaning materials are, and the cleaning team is already done for the day.”
“No problem.” The new guy opened the closet door, took the backpack, and put it on the top shelf. “I understand that during the lottery I’ll be in this hall?” He asked.
“Definitely. You’ll be on the left side of the stage,” Ziso pointed out the exact direction.
> “Good, that way I’d be sure not to forget my backpack in the end,” he said. A more psychologically attuned person could maybe have recognized a hint of guilt in that sentence. They left the main hall and the big wooden door locked automatically behind them.
6
The building’s doors opened to the public at 8:00 p.m. Ordinarily, the lottery was open to all, and the only limitation was the number of seats in the hall. This time, however, invitations were sent to a hundred worthy invitees. The first two rows of seats were reserved with name tags for VIPs whose presence was an adornment to the celebratory event.
The security team included—in addition to the Head of Security Zisafel—the three Millionaires staff security officers, as well as the temporary security officer who was sent as reinforcement. There are a hundred and fifty seats in the hall. Surveying the audience moving orderly from his location at the front of the stage, Zisafel couldn’t help but thinking once again that their security team was too large. His walkie-talkie buzzed every few seconds, reporting calmly from the parking lot and the main entrance. Before they opened the doors to the main hall, Zisafel had the student check every corner between the seats, on the stage, and behind it one more time. He stopped counting the number of times the hall was checked to confirm that there was nothing unusual.
Following the orders he received, the new security officer locked the door to the hall behind him, and examined it carefully in order to make sure that everything was, indeed, spotless. Once he was satisfied, he opened the door and stood at the entrance, not allowing the first guests into the hall just yet. Two security officers were in charge of checking those coming in at the main entrance to the building; the fourth patrolled the hallway between the entrance and the main hall. All four of them carried walkie-talkies that allowed them immediate contact with Zisafel and with each other.
