by Rick Jones
“It’s so good to hear, my dear, that we’ve made such a connection.”
Although Angelika’s crafted smile was feigned, it was also well designed to make Faruk believe that there was a spark behind the grin. “Well, Abesh, it’s true. I can’t deny it.” She took another sip from her flute. Then: “Tell me, these weapons you barter for with your new clients, it interests me to know how you do it.”
“Do what?”
“To stay under the radar with such devices. After all, it’s not every day that nuke suitcases are made. Certainly, there are agencies who are tasked to discover such unique weaponry.”
Faruk’s smile slowly melted away as he cocked his head in study of her. “And this concerns you how?”
“My employer is very interested in obtaining such hardware, if you happen to have said items in stock. I would be grateful, Faruk, in ways you cannot imagine.” She traced a fingernail lovingly over the back of his hand, “Of course, only if you can oblige. All you have to do is name your price.”
Faruk appeared disappointed. “And I thought this was about us and not business,” he told her.
She continued to caress the back of his hand, which he did not move. “I think you’re misunderstanding my message,” she told him. “Business and pleasure can mix and mix well. Once we negotiate the terms of such weaponry, then we can begin with the pleasure part.”
His smile returned. Turning over his hand and gingerly grabbing hers, the two now holding hands, he said, “Business and pleasure—what a unique partnership that would be. But, my dear, such a communion never works, I’m afraid. I’m afraid business and pleasure remains divorced from one another because it’s like mixing oil with water; one rises to the top while the other remains buried underneath.”
“Sometimes, Abesh, someone comes along to rise to the top with the one they love.”
Faruk’s smile broadened. “Are you that one, my dear?”
“Anything is possible.”
Faruk, who continued to hold her hand as he eased back into his seat, said, “These items we speak of, these suitcases, they’re unique and one of a kind. They’re also units I’m not able to stock for future bargaining prices. These will be the first and last of their kind.”
“Just the three?”
“Just the three,” he confirmed.
She released his hand. “That’s sad to hear.”
“Perhaps something else,” he assured her. “Something that’s within my reach to provide your employer. Something unique.”
“My employer is only interested in the suitcase nukes, nothing more.”
When he tried to grab her hand, she retracted it and grabbed her flute.
“Please, my dear, my arsenal is vast. Surely there is something your employer will find of great interest.”
She shook her head. “There is nothing else.” Then she went back to teasing the back of his hand with soft strokes of her painted fingernails, a teasing. “But perhaps,” she began, “we can still become that mix between business and pleasure, yes?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
“My employer is beginning to bore me. Business. Business. Business. No fun at all. And a girl like me . . . I like fun.” She leaned closer to him, though the rim of the table stopped her full approach. “Do you like fun, Abesh?”
“I do.” He was totally enchanted by her charm.
“Perhaps you and I can do business by deleting the middleman. Perhaps we can start an alliance. You and me. To say yes would be beneficial to you with the perks I bring to the table that my employer cannot.”
“And what would that be, my dear?”
“Me.”
They sat there looking at each other with pinning eyes.
Then from Faruk: “What are you suggesting?”
“I want to start my own corporation with your assistance,” she told him. “Just you and me. Together.”
“Your employer would become quite angry with you for branching out without his or her blessings. It could be dangerous.”
“I can handle my employer. I’m not worried.”
“Still, my dear, the nukes are not open for discussion or negotiation. The deal is already done.”
She released his hand and waved him off dismissively. “It’s not the nukes I want, Abesh. I want a longstanding relationship with you, both in and out of bed.”
Abesh was astounded by this admission, his hopes coming true.
“I want my own operation,” she told him. “My own corporation. I’m willing to jump through whatever hoops necessary to see this done. What I need to know, what I need to learn, is how to disguise certain armaments from the eyes of certain agencies. You know who I’m talking about.”
Faruk did. Though a lot of his dealings were legal, that didn’t stop the likes of the CIA, the Mossad or Interpol from wandering into his cyber records to filch certain details.
“What I need to know, Faruk, is how I can create a shelter to hide certain hardware without fearing possible appropriation. Obviously, you have such a scheme.”
“My scheme is a simple one, my dear. My stockpiles are located in areas where the governments are as greedy as the snow is white. I simply pay these governments a percentage of the profit, as long as they maintain their distance. That’s the first thing.”
“And the second?”
“I hire my own force of well-trained mercenaries to guard the stockpiles.”
“I see.”
“It’s a simple formula since every man contains a level of greed.”
“Then let me ask you this: if the government knew that you were stockpiling the nukes in your warehouse, would that be cause for concern?”
“How so?”
“A government, no matter how much they receive in back-end profits, might decide to shut you down because of the danger these weapons present.”
“The Tunisia government, especially the president, knows nothing outside of what I pay them. That’s part of the bargain of receiving payments. They’ll continue to receive their money as long as they turn a blind eye to my operations.”
“I see. If I was to develop a storage facility in Tunisia, would the president bargain with me as well?”
“No,” he told her. “I have full control over this matter. If he agrees to terms with another, then I’ll pull out immediately and he loses his monthly tithing. And he does not want to risk this should the new operation go bust. And besides, my dear, I don’t want competition. So, I’m afraid Tunisia’s out, at least for you.” He maintained his smile. “However, there are plenty of underdeveloped Third-World countries to go around. I’m sure you can find someone who will suit your needs. All you have to do is wave a dollar bill before their eyes and they’ll become your puppets, believe me.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“Hardly,” he said. “It took years of making legitimate contacts and greasing palms before I became what I am today.”
“Perhaps you can ease my journey of turning years into months, since I am a woman of little patience but one of great passion.”
“Perhaps,” he countered.
Grabbing her bag from the chair beside her, Angelika said, “Abesh, as always, I enjoyed our time together. But I’m afraid that I must take my leave. I hope we can get together sometime soon. Say tomorrow evening at your place?”
Faruk, however, appeared discouraged by her sudden and abrupt notion to leave. “My dear, have I said something wrong.”
“Of course not. Your company was wonderful. But like you, I have an engagement that I cannot dismiss or change.”
“Another man perhaps?”
She leaned over and caressed the side of his face with a warm hand. “Don’t be foolish. Like I said before, my employer is all business with no room for fun. Once I’m rid of him, then that leaves me with you and only with you.”
Faruk stood, grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. “Tomorrow night then. Say
seven?”
“Seven would be wonderful,” she told him.
“Tomorrow at seven it is.”
Tucking her purse beneath her winged arm, Angelika, who walked like a woman of high society with her chin upward and her stride elegant, waved for her chauffer to follow, which Rico did with trained obedience.
Faruk, standing alone at the table with his bodyguards nearby, picked up the cloth napkin, wiped his mouth, then tossed it hard against the table. He wasn’t pleased that the brunch had ended early.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Using her high society swagger all the way until the Rolls left the restaurant, Angelika whipped off her hat and tossed it on the seat beside her. After exhaling loudly, she said, “I can’t stand that man.”
Rico, whose dark eyes stared back at her from the rearview mirror, asked, “Did you get the required information?”
She nodded. “Enough to see the next stage of the operation to commence.”
“And the nukes?”
“In Tunisia, as suspected.”
Rico nodded and turned his eyes back to the road.
Though her chauffer was a part of her team, Angelika had no idea from what agency he represented, the man a secret. For the most part he had been a silent partner who only spoke when necessary, such as asking about her close communication with Faruk. Small talk and banter were not his style of engagement, nor did he give any information outside of operating under the guidelines of a foreign organization. He was simply a plant who worked under a need-to-know basis on Angelika’s part, so she didn’t pry. But she did suspect it was either Interpol or the Mossad, since both had high-end interest regarding the nuclear weapons.
Then from Rico: “Have you set an appointment for a final engagement?”
She nodded. “Tomorrow night,” she said. “At seven.”
“Location?”
“His estate.”
Rico remained silent for the rest of the drive, the man negotiating through the proper streets until he reached her residence.
Grabbing her hat and opening the door, she said, “Meet me here tomorrow night at six.”
Confirming this with a nod, Rico pulled away from the curb and continued off to whatever hideaway he lived at.
As soon as she reached her residence, Angelika tossed aside her purse and hat, went to the safe to grab her Ismarsat BGAN tablet, and began to program the unit to exclusively join itself with a particular overhead satellite. Once the connection was made and the networks began to speak to one another, she received an incoming message from her handler.
HANDLER: IMPERATIVE DATA?
ANGELIKA: YES. SUBJECT MENTIONED THE PACKAGES TO BE IN TUNISIA, AS SUSPECTED. TUNISIAN GOVERNMENT NOT TO BE A FACTOR SINCE DEPOSITORY IS GUARDED BY HIRED MERCENARY GROUP. NUMBER UNKNOWN.
HANDLER: NUMBER NOT A FACTOR HERE. OUR ASSOCIATE WILL BE IN FULL CONTROL OF HANDLING THE TANGOS AND THE OPERATION.
. . . System Waiting . . .
HANDLER: NEXT COMMUNICATION WITH SUBJECT?
ANGELIKA: TOMORROW NIGHT . . . AT SEVEN.
HANDLER: COMPLETE THE MISSION. MAKE THIS MEETING YOUR FINAL ACT. THEN RETURN TO BASE.
ANGELIKA: COPY.
HANDLER: OUT.
Angelika closed down the tablet, and as per protocol wiped the files clean. Returning the Ismarsat BGAN tablet to the safe, Angelika returned to the living area and took her seat by the window. She had an extensive and stunning view of Zurich with lakes in the background and an area where she could visibly see herself setting roots. Come tomorrow night, however, she would leave for a safer haven and end this charade by shedding her second skin. And she would do so with a final killing stroke of Abesh Faruk.
Inside the nightstand that was to her left was a High Standard HDM automatic pistol. It was an old but highly effective .22-caliber weapon that was integrally suppressed with an extended silencer that was nearly twice as long as the gun’s barrel. Reaching over to open the drawer, she removed the weapon, held it up for examination, and inspected it from all sides. Even with the overly extended barrel, she could still fit the handgun inside her bag.
. . . One to the head and two to center mass . . .
She then reached inside the drawer to extract a 10-round magazine, seated it inside the HDM, then pulled back the slide to feed a bullet into the chamber. She had done her job and did it well. Though Faruk was considered more of a nuisance than a global threat, that changed the moment he decided to launch the sale of WMDs. Anything sold on the markets considered to be nuclear, biological or chemical in nature, and if the source could be traced, was reason enough for immediate termination. Abesh Faruk had finally punched his ticket.
Laying the HDM on top of the nightstand, she began to wonder about a future where the threats weren’t so daring or treacherous, such as here today but gone tomorrow. She was a warrior serving on the front lines of espionage and found it—to a degree—exhilarating. She also found the cloak-and-dagger aspects of her missions truly the stuff of Hollywood, though without the dramatic explosions and CGI effects. But the flip side of the coin was that she walked a fine line between life and death, and within that gray area that was the middle ground between Darkness and Light. One wrong move, one slight tip of her hand or perhaps a micro-facial tic, could spell the end of her life, if she was not overly careful. So far, Abesh Faruk was too enamored with her to believe otherwise, since her fictitious biographical record was fittingly made available to his team through hackable channels, and her background deemed credible. Chalk another one up for the good guys, she considered. Planting disinformation had always been a good weapon to utilize, because it had the ability to influence the masses or the one, depending on the target.
Resting her head against the back of her seat as the sweet sounds of Zurich sounded through the slight opening of the window, Angelika Hartmann’s exhaustion finally caught up to her and she fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jabal Maqla, Saudi Arabia
The climb for the Vatican Knights was an easy one to make with the terrain rising another fifteen hundred feet that was spread over three miles of a constant and inclining wasteland. But as soon as they reached the absolute summit of Jabal Maqla, the widespread area was even with some sand ripples that were too small to consider, along with some straight-up extensions of stone between twenty to fifty feet tall. Above them, as the sun continued its scorching onslaught, particles in the sand, perhaps mica, cast star-point glitters of gold. Even in this ugliness there was some beauty.
Kimball examined the landscape. To him, the rocky projections resembled beehives. And he counted—within the scope where the golden calf was believed to be—approximately fifty to sixty such extensions. What he was looking for was evidence of a previous opening that may have been closed off by a falling rockslide for no other apparent reason outside of hiding an entryway.
Kimball turned to Jeremiah. “You have the drone?” It was a rhetorical question.
Jeremiah shrugged off his backpack and started to rummage through his gear, which was mostly ammo and grenades, then produced an orblike drone about the size of an orange, small and state of the art. The aptly named Atlas sphere had an aerial mapping system that used laser technology to map out a terrain by returning the measured data from the Earth’s surface to an onboard GPS and IMU sensor system. Utilizing this system created a highly accurate three-dimensional topography map over any landscape by recording 750,000 scanned points per second. Since the sensor is mounted to a state-of-the-art carbon fiber hexa-rotor, this, along with enough battery power, could keep the sphere in the sky for over six hours to capture hundreds of millions of datapoints within that time. By acquiring more datapoints over the same area, the system would be able to create an accurate topography model to determine not only the geographical rises of the terrain, but also what’s underneath it. If there are tunnels beneath the surface or potential weaknesses like sinkholes, the points would pick them up.
&nbs
p; Setting the Atlas sphere on the ground and powering it up, Jeremiah worked the remote and toggles. As if violating the laws of physics, the spherical drone hovered a moment and took flight, the unit then flying high and then stabilizing. Jeremiah then shared the frequency with Kimball’s Ismarsat BGAN laptop. As the sphere scanned the landscape, a 3-D topographical image would display on Kimball’s screen as it recorded.
Once Kimball received the feed, he said, “Go ahead and send her.”
Jeremiah throttled the unit forward by maneuvering the joysticks on the remote.
On Kimball’s screen, a 3-D map began to surface. The image was coming up on the monitor as the color of desert sand. Red lines noted the measurement, high and low, of the mountaintop landscape. So far, there were no lines that gave hints of underlying warrens.
The Atlas continued to map the terrain which included the outcroppings, all proving to be solid structures. Approximately two miles in, however, there was a fifty-foot structure of stone that revealed an amoeba-like opening at its base that was large enough for a man to fit through.
“I’ve got something,” Jeremiah confirmed with his Aussie accent. “A fifty-foot structure with an opening at its base.”
“Switch to a live feed,” Kimball told him.
The rest of the Vatican Knights, along with Sherpa, pooled around Kimball as their curiosity piqued. The screen shifted from a 3-D model to a live feed. As the sphere hovered to provide an overhead view, Kimball asked, “Can you zoom in for a closer look?”
Jeremiah chose the latter as he manipulated the device to close in on the opening. However, the breach was covered over with tons of rock.
“That has to be it,” Kimball commented. And then to Jeremiah, “Can the points measure how deep inside the structure that opening leads into? It can’t be that far since the structure is only thirty feet wide.”
