I hazarded a glance at Hamza and his small contingent of men and noticed they were all still busy discussing their sudden communication problem, which meant they were mostly oblivious to me and the people around the table. Combine that with the fact they were all grouped together and I had a perfect opening to hit all of my targets without needing to drastically change my aim. First would be the two mercenaries, second would be Klaus, and third would be Hamza—who I would try to take alive if possible. A prick of his magnitude deserved a lot more pain than a bullet to the brain. I slid out of my chair and stepped away from the table in hopes of getting the others out of line of any return fire. I also kept my gun hidden behind my back and out of view in case they looked my way, as I needed to maintain every ounce of surprise. I managed to get clear off the table before Hamza turned around and noticed me.
“What are you doing? Sit back down!” he ordered angrily.
Shit, I needed to think fast and come up with some kind of distraction.
“I have to take a shit,” I responded.
“I don’t care.”
“You will in about ten seconds when a deluge of diarrhea starts filling my pants—and that’s assuming my pants even survive the first explosion. The way my stomach feels right now, I’m thinking we could be looking at a ten foot blast radius.”
“Sit down and shut up!” he barked.
“Seriously now, I ate some bad lamb before leaving Jordan this morning, and I really need to use the toilet.”
“Fine. Shoot him and put him out of his misery,” Hamza said.
“Dude, don’t you know that you never shoot a man with explosive diarrhea?”
My words had no effect, and the closest mercenary brought his submachine up to fire, but he was a second too late, and I put two quick shots straight through his goggles. His head jerked backward, and he collapsed and fell onto Hamza while the members of the Topless Agenda dropped to the floor and took cover beneath the table. The other mercenary, meanwhile, attempted to return fire, but again I was a step ahead and adjusted my aim and put two shots in the man’s head. He, like his friend, was permanently out of the picture, and we were halfway to victory, but our problem had just gotten more difficult. Klaus was smart and quickly moved to a new position, something I also needed to do. A stationary shooter was an easy target and eventually got shot, so I dropped and fast crawled to a new location. There, I popped up and fired off two shots at Klaus, but he ducked and both shots missed him by a fraction of an inch. He popped back up a second later and returned fire, and the bullets barely missed my head as they embedded into the wall above me. Shit! He obviously knew what he was doing, which meant I needed to bring my A-game to the table—so to speak. I dropped back down and saw the members of the Topless Agenda cowering below the table, while beyond them Klaus, like me, was again moving into a new firing position. He popped up to shoot, but I stayed down this time, and fired through a gap between the people under the table. It was risky to shoot in such close proximity to friendlies, but I needed to get the sauer out of the kraut if I hoped to survive our encounter. The bullet caught him in the thigh, and he collapsed onto the floor, allowing me to move around the table to find him leaning against the wall, where he was using one of his hands to apply pressure to his leg wound. I closed the distance and arrived just as he tried to bring his pistol up to fire, but, fortunately for me, he was just a fraction too slow, and I had him dead to rights.
“Drop it or die, schnitzel face!”
He wavered for a moment then groaned in frustration as he dropped his gun and turned his attention to his leg wound. I kicked the pistol clear then backed up to do a quick three hundred and sixty degree threat assessment of the room, where I unfortunately discovered that Hamza was standing in front of the door and aiming a pistol at Margaret’s head.
“Drop your gun, or she dies!” he screamed.
“He’ll kill me anyway! Don’t do it!” she said.
“Just relax, Hamza. No one else needs to die today.”
“Fuck you! Drop your gun, or I’ll blow her brains all over this room!”
My phone vibrated at that moment, and I was hopeful it was the signal I had been eagerly waiting to hear. I crouched down and pretended as though I was placing my gun on the floor.
“Tag, No!” Margaret yelled.
“It’s going to be OK,” I said, finally letting go of the gun and standing back up.
Traditionally, you never gave up your gun in a scenario like this, but I had an ace up my sleeve—hopefully anyway.
“You stupid asshole! Now I’m going to kill everyone in this room—starting with you!”
Hamza turned his gun towards me, but, before he could pull the trigger, the door behind him burst open and slammed into his back, sending him and Margaret crashing onto the ground, where his gun flew out of his hand and landed several feet away. A team of heavily armed assailants decked out head to toe in combat gear poured through the open doorway then spread out around the room to take up defensive positions. In the confusion, Hamza made a mad dash for the gun by scrambling on all fours, but I moved to intercept and stomped my foot down on his hand only inches before he reached his pistol. He screamed in agony, but I kept my foot firmly in place until I managed to reach down and pick up his gun.
“Time to give it up, camel jockey, or I’ll rip that towel off your head and snap it against your chubby thighs until you cry like a little sissy!” I said.
“Dude!” I heard Farid say from nearby.
I glanced over and saw he was smiling and shaking his head at me.
“What?” I asked.
He held up eight fingers, five on his right and three on his left as he regarded me.
“I’m giving you an eight for creativity in using two disparaging remarks about Arabs, but I couldn’t give you a ten, as you were still making disparaging remarks.”
“That seems convoluted, but I can live with an eight,” I said, as I ushered the members of the Topless Agenda out from under the table.
They formed up and appeared to be a bit apprehensive as they gazed at our new arrivals. I, however, knew exactly who our visitors were and couldn’t help but smile.
“Do you mind letting us in on the joke?” Matheson asked.
“Yes, dugland, would you please enlighten us? Can’t you see these people are terrified and need a break?” Babineux added.
Dugland translated as asshole and was a little inside joke between Babineux and me.
“But of course, my French friend. Everyone, please relax, as our late arrivals here are actually the good guys, or more accurately—good girls,” I said.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Matheson responded.
The lead figure pulled off her balaclava head cover, and her long dark hair fell past her shoulders, eliciting a number of gasps—mostly from the men in the room.
“Hello, everyone. I am the Desert Fox,” she said.
“I totally agree,” Matheson responded, as he stepped forward and offered his hand.
Dolunay was a remarkably beautiful woman, so it stood to reason that Matheson would bust out the exact same line as I had when I first met her.
“Thank you, Senator Matheson, and it’s nice to meet you,” she said.
“The pleasure is all mine, and call me Douglass.”
“Douglass it is, and please call me Dolunay.”
I walked over, and Dolunay and I shared a hug that she followed up with an unexpected kiss that lasted just long enough to get uncomfortable, considering the unusual circumstances and present company. Still, a kiss from a beautiful woman was a kiss nonetheless.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering what the hell is going on,” I said, turning to address the room.
“You’ve got that right,” Matheson said.
“Well, luckily for all of us, I had the foresight to call Dolunay and have her bring one of her best teams here as fast as humanly possible.”
“How could you have known that all of this was going to happen?�
�� Matheson asked.
All the people in the room stared in rapt attention as they waited for me to begin speaking, and it was at last time for the big reveal, the moment where I got to deliver all my clever insights and be like television’s Detective Columbo.
“People, I’m sorry to say it, but your organization has indeed been compromised.”
There were a number of gasps and plaintive responses.
“But, you’ll be happy to know that no one in this room is technically a party to the betrayal.”
“Jesus, Finn, would you please get to the point?”
“All in good time. Now, in the interest of clarity, I suppose I should start with a brief recap of the last few days. So, first, you enlisted me to help you bring Farid to the west, and only a day later, the German here inexplicably showed up in Marin County and tried to kill me. The next day, he sabotaged the jet’s engines and nearly killed not only me, but Matheson and Daniel Vandenberg.”
“We know this part of the story,” Matheson complained.
“I don’t. Let him finish,” Margaret said.
“So, at that point we knew we had a tenacious enemy, but the question was, how could he or she possibly know what we were up to and act on such unbelievably short notice—without, of course, some amount of insider knowledge. Daniel and Douglass were both emphatic that no one in this room would ever turn against the other members or leak any of its secrets, but the events told another tale. So, at that point, we had several potential possibilities to consider. One was whether the bad guy or girl was part of the Topless Agenda, and, if not, then who was the theoretical insider supplying this person with intelligence. Were we up against one person or perhaps a group of people? Well, I found out part of the answer when I saw Hamza and my favorite German tourist together at the royal palace. We had our primary bad guy and his henchman, but we still didn’t have our connection to the Topless Agenda, and, oddly, the answer would come a week later in the least likely of places. You see, when I was at the Royal Palace in Dubai, I also happened to see a woman in the room with Hamza and the German. Unfortunately, she had her back to me, so all I could see was her very ornate, diamond encrusted bracelet—a detail that wouldn’t mean anything until a day later when I was taking a dump on the Vandenberg jet.”
“Do we really need that much detail, Finn?” Matheson complained.
“Probably not, but I’m a detail person. Now, I, like most people, read on the toilet, and, to that end, I borrowed Farid’s shitty tabloid magazine, and you’ll never guess what I learned.”
Recognition dawned on Farid’s face, and I had the feeling he knew exactly where I was going.
“The bracelet! Holy shit! I knew that woman looked familiar!” Farid exclaimed loudly.
“So, who is the girl and what does she have to do with all of this?” Matheson asked expectantly.
Before I could respond, there was a commotion out in the hall, and everyone turned to see two of Dolunay’s soldiers bringing in a prisoner. She was blond, beautiful, and ornery as all hell as she fought her captors at every step. Eventually they were able to get her into the room, and she looked around then immediately cowed and averted her eyes. On her wrist, coincidentally, was the very same diamond encrusted bracelet.
“Everyone, I believe you all know Margaret’s daughter Charlotte,” I said.
“Charlotte! What are you doing here?” Margaret asked.
Charlotte didn’t answer and instead continued to stare down at the floor.
“It’s OK, I’ll answer that question. You see, Charlotte’s here with her boyfriend,” I said.
“So, who is this mystery man, and where is he?” she asked.
“Right there,” I said, pointing at Hamza.
“But, how could that be?” Margaret asked, looking utterly shocked.
“Well, once I learned that the mystery woman was Charlotte, I did a little online research and soon found the connection to Hamza. I’m pretty sure the two of them met while attending Oxford sometime between 2006 and 2010. Both were economics majors and both came from wealthy families, where they were living in the shadow of higher achieving older siblings. It, therefore, made perfect sense that they would meet, bond, and fall in love, and eventually put into action an insidious plot to gain independence from their respective families with the icing on this cake of betrayal being the attempted demise of the Topless Agenda.
“Charlotte, I don’t understand how you could be involved in all this,” Margaret said, sadly.
Charlotte stared silently at the floor, her eyes filling with tears before she finally spoke.
“I—I just wanted to finally get away from this family—away from you. I’m tired of being the black sheep—your little embarrassment you hide from the rest of your life. Hamza and I were going to start a new life together, but, as usual, you ruined it! You ruined it!”
Her voice trailed off, and she seemed to drift into her own little world as she collapsed onto the floor and hugged her knees into her chest.
“But wait, you still haven’t explained how you knew that Hamza was going to move against us at the meeting today,” Matheson said.
“Well, that part came down to intuition and some valuable intelligence from your man Bill Reigns in Dubai. Once I knew about the meeting, I realized it would be a perfect opportunity for Hamza and Charlotte to take all of you out in one fell swoop. So, I called Bill and had him check on Prince Hamza’s travel plans. It turned out that our favorite prince had left Dubai and flown into Marseille Provence Airport along with an unusually large entourage this very morning. Not one to believe in coincidences, I immediately called Dolunay, and, thanks to her and her girls’ timely arrival, we all get to live to fight another day.”
There was a sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway, and, a moment later, two familiar faces were staring at me from the doorway. It was Dick and Jane, two of the Topless Agenda’s key security people. The three of us had first crossed paths a couple weeks ago during the course of my European assignment. At the time, I thought they were the bad guys, but now, we were all friends, and they were obviously here to start the clean-up process. It wouldn’t be an easy task, as there was a lot of shit to deal with—namely Hamza, his German lackey, his mercenaries, and last but not least, a girl desperately in need of a good spanking, therapy, and a reduction in her allowance.
“Dick, Jane! How nice to see you again!” I said.
“Nice to see you as well, Tag. I see you’ve got the situation mostly in hand.”
“Mostly, thanks to Dolunay and her team.”
“Well, thank you both for all the help,” Jane said.
“My pleasure,” Dolunay responded.
“I see your wardrobe hasn’t changed much, Jane.” I said.
“No, it hasn’t—in spite of your antics, and I imagine you’ll probably be unhappy to learn that there’s no rain in the immediate forecast.”
“You’re right! That does make me a little unhappy.”
Jane was wearing a white dress shirt, very similar to the one she had been wearing when we first met, only that time I had dumped a glass of ice water down the front as a distraction so I could steal her key fob. The ploy worked perfectly with the added benefit being that her shirt became mostly see-thru—something neither Dick nor I would soon forget. Now, it was our little inside joke, and remembering it brought a smile to all three of our faces. Dick, who was standing beside her, decided it was time to get the show on the road and pulled out his phone and called in a paramedic as well as more security people. I took that as my cue to check on the German and utilize some of my PJ medical training to make sure he survived to join Hamza in prison. He had a leg wound, and few people knew that they were particularly lethal, because a rupture of the femoral artery could bring death in mere seconds. The German was lucky, however, and the bullet had just passed through his outer thigh. I used his belt and a wad of napkins to construct a makeshift tourniquet and bandage, which would hold until official help arrived. Within
fifteen minutes, everything was practically back to normal, and all the bad guys were gone and everyone was seated around the table quietly mulling over the events of the last hour.
“Finn, again, you have proved yourself more valuable than any of us could have imagined, and everyone here owes you a debt that we could never be able to adequately repay,” Matheson said.
“No problem—I’ve already been paid more than enough for my services, and what really matters is that everyone is safe and sound, and I am close to fulfilling my original promise to get my friend here to America, so that he can finally be with the big breasted blonde that he so dearly desires.”
There were a number of chuckles from around the table, and it was a nice tension breaker to bring the mood of the room back from the dire events of earlier. Of course, I felt bad for Margaret and could only wonder how she would deal with her daughter. It wasn’t every day that your child was involved in your potential demise, let alone the destruction of your secret society. Hamza’s fate would also likely prove to be an interesting story, as his father wasn’t going to be particularly happy to find out his son had lost the golden goose, and, worse still, had been using the Emirates assets for his own evil agenda. A waiter arrived a moment later with glasses and champagne then began filling and distributing them to each person at the table. Once everyone was properly outfitted with some bubbly, Matheson stood up and held his glass high in the air.
Gordita Conspiracy Page 40
