by Rick Jones
Pulling the knife free with a slurping sound and wiping the blade clean against the guard’s clothing, Kimball moved deeper into the estate and closer to his quarry.
* * *
Now the second team was out of the tech’s communication as well, the station guard receiving nothing but white noise.
Switching his monitors and going from lens to lens and from area to area in examination of the grounds in its entirety, the tech thought he caught a glimmer of something that came and went from the shadows and sometimes within the fringes of light, but always managed to slip back inside the dark veils.
The tech focused on the area.
Nothing but pooling shades of darkness.
And there it was, another flash, another glimmer of something that used the shadows to his advantage. The tech zoomed in, then shifted the mode of the camera’s lens to an infrared channel. There, in the darkness, a large man stood as if he was a part of the shadows, a living creature who waited to harvest those who came within its reach.
The tech smiled with impish delight.
Now, he thought, reaching for a red button that was underneath a plastic cap, let’s see who you are.
Lifting the plastic cap, the tech pushed the button.
* * *
The alarm that sounded like an old-fashioned klaxon went off over the estate. Then the floodlights popped on, the grounds lighting up. Heavily-armed men raced from all corners of the estate, converging.
Kimball removed his suppressed Glock but staying behind the ornamentally pruned shrubbery for cover, though they would do nothing to shield him from a constant battery of rounds should the approaching guards discover his whereabouts.
Voices.
Coming closer and getting louder.
Kimball observed the approaching numbers: four, two from the left and two from the right, the guards meeting up and merging into a single unit, as they closed in on his location.
Kimball checked the rounds of his suppressed weapon, grabbed a flashbang from his pocket, removed the pin, and tossed the grenade. As Kimball turned away from the pending concussive blast, the guards began to scream in warning.
But it was too late. The grenade went off, the area becoming a brilliant flash of white light as a mind-numbing wave pounded Rashi’s guards, debilitating them. After they had been overtaken by the blast and moved about like something from a zombie apocalypse as creatures with no real direction or aim, Kimball emerged from the brush line with his suppressed Glock, and with deadeye accuracy pulled the trigger with all four rounds becoming fatal head shots.
The guards went down in unison as boneless heaps.
Kimball, with the same deadly accuracy, aimed his Glock at the lights and snuffed them out. The grounds were no longer lit, though the klaxon continued to wail.
Once again, Kimball Hayden worked his will in Darkness.
* * *
Firat Rashi immediately got on the phone to the leadership of his security force, who assured him that everything was under control, until the moment the security member grunted in obvious pain before the line went dead.
Rashi cried into the phone. “Yaphet? ...YAPHET!”
Silence.
And then the sound of a dead line, a steady and even drone.
Firat tossed the phone on the nightstand, then turned to his personal security team. They were three men who were brutish in appearance with their simian brows and prognathous jaws, with each man weighing close to 270 pounds of pure muscle mass. They were wearing black Western-style suits, white shirts, and black ties. They were also wearing shoulder holsters that held Desert Eagles, their bulges prominent beneath their suit coats.
Firat snapped his fingers at them, a way to grab their attention so they would focus on the serious gravity of the moment. “Farid, Mahdi, I need you both to secure my chambers immediately.” Then to the third man, “Nabil, get my children.”
As Nabil raced to gather Rashi’s son and two daughters, Farid extended a thick arm out to Firat as a gesture for him to ‘come along,’ which Firat did by taking position between the two behemoths as they escorted him down the hallway.
As Firat and his team took the bend of a lavish corridor marked by marble busts on pedestals, they eventually came to a set of lacquer-white doors that bore the ornamental trimmings and piping-like designs painted in gold.
Then there was another blast, a flashbang, one that sounded very close.
And then silence.
Rashi and his team passed through the doors where they were met by another series of hallways, the house a massive labyrinth. They then moved with purpose with the breach of the property so egregious in manner to Rashi that he continued to seethe with anger, since the violation was well beyond comprehensible. When they reached a set of double doors, Mahdi patted the air in advisement to Firat to stay back while they cleared the room, which Firat agreed with. “Hurry.”
Both men entered with their Desert Eagles ready, and closed the door behind them.
Firat checked his watch, wondering what was taking Nabil so long with his children.
Then from behind the door, a voice that was muted behind the thickness of hard wood, said, “Firat, you may now step inside.”
Firat craned his neck to scope the length of the hallway as he waited on Nabil.
“Firat, step inside.”
Gritting his teeth in aggravation, Firat opened the door and entered the room, then closed it behind him. Stepping into a vast chamber that was larger than most homes and decorated with beautifications valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Firat took six steps before his gait eventually developed an awkward hitch in his stride.
Sitting at the ends of an expensive couch were Farid and Mahdi, each with a bloodless wound to the centers of their forehead. The backs of their heads were resting against the top cushions of the sofa with their mouths open, the moment of their death apparently one of astonishment.
In a chair to the right of the couch sat a man whose eyes were in contrast to a blood-red face, white on red, the eyes lending Firat the idea that this man’s pinning stare was one that held a pointed warning.
Firat looked at his men, then to Kimball Hayden, and noted the suppressed weapon that was directed at him.
“Who are you? How did you get inside?” In the background drapes flapped from an open door that led to the balcony. Still, the balcony was more than twenty feet off the ground.
Kimball just stared at him with a savage look about him.
When Firat turned and ran for the lever to the door, Kimball placed two rounds that punched two holes right next to Firat’s head, the expensive wood splintering.
“I won’t miss the next time,” Kimball told him. “Now sit down.”
Outside, the klaxon continued to wail.
As Firat crossed the room to take a wing-backed chair, Kimball said, “No ...Not over there.” He pointed the tip of his weapon to the couch where the dead men sat. “Over there.”
Firat’s mouth dropped. “But they’re dead.”
“And your point?”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
Kimball stabbed the air with his Glock in the direction of the couch. “I said ...sit.” Then he redirected his aim at Firat. “I won’t ask you again.”
Firat embraced himself as he took his seat between the two, afraid that the shades of death would somehow edge towards him, and made sure that he was equal distance from the corpses by sitting in the center between the two.
“Your name is Firat Rashi, AKA the Banker. You’re a Syrian national who launders and diverts money for terrorist factions such as the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and those within the Islamic State, and washes away any trace evidence of the illegal transactions.”
Rashi cocked his head at this quick synopsis. “Are you CIA?”
Kimball rocked his head ‘no.’
“The Mossad? Interpol?”
“None of the above.”
“Then why are you here?”
K
imball pulled in air through his nostrils and released it. After giving Firat Rashi a hard look, he removed a cellphone from his pocket and tossed it to Rashi, who caught the device with both hands. “Look at the last photo.”
Firat did so, thumbing his way across a screen full of apps until he came to the photo icon, and pressed it. It was a picture of Hassan laying on the ground with a knife in his throat.
Firat turned the screen towards Kimball. “And you show me this why?”
“That’s Hassan Maloof,” he told the Syrian. “And the members of his cell didn’t fare any better, I’m afraid.”
Firat’s mouth dropped.
“That’s right,” Kimball intuited. “Your deal with Hassan is off. There’ll be no transaction.”
“And you come in here,” he pointed to his dead associates, “to kill two of my best.”
“If they were your best,” Kimball told him, “then you have a lot of problems regarding your security team. I went through them like a bear knocking over saplings to get to my prize, which happened to be you.”
“There’s more where they came from.”
“And I’d go through them just as quick.”
Firat gave a sidelong glance to the door.
“There’s no one out there, Firat. They’re all gone. Including that ape you sent to get your children.”
Firat’s eyes began to well up. And then the small man seemed to fold into himself, to melt, somehow looking smaller. “Please,” he said, “you didn’t harm my children.”
“Your children are fine, Firat. They’re well. The ape who went to get them, however ...not so.”
There was a photo on the stand next to Kimball. It was a picture of Firat and his family—all three children and his wife when she appeared full of life and vibrant, even as bad cells were running crazy throughout her lungs.
“You have beautiful children,” he told Firat in a way that sounded sad and true at the same time. “And so was your wife.” Kimball pointed the Glock to Rashi’s center mass. “Do you miss her?”
“Every day.”
Kimball nodded as his eyes seemed to drift a bit from his target. And while he continued to look elsewhere, he said, “Because of your ties to these factions, I lost a brother today. A good man who wanted nothing more in life other than to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.” He quickly turned his hard focus back to the squat Syrian. “And you’re responsible, Firat, even if you don’t understand why.”
Firat shrugged. “I don’t.”
“You keep these organizations alive by the way you conduct business,” Kimball told him. “Your greed has blinded you. So let me ask you this: How much is too much. How much money do you need, Firat, to make you happy? Or are you just a person who causes the misery of others without care?”
Firat raised his hands imploringly out to Kimball, his palms up. “What is it that you ask of me?”
“Answer my questions, Firat. How much money do you need to make you happy?”
Firat didn’t know what to say because he truly didn’t know. Then he looked at the dark hole of the barrel’s mouth. “Are you going to kill me? If you do, all I ask is that you leave my children alone.”
“Like I said, your children will be fine. But the question is: Are they better off without a man like you?”
A tear slid from the corner of Firat’s eye, the man beginning to crack.
“How many children do you think have died for a cause that was not their own?” Kimball went on. “How many parents do you think might have begged these terrorists that you aid to spare the lives of their children, only for these children to see their mothers and fathers slaughtered before their eyes, and then are forcibly conscripted by these legions to fight and kill in the name of Allah? How many, Firat?” Then Kimball used his weapon to point out each member of the family, starting with the children. “Would you want your kids to be fighting under the authority and the likes of Hassan Maloof?”
Firat didn’t answer.
“It’s not a rhetorical question,” said Kimball. “Would you want your kids to be fighting under the authority and the likes of Hassan Maloof?”
Firat ran a lip over his drying lips. “Of course not.”
Then Kimball used the tip of his Glock and gently tapped the glass over the image of Firat’s wife. “And if she was alive, would she approve such a life for your children? To follow such a man into Darkness for which there is no return?”
“No.”
“So how much, Firat, is too much before you see the light of your actions.”
Firat’s shoulders began to slump. “I’ve enough to last ten life times,” he said.
“If this is so, Firat, what should you do?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want the truth.”
“About?”
“About what’s more important: A father who lives and raises his children and looks after their welfare? Or should the children grow up under the caring eyes and tutelage of someone else who believes in the good of all things, without the monster of a father who cherishes the value of money more, even when he has enough to last him for ten life times?”
Firat broke at this point. “I love my children.”
“Or do you love money more? Which one is it?”
Firat nodded. “My children are everything to me.”
“Really?” Kimball gave the Syrian a long, hard stare before he holstered his weapon. “If they’re everything to you, Firat, let them see your actions as a good man ...And not the monster that you’ve become.” Kimball stood up, the man a tower of muscle.
“You’re going to let me live?”
Kimball walked towards the door without looking back at Firat. “Children need a father when they don’t have a mother in their lives. So listen to me when I say this, Firat, and listen clearly.” He placed his hand on the door’s lever. “Change your ways. Because the only way you live today is because of your children. Whereas the world doesn’t need people like you, your children do. So don’t make me regret my decision about letting you live. And trust me. If I find out that you’re still in the game, I’ll hunt you down and kill you—kids or no kids. You got that?”
“I understand. But a question?”
Kimball continued to keep his hand on the lever. “What.”
“If you’re not from the CIA, the Mossad or Interpol, who are you?”
Though Firat could not see Kimball’s face, Kimball gave a cheeky grin.
“Haven’t you heard,” he told him. “Apparently I’m a magician in your land.” With that Kimball pushed down on the lever and opened the door.
And as Firat sat in the room sitting among the dead, he realized that his life had just been spared by the Devils’ Magician.
* * *
Firat Rashi raced down the corridors sidestepping the bodies that Kimball had dropped. Most were dropped where they stood. Others lay in odd configurations, their moments of death quick as muscle tensions eased almost immediately upon bullet’s impact.
Sweating profusely while calling out the names of his children, Firat took the last turn and saw Nabil lying dead in front of the children’s bedroom door. He was sitting against the wall with a leg crossed underneath the other, and his chin resting on his chest. In his hand was the Desert Eagle, though unused. And there was a bloodless bullet wound above the left eye of his simian brow that had been cauterized around its edges when the round entered his skull. Firat opened the bedroom door and cried out to his children, the man screaming maniacally.
“Papa!” The voice was that of his son, young and undeveloped.
Inside the closet were all three huddled together.
Opening his arms wide, Firat Rashi took his young son and two daughters into his embrace while sobbing with thankfulness.
The Devil’s Magician was true to his word. He had not harmed the children.
Now it was up to Firat if he wanted to challenge the Devil’s Magician once more or change his ways.
>
He chose the latter.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
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It was midnight as Kimball walked the streets with a face he had forgotten about, that of being slick with the warmth and wetness of gore that had dried to the color of burgundy. His beard had been caked with it, the fibers of his hair now clinging together by the glue of dried blood. Yet he wandered the streets aimlessly, his mission done with no course or direction now that he had finished what he had promised to do.
What now? He asked himself. What will I do?
Then he raised his right hand which seemed to tremble involuntarily. A drink, he thought. I need a drink.
Then he continued to walk the streets until his thoughts finally settled on Shari Cohen. In his mind’s eye, which brought a smile to his lips, he could see her beautiful face and eyes that shined like newly-minted pennies. He could see the point of her widow’s peak as well, something he always thought enhanced her beauty. Then he whispered: “Shari.”
Finding a spot far from a cone of light that was being cast from a street lamp, Kimball sat within the shadows and leaned his back against the wall of a building. Removing his phone from his pocket, he stared at it for a very long moment. Then as he turned on the phone in the shadows, the light from the screen flared to cast eerie lines and shadows against his burgundy-colored features. Bringing up the contact list, Kimball sighed as courage escaped him, and hit a single button.
The phone began to ring.
All you have to do is say one word, he thought. All you have to say is ‘hello.’ That’s it. Hello.
On the third ring the phone connected. “Hello.” It was Shari Cohen, the sweet sound of her voice like nectar to him.
Though his lips could not move, though he could not utter a sound, Kimball held a conversation with her in his mind. Hi, Shari? It’s me. Kimball. How are you?
“Is someone there?”
I know you rejected me because you think there’s a savage side to me, but guess what?
