Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1)

by Dana Arama

  “Just make sure she warns her staff as well.” Gideoni ignored my last question and added, “He promised her that he will burn down the place.”

  I caressed Zorro’s cheekbone and the soft, delicate skin above her ear. A hint of a smile crossed her lips. I said, “She will warn them and if it’s up to me, she will come to the Israeli embassy. I know she is important to you.” I ran my fingers through her hair and then remembered. I said, “You wanted to talk to me about that British school…”

  “Yes. About that. It is important for you to know that the Americans have received the information and are working in that direction. We have our directions,” Gideoni said. “It is not just any private school, but one situated in a village owned by a certain nobleman.”

  “What’s so special about him?” I inquired.

  “We’ll get to that…” I heard him hit the keyboard, then he said, “Arthur Nicholas Graham the eighth. He inherited a fortune, a knighthood and a huge estate which includes farmlands and a whole village. The above has three children. The eldest is twenty-seven. Arthur Yassin Graham, the ninth. He is married and has a little boy aged five. The family has been in our sights since the 1990s, when Arthur Nicholas Graham the eighth converted to Islam.”

  “Became a Muslim?” I repeated this unexpected piece of information and immediately understanding the dimensions of the problem. “You said that he had converted already in the nineties?” Zorro got up quietly off the bed, wrapped herself in the sheet and took her cell phone out of her bag. She signaled to me that she was going outside to make a call and I nodded my head.

  “Exactly,” Gideoni answered my question. “He converted over twenty years ago before Islam re-entered Europe. Long before it became popular the way it is now.”

  “Since when has he been on our radar?”

  “Since forever. This family has always been in our sights, but ever since Yassin visited Iraq, they have been under close surveillance. Since you mentioned the name of this specific school, we increased surveillance.”

  “Do we have men in there as well?”

  He laughed. “We don’t spy on regular civilians in allied countries, but there are over a thousand employees in that estate. Yes, you heard correctly. A thousand workers. Amongst them there are quite a few workers who are certain that they are guarding the queen, but before the information arrives at the correct intelligence British department and after it leaves the estate, it stops for an hour or two at a third party. We have increased our forces. Graham the ninth’s wife’s maid has fallen in love with one of our agents. He entered her life like a storm and has taken her off on a romantic holiday to Paris. Someone from our forces has taken her place temporarily.”

  “And has this someone supplied us with any information?”

  “The relevant information was that Yassin demanded that his wife and son join him in the United States.”

  “When?”

  “Immediately but not later than in two days.”

  “So that could be our D-Day. That is great. What’s our plan?”

  “First of all, to plant GPS devices on all their suitcases and on them as well. Her and the kid. To spray them with poison which will give them signs of contagious flu. If Yassin catches the flu, their whole gang will catch it too and then their plan will be on hold. If they don’t go to the hospital, they will lie there helpless. If she takes her maid, we will be all set.”

  “You do remember that Jonathan is with them? That this terrorist cell he has been handed over to is Yassin’s.”

  “I certainly remember,” he sighed and added, “We have an antidote for him. Don’t worry!”

  “We must give it to him once we reach him. What about tracing him through the hotels? Yassin doesn’t seem to be the type to go for anything less than five stars.”

  “We have scanned all of them. All the boutique hotels, all the five stars, all the four stars and now we are scanning the three stars as well. The situation is harder than you can imagine because he also has the reputation of a playboy. The social network is full of information and we are following and checking up on every new location and everything new he posts there. Jonathan is not part of it.”

  “Could it be that someone from behind the scenes is running everything? Maybe someone who is accompanying him like a faithful lap dog.”

  “The signs point to something like that. As if he has a double life. A playboy living the life of a terrorist. He may have someone who does the dirty work for him. That is also something we are looking into.”

  “Any real estate?”

  “They do have a few homes in the United States, amongst them the penthouse his wife is supposed to be staying in. We pretended to be from the fire department to give a safety check, so we already swept the penthouse thoroughly. Yassin and Jonathan weren’t there. The apartment is filled with surveillance cameras now, 24/7.”

  “What about real estate like warehouses or factories?”

  “It is being checked out. Every avenue is being investigated, every lead followed. They have enough businesses to prop up the GDP of a small country.”

  “So, our only hope is the wife.”

  “If it is not through them, it will be through the suitcases.” Gideoni stopped and promised quietly, “We will find him!” Something about his voice gave me confidence that this affair would end without casualties. Little did I know, that in less than twenty-four hours the predicament would turn into a family tragedy.

  Guy Niava,

  The United States, November 14, 2015, 11:32 p.m.

  Zorro decided to remain in Mexico, a decision which worried me more than I could have anticipated. “I have to come to some sort of agreement with him,” she explained, while getting dressed. “I need it for my people. It isn’t right that he should threaten my people, my kitchen staff, the girls. I’ll settle all that, then I will flee to a safe place.”

  “What will you do? You are aware that any contact with him puts you in danger, right?”

  “You are aware that I have life insurance, the sort that goes with contacts in opposing cartels and any harm he inflicts upon me will endanger his life as well?”

  “So, what kind of understanding are you going to reach with him?”

  She smiled. “That I work for him, maybe do an errand or two… Anything he may think of or need. Oh, and that he burns down my club, of course. His woman demanded it of him and that is what she will get.”

  “The club – Yes. But not the people inside it.” I was glad to hear that she had her two feet firmly on the ground. “And the monetary compensation will come from another source?”

  “Of course. The agreement we reach will be on the sum of the compensation.”

  “And the risk?” I wasn’t making it easy for her. We both knew that there were no free meals, and there was risk to contend with as well.

  “The risk I can think of,” a smile rose upon her lips but stopped before reached her eyes, “is that he will want to seek revenge for my betrayal, because I brought you to his lair. In that case he will kill me. Not because she asked, but because he wants to.”

  At that moment, I realized that there was a chance I would never see her again and realized how much I disliked the idea. I suddenly understood how Gideoni had fallen so deeply in love with her.

  ***

  The east coast welcomed us with an oppressive gloom that matched our general mood. A fat cloud broke above us and the rain poured down onto the asphalt and then disappeared silently. The plane landed at a small airport and a car was waiting for us there. Laura went with her team who were waiting for her in the office, and I went to my brother and Michelle’s house, to the too quiet house in their quiet neighborhood, where a beloved boy was still missing.

  I asked the driver to stop at the end of the road and traveled the last stretch by foot. I saw the cop guarding the house from a distance. The idiot
was standing in the dark and looking at his cell phone. He was covering it with his hand, but the device lit up his whole face. But that wasn’t the stupidest part. His idiocy stemmed from the fact that there were two men sitting in a car on the other side of the street, watching the house, and he hadn’t noticed.

  I hid my bag next to the fence of one of the houses and made my way slowly to the car. The streetlamps lit the pavements and the raindrops were like thousands of shiny drops of light, but by walking alongside the fences near the houses, I could stay in relative darkness. I tried to memorize the license plate, but from my angle, I couldn’t quite make out all the numbers and letters. It didn’t matter, because by then I had come up with another plan. I could have opened the car door and taken out either the driver or the passenger next to him, but I was without a weapon and they no doubt had guns. Another problem that I would need to overcome, but one that would cause me to make a federal offense of an attack. I really wanted to avoid that at all costs. It would lead to me being kept away from the investigation. So I chose the second option. I sidled up to the car, and as soon as I was close enough, I took a picture of the license plate number. The flash of the camera reflected in their rearview mirror and in seconds they had started the car and zoomed away.

  I went back to get my bag and ran across the road. The cop stopped me. I showed my credentials and he let me go towards the door, but not before he notified the cop inside the house that I was about to enter. It was late in the evening and an especially quiet Saturday night. It was freezing outside in the November gloom, and the cold came from outside to take over the living room of the house.

  The cop on duty inside the house quickly turned off his phone as if it was forbidden to look at during work hours. Maybe their orders didn’t allow them to. I wasn’t there to keep an eye on him.

  “It is hard in Paris today, hey?” His voice broke the silence of the house. Except for the occasional rattle of the police radio, the stillness was like that of a grave. It was no wonder that they were so interested in their phones. The television set in the house was silent and they wanted some connection to the news around them from the outside world.

  “Very difficult,” I answered.

  “They must be caught before they bomb us as well.”

  I nodded and then asked, “Where are they?”

  “In his study,” he answered and looked towards the room in question. “Do you think you could ask them to turn the heat up a bit?

  “I’ll take care of it,” I answered, without looking his way. I put my bag down and made my way to the study. It had only been two days since I last put foot in the house, but they seemed to have aged ten years. It killed me. All the power and the goodwill from the American side and the Israeli side we had gathered to look for Jonathan and we still hadn’t found him yet.

  I put a hand on my brother’s shoulder and hugged his wife. She was smaller, as if the stress and grief had shrunken her. “You’re cold,” I said. “We have to warm the place up a bit.”

  She answered in a broken voice, “He is cold too.”

  “It won’t help him if you catch pneumonia.” I went to the wall and turned on the heat.

  “You also look tired.”

  “I am okay,” I answered and then added, “My trip wasn’t for nothing. I have a lead.”

  “Oh, Guy. I wish…” There was a tear at the corner of her eye. She held onto my hand, refusing to let go. I loved and respected her. She was a well-regarded dentist in Israel and had managed to do well here in the United States. She had opened up a successful private practice. I realized she was hanging onto me with some force, so that she wouldn’t break down, and I respected her even more for that strength.

  “I want to make a few calls and see how things are coming along here, okay?”

  “You do what you have to do. You are cooperating with the local authorities, right?”

  “Of course. Everything is legal, so please don’t worry about me. I’m going up to my room to make the call.”

  The room was tidy, warm and inviting, which accentuated even more the ache of Jonathan’s absence. I laid down my small bag, the one I had taken with me to Mexico, and pulled out my big suitcase. I opened it and removed a device that blocked wiretapping. These were the kind of toys I loved having on me and their usefulness had been proven more than once. If there was one car I’d seen, then maybe there were more I hadn’t picked up on. I switched on the device and then dialed.

  My first call was to Laura. “Someone was watching the house. Could you run a license plate?”

  “Of course. Give me the plate number and I’ll have it run immediately.”

  I opened the picture I had taken from my phone and read out the number to her. “Have you managed to connect Yassin to this affair?” I asked.

  “Actually, no. I am not sure we’ll manage to find anything, because I am not sure we have anything against him.”

  “Have you checked his movements from the time he landed in the States?”

  “From the time he landed and even before then, on the plane. He’s continuously updated his social media with photos of himself and of those who accompanied him. He is a playboy and not a terrorist.”

  “What do you mean?” I couldn’t understand how the Mossad viewed him as a completely different character and Laura saw him as a playboy. “He could easily command people to operate from afar,” I suggested.

  “I can send you links. This guy doesn’t stop uploading photos of himself with models in bathing suits all over the world, with animals in his castle, with dangerous hobbies. Definitely a playboy and not a terrorist.”

  “From the moment he landed?” I insisted. “Have you checked every minute?”

  “We have checked. There are reports.”

  “His conversations, emails… Everything is being monitored?”

  She was silent and then cleared her throat. “I think I should remind you that you are in the United States of America and here we don’t listen in on private calls unless we have a justified cause.”

  “So do you at least know where he is?”

  She hesitated. “It seems quite difficult to track him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he is always on the move. From area to area. His reports on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook don’t always coincide with his whereabouts. There is always a delay of a day or so. If there is a party, they take pictures and upload them later.”

  “They?”

  “Yes… Him, the models, his friends, his team. One never-ending party. He is living the good life, believe me.”

  “What about his phones? Trace them the good, old-fashioned way. Not through social media. It’s selective, he shows only what he wants to expose.”

  “We don’t have grounds to request a tap on his phone. And to trace him via his cell phone is a joke, as there are over a dozen phone numbers registered to his name.”

  “I don’t understand…” I put my hand to my head. My hair was long. I liked it short and bristly. I hadn’t had time to have it trimmed before we’d left for Mexico. “Could you get back to me on the car registration?”

  “In a few minutes.”

  I put the cell phone down and closed my eyes. Not even two minutes had passed before the phone vibrated next to me. I opened my eyes and checked the number. It was Laura.

  “Reporters.”

  “I thought they put a ban on publicizing the affair?”

  “They are not allowed to publish. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t allowed to collect information.” She was silent for a moment and then said, gently, “This is not Israel. Freedom of speech is upheld above all. It is hard to put an injunction for an indefinite period of time. Maybe you should warn your family.”

  “Maybe I should,” I answered. I didn’t like the idea that, on top of the pressure they were feeling, there would be the added nu
isance of invasive reporters. From my previous experience with Gabriella and her affair, I knew how much pressure the reporters could exert. I thanked Laura and hung up.

  Another vibration sounded on the little dresser next to my bed. It was a text message saying, “She has woken up.” That was it. For the past few days, a temporary nurse had been working in a certain hospital, in a certain ward, where a battered woman named Ashley Holding had been hospitalized. She had been by her side in every free moment she had, so that she would know before the investigators outside that Ashley had awoken. Ashley was the last person to have seen Jonathan. He was kidnapped on his way to her, maybe even from her house. If someone knew what had happened there, it would be Ashley Holding.

  I called the number that had sent the text message. “Can she talk?” Since the moment I had seen Ashley sprawled out on the floor in her tiny apartment, all I wanted to know was if she recognized her assailant, and if Jonathan had been with her.

  “She says she has information…” The agent hesitated, then continued. “But she is insisting on talking only with you.”

  “Will I be allowed to go into her room?”

  “If you had asked me yesterday or the day before, I would have said that with the help of Gideoni, yes, maybe. But after the news from Paris I doubt even that would help.”

  “I would have expected that they would want more cooperation. After all, we were the ones supplying the clear and sharp warnings.”

  “In this war of egos of the intelligence agencies, there is only one winner and that is the enemy.”

  I glanced at my watch. “Prepare a cover for me and we will meet at the morgue in thirty minutes.”

  I got off the bed, got dressed and went downstairs. My brother also appeared, dressed. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To the university.” His eyes were puffy, and the stubble covering his face gave him the look of a tired, old man. We were so similar that it sometimes felt like looking in a mirror and seeing oneself thirty years on. “I have a commitment I must honor.”