Baksheesh (Bribes)

by D S Kane

  It was how they’d started each date, as if the reassurance was needed. This was the third date, and the second time at this restaurant. She knew reassurance wasn’t needed. When she looked at him, what she saw was the man who’d been her major in the field of battle so many years ago, with thick brown hair and a tiny waist for a giant. She didn’t have to try hard not to see the wider waist and gray hair now on his head. She smiled back. “I find spending time with you a joy. I didn’t know I could be so happy again.”

  As the sun set, the couple held hands under the table while busy wait staff rushed around carrying trays of food. The aromas were delicious. He drew himself erect in the chair. Reached forward. Pulled back his left hand. Touched her right hand with his. She noticed his left hand disappearing into the pocket of his blue sport jacket. She was sure something was about to happen. She wondered, now almost sure and filled with anticipation. His lips moved without words. Finally, the words came. “I have found new purpose in my life since we began spending precious hours together. I hunger for more. So deep is my desire, that, I, I uh—”

  He pulled the hand from his pocket. It held a compact black velvet case, which he flipped open using one hand’s fingers. “I want to marry you.” And he watched her, waiting.

  Her face filled with the surprise she felt. But also happiness. “And were I to do this, what would you expect of me? Would I leave Mossad? Retire from banking? Sell my condo in Manhattan? Come to live with you in Washington? How would we work this?”

  He sighed, showing his disappointment. “I now own The Swiftshadow Group. I need a treasurer, someone with extensive banking experience and global contacts. You could be my link to Mossad, our most important client. I don’t just want to marry you. I also want a partner in my life. Someone to work with me.”

  Her jaw dropped a tiny bit. She shook her head with a sly smile. “A married couple, no, newlyweds, working together? It’s a recipe for disaster! Avram, you’re a sweet man, my dream man, but let’s make this easier. How about I say ‘yes’ to your marriage proposal? I do believe I’m I love with you. Probably have been since the day we met, before I found that you were married and had a family.” She buried her face within her hands, her thoughts private for a few seconds, remembering her life so long ago. “A few months ago, when I finally had an urgent professional reason to call upon you, well, it did warm these crippled bones.” She smiled. “But I never expected this.”

  He returned the smile and squeezed her hand. “So much has changed. I know what I’m proposing will be another change, a big one. Please consider moving to Washington. Be with me all the rest of our days.”

  She struggled to rise. He moved around the table to her. They hugged. Kissed gently. “Yes. I will marry you, be your bride, and leave New York. For you.” The kiss became more passionate. She could sense the young lieutenant commander that he once was, still alive deep inside. She knew he could feel the young and sexy woman that was once alive within her.

  He helped her back into her seat. Then settled again into his.

  She took extra time placing the napkin back into her lap. “What shall we order tonight?”

  He smiled. “Judy recommended the foie gras and some of their cellared wines, including a Pavillon Blanc du Chateau Margaux from 1985. I’ve already ordered that. Let’s order food to match.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Shimmel returned to Washington on the early Amtrak. In the cab from the station to the office, he still had a grin on his face from his night in Sandra’s bed. Both older, the night had been filled with problems: who would ride on top, what to do when one or the other tired. He giggled with delight in remembrance as his thoughts turned to their plans over breakfast for the pending wedding.

  The cabbie slowed outside the office entrance and he tossed bills into the tray sitting in the plexiglass window. As he exited the elevator and walked into the office’s lobby, he waved at Judy and headed down the aisle toward his office. Midway down the aisle, he grabbed a cup of coffee and opened the door to his office. Dropped his go bag in back of the desk, placed his coffee cup atop the desk, and lowered his bulk into his seat. He turned on the computer and opened his email program. There was marked urgent, and it was from Yigdal Ben-Levy:

  Avram—

  Received your message about the problem obtaining intel from BOT’s non-networked computers. I’ll take care of it. My sources tell me you’re about to marry one of our coverts. I’ll transfer her status to “inactive.” Congratulations! Of course you’ll have to invite me, and I’ll be delighted to attend.

  —YBL

  * * *

  Yigdal Ben-Levy sat in the conference room of the Israeli Embassy at 3514 International Drive NW, in Washington. His plate overflowed with serious problems, urgent problems. He’d need guidance from his superiors, permission to commit unspeakable crimes.

  He took a deep breath and tried in vain to relax. Looking through the bulletproof window to the quiet Cleveland Park neighborhood outside did him no good.

  He fiddled with the video controls, adjusting the contrast settings to accommodate the gray day peeking through the window shades. It was time. He hit the button that dialed a number in Tel Aviv. This conference call was beyond top secret classification and not even an A/V technician could be present. The Encryption-Lok buzz and howl signaled a handshake of the computers separated by ten thousand miles.

  He stared into the video-cam. “It’s Ben-Levy, reporting in. This communication is pursuant to national security plan aleph bet 11-72. Sending file gimmel-twelve now.” He pressed a button on the computer keyboard in front of him. “Please scan and answer my appeal. I’ll wait.” The request in the file was two sentences long. The entire attached file was a half page. Very short, considering the seriousness of the request.

  But he waited a long time, over twenty minutes. The head of one of the undersecretaries of state moved inside range of the vid-cam. “Yigdal, this is crazy. Your career will be over if I bring this to the Prime Minister.”

  He nodded solemnly. “And Israel may cease to exist if you don’t. Are you prepared for that?”

  There was a long silence. “All right. Wait.”

  Another hour passed. It was nearly midnight. The Prime Minister’s voice emitted a deep growl, angry words as he entered and walked toward the vid-cam. The undersecretary said something back to him, words muffled, their bodies facing away from the camera lens.

  The Prime Minister shook his head. “Yigdal, you’ve lost your mind. How can I commission an assassination of the President of the United States? It’s insane.”

  “You read the report. Our nation’s very existence, all the lives within are at stake.”

  “Yes. I understand. But this is not something I can commission.”

  At that moment, the code words flashed through Ben-Levy’s memory. The words can commission, spoken by the Prime Minister, meant the mission was a “go.”

  Ben-Levy nodded. “Okay then, message received. I’m sorry to have bothered you and thank you for even considering my request. Shalom, sir.”

  He terminated the call and walked from the room. Outside were five men and he beckoned them back into the conference room. He played the last two minutes of the recording from the secure vid-cam system.

  The five men nodded as he turned to them “You heard. Kill him. Kill President Mastoff.”

  CHAPTER 36

  April 26, 2:28 p.m.

  220 East Kirke Street,

  Chevy Chase, Maryland

  Sylvia Orley’s health had returned slowly. She’d redeveloped stamina enough to do most of what she used to. But she was on non-combatant status, drawing half pay. These days she didn’t have the energy to maul William every night. But, he still spent evenings and nights with her, watching movies and telling her awful jokes. Tonight they watched a classic, What’s New Pussycat. William had chosen it. He must have thought she’d be amused since it took place in Paris. She watched patiently. But it was a comedy. She would hav
e preferred a graphic, military film like D-Day or Back to Bataan. About halfway through the film, when Peter O’Toole confessed to his psychiatrist, played by Peter Sellers, she faced him. “Wheelyam, I am bored. Not just this movie. But I do not like to theenk. I like doing the things, and now I cannot, I just seet around…” She could feel tears welling.

  Wing took her hand. “Sorry, Syl. I’d hoped the movie would set the right tone. But I guess not.” He rolled off the couch in the living room of Cassie’s old house, now owned by the consulting company.

  Landing on his knees, he pulled a small velvet box from his jeans pocket. “I’d hoped to get you laughing first, but not at me. I still think of how I almost lost you. And now I realize I couldn’t face a life without you. Syl, I love you. Didn’t realize how much until, well…”

  He bore a desperate expression and she could see the perspiration on his face in the cool bedroom. He gulped and blurted out, “Would you object to marrying me? I know I’m not handsome or strong or dashing like your mercenary friends. But I will give you all the attention I’ve got. I’ll be there for you. Forever.” He waited for her to reply but her expression was unreadable. “What do you say?”

  Her face developed an amused expression. “So, a roll in the hay in Dubai does grow into sometheenk more. Eh? Well, let me theenk.” She sat back, a grin bursting through her serious expression until it split her face. “Okay. I am done theenking. I accept your proposal. Can we turn off thees stupid movie now?”

  * * *

  Five former members of the top secret Mem-Aleph-Gimmel—Mossad Assassination Group—exited the private aircraft terminal at Logan Airport and walked to the rented limo sitting on the tarmac for their drive to Harvard University where the President was scheduled to receive an honorary diploma. All were officially “retired” from their roles within the ultra-black ops section of the MAG. Now they worked as bodyguards for a friend’s friend. Lester Dushov, the oldest of them, was nearly fifty. He had expertise in chemistry for interrogation and killing. Shimon Tennenbaum’s was a PhD in psychology and hypnosis, useful in interrogation. Ari Westheim specialized in martial arts. Jacob David “JD” Weinstein was a master at explosives and automatic weapons. And Michael Drapoff was their resident tech expert working in telecommunications.

  They parked the car outside Harvard yard and mingled among the audience of press, local politicians, students, and citizenry, all there for the speech President Mastoff had publicized for the introduction of his proposed set of constitutional amendments.

  Mastoff walked to the outdoor podium wearing a cap and gown, holding his honorary diploma. He waved in response to the audience’s applause, surrounded by a team of Secret Service agents. “First, thank you, Harvard, for this honor.” He held the diploma aloft. “My fellow Americans, thank you for coming today, to hear my ideas on how our nation should express its values, and what we should represent to the rest of the world for the future.”

  In the back of the room, Lester whispered, “Is the fly ready?”

  Michael nodded. He turned to JD and softly said, “Load the cocktail.”

  Ari and Shimon used their bodies to provide cover for the action.

  JD opened the tiny box holding the electromechanical fly. Michael pressed a button on the remote control and the fly took off. It headed toward one of the flanking walls of the conference room, meandering as a real insect might, as if in search of food.

  At the front corner of the room, it landed on the corner of the back wall. Fifteen feet away from its target.

  The President waved his hand for emphasis. “The time has come for us as a country to recognize the importance of faith in our daily lives. Other countries have done this. Israel recognizes the importance of its faith in all its daily activities. And so does Iran. So does the Vatican. So must we. Guided by our God, we can know our faith is true, leading us forward to our most glorious destiny.”

  Lester faced the others. His voice was barely a whisper. “This is making me sick. Let’s get it done.”

  Michael nodded. “Target’s painted. Timer’s set. Out of here now.”

  The fly lifted off the wall and landed for less than a second on Mastoff’s neck. Then, it was gone and flew from the stage. As it reached two hundred meters away, it disintegrated into dust.

  The five men slowly moved away from each other. Every thirty seconds, another step to the side or backing further away from the stage. None of the team members listened to the President drone on. Ten minutes later each exited the Harvard Yard using a different gate through the yard’s brick wall.

  Once outside they meandered toward the parking lot. In ten more minutes they were five miles away, driving at three miles per hour above the speed limit, turning into side streets repeatedly before coming around to their primary heading, to ensure they weren’t followed.

  After an hour, Michael turned on the radio and tuned in to an all-news station.

  The male voiced they heard seemed excited. “Ohmigod. Here’s news from Boston. President Amos Mastoff has apparently suffered a heart attack and is being taken to the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.”

  A female chimed in. “An update just came over the wire. It’s a severe heart attack. The President was apparently unconscious and wheeled in on a porta-stretcher. He’s in a heavily guarded floor of the hospital.”

  Lester nodded. “He’ll take several hours to die. We need to be close by in case the poison doesn’t work as advertised. Let’s go to a hotel on Boylston Street and maintain distance about a mile away. I know a college bookstore near there, at Emerson.” When no one commented, he turned the car south.

  * * *

  This spring day in Manhattan was ideal for a walk. Jon Sommers carried an umbrella, swinging it more to impose his sense of being the essential Brit than to protect him from the rain that had stopped before the lunch hour. He entered the pub on Washington Street north of Wall Street and sought a dark booth in the back.

  The man waiting for him looked like an older version of himself. Both were dressed in conservatively tailored suits and both had Van Dyke beards adorning their faces. But where Sommers’s was a reddish brown, his handler’s was white-fleck gray. The older man held out his hand. In English with a slight Israeli accent, Yigdal Ben Levy whispered, “Thanks for arranging your schedule to meet mine. This will be ultra-black. We need access to BOT’s ledgers. Do you have someone in place?”

  Sommers nodded. As the bartender approached, Jon held up two fingers. “Lagavulin, 16-year, neat.” The bartender turned and Sommers pulled a single sheet of folded paper from his pocket. “I’ve a fem in the head office, in Karachi. Details on the page.”

  The bartender brought shot glasses each with a shot of golden smoky liquid. “Well?”

  Ben-Levy’s expression remained distant. “When do you expect results?”

  “Dunno. Quite likely a week or more. Course, I’ll do a electronic dead letter drop for you when I get a nibble. I’ll use Alternate Existence. Just like old times.”

  Ben-Levy nodded and took sip before he rose and left the booth. Sommers turned his eyes away from the door as it opened to keep the sudden daylight from blinding him. He called the bartender over again. “Lunch please. Steak and kidney pie.”

  He thought about the woman he’d recruited two years ago. She’d been bought for money and those were the most reliable covert NOCs. They’d met at the Ritz-Carlton’s restaurant in London, four years ago for their initial meet. It had cost the British government a few thousand pounds, but if it worked, well, he could give the same intel to both Tel Aviv and London. And his Brits would forward the intel on to US intelligence. They’d do almost anything to provide the Americans with an intel coup.

  CHAPTER 37

  April 26, 4:12 p.m.

  Bank of Trade headquarters,

  Lakhani Centre, on I. I. Chundrigar Road,

  Karachi, Pakistan

  Sandhia Sorab viewed her cellphone’s screen and it triggered the memory of her last encounter with
the glib Brit who had helped her in her time of need. That was a few years ago, and she thought she’d never hear from him again. The memory floated through her and dragged her back to when her brother was in danger:

  That evening she’d swept the hair from her face and stared at the notebook computer on the desk of her apartment room. She remembered the smells of curry and unwashed flesh filling the Karachi night but she’d felt comfortable in the dry and hot air as she’d keyed the email reply:

  Syed Ali Bosfara assigned me to repair station 6 in Funds Transfer. Found nothing in the incoming and outgoing transactions. Therefore, the transactions you seek must be “on us” and belong to accounts where the source and destination of funds are both within the bank. If this assumption proves true, there will be very few incoming or outgoing transactions and they will be extremely large amounts, probably hand-carried cash deposits and withdrawals at the teller window. Those computers are air-gapped. Files are transferred by hand; either keyed as input or transferred via computer mass-storage device. I cannot ask for reassignment to accounting where the records of the “on us” are kept. Please send me my payment as we agreed. And I expect to never hear from you again.

  She’d hit the Send button and then erased everything on the notebook relating to her work for Sommers. The money she’d expected to receive would make it possible for her to emigrate to the United States. She’d actually smiled. At that time, her brother ran the Al Qaeda cell in Cleveland. She remembered. And she shuddered.

  Now, her brother was dead. And Sommers’s new email glared at her from her notebook’s screen. The request was similar but even more dangerous than the one from two years ago.

  She growled as she keyed a reply to his current request.

  * * *

  Sommers read the email reply, grimaced, and pounded his fist against the desk. “Bloody twit!” He moved from the desk, paced his office, and threw his arms into the air. “Ah, shit.” What could he do now? She’d been promoted and was now out of the Finance Department. He needed someone to help, someone with access to the bank’s accounting records. And recruiting Sorab had taken over a year. Now, it was wasted work. He sat back down, put his hands below his chin, and thought. But nothing came to him.