Aswa-da stared at Sabena as she applied the cream. For Earth technology, it really was incredible. Stein-Muller’s biomimetic, programmable, self-reproducing nanocytes could create synthetic skin cells over the top of existing skin. Stein-Muller had used biomimicry to evoke a similar process as the one a chameleon powers up to change its exterior skin to match its surroundings. The difference was that the change was not to match the wearer’s environment but instead would match the face on the app program. Aswa-da could see all Sabena had to do was select the identity she wanted on her phone app, smooth the cream into her face and click on ‘activate’. The selected face would then be built from the self-reproducing nanocytes that stretched across Sabena’s skin in the face cream.
Sabena was literally undercover as the stunningly beautiful Ms. Sara Allesandro-Garcia, a reclusive, extremely wealthy Spanish heiress who now lived in Texas. She exhorted strong patriotism and passionate Republican values. Her sizable donation to the fundraising benefit dinner attended by President Treeborne assured her a position at the top table.
Despite the vigorous vector scans, Stein-Muller’s nano-mask held up and Ms. Allesandro-Garcia was greeted warmly by the president’s aides, who facilitated her meeting. Sabena turned on her charm. By the end of the evening, the president had fully succumbed to her simple but potent signals. As coffee and liqueurs were served, the president laid a hand on Sabena and suggested, “Further discussion about how she could help the party,” with a twinkle in his eye.
Aswa-da observed Treeborne and Sabena enter the Presidential Suite in the hotel. The door slammed after the Secret Services had checked and cleared the room. Before they left, they gave a terse, “We’ll be outside, Mr. President.”
Treeborne threw Sabena onto the bed, tore her clothes off and mounted her with a brutish disregard. She was no more than a piece of meat for his enjoyment. Aswa-da smirked and moved his hand in his usual elliptical motion to speed up events on screen.
Sabena pulled herself out of Treeborne’s clutches and disappeared into the bathroom. Inside, she applied lipstick. She smiled, enjoying the reflection of her gorgeously naked body. She noticed the cuts and bruises caused by the president’s violent attentions.
“I’ll make you pay, you motherfucker,” she sneered.
Aswa-da watched Treeborne grab her and she pushed up her lips to kiss him. His lids fell a little, and Sabena maneuvered him back to the bed, where his eyes closed completely. Aswa-da wondered what she’d given him. The sentient crystals within the Observation Screen delivered directly to his databanks. They revealed that Sabena had used a fast-acting methohexital sedative to place him into lullaby land.
Sabena scooted over to the table and took out her compact from her bag. It was also a bug sweeper. She scanned the room. Aswa-da saw her subconsciously nod, and she pulled out her mascara, turned the bottom, and pulled out what looked like a miniature pen drive. The president’s laptop sat on the table.
Sabena flipped up the screen and powered it up. The laptop had been in sleep mode and it popped up with a password page. Sabena inserted the drive. Aswa-da didn’t immediately know what she was doing, but the Observation Screen sentient crystals filled his databanks with immediate knowledge. The drive had connected to Al Nadir’s super node network and the software that Al Nadir’s Japanese scientists had perfected streamed down. The algorithm that used next generation pairing-cryptography broke into the backdoor of the president’s laptop. The crypto-analysis function that the software initiated was the equivalent to spoofing the authority of the information system administrator.
Wanting to get closer to see what Sabena was doing, Aswa-da twirled his finger, and he was wrapped in the darkened Presidential Suite. Sabena requested a password reset and entered in her own password. This password would never be seen. Aswa-da knew Sabena would reset it again, after gaining access to default, to its original password.
The desktop screen came up displaying various folders. In the top right-hand corner of the screen, a small red dot appeared. It flashed continuously, signifying its connection to Al Nadir’s super node network, and that it was copying the entire contents of the laptop direct to a server thousands of miles away.
Sabena stole a quick look back at the president, who snored peacefully behind her. The dot flashed black, denoting that the server had sucked out all the data. Sabena clicked on the black dot, severing the connection, and initiated the reset of the password back to its original. Her task complete, Sabena withdrew the drive and put the laptop back into sleep mode.
Aswa-da watched as Sabena pressed a small raised area on the pen drive’s front and waited. The drive, Aswa-da recognized, had been created from a nano-tech material. As he watched, it suddenly started to break down. Its internal structure imploded until all that was left of the drive was golden glitter. With a swift motion, she delicately collected the glitter into a tissue. Taking another tissue, she wiped off her lipstick, screwed both tissues into a ball, and hurled them into the toilet. She flushed and grinned, watching the tissues float away.
Sabena pulled on her dress. Her panties and bra were in tatters so she left them. Aswa-da turned, following Sabena’s eye, as she stared with hatred at Treeborne.
Before Sabena vacated the suite, she scribbled a note beside the telephone.
Thank you, Mr. President, for such a wondrous and enlightening experience. S x.
Aswa-da jumped forward to Salim sitting in front of his laptop, staring at the files taken from Treeborne’s computer. He was in his study in Sanctum, the Al Nadir-owned island retreat in the Caribbean, and sun streamed in through the French windows. Salim clicked on Project David. He sped read the information and realized it was the file he’d been searching for. Aswa-da could see his eyes lighting up. His mouth grew wide into a massive smile. He looked across at a tall woman with a strong physique in a cropped top and mini skirt that barely covered her ass.
“Sabena, babes, I’ve found it! It’s a quantum fucking bomb!”
“It’s not?” yelled Sabena, running over to see the evidence of this revelation.
“It is and it’s gonna be mine.”
Sabena leapt into Salim’s lap. “What have you got planned, darling? Are you going to steal it?”
Salim pointed to the screen. A big boned guy with white hair was in a photograph in a lab with Treeborne. “Uh, uh. No way. I’m going into the family insurance business. This guy, Dr. Ross Whyte, he’s going to be my first client!”
Aswa-da moved his hand in his usual elliptical motion and fast forwarded to March 21, 2017. He watched as Al Nadir operatives, armed with MAC 10 slung across their chests stormed Ross’ home. They sedated and snatched his wife, daughter and son. The three men hauled their bodies into the back of a van and sped away. The entire exercise took no more than a minute, and was executed with military precision.
Aswa-da was aware that the intruders were Al Nadir and that the next scenes would be brutal. He didn’t need to see them. But, like a kid chewing on a toffee after being told not to eat sweets by his dentist, Aswa-da couldn’t help but immerse himself in the sick depravity of the intruders. Throughout the family’s ordeal, Aswa-da smirked, enjoying the scenes and reveling in the descent of the human soul.
Aswa-da took the observations forward to Ross sitting in his car. Ross watched his family assassinated and then he was shot almost in parallel.
Cleaning up their mess, thought Aswa-da with a grin.
Red Sox t-shirt man got out of the car and went straight into a black Cadillac SUV with darkened windows with the other shooter. They drove away rapidly.
In the Cadillac, Red Sox t-shirt man made a call.
“Dr. Al Douri, we have it. On our way to the jet now.”
Aswa-da switched to observe the recipient of the call, Salim. He lounged on his private sun terrace situated on the roof top of his huge private and heavily secured mansion in Dubai, overlooking crystal waters and sweeping golden sands.
Sabena, in the other lounger, lent over,
her slender fingers dancing up his leg in a teasing fashion.
“I reckon someone’s going to have a tantrum tonight,” purred Sabena.
Al Douri smirked and yanked Sabena onto him. His legs intertwined with hers, gripping and holding her tight against him.
“Yeah. That little fucker, Treeborne. He’s going to be crying like a baby!”
Aswa-da twirled his finger again and he was back in the Observation Room. He stared at Salim and Sabena. He hadn’t planned it that way. But he was still satisfied by this new dynamic. He knew his path hadn’t been changed.
If anything, the path was more defined now that Salim had come into Aswa-da’s playground.
Chapter 69
Quentin had met Ellie on various Foreign Office occasions and evening soirees. He couldn’t bring himself to consider, even in the remotest sense, that Ellie was a terrorist. She was so lovely, so bubbly and so enchanting that she couldn’t possibly be a threat to national security.
“You can’t suspect his wife?” he said.
Maide didn’t confirm or deny, only held up the pen drive. “I’m going to show you this.”
The MI6 head slipped the drive into a concealed slot in the wood panel of his desk.
The surveillance devices planted in Sam and Ellie’s apartment were movement sensitive, only transmitting and recording when movement was detected. On the wide screen plasma tv embedded into an oak alcove situated in front of Maide’s desk juddered into life. The scene showed Ellie walking to the door and greeting Sam. Maide raised an eyebrow at Quentin, and pressed fast forward on his laptop. The scenes sped forward. Darkness took over the screen, and then suddenly loud clubbing music burst out. On screen, the first camera view hopped to another camera set at ninety degrees as movement was tracked. The view showed a beautiful, naked woman dancing around a handsome, naked man. Quentin recognized Sam and Ellie immediately.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, Justin. This isn’t right.”
“Neither was Sarah Masters. Shut up, Quentin. Don’t be so wet. I’m not interested in that. Watch what happens later.”
Maide pushed the scenes into super-fast forward. Naked bodies melded. Scenes changed. The view switched to static darkness. Then Ellie appeared. The cameras tracked her movement to the kitchen. Quentin looked quizzically at Maide.
“Where are you going with this?”
“Just watch,” Maide replied mysteriously, and he turned back to the screen.
Quentin shrugged and did the same. After a few moments of Ellie pouring water from a bottle down her throat and boiling the kettle Quentin asked, “Excuse me Justin, but so far, she doesn’t seem to be much of a threat to national security.”
“I told you to watch, didn’t I? So watch!” snapped Maide, furious.
Quentin looked back at the screen, still preoccupied with Maide’s attitude. But he saw that Ellie who had been drinking a cup of coffee, suddenly had started to speak.
“Who’s she talking to?
Maide hit pause. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Could it be Sam?”
“No, it’s not him. Bedroom surveillance has him still asleep.”
“So who?” asked Quentin. “Did they have guests?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” muttered Quentin.
“Watch the rest. I assure you there will be more questions to ask.”
Maide pressed play.
Speaking to an empty kitchen, Ellie looked terrified. Her eyes took on a crazed blankness, and she froze to the spot. Then, without warning, she let forth a blood-chilling scream, and pitched forward as if she was trying to move away from something. The coffee mug she was holding tilted and spilled its boiling contents across her hand.
Maide paused again. Quentin stared at the scream, amazed.
“Our analysts have taken this apart but we can’t find out why she screamed.”
“Surely it’s the coffee.” Quentin stared, distracted by Ellie’s frozen features. She looked like a woman facing death.
“No, it’s not the coffee,” said Maide. “She screamed before it spilt.”
Quentin rationalized Maide’s words. He was right. Ellie had screamed involuntarily. It was as though she could see something unseen by the cameras.
“Could it be an insect? A spider, perhaps?” suggested Quentin, still mesmerized by Ellie’s face of fear.
“We thought of that, but our analysis came up with nothing.”
“What was it she said? ‘I’m listening.’ Do you think she was wired up?”
“Why say it otherwise? And then she says, ‘Tell me what you want.’ It seems to me that someone was giving her instructions.”
“But her last words ‘What is too far gone?’ don’t seem to fit. The pattern is wrong,” said Quentin, struggling with his own rapid analysis.
“It would fit if Al Nadir was telling her to take action on something that was ‘too far gone.’ Maybe her relationship with Sam?”
“You think she’s a deep cover assassin?” Quentin asked.
“Well, put it like this,” said Maide, “a real, loving wife doesn’t lie to her husband…”
Quentin finished the thought. “Unless she has something to hide.”
Chapter 70
Hours after Sabena heard they had the quantum bomb, she’d disengaged herself from Salim and left the glorious sun terrace in Dubai to head back to her new Cambridgeshire base. Aboard her private Gulfstream jet, heading back to the UK, she smiled to herself as she replayed the call over and over in her head, and let the force of the sparse words sink in. The team she’d hand-picked for the job of acquisition had delivered. Granted, they’d always been a touch psychotic, and often damaged the goods whilst getting to the action, but she couldn’t penalize them for that, not when they had a hundred percent success rate.
And anyway, given the opportunity, she always did the same thing. A little damage goes a long way in getting the target to pony up with what they wanted.
Sabena sneered, remembering how things had panned out in life. Salim and Al Nadir would bring her power. Of that, she had always been certain. But what degree of power? That had always been something of an unknown.
Now of course, she knew.
She had met Salim during her time at Cambridge. They’d hit it off immediately, seeing in each other a need to express, experiment and go beyond the boundaries of acceptance.
Sabena smiled playing out in her mind the first time she’d seen Salim.
October 8, 1987. Sabena had just started Cambridge University. She loved being out of Sicily. Free from her cloying parents, always keeping their eye on her, Sabena was determined to have fun, but one look around her on the first day of Semester and Sabena knew she’d have to alter her plans. Surrounded by prissy, public school pricks who only knew one kind of shafting, she reconciled herself to heading down to pub to get a taste of the 'local cuisine'.
But then, he got up and spoke. Sabena had been in a seminar class. His words echoed a defiance of everything, an abject abhorrence to convention. Although his delivery focused on particle physics, the sound of his voice set Sabena alight.
She sat transfixed, in awe of this arrogant, brilliant beast. As beautiful in mind as he was in body.
Sabena knew the guy must have sensed something. With his feral instincts on overdrive, he looked over. His eyes burned into Sabena, captured her and imprisoned her. In one single look. It wasn't like a crush, or even a deep attraction. This was base desire. Animal lust. His eyes sucked Sabena in.
And all she could feel was need. Hot, sticky insatiable need, rising inside her.
The guy was living perfection, and Sabena wanted nothing more than to shatter that exquisiteness to pieces. To feel him lose control, such that he could.
Sabena vowed at that moment, she would ride him until he was broken and belonged totally to her.
The seminar had finished, but Sabena was still caught up in her salacious thoughts.
“It's Sa
lim.”
Like spacetime had doubled on itself, he suddenly stood in front of her.
“Sabena.”
Her proffered hand was ignored.
He looked at Sabena, his eyes drilling deep to touch the core of her being.
“I will take you so hard you will cry for mercy.”
His words left Sabena speechless.
The furnace she’d been stoking throughout the seminar exploded. Sabena was certain Salim could see the reaction in her eyes, for he grabbed her hair roughly and pushed his lips upon hers with a savage intensity. It was unlike anything she’d so far experienced with other guys of his age.
They never made it to the next tutorial.
Salim, she knew, was a creature of the dark. Pain was his ultimate pleasure. And, oh boy, did Sabena scream on that first assignation. He’d been right about that. Though not as a result of his deliciously violent violation. She’d screamed because she’d finally found her match.
Her true soul mate.
A man carved from the very coals of Hell itself. As she was.
After a few months together, it became obvious to Sabena that a one-on-one relationship for Salim would never be enough. He liked to share and was flexible in his leanings.
Intuitive in the ways of psychology, Sabena realized very quickly the one way to win Salim’s eye was to raise the bar further. When word reached Salim of her hedonistic, drug-fueled orgies, his interest piqued. The more salacious and sadistic the sound bites, the more enraptured he became of Sabena.
Sabena understood winning Salim over completely would never be easy.
Whatever way Sabena looked at Salim, he was not your average nineteen-year-old. With his private plane on standby, his speedboat, sports car, in town penthouse, out of town country pile and a string of staff ready to service his every whim, Salim Al Douri even back then had been an industry unto himself.
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