A loud crack in the distance followed a full second after the would-be executioner’s head cocked back, and a large hole exploded out of the front of his neck. Casey once again dodged an assassin’s bullet as the exiting projectile passed through the man’s spinal cord and embedded in a tree ten yards away. Another shot rang out, followed by several smaller, but louder pops from the man who had been guarding Susan. He was returning fire in the direction of where the first shot originated, though Casey was certain he did not see what he was shooting at.
The short man crouched and tried to take cover behind a Spanish oak. The wood splintered near his head as the invisible marksman who saved Casey’s life fired another shot. The man had completely forgotten about Susan and Casey, instead, focusing all of his energy on the task of staying alive. He glanced over at his lifeless friend, looking for guidance or support, but finding none.
Susan was face-down, prone in the grass with her hands behind her head. It was an understandable reaction, though no one who found themselves in a similar situation truly expected their arms to deflect a bullet headed for their skull. It was a self-preservation instinct more than anything else. Casey looked for a more practical means of removing the threat.
He knew he was facing two separate dangers. One was the man firing blindly back towards the road they came from, the other was the mysterious shooter the man was firing at—the shooter who prevented Casey from catching a bullet himself. He couldn’t be sure if his savior was a friendly or not, but he knew for sure that the other man was definitely an enemy.
Casey remained on his knees after the shooting started. It seemed like fifteen minutes since Casey saw the man in the windbreaker collapse right in front of him, but it had only been about ten seconds. Casey looked at the dead man and saw that his hand still gripped the silenced pistol. He scrambled over and pried the gun away from the limp fingers—too soon for rigor mortis.
He was out in the open, but the short man was too busy dealing with his own immediate problems to even notice Casey off to his left. Casey took a one-knee shooting position and aimed for the man’s torso. He wanted as big a target as he could get. He took a deep breath, let half of the air out to steady himself, and gently, but evenly, squeezed the trigger.
The pistol quietly spat, getting gradually louder with each shot as Casey fired three more rounds in quick succession. Every shot lessened the effectiveness of the silencer a little more. Three of the four shots hit their marks, and the man fell in a heap. Casey ran to Susan and pulled her behind the same tree the short man was using for cover.
Susan was shaking as Casey sat next to her, their backs against the tree. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
Susan nodded her head and answered quietly, “Yes.”
Casey ejected the magazine of the pistol and counted only four rounds left. Plus one in the chamber. He re-inserted the magazine and took a quick glance around the tree for a sign of the remaining gunman. He saw nothing. Casey could hear his own heartbeat thumping rapidly. It was just starting to slow when a thought occurred to him. “Do you hear something?” he asked Susan.
She looked up and tried to focus. The throbbing in her own ears didn’t help, but she couldn’t make out the sound Casey was talking about. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
Susan realized what Casey was getting at. She had seen the man who was pointing a gun at Casey get shot, too. And the shorter one, the one who stuck a pistol in her face, had obviously been shooting at someone before Casey ended his life. So where was the gunfire now? Had the other man been killed, as well?
Casey ran the same questions through his own mind. The silence was both comforting and unnerving at the same time. Casey pulled himself up on one knee and held the pistol with both hands. “We’ve gotta move. I’ll step out first. If the other guy is still out there, maybe he will take a shot at me. You can run in the opposite direction. Don’t head back for the same road we were on. You can run east and try to use the trees for cover as long as possible while you go find the police.”
Susan knew he was right. They couldn’t just stay there. They were sitting ducks, and they needed help. “Okay.” She got up slowly, preparing to run.
“Count to five after I move out, then take off,” Casey said. When Susan nodded her acknowledgment, Casey took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the oak tree. He didn’t take a second step before a rifle barrel came crashing down out of nowhere, sending the pistol to the ground. The pain in Casey’s hands was almost instantly negated by the pain of the rifle butt slamming into the side of his head. Casey fell to the ground and rolled into a fetal position.
“Stop.”
Susan froze and slowly turned around. The man who seemed to come out of thin air and laid Casey out was holding a rifle just above his hip. It was pointed in Susan’s direction.
“Sit,” the man said. He reached down and retrieved the weapon he knocked away from Casey, holding the rifle with one hand so he could ensure Susan would do what she was told. She did.
“Get up, Casey,” the man said. “Move next to your girlfriend. Slowly.”
Casey struggled to stand up. He did not turn around to see who cracked his wrists and gave him a hell of a headache until he was on the ground again, this time seated next to Susan. Through the clearing haze caused by the crushing blow to his temple, Casey was able to make out a familiar face. It was the man from Bar 50.
“I am sorry I had to do that,” Lev Cohen said to Casey, “but I couldn’t risk having you put a bullet in me like you did to our friend over there.”
Casey felt the side of his head and inspected his hand. It was covered in blood. “Well, I guess you could have shot me instead. So thanks, I guess.”
“We don’t have much time before the police arrive, so I’ll make this quick,” Lev said. “These men who were going to kill you...they were just following orders.”
“Is that an excuse?” Casey asked.
“No. Just an observation. They were Mossad assassins, and they were sent to make sure you kept your mouth shut.”
“Hard to say anything when you are dead,” Casey said.
“Precisely,” Lev agreed.
“So who are you?” Casey asked. “You’re not really a consultant, are you?”
“No, I am not,” Lev said. “I am also a member of the Kidon.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me? I mean, if you work with them, why did you stop them from doing their jobs?” Casey asked.
“Because this whole operation is wrong,” Lev said. He finally lowered his rifle.
Susan had been listening intently to the conversation between the two men. She realized she was looking at the man who she initially thought was hunting her. The fact that he appeared to have been protecting her in the end just added to her confusion. “What operation?” she asked.
“The operation to keep you from letting the truth out about the Baltic Venture hijacking. The operation to assassinate you, Mr. Shenk. And you, Ms. Williams.”
Casey was beginning to understand. He had been right all along, and this man was confirmation of that fact. “So these guys tried to kill me a week ago. They wanted me dead then, before I even came to New York.”
“Not exactly,” Lev said. “The man they work for wanted you dead, but they did not shoot at you in Savannah and kill your friend by mistake.” Lev Cohen felt a tinge of guilt inside, but outwardly he remained detached. “That was my failed assignment.”
Casey’s temperature rose, and his head felt like it would explode. He was filled with anger that came dangerously close to rage at the realization that the man before him was the very same person who killed Mike Tunney. His muscles tensed, which only served to make him wince as every pain in his battered body was amplified.
Lev Cohen saw Casey’s physical and mental agony. He leveled his rifle again for insurance. He did not want Casey to try anything both of them would regret. “Please. Don’t.”
Casey tried
his best to calm down. The tension in his body relaxed, and he lowered his eyes. He touched the wound on his head again. The blood had already started to congeal. He decided to deal with the new revelation later. There were other answers he wanted from Cohen. “Why?” he asked.
“I told you why. My employers did not want Israel’s involvement in the hijacking known.”
“No. I mean, why the secrecy?” Casey asked. “Israel had every right to stop that missile shipment. You don’t believe that crap you spouted the other night about piracy being against the law no matter the intentions, do you?”
“Not in this case, no,” Lev said. “I just took that position to understand your own motivations.”
“To decide whether or not I really did deserve to die,” Casey said.
“In a way. But that is not why I saved your life, Mr. Shenk.”
“Casey.”
“I stopped this man from killing you, Casey, because you have to let the world know what happened on the Baltic Venture, and why,” Lev said.
A siren whined in the distance.
“So Israel can be dragged through the mud? Isn’t that treasonous on your part?” Casey asked.
“Quite the opposite,” Lev said.
“I don’t understand.”
“I am an Israeli. I believe in Israel. I have shed blood for it, and I have given blood for it. But there are people in Israel who are destroying the country from within. They are playing power games that are damaging everything the past great leaders of my country have worked to build. There will be no peace in Israel or the Middle East if these men are not brought to task.”
“And you think I can do that?” Casey asked. He was not so sure.
“Well, you would not be able to if you were dead,” Lev said.
“What about the bomb?”
Casey and Lev both looked at Susan.
“There was a bombing in Algiers yesterday,” Susan said. “A radioactive bomb that we believe was also on the Baltic Venture. Does Israel have anything to do with that?” she asked.
“I can’t answer that for sure,” Lev said. “But don’t believe for one minute that you fully understand what these people I told you about are capable of.”
The siren was getting louder.
“I must leave,” Lev said. “But please, take the opportunity you now have and continue with your work. And remember, ‘all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’ If things are going to change for the good, we all must do our part.”
Lev Cohen pulled the bolt out of the rifle and threw it deeper into Central Park. He dropped the rest of the rifle and the pistol on the ground. As Lev began walking back toward the road, Casey asked him one more question.
“What will you do now?”
Without turning around, Lev Cohen answered, “My part.”
Chapter 39
It didn’t bother anyone in the room that Susan was the only one who understood the lyrics of the music playing low on the stereo. Listening to Niyaz and the mysterious vocals of Azam Ali always worked to calm the Iran analyst down, and it was her apartment, after all. She returned from the refrigerator with a half-empty bottle of wine and poured herself a glass in the living room where Casey and Phil Davis were already seated. She took a seat in the easy chair while Phil and Casey lounged on the overstuffed sofa. Both men sipped on bottles of Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss from Susan’s reserve stash. The television was tuned to MSNBC, but the volume was muted.
“So do you think your FBI friend will do anything with the information you gave him?” Phil asked Casey.
“I don’t know,” Casey said. “Anton told me he was a stand-up guy, but Agent Gonzalez didn’t sound too enthusiastic when we talked to him. Probably because of the two dead bodies and one missing gunman in Central Park where we were supposed to be meeting him. I imagine he will have a lot of questions that he can’t answer coming his way back at the office.”
“But did he say he would at least try to help?” Phil asked.
“He said they already had people looking into the bombing, but he would run it by them to see what they thought about the origin,” Casey said. “I don’t expect much, if anything’s gonna come of it.” Casey looked over at Susan. She had her legs tucked beneath her in the chair, and she stared blankly at the large picture book on the coffee table. “You okay, Susan?”
She didn’t look up. She just stared at the cover. It was the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. Susan had visited many mosques during her travels as a graduate student, and she remembered the peace she felt whenever she was even on the grounds of many of the holy buildings. She had not been allowed to enter some because she was not Muslim, and others simply because of her gender. Some of the tourists around her complained, but Susan understood. She was from a different culture—a different world. Not better, just different.
Her world was even more different now, coming so close to death. And for what? Some words on a paper? She knew from her studies the power of words. Wars had started because of words. But she never believed her life would end because of something she wrote. She wasn’t a revolutionary or a political activist. She was an analyst. What did her words matter to anyone but her boss? Really?
“I’m all right,” she answered. “Just…a lot happened today. I’m just trying to deal with that, I guess.”
“Who can blame you? I still can’t believe all this happened.”
Casey gave Phil a warning glare. He wasn’t making it any better. Phil was nice enough to pick both of them up and take them back to Susan’s apartment after the police were done questioning them, but he seemed a little too aloof to the dangers they had just escaped.
Susan put her wine glass on the table and looked at Casey while she talked to Phil. “I can’t either. But it did.” She didn’t blame Casey for the trouble that had recently found her and threw her comfortable world out of whack, though she suspected Phil thought she should. In a way, she felt that she needed to thank Casey. Maybe she was finally waking up to how things really worked in the international arena. It was a lot different than her professors and travels had led her to believe. And she wasn’t sure she liked it.
“We need to let someone know. Someone who will listen,” Casey said, trying to re-direct everyone’s thoughts away from the violence of the day, while at the same time reaffirming the importance of what the real reason was behind everything that had happened.
“Won’t the investigators figure out where the bomb came from?” Phil asked.
“It’s not about the bombing,” Casey said. Phil obviously didn’t get it. “I mean, that’s a piece of it, sure. But we need to let the higher-ups understand how Israel is trying to play them.”
“What do you care?” Phil asked. “The guys who were trying to kill you are dead. Isn’t that what matters?”
“No, Phil. It’s not,” Casey said. “It’s bigger than that. We have a chance to prevent an injustice here.”
“What injustice?” Susan asked. “Who cares how the P5+1 group votes? Iran doesn’t. Even if they don’t get the green light to develop a nuclear capability, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad will still try to produce a nuclear weapon. And if they do get the go-ahead, they’ll just have one that much quicker. We almost died today, Casey. Isn’t that enough? God...what more do you want from me?”
Casey sighed and put his beer bottle on the table. He leaned forward and looked into Susan’s eyes, moist from emotion. He didn’t want to upset her. But he also knew they couldn’t just quit. “I want you to do your part,” he said in a soft, even tone—a coach trying to comfort his star player after a crushing first half, while looking for a way to motivate her to play through to the final whistle.
“My part,” Susan said. She recognized the phrase from the man who came out of the woods in Central Park, only to disappear again. “You want me to do my part? Tell me, Casey. What is my part in this whole thing?” Her voice was louder, and her face that was chalk-white just hours before was now beet-red as ange
r took over.
Casey kept his own frustration in check. “You have credibility that I don’t have.”
Susan didn’t know whether Casey was complimenting her or patronizing her. She remained silent and waited for him to continue.
Casey took the cue as Susan and Phil both gave him their undivided attention. “Look, I’m just a vending machine guy from Savannah. You’re an analyst for the Intelligence Watch Group, and you’re name’s on a published report about the Baltic Venture that’s gotten national exposure. Hell, the only people who have read my blog about the hijacking are you and the bad guys. Who would you listen to?” The sounds of Niyaz in the background emphasized the otherwise complete silence in the room. Casey wasn’t selling his case very well. He tried a different approach. He made it personal.
“Do you think your life’s no longer in danger just because Beavis and Butthead are lying in the New York City morgue? Do you really believe that?” Casey allowed a little edge in his voice for emphasis. “Didn’t you listen to what that guy said?” Casey did not need to explain to Susan that he was referring to Lev Cohen. “There are people calling the shots in this whole Baltic Venture fiasco that will stop at nothing to keep Israel’s real part in all of this a secret. They almost killed us to prove that fact. Hell, maybe they even killed Pete Grozny for his part. Did you even think of that?” Casey hadn’t, until then. He didn’t really believe it, but after the day they just had, he figured anything was possible. And it helped his argument.
“Pete died of a heart attack,” Phil said.
“That’s what Jim told us,” Casey responded quickly.
“You think Jim was lying?” Susan asked with venom in her voice.
Casey throttled back. He had reached her. At least he knew she was listening. “No, I don’t. I think he told us exactly what the ME said—that Pete Grozny did, in fact, have a heart attack. Maybe he was poisoned, though, sending him into cardiac arrest.”
“Wouldn’t the medical examiner have found that out?” Phil asked.
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