by D S Kane
But Houmaz’s father hadn’t believed him. The old man blamed him. Disowned him. His father insisted that Tariq should have fought the invaders instead of hiding until the fighters had finished their work and left the rig.
Without a home, and separated from his brothers and his father, he’d drifted until the obvious occurred to him. He wouldn’t run ArabOil. But there were other uses for an engineer’s skills.
As dusk deepened, the rosy sky lit 84th street. He walked from shade to shade, avoiding anyone out for an evening stroll. A cooling breeze rolled down the street, blowing his hair and clothes. It felt good. He turned off Broadway onto 83rd Street.
After doubling back twice to ensure he wasn’t being followed, he saw someone he’d seen before. Before he saw the face, it was the clothes that drew him. Then he noticed a few more of them. All wore college tee-shirts, but they seemed a bit old for college.
Their heads twisted from side to side, scanning the alleyways they passed. That kind of behavior was a signal that he was being surveilled by trained operatives. Were they armed? Of course they are. He wondered if the tee-shirts were treated with Liquid Armor. Of course they are. They walked close enough to be a group. Five of them, including a woman. And then he saw the face of the man who’d been following him earlier today. Definite trouble.
As the sky faded into darkness, Houmaz sought refuge, a place where he’d have a line-of-sight advantage with no choke point. He entered a West End restaurant, the Sichuan Gourmet.
He scanned the restaurant’s large room and walked to the back exit. Here, he turned and faced the entrance. Fear spiked in him. He smiled. Love that feeling.
Two males neared the entrance; one was the man who he’d seen before. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket, wondering if the safe house was close enough to send him backup or an exfiltration team. The call on his cell took a few seconds.
The aroma of Asian cooking was at odds with his expectation of the blood and cordite odors soon to follow. By now, some must have positioned themselves down the street and others by the rear exit to the alleyway.
He drew his gun. I won’t get out of this unless it is Allah’s will. The clip was full. Thirteen rounds. Every shot will have to be a headshot.
Yakov cursed in Hebrew. “Our plan just changed. No way to do anything silently. He knows we’re here. No way to get him to come out. We’ll have to go in. Try to wound him so we can still complete his interrogation.”
Jon didn’t need mathematics to know this was even more desperate and crazy than a public beach burial. Their van was parked several blocks away and Jon hadn’t any idea how they could carry a wounded captive so far. He was sure shots fired in an upscale residential neighborhood would attract swift police attention. He even doubted they could execute Houmaz without having a dozen witnesses make their descriptions public. “Are you sure this is a good idea? Mother said to keep the operation quiet.”
Yakov’s rage sat on his face, bright red, and his fists clenched. “My operation. You follow my orders. Jon and Axel, cover the rear exit until I tell you to enter. Then, go in with a shooter’s stance. Shimon and I will enter from the front. Rimora, backstop the operation. The alleyway across the street. Go now.”
Jon’s pounding heartbeat pinned him near the wall. He stood in the alleyway with Axel, adjacent the rear exit of the restaurant. His palms were sweaty and his head was filled with anticipation of revenge for Lisa’s murder.
They used a large garbage bin as cover, and the overpowering stench of rotting food drove Jon to move as soon as possible. He heard Yakov’s voice in his ear bud. “Status?”
Jon replied. “Axel and I are outside the back exit. When can we send him to a better world?” He kept his voice as cool as ice.
Jon could see across the street to the alleyway where Rimora stood in the shadow of a building. Her role was the safety in case something went wrong and Houmaz managed to get by the four in the assassination squad.
Jon clenched his eyes shut for just a second. This was his first black op. His first time killing a person. He and Yakov were the only trained assassins in the team. The bodel and the sayan were skilled at shooting a handgun, but, probably hadn’t killed before. And neither have I.
What if I fail? Will I be reunited with Lisa, or will my body lie cold and alone for eternity? He felt her voice, urging him, Kill him, Jon. For me.
He took a deep breath as Yakov’s voice whispered through his ear bud. “On my signal. Go, go, go.”
As he stepped into the rear of the restaurant, the world appeared to move in slow motion. Two steps in, he saw Houmaz leave the cover of the men’s room doorway, aim and fire a single shot.
The back of Axel’s head exploded, raining blood and brain on Jon’s face. Blinded, Jon overturned an empty table near the exit and crouched behind it. Mathematics told him he hadn’t a chance of surviving. He could hear Lisa’s voice babbling in his head. Fear froze him for several seconds. He felt his heartbeat pounding in his chest, heard his breathing, and felt a wall of terror close on him.
Two shots splintered the wood of the overturned table, pulling Jon back to his mission. He used his forearm and hand to wipe the blood from his face, while conjuring a set of alternatives. Move right or left?
Rising, he bolted left as he glanced at the place where he’d heard the sound of Houmaz’s gun seconds before. No one was there. Jon sprinted toward the men’s room. He held his Beretta in a two-handed grip, ignoring the few screaming occupants. Several pulled out their cell phones. He knew they were calling 911.
The men’s room was empty. Then he heard three more rounds explode from the entrance of the restaurant. He sprinted from the bathroom and through the front door, onto the sidewalk. He found them Yakov and Shimon there, lying face down, the backs of their heads bloody. The medijector rolled away from Yakov’s body. Jon realized that while he had been checking the men’s room, Houmaz must have exited the back. He must have run through the alleyway and looped around to surprise Yakov and Shimon from behind at the front of the restaurant.
Houmaz had disappeared.
“Shit,” Had the bomb-maker returned to the back of the restaurant? Jon ran through the alleyway along the side of the restaurant. Empty. He headed back toward the street again.
Many people were running away, some shouting and screaming. He saw a black van screech to a stop. Houmaz jumped in through the back door. Jon had no shot. He slammed his fist into the building wall.
Now he heard distant sirens closing. He looked around. Those who had been there were either gone now or running away. The adrenaline surging through him had narrowed his focus, and he felt the high it gave him. Seconds remained before the police arrived.
Shaking his head to clear it, Jon took off his bloody jacket and dropped it in a trashcan at the edge of the alleyway. He walked away from the restaurant, down the street, looking for Rimora. Jon kept his eyes focused ahead, walking with deliberation as two police cars sped past, their lights glowing, stopping where his team lay dead. He took out his cell phone and dialed Rimora’s number. No answer. But he could hear its nearby ringing and followed the sound.
She lay amidst trash in one of the alleyways across the street from the restaurant, shot in the chest, her breathing shallow. If the Liquid Armor had failed, the shot had to have come point-blank. Jon eyed the distance from the restaurant and back to where the van had been.
No, Houmaz couldn’t have done this. It was too far for him to run, shoot her, and return to where the black van had picked him up. So he must have allies somewhere. Wary that he was still a target, he cupped her head and studied her wound. He was sure it was a fatal shot; blood spurted from above her breast, just below her collarbone in rhythm to her heartbeat. She was hyperventilating and her face was going gray.
There would be no way to get her to a hospital before she died. He knew she knew it. “Who shot you?”
Her lips moved as if she was talking, but he could hear nothing.
He picked up h
er cell and dialed 911, reporting her condition and location. It should take less than three minutes until an ambulance arrived, and by then he’d have to be far away. He forced himself to stay calm and focused. It wasn’t working well. “Rimora, try again. Who shot you?”
She pulled his head to her mouth and managed to whisper a single word: “Bloodridge.” A trickle of red dripped from her slack mouth. Her head fell back and her eyes began to glaze.
His team had failed. There was a heavy weight on his heart, the responsibility for all their deaths. It had all happened so fast. No time to think, no time to calculate, no data for projections. He realized mathematics was truly useless.
Lisa, love, I’ve failed you. Tears mixed with rage, clouding his vision. He got up and ran from the alleyway.
How could one man have decimated his entire team? Where had Houmaz gone? Who had helped him? What would he tell Mother?
And, what the hell was Bloodridge?
Chapter Twelve
Corner of 83rd Street and Broadway,Manhattan
August 22, 7:58 p.m.
The ambulance sirens were now about a block away, closing fast. Three minutes had passed since Jon’s battle in the restaurant.
He picked up his pace, his body shaking, shivering. He strained to feel his emotions and found nothing but numbness in reaction to the massacre, a function of the massive amounts of adrenaline surging through him. His vision remained scoped. He heard nothing but buzzing around him, and slowed his pace to give him time to regain his senses. He’d been trained to leave at a walking pace and find someplace from where he could call for assistance. He started north up Broadway, where he could find the subway and make his escape.
As the field of his vision widened, he saw a black limo glide to a stop in front of him. Before he could react, its doors swung open. Two suited men with bulges under their armpits hurried out. One pointed to the back seat and the other indicated the spot under his armpit where Jon knew his weapon was. “Get in, please, Mr. Sommers. We mean you no harm.” The accent was Oxford through and through. He heard them but the sound was muted to his adrenalized hearing. His heart still pounded.
He moved in slow motion so as not to alarm them, raising his hands above his head. He slid into the middle of the back seat, with the two others on either side of him. As they closed the doors, he glanced at the two seated in the front. He calculated the different possible outcomes. None were good.
The driver pulled away from the curb. The passenger in the shotgun seat was turned so Jon couldn’t see his face.
Jon placed his hands on his knees, palms up, so the men in the back with him could see he wasn’t a threat. His ability to think, to analyze, was returning.
With this turn, the day’s events had gone well past being a simple disaster.
One of the heavies seated in the back reached under Jon’s tee-shirt, pulling the Beretta from his waistband.
The older man in the shotgun seat turned and nodded. Jon shifted his gaze from the two in the back seat to the man in front. “Who are you?”
The balding man in front scanned Jon. “MI-6. The man you were sent to execute is one of our assets. Just couldn’t let you do that.”
Jon clenched his fists. “So you killed the four in my team.”
“No. We were late to the party. Just arrived from the consulate in Midtown. Damn traffic. So, no, it was the handiwork of Tariq Houmaz alone. Had you gotten closer to him, you’d have died too. He’s one of the most dangerous operatives I’ve ever seen with a gun. We watched the entire thing.” The Brit was speaking as if he were reporting a series of British football scores.
Jon assumed this was a lie. There was no way Houmaz could have executed Rimora. Not enough time before the van retrieved him. He shook his head once more to clear it. There must have been two vehicles in the operation. So, they were coordinated. Including Houmaz, the van driver, and Rimora’s murderer, plus the four in this limo. A total of at least seven, and possibly more.
He stared at his palms, then out the window. His vision was back to normal for distance and close up. His pulse rate was slowing. He felt more confident now. Be rational, he thought. He considered their claim that Houmaz was controlled by them. If so, then at least indirectly, they’re responsible for Lisa’s death. And the massacre of my teammates. He struggled to contain his rage, taking deep breaths. As the seconds passed, he calmed once more.
For the first time Jon noticed obscure details of the four others in the limo. All wore business suits. The driver wore a fedora but Jon saw the man’s blue eyes reflected in the rear-view mirror. One of the two heavies he’d noticed before was blond and the other red haired. Both looked like they were in their twenties. Cut from the same mold. His sense of smell was coming back. He noticed aftershave on the older, mid-forties man in the shotgun seat. The man had a thin red scar running down his left cheek.
“Why me?”
The older man pursed his lips. “Your handler will want to make an example of you when he hears what happened. Perhaps we can help each other.”
Jon struggled to keep his posture from showing any outward response. The adrenaline had dissipated. He could think this through. Formulas bloomed in his head.
It was possible they were right. During training, he’d heard Mother had a temper. Ben-Levy would be angry as hell when he found out about this mess. Jon had inherited it, not being the aleph, but the massacre still marked him. And then he’d let himself get placed in the back seat between the two heavies. So the limo men might have come to the conclusion he’d consider their proposal. He wondered if there was a way to convince them to deliver the bomb maker in return for what they wanted. He closed his eyes in concentration. “I owe you nothing. Tariq Houmaz owes me everything. Let me go.”
The older man smiled and faced out the front windscreen. “We’d like closer ties with your handler in the Mossad. We’d like you to bring us to the table. Not as a mole, but as a liaison.”
Jon shook his head, remembering his training class on the history of the Mossad. “You’ve always treated us as untouchables, a second-class operation. Whatever could you offer?”
The older man nodded. “American intelligence. We receive it every day. Albeit a bit after the date it’s produced, but they have advanced technology you don’t. Think your handler might be interested? In ECHELON’s output?”
Jon wondered if this might soften Ben-Levy’s feelings about his failure. Bringing ECHELON to Mother just might save his life. But, on the other hand, Israel had PROMIS, an equivalent technology, but not with access to equivalent networks. Representing the offer of another country’s intelligence service might make it seem he was a mole and he’d planned to fail. It could seal his doom. He played out the alternatives and there was no significant difference in outcomes. He was in deep trouble either way. “Lemme think about it.”
“Mr. Sommers, let me remind you, you’re a British subject working for another country’s secret police. That makes you a traitor. You’re no better than Kim Philby, Sidney Reilly, or Mata Hari. We could bring you home and put you in a British prison. For a long time. Possibly even hang you in public. Or since this mess went down here, we could have the Yanks send you to one of their nasty rendition prisons. It’s what the Israelis did to Eichmann.” The older man faced forward as the driver turned onto 44th street. One of the heavies reached into Jon’s pants pocket and removed his cell phone, handing it to the older man in the shotgun seat. He pressed several buttons on it. “I’m taking your cell number. I’ll give you a day to consider our offer. And, just in case you were wondering, we’ll have you under surveillance every second until I call.”
The limo stopped. The blond opened the door and pulled him onto the street, handing him his cell phone and gun in full view of those walking by. He pocketed them both and jogged away until he was three blocks north of the spot where they’d left him.
He wondered what they’d do if he turned them down. Probably kill me. He swallowed hard. They now have my ce
ll phone number. They can monitor my phone conversations and triangulate my location. What was I thinking when I got into that limo?
The limo sat curbside as Jon Sommers trotted away from it. In the shotgun seat, Sir Charles Crane pointed toward Jon. “Follow him.” The two others in the limo’s back seat were surveillance experts. They exited the car and tracked their target as he headed north on Third Avenue.
Crane scribbled a note on a pad as the driver crossed 42nd Street on the way to the British Consulate on Third Avenue near 51st Street. He looked at the busy city sidewalks, bright in the night. He’d written a question mark next to Jon Sommers’s name.
The driver looked across at him while they waited for the light to change. “Whatcha think, sir?”
Crane shook his head. “Hard to say, lieutenant. Depends on what happens when he tells his handler how big a mess he helped make. They may cut him loose, in which case he’s no good to us. Of course, Mossad sometimes kills operative who fail this big, to set an example.” He sighed. “Damn. Wish we could have helped him out, but Houmaz is too valuable to lose. We have to have Sommers. We must know what Mossad is planning.”
“Were you serious about the threats to him personally, sir?”
Crane frowned. “Whatever it takes. The Jews occupy the most dangerous piece of land on the planet. And the most valuable, too. If they play hard and lose, the whole region could go up in radioactive smoke. When one of their coverts was blown up in a bombing a few months ago, we lost our double. That agent was our window on their activities and, well, now we’re blind. Sommers could be her replacement for both sides. They get a British kidon, we get a liaison. Fair is fair.”
The driver nodded, maneuvering the limo past the security guards, into the garage. Silence reigned in the vehicle as they stopped under the consulate building. “But why Sommers, sir?”
Crane was silent. His eyes fell out of focus, recalling a time twenty years ago when he had worked on the same team as Jon Sommers’s father. Before the man’s death, he’d had no idea Abel was a mole. Not finding out sooner had caused Crane a demotion. It took over five years for him to discover Yigdal Ben-Levy and his role in the matter. He’d tried to explain it all to the head of MI-6, but the director refused to believe him. And it was another five years before his handlers had forgiven or forgotten. He’d been knighted last year, and MI-6 had accepted him back.