by D S Kane
Not a student of national politics, William didn’t have an answer. He’d told his father all he knew. Until he had proof of the hidden party and its motives, the prudent thing for him to do was stay silent.
But silence wouldn’t earn his father’s respect. And after his last visit, he realized he still wanted that.
He’d need to keep looking for a trail of evidence, hacking the trash from the computer systems of both governments.
But, what if his father found out about his work for O’Hara and the Mossad? This thought kept him wired as the plane sped toward home.
Jon had obtained a tourist visa when he checked his bags at the airport counter. Now, at 35,000 feet, he punched a series of digits into the pay-per-call cell phone he’d bought at JFK. “Charles Crane, please. It’s Michael O’Hara.” He waited several minutes.
The older man’s voice seemed agitated. “Where the bloody fuck are you?”
“On my way to Singapore. I have the intel you wanted. Have one of your in-country locals there call this number to arrange delivery.”
The man’s words were clipped. “Why’d you leave the US?”
Jon grimaced. “Cover’s blown. The bank’s enforcers followed me somehow.”
“Singapore. Right, then. Can you tell me where you’ll be staying?”
Jon had the in-flight magazine in front of him. He saw the hotel’s picture. “Mandarin Oriental.”
“And what’s your intention?”
Jon’s eyes closed as he imagined being free. “A long vacation. And in exchange for the intel, have your men deliver a long-term Singapore visa to customs at the airport in the name of Jon Sommers.”
Crane’s voice went up a notch. “Why would you expect it to be safe for you there?”
Jon’s eyebrows arched. “Why not?”
“If they’ve a mind to, they can hack your trail. Their enforcers are as good as any intelligence service’s hackers. Some say they’re even better.”
Jon considered this. The math confirmed Crane’s warning. “Well, maybe. But I’m on my way, and I’m sure they didn’t follow me onto the aircraft. So how would they hack my destination?”
“Right. Well, you’ve been warned. I’ll send the visa and someone to collect the intel.”
He read the in-flight magazine to learn about his new home. First stop after checking into the hotel would be a tour of the Orchard Road shopping district for sundries and dinner.
He heard the landing gear drop and looked out the window at the city skyline below. With about five million people, including over fifty thousand Brits and American ex-pats, not to mention tens of thousands of tourists, he believed he could lose himself there.
Safe at last!
As he exited the plane, he heard his real name called over the loudspeaker system. He gulped, worrying about the bank enforcers. When he picked up the white phone he’d been directed to, he heard a voice tell him there was a package waiting for him at the Singapore Airlines ticket counter. Must be the visa. He walked through Changi Airport toward baggage claim. This terminal smelled different. It seemed cleaner, somehow.
He grabbed his suitcase and went to the ticket counter. A man smiled and handed him an envelope. The man asked, “You have something for me?”
Jon handed him the thumb-drive. He tucked the envelope containing the new visa into his jacket pocket and walked toward the terminal exit. At a currency trading booth, he traded US dollars for Singapore dollars. His rate was about two American per three Singapore dollars.
So far, so good.
He turned on his new disposable cell phone. No message from Crane. His next stop would be the hotel. He needed a shower and a change of clothes.
And soon, he’d find an apartment, buy a car. Maybe he’d do some consulting work. Just for fun, not for the money.
Exiting the terminal, he was hit with a wall of hot humid air. The taxi line was short and he popped into one. “Mandarin Oriental, please.” He settled in, smug in the belief he was safe at last.
The cab pulled into the semicircular driveway and stopped under the overhanging awning. He paid the cabbie and found the fragrance of growing flowers intoxicating. Jon took a deep breath and strolled into the air-conditioned paradise.
He waited in line until he faced a clerk with an accent similar to his own. “I have a reservation. Jon Sommers.” It felt good again to use his real name. He handed over his real passport and the visa gifted him by Crane. “Deluxe facing the bay, please.”
The clerk handed him a set of papers and he filled them in, passing them back along with his documents. “Business or pleasure?”
“Vacation. Absolute pleasure.” Jon smiled.
The clerk nodded. “How long will you be staying with us, Mr. Sommers?”
“Figure ten days.” Plenty of time to get him an apartment and find a cobbler to forge a driver’s license.
He took the room key and rode the elevator up to the twenty-fourth floor. He was surprised by the spacious room and its exotic Asian furniture. Red colors abounded.
After dropping his suitcase on a stand, he exited, placing a thread in the doorjamb. He pressed the elevator button. Time to go shopping. Clothes, a new cell phone, and sundries for my new life.
In the center of his head, he heard Lisa’s voice rattling on, asking if he’d abandoned her and her quest for justice.
As the sun hit its zenith, Sommers returned. His tongue had slipped several times when he handed his credit card to a store clerk to pay for things, not responding to “Mr. Sommers” as fast as he should. His own name was now foreign to him. All his names were.
He walked off the elevator and checked the thread. Still there. Jon opened the door.
As he closed the door and turned to face the view, his face fell. Four men grabbed him, Middle Eastern men, all in dark suits. One of them held his arm and yanked him into the room’s leather chair. Their leader was Aziz Sambol. And next to him was Zamid al-Ramen. The other two were enormous, muscled men. Men he’d never seen before.
As the shock of discovery faded, Jon found himself somehow at peace with his impending death. But Lisa’s voice wasn’t willing to accept his demise. She wailed at him, an incoherent noise, forcing him to cringe and hold his hands against his head.
Sambol’s smile said it all. “Welcome to Singapore, Mr. al-Muhammed, or should I call you Michael O’Hara, or Jon Sommers?”
“Smith,” was all Jon could think of to say.
Al-Ramen slipped on a pair of brass knuckles. “We can make your death swift. Just tell us what we want to know. Or, my preference would be for you to refuse. Our Singapore Enforcement Division has kindly offered us two of their staff. Their special talents will serve to entertain Mr. Sambol and me.” His voice shifted from slow and soft to a more fervent tone and pace. “What did you steal?”
“Paper clips.” Sommers clenched his eyes shut, just before Al-Ramen slammed his face with a brass covered fist. Jon felt his jaw crack. An echo of pain vibrated though his skull.
“You will tell us, sooner or later. Open your eyes. Now!”
Sommers shook his head. “No bloody way.” With his eyes closed, he noticed his palms were sweaty. There was absolute silence in the room.
“Since you prefer not to watch as we tear you apart, I will grant that wish.” Al-Ramen sneered. “Tape his eyes shut.”
Sommers opened his eyes in panic, just in time to see one of the goons with a roll of duct tape, ripping a large piece. Seconds later his world went dark.
“Again, Mr. Sommers, if that is truly your name. It matters not, for there will be no stone to mark your grave. What did you steal?”
Sommers shivered. “The bank’s phone directory.” He felt the blow to his stomach and his lunch spewed forth. He gagged on the soured remainders of imperial rolls that had tasted wonderful just an hour ago.
He wondered how long he’d hold up. Not long, that was sure. He knew sooner or later he’d give up and tell them something.
And, he then
realized the one thing he had control over was what to tell them. “Wait. Stop. I’ll talk. I copied some letters of credit transactions.” He tried not to flinch, but no one hit him.
“For whom?”
“The Russians. For the FSB.” He waited, but no blow came.
“Why? What did they want to know?”
“Dunno. They paid me to find trade transactions funded by the United States government.” He realized this might be true from their perspective, and there was no way they could determine with any certainty if it was.
And with that thought, he knew they had gotten what they’d come for. Soon they would murder him. Very soon.
He found himself willing to believe in God. He began to pray.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Singapore
September 13, 4:11 p.m.
Jon felt distant and somehow disconnected from his pending fate. His eyes remained taped shut. He forced himself to focus on the tiny noises around him. Footsteps. Whispering, but he couldn’t make out the words. A flushing toilet. He heard Aziz Sambol chuckle. “You’ve been so patient, Khalid. Now you can have him.”
Someone ripped the tape from Jon’s eyes and the first thing he saw was one of the enforcers nodding back to Sambol. Jon’s eyes stung, his eyebrows ripped from his face. Khalid was a huge man, missing most of his teeth as he smiled, his face tilted toward Jon.
Khalid pulled a corkscrew from his pocket. “Mr. Sommers, in Egypt I studied to be a surgeon before I was accused of being a terrorist. You couldn’t tell to look at me. The interrogation sessions I suffered through included using a hammer to break my teeth. And now I practice surgery. You will be my newest patient.” He flashed his broken teeth again, and Jon gulped.
Khalid held the corkscrew right in front of Jon’s eyes. “I could use this to pull the eyeballs from your head. But, painful though that might be, I think I’d rather do that later, just after I use the corkscrew to castrate you. First things first. Do you know the many ways I can keep you from dying while I pull your small intestines from your body?”
Jon remembered his circumcision surgery and how painful that had been. But nothing like what he was about to face.
Khalid sneered. For the first time, Jon noticed the odor of decay coming from his torturer’s mouth. “I’ve been told it’s more painful than any other kind of torture. But soon, you can tell me. I’ll leave them attached inside you at one end so they stretch out several yards along the floor until we’re ready to we hang you. While I work, you will feel such pain as you never believed possible with one end of your gut still inside you. I will stretch the cut end around your neck and then bind it tight to the chandelier.”
Jon stared into Khalid’s eyes. The eyes of death. He wanted to live, to fulfill the promise he’d made Lisa. But he had no plan and no power to change the equation. “Please. Don’t.”
Khalid smiled. His left hand reached out for Jon’s belt buckle and pulled it open. “Help me with his clothing.”
Al-Ramen thrust his elbow hard into Jon’s face as he unzipped the pants. “His small intestine first? Why not start with castration?”
Khalid sneered. “Intestines first, yes. Castration isn’t nearly as painful. I’ll use the corkscrew to pull his penis from him, after I gut him. I’ll be careful to keep him alive while I do my work. Then each eyeball. We can hang him when we’re done with our entertainment. All with this.” He held up the corkscrew.
Jon could hear Lisa howl as he struggled with his bonds. He couldn’t budge the knots.
Khalid laughed out loud.
Ben-Levy read through the intel Jon had sent him. At first he yawned, bored by the data stream. But as he waded deeper, his jaw dropped. His face turned red. “God help us!”
As he approached the final page, he gasped and picked up the landline phone, a secure line. “It’s Ben-Levy. I must speak with the Prime Minister. Now! It’s urgent, a daylight priority.”
The Prime Minister was a battle-hardened former IDF sniper. Ben-Levy didn’t like the man, thought him far too blunt in a time needing subtle gestures and lies to control world opinion. “Yes? Yigdal, I’m busy so make it brief.”
Ben-Levy took a deep breath, marshaling his argument. “Sir, I just found out what Tariq Houmaz wanted to do with the cash.”
“Can’t this wait? I have a state function to prepare for.”
“If we don’t act soon, there may be no state!”
Silence on the other end of the line. It went on for seconds. “Yigdal. Cryptic as usual. All right. Tell me.”
“One of our covert assets sent me intel stating Houmaz is buying two nuclear submarines from the Russian mafiya in Vladivostok. For delivery to the Muslim Brotherhood. Each sub contains twenty ICMBs, each with a twenty-megaton nuclear warhead.”
“What?”
“I need your authority to commence a mission.”
“What’s the rush? He’d need trained crews. That’ll take months.”
“He paid the Russian mafiya to have two crews trained several months ago. They’re led by Aziz Tamil and waiting in Vlad for him to arrive and make final payment so they can take delivery of the subs.”
This time the silence was longer, and Ben-Levy noticed the Prime Minister’s breath coming fast and hard. “Done. Get those subs out of the Brotherhood’s hands before he blows up Israel and triggers the Jericho Sanction.”
Ben-Levy heard the call terminate. The Jericho Sanction. Something no one who knows about ever mentions. If a radioactive device exploded within Israel’s borders, or if the sanction wasn’t deactivated every day, over seventy-five ICBMs, each carrying twenty-megaton warheads, would be sent to destinations from Libya to Pakistan. Every Middle Eastern country would cease to be habitable for the next two thousand years.
The Jericho Sanction was why the United States was so close to Israel. They needed oil, and if Israel was attacked the globe’s major oil sources would be obliterated, hopelessly contaminated with radioactivity. The price of oil from the remaining sources, outside the Middle East, would spike off the charts.
He punched another number into the landline. “It’s Ben-Levy. Get me the head of IDF. Urgently.”
Khalid brought the corkscrew into contact with Jon’s navel and smiled as he twisted it into his belly, as if Jon himself was the tip of a persistent wine bottle waiting to be decanted.
Jon screamed. The flare of pain was worse than anything he’d ever experienced. He could feel his gut ripping. His vision dimmed as he drifted away into a world where Lisa held his hand, waiting for him to die. She cooed to him, drawing him past his fear of death. The pain grew ever more severe until he lost consciousness.
Jon’s mind swirled into a nightmare where the smiling face of Lisa Gabriel morphed first into Yigdal Ben-Levy and then into Charles Crane. Crane hit him hard in his gut and then the face morphed once more, this time into Khalid. The voice of his torturer asked him, “Why did you stop loving me, Jon?” He tried to speak, and as he opened his mouth, thunderbolts of pain rattled in his belly.
He came to, with Khalid holding smelling salts under his nose. The Arab smiled. “Good. Conscious again. Ready for more?”
Jon could see his blood pulsing from his navel, pooling down his torso into his crotch. A thumb-sized piece of his flesh throbbed, red. He shook his head and pulled harder against the knots of rope holding him in the chair. He tried to think of something to help him but nothing came. “No! Please. Stop!”
“Mr. Sommers, I’m not sorry for you. And with this next step, your life will be over.”
Jon had to see. He opened his eyes to slits and watched the enforcer shove the end of the corkscrew into the pulsing bubble of flesh that was his small intestine. He could feel the puncture, feel the pull and screamed in pain. Death can’t come fast enough!
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the door explode and disappear. Several men entered holding handguns, their weapons spitting bullets into his enemies. Pain blackened his world and
he dropped back into unconsciousness. He was beyond the reach of nightmares.
When Jon’s eyes popped open, he saw the two Brits who’d hustled him into Crane’s car back in New York and another man he’d never seen before.
The gun in the mystery agent’s hand emitted a trail of wispy smoke, and Jon could smell the cordite. Sommers looked down and almost fainted at the sight. The long finger of red flesh torn and hanging from his gut was still pulsing with his heartbeat, bubbling blood from his belly.
The mystery agent examined Jon’s wound. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
American accent.
Jon guessed CIA. “Who are you?” The mystery agent was in his early forties, overweight, and wearing a cheap business suit. Jon knew he was falling into shock. He lost his ability to focus as the intense pain ripped through his gut.
“Hey, Jon. I’m Bob Gault, and I work for one of the US intelligence agencies.” The man moved closer and examined the wound. “Damn. He’s dying. Let’s get him out of here. Where’s the nearest hospital?”
Jon lost consciousness again. This time, he dreamt he heard Lisa’s voice telling him to have faith. She’d protect him while he slept.
Yigdal Ben-Levy watched Shulamit Ries and her team leave his small office. He placed her folder on the bottom of the short stack and removed the next one from the pile. Opening it, he scanned its contents to be sure nothing in it would give away any facts he wanted kept secret.
Ben-Levy watched the elevator doors open, through the small glass window in his office door in the Office’s basement. He saw IDF Captain Avram Shimmel emerging from the lift, smiling as he passed Ries. Mother watched her smile back, but saw her eyes drawn to the wedding ring on his left hand. She turned, staring at the ring as he walked away. As the elevator door closed, her group disappeared. Ben-Levy nodded, thinking what he’d believed about Ries was true. She had a crush on the captain.