by D S Kane
Alone on the terrace of their hotel room, William Wing shivered in the heat. He dropped his cell phone into the pocket of the plush white bathrobe. His vacation had the potential to become a dangerous expedition, without the protection of Jon and Avram and their weapons.
He looked into the room, where Betsy lay sleeping on the king bed. Two hours of repeated sex had exhausted her. Finally. He smiled, but it was just for a moment.
He needed a plan. Worse, he needed a team. Jon worked for the man who was now his enemy. Can’t use Jon. Avram had returned to some god forsaken place to kill militant extremists. Not available.
He wondered if he should tell Betsy. She hated danger as much as he did. If they stayed together, She’d be in danger. Perhaps it would be best for her if he disappeared. His heart wrenched. He’d lose his soul mate.
He stared into the skyline around him. His hands clenched the balcony so hard he felt pain. I owe it to her to tell her. She stirred when he opened the terrace door.
She smiled at him. “More sex. Now. I’m still horny.”
He nodded and sat at the edge of the bed. “Sure. But first, I have to tell you something.”
The moment had burst like a bubble in a champagne glass. Her amused stare dissolved into concern as she stared at him. “What?”
He swallowed hard. “I just found out I may be in some serious trouble. My father runs state security in China. I used to do work for him. The man you helped last year, Jon, works for the Mossad. He’s a close friend and I recently did some work for them, too. For years, I’ve tried to keep all my clients from knowing about the others, but I just found out I failed. My father and the Mossad may both have sent teams to find and detain me. The worst of it is, I haven’t had the time to find out the truth of this. If you are afraid, you may want to leave now. But, Betsy, I want you to be with me. Never leave.”
Her face was a study in contradictions. Her eyes glared, but then her mouth softened and she reached her arms to him. In a hug, she whispered, “Oh, shit, Willy. I kinda knew this was too good to be true. You’re a slave to danger. I’ve known that for a while. I’m staying with you.”
He felt his heartbeat accelerate.
She pushed him back. “So what do we do? What’s your plan?”
I have no plan. It took him a few seconds in thought before a real plan became obvious. “I need to hack the Chinese CSIS and the Mossad. Both. I need to find out what really happened before I can develop the next steps of a plan. Worst case, I disappear. Best case, I prove I’m not dangerous to either of them.”
She nodded. “Good. It’s a hacker challenge. Who can find the information first, the Butterfly or CryptoMonger?”
He felt relief. “We’ll need to find a safe place to access the Internet.”
She pulled him against her. “Uh-huh. But first, I need you to relax. I want you to forget everything for a little while. Forget everything except me.” She pulled the robe off him. “Do me, Little Wing.”
He nudged the blanket off her and wedged his head between her thighs.
William sipped his espresso at the Starbucks in the lobby of one of the hotels near the Mandarin. He’d just cracked the first level of security at the Chinese CSIS system and he hunched over the keyboard, thinking of the best method to attack the next level beyond their firewall. The Butterfly sat working at the table next to his.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, screens pausing for a moment before flashing to the next in the sequence. He entered the most secure area and found his way to his father’s file folders. The correspondence was extensive, and there were multiple reports attached to most of the emails. He thought about initiating a copy program and then coming back to collect its product in a few minutes, but there were two documents that caught his attention.
The first one showed that his father ordered Lieutenant Benjamin Chan, the man he’d met last year in Beijing, to follow Sashakovich’s movements. The lieutenant had worked for William when he’d been a major attached to the Chinese cyberwar office at CSIS. He scanned status reports and found his father’s government had no connection to Sashakovich. Why is she being followed? Do they know about Bug-Lok? Of course they do.
The second one was more personal. Its author was also Lieutenant Chan. He scanned the document and found Chan’s report to his father about William. Rats!
He picked up the tiny cup but couldn’t move it to his lips. I did this to myself!
The Butterfly sniffed the air as she completed bypassing the security screens of the Mossad’s distributed mainframe network. It was obvious she needed a shower but she wanted to best William more than she ever had. Comfort could wait. She sat at the table next to William’s, closer to the aroma emanating from the espresso machine at the Starbucks. She looked up and watched William’s fingers flying across the keyboard of his notebook computer. He was smiling. Drat!
She searched through folders for information on the list of items William had given her:
•Bug-Lok
•Mother
•Yigdal Ben-Levy
•Jon Sommers
•Cassandra Sashakovich
•Lisa Gabriel
•Aviva Bushovsky
•Gilbert Greenfield
•Bob Gault
•Tariq Houmaz
•Pesi Houmaz
She hadn’t any idea of what and who all these people were but she searched one folder after another, logging off and then back on every three or four minutes to keep the security routines from discovering her. It took her less than two rounds, four minutes, to discover all she needed about Bug-Lok. Holy orgasmitron!
“Mother” drew almost four thousand entries, and she copied a sampling before logging out. Her next penetration brought her to understand that Yigdal Ben-Levy was Mother.
She logged out and sat thinking, her fingers tapping on the table so hard her latte shimmered to the beat. She read entries from oldest to most recent and saw one that related to the termination of Aviva Bushovsky, whose cover name was Lisa Gabriel. The woman was a Mossad field officer and her termination was done by…the Mossad! Holy crap!
She rose and carried her notebook computer in one hand and the latte in the other. She sat opposite William. “Why did you want me to hack the name ‘Lisa Gabriel’?”
William looked up from the screen. He frowned in thought. “Jon Sommers’s fiancée.”
She nodded. “Was her real name Aviva Bushovsky?”
William’s eyes bulged. “Yeah. Tariq Houmaz murdered her with a car bomb in Herzliyya.”
Butterfly shook her head. “Willy, whoever told you that was pushing a load of shit.”
She waited as his face reformed, eyes hooded. He pushed back in his chair. “What the fuck did you find out?”
She thought, I have to take my time to be sure he gets this. “Okay. It appears someone named Yigdal Ben-Levy, also called Mother, ordered the assassination of Jon’s fiancée, who also has two names. The hit was authorized by the Israeli prime minister, who only has one name. Or does he? Does everyone in the Israel have two names?”
She expected him to smile.
He didn’t. His eyes got smaller, as if they’d turned inward. “Rats!”
“What do rodents have to do with the murder of a young woman?”
He stared at her. “You’re sure about this?”
She nodded and handed her notebook computer to him. She watched his brows arch as he read the thread of documents.
“This stinks.” He pointed at one of the smaller documents. “Mother lied to Jon. He used those lies to drag Jon into hunting for Tariq Houmaz. The hunt almost ended Jon’s life. What do I do with this? What should I tell Jon?”
“If you tell him what I found, I know what I would do.” She touched his shoulder, trying to comfort him.
“Yeah. He’ll try to murder Mother. If he tries that, the Mossad will kill him, whether or not he succeeds.”
She nodded. “It’s obvious, you can’t tell your friend.”
William thought, f
riends and secrets forever. God, what a motto.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Innere Enge, Engestrasse 54, Bern, Switzerland
August 3, 2:25 p.m.
Less than a kilometer from the railway station, the Innere Enge Hotel gave Tariq Houmaz everything he needed with a minimum of risk. He found his room spacious and filled with antiques, and one of those, an ancient desk, had a convenient hidden drawer for him to hide his 9mm Beretta. The hotel contained only twenty-six rooms, too intimate for his taste, forcing him to maintain his cover. He’d chosen to be a businessman. As he unpacked his suitcase, he saw the Alps peeking out the window from behind the old town. Yes, this would be perfect.
There was a bus stop right in front of the hotel. He wouldn’t have to rent a car. There was a restaurant in the hotel’s lobby. When he completed the task before him and returned back to the hotel, he’d not have to leave town until he was ready for the next phase of his mission. There was even a music club, Marian’s Jazz Room, claiming to be one of the best jazz clubs in the world. Tariq had never listened to jazz before. Is there any music more infidel than jazz? He was tempted to go to the club and listen.
He passed the front desk and walked to the bus stop. He could hear the river nearby and its rushing sound obscured the other noises that might indicate trackers. He waited without stirring, trying to focus on anything dangerous nearby.
The bus came promptly, but what else could he expect in Switzerland? Two transfers and almost an hour brought him to the Interpol office. It was ancient, just like the hotel, a squat mixture of wood and stucco. He exited at the stop and smoothed his suit.
There was a receptionist in the lobby. His first test. He smiled and pulled his forged identification card from his pocket. “I need to see the files from the Antron fire.”
The receptionist scanned the plastic badge. She examined the photo. “What business does the NSA have with an accident in Switzerland?”
He tilted his head. “According to your public statements, you have a team looking into the fire and explosion with regard to a similar one in Northern California. It’s why I’m here. Please let me speak with the investigator in charge.”
The receptionist shrugged and punched a number into the desk phone. “Herr Basil Fishbine will be with you in a moment. Please have a seat.”
He found the lack of a security gate with a scanner in this tiny fringe office refreshing. Houmaz scanned his wristwatch. Minutes passed. Five. Ten. He worried. Was he screwed?
A portly middle-aged man appeared from behind a door and walked toward him. “Special Agent Asher Samawat?”
Houmaz extended his hand. “That’s me, Herr Fishbine.”
“Before we admit you, I’ll have to clear you with your superior. What’s the name?”
“Here. He’s ready for your call.” Houmaz handed a typed letter to Fishbine. It was on plain paper, just the name, position, and phone number of his mole at Gilbert Greenfield’s unnamed intelligence agency in Washington. He’d alerted the mole while en route using a burner cell phone.
It took Fishbine several minutes to complete the security check.
“Follow me through security, please.”
Houmaz walked to the door the man had just come through and the man flashed his ID badge against a hidden reader within the doorknob. The door popped and both men walked through. “What if I were carrying a weapon?”
Herr Fishbine shrugged. “Sirens and a focused taser. Please follow me to a conference room where we can talk.”
He was there for a half hour. Fishbine provided access to the tapes, every tape he asked for. The faces of most people were unknowns. But there was one, a woman who stood straighter and walked with more purpose than anyone else. She was surrounded by a group of men who managed to keep their faces off the cameras’ focus points. She tried to do this also but failed for three seconds as she entered a conference room with her team. He wondered, is she the one? Nothing else provoked his interest.
“Do you mind if I get a still of this one?” He pointed to the woman.
Fishbine shrugged and pressed a button on the projector. In less than a minute, a clerk entered the room and gave him an 8 x 10 black-and-white and an SD card. He handed them to Houmaz. “Anything else?”
Houmaz shook his head and thanked the man. A few minutes later he was waiting for the bus.
His next stop would be San Jose, California. But first he examined the photo of the badge of the Interpol officer he’d taken with his cell. With the mere replacement of the Interpol officer’s name to that of his cover, he could have a cobbler there craft an new ID badge for the next phase in his mission.
Under the fluorescent lighting of her cubicle at Dreitsbank, Gunda Schlein watched the stream of one-off electronic funds transfers incoming from the SWIFT system. Her queue of errors was below threshold. She munched on a bratwurst and sauerkraut sandwich. When the queue fattened, she routed several to a clerk whose workload was low. Such was the punishment for efficiency.
A stale transfer crossed the screen, almost a week old. From a bank in Riyadh to one in Bern, for more than four hundred thousand dollars US. She scanned the accountholder’s name: Sigmund Tahir. She copied the details and sent them on to the cell phone of the man she knew as Herr Friedrich Stamphil. In twenty minutes there was another, this one for today, recalling the funds from the receiving account of the first transfer. Now most of those funds were being routed to a bank in San Jose, California. She sent the details of these to Stamphil as well.
Schlein wondered if the transfers were related to terrorist activities. But Herr Stamphil had given her orders, and he was helping to save her brother. Orders were orders. She took another bite of the sandwich and smacked her lips.
Jon’s cell buzzed. He pulled his head off Ruth’s torso and scanned the screen. In a second, his mouth was back, sucking one of her nipples.
“Who?” Her voice was a hiss.
He raised his head. “A text from Gunda Schlein.”
“Whozatt?”
“Tell you later. First, we do you, then on to business.” He pushed himself on top of her and their lips met. In seconds they were grinding against one another in a building rhythm.
Twenty minutes later, each was holding a mug of hot black coffee in his bed.
Ruth tapped her forefinger against the mug.
Jon read the worried expression on her face. “What?”
“Jon, I think we should quit while we’re ahead. While we still have each other and our lives to look forward to.”
He stared into her eyes. “You’re kidding. Right?”
“Dead serious. We’ve done enough. I have a feeling in my gut our luck’s run out.”
Jon placed the coffee cup on the nightstand. He took her hand. “No one ever quits. You sure you want to try? We’d be on the run, new identities for the rest of our lives. Not a good way to live. What if we decide to raise a family?” He stopped and thought. “Is that what you want? It’s what I want.”
She put her cup on the nightstand and hugged him. “Uh huh.” Her face fell into a huge smile. “There are three of us to consider.”
His mouth dropped open. “Oh.”
“Yes. Found out yesterday. We need to finish everything we currently have in process, then disappear”
Jon considered what it would mean for him to be father to a child. “How far along are you?”
“Two months.” She patted her belly.
“Where can we go and not be found?”
She shook her head. “We’ll need to do some basic research. But first, tell me who called.”
Jon sipped his coffee, then exchanged it for the cell phone. He read the screen. “I recruited an asset. Turned her from her Brit handler, MI-6, but I’m not sure who. Didn’t we collect Sir Charles Crane?”
She put her cup down. “How’d you know that?”
“I’ve gotten good at reading the station reports. You ought to change your password more often.” He smirked.
; “Ouch. You recruited an asset? Clever boy.”
“Name’s Gunda Schlein. She works for me in noncredit services. Manages the clerks operating the repair queue for global funds transfers.” He scanned the screen. “Ah, well done, little asset. She found transfers tracking the travels of Tariq Houmaz. Cash from one of the cover names of his brother for expenses, I think. We now know where he’s going. He used a California National Bank branch.” He rose and tore off the robe. “It’s time he died. I’ll return when I’ve finished him.”
“I can assist.” She was already off the chair.
“No. You’re pregnant with our child. If I need help, I’ll call the Office.” He was half-dressed and buttoning his shirt, walking toward the door of his apartment with his go bag.
Early the next morning, Tariq Houmaz’s plane landed at San Jose Airport. He rented a two-door nondescript Aero and drove to the Interpol satellite office on Great America Parkway. The office was tiny, nested in one of the older office parks. Houmaz found the receptionist alone in the outer office, just as he had in Bern.
“My name is Asher Samawat and I’m from the Interpol office in Turkey. I’m investigating the Stillwater explosions. My cohort, Herr Basil Fishbine from your Bern office, sent me.”
The receptionist, a young man in a blue Oxford button-down shirt, looked up. “I see. Uh, why is there no appointment?”
Houmaz nodded, expecting this. “We’re in pursuit of a terrorist cell and we’re all moving fast. The request is probably still being processed. Sorry about that.”
The receptionist’s expression reflected doubt in his story. But after a few seconds, he nodded. “I’ll get Morgan for you.” He punched a button on the underside of the desk.
Houmaz began to sweat, wondering, isn’t that where an alarm button would be placed?
He began backing toward the entrance when the door into the inner office opened. A thin, red-headed woman in a blue business suit entered and extended her hand. “I’m Morgan Sands.”
Houmaz took a deep breath and shook her hand. He’d have to work fast, in case the receptionist was backtracing his identity.