The Ayatollah's Money

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 51 – Assassins Need Weapons, Don’t They?

  Hablibi was anxious to get back to the hotel, talk with the concierge and see if he could rustle up some virgins for his boys, keep them happy during this dangerous mission, vital to the security of the fatherland. He doubted there were any virgins in this godforsaken country, but then he doubted his boys would be able to detect any flaws in the rental equipment, them not having any experience in screwing infidels. He also figured he might order one extra, just to test the merchandise, make sure he was providing good quality material. Nothing but the best for the Iranian boys in service to their country. He said, “I got diplomacy to do, maybe have something lined up for you guys later. I’m heading back to the hotel.”

  The Colonel said, “Whoa, wait a minute. You got something more important than diplomacy to do. We need weapons. That’s your line, too. British Air didn’t exactly let us bring an arsenal on the flight over from London. You’re the local; you know these people, such as they are; you gotta find us some guns and knives and stuff. Tools of our trade.”

  Lewy added, “Yeah. We can’t strangle everybody. That gets old, fast. No bloodletting. We need some items with which we can wreck carnage on these people, make ‘em remember their sins against Allah.” Priss remained quiet, him being the pacifist among the group, the intellectual assassin, having killed only two people during his four years of training, the minimum required to get his degree.

  This took Hablibi by surprise, his boss not having informed him of this responsibility. He did this sort of thing up in DC, as mentioned, but he didn’t know anybody in this little town, and had no connections. He didn’t even know where the hell South Carolina was, just assumed it was somewhere south of where he lived. He said, “Ok, can do. The knives should be no problem, but I’m not sure about the guns. I know people in the south don’t like people in the north telling them what to do, especially about how they protect themselves from people like you....us. So maybe it’s easy to get them here. It’s not easy at all up in DC. There’s a college here, I’ll try their bookstore. Might sell ‘em there. What else you need?”

  Lewy said, “Poison. Non-detectable but excruciatingly painful poison.”

  Priss thought he better at least put on a front of the assassin’s persona, so he said, “How ‘bout some cesium 235, in powder form. Capsules. Ever seen that work on someone’s stomach? Oh my Allah. Nasty. If you can’t come up with that, a rocket propelled grenade launcher. That usually does the job even if it’s hard to conceal under your shirt.”

  The others looked at Priss thinking, ‘Not exactly subtlety personified, are you?’

  Hablibi said, “You boys are the experts. I’ll see what I can do. See you back at the hotel. Dress for dinner, say eight o’clock in the dining room.” And he waved goodbye, thinking, ‘Virgins or weapons, virgins or weapons….which are more important to look for today?’

  The Colonel and his boys sat on a bench across the street from the theater, plotting their surveillance. He said to Lewy, “You’re pretty much dead in the water until we get some weapons. When they come, we’ll turn you loose.” Looking at Priss he said, “You’re the psychological warfare technician. We can start with that stuff, make these rats uncomfortable. And we gotta find out who’s who in this June Enterprises thing, especially where the Laleh woman is.” He opened his College of Charleston canvas tote bag and took out the articles about the June’s previous two productions that Hablibi had printed out for them, and handed a few to each guy. Hablibi had given each of them a tote bag that morning that he’d bought in the hotel gift shop, knowing they’d have to carry their weapons in something, once they got some. They sorted through the papers until they found photos of Roger and Gwen and some of the others that had been involved in the productions.

  Priss said, “Here, look, two of the people that just went in the building,” and he handed a shot of Gale and a shot of Jinny to The Colonel.

  He nodded, and said, “Any photos of the other three we saw, the babe in the screaming gold leather dress, the guy with the big jaw, or the other non-descript guy with the ugly black glasses?” The guys shuffled through their papers and said, no.

  Lewy asked, “Any shots of the Laleh person?” The other two looked at the principle foot soldier, thinking, ‘You idiot, she wasn’t here last year or the year before, she just got here.’ The Colonel said, “First thing we gotta do is see if the Laleh thing is with them. If she is, then we find out where she lives and what’s going on in there. Ok?” They boys nodded.

  Priss said, “How we gonna do that?”

  The Colonel said, “If we had stealth clothing the way the Israeli commandos do, we could just walk in, look around.”

  Lewy said, “We don’t, do we?”

  “Not yet. Someday soon. After we get the Bomb, our guys will start work on the noseeum clothing. Next year maybe.” Then The Colonel said, “The other way to get in there is to tunnel in, the way those dirty fuckers do over near our nuke sites.”

  Priss said, “How do they do that? Start five hundred miles away and end up within spitting distance of our secret sites, we never see ‘em?” The Colonel had been asking himself that for years. He didn’t answer Priss, just sat there. Priss said, “So we can’t do that either, right?” The Colonel still didn’t answer, staring at a passing College of Charleston coed. He knew for sure she wasn’t a virgin. Priss continued, “We can’t walk in, invisible, and we can’t tunnel in and up periscope. How about we start sending them emails and text messages saying, ‘Prepare to meet thy doom at the hands of the Red Scimitar.’ Stuff like that.”

  Lewy said, “How’s that gonna help us find the Laleh bitch?”

  “That’ll terrorize them, soften ‘em up, psychologically. Then we just walk in there, ask ‘em where she is. They tell us.”

  The Colonel tore his eyes away from the coed, said, “Yeah, good plan. Let me think about it.”

  He was saved from this arduous effort when, a minute later, Laleh came out the front door of The Hall with Jinny. Roger knew the team would achieve the two goals Gwen had set for them before lunch, and everyone would want wine with lunch to celebrate, so Laleh and Jinny had been sent out to buy an assorted case from a shop down the street. Laleh would choose the wine and Jinny would hump it back.

  The boys all saw her at the same time and thought in unison, ‘Payday.’