by Ty Patterson
‘He moved to Europe and was involved in the Kosovan conflict. He carried out assassinations in several East European countries. By then, he was also getting hot. Several agencies were after him, but he was as elusive as a fox. He came to South Africa seven years back, underwent a face change operation and acquired a new identity.’
He barked once, laughter with no humor in it, and pointed at the picture. ‘That’s the new look Wasserman. You must be thinking how we lost track of him if we had him under surveillance.’
‘We didn’t. Those aren’t surveillance photographs. Those came from a news reporter who was following some pop star. We arrested the reporter when the celebrity created a fuss and came across Wasserman’s pictures.’
‘We didn’t recognize him initially, but some smart facial recognition software made him. We then tracked down the plastic surgeon and got more details. But Wasserman had disappeared. He surfaced, or his signature surfaced from time to time and from those, we pieced together that your country was now his base. We had nothing more on him till you sent the voice print.’
‘He doesn’t sound different from other assassins.”
Pieter shook his head. ‘Assassins work in the shadows; they don’t leave their signatures on a kill. Wasserman leaves his mark on his assignments. He takes pride in his kills being known.’
His eyes took on a faraway look. ‘He was once hired by a mining contractor in Sudan several years back, one who wasn’t very particular about how the job was done.’
‘The contractor wanted to mine chromite, but the deposits were beneath a few tribal villages. Those villagers had occupied that land since time began and no amount of money, cajoling or bribes worked. Wasserman came in.’
‘He drove in with a bunch of his men, in ten open-topped Jeeps, and casually opened fire. No warning, no talking, no smiling. Just random fire that killed twenty villagers, many of them women and children.’
‘He returned the next day and lined up women and children, about thirty of them. Again, he didn’t utter a word. Just got his men to line the women and kids up.’
‘The women weren’t touched. He went to their children, made them step forward and with a machete, severed their right leg and right arm. He didn’t kill them. He didn’t harm the women. He just amputated the legs and arms of five-year and six-year-old kids.’
Darkness filled the room, killed light, killed all sound except their breathing. They sat motionless for a long time, lost in their thoughts, trying to erase the images of the village, of the mothers and their children.
Zeb stirred first. ‘You could have told me all this over the phone.’
Pieter’s eyes glittered. ‘I wanted to see how badly you wanted him. I don’t care why you’re after him, my friend. But if there’s anyone who can get him, it’s you.’
‘Find him. Kill him. Those mothers need recompense.’
Three days later, Zeb was in D.C.
The twins were closer now and several parts of the letter were transcribed. Petrova described a man who was so powerful that he could bend systems in several states to his will, a person who everyone knew but at the same time was invisible. She laid out a trail of people disappearing and ‘accidental’ deaths and linked it to The Man. All those people worked in the oil industry.
However, his identity still remained elusive. Beth and Meghan set Werner on the disappearances and deaths.
In Boston, the cops had finally apprehended Fadil Stinek who readily gave up one Leonard Wicks. Leonard Wicks didn’t exist, and the email, phone and money trail led to a complicated maze that the cops were trying to unravel.
Broker snorted. ‘Any bets that Leonard Wicks is Luke Wasserman?’ No one took him up on it.
Zeb met Clare outside her office, in a coffee shop near DuPont Circle that looked more like a comic books store than a purveyor of fine beverages. Clare wasn’t alone; she had an older man with her, a man whose grey buzz-cut and steely eyes made people take a second look.
D.C. was home to several kinds of political animals, but Clare’s companion was as high up the food chain as one could get. General Daniel Klouse, National Security Advisor, grumped when Zeb joined them and pointedly glanced at his watch.
‘Ignore him, he’s yet to tear anyone’s head off today,’ Clare’s eyes were mirthful as she clasped the General’s hand to take the sting out of her words. Zeb had met the General several times and knew the NSA was a strong champion of the Agency.
‘We are uneasy,’ Clare read the surprise in Zeb’s eyes at the NSA’s presence. ‘Nothing points to a world changing event.’
‘That’s good isn’t it? Maybe that guy had it wrong.’
General Klouse growled. ‘Son, do you really believe that?’
‘No Sir,’ Zeb admitted readily. ‘I was ready to write off Felix Domingo’s confession, but these attacks on me are too determined. Wasserman wants to stop me and doesn’t care about being subtle anymore. There’s Petrova’s letter on top of that.’
Broker had shared their findings thus far with Clare and Zeb knew the NSA was read in. The general shifted in the hard backed chair uneasily. ‘You know how many politicians there are in this country with the highest security clearances?’
‘Too many,’ his hands bunched into fists. ‘If any one of them was who Petrova was referring to--’ He broke off and looked away. The general didn’t have a life outside his job. He was a rare breed, an apolitical man who lived alone and threw all his energy into his job.
‘We don’t have enough to suspect anyone, Daniel,’ Clare patted his arm. ‘Besides, Petrova’s Man could be a billionaire businessman. He needn’t be a politician.’
They thrashed various disaster possibilities around but were no closer to any lead by the time they broke up. Intelligence agencies were looking for Luke Wasserman all over the country, but he too was proving to be an enigma.
‘Not for long,’ Zeb said cryptically.
‘You know where he is?’ The NSA asked in surprise.
‘No, Sir. But he’ll call me. That’s the only way he can get me for sure.’
Zeb left them an hour later, walked to the Mall and hung about for another hour, all the while thinking, trying to piece together the jigsaw that had him stumped. Random thoughts came and went the way people moved about in the monument, Brownian motion under a hot, blue sky.
The Lincoln Memorial failed to inspire him for the first time he could remember and he walked to its left, to the polished marble structure on which over fifty-eight thousand names were etched; those who had fought in a distant land, a war that had shaped the country.
He stood for a long time, his reflection looking back at him as visitors, relatives, and families, moved past him, snapped photographs, planted flags, traced names. A mother clasped her daughter’s hand and led her away; the flag the daughter had planted fluttered for a few minutes and then fell sideways.
Zeb bent, picked the flag and righted it and planted it straight. He rose and straightened his shoulders and turned right, to the towering white spire that reflected in the dark marble and beckoned at him.
Oil ministers, power. Oil. Influence. Assassin. Petrova.
The thoughts rolled over on themselves, bounced against the walls of his mind, refused to fit into neat slots, refused to walk into the embracing arms of cognitive nerves that would bring reason and rationality.
He looked blindly up at the towering obelisk, recollected dimly that it was one of the world’s largest stone structures. He circled it, walked past the fifty flags surrounding the memorial, past furiously clicking cameras and sat on an open green space with a view of the rear of the most famous residence on the planet.
Families came and went, some played, some broke out picnic hampers and enjoyed the warmth of the golden disc in the endless blue far above. A Frisbee landed near him, he threw it back unconsciously and thanks floated in the wind.
What will change the world?
A suited man drifted in his vision, carrying a briefcase, speaking
into a cell phone. The world didn’t stop turning because a reporter died, because several people had died. It didn’t care. Time was a meaningless concept in the galaxy. The earth kept orbiting regardless of what its inhabitants did. Gravity and its sideways move had kept it revolving for a few billion years and it would continue to do so.
A shout roused him briefly from his deep thought; kids racing against each other, one of whom was in a wheelchair. A girl was last, but she was powering it hard, her face red, her eyes shining, her mouth open.
Her friends turned to look back at her, urged her on, and then she was falling, the wheel of her chair hitting an invisible ridge, slewing her sideways. Zeb moved without conscious thought, automatic reflexes snapping into action. His hands reached out and caught the girl before she touched ground.
He put her back in her chair, pointed her in the right direction and her race resumed.
If their actions have had no effect, why are they desperate to stop me? Wasserman must be down to just a few more men, his assassin is dead. But he still wants me out.
He went back to the grey fog, seeking, searching, the beast prowling.
After what felt like hours, he came back to the present to see dusk had fallen; to the right, the Capital’s dome glowed orange and gold. A mother played with her children, a flag rested beside them.
She brought out a pack of cards, shuffled them and produced tricks to squeals of delight. Zeb stared as she performed sleight of hand tricks, made cards disappear, waved a hand over a few, while with the other hid one up her sleeve.
Sleight of hand.
He propped himself up on an elbow and watched, letting the images imprint themselves in his mind without conscious thought. A hand waved, a card disappeared, and another one appeared, more happy squeals.
She looked up a few times when she sensed his gaze, but he didn’t move.
Distraction.
She directed another look at him, gathered the cards, her kids and led them away. Zeb lay still, staring at where they had been.
Illusion. That time in Iraq.
Then he was the Butcher of the Middle East, a mysterious assassin who claimed to be an Al Qaeda killer out to exterminate Hand of Fire leaders who had broken away from Al Qaeda.
The Butcher killed senior HOF commanders in Iraq and after each kill, uploaded propaganda videos on the internet. In each video the Butcher appeared with his face masked, an Al Qaeda flag in the background and proclaimed his intent to wipe out the treacherous Hand of Fire.
The kills and videos not only stoked up the simmering conflict between the two terrorist groups, they lessened the impact of the recruitment drives of the two organizations. Western forces used the antagonism between the HOF and Al Qaeda to mount strategic attacks and reclaim territory. The HOF was on the back foot now; all because of the Butcher.
Dark fell and pinpricks of light pierced the vast canopy above. It was a similar night in Syria when he, disguised as the Butcher, had waited for a HOF leader to finish his business with a prostitute. The terrorist was in no hurry; he started boasting about a master plan against the Great Satan. Later that same year, Zeb had foiled a HOF terrorist attack in New York.
Zeb lay there for the pixels to swim around, fall in place, rise again and rearrange themselves; an hour later, when cold set in, the picture was still incomplete, but he had an idea what it would reveal.
He rose, dusted himself and headed to the Smithsonian Metro stop. Something tugged the corner of his eye. He turned and saw a flag lying on the grass; the mother had forgotten it in her haste to escape his gaze.
Zeb picked it up, folded it neatly, jogged back to the obelisk and draped it alongside several others on the steel fence surrounding the memorial.
He fired up his laptop once he was back in his hotel room and ran searches. He read through the links, dug through several encrypted databases and got more downloads.
He logged into Werner and looked up the searches the twins had programmed, the various trails the artificial intelligence program was pursuing to crack Petrova’s letter. He commanded Werner with a separate series of tasks and logged off.
He still didn’t know who was behind Wasserman, but the picture was sharpening.
Sleight of hand. The main action was elsewhere all along.
Chapter 26
Wasserman hung up after a long call with the principal. The calls were getting fewer; now that the plan was rolling along smoothly, there was less need for communication. There was only one thorn that remained.
Zeb Carter. He alone could possibly put together the squares.
The principal was unable to get more on him. A couple of Pentagon generals had frowned when the principal had approached them. The principal backed off smoothly; inquisitiveness was good, but discretion was better.
‘The fools questioned the Saudi and Venezuelan ministers, applied pressure on the governments, and got nothing for all that. That was a master stroke of misdirection,’ the principal congratulated Wasserman. ‘Now all that’s left is this man. Once you take care of him, we are home and dry.’
Wasserman stepped outside the ranch building, to the front yard and sat on a wooden bench taking in the night. Subdued sounds came from within the ranch; the kitchen winding down for the night, his men patrolling the building. The ranch had no guests, no visitors. He had shut down that operation till the plan was completed.
In the distance, a match flared as one of the guards lit a smoke. Wasserman stifled his irritation. His men were good, so what if one of them indulged in a smoke?
Where will Carter be? Where can I pin him down?
He gave thought to it and came to the reluctant conclusion that he couldn’t. Carter seemed to be constantly on the move; going after him would consume his resources, would leave him thin.
He considered attacking his office in New York. Carter’s crew hung out there; just earlier in the day, one of his assets in the city had provided visual confirmation.
It won’t be easy. The Columbus Avenue building bristled with security, both human and electronic. Security consulting is his business after all. He’ll have it locked down like a fortress.
He brushed impatiently at the silken thread of a spider’s web that clung stubbornly to his jacket. His had slowed when the thought crept in his mind.
Walk into my parlor.
Werner was sipping the electronic equivalent of carrot juice as it sorted through the Aramaic text and re-arranged the letters and formed meaningful words from them. It paused for a nanosecond when another search string came its way and raised an eyebrow. It linked to another book that was conveniently loaded in its memory. It feverishly browsed the book and fist-pumped when the book provided the missing keys.
But wait; there was more to the search string. It frowned when it read the parameters; they weren’t related to the letter but were commands to dig out news on any oil-related developments in any part of the world, going back for two years.
Werner shrugged. Who knew how humans thought? The search was easy and it fired off spiders to trawl through the gazillions of electronic pages on the internet.
Wasserman took stock of his men the next day, assessed them for capabilities and was satisfied with what he saw. They were top notch mercenaries, all of them ex-servicemen who had served in various armies of the world. Some were American, a few were South African, and the rest were Mexican and European. He knew all of them well and they knew him.
He got one of them to drive him through the ranch and point out various security measures. There were motion detectors, pressure pads, night vision security cameras electric fences, all monitored centrally from the ranch building. The corral was full of horses; he had men move the animals to a remote stable.
The main building itself was under constant surveillance; every inch was covered by an electronic eye. They had enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a month long siege. There were M16s, HK416s, Steyrs and Sigs, complemented by numerous handguns.
Wasserman nodded
at his men. The showdown would happen here, on his home ground.
Two days later, he made the call to his asset in New York.
Werner finished printing the decoded sheets and if it had human senses, it would have winced from the twins’ squeals. It separately printed all the oil developments in the country but those were ignored temporarily.
Bear, Chloe, and Broker crowded around Meghan and Beth as they read Petrova’s letter aloud. The letter, addressed to Connor, was in a conversational tone that underlined the friendship between the two, and started starkly.
I will most likely be dead once you read this.
Six years back I was in Cheyenne attending a reception organized by the mayor for several senators and visiting politicians from Europe, Mexico and Argentina. The event was to promote the city and make it more attractive for investment and tourism. You know how these events go.
I was invited by the mayor who knew me, and wanted me to favorably cover the event. This particular shindig was no different from the thousands you and I have attended and once I had completed my interviews, I took a break and went to the ladies room.
It was there that I had my first encounter with The Man. I was alone in one of the stalls and was preparing to emerge when I heard the door open. There was no clacking of heels and that gave me pause. I was surprised when I heard a man speak on his phone and thought he must have come in by mistake. I decided to wait him out.
That incident changed my life.
That man was discussing certain arrangements and asked whether everything was in place. When he got a confirmation, he asked how whatever was being planned, would be cleaned.
‘You’ll kill all of them?’ he asked.