The Dreadful Alchemist: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense Book 1)

by Charles Z David

  David thanked Jorgen and the chief of police and headed to the airport where he caught a flight connecting to Tel-Aviv.

  25th May, Uppsala

  A special investigation was initiated in Uppsala in order to gather more information about the whereabouts of Oscar Gunnar Axelsson and his ties with Islam. The small Islamic community center had been transformed into a mosque, and the Muslim population of the town had increased threefold since the accident and the suspected murder of the cyclist in the University Hospital. The old man who had been the head of the community center had passed away two years previously and the police officers did not find anyone in the Muslim community that admitted to have known Oscar. However, when they checked the records at Uppsala University they found that a student with the name of Oscar Gunnar Axelsson had attended classes at the department of mechanical engineering but had left just before graduating. The police asked to see the list of his classmates and located some that still resided in Uppsala. However, only a few of them remembered Oscar at all, and none of them seemed to know anything about his present whereabouts. One of the women said that she had had a crush on him and when her husband was out of the room admitted that they had a short fling, actually a one night stand, in their second year at university but he was not interested a long term relationship with her, and to the best of her knowledge with any other student. She said that she had seen him around during their third and fourth years at the university and that he became more and more aloof towards graduation. She mentioned that she had occasionally seen him in the company of two Arab students but did not know their names.

  One of the nurses at the University Hospital remembered the incident of the suspected murder of the motorcycle driver. She said that she had noted it especially because the bereft honeymooner appeared to be Scandinavian while the family of the bride was typically Muslim and that at that time intermarriages of this kind were not very common. The disappearance of the man immediately after the cyclist was found dead in his hospital bed seemed to be more than a coincidence and the police questioned the staff about this. The nurse could not provide any more details about the groom but said that there was probably a medical record of his examination after the accident as he was in shock and suffered superficial wounds when he was brought in by the ambulance that also carried his bride. The hospital required a court order to release the medical records but once this was presented and the records were examined no further information was obtained.

  Examination at the Swedish passport control authority of all people leaving the country in the three week period following the disappearance of Oscar Gunnar Axelsson yielded nothing. The police concluded that he either had assumed a new identity and remained in Sweden, or more likely, that he had managed to slip out of the country without being registered. Jorgen forwarded all this information to David who was just on his way to the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv.

  25th May, Tel Aviv

  Once again David Avivi presented the latest developments and new information to the Mossad head, Deputy Director and division chiefs. He reported that it was highly probable that Oscar Gunnar Axelsson was the mysterious blond man that had coordinated the work of Professor Modena and Dr. Smalley and the efforts to produce fissile materials for an improvised nuclear device. Furthermore, if this was the case then his ties with the radical Islam could mean that his true target could be in Israel rather than in Europe. This stunned all the participants and they discussed the significance of this new information and the potential implications on Israel's security. Next they discussed the countermeasures that should be deployed to minimize the risk and divided the problem into two parts: finding the device and finding the blond man, preferably before they entered Israel.

  The data they had on the improvised nuclear device was quite limited. They knew that it was probably quite large as it had to be transported in a standard container and had to be lifted with a crane. They had some information about the container but could not be sure that it had not been painted over or that the device was not moved into another container. They also figured that if they could locate Modena or Smalley, or any of the people who had worked in the Padova laboratory they would be able to get more details about the device. The key personnel would also know about the mechanism used to detonate the device, which would be helpful for rendering it safe if they got hold of it.

  The information they had on the blond man was also quite limited although they now did have a recent photograph of him, taken by Agda in Athens. They did know the name he assumed in Stockholm, Olaf Gunther Andersson or Ollie for short, and also the name he used in Uppsala, Oscar Gunnar Axelsson or Ossi for short, which was probably his real name. They were sure that he would not use any of these names in his travels, yet they thought that it was highly likely that he would still maintain a Swedish passport, or perhaps a Finnish, Norwegian or Icelandic passport, as it would be quite difficult for him to pass an official check as being of any other nationality. They also speculated that he might try to change his appearance but had no idea what form he might choose.

  The countermeasures at the borders were to alert all passport control officers to closely examine all tall, well built, blond men travelling with Scandinavian passports, with special emphasis on single men travelling unaccompanied. The three seaports were also alerted to scan all suspect containers with radiation detectors, but considering the volume of such containers this would cause serious delays that would infuriate customers. The Mossad head also called for a continent-wide effort of all agents to try to trace the man and the container and said that the information would be passed on to all friendly countries in Europe and asked David to update the international task force. There was no decision whether to inform the public about this threat, or even about the "dirty bomb" cover story, as this was more of a political decision than a professional security one. The Mossad head said he would inform the Prime Minister, Minister of Interior Security, the Chief of Staff of the IDF, the head of the Israeli Security Agency and the Chief Inspector of the Police and ask them to decide how this serious, unconventional threat should be handled.

  Chapter 11

  26th and 27th May, Athens

  David took the morning flight from Tel-Aviv to Athens and was met by an agent of the Greek National Intelligence Service (NIS) who drove him directly to the director of the service. Although the director was appointed by the Minister for Citizen Protection and could be fired by him he was a professional intelligence officer and not a political appointee. The head of the Hellenic Police, in charge of counter-terrorism, was also present. Both were well aware of the dangers to Greek democracy posed by Golden Dawn and were determined to protect it. David showed them the selfie photo of Niko and Agda and told them that she had informed the Swedish police about the meeting with Golden Dawn functionaries that she thought took place at the marina in Piraeus, although she wasn't sure about the exact location. They called the local head of the political surveillance section and he instantly recognized Niko as Nicodemus Alexios, an activist in the Golden Dawn movement, a prominent TV persona, famous for his smooth talking. Niko had also been frequently interviewed by foreign TV networks due to his good English and apparent moderate presentation and rationalization of the movement's principles.

  David accompanied the two detectives from the Hellenic Police who were sent to pick up Niko and bring him to the station. They found Niko at a café in Exarchia sipping a cold beer and chatting up a blonde tourist who appeared to be hypnotized by the handsome Greek man. When the detectives approached him, Niko who was used to being harassed by the police, made an apology to the disappointed lady, and accompanied them without protest. At the police station he said that he was willing to cooperate as he had nothing to hide but initially claimed total ignorance when he was asked about Agda and the blond man but when he was shown the selfie photo with them he suddenly had a vague recollection of meeting the two tourists when they asked him for directions and then requested to be photographed togethe
r.

  Niko was taken to one of the interrogation rooms and David was allowed to watch the progress of the questioning on a closed circuit TV. As he did not understand Greek an interpreter sat next to him and gave a live translation of the discussion into English. After Niko's memory was "refreshed" by recounting the highlights of Agda's testimony about the wild affair they had carried on in her hotel room he suddenly remembered that he was simply asked to take the couple to a private meeting at the marina. After a little more not too gentle prompting he even remembered the address of the club and the name of the person he brought there as Ollie. In the evening, after some further hours of interrogation, he recalled that the Greek person at the club was called Guido, no last name, and described him as a man with fine aristocratic features. The detective doing the questioning left the room and joined David in the room next door and told him that he knew who Guido was and where to find him, but also that he was well connected to senior politicians and could not be brought in without a magistrate's order which would be impossible to obtain in view of Guido's influence. David said that all he needed was the name and address of Guido and he would take care of everything. The detective pretended not to understand the meaning of this statement and simply gave him the information as requested, so David thanked him and left the police station. It appeared that Guido lived in an isolated villa in an upper class neighborhood just outside Athens.

  David called the local Mossad resident, Doron, and asked for an emergency meeting in one hour, telling the agent to prepare for a "hot" operation after midnight. David met Doron and briefed him regarding his plan to snatch one of the senior Golden Dawn politicians and interrogate him – no holds barred – and probably have to eliminate him after that. The resident agent was not happy with the plan and said that they needed to survey the ground, make arrangements to quietly kidnap the person and bring him to an isolated place for the interrogation and suggested they do it the following night after reinforcements were sent by Mossad. David was worried about word leaking from the police or that Niko would be able to send a warning to Guido and insisted on carrying it out that same night. Doron had no choice but to obey as he had been forewarned by the Mossad chief himself to do whatever David required. He only wanted to be on record and to get David to understand that this was a breach of standard operating procedures but David repeated the importance of carrying out the operation without delay and Doron promised to cooperate fully.

  David asked Doron about his assets in Athens and was told that he only had three other operatives, two involved in intelligence gathering rather than in field work and the third, Yakir, a fresh graduate of the field training course had never seen action outside Israel though he had some military experience in an elite unit of the IDF though he had never seen action outside Israel. They had three cars at their disposal; one was a closed van and the other two were regular economy size cars. They also had a couple of encrypted phones for communication purposes and their safe house was an apartment in a residential area with thin walls and many neighbors suitable at best to provide a temporary residence for an agent or two. Doron explained that they had a small yacht that was berthed in the Piraeus marina which he took out for a short trip on week-ends to help maintain his skipper's certificate. David knew that the risks of being exposed or complete failure of the mission were immense but the alternatives – postponement or cancellation – were worse. There was no time to gather information on Guido's household staff or even if he had a family, so David knew they had to find a way to call him away from the house under some pretense and hope to grab him when he was on the street. He then hit upon the idea of posing as Ollie and asking for Guido's help in an extreme emergency. When he presented Doron with the idea, and gave him some background information about the situation, he found a skeptic audience. However Doron liked the part that they would not have to break into Guido's house with so many unknown factors and trying to entice Guido to leave the villa reduced the risk of exposure considerably.

  By the time they had finished discussing the details of the plan it was close to midnight. The two of them took a short drive through the neighborhood and found that there was very little traffic at that time of night. They drove to Doron's apartment where the three agents were already having a strong cup of coffee served by Doron's wife. Doron quickly introduced David who briefed them on the operational plan. The female intelligence gathering agent was dispatched to the marina to prepare the yacht and obtain permission to sail before dawn. The other intelligence agent and Doron were to take the van and wait on a quiet side street just outside Guido's villa. David and Yakir were to take one of the small cars and stage an accident near the villa's gate. The agent was to smear himself all over his face and body with red ink and pretend to be the victim of a traffic accident caused by the car driven by David. David was to make the call to Guido from his cellphone posing as Ollie and then wait over Yakir's body in the middle of the road and flag down Guido as he left the villa's grounds. As soon as Guido stopped to find out what was going on David was to neutralize him with an injection of a strong tranquillizer that was stored in Doron's refrigerator. Then they would call the van, stuff the unconscious Guido into the van driven by Doron with Yakir watching over him and drive to the marina followed by David in the small car. The intelligence agent would take Guido's car and dispose of it in a busy parking lot in the center of town and then return to his home. There were so many loopholes in this primitive plan that they all hoped that they would not end up before morning in a Greek jail, or worse.

  After they were all in position David pulled out his cellphone and called Guido. When Guido answered, he sounded very angry and a bit confused at being woken up in the middle of the night. David spoke English with an imitation of what he considered a light Swedish accent, identified himself as Ollie and told Guido that he was held by a couple of police officers in Athens and they threatened to expose the "big plan". He urged Guido to come immediately to the police station near Syntagma square and release him. Guido asked to speak to the police officers holding him and David cut the connection. Fifteen minutes later, after the Israeli team had almost given up and left, they heard a car engine starting and the villa's electric gate opened slowly. A black Mercedes emerged and upon seeing the accident scene the driver stopped the car and slowly opened his window. Within a second David pounced on the open window and stuck the syringe needle into Guido's exposed neck removing the car keys from the ignition with his other hand. Guido collapsed on the steering wheel and the car's horn blasted for an instant before David pulled back Guido's unconscious body. The van driven by Doron came around by the time David and Yakir had pulled Guido out of the Mercedes and none too gently threw him onto the mattress that had been placed on the van's floor. Yakir got into the van and started cleaning himself from the red ink while Doron drove the van towards the marina. David drove the small car and followed the van while the intelligence officer got into the Mercedes and headed to a parking lot near the town center. So far the operation had gone so smoothly that David started to worry that unpleasant surprises lay ahead.

  The van and the car arrived at the marina without a hitch and boarded the yacht with Guido supported by Doron and Yakir. They asked the female agent who had prepared the yacht to drive the van away from the marina and park it near her apartment. They were not worried about the economy car as it was frequently seen in the marina's parking lot whenever Doron took his yacht out for a spin. Doron carefully steered the yacht out of the marina and dropped its anchor in a shallow area a few kilometers south of the marina after making sure that no one was around. David injected Guido with adrenalin to wake him up and before he was fully conscious he put a black mask with a green banner of the Islamic State over his face and in Arabic accented English started questioning him about Ollie's visit in January. Guido was still confused and asked David and Doron who they were and they told him that they were from ISIS and pointed at Yakir who was similarly dressed with a long knife in his left hand a
nd told Guido that he was the notorious executioner, John the Beheader, a cousin of the infamous John the Jihadist who was seen on global TV broadcasts. When Yakir grabbed his hair and exposed his neck Guido started shaking and sniveling and cried that he would tell them everything if they spared his life. Yakir appeared to be testing the sharpness of the blade and started growling in a low voice promising death to the infidels and placed the blade on Guido's neck. Guido wet himself in his pants and begged David to dismiss the executioner so that he could speak without the knife on his neck. David motioned Yakir to leave the cabin and without further prompting Guido told them everything about Ollie's visit and the plan to manufacture an improvised nuclear device to blackmail several governments to expel all foreigners. He also explained that the project was a joint venture by many nationalist and separatist movements who shared a common cause. David asked him what Ollie wanted in Greece and Guido said that he wanted more money for the project but agreed to settle with enlisting two Greek scientists instead of cash. Guido claimed that he did not know the location of the laboratory but said that they were supposed to meet with the project chief scientist, a Spanish professor Modena, in Milan. David asked who they were and Guido gave him their names and addresses. When David prompted him for more information Guido said that one of them, Panos, had a family and lived in a small villa while the other one, Stavros, was a divorced engineer who lived alone in an apartment building. David realized that Guido had no more relevant information and decided that they could spare his life as he did not pose any danger to them in their assumed ISIS identity. They blindfolded him, gave him another dose of the tranquillizer and set him ashore on a deserted beach and returned to the marina just as the sun began to rise. David, Doron and Yakir returned to Athens and arranged to meet at noon after a short rest and try and find at least one of the scientists. They were not worried that Guido would be able to warn them as they expected him to remain unconscious at least until late in the afternoon.