Until Nothing Remains: A Hybrid Post-Apocalyptic Espionage Adventure (A Gun Play Novel: Volume 1)

by C. A. Rudolph

  I picked up the tablet and used my thumb and index finger to zoom in on the blinking icon. It had been a while, but I recognized the compound by its location off Chain Bridge Road, just above the Potomac River.

  I switched to the bird’s-eye satellite view to verify, then suddenly felt confused. “Are you certain this is accurate? Your device shows him at the Saudi embassy in McLean.”

  Jon set his drink down and turned, astonished. “The…fuck? The one near Langley?”

  “That’s the only one I know of.”

  “Well, what the hell is he doing there, Ammar?” Jon asked.

  “Gentlemen, please,” Ammar said, not hesitating to respond. “I am afraid I do not possess all of the answers you desire me to have. But what I do have for you is a contract…for the termination of Khaleel el-Sattar in exchange for the sum of twenty million dollars, half of which will be deposited into an account of your choosing following an amicable conclusion of this meeting.”

  This was starting to not make sense. And if it wasn’t making sense to me, I knew Natalia had long ago established it as bullshit. If everything Ammar said was true, el-Sattar was a well-known and identifiable enemy—a threat to populations, governments, and entire nations. Why, then, was he here? And why was he at the Saudi Arabian embassy instead of a mega-mosque or some ISIS training camp in backwoods rural Virginia, or a sharia-ruled no-go zone in Dearborn? The Saudis, for all intents and purposes, were our allies. If Ammar wasn’t lying, that meant the Saudis were colluding with el-Sattar, and that meant involvement with ISIS.

  What a mind-fuck this was becoming. And we hadn’t even shot or stabbed anyone yet.

  I turned my head to gauge Natalia’s expression and could tell she was having second thoughts about this op. At one point, she reached for the tablet and studied the screen for an instant, though still said nothing. She sat motionless in her chair, in her smoldering black dress, still owning a perfect poker face.

  Ammar began to get restless after about a minute and a half of uncomfortable silence. “I am sorry, but I feel as though we are running out of time,” he said. “Are the terms I have presented acceptable to you, or should I have another team consider our proposal?”

  “Another team?” Jon quizzed.

  “Yes, of course,” Ammar said. “We have arranged for several fallback options. Obviously, we prefer to use the best available to us. That is why I agreed to this meeting. But I do not have all night.” He tapped his cigar, sat back in his chair, and folded his arms over his chest, then produced a look of perturbation as if he were counting the seconds away.

  Natalia, even now, wouldn’t look at me. She was obviously still busy churning over the good and the bad in her mind, and I wasn’t about to answer for us. I’d always left the final decision up to her. If it were up to me, the verdict would’ve always been an emphatic yes.

  Just when I thought she’d gone completely catatonic, she uncrossed her legs and leaned charmingly forward onto the table, her elegance immediately catching our Middle Eastern acquaintance’s attention. “Are there any other pertinent details that you might like to provide us, Ammar? Anything that might aid the efficiency of the operation?”

  “I am sorry, Mrs. Stiletto,” Ammar said with a smirk. “I have given you all I have to offer. There is, of course, a list of motives for his execution, but those are confidential items that my benefactors have ordered me not to discuss under any circumstance.”

  Natalia smiled and leaned forward slightly in her seat. “Even benefactors have benefactors,” she said. “And without money, the world stops turning. Doesn’t it, Ammar? My guess is some conglomerate stands to gain a lot of wherewithal from this.”

  Ammar smiled and shrugged. “Perhaps you are correct, Mrs. Stiletto. Even still, I am not at liberty to discuss.”

  “You don’t have to,” Natalia said. “We accept your terms.”

  Ammar smiled broadly. “I am very pleased to hear that.”

  Jon looked back at me and I nodded the go-ahead to him. He pulled out a small piece of paper that had our numbers written on it in graphite, placed it on the table, and slid it over to Ammar with a single finger. Ammar palmed it and, after a few seconds, pulled out a cell phone and made a call.

  A few minutes passed while Ammar spoke unintelligibly in Arabic to whomever was on the other side of the call. When the call was completed, he placed his phone on the table and gave me a quizzical look. “Would you like to verify?”

  I reached into my pocket for the burner I’d brought along and presented it for him to see. “I hope you don’t take this as an insult.”

  Ammar smiled and tapped the screen on his phone, ending the call.

  When I heard ringing commence on the burner, I lifted the phone to my ear and waited. It picked up on the fourth ring.

  “EFG Zürich. Passcode, please,” a female voice with a Swiss-German accent on the other end said.

  “Gun play.”

  “Very well,” she said. “Please authenticate. Zulu. Gunpowder. Lightning.”

  “Foxtrot. Hollow point. Hurricane.”

  “Authentication confirmed. Good morning, Mr. Barrett. My name is Lara. How can I be of service?”

  “Confirmation on most recent transfer.”

  A moment went by while the sound of fingers tapping a keyboard came over the phone’s speaker. She returned soon after and confirmed Ammar’s deposit was intact and safe. The deal had been made. I thanked Lara, terminated the call, and shut off the phone directly after. “Everything checks out,” I announced, making a mental note to burn the phone when we left.

  Ammar nodded. “It is settled, then. Upon proven completion of your task, the remaining balance will be wired to the identical account, unless you specify otherwise. Now, you have had questions for me and I have only one question for you.” He paused and leaned forward, his eyes on me. “How soon can we expect to hear from you?”

  I shrugged, which deferred his gaze to Natalia.

  “Within seventy-two hours,” she said resolutely.

  Ammar looked surprised. He waited for Natalia to backpedal a moment. “You’re serious?”

  Natalia displayed a look of pure unadulterated certainty. “As a heart attack. So long as the target remains in-country and doesn’t suddenly disappear from the radar, in less than three days he’ll be deleted, and the contract will be fulfilled on our end. And then you and your benefactors need only concern yourselves with the one final contractual obligation.”

  Ammar nodded. “It will be done.”

  Five

  Winchester, Virginia

  Wednesday, March 26, 2:30 p.m. EDT

  Nihayat al’ayam minus 33 hours, 30 minutes

  The sun’s dazzling glare off the freshly waxed clearcoat on his girlfriend’s pristine cherry red Mustang GT caught Chris’s eye instantly when he exited the school. Jessi’s parents had bought it for her a couple of weeks ago as a pregraduation gift, even though she and Chris were still both juniors and had the remainder of the year in addition to a full senior year before that event was scheduled to transpire. He guessed, as with most things her parents did to spoil and appease her, they had gotten it for her out of guilt for all the time they spent away, due to their demanding careers and near-Hollywoodesque social lives.

  Chris adjusted the weight of his backpack and ran his fingers through his bangs, which were thick and especially wavy today, exactly as Jessi preferred them to be. It had been her suggestion for Chris to have his hair styled this way: heavy in the front and trimmed short and layered in the back, a common fashion often seen on the crowns of lead singers in popular boy bands.

  Chris strolled to the car and watched as the passenger-side window rolled down, exposing the sprightly, unblemished, smiling face of his teenage lover, draped on either side by velvety layers of well-kept strawberry-blond hair. He was surprised to see her holding a cigarette. “Jess, you’ve only had this car for, like, two weeks,” he said, reaching for the door handle and taking a seat inside. “And you�
��re already smoking in it?”

  Jessi shrugged and took a puff while watching him enter the car. “Smoke, vape, blaze…whatevs. It’s my car, isn’t it?”

  Chris carefully slid his backpack into the gap beside his seat and pushed it into the back seat. “That’s not the point I was trying to make. Don’t you want to enjoy that new-car scent a little longer?”

  Jessi giggled, thin wafts of smoke escaping her nostrils. “I’ve been smoking since I was twelve. It’s not like I could smell it, anyway. Nothing tastes or smells the way it should when you’re a career smoker like me, Chris.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Chris sighed and buckled his seatbelt. “Thanks for the ride again, by the way. One of these days, I’ll repay the favor.”

  Jessi shifted the car into drive and placed a hand on Chris’s thigh, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “Baby, it’s no problem, I don’t mind. Some of us just got it like that. Besides, I didn’t just decide to go out with you because of a car or where you lived.”

  Chris snorted. “Okay, that was original.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing…it just sounded like a line from the Karate Kid,” Chris said jokingly.

  “What?”

  “What you just said. It’s something that blonde girl—his girlfriend—says in the movie.”

  “What movie?”

  “Never mind.” Chris waved her off, hesitating. “I just don’t want you to think I’m using you.”

  Jessi flicked her cigarette carelessly out the window, then rolled it up a few inches as she pulled out of the parking lot, chirping a tire. “Chris, you worry too much about too many things. You need to just live your life and let the chips fall where they may. You don’t know the future, none of us do. So why give a shit?”

  “Heh…you really want to know why I give a shit?”

  “Yeah, seriously. Why do you?”

  Chris shrugged. “Probably because the future is important to me, Jess. It’s just always been drilled into my head like that. My dad’s always pushing me to be ready and think about the future in some way. And I don’t mean deciding on college and career stuff, either.”

  “Well, I think all that’s fucking pointless,” said Jessi snidely. “I mean, come on, we could all be dead tomorrow because of some crazy catastrophe. Aliens could attack us, or that super volcano caldera thing could explode and kill us all. Or some rampant pandemic could happen that wipes us all out in the blink of an eye. It’s so much easier just to live life day-to-day and say to hell with it. Screw the future.” She paused, glancing over at him. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same, babe. It’s not like I’m going to think less of you or anything.”

  Jessi hung a right on Apple Pie Ridge Road, turned a corner, and pulled to a stop at the intersection with US Route 522. After the light turned green, she hung a left and took an immediate right onto state Route 37, a four-lane freeway that ran along the western outskirts of their hometown.

  “Where are we going?” Chris asked. “It’s quicker to get to my house the other way or even through town.”

  Jessi smiled broadly. “Duh, I know that. We’re not going to your house yet. We’re taking a little detour.”

  Chris turned to her. “What sort of detour?” he asked, his eyes showing apprehension.

  “Relax,” Jessi said reassuringly. She lifted her phone to eye level and glanced at the screen. “I was texting my cousin Barbie yesterday about our concert plans, and she wants to see the car. So I want to stop over there for a few before I take you home. Is that okay with you?”

  “I guess. Wait…what concert?”

  Jessi mocked him under her breath. “The huge rave thing tomorrow night at Jiffy Lube pavilion…everybody’s going.” She peered over at him. “You should go with us.”

  “With who? Everybody?”

  “No! With Barbie and me.”

  Chris sighed. He began to wonder what his parents would think of those plans. As much fun as he knew it would be, he knew they’d never go for it. Even at the age of seventeen, he hadn’t been allowed much in terms of freedom away from home.

  His dad wasn’t so much the problem. It was his mother, the despot, who’d always been the one to put her foot down. Had it been an afterschool extracurricular project, organized sporting event, or church gathering, she might’ve offered her go-ahead to this one. But a rave with hundreds of teenage miscreants in attendance? Never in his wildest dreams. “I take it your parents don’t mind you going.”

  “You assume correctly,” said Jessi. “You should know by now, my parental units don’t give a shit, Chris.” She paused to light up another cigarette. “We’ve been planning this for a month now, and we’ve got everything we need for a small tailgating party too…I just hope it all fits in the car. I didn’t exactly pick this one because of its trunk space. We have food, coolers, a mini grill, cornhole boards, you name it.”

  “Beer…”

  Jessi giggled. “Well, yeah. Can’t leave home without the party.”

  As they drove past the ball fields, Chris considered his options, what few of them there were. “I have practice tomorrow.”

  “Skip it.”

  “Sure. Skip it. No problem,” Chris jested. “But what about school on Friday?”

  Jessi shrugged. “We could just as easily skip school, too. But…I don’t think we’ll need to.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they’re already talking about canceling school on Friday.”

  “Really? For what?”

  “Jesus, Chris. You really need to read a newspaper sometime,” Jessi sounded off. “It’s because of those anti-gun protests. My dad emailed me about them. He said he’s heard rumors there could be upwards of several thousand people coming into town. It’ll be a nightmare, just like the last time it happened. They’ll be marching and holding up signs everywhere and blocking the roads…traffic is going to be screwed. Anyway, Dad said the school board sent out a notice yesterday that they were considering closing schools on Friday in advance—kind of like they do when the weather’s too hot or too cold, or when there’s an inch of snow on the ground.”

  “Now that you mention it, I heard my parents talking about it at dinner the other night,” Chris said. “I guess I didn’t think it was going to be that serious.”

  “Gun control is serious, Chris. People are way pissed now—that’s why they’re protesting. Guns kill, like, a million people every day, and something has to be done about it before we’re all dead.”

  Chris chuckled and shook his head slightly in amusement. “Jessi, that’s preposterous. If a million people died every day, the country’s population would be decimated in a little over a year.”

  Jessi huffed. “Look, I don’t want to argue. I know we don’t agree on the topic. So let’s just not talk about it, okay? Let’s get back on the concert train and figure out our plans for the weekend.”

  Chris’s brows elevated. “The concert does sound like a lot of fun.”

  “It’s going to be a ridiculous amount of fun. And you should go with us, for real.” Jessi rubbed Chris’s leg. “I could make it worth your while, you know. We could spend some…quality time. I know how you enjoy that sort of thing.”

  “How are we supposed to have any alone time with your cousin around?”

  “Oh, Chris, stop it. You leave the details up to yours truly. I promise you, baby, I have it covered. The only thing you have to do is say the word that you’re going. I might even let you ride shotgun.”

  Chris leaned over and planted a wet kiss on Jessi’s florally perfumed cheek. “If I do come along, my ass is going to be in a sling. So if I make it happen, I’m going to do a lot more than just be right passenger in this beast.”

  Jessi smirked. “Okay, fine. Fine, Casanova. I’ll allow you to drive. For a few miles or so. On the highway. Maybe.”

  With the Mustang’s radio blaring the latest pop music from satellite radio’s top-forty channel, it left little r
oom for conversation along the way to Barbie’s house. Jessi hung a right at the Opequon exit, turning onto Cedar Creek Grade, and made a left-hand turn on to Jones Road about a mile after. They passed by the Stonebrook subdivision, which for a time, several decades ago, had been one of the more prominent places to live in the county, complete with its own golf course, Olympic-sized swimming pool, and racquetball club. Houses located within were in the upper-middle-class range, very similar in size and property value to that of Chris’s family’s home.

  Chris glanced over at Jessi, who was busily lip-synching to the song currently playing. There was little doubt in his mind that he had lucked out having her as his high school girlfriend. She was probably one of the top five most beautiful girls in his school, and quite possibly in the county, for all he knew. He’d occasionally heard others in his class refer to Jessi as a dimepiece, which to members of his generation meant a female whose beauty, even without makeup, ranked a perfect ten. He could only imagine what this cousin of hers might look like, especially with a name like Barbie. She no doubt had been given the name aptly and, therefore, had to have thick flowing blond hair, steel blue eyes, luscious pink lips, an ivory smile, and abundant breasts to go along with the package.

  Chris chuckled to himself as his young mind raced through the possibilities, unanchored by inhibitions. Jessi hung a right onto Brookneil Drive and into the ornate rural subdivision, which sat adjacent to Stonebrook.

  “Your cousin lives here?” Chris asked while reaching for the volume knob and turning the music down a few clicks. “Is everybody in your family rich?”

  Jessi grinned at him, exhaling smoke from her cigarette. “Not everybody. Uncle Ian owns a civil engineering business. He’s loaded, but he works his ass off for it, just like my dad does.”

  Chris squinted. “Yeah, but your dad is a doctor.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Chris shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just the two careers aren’t even the slightest bit similar, that’s all.”

  Jessi flicked her half-finished cigarette out the window. “My dad works just as hard as anybody else, Chris. He works so many hours, I hardly ever see him anymore. So do me a favor, okay? Just shut up about it.”