by Kenneth Eade
“Responsibility comes with every relationship.”
The old man always seemed to speak in proverbs, but only when he had something to say. Most of the time, he said nothing. He just sat in the deck chair and looked out to sea while he fidgeted with a string of royal blue worry beads in his right hand, sliding them one at a time through his worn, dry fingers. Robert piloted the little boat out to sea until the horizon had just about eclipsed the mainland and his little island of Spteses, killed the engine and dropped anchor. From his deck cabinet, he withdrew a tackle box and two fishing poles, and handed them to Dimitri, who began fiddling with them. He went below and came back with a bag of little fish for bait, and three white buckets, one of them filled with water, which he set on the deck and drew the dog’s immediate attention. He buried his head in the bucket and his slushing and slurping sounds were even louder than the waves lapping against the hull.
“That’s one ugly dog, malaka. I can see why you named him Butthead. But you know what? He comes to anything you call him.”
“What do you call him?”
“Malaka.”
The dog reacted to the word, whipping his head in the direction of the sound, water dripping from his furry chin. Robert and the old man shared a laugh. He settled into his deck chair next to Dimitri, who had already cast his line, and slung out his own. The dog plopped down on the deck by his feet with an exhaled groan as if someone had turned off his power switch. Dimitri kicked back with his fishing pole, but Robert’s paranoia would not let him rest. He twisted around in his seat.
“What’s up with you, malaka? You’re flopping around like a fish out of the water. Have you forgotten how to fish?”
The man’s blue eyes were studying Robert’s. He could tell that something was unsettling him.
“Maybe my head’s not in it. Has anyone been asking about me back in Istanbul?”
“There was a lawyer who came around, but he wasn’t looking for you. He was looking for a guy named Paladine.”
Robert’s brows raised. “Paladine?”
“Yeah, I told him that I didn’t know any Paladine, but then he showed me a picture.”
“I see.”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t react to the picture. In fact, I told him I’d never seen anyone like that on my bridge.”
Robert nodded.
“But he wouldn’t give up. He said he worked for the estate of some dead millionaire from San Francisco. Bryce Williamson. Said this Paladine worked for Williamson’s foundation to fight terrorism.”
Robert grunted and Dimitri continued. “He offered me money, malaka, but you know I don’t care about money.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then he told me an interesting story. One of Williamson’s employees was a software engineer by the name of Rahbi Moghadam. Rahbi had a daughter – Rasha. When she was 19, she took a trip to Turkey to celebrate her graduation from junior college and her old man paid for it.
“What he didn’t know was that Rasha had been convinced by an ISIS recruiter to come to Syria to give humanitarian aid to civil war victims.”
Robert nodded. “My guess is that she disappeared?”
“That’s right, malaka. Her father spent a lot of time and money tracking her down, and the trail ended in Syria. Rasha had been forced into a jihadi marriage to six ISIS fighters. Her only purpose in life for an entire year was to be raped repeatedly by those jihadist assholes.”
The old man’s line began to spin out and he pulled up on it, concentrating on the fight with a fish on the other end. He pulled back on it gently, then strongly, then reeled and reeled. He finally pulled a sea bass aboard and into his bucket, and quickly clipped out the hook. As he set his line, he continued.
“One day the compound where they held the girls was bombed and Rasha escaped across the border into Turkey. Later, she was reunited with her family in America.”
“So the story has a good ending.”
The old man’s eyes pierced his. “No, malaka, it doesn’t. Her father insisted on prosecuting the young man who recruited her, but the authorities said there was insufficient evidence. Plus, they said they had no jurisdiction over the crime because it had occurred abroad.”
He paused and licked his lips. “After a year of psychotherapy, the girl killed herself.”
Robert shook his head. “Not my fight.”
The old man didn’t respond. He was working on catching another fish. After it was in his bucket and the line cast back out into the sea, he settled back, put his hat over his eyes and took a nap.
They spent the rest of the day with hardly another word between them, except for essential talk. Robert cleaned and fried two of the six fish Dimitri had caught and whipped up some fried potatoes. His own bucket was still empty. They sat down to a late lunch at the table on the deck with the dog standing at full attention, waiting for scraps and following their every move with his eyes and nose.
“I think you should talk to the father, malaka.” He held out a piece of fish to the dog which gently took it and swallowed it immediately.
“I can’t.”
“You should listen to me on this one, malaka. You know, the years know what the days are still learning.”
“Too risky.”
“I have a feeling you can eliminate that risk. Besides, it is your destiny.”
“Oh, so I have no choice?”
Dimitri’s eyes locked onto Robert’s, who studied the determined look on the man’s lined face. Every wrinkle seemed to exude wisdom and Robert was captivated by his gaze.
“You always have a choice. Destiny deals you your hand and what you do with the cards is up to you.”
“I’m retired.”
The old man laughed. “I can see that. I also see you are interested in finding out what happens next.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Robert looked into his bucket. It was empty. Dimitri’s, on the other hand, was full of fish.
“What happened? You’re bad luck for me, old man!”
“On the contrary, malaka, you have to clear your mind of whatever it is that is preventing you from becoming a part of the water.”
“Are you an Indian? I thought you were Greek.”
The old man laughed. “You obviously have something clouding your brain, and it’s not fishing.”
Robert frowned. “You got me. I’ll talk to the father. But only him and on my terms.”
“Of course. All I did was bring you the news.”
“Do you have a way to get in contact with that lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Then give me everything you’ve got. I’ll check him out and then give instructions to the father on how to meet me.
“Whatever you say, malaka.”
“Dimitri, can I ask you something?”
“You have a question? Go ahead.”
“Did you ever meet someone, just one time, and feel like you made a connection, but you knew you would never see the person again?’
“Of course, malaka. There are two kinds of people we meet in our lives who make a difference: those who remain in our lives and those we only meet once. Each kind has a different type of impact, but both are important.”
Robert pondered the idea for a while, and then let it dissipate into the air.
***
The next morning, after the old man left to visit his grandchildren and great grandchildren in nearby Tripoli, Robert was again alone, which is how he usually preferred to be, but he felt good to be reunited with Butthead again, even though he was a pain in the ass who had to be walked at least twice a day and littered fur all over the boat. His thoughts drifted to Joelle and how similar her story was to the Syrian’s from San Francisco. He pulled out his laptop, set it on the table, turned it on, and hacked into the Wi-Fi of a neighboring restaurant.
Like in his real life, Robert’s virtual life online was buried in the shadows. His web realm was that of the Dark Net, where one can find an
ything from drugs to killers for hire, the latter being Robert’s chosen profession, with a specialty for killing terrorists. Some of his kills had been what you could have called morally “questionable,” but whacking terrorists gave Robert as much pause as crushing a repugnant, ugly, blood-sucking bug, like a mosquito or a stink bug. That is how he acquired the moniker, “Paladine.” It was a creation of social media, really. Some of Robert’s most spectacular kills had not only saved hundreds of lives, but had been recorded on smartphones by “hip pocket journalists” and blasted out instantaneously on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. He had been dubbed “Paladine” by a blogger, and, although Robert’s identity was never discovered, his name went viral. For someone who preferred to remain anonymous, Robert’s persona was famous. There was even a Paladine action figure, which had experienced a recurrence in sales after Robert’s last job.
He checked in to his PGP mail, which he hardly ever did anymore, because Dimitri was the only one who ever messaged him. In Robert’s risky line of work, death was usually the only retirement, so he had taken advantage of circumstances during his last job to fake his own.
He whisked through the news stories about Rahbi Moghadam’s daughter, then did a full check on Moghadam himself. Moghadam was born in Syria, but had immigrated to the UK, where he had completed his studies in software engineering, and was eventually transplanted to the Silicon Valley, where he was able to cash in his talents. After his daughter’s suicide, he quit the software business and headed up the John Williamson Foundation to Fight Terrorism, an organization established by Bryce Williamson, Robert’s first employer in the private sector. Bryce was the perfect boss – he allowed Robert to select his own targets and he was paid handsomely, in cash or anonymous Bitcoin. Upon his death, the foundation, which had been established in honor of Williamson’s son, who had been the victim of a terrorist attack, had been taken over by Moghadam.
Bryce had been good to Robert, and he had been one of the few people in his life he had been able to trust. He decided to hear Moghadam out. He sent an encrypted message to Dimitri:
There’s a flight on Virgin Atlantic through Heathrow every day at 5:15 which will get him into Athens at 7 p.m. the next day. If he can be on tomorrow’s flight, I can talk to him.
He then shifted research gears to check out the Emmanuelle Gentlemen’s Club. The club’s ownership was hidden behind a convoluted labyrinth of corporate names. Thanks to the rampant government corruption in Greece, it had maintained its front as a strip club, even though everybody knew it was nothing but a high class whorehouse. The local policemen (even the chief) were frequently seen patrolling in the area, where they would “check up” on the club to make sure everything was “okay,” just as they did with local restaurants, which would always serve them a complimentary meal. Emmanuelle served a dessert to complement their meals and which assured any complaints ever posed against the club were quickly stifled.
He had a day to kill, so he sailed out to Paralio Astros, where he kept his motorcycle. When he arrived, he fed the dog, locked up the boat, and left Butthead as its sentry on deck with a large bowl of water. He walked to a small garage in the port. Robert rolled his black baby – a Kawasaki Z800 – out of the garage and locked the door. He jumped on the bike, fired it to life, and took off for Porto Heli, which was about a two-hour ride.
He stopped by a café on the way to grab a meal. The restaurants would be opening for dinner soon after his arrival in Porto Heli, but he wasn’t certain when the festivities would begin at the “gentlemen’s club” and he needed to select a vantage point for his surveillance. After refueling himself, he was back on the road, planning a mission in his mind.
He cruised by the place slowly. There were no cars in the parking lot and it appeared to be empty. He doubled back, passed it again, and turned onto a dirt road leading into an olive orchard on the right, just across the street. About 50 meters onto the path, he pulled his bike over into an elevated clump of trees and parked it. He had the usual accessories in his knapsack – long-range field glasses, night vision glasses and a Beretta 9mm fitted with a noise suppressor. He popped a magazine into the Beretta and hit the slide release.
At about 7 p.m., a lone Toyota Corolla pulled into the parking lot and a thin, tall man exited. Robert recognized him to be the bartender. No security. The man unlocked the main door and entered. About 15 minutes later, another loner pulled up in a Volkswagen Golf, parked and entered. Robert figured him for the DJ.
Paydirt came at 7:45, when a white minivan entered the lot, dropping off two beef-neck bodyguards and six girls. A twinge of anxiety crept up his spine when he saw Joelle among them. The driver remained in the vehicle, which indicated he had no intention of remaining there, so Robert fired up the bike and headed back to the road, where he caught sight of the van heading in the opposite direction of town. He followed behind it at a distance, but in plain sight. He slowed enough to allow another car to pass him, and kept his eye on the van which turned right into what appeared to be a residential neighborhood. He passed by the van just as it was pulling into a garage on the side of a large two-story home.
Robert drove back to his viewpoint just in time to see a late model black Mercedes pull up and park and two men exit. One was the shiny-headed manager, the other man he did not recognize at all. Both were wearing designer suits.
Management level ride and uniform.
He focused on the unknown “manager.”
Yup, just as I thought – a camel jockey.
He made a “gun” with his thumb and forefinger, and fired off a round at the Arab’s head.
Robert spent the evening with the olive trees, watching customers come and go until about 3 a.m., when the van reappeared to fetch the girls. The bodyguards and the managers left shortly thereafter. He followed the management car, which turned on the same residential road as the van – the same one he had seen earlier – and parked in the driveway of the same house. Then he headed back to his boat and some needed rest before his meeting with the Syrian, leaving the Porto Heli pimps to live, for now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Aegan’s 7 p.m. flight from Heathrow landed twenty minutes late. Rahbi Mohgadam took a taxi as he had been instructed, to the Athens Hilton, and checked in at the lobby, looking fresh even after the 11-hour flight, in a suit and tie, as if he had just prepared for a business meeting. After presenting his passport and credit card at the front desk, the clerk printed a key and handed it to him with a message.
“This message has been left for you, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be needing assistance with your luggage?”
“No, no, thank you.”
“Very well, sir. Enjoy your stay.”
Robert had given Rahbi specific instructions not to open the message until he was in his room, to memorize the contents and destroy it immediately thereafter. Rahbi took the elevator to the 16th floor, dragging his Louis Vuitton carry-on bag. Upon entering the room, he opened the envelope and read the note. He carefully memorized the details, then ripped it into pieces and flushed it down the toilet. Rahbi withdrew and hung up his navy blue Versace suit and cobalt blue dress shirt, then stepped into a steaming shower to shock his jet lagged body back to life.
Robert was milling with the crowd of businessmen and tourists in Syntagma Square who were watching a pair of black dancers break dancing to a fast electronic beat. He observed Rahbi crossing the square as he had dictated. He looked like he could have been any one of the dozens of businessmen going to and from lunch meetings in the square.
So far, so good. Doesn’t look like he’s been tailed.
Rahbi took a seat by the window in Public Café and ordered a café Americano. Robert watched him through the window from afar. He didn’t appear to be nervous and nobody was showing an interest in him. He was just another well-dressed businessman having a coffee, waiting for his meeting to begin. After he had finished, he asked for his check and the waiter brought it to him with a
business card. According to plan, he flipped it over, dipped his finger in his glass of water and ran it across the back of the card. A message appeared in block letters: Go outside to the Executive Kiosk and order a box of Cohiba Royals. Then start walking back toward the square.
Rahbi paid cash for his coffee, following Robert’s instructions to the letter. There were several kiosks outside, but only one marked “Executive.” There was no line, so he went right up to it. Kiosks like this one seemed to be on every corner. Its two-square meters was packed with everything you would expect to find in a convenience store: cigarettes, snacks, gum and candy, and, of course, an impressive selection of condoms.
“A box of Cohiba Royals, please.”
“One hundred euro.”
Rahbi slid a 100 euro bill across the counter and the proprietor handed him a paper bag in exchange. He began walking toward the square, and reached into the bag. Inside was a cell phone and it was on. He slipped it into the pocket of his jacket and discarded the bag into a nearby garbage can.
Rahbi reached the square and kept walking. As he passed a crowd of shoppers, the phone rang and he answered.
“Hello?”
“Take a table at the Piatsa Syntagma. Tell them you’re meeting John Smith there. Then take the SIM card out of this phone, break it in half and drop it and the phone into the next trash can you see.”
Robert watched Rahbi break the SIM card and dispose of the phone as he had instructed, and enter the restaurant. He waited about five minutes, searching the area for signs of surveillance. There were none. He watched the garbage can where Rahbi had thrown the phone. Also nothing. Tentatively, Robert walked into the restaurant, and asked for John Smith’s table. He was directed to a table by the window which opened onto a patio.
Robert put his hands on top of the chair directly across from Rahbi. “Is this table taken?”
Rahbi looked up, startled. “This is Mr. Smith’s table.”
Robert extended his hand. “I am Mr. Smith.”