by M. K. Gilroy
The tall, trim, elegant man exited the plane slowly but gracefully, following his bodyguard, Jules, invisible during the flight, but a force of nature in light of day, to the bottom of the stairs and waited.
Jules opened the back door of the Range Rover and did a thorough physical and electronic search. He repeated the process in the front seat. He then nodded curtly to the driver to pop open the trunk. Jules searched the compartment thoroughly, shut the lid, and next opened a telescopic rod with a mirror to check the undercarriage. The driver looked sullen, though he had been told by the boss that this was standard operating procedure for today’s client.
Who does this guy think he is?
As Jules moved back to the front of the car the man asked from the driver’s seat he was glued to—instructions had been given that he stay in the car the whole time—“Is this really necessary?”
The last word nearly caught in his throat as he looked up and made eye contact with Jules for the first time.
Jules fixed him with the brightest emerald green eyes the man had ever seen. Looking into Jules piercing stare he wasn’t sure he had actually seen green eyes in his entire life. Not like these. What the driver sensed from the blond ape was a calm, dispassionate, almost gentle, hostility. The man was a killer. As a Viet Nam vet who had known his share of men who lived for violence, he was certain of it.
No words were exchanged. Jules continued his detailed inspection. Satisfied, Jules nodded to the chauffeur who silently started the engine. Jules opened the door for Alexander.
I guess us local yokels aren’t good enough to open this guy’s door.
Jules walked around to the other side of the car but instead of getting in the back, opened the front passenger door, pushed a leather scheduler to the middle, and settled in. His eyes would not leave the driver for the rest of the trip.
Alexander watched and smiled. Jules truly was an artist with intimidation.
A matching SUV awaited Pauline’s bidding. He looked back as they pulled away. She still hadn’t emerged from the plane.
“I want to see you off, darling.” My dear Pauline, you did not take care of business. I must bid you a fond adieu.
She was different than other service companions Alexander had employed through the years. She played the part of devoted mistress well, almost to a tee. But her serene smile and calm disposition couldn’t hide the fact that the waters of her soul ran deep. She could pretend to be owned, but not well enough to disguise that it was pretense. She had her own agenda. He liked that.
Sometimes.
4
New York City
“DO WE KNOW ANYTHING YET? What is our friend up to?” Emmanuel Heller asked as he slathered butter and a large dollop of caviar on a slice of freshly-baked sourdough bread.
“We still know nothing. But that might change soon,” answered Walter Wannegrin, who just shook his head in amusement as Heller put the knife in his mouth and pulled it out slowly to make sure he devoured every last morsel of the insanely expensive Russian black roe.
“Good! My boss is nervous. More importantly his boss is nervous. Usually I’d just ignore both of them, but frankly, I’m nervous, too.”
“That makes you smart, Manny. I keep hearing little tidbits from my sources that should make all of us nervous.”
“So Wally, you’re sure you’ve found a way inside his defenses?”
No one dared called Walter Wannegrin, Wally—or Emmanuel Heller, Manny—but the two septuagenarians had a friendship that spanned more than sixty years, which afforded the privilege of an intimate casualness.
“I don’t think I’ve found a way in, Manny. I know I’ve found a way in. I’m already inside. I have been for five months.”
“You could have told me that, Wally,” said Heller, dabbing at the corner of a frown with his napkin.
“Manny, you’re the one who taught me that once someone knows your secret, it isn’t a secret anymore.”
“I agree, Wally. But that only applies to everyone in your life but me. I need to know everything,” Emmanuel explained as he went into a coughing fit.
His rolls of blubber undulated in time with his distressed hacks and wheezes. Concerned, Walter, thin and nimble, stood, went to his friend, and began slapping him in the middle of his massive back.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Emmanuel said. “Are you trying to kill me just because I remind you that I must know all secrets?”
“You don’t look fine Manny. And I knew you would say that about secrets not applying to you because I know how impatient you are. This is a project that requires patience.”
“I’ve suffered the affliction of patience for a full nine months since we first spoke of the matter. Long enough to have a baby. If you’ve been inside his gates for five months why don’t we know anything yet?”
“You see, I told you. You are too impatient, Emmanuel. This is delicate. We want to find out what he’s up to without him knowing we were ever there. Your instructions exactly. You would have us hit the hornet’s nest like it was a piñata. In fact, as I recall, that is what you did when we were little boys.”
“I think your memory is fuzzy and it was actually you who did that,” Manny laughed. “You were older so you made sure I got blamed for it.”
“Older by two months, Manny—you could stand up for yourself just fine.”
“No Wally, I’m certain it was you. Sixty-one years later I remember that little escapade of yours like it was yesterday.”
“Sixty-one years? We are getting old, Manny. Too old to argue about what we both know to be true—you hit the hornet’s nest—and for what we’re trying to accomplish. I’ve always looked forward to dying peacefully in my sleep, preferably without a bullet hole in my head.”
“We may be old, but that’s why we’ve got to do this. You know as well as I do, actually better since you are a father and I am not, we cannot trust the young ones with something this big. They have too many personal issues from not being breast-fed properly or getting punched in the nose on the playground or some other nonsense someone put in their heads. They get distracted from what is important. That’s why I came to you, Walter.”
“Exactly. You came to me. Now just relax and be patient. Let this operation unfold. No prying. You asked me to do something you can’t do yourself. Leave me in peace to do it.”
“I must admit, I’m impressed, Walter. You got inside. I wasn’t sure that was possible. But five months ago. Oyez! What has taken so long to get any information—and what has changed now?”
“You’re prying.”
“I need a morsel for my masters.”
Wannegrin sighed and spoke slowly, “My contractor tells me an opportunity for the acquisition of closely-held personal data has finally presented itself to his agent.”
“Soon?”
“Even as we speak. Today or tonight. Maybe right now.”
“The man has done little to no meaningful business by computer or a cell phone or land line for years, even though he has the best encryption in the world. Where has Alexander kept the data hidden?”
“You asked me to help and I have done so at considerable expense and danger. And with no exposure to you and your government I would add. Now you want to interrogate me like a juvenile delinquent? You asked for a morsel and against my better judgment, knowing what an appetite you have, I offered you one.”
“I am sorry, Walter. You are right. I’m impatient. And when I’m impatient I get rude. Forgive me Wally.”
“Impatience. That is exactly why you are always rude, Emanuel. But I love you anyway and you are always forgiven even before you commit one of your many sins. Now it’s time for you to get out of my hair and let me finish what you asked me to do. We will know something soon. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot. Time will tell.”
“Time we might not have, Wally.”
“Time is God’s way of keeping everything from happening at the same time, Manny. Just try to have a little patience.”
&nb
sp; “Wally, I hope you know how grateful I am for your work. That’s why I’m taking you to dinner tomorrow night at the Madison Club.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know how grateful you are. And I know I should be honored that the legendary Emanuel Heller, the man even presidents of the United States fear, would stop by for a surprise breakfast and then invite me to dinner. But I also know you’ll make me pick up the bill.”
“Walter, your expense account is better than mine. Much better. We’ll both enjoy a much better dinner if you pay.”
“That’s what you’ve been telling me all these years.”
“We’ll drink a toast to many more. The world needs us Wally, even if we are old men.”
“I have no argument there, Emmanuel. The world still does need a few old washed up curmudgeons like us, whether or not it knows it. We will lift a glass to celebrate our grand achievement of still being alive. Tomorrow night. At the Madison Club.”
The rotund Emanuel Heller pushed his chair back and began the incredible effort it took for him to lift his four hundred pounds from a chair with a grunt and a profanity.
Walter Wannegrin reached over and put a hand on his forearm to stop him. Emanuel settled his bulk back in the cushion gratefully. He looked up at his friend.
“Before you leave Manny, I am curious.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Tomorrow night’s dinner has been scheduled for more than a month. Why the charade? It’s just the two of us. You left your bodyguard in the car. And as security conscious and paranoid as you are to keep your whereabouts and meetings a secret, why did you stop by for breakfast?”
“I was in New York and I was hungry. I knew you were my only sure bet to have a tin of Russian Osetra black caviar to go with bagels and cream cheese.”
“I had no bagels and cream cheese. You had to settle for fresh-baked sourdough and Irish butter.”
“A small concession when set next to spending time with my best friend and his delicious caviar.”
“When aren’t you hungry Emanuel? I’m not sure I even tasted the caviar myself. Someone ate an entire twelve-hundred-dollar tin by himself.”
“I forget myself when I eat.”
“You do. And you change the subject when you don’t want to answer a question. Why did you really stop by?”
“The answer is not so sinister, Walter. As I said, the powers that be are nervous and I have to feed them something. Even with a legend they want to know what you’ve done for them lately.”
“Tell them we’re inside and poised to make a move.”
“I already did. A couple months ago.”
“So you lied.”
“How can it be a lie when I was right? I was just expressing confidence in my lifelong friend.”
“As you should. So remind them you are a legend.”
“There is a new Pharaoh in town who knows not Joseph.”
“Tell the president to be patient.”
“I will. At lunch today. A little birdy tells me that the POTUS plans to turn up the heat on the grill when he questions me. That should dispel any mystery surrounding my visit this morning.” Heller looked at his watch. “That’s only an hour from now. And I believe I’ve worked up an appetite.”
Wannegrin laughed. “Just tell him to be patient.”
“Easier to tell the sun to sleep in for a day, my faithful friend.”
“The sun did not rise for Joshua when he defeated the Amorites— perhaps it will not rise for Emmanuel Heller when he strides into his next battle.”
“I will receive that as a blessing,” Heller said with a smile and nod as he laboriously stood and turned from the exquisite view of Manhattan Island from the 87th floor of Wannegrin’s condo in One57.
I wonder if it’s true that Wally paid $60 million for this, Heller wondered.
SIXTY-ONE YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP, Wannegrin thought, feeling his own mortality. He remembered the first time he set eyes on Manny, a fat little kid from Brooklyn. Emmanuel’s parents had sent him to spend a summer on Walter’s family’s defiant little kibbutz in Palestine. They wanted to toughen Emmanuel up.
Despite his thick spectacles, his aversion to manual labor, his obesity, his bookish ways, they need never have worried. Emmanuel Heller was one of the toughest men he knew. Give the man a stick and a swarming hornet’s nest, and he was fearless.
Emmanuel was the one who broke open the hornet’s nest with a stick.
5
Los Angeles, California
FAHAD. THE LEOPARD. HE WAS twenty-five years old. Born on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, his Pakistani parents moved to Culver City, just off the 405, when he was nine-years old, to open a restaurant. His tenth birthday party was at the Wonder World Amusement Park in Anaheim, which was to that point, the greatest day of his life.
But there comes a moment in every young man’s life when he must grow up and look at life beyond children’s games.
He tightened the wires on the timing mechanism that sat in the top of his toolbox.
It took him two years at Los Angeles Trade Tech, after high school, to get his degree in electrical construction and maintenance. He spent the next two years freelancing for various contractors before being hired on the support staff at Wonder World, with full benefits and a decent hourly wage.
He lifted out the timer and looked again at thousands of nails and metal scraps, which rested on a reservoir filled with three gallons of a highly flammable cocktail, including acetone and gasoline, two easy-to-access Class I flammables. When the clock hit 00:00 a flash of fire would ignite the fuel and propel metal missiles into human flesh, maiming and killing hundreds if not thousands. How many? Zoraiz told him to not worry about details. However many infidel lives he took would be enough to remind the soft, sensual West that their sins would not go unpunished.
Almost sixty thousand visitors would be at Wonder World on Friday night. Most would stay for the fireworks show at ten o’clock. His shift ended at eight p.m. That would give him an hour to place his tool chest in a small garden next to the square of the Enchanted Palace, the area where close to ten thousand people would watch an array of sizzling, dizzying lights explode overhead. It was the most popular and crowded spot in the park at that time. He would open the lid, set the clock, cover it with a thin fabric camouflage, and walk calmly to the employee exit. He would be in his car and on the 405 when the real fireworks started.
He thought of Zoraiz. He met him at mosque when he was eighteen. Zoraiz was the man who helped him understand who he was as a Muslim in an infidel land. He taught him the Koran and how to be a man. A real man.
If Zoraiz had asked him to sacrifice his own life, Fahad would have done so willingly and without question. Zoraiz had helped him see that life is much bigger and grander than earthly existence.
His parents wanted to know why he hadn’t started a family of his own.
Perhaps now he would. But first he would have to get a new job.
He closed the lid on the toolbox and took a few steps back. It looked perfect. Just like a toolbox.
6
New York City
BURKE WAS TOWEL DRYING HIS hair in a cramped bathroom on the fifteenth floor of a nondescript hotel in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan when his phone chirped.
He had cranked out three hundred push ups in sets of fifty with one-minute recovery breaks thirty minutes ago. He had to take the call. Thirty minutes ago he wouldn’t have been able to speak.
“Yes?”
“Any word?” The voice was mechanical. Whoever his contractor was used an electronic voice scrambler.
“You’ll know when I know.”
“No problems?”
“You’ll know that, too. But only when I do.”
“I like to be kept informed.”
“You have been and you will be. But we both agreed to limit unnecessary contact.”
“With what I’m paying you, I get to define unnecessary.”
If the man was in
the same room with him right now, Burke wasn’t sure he would be able to restrain himself from inflicting serious bodily damage—even if his own nakedness made him feel very vulnerable. The problem was he didn’t know who the man was. He often didn’t know his clients’ identity and they really didn’t know who he was either. Better for both parties. But this project was different. A gnawing in the pit of his stomach told him he should have spent more time figuring out who hired him. In the early days of his business, he always did. But even a seared conscience struggles with the nature of work requested of him by some of his best customers, so over time Burke took a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to knowing who paid his light bills.
The parameters for his current assignment were insanely impossible. Stealing from a man like Jonathan Alexander, without him being the wiser, was chiseling away at Burke’s usual calm and indifferent manner.
When Burke informed his client that the final stage of the operation was green lighted, the barrage of calls started out as a nuisance. Now he wondered if there was another reason. The man and whoever he worked for was up to something. Burke knew betrayal—a devastating betrayal—that still haunted his every waking moment. That kept his paranoia finely tuned. Was his client trying to pinpoint his exact location? He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the screen of his prepaid out-of-date Nokia with deep suspicion. No doubt. He could smell betrayal in the air.
“I’ll be in touch soon,” Burke said.
“The sooner the better.”
He pulled up his undershorts, followed by a pair of jeans. He wrestled his arms and head into a soft wool sweater. He tugged up his Swiftwick compression socks and tightened the laces on a pair of lightweight Asics running shoes. He didn’t sense imminent action, but always better to be prepared for fight or flight than surprised by what might be waiting for you outside your door or on the street.
Burke rarely spent time in New York City anymore. Too crowded. Too busy. Too self-important. But he needed to stick around for the return of his contractor who was in way over her head with such a dangerous prey. Despite the directive to not let Alexander know anyone had been snooping in his business, this was where Burke planned to extract his operative. He would snatch Pauline tonight. That thought solidified in his mind. Something his client wouldn’t like but wouldn’t know was coming until it happened. He could argue later that the risk of keeping her in Alexander’s presence was a greater risk.