The man in the grey suit got up, placed the knife in his belt, and walked out of the restaurant. He hadn’t even finished his glass of wine.
They never caught him. His own girlfriend hadn’t known his real name. In truth, he did not enjoy going to public places to eat, and the thought of using the same utensils which thousands of others before him had used, no doubt using filthy dishwater to clean them, had made him sick. Still, he’d wanted to impress his new girlfriend, who wanted him to meet her friends, so the dinner had to happen.
***
He reflected how fortunate that the restaurant didn’t have surveillance. At any rate, it all happened twenty years ago, and no amount of eye witnesses could have placed a man so nondescript, who had left no evidence. And no one knew his name. Still, the difference in his appearance was due entirely to luck. He never wore denim or fancy black sweaters.
Cops were smart, he told himself. Homicide detectives even more so. He had indeed been lucky. And he would do well to remember it. He now planned ahead, making sure the time and place would suit him before pursuing the end game.
He realized then what a tangent he’d been on, how far his thoughts had strayed, and brought them back to where they belonged, locking them in place.
So, yes, Division9 were a bunch of thugs, without a doubt. But at least they belonged to him.
Shit. Shelley was out of the picture. And not in Lebanon, seeking out her husband, as he had originally thought. That devious little bitch and her gung-ho hero boyfriend had pulled out all the stops to fake their little trip, and the man in the grey suit had bought it hook, line and sinker. He’d assumed they were simply too stupid to realize how easily they could be tracked. And he’d been exactly wrong. GI Joe and the bitch Abaid woman hadn’t gone to Lebanon, at all. They’d somehow faked it, and very convincingly.
Shit.
Well, he no longer had her as an option in his search for Don Abaid. He only had access to his own resources, and nothing more. Still, he reasoned, you worked with the tools you had, whether you liked it or not. If circumstances changed, you changed with them. But all the reason in the world couldn’t tear his mind away from one simple fact.
The man in the grey suit had been played. They’d made a fool of him. He felt a rage he feared would consume him.
He turned slowly to his computer, trying to remain calm, and smashed his fist into the screen.
He felt no pain, but he felt a little better. He looked at the blood amassing on his knuckles in wonder. He didn’t see his own blood very often.
Usually somebody else’s, some poor pleading idiot seconds away from death who had no way out of it and still held out a pathetic hope things could work out right up until the end. Yes, he felt a bit better, but not nearly enough. He took a few deep breaths, waited.
He yelled at his assistant for some of his herbal tea. It came within moments, the young woman’s eyes flicking briefly to the smashed computer monitor before hastily looking away.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” she asked meekly.
“Get out,” the man in the grey suit said shortly, trying to contain his anger until she’d left the room and he could enjoy the soothing tea. “Get out now and close the damn door after you.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Enjoy the tea, sir.”
“I said get the fuck out of here!” he yelled. She scurried away.
He sipped on his tea which did not taste nearly as good as he usually made it, but what could he expect? Still, it soothed him, calming his nerves and lowering his heart rate with each sip. Slowly, his mind began to clear, the red veil of anger that had distorted his thoughts dissolving away, letting him think clearly again, to his immense relief. The man in the grey suit hated haziness of thought. Focus provided the key to success. Anger, amongst other things, made your thoughts hazy, your instincts duller.
He sat back, taking another sip of the soothing tea. Yes, definitely getting back to normal. Don Abaid was off the grid, nowhere to be found. The authorities weren’t involved yet because the Abaid woman didn’t trust their effectiveness to get the job done. Or to keep Rachel safe in the process of getting the job done. Fair enough. The man in the grey suit wouldn’t have either. So both teams needed to locate Don. And neither had any information on the bastard’s whereabouts.
Both had tremendous resources, the Abaid woman with the company her friend owned, and himself with Division9 and whatever he could glean from the CIA. And yet the guy had managed to stay entirely hidden, even with a little girl in tow.
Something needed to be done, the man in the grey suit thought grimly. Something needed to be done to flush this son of a bitch out into the open.
And he knew exactly how.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Shelley lay on the bed in the guestroom, sleeping peacefully. It had been a knock to the temple, and by the looks of it caused by the heavy iron poker from the fireplace. But as Mel and I set to work on her, firstly checking for a pulse, then rapidly inspecting the injury before getting to work, quickly establishing the injury had not been a fatal one.
When I saw her limp form, the worst possible scenario played itself out in my mind. But it opened up emotions for her which ran far deeper than I’d thought only a short while ago. I’d locked them down to see clearly, to do what needed to be done.
Head wounds always bleed a lot, looking very much worse than they usually are due to the thinness of the skin on the scalp and the proximity of blood vessels to the skin’s surface. Of course, tell anyone with a loved one whose head gushed blood that little piece of information and you’ll get a ‘fuck off’ in no uncertain terms. But I knew it was true, as we worked on her, cleaning up the blood and sterilizing the broken skin.
The wound only required a few stitches, administered by Mel as I made sure there were no signs of a concussion. She groaned briefly when the needle had gone in, but otherwise remained out cold. Fortunately, we didn’t have to worry about a coma.
A mild concussion seemed to be the likeliest possibility, but neither of us felt safe leaving Shelley in a hospital right now. Besides, Mel and I had extensive experience in the field, and we knew what we were doing.
She would be fine, but for the moment she needed rest above all else.
Mel seemed pretty sure they had bugged his place, so we just sat on the couch as dusk finely arrived, taking in the view and not saying very much. Neither of us wanted to leave Shelley there alone, so we couldn’t talk about our next move yet. It frustrated me, but nothing could be done about it. We ate eventually, picking disinterestedly at our food, talking in muted tones about mundane things, avoiding the main topic on our minds, waiting for Shelley to awaken so we could get the hell out of there. When it became clear she would sleep through the night, we turned in too, hoping she’d be ready to go, come morning.
I awoke to the wonderful smell of breakfast cooking, wafting in through the open guestroom door like an old and absent friend. The sound of sizzling bacon came to my ears, and I sat up immediately, my stomach already grumbling, reaching for my pants before realizing I was fully dressed, having fallen asleep as soon as my head had hit the pillow the night before.
I entered the main lounge area and looked over at the kitchen, where Mel and Shelley were busily making breakfast, enough to feed a small country by the looks of it.
“Good morning, all,” I said, sensing an odd joviality in the air which seemed out of place in Mel’s apartment after the events of the previous day.
“Tom!” Shelley said warmly, the Band-Aid on her temple doing nothing to hide her beauty. She always did look great in the mornings. “How did you sleep?”
“I kind of think the more important question here would be how did you sleep,” I replied.
“Oh, you mean this?” she asked, pointing at the Band-Aid on her temple.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “That is indeed what I mean. And, of course, what caused it in the first place.”
“I slept just fine, thanks, Tom,�
� she replied with a smile. “Perfectly fine. And I had wonderful dreams about what I’m going to do to those cowards when our paths cross again. And they will, won’t they, Mel?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Mel agreed from the oven. “No doubt about it.”
I looked at him, eyes raised, questioning. We were both convinced the place was bugged. There they were chatting about taking down Division9 with no care in the world, like the man in the grey suit and his hired thugs weren’t listening to every word they said.
He seemed to sense the look I gave him, because his head popped up from the stove briefly and he smiled, “Relax, Tom.”
I shook my head, “Relax? Shit, Mel, Shelley should be in bed.”
“I checked her out thoroughly this morning,” he replied, his head back below the counter. “She’s fine, nothing but a surface wound.”
Mel took out his phone and tapped something rapidly on its screen, then popped it back into a pocket.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see one new message:
Give her this, Tom. She needs it. M.
I nodded, putting my own phone back in my pants pocket.
“So what’s for breakfast?” I asked lightly, deciding what the hell. When in Rome.
“Smells great. And my stomach heartily agrees.”
“Oh, a bit of everything,” Shelley said. “Mel’s something of a culinary maestro.”
“Yeah, I’ve had the pleasure before,” I agreed.
I looked at the array of food on the kitchen counter. I knew better than to say out loud that we had more than enough for the three of us, more than enough for ten, in fact. But then I got it. Road food. We were going off the grid.
“Fair enough. So what’s the plan for the day?” I asked, wondering what sort of answer I’d get. A visit to the zoo, perhaps?
Shelley looked over at me, “We’re working on it.”
“Over breakfast, we should probably talk about our next moves regarding finding Don Abaid,” Mel replied. “We seem to have reached a dead end for now. Sadly, the gentleman I spoke to in the park yesterday is in the same boat as us, so we need to figure this out.”
Eventually, we finished breakfast. Mel served us and sat down with us at the kitchen table. The layout was generous, but not nearly as much as he seemed to have made, confirming my suspicions once and for all.
We were going on a road trip, and probably not to paradise to drink exotic cocktails in the sun. We were going on the run, which complicated things for us. Without a base for operations, things always had an unsteady air about them, as if planning was a little less refined, field ops a little more dangerous because of it.
Still, I thought. You played the hand you got. Like it or not.
We ate in silence for a while, my own mind dwelling on the immediate future and what it might bring, before Shelley broke the ice.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked.
I could see Mel had told her about the presumed surveillance somehow, because she hadn’t made any further remarks about the attack, other than her one defiant statement.
Under normal circumstances she would now be sitting and plotting the complete destruction of Division9 HQ and all of its employees with passion and fervor. Not sitting around and enjoying a hearty breakfast among friends.
“I don’t know what to say, Shel,” Mel replied. “All I can think of is that we need to look at this from ground level again, come at it from a different angle. If the guy I spoke with can’t find Don, even with all of his considerable resources, then I think that’s our best course of action.”
“Any ideas on this ground level approach?” she asked, her voice calm. “The clock’s ticking here, Mel, and for all I know my little girl is getting further away with each passing minute.”
“Well, I think we should return to your home,” Mel replied. “We should look for clues as to why he would disappear the way he did. Perhaps we will find something, anything.”
Bullshit. Shelley herself knew of everything in the Abaid household. She even possessed the password to the guy’s safe. The laptop presented a possibility, but he’d taken it with him, according to Shelly. And his desktop PC, Division9 no doubt had been watching for the longest time.
Mel and Shelley were talking not to me, or each other, but to the cameras, the bugging devices. All for show.
“Good idea,” I replied. “I wouldn’t bother checking his computer though. The guy in the suit already had access to his files, and he hasn’t found anything worthwhile. And we don’t have time to waste.”
“Agreed,” Mel said, nodding. Although we both wanted access to Don’s computer, we weren’t going to say as much here, under the watchful eye of the man in the grey suit. No, but I had brought it up to let him know we needed the Intel, regardless.
None of us believed the guy removed the surveillance on the Abaid household, and we couldn’t take the chance of a Division9 team being on standby around the corner, waiting to strike as soon as we touched the machine.
Just because the man in the grey suit hadn’t found anything, didn’t mean he couldn’t.
Especially if it found its way into Mel’s very capable hands.
“Okay, so that’s the plan,” I replied.
“For what it’s worth,” Shelley said. I had to say, these two were putting on quite a show. I couldn’t help but wonder what the real plan was though.
We finished our breakfast eventually, and Mel got up and went to his bedroom, coming back with a full backpack and an empty travel bag. He hurriedly packed all the remaining food into a cooler-box, which he packed into the travel bag, then opened the fridge, taking assorted bottles of water, soda and beer and packing them in too.
Meanwhile, he said to Shelley and me in a calm and yet gleeful voice, “Right guys, let’s grab our bags. It’s time to get moving.”
“Music to my ears,” I said with a wide grin.
“Amen to that,” said Shelley, already lifting her own backpack, which had been patiently sitting beside her all along. “Let’s get this show on the road, huh?”
Time to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We were on the road, the city already far behind us. Mel drove, me beside him, Shelley asleep in the back. We’d been driving for hours and hours, cruising along the coastal highway at speed, taking in the scenery and thinking things through.
Abaid’s computer contained the key. There was no telling what precious little piece of information we’d find on it. There had to be something we could use. An email correspondence, a key phrase within it, an account of some type. A sympathetic friend on the other side of the world. There simply had to be something if we could just sift through the computer’s information finely enough.
It was our only chance. Or rather, the only thing we could think of, since no one could locate him with any electronic surveillance system or database on the planet.
So Mel had instructed his team to hack into the computer wirelessly, duplicate the operating system and copy all contents of the hard drive, and send it through the cloud.
Mel then downloaded it onto an external drive at an internet cafe, ready to install safely onto the new laptop he’d stopped and bought on the way out of town.
The guy must have been in a hurry because we’d lucked out there. If he had more time he would’ve wiped the hard drive.
So now we possessed an exact copy of Abaid’s PC and all the information and history it contained, on a computer unconnected to the internet. We’d also gotten rid of all our phones and replaced them with burners at the same store. Finally, there had been the matter of the car we were driving.
Mel took no chances.
Perhaps his fleet of cars were bugged, or a discreet GPS device hidden somewhere within them, so we avoided using them altogether. Shelley’s car was obviously out of the question. And we assumed mine as well.
So we’d left his fleet in the apartment garage and caught a taxi through town, told the driver we were touris
ts interested in taking in the sights. The taxi driver duly obliged, turning on the meter and keeping it on as we cruised the city. About ten minutes into the drive, Mel told the driver to pull over and got out of the cab, walking over to a paper kiosk and picking up a few different newspapers, then got back in. He looked under motor vehicles as we drove around, looking specifically for anyone who required an urgent sale, the more desperate the better.
One ad stuck out as ideal. GM SUV, 2 years old, very little on the clock, never taken off-road and containing all the mod-cons. The ad had been worded carefully, no doubt in an effort to save as much money as possible, but we read between the lines. The guy had clearly fallen on hard times. He wasn’t out to upgrade to a newer vehicle. It pertained to survival.
Simple.
Not vanity or comfort. Call it SEAL intuition or whatever, his vehicle would do.
We contacted the owner and arranged a meeting. He told Mel on the phone that he could not make it immediately, but when Mel guaranteed to buy it no matter what, provided it would actually drive and didn’t get us pulled over for a busted tail light, the guy agreed to meet.
Mel’s reason for an immediate meeting seemed simple enough, and true enough, claiming to be very rich and having a passion for that particular model. The guy must’ve thought of Mel as one of those eccentric billionaires, but it had been enough to get him to meet us.
Mel and Shelley got out around the corner, his celebrity status being a bit of a red flag in the coming negotiations. If the guy recognized him, he’d tell his friends he met him, maybe even tell them he’d sold his car to him, which wouldn’t do much good for a bunch of people who just jumped off the grid and were trying to stay incognito. So we’d opted to send in the hit squad instead. No surprises there.
The cab then took me around the corner and stopped beside a man standing next to a shiny black SUV. I got out, tipping the cab driver generously before he pulled away. He smiled at me as he drove off, and I could tell I’d made his day.
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