Fury

by Llewellin Jegels

  He sighed and shook his head. Increasingly this op required more of the man in the grey suit’s time and effort than Abaid actually deserved. But he felt compelled to do it. The man would get what he deserved. But yes, the man in the grey suit thought, Abaid did not deserve any of what he already possessed. Indeed, most things on this earth were of a quality and worth the bastard didn’t deserve.

  He wondered if the man deserved anything at all, except maybe a swift death.

  No, even that would be too kind.

  The bastard lacked for nothing. Take his wife and kid. He didn’t deserve them. He was the kind of asshole who considered a wife and family as some kind of trophy. No, he acted as no loving husband or caring father should.

  The man in the grey suit sat back, thinking.

  Husband.

  Father.

  Don Abaid would not send a friend of his pictures of his family. He simply didn’t care enough. No spoiled, self-absorbed man-child would do this. He could gain nothing from it, and Abaid only acted in his own interests, the damn psychopath. No, he wasn’t the proud husband and father who sends pictures of his family to friends, no matter the subtext.

  Unless the image served another, more useful purpose to him.

  The man in the grey suit already knew it wasn’t a ‘hit photo’, something for his recipient to work with in a kidnapping, for example, because Don Abaid took Rachel himself. Why did he bother to send it?

  He flipped open the laptop once again, staring at the image of Shelley and Rachel intently, trying to see what message Don could have been trying to send to his friend. But he came up with nothing. It appeared as just a picture of Shelley and Rachel, smiling happily for the camera, no visible clues in the background of the image.

  No fridge magnets or anything of that nature to reveal some sort of message or intent.

  The hacker had spent some time on it, but eventually gave up, just as the man in the grey suit had done. Perhaps he found something the man in the grey suit missed? What existed in the picture?

  The man in the grey suit sat back, staring at the image until it burned into his retina. What did the hacker see in this picture?

  In this picture…

  “No way,” he said out loud. “He’s not so bright!”

  He downloaded the image, pulled up a program he never thought to use, and applied it to the digital image. Moments later, the truth revealed itself. An internet link, embedded within the image. He couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to him to have a closer look at the image.

  He couldn’t believe it took the hack Mel Clarke to bring his attention to something he should have found himself. But he had things to do, he told himself. He couldn’t be expected to see everything all the time.

  He let it go, deciding that he would not berate himself. There would be plenty of time later when matters reached a head.

  He followed the link and found himself in the Darknet. This surprised him. The man in the grey suit knew of its existence. A program called Tor unlocked the Darknet. In the past it proved itself very handy.

  Like when he met Jacob for the first time.

  ***

  They’d met at a cocktail party held by a friend of the man in the grey suit at the CIA, probably about three years ago. Well, not so much a friend as a colleague probably trying to garner some brownie points in the hopes that a favor could be called in at some later date. If said colleague knew him at all, he wouldn’t have bothered. He didn’t do favors. But the man in the grey suit had agreed, simply because he was on the lookout for someone new, and a cocktail party seemed like the way to go.

  But he met Jacob instead, and all thoughts of a romantic encounter evaporated from his head. Jacob in turn, was invited by a wealthy Lebanese man called Don Abaid, a fancy, high-flying, hard-partying man from a very powerful family who inexplicably married an American woman when he clearly seemed to appreciate, and indeed prefer, the bachelor’s lifestyle.

  And the guy had a kid to boot! Jacob and the man in the grey suit took to each-other within minutes, one of those rare friendships which seemed to spark all by themselves and proceed to burn brightly. They’d talked about much that evening. The man in the grey suit felt a peculiar affinity with Jacob, as if he stood alongside a kindred spirit, a man like himself in every way.

  Jacob worked as the Lebanese ambassador in America, and as such his incredible knowledge of matters concerning foreign policy impressed everyone but he also held strong opinions about US foreign policy around the world, specifically in Middle Eastern countries.

  For a diplomat, he had a lot to say. And the man in the grey suit liked him for it, respected him for taking a stance and sticking with it. Most people who dealt with politics lacked the strength of their convictions, but not this man. Not his new friend Jacob.

  From his tentative statements on the subject, the man in the grey suit saw possibilities. If his new friend felt this way at a cocktail party after a few drinks, then where did he stand, in the privacy of his own home? When alone with his thoughts, how did he truly feel? How much deeper did he feel about everything then?

  The topic moved on to Don, and the man in the grey suit learned all about the spoilt rich kid and his cars and mansions and trophy American family.

  And he learned about Don’s shady business deals, too. It seemed the little thug had a few things going on the side, a few fingers in a few pies, if you will. None of them outright illegal, just extremely immoral. Deals that gained the bastard even more money, and far more than he could ever need.

  Jacob did not like the man at all; in fact he only attended the cocktail party himself because the eldest son of the Abaid family hosted it, and they insisted on his presence. He wouldn’t decline such a powerful and influential family, not if he wanted to keep his job. So he went, hesitant but putting on a big grin, and he and the man in the grey suit had met, almost like a decree of fate itself.

  At some point during their conversation, Abaid himself came over to greet Jacob, and at the most inopportune moment possible. One moment Jacob discussed the intricacies of keeping a wealthy and obnoxious little shit who thought himself above the law, out of trouble, essentially protecting the guy from himself, from his office in the embassy. And the next moment Don Abaid stood there, looking at them both with immense interest.

  The man in the grey suit did not know for how long the guy stood there, so engaged was he in their conversation, but he was certain that Abaid heard enough to take serious offence.

  The three spoke briefly, but ever so politely, Don not mentioning anything about what he possibly overheard. Eventually the man wondered off, presumably to his trophy wife, but possibly to a mistress.

  Men like him didn’t bother to hide their infidelities. They couldn’t care less.

  The man in the grey suit and his new friend Jacob agreed then that the party was more or less over, and that they could better discuss their thoughts away from Abaid. So they exchanged phone numbers and arranged to meet for coffee the following week.

  Well, they met for coffee, and indeed he found the conversation more sparkling and illuminating than at the party. So they continued to meet, every few days, but never less than once a week, and for privacy’s sake they agreed to meet on the Darknet as well, to discuss more delicate matters and just keep each other up to date if they were busy or at work.

  He enjoyed the friendship, by whatever standards the man in the grey suit could grasp by seeing others together. And more, it made him happy. Actual happiness felt like something new to the man in the grey suit. Indeed, spending time with Jacob made him happier than any slut he’d been involved with over the years.

  And then, six months ago, Jacob mysteriously died in a car accident. He died as soon as the vehicle hit the wall. There were scrapings of paint on the side of his car, or what remained of it, indicating it may not have been an accident, that possibly his friend had been rammed off the road.

  Red paint as it turned out. Like the paint on the Ferrari F40
parked in the Abaid household driveway.

  So the man in the grey suit made a call to a company, a security company called Division9, instructing them to send a man to the Abaid household, posing as a police officer, and to ask a few questions.

  And most importantly to have a very close look at Abaid’s car collection.

  Especially the three Ferraris.

  But the car in question went missing from the house. Neither Division9 nor the police could establish its whereabouts.

  Yes, the man in the grey suit knew all too well that the police spotted the paint too, and were conducting their own investigation into the so-called accident. But he had no patience for their slow, bureaucratic, plodding ways. And the wealth and power of the Abaid family meant they would be even more hesitant to find proof of a murder having been committed than would normally be the case.

  So even though the accident involved a high profile ambassador, he still had no faith in anything coming from their investigations, even if the FBI got involved, which the man in the grey suit felt certain they would.

  No, he would find out himself what happened to his friend. But he was no fool, and he knew the dangers of accusing an innocent and very powerful man of murder. And he knew that if he just handled it the way he normally would have done, swiftly, righteously and with a great deal of wrath, he would have the entire government hunting for him.

  No, he would first watch, carefully analyzing the man and his household. Anything and everything in his life would come under tremendous scrutiny, until the man in the grey suit felt he had sufficient proof to take action, and then he would avenge his friend.

  So he’d set up state of the art surveillance on the Abaid household, courtesy of Division9, a company he in which he held majority shares. He watched them ever since, looking for a sign, something, anything which would prove Abaid did what the man in the grey suit suspected.

  And then, out of the blue, the guy upped and vanished. After six months of surveillance, watching the bastard day and night, he simply disappeared after having a stupid little tiff with his wife, taking the little girl with him.

  ***

  So now the man in the grey suit no longer cared about proof. He put everything into obtaining it, and this was the outcome. So now he would do things his way.

  Yes, now action only counted.

  He turned his attention once again to the computer before him. The man in the grey suit followed the link directly to a Darknet email account where he found everything. It had all been right there.

  The whole time.

  So, how the hell did he miss Don’s crossover into the Darknet? He’d remotely viewed everything that took place on the computer, especially around the time he left, and saw nothing other than a few emails, most notably this one, as it mentioned leaving on a so-called holiday.

  Don Abaid must have used another machine, probably at an internet café. The man in the grey suit could view anything on the guy’s computer. And anything he did online. But if he’d accessed the Darknet from another computer, especially a random one such as you would find at an internet café, then he was stuck. Dead in the water. No following him down the rabbit hole. Not a chance. Not unless you already knew exactly where you were going.

  Not unless you had a link.

  Like the link imbedded in the image file, for example.

  This surprised him, he had to admit. Abaid didn’t seem like the kind of guy who knew how to encrypt an image file with data, let alone use a Darknet email account. Hell, he didn’t even appear to know about the Darknet.

  Why would he?

  But he’d known, alright, hiding a link to his account in an innocent picture of his family. He no doubt thought it safe, that no one would think to look closer at the attachment. But the man in the grey suit had done exactly that. It took a while, sure, but in the end he prevailed.

  “Gotcha,” the man in the grey suit said with a grin. “You’re not as smart as you think, you son of a bitch.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Mediterranean climate is the first thing that hits you when you get off the plane. It’s intoxicating, the atmosphere so thick with promise, romance and adventure that you feel like you’re the hero in your own movie. Which you kind of are, but you get the point.

  The place felt like paradise as soon as we put foot down on terra firma. One sensed it in the air, the kind of festive, holiday spirit you can only find from getting as far away from your home as possible. And yet at the same time it held within itself another atmosphere, the feeling of true age, as if it had been around forever.

  The city of Beirut was first mentioned in text as long ago as the 15th century BC, in the ancient Egyptian Tell el Amarna Letters, making it more than two thousand years old. And it has been inhabited in one form or another ever since. Nearly ten times older than the whole of the United States.

  Even more, fragments of Roman pottery have been found there, and beneath them, fragments and pieces of pottery which dated back to the Bronze Age, making the place almost impossible to get a truly accurate history of before the Amarna Letters.

  They’d also found Bronze Age tombs in the area, making a strong case that this place has been around even longer than the texts told us.

  It felt like a paradise providing people with pleasure and adventure for a very long time. And still survived. And probably would be around until the sun went super nova.

  So yeah, pretty far from home, by all accounts.

  The warmth of the sun and the fresh air all contributed to the holiday atmosphere. Yet I found myself on the trail of a kidnapper. We hailed a cab as we exited the airport, and soon enough we made our way through the crowded streets toward quieter areas, our ultimate goal, and our final destination if you will, a place called Tyre, located about 80 kilometers south of Beirut. A beautiful place, by all accounts, named after the rock formation it had been built on.

  “Amazing,” Shelley said to the driver of the cab. “What does it mean?”

  “Rock,” he replied.

  “Huh?”

  “It was an ancient Phoenician city, very important,” the cab driver continued, his English thick with a Lebanese accent, but excellent nonetheless. “The legendary birthplace of Europa and Elissa.”

  “Great,” Mel said. “I always wondered where those two came from.”

  “I am glad to be of service,” The driver replied, completely missing the obvious sarcasm.

  Our first and only stop in the city of Beirut revolved around buying three new phones, not the cheap burner type phones we’d been using back in the states, but proper smart phones, each connected to a fake email account. We needed the technology for our planning and execution, and GPS was a must. So we picked them up and set them up over a cup of coffee in a colorful courtyard area complete with a fountain.

  We welcomed the opportunity to relax ahead of operation desperado.

  So we told the cab driver to wait at the entrance, Mel having given him cash for the entire trip to Tyre, with the promise of an extra few thousand dollars if he hung out and became our personal escort for the trip. He duly obliged, looking down at the fistful of dollars in his hands, and thinking about how much more awaited, like they were the combined treasures of the world.

  Mel pretty much offered the guy enough money to start his own business. What can I say, he had a thing for making cab drivers happy.

  So we were seated in the shade, at a table situated on a terrace beneath a large umbrella, sipping on our coffee, and taking in the atmosphere. The stink of poverty I had expected, thanks to the narrow view promoted by American television, nowhere to be seen. The place possessed some kind of intangible, magical quality that made everything seem good, no matter the circumstances.

  I started falling in love with Beirut.

  “I love this place,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. “Seriously, I could live here.”

  “Yes,” Mel said, nodding and grinning. “And you know what? It gets better every time I come
here.”

  Shelley raised an eyebrow, “You’ve been here before?”

  “Of course,” he replied, a note of surprise in his voice. “Didn’t Tom tell you? I’ve been pretty much everywhere short of the North Pole, which appears on my to-do list for next year.”

  “It is amazing,” Shelley said softly, looking around. “It’s a wonder Don came to the States at all, to leave a place like this behind…”

  “It’s one of the world’s best kept secrets, if you ask me,” Mel agreed. “And wait until you go for a swim. Man oh man, there’s nothing like having a swim in the Mediterranean Sea. Just make sure you are here on your own yacht. The water further out is a lot nicer.”

  “Your own yacht,” I said dully. “Yes of course he has his own yacht. Why not?”

  “You have too much money, Mel,” Shelley agreed.

  “It has been said,” Mel replied. “Often. Still, it’s a damn sight better than not having enough, right?”

  “Why were you looking at me?” I said.

  “No reason.”

  “Just because I don’t own my own boats and planes like you two doesn’t mean I’m broke, you know.”

  “Yes,” Mel replied, grinning. “Absolutely.”

  “Screw you.”

  “You’ll have to ask nicely.”

  “Okay, screw you kindly.”

  “Listen, about these phones,” Shelley said, interrupting our little exchange. “They’re the proper deal, with all the bells and whistles.”

  “Nothing but the best for my friends,” Mel said with a grin.

  “And much appreciated,” she continued. “But isn’t there a chance, no matter how remote, that we can be traced now?”

  “You mean by the guy in the suit?” Mel asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “By him. Don couldn’t trace his own ass with a GPS stuck to it.”