The Depository

by E Y Mak

  Benita stepped towards Russell and slowly put her hands on Russell’s. She gently pushed his arms down until the pistol pointed towards the ground.

  Russell stared at Dominique, hands still gripped on the pistol, and barked, “Explain yourself.”

  “My name is Dominique Lestrange,” he said.

  “I know that,” Russell interrupted.

  “. . . MSS,” Dominique continued.

  Russell was dumbfounded. “You’re with Chinese intelligence?”

  Candice nodded behind Dominique and said, “Yes, the Chinese had infiltrated Mauritius’s organization. We rendezvoused with him minutes after we entered the compound. Posing as captives being brought to Mauritius was the quickest way to get around this place.”

  “Well, that’s just…great,” said Russell sarcastically. “So I guess MSS trains its agents to torture.” Suddenly, something dawned on Russell. He was a hardy fellow, but he had somehow managed to make it relatively well through a significant beating and waterboarding. “Did you do something to help me through the torture?”

  Dominique nodded. “The cloth I used to subdue you was smothered in chloroform. I tried to knock you out to minimize the pain, but the drug doesn’t really work that well. You were in and out the entire time. It was the only thing I could do in the circumstances. I did come in at one point while you were unconscious with Harry. I only managed to loosen one of your straps before Harry came back.”

  “Thanks,” Russell said. “I guess.” He turned to Benita and gave her a long hug. “It’s good to see you guys,” Russell said to the girls.

  “We’re here with Ricardo and others from Phineas,” said Candice. “There was a delay, but we just got an update that there’s now a squad of choppers heading this way with a full complement of Mercs.”

  “Who’s out there right now? What’s the ETA on the choppers?” asked Russell.

  “About fifteen minutes. There’s a couple of Cameroon special forces guys helping us out there as well,” said Candice. “We’ve got the compound surrounded on three sides, so there isn’t very far for any of Mauritius’s men to go. But it’s still safer if we regroup with the others outside.”

  “Looks like your training accelerated,” Russell cracked. Candice returned with a small smile. He continued, “I agree, we should get out of here and let the pros clean this up.”

  “Copy that,” said the younger woman as she pushed the talk button on her earpiece. “Bob, this is Candice.”

  Russell watched as she waited for a response. She pushed on her earpiece again, fidgeting with the headset as though it were broken. She jammed it twice with her index finger and shifted it around in her ear.

  “Bob?” she repeated. “Are you there?”

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  For twenty years, I let no one escape. I had it down to a science. A routine. Like getting up and having breakfast. But instead of cooking eggs and bacon and making coffee, I had a mental checklist of everything I needed to do to complete my task.

  Preparation is the key to success.

  I spent twenty years mastering my craft. I took notes on the best ways to break into a home without waking the occupants. I tailed my victims for days, weeks, months at a time. In one case, I spent a year following the girl from her home to her unprotected dorm room. I did my homework.

  I burned into my mind the memories of my prey. The moment that I overtook them. The instant that my blade entered their bodies. The second that the eyes betrayed the lifeforce’s escape from the body.

  But it was soon not enough. I needed more. I needed interim gratification. My mental notes became electronic files. I wrote diary entries reminding me of my kills. I took videos of my hunts. To relive and to remain off the radar.

  And to critique.

  My meticulous detailing was my downfall.

  When the Warden had found that information on my computer, he gave me a phone call. I remember that day well. I was in the precinct. I had just redirected an investigation into one of my own murders.

  He called and said he knew. And that one day, he would need me for a job.

  He didn’t tell me right away how he had discovered me. I found out later. He had a system for tracking me down, he said. A computer algorithm that read and sorted the text and analyzed photographs and watched videos. It sifted millions of terabytes of information into a giant database. A database of almost every person in the world connected to a computer.

  Each person had a profile. For some people, it was pretty empty. He only cared about the juicy details, he said. There were plenty of companies out there that had information on shopping habits. Or favorite music. Or business connections.

  That wasn’t his “space,” he called it. That market was already done. He wanted a new product to sell.

  He wanted pressure points.

  He had tagged me as “killer.”

  He had also tagged me as “cop.”

  He had me.

  I was suddenly indebted to him. And I could work off the debt. And when that was done, he would permanently delete any information that he had on me. Forever.

  Trust is essential in business, he said.

  I didn’t trust him. But I had no leverage.

  So I turned from killing for pleasure. He had a need for people with my unique talents. And he would arm me with more tools to help me with my trade.

  The most important tool he gave me was information. He had prepackaged surveillance for me. So I could jump in and finish the job and disappear as easy as pie. I didn’t like that though. I preferred doing my own work. Doing my own research. Noticing the subtleties of my prey. It was a skill developed over a decade.

  But I had to admit that what he gave me was useful. Security codes. Access points. Recently, cell phone location data. He could tell me the daily routine of anyone with a cell phone. He could tell me where any person was likely to be at any given time. And how long they would stay there.

  He let me use my own tools. He gave me that freedom. He called me an independent contractor.

  But as an assassin, I am out of my element. In the last week, I have allowed two to escape my grasp. They didn’t fit my routine.

  Well, the girl did.

  Russell is a formidable enemy, but I have learned from my mistakes.

  I will find him again.

  And once I have what I need, I will end him.

  And then my debt is repaid.

  If the most crucial attribute when hunting is preparation, the second is patience.

  Whether it be a lion stalking its prey or a photographer waiting for that perfect shot, the key is to anticipate where the target is going to be, get as comfortable as possible, and let the opportunity present itself.

  After I had managed to get out of the cell, I needed to find cover. The best area was the forest, not a hundred yards from Russell’s cell. I knew that I would be vulnerable running to the woods, but I calculated the odds. Everyone was distracted by the explosions—even I had been temporarily distracted.

  I made it to the treeline. As suspected, no one had noticed me. They were probably watching the helicopter, where I could see two men, probably Phineas men, hiding. Or the explosions that he could hear ongoing at the north side of the building. I could hear gunfire and a vehicle racing, somewhere in the forest.

  Chaos.

  I too was in the forest, but far away from where all the action was. I made my way south, because I know there is a trail there that leads to the Ndian drilling site, where Mauritius kept his escape vehicles.

  Then I saw them.

  An African man, a soldier, lying prone in the forest on his belly looking into the scope of a rifle. Not less than ten yards away from him, there was another man. He looked older. He wasn’t a soldier. He didn’t have the fortitude to be one. He was holding a pistol.

  I advance slowly. I get within ten yards before another step would compromise my position. I see the older man fidgeting. I stop. I wait. I fidget myself, grabbing my knife a
nd feeling the rivets.

  To hell with this. I pull out my pistol instead. I don’t like this crude weapon. There is no intimacy. But all I needed was a means to an end.

  I watch as he continues looking around, scanning nervously, then he grabs the tablet, lighting up the nervous look on his face.

  I brace my arm, line up the sights, and shoot the old man first. The bang of my weapon goes off like a firecracker. I hit him square between the eyes. The tablet in his hand flies upward. The soldier looks away from his scope and turns around, reaching for his secondary and blindly searching for the source of the bullet.

  But I’ve already lined him up.

  I know he sees the flash of the muzzle as I hit him. I miss his head, but the bullet enters his neck above his right collarbone. I see him grab the entry hole with his hands, trying in vain to stem the blood gushing out from the mortal wound.

  I stand up and walk over to him. His bulging eyes watch helplessly as I pull out my knife. I end him with a quick thrust to his heart. As I pull the blade out, the familiar compulsion is not satisfied. It didn’t feel the same.

  I stab him twenty more times.

  I begin searching the bodies. First, the soldier. I take his weapons. I find a set of dog tags on him. Cameroon special forces.

  I walk over to the other guy. He’s older. Looks a bit out of shape, not overweight, but thin with the slightest hint of a belly. Like the type that enjoys a beer with his wife’s home-cooked meals but then devoutly goes to the treadmill five times a week. Not a soldier. No dog tags. I find a wallet, though. I see an identification card, Phineas. I search up and down his person, ending at his earpiece. I take it out of his ear, wipe it off and place it in my own.

  The first thing I hear is a familiar voice. “Bob? This is Candice. Copy?”

  She’s here. I smile without showing it.

  Suddenly, I heard the abrupt sound of movement in the tree above. It was someone trying to suppress breathing. However, the suppression instead made even more noise. Uncontrollable shaking. The sound of quiet gasps escaping between trembling fingers over a mouth. It was a sound that I had heard hundreds of time in hundreds of hunts before.

  It was the sound of uncontrollable fear.

  I take my time, slowly moving my head towards the noise. A person with this much fear was not going to be able to hurt me if he or she had not already done so.

  Hiding in the tree was a twenty-some-year-old man with a green mohawk. I line up my pistol when he shouts out.

  “Don’t shoot! I’m not soldier!” he says. “I’m just tech guy!”

  With an unseen smile on my face, I say, “Come with me.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  “Something’s wrong,” Candice said. “Bob isn’t answering.”

  Russell looked grimly at Candice. “Are we talking about Bob Regan here?” Russell thought fondly of Bob. He was a good guy, a member of the old guard at Phineas. Someone who had spent many years being a solid, but not spectacular, detective, but never standing out as a leader. You could only go so far without those qualities. And he had no place in the field, especially at his rank and age.

  Candice nodded.

  Russell swore and then said, “Listen, Candice, I saw the Phantom. Here. Tonight. I knocked him out, but I didn’t finish him off. He’s out there. Loose in the jungle. The Phantom is Harry. Harry Lions.”

  “The NYPD detective? Are you kidding me?” Candice said.

  “I wish I was,” Russell said. “He’s been living a double life all these years.”

  Suddenly, Dominique angrily interjected. “We need to keep moving. We’re sitting ducks in this room.”

  Before Russell could say anything, Benita spoke into her earpiece. “Schmidt. We’ve located Russell. We’re returning to your position.”

  Russell thought it over. Phineas intelligence and investigations roles were not usually in the jungle or forest. Phineas always stressed the importance of involving local authorities—people familiar with the location, the terrain, the climate. Someone who knows how to get in and out of a location. Anything that gives the team an edge to complete the objective and minimizes casualties. Russell looked over to Candice. “Who’s in charge?”

  “Ricardo,” Benita said. She was fiddling at the door, watching out the door with Dominique.

  Russell thought this over too. Despite his impulsiveness, Ricardo was actually good for the mission. His years in spec ops made him uniquely qualified to lead an attack like this in unfamiliar and rough terrain. With the compound deep in the jungle, collateral damage could be minimal.

  “Okay. What about the compound? And the information in the servers? What’s the plan?”

  “As I said, the Mercs will be here soon. They have a full complement and six techs to wipe out the database,” Candice responded.

  “Wipe it out?” Russell asked.

  “Yes. John Phineas said the information in there is too valuable. Too many state secrets. Not enough time to sift through them,” Candice said. Russell watched her motion to Dominique, who was still standing at the door. “Too much important information that could fall into the wrong hands. We need to destroy it before anyone else gets it. While the Russians, Mossad, heck, even the CIA are trying to get into the country, we’re already on the ground.”

  “Okay,” Russell said. “If the Mercs are this close, no sense waiting around here. Better to get back out there.”

  “If we exit from the north entrance, we have cover from two of the guys from the Israeli office,” Candice said. “That’s the way we came in.”

  “Let’s go that route,” Russell said. “Dominique, you coming with?”

  Dominique nodded and said, “There’s nothing left for me here. My mission is complete.”

  Russell raised an eyebrow but did not say anything. Time to move on. “Candice, lead the way to the north entrance.”

  “On it,” she said. Russell watched as Candice quickly checked the hall before bolting out the door. She was followed by Dominique, then Benita. Russell exited last and covered their rear.

  After about seven minutes of running through the Compound at a brisk pace, they approached the north entrance. Russell could smell the crisp scent of the forest outside. It was damp from the rain. The entrance itself was simply a blown-open wall. The explosives had been laid near the bottom of the wall, and the detonation had forced the bricks and cement to spiral up into the room.

  Russell saw Candice suddenly stop and signal them to stop as they neared the opening. She bent down and put her finger to her ear.

  “Schmidt, we’re coming out of the breach. What’s the situation out there?”

  After five quiet seconds, Candice turned to the group and said, “It’s clear. Go!”

  All four rushed out in single file, separated by about six paces each. They moved efficiently, quietly and quickly, checking their angles but maintaining a steady pace forward. It was raining heavily. Russell’s loosely fitting shoes were quickly soaked through in the mud. The group moved unabated through the downpour, zigzagging down the side of the steep cliff, at one point, free climbing down the slick rockface as rain battered down. Eventually, they made it to a sparsely vegetated clearing before entering the forest. They finally had cover.

  They had made it about halfway to the rendezvous point with Schmidt and Mueller when they came across a battered body on the ground, partially submerged in a puddle. As they passed by, Russell motioned to the rest of the group to stop. He knelt down and looked at the body.

  It was Ricardo.

  And he was still alive.

  Battered and wounded but alive. He didn’t look to have any life-threatening injuries. But he was bloodied. And his left arm looked broken.

  Ricardo was also awake. Groggy, but awake. When Russell shook him, he blinked, then looked up and around. Ricardo spotted Candice and said, “Mauritius’s soldiers caught up to me and took out my Humvee. The Cameroonian soldiers have been slaughtered. I just barely managed to escape.”


  Candice said, “Are these men far behind?”

  “No, they were focused on the soldiers. I don’t think they even noticed me. They took out the Humvee, and I was thrown clear into the trees by the explosion. I watched them set fire to the vehicle and leave. They left the guys inside as they burned the truck.”

  “Can you walk any farther?” asked Benita, brushing the rain-soaked hair from her face. “We were going to meet up with the Israelis.”

  “I’ll need some help, but yes,” said Ricardo. “The Mercs are almost here.”

  Dominique stood up and motioned deeper into the forest. “We need to keep moving,” he said. Russell and Candice picked up their fallen leader and lifted him by the armpits, supporting him with their shoulders. With the added burden, they moved slower but continued their progress deeper into the forest.

  They continued walking, and Russel was grateful for the occasional shelter the tree canopy provided from the rain. Candice checked in intermittently with the Israelis. The rain was beginning to interfere with the drone’s sensors, but they confirmed that there were no immediate threats in the vicinity.

  They continued up the incline deeper into the forest. After another three minutes, they arrived at the rendezvous point with Schmidt and Mueller, but they were nowhere to be found. Russell strained in the darkness to find them, but the pair was invisible through the night and rain.

  “Schmidt?” he heard Candice whisper into her earpiece.

  As the last word slipped out of her mouth, two of the bushes ahead, spaced about ten yards apart, started shaking. It was Schmidt and Mueller, dressed head to toe in makeshift Ghillie suits. They had tied long netting to their helmets that flowed down to their waists. Leaves, twigs and other foliage were attached to the netting. From a distance and in the darkness, they just looked like part of the shrubbery.

  “Russell?” one of the men said. “I’m Schmidt.” Russell had trouble making out who he was talking to. On top of the Ghillie suit, the man’s eyes were covered with night-vision goggles. But he could tell the man was about six foot three and at least two hundred and thirty pounds. A decent-sized enforcer that, for all intents and purposes, was someone he was glad to have on his side.