The Alpha Deception

by Jon Land

  “Such as?”

  “Suffice it to say I’ve linked up with a foreign operative with as big a stake in this as ours. She told me an interesting story about a Farmer Boy the Soviets placed in America and have been running ever since.”

  “A child spy?”

  “Now all grown up with the ear of the President.”

  “Christ… .”

  “I think we can safely rule him out for the time being. But the existence of a mole would explain our problems in New York, Sundance. In fact, it would explain a hell of a lot. Go over the members of the crisis committee for me again.”

  “William Wyler Stamp, CIA director. George Kappel, Secretary of Defense. And Edmund Mercheson, Secretary of State.”

  “Eliminate Stamp. He fell into this position by accident and no one goes anywhere after running the Company these days. Tell me about Kappel.”

  “Very hawkish. His philosophy’s a bit archaic in view of the proposed treaties, or maybe it isn’t since the whole peace process has fallen on its ass. In Washington they call Kappel a survivor. Administrations come and go, but he always manages to hang on.”

  “And Mercheson?”

  “A dove. Next to the President, he’s the most unpopular man in the country, according to polls, since the disarmament treaties collapsed. People feel he cheated them, made the country give up too much only to be taken in by the Soviets who didn’t want peace to begin with. I guess people look at him and expect him to work the same magic Kissinger did. No chance.”

  “I assume Mercheson is career Washington as well.”

  “Not as openly as Kappel but, yes, that would be an understatement. He’s been around forever and promises to be around a while longer. I’m pretty good with a computer, Blaine,” Sundowner added after a pause. “I can quietly go over their full files with the proverbial fine-tooth CRT screen.”

  “Don’t bother. The truth’s been buried too deep for anyone to ever find. This is the Soviet version of the deep-cover plant. They wouldn’t have made any mistakes with their Farmer Boy.”

  Something occurred to Sundowner.

  “They may have made one,” he said. “Mercheson grew up on a farm in Michigan.”

  Manolokis was sweating inside the steaming white van as the ferry rolled over the waves of the Mediterranean. The port of Khania had finally come into sharp view. Manolokis dreaded these Thursday voyages, but he kept making them because the pay was impossible to refuse. So much for so little work. Every week a new shipment and another cash payment. He sometimes wondered what happened to the previous week’s shipment, but he tried to think about it as little as possible. Part of his job was to ask no questions.

  Manolokis gave in to temptation and rolled down the window on the driver’s side of the van.

  “Stay silent,” he commanded the young passengers behind him, “or I’ll cut off your balls.”

  He would round them up from various Mediterranean cities over the course of the week for delivery on Thursday. They were beggar boys willing to do anything for a decent meal and a few pennies. Manolokis promised them much more. A home. A life. For a time anyway, though he never elaborated on that. Four or five every week between the ages of eleven and fifteen. Since they were homeless or runaways, no one noticed when they disappeared.

  Manolokis did his best never to consider the ramifications of what he had become involved in; it was too late to pull out in any event. His employer was not a man to cross, nor were the men Manolokis dealt with directly. Megilido Fass kept a tight net over the goings on in his Sfakia villa. News that came in never went out.

  The same could be said for the merchandise Manolokis was charged with delivering.

  He dozed briefly in the heat, until he was awakened by the bump of the ferry grazing the dock of the port. At last, he thought. Manolokis stretched, his sweat-soaked pants and white linen jacket clinging to the seat. He rolled up the window, turned on the engine, and switched the blessed air-conditioning back on.

  There were never any questions when Manolokis drove off the ferry. The authorities who might have raised them were almost certainly on Fass’s payroll as well. This was Crete, after all. Fass owned it.

  The van bucked slightly as it passed from dock to roadway. Manolokis would be in Khania proper only briefly, soon swinging east to Vryses and then toward the south coast to the region of Sfakia and Fass’s villa. At the end of the port district a shepherd was driving his goats across the road. Manolokis sat back to wait for the herd to pass.

  A knocking came on the window. Manolokis turned to see a beggar wielding a tin cup. He shooed the man away without paying further heed. The knocking came again. Manolokis looked longer. The darkened windows made seeing out almost as difficult as seeing in and he decided it would be best to deal with the beggar through an open window anyway. Bastard deserved a good smack in the face for bothering him. He should report him to Fass’s people. Bastard would probably lose his hands for the effort.

  “Look,” Manolokis started, “I don’t know who—”

  And stopped, just like that. Because the man outside the van was no beggar. It was … him, could have been a twin. The same face he saw regularly in the mirror except when it smiled no gold tooth flashed. Manolokis saw the twin’s hand lash forward through the open window. He remembered trying to recoil and nothing else.

  An instant later Blaine McCracken opened the door and climbed inside. Swiftly he pushed the unconscious Greek’s body from the seat and took his place behind the wheel.

  Blaine checked the rearview mirror. Five frightened faces glared back at him, teenage boys cowering in their seats. A few began to spit words out quickly in Greek, too quick for Blaine to follow them.

  “Sorry,” he shrugged, “don’t speak the language too well, but I do speak another.”

  He pulled the van onto a side street and climbed out, beckoning the boys to follow him. They resisted for a moment, confused, even angry, but one by one they came forward. As they stepped toward Blaine, he handed each boy five worn American dollar bills, more money than any of them had ever seen before. The beggar boys gathered together to share their shock and then glee, jumping up and down and babbling away joyously, ultimately hugging McCracken with thanks all at once. He fought them off as best he could but they stubbornly clung to him. Blaine finally managed to force them off with instructions in decent Greek for them to be on their way. The boys resisted, then at last moved off together as McCracken climbed back into the van.

  Five minutes later, the bound and gagged body of Manolokis abandoned in the nearby brush, Blaine headed south. The ride would be long and the roads unfamiliar, but the route to Fass’s villa outside of Sfakia was reasonably straight and Natalya’s directions were precise. His Heckler and Koch was history, lost the night before on some Athens street, and Natalya had done her best to fill the gap with a pair of Brin 10 semiautomatic pistols. The substitution was acceptable and Blaine had stowed both of his fresh pistols under the seat.

  He knew little about the part of Crete he was heading toward. Natalya had mentioned only a countryside rich in history and containing a subterranean well of ancient caves. Of Fass’s villa little was known other than its hugeness. Fass himself was a mystery man, a smuggler of anything if the price was right. His perverted sexual leanings were the only thing known of him for sure and this the authorities did nothing about. Crete was his territory, its lavish beauty in direct contrast with the evil of a man who many believed to be a direct descendant of the devil.

  It was two hours before McCracken found the private road that would take him to Fass’s villa. Video cameras rotating from their tree posts signaled its location even as they tracked his arrival. He guessed there would be plenty of guards lining the road as well, but they would be well hidden and would appear only if the vehicle seeking entry was deemed a threat.

  Several miles back Blaine had stuffed the Brin 10s in his belt beneath his baggy linen jacket. His last touch was to put on the floppy, crinkled hat and tilt i
t just enough over his eyes to put them in shadows. He steadied himself with a deep breath as the entrance to Fass’s villa, a huge white stone gate, appeared before him. The guards on either side seemed to recognize the van and paid it little heed as he approached.

  He cracked the window a few inches as he drew closer, braking the van to a walking clip. The guards never moved. The gate began to swing electronically open and they waved him through.

  The courtyard is very large. A fountain, beautifully manicured lawns and shrubbery. Follow the driveway to the left where it winds in a semicircle before Fass’s mansion. The procedure is for the guards to meet the van and take delivery of the contents. From that point you’re on your own.

  Natalya’s description of the villa was absolutely precise. She had left out only its true magnitude. It was certainly one of the largest houses Blaine had ever seen, built entirely of white stone.

  McCracken speeded up the van as he headed toward the circular drive in the front of the mansion. At the same time, he lifted one hand from the steering wheel and pulled a razor blade from the dashboard where he had left it. For the rest of his plan to work, the mansion guards would have to be distracted enough not to notice he wasn’t the real Manolokis. Bringing the razor blade to his forehead, he made a quick slice in an old scar. Blood began pouring out instantly, dripping into his eyes. Perfect. Nothing beat blood for a distraction.

  He was honking the horn when he screeched the van to a halt directly before the double entrance doors.

  “Help! Help!” he called, throwing himself clumsily out of the van and making sure there was ample blood on his sleeves as well. The guards were running up. “They forced me off the road, took the boys!”

  “Who?” the lead guard demanded in Greek.

  “Fass! I must see Fass!”

  McCracken was counting on the element of surprise once he was escorted into Fass’s chamber. A quick motion to draw his guns or knife and the Greek would be at his mercy. All the guards in the world would do him no good.

  The guards were leading him into the mansion.

  “He’ll be angry, I know,” McCracken continued, making no effort to clear away the blood from his face. “But it wasn’t my fault. He’ll have to understand that… .”

  They had reached a huge circular stairwell and ascended it toward the mansion’s second floor. The hallway at the top was long and curving. Guards flanked him on either side as they led him down it. Blaine kept his breathing rapid in mock panic but inside he was calming himself to his task.

  “In here,” the lead guard signaled, throwing the door open to what must have been Fass’s chamber.

  Blaine picked up his pace just a little as he entered, ready to spring now, hands already starting for his guns.

  The sight of a half dozen men wielding automatic rifles froze him in his tracks. Behind the guards was a huge desk, and Blaine caught a glimpse of the man behind it.

  “Welcome to my home, Mr. McCracken,” said Megilido Fass.

  Chapter 16

  “PLEASE,” FASS CONTINUED, “make yourself comfortable, but first drop your weapons on the floor.”

  McCracken emptied his belt deliberately, one of Fass’s white-clad guards on either side of him. Both moved closer for a frisk.

  “Be careful of this one,” Fass warned them. “He could strip your rifles away in the blink of an eye.”

  “It’s nice to have my skills appreciated for once,” Blaine said, the frisk nearly complete.

  Fass rose from behind his desk. “Here,” he said, tossing a towel to McCracken. “The blood is most unbecoming to you.”

  Blaine caught the towel in midair and swiped away at his forehead, noticing for the first time a television monitor sitting atop Fass’s desk.

  “I recorded your performance outside on tape,” the Greek explained. “Most impressive.”

  “I’m expecting royalties every time you show that.”

  “And rest assured I will show it often. It will be added to my permanent collection.”

  Blaine surveyed the scene before him, searching for options. Fass was not at all what he expected. The Greek smuggler was tall and gaunt, dressed in a white suit, white shirt, and white silk tie. His flesh was bronzed by the Mediterranean sun and his jet-black hair was slicked down close to his scalp. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of narrow sunglasses. A young boy, dressed in white shirt and pants, stood behind him against the back wall next to a dry bar. The servant had long curly locks that tumbled to his shoulders and couldn’t have been older man fourteen.

  “You were expecting me,” Blaine said.

  Fass chuckled, grinning devilishly. “An old friend of yours made a number of phone calls telling us to be on the lookout.”

  “Vasquez …”

  Fass nodded. “I’m sure he’ll be pleased you remember him. He called me twice. For some reason he was sure I would be your next target.”

  “You could have killed me downstairs if you wanted to.”

  “Of course I could have.” Fass beamed. “But there would have been no sport in it.” He tilted his stare toward the monitor. “No permanent recording of your exploits for an epitaph.” Fass grinned again and pulled something from his pocket as he summoned the boy from the dry bar to his side. “Human life is nothing but a possession to be dealt with and replaced accordingly. Man is an intrinsically dispensable creature. Life and death are merely relative states of being I control within these walls.”

  Fass grabbed the boy by the hair and jerked his head back. In the same instant, Blaine saw the object he had pulled from his pocket was a small blade that he now whipped up and across the boy’s throat.

  “No!” McCracken screamed. But it was already too late when the guards on both sides moved to restrain him.

  Blood poured outward from the neat slice in the boy’s throat, rushing down his white shirt. The boy staggered backwards, eyes empty and glazing over, clutching for the wound futilely as he crumbled to the white carpet behind Fass’s desk. Blaine heard the hideous, airless gurgle as death claimed him. He saw the boy’s blood pooling on the carpet.

  “As I said,” Fass proceeded calmly, “people are mere possessions. You, meanwhile, have stripped me of this week’s allotment. I’ve had to figure out a way for you to make compensation.”

  McCracken stopped pulling against the guards. “How about we dismiss the rest of your ‘possessions’ here and you try to slit my throat?”

  Fass laughed and moved out from behind his desk. “Your reputation, as they say, has preceded you, Mr. McCracken. Vasquez warned me to keep my distance. He said you knew a dozen ways to kill a man with your bare hands in under two seconds.”

  “Fourteen. I’ve picked up a few more these last few years.”

  “Vasquez has not forgotten the debt he owes you.”

  “I suppose he wants you to deliver me to him.”

  “No,” said Fass, “he just wants you dealt with. He left the specific manner up to me.”

  “You haven’t even asked what brought me here.”

  “Because it doesn’t matter. Whatever your pursuits, I’m afraid they won’t be completed.”

  “Pity.”

  “Not totally.” And Fass stepped still closer, baiting McCracken to move. “It’s difficult to find a specimen like you these days. Many have crossed these walls but never one with your physical abilities and prowess. Vasquez asked only that I kill you. He left the choice of means up to me but, as I mentioned, death should be regarded as sport just as life is. Have you ever heard of the mythical Labyrinth, Mr. McCracken?”

  “As in the Minotaur? Sure.”

  “Good, because you’re going into it now.”

  “I’ve reconstructed it, Mr. McCracken,” Fass told him as the guards escorted both of them down the corridor. “Here.”

  They reached a stairway at the end of the long, curving hallway and began to descend.

  “Let me review for you the myth you are about to become part of,” Fass resumed. “King Minos
had the Labyrinth built to house the Minotaur. Born of the unholy union between a bull and the King’s wife, who lay hidden within a wooden cow, the Minotaur was a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man.” When they had reached the bottom of the stairway they walked down another corridor and out a back door of the mansion. “Athens was annually required to send a host of youths and maidens as tribute—and food—for the Minotaur. Finally Theseus sailed from Athens to slay the dreaded creature. And this he accomplished with the help of Minos’s daughter Ariadne, who gave him a ball of wool. He unravelled it on his way into the Labyrinth and then used it to find his way out.” They stopped at a break in a huge row of thick green bushes. “How would you like to play Theseus in my little game today, Mr. McCracken?”

  “Only if I get to win like he did. But I suppose that depends on what you’ve got for a Minotaur.”

  Fass grinned and led the way through the narrow passage in the bushes. Blaine saw a domed building, circular in design, perhaps sixty or so yards in diameter, though his angle made it difficult to judge. They moved toward a crowd of white-clad armed guards closer to the dome.

  “Allow me to introduce my Minotaur, Mr. McCracken,” Fass announced proudly.

  The guards parted, and Blaine felt himself grow cold. It was a huge man. No, more than huge, monstrous. Naked to the waist and wearing only what might have been a loincloth and sandals, the giant was as muscular as he was tall. Bulging bands of sweat-shined flesh rippled across his arms, shoulders, and chest. His thighs were layered with knobs of muscles. He stood like a statue, pectoral muscles popping slightly with his even breaths.

  “Here is how the game is played, Mr. McCracken,” Fass explained. “You will enter the Labyrinth first, weaponless of course.”

  “Not even a spool of wool?”

  “It wouldn’t help you defeat my Minotaur. He will enter at his leisure from below, through a trapdoor. Defeat him and you win your freedom.”

  “And let me guess,” Blaine said. “You’ve got plenty of your hidden video cameras down there to record every instant of the proceedings.”