by davidberko
Alfonso had managed to stay single all his years. A feat in and of itself considering how handsome the swashbuckling Jack Sparrow looka-like was. He hadn't even been on a date for over five years. Part of that most likely had to do with his most recent assignment--vagrant, bum. Nothing in the rulebook however forbade interagency dating. There were some single females he worked closely with, but none of them fancied Marcelo.
For now singleness actually spelled happiness. Another reason he would always tell himself why a relationship would never work was the fear of her being used as leverage in a hostage situation. Alfonso couldn't live with the thought of that; knowing his occupation could possibly put another life besides his own at risk. Siblings? He didn't have any. Being the lone child from a home that barely scraped together the cash to keep the land lord away taught him at a very early age how to be responsible and independent. From time to time he would wonder how his parents got on. They lived in Israel still, he was sure of this. If poverty or disease hadn't claimed them, then they had successfully reached old age in their seventies.
He never actually told his parents he dreamed of becoming a spy. What he did for Mossad fulfilled a childhood fantasy of his though. The only downer to living the dream was that his work seldom involved dressing as an action figure brandishing an
Uzi, ready to do battle like he had envisioned he'd do.
Only twice did Alfonso need to blow somebody's brains out. Both times in self- defense. He had to live with the images, knowing he took two lives. Few people are able to kill and feel nothing. He wasn't part of that club.
Alfonso looked a little silly jogging in place at the street corner while he waited for the crosswalk to be clear of traffic. He didn't have a warmup suit on. No sweats or running shoes. Just his everyday dumpster uniform with its permanent stains and holes in odd places that weren’t patched up yet.
Some people might find it hard to fathom being in a city full of people is the loneliest experiment ever. But if you're a Mossad agent? It's the truth. Alfonso's personality didn't necessarily lend itself to being a socialite, but nevertheless he had needs just like the rest of the world existing beside him.
He looked at the person next to himself. She also waited for the signal to change. But she engaged in an interesting phone conversation from the looks of it. Boyfriend probably. An elderly woman played with her granddaughter's hair. The little girl cherished the extra attention and the colorful strands woven into her hair.
Alfonso wasn't one to get lost in his own thoughts during the absence of human interaction. Rather he employed his mind in elementary puzzles to stay sharp. Whether it be a man's necktie, a woman's purse, a landmark...almost anything was game to Alfonso. The man didn't get straight A's in college for nothing. He had his own system, and it worked. The white traffic signal began to flash; people responded to it. Alfonso crossed at reduced speed though. He was in no hurry to go anywhere.
--
Scorpion War Room
Over the years the U.S. Air Force covertly put shuttles into orbit. No one knew their mission or what their payload was. The first one hitched a ride on an Atlas rocket to join the satellite crowd looking down on planet earth. Then another joined its brother in space a year later. Both missions were judged a success by leaders in Washington. Which is why the Armed Services Committee saw no harm in continuing the program under DOD's direction to be a thirtyclass acquisition over the course of twenty-five years.
What really makes these space craft especially effective, is their invisibility cloak. For years Area 51 and Skunkworks developed stealth planes for the military. The unconventional, less-thanaerodynamic airframes were expert at deflecting electromagnetic waves from radar rendering them nearly "invisible." However, the holy grail of
stealth technology not only involves simply fooling radar, but also the human eye. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of universities, government think-tanks, and other ancillary groups, a light-bending material came into existence. It essentially bent light around objects without the aid of cameras or mirrors. And best of all: it came cheap. In a few years after rigorous testing and development, a version of the invisibility cloak clothed the Air Force's secretive spacecraft. Best of all, the specialty skin could endure re-entry which then multiplied the planes' number of uses exponentially.
After the Union dissolved Scorpion waited in the wings to gain control of the Air Force's Space Command...and the fleet of thirty space ships no one knew existed. Howard had far more devious plans for them than functioning as moving satellites conducting routine ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance). He planned to put Damion Westover's military-grade holo emitters in the mission bay of each plane.
...
The near future
"It is time. Commence the Great Deception," a voice that sounded an awful lot like
Howard's instructed the highest commander in the Scorpion hierarchy.
A little Star Wars-esque hologram of the caped and hooded individual that gave the orders appeared in front of the commanding officer with the power to initiate the mission. He tipped his cap and nodded his consent. "Right away your excellency."
The silent hunters in outer space lurking around the black nothingness navigated around space debris and satellites to get in position. Longitude and latitude coordinates were sent to the thirtystrong fleet which positioned them over every major population center on earth. When it was time to begin the show, the invisible psychological warfare squad of
Scorpion beamed incredibly realistic holograms of an extra-terrestrial invasion force.
Huge black, dish-shaped saucers partially blotted out the sunset over cities in the Western hemisphere. In the east, they rode in on the wings of a beautiful sunrise. To anybody on the ground witnessing the spectacle it must have felt eerily similar to the movie Independence Day.
--
Tel Aviv, Israel
The math quiz unfolded and in the end, it proved to be more subdued than a lamb to the genius Jewish boy. Afterwards the students were asked to grade each other's quizzes. Azriel stifled a yawn and made the exchange with the person that sat to his right. A moment later when he got his back, an A+ circled at the top of his paper confirmed his suspicions.
"Good job," his seat mate whispered after handing off the flawless quiz to Azriel. "Thanks, you too," the boy dutifully replied. In truth he hadn’t even bothered to remember what grade the boy next to him got.
Already he figured pre-cal to be a bore. He had hoped he missed the girl of his dreams slip in undetected, but that just wasn't the case. The one with the pigtails, blonde hair, and pink cardigan/sweater combo planted herself firmly in Azriel's brain. He knew it'd be unrealistic to share EVERY class with her, but four out of five would be nice.
...
The nearly-invincible double agent flew helicopters, drove against the flow of traffic in crazy chase scenes and gave his victims a third eye more often than not...because he could. The pages turned themselves like any good fiction novel.
Another interruption.
The book flattened once more and a dull voice answered, "Yes?"
"Rafael, are you doing your job or enjoying one of those paperbacks again?"
"Both, sir," the assistant principal mumbled into the receiver.
"No. I'm paying you to watch the boy!" Curses
and incoherent threats ensued. "Has he noticed
the girl yet?"
Rafael scratched his head. "I think so?" In truth, he HOPED so.
"This is why you need to be diligent to watch your monitor!"
Rafael gave the answer he thought the man would want to hear. "I'll do my best." "I don't have to remind you how important it is these two connect. She's our key to get to the boy."
"I understand sir."
"Good."
--
Westover Ventures, LA
"Go, go, go!" lieutenants urged their troops.
The fireworks continued in the sky above with loud bangs and dif
ferent colors. Red from the glow of exploding aircraft lit up the scurrying platoons that hastily retreated back to their planes. The soldiers left behind vehicles and machine guns in favor of expediency. What they didn't leave behind though were the items they had collected from Westover Ventures.
...
The FRN thought they had made off like bandits. In truth, they hadn’t. What President Alexander Toporvsky and his administration didn't know was Scorpion had got what they needed. Howard and company weren't going for a knockout punch to the FRN. Instead their endgame followed along the lines of making the enemy believe they had achieved a partial victory despite the heavy losses inflicted.
…
The large transport aircraft had their rocket turbines pointed towards the improv runway in preparation for an imminent vertical takeoff. Several squadrons of fighters were ready to be their escort.
Despite the diamond formation of protection, two more heavy-lift craft wouldn't make it out of Sector Six airspace alive though.
--
The Basement: Honolulu, Hawaii
President Alexander Toporvsky sweated bullets. Until the last plane had lifted off only then did he decide to breathe.
At last the images came in. Alexander didn’t fail to miss that two more big planes fell prey.
His lungs drank in the oxygen as if he had just surfaced from underwater after holding his breath for a while.
"Mr. President, are you feeling alright?" Secretary of State Edith Wharton asked. "If you must know the truth? No. I'm not doing alright Edith," Alexander admitted. It didn't make him feel any better to speak the truth either.
…
Ever since the republic's president was sworn in his body became accustomed to the barrage of security briefings that woke him in the night. Not like he could get much sleep anyway with the fate of the FRN always heavy on his conscience.
The stress only continued to pile up. It became easier to miss meals. Add to that, members of his own cabinet wondered if his backbone had begun to erode away.
The person he needed the most wasn't there. Margaret. He had a chief of staff, a national security advisor...heck, a whole phalanx of advisors. Yet it was his wife's judgment he trusted most. The vacuum left in her absence couldn't possibly be filled. But he did his best anyway.
...
Ahmed Negler's analytical mind had been working overtime. Unfortunately his foresight didn't get him any raises; an occasional pat on the back or ata boy couldn’t hurt though
"Mr. President, of course we'll track the process of the returning planes until every last one is grounded," he said in a reassuring sort of way. "Where are you going with this?" Alexander rested his chin on his knuckles. "Sir, I think our focus needs to be on an investigation of Damion Westover and the reason Scorpion went after him. And who knows? Scorpion beat us to Westover Complex today. I doubt for the purpose of picking off some Viper agents."
"Your point?" Demsky said. He looked at Toporvsky who undoubtedly wondered the same thing. "What if..."
Alfred cut the national security advisor off immediately to stress a point. "Please spare us the what-ifs. Governments won’t do well dealing with the world through hypotheticals based on pure speculation."
Alexander gave the director of Sentinel a stern gaze. "You May proceed Ahmed." Alexander’s security advisor showed his appreciation for being allowed to go on via a curt head nod.
He said, "What if today's events really are just a sideshow to something even bigger going on here. I think Damion had something Scorpion wanted. They maybe didn't need him to tell them how it works, but simply to keep quiet about it." "Won't we know if something's missing by checking the logs of the inventory control system at Westover Ventures?"
Demsky had raised a good point.
"I'm no hacker," Ahmed said, "but Donald Holiday from CCC (Central Cyber Corps) would corroborate my theory that records like that could easily be tampered with--manipulated to say what they want."
Alexander took a moment to sip his coffee to mull it over. "When this operation is over, we start a new one. Demsky?"
"Yes Mr. President?" the director almost shrunk back, afraid of the president's answer. "I need you and your agency to get with Mossad and anyone else capable of doing the groundwork on this next task."
"Which would be?"
"Get Damion. Find out anything you can on Scorpion. They've been too quiet. Almost like the calm before the storm."
--
Chapter 7
Moldova
Other than his brief time in training, Seth didn't know the enigmatic Tyrone Banks well enough to interpret what this former-Mossad man actually meant by his "end of the world" statement.
"What have you been smoking tonight, Tyrone?" Seth cocked his head and waited for an answer.
Baruch continued the attack. "Why should we even trust you?"
"Because deep down you know I'm right. And I have evidence."
"Keep talking," Seth encouraged him.
"Many years ago, when I was in the field..." "Hold it, you were in the field?" Baruch found it hard to believe.
"You gotta start somewhere son. Anyways, where was I? Ah yes. Mindin' my own business, followin' orders...running a helluva lotta ops." He paused for a breather. And a sip of coffee. He swore. "They forget how to teach you how many beans to stick in in
proportion to the water?"
"Why?" Seth countered.
"This is potent enough to stick in a spray can instead of that Roundup you get at the hardware store."
"Thanks."
"Looks like your weed-eaters aren't doing good enough of a job either," Tyrone observed as he stared down a spindly green shoot rising above the edge of the porch. A confused Baruch uttered, "What?"
The older man in his fifties rose midway off the bench, enough to stretch out with the cup and empty it over the offending weed. "You can thank me later."
"Tyrone!" Seth whined. "Are you gonna tell us why you're here or not?"
"No need to get bent out of shape. I was just doin' y'all a common courtesy. But as to the end of the world stuff, which I guess could come before your weed problems, here's the bottom line. In the Special Operations Division, we went after some guys who claimed they didn't know nothin'. They'd rather die than tell us who they worked for. And believe me, we didn't give them the easy way out either."
"You tortured these...." Seth waited to hear Tyrone tag these men he was talking about. But Tyrone didn’t.
He simply answered, "Right. The people we used enhanced interrogation techniques on." Seth rolled his eyes at the euphemism.
Tyrone pretended not to notice Seth's body language and continued. "Looked like they belonged to an Al Qaeda cell or something. But these guys were different than your typical jihadists with suicide vests."
Baruch became curious. "How so?"
"Well young man," Tyrone put his best story teller's voice on, "these holy warriors weren't who they said they were. They're the first of their kind: a secretive track existing right alongside those that truly wage the holy war."
"Double agents?" Seth wanted to know if he understood correctly.
Tyrone grew quiet. "Yes, in a manner of speaking." The ex-agent with his gray patchy stubble and wandering eyes seemed to lose himself in that moment in a troubling thought. "Somehow the director of Mossad is involved in this subterfuge." His face fell as he condemned the director to be a bad guy.
"Peretz Sheffer?" Seth inquired, stunned at the news.
Tyrone nodded somberly. "I've always considered the man a friend, too."
Baruch didn’t react to the news like Seth had. Instead his brain formulated a quick question: "Have you fully traced the corruption to see if there are any other unknowns calling the shots?" he asked. "Or is Sheffer the extent of it?"
"I'm afraid we don't have all the pieces to the puzzle. And there's no way we can get the director to resign. Even if we tried, he'd know and we would all be toast." Baruch didn't understand the idiomatic
expression on toast, but Seth made it easy for him by tracing his finger across his throat in a straight line.
Seth had been thinking real hard up to this point. As a leader figure he thought it prudent to strategize first before speaking. "So what's the play?"
"Since you guys are on the inside but I’m not, you will be assets and I'll be the spotter. The goal is to find out where, when, and how Scorpion plans to take over the world. Then we take down the sons of bitches."