by davidberko
"Whatever are you speaking of? Your impetuous language baffles me, Jabour. Do illuminate me of this great evil of an impartial god, judging all."
Jabour's eyes grew dark, hallow. His mouth opened to deliver the message. Suddenly a hot wind gusted over his shoulders, ruffling the king's clothing and dissipating into the thick tapestry behind the throne. Its intensity and brevity were remarkably similar to the same experience one would get when standing in the path of a blazing furnace after the door just opened up.
Confusion washed over King Kahlil. He understood the message from the man seated three feet away. Yet, he strangely felt tampered with. Violated. Like he had woken from a drunken stupor, forgetting how he had gotten to where he now lay sprawled in a disorderly, but sober mess.
Meanwhile the three clerics who had been peacefully observing with indifference appeared equally shaken by what had transpired. Their experience had an otherworldly quality to it that left all of them extremely uncomfortable like an itching rash with no relief in sight.
The king struggled with the news immensely. Suddenly the title that went before his name didn't mean anything. If what Jabour said was true, his days were numbered as ruler of the United Islamic Caliphate.
Kahlil drew in a sharp breath and held it.
"You know all of this for a fact?" "With one hundred percent accuracy. I stake my life on it." Jabour stared at the ruler with little sympathy before adding, "I'm just
the messenger." "Oh?"
"There is one thing."
"Name it," Kahlil said without hesitation.
"The Mahdi needs to use Jeddah's spaceport."
"For...what? Why does he need ours when there's one in North America?" Jabour squinted. The king's answer was unsettling. "North America, your majesty?" Kahlil shrugged. "What's in it for me?"
Jabour expected this. He had rehearsed himself beforehand for this part in the conversation. He sat up straighter now. "For your services, Muhammad al Mahdi will reward your kindness with a seat on his council with oversight privileges over one of the ten regions in the New World Order." A moment ago it looked like he would get nothing out of the deal. Now he had an offer he couldn't refuse.
Rehan Kahlil gathered his robes and resituated himself on his throne.
Jabour tilted his head to one side, his eyebrows raised.
"Jeddah's spaceport is open for business. Whatever the Mahdi needs."
"Excellent! He will be very pleased to hear it."
Both men rose together at once and shook on it.
Jabour bowed slightly before turning to leave. He turned to the clerics expectantly. The unspoken message, understood. Each man scampered off their chair to join him. The door going into the king's chamber opened for the guests to make their exit. The well-dressed man lingered at the top of the stairs to take in the view one last time as a token of his victory. He had played his part. The royal musicians began to play a joyous song. Their choice seemed more than fitting for the occasion.
Jabour rested his elbows on the railing.
A voice that originated from over his left shoulder got his attention. "You seem very upbeat after speaking to the king," one of the religious leaders noted.
"Yes," Jabour turned to the man who had spoken. "I am. Who's hungry?"
--
Barcelona, Spain
Alfonso Marcello expected a phone call. He waited by his phone. When it went off he answered after the first ring. "Yeah."
"Ready to come in?"
"Thought you'd never ask."
"You're gonna interrogate the Germans."
"Me?" He wasn't sure if he had heard right.
"Do you need hearing aids, agent?"
"No. No I don't. Just...I'm surprised you wouldn't go with a more experienced interrogator."
"Do you wanna turn your badge in? Because we have lots of other talented
recruits who would love to get a crack at your job."
Alfonso rolled his eyes. His case officer rarely made good on threats. But still, he didn't appreciate the sentiment all the same. He looked up at the sky and watched some clouds scroll past a full moon.
Alfonso shivered. It got very chilly in Barcelona at nights. Especially in spring.
"I'm coming in," he murmured into the receiver.
"Interrogation room 3a. We'll be waiting."
He wanted to say something smart before clicking off, but decided better of it. Alfonso had racked up some good miles in his time with Mossad. He wasn't ready to throw it away over a silly spat with a difficult agency man.
The image of the googly-eyed German couple holding hands flickered in his mind like a broken computer screen. He felt nothing.
Whatever it took to get answers from them, whatever methods of torture, if it even went that far--Alfonso wouldn't be shy to use all necessary force. It was personal for him, too. The Nazis had herded up his great-great grandparents during world war two where they ultimately snuffed out their lives in ovens at the concentration camps.
What a terrible way to die. Bastards, he thought as he reflected on the plight of his forefathers.
The anti-Semitism in fact didn't go away after the holocaust. Instead it raged on for many, many years with bloody wars fought in the Middle East and world-wide persecution of the Jews. If anything, the white-hot hatred for the people group was at an all-time high.
Without his disguise and alias, there was no mistaking it, Alfonso looked like a Jew. It shamed him to hide a heritage he took tremendous pride in. But the benefits of doing the state's dirty work far exceeded the burden of wearing the cloak of anonymity.
...
A brisk walk in the city to his destination ended in a photo booth at the back of a rundown arcade. Alfonso felt some coins bulge in his pant pocket. His eyes stared at the familiar floor layout, the machines covered up by white sheets. The Jewish man grunted. As a little boy he enjoyed many late nights out in the town feeding his favorite arcade game shekels.
Alfonso closed the curtain on both sides and sat down. His weight triggered a sensor under the cushion which prompted a response.
An invasive male voice came out of a speaker. "Say cheese."
Alfonso looked dead center at the camera lens and weakly smiled. An eye scan positively identified him as agent Marcello.
Then the floor dropped out with no warning.
The drop lasted no more than five seconds. Five seconds of stomach flipping fun. After so many rides though Alfonso didn't get much of a rush any more. What used to be a thrill turned into a tame kiddie ride. A sealed blast door opened up. A nondescript hallway took him to another door. Alfonso pulled his badge out. The scanner on the door accepted it with a buzzing noise. A little later the double doors opened inward to let him pass by before abruptly closing behind him.
Interrogation room 3a. Two lefts, a right, down a flight of stairs and right at the fork. He knew the station inside and out. A fastwalking male, late-forties, thinning hair, square jaw caught up to him at the second turn.
His handler handed him an earwig to wear which Alfonso reluctantly accepted knowing full well he’d have his favorite person in his ear while he worked on the Germans.
"Don't hold back. This is important. Level
10."
The few word transmission held a lot of weight.
Alfonso only nodded. He knew his handler didn't have anything else to say anyways. Their conversations were always short and sweet; never any time for personal matters or unnecessarily verbose replies. He walked for a little while longer--alone this time. Alfonso glided down the stairs, two at a time....Almost there. There were no friendly faces along the way happy to see the Israeli. Mostly part-time staffers trudging along at a harried pace.
The hallway only went two ways. Alfonso hung a right and wound up at the door in no time. A glass block window and a narrow slit of glass in the door were the only outside sources of light into the dark chamber. A red faded 3a on the metal indicated this was the one.
Alfonso's head pou
nded. In his own time he punched in the code to disarm the alarm.
Access granted.
The weight of a hesitant hand resting on the handle wasn't enough to will the door to open. A second went by before Alfonso finally turned the handle all the way.
--
Chapter 9
Maldova, Mossad safe house
"We need to disappear," Tyrone stated the obvious.
Baruch stood with his arms spread wide and a stupid look on his face. "And go where?"
Tyrone stopped pacing and lifted his head up. In the time he spent thinking, he managed to snap up a piece of wheat and stick it in his mouth. All he was missing was a straw hat.
"Quiet! I need to think."
"You mean you don't have a plan?" Seth stared in disbelief.
"I do have a plan," Tyrone corrected. "Do something."
Crickets.
The sound of Baruch dropping his flask followed up by, "Great," was all that passed in between the three men.
Seth leaned in closer to Tyrone and asked,
"Mossad is corrupted you say?"
"No duh."
"I needed confirmation is all," Seth replied, feeling a little irritated.
Baruch was slow that night. "For what?" he asked his partner.
"We're gonna disobey orders, go rogue." "It has to look like an accident though," Tyrone interrupted, getting excited. He continued, "Your deaths, both KIAs." "That could be difficult," Seth mused.
"He's the best," Baruch jerked a humble thumb in Seth's direction. "But I'm a close second," he grinned widely. Getting serious, he added, "We're gonna have to get a mission profile that makes this plan all come together."
"He's right," Seth echoed. "We're the best. The circumstances would have to be terrible for us to be 'killed in action,' otherwise just any old cock and bull story given for our disappearance will undergo some serious scrutiny logically followed up by plausible deniability, most likely."
Tyrone nodded, chewing on the end of his find from the field. "I concur," he said quietly. Then he ambled over to the side of his parked SUV and stopped. "Well shoot, I've got just the thing."
"You do?" Seth inched closer, reluctantly.
Baruch kept at a distance with hands on hips.
The African American touched the door panel to his car and it opened instantly. Now it was Seth's turn to share his partner's incredulity.
"You know how easy that would be to steal?"
Clearly he preferred the old-fashioned over the high tech garbage they shoved down consumers' throats. Seth was the kind of guy that would keep a cell phone until it made its last call. Or drive a car until it dropped.
Tyrone scrunched his eyebrows and snorted. "People like you can never enjoy the latest stuff 'cause you're always worried it'll break, or it's not tamperproof enough. This my friend," he patted the dashboard, "is safe and secure." "Your plan?"
"Oh, we're back to that again?" Tyrone joked.
"....Do you have one?"
"I have a contact," Tyrone said in between keystrokes on his laptop. The screen refreshed a couple of times before a login window popped up. "No peeking," he laughed, thinking back to their conversation earlier on security. Baruch mockingly put a hand over Seth's eyes. What he didn't count on was getting his arm twisted.
"Every action has a reaction. The abridged version of Newton's Third Law." Seth flashed a rare smile while appearing to enjoy watching Baruch's discomfort. "You got a mean grip there sir," Baruch gasped. He continued to clutch his arm. Every now and then he'd watch Tyrone on the computer with little interest.
Tyrone drew out the syllables, "Alfonso Marcelo," as he instant messaged somebody. "What?"
"He's our boy in Barcelona," he explained.
"What good can he do us there when we're sitting here in Moldova without a plan?" Seth cried. He looked to Baruch, who simply shrugged, conceding the point.
"Obviously we can't communicate across open channels," Tyrone said, talking about his contact in the background, "but from what I've deciphered already, I'd say he's close to something big. You see, I've been looking for pieces to the puzzle for quite some time." "Where is this going?" Baruch impatiently interrupted.
Tyrone put his hand out and held a finger up. "Do you trust me?" After a little time Seth was the first to nod. "So what's the picture you've pieced together--so far?" "It goes like this..."
But before he could finish he made an excited noise. "He's online!" Baruch rolled his eyes and smirked. "Any of your other buddies online?" "You got a Facebook?" Seth continued the line of teasing.
Tyrone slowly looked away from his screen and with exaggerated disgust said very slowly, "Facebook's been dead for quite some time, son. These days I'm on the Campfire network."
Baruch held his chin up and imitated in a goofy tone, "I'm on Campfire."
Tyrone didn't appreciate the mimicry. He let the other man know that with a questioning stare that guaranteed discomfort. Then his eyes grew wide. "He just got done interrogating two sources connected to what I was going to tell you about!" he breathlessly communicated after it had sunk in. "Alfonso Marcello?"
"Mhm." Tyrone ignored any distractions for the moment while he fast-typed his responses back to his liaison in Barcelona.
The two Israelis patiently waited. Seth pulled back on his shirt sleeve to check the time.
"We don't have much time until it's the second watch's turn," he whispered to an attentive Baruch.
The man didn't flinch. "Yeah."
Seth thought about it for a moment then took the plunge. "Tyrone?"
"Hm?" Obviously the man wasn't in the mood for any more childish behavior or jokes. "I'm not sure we can trust the rest of our team." The words came out slow but sure. Tyrone blinked. "What?"
"The second watch wakes up soon, too."
"Elaborate on what you just said," the former Mossad man urged him. Baruch answered, "What Seth is saying is we haven't worked with this group before." "And there's no way of knowing where their allegiance lies," Seth added.
Tyrone's eyes shifted back and forth as he mulled the new information over. His answer to the current dilemma suddenly appeared on his screen.
"Gentleman?"
"Yes?” they both said in unison.
"You have been reassigned," he inserted a dramatic pause, "to Germany!"
"What's there?" Baruch asked.
"Your next target."
Seth's eyes narrowed, his muscles tightening. "Okay...?"
"You'll need my wheels for this first leg of the journey. I'll get you up to speed on the road," he explained.
Both men stood there for a moment unsure of what to do.
Tyrone put his hand on the steering wheel
and said, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it..."
Seth and Baruch recognized the catch phrase and instantly smiled.
"...starts--now!"
Seth opened his mouth to say something but Tyrone was already talking again. "And no, this message will not self-destruct in ten seconds." He laughed at his own comic relief
and added, "I want to live."
At this point the men had already piled into the back of the SUV and told Tyrone to step on it.
A couple miles later the vehicle crossed the invisible boundary between Ukraine and Moldova. Tyrone chose to stay off the roads, avoiding any possible chokepoints altogether. Border patrol would be much more relaxed during the wee hours of morning anyways, but it didn't hurt to be more cautious than not. "So what happens when the next watch wakes up and finds us missing?" Seth had to ask the obvious.
Tyrone bucked and pitched in his seat from all the bumps and jolts in the uneven terrain. "Remember when I went into the house after
you?"
Seth nodded, remembering.
"I planted a little note in official Mossad letterhead--with forged signatures of course." "You sly devil!" Baruch erupted.
"Yeah, he's good," Seth murmured. He shook his head a few times and secretly chastised
himself for not being more observant. Another detail of Tyrone's life trickled into his mind while he inflected. "You don't like coffee anyways," he said sort of half-way.
"What?" Tyrone yelled over the road noise. In actuality his hearing was quite good--he hadn't missed a syllable.
Seth locked eyes with Baruch and shared a knowing look.
"I'll bet those weeds never knew what hit 'em though," Tyrone said rather abruptly before the conversation turned elsewhere.
Only one man laughed in the vehicle at this.
And it didn't come from the back seat. "So...Tyrone," Seth started.
"So...Seth?" he parroted back, keeping his eyes on what was in front of him. "You were talking about this puzzle of yours you said you had begun to figure out," he paused to relive the memory, "before that buddy of yours decided to chit-chat." Tyrone gripped the steering wheel at the one and eleven positions. His muscles flexed as he constantly wrestled against a vehicle that desired to err to the left or right.