The Great Deception

by davidberko

  Baruch felt the same anger towards the German leader as his partner did, yet he said nothing of it.

  "So who ordered the hit on Keller?" Seth wanted to know.

  Tyrone disengaged from the road and turned in his seat to face Seth.

  "Mossad, of course."

  "C'mon. They're doing the job for someone else. I'm not gonna ask again."

  "Well shoot junior, you're not half bad.

  You're right. The local government

  Berlin set up to oversee Spain has fallen in on hard times."

  "Meaning?" Baruch pressed.

  "Sofia Keller has led a witch hunt against Governor Castell and his administration." "This Castell guy," Baruch began, "he somehow connected to Mossad?" Tyrone nodded. He was pleased by the man's deduction. "Bingo. He's very pro-Israel, hates those nazi bastards...blah, blah, blah."

  "Sounds like a guy I could like," Seth remarked, thinking of his own hatred towards the Germans.

  Tyrone looked at Seth and saw a man roiling like a kettle over raked coals. He knew Seth Markov's heritage, knew how passionate he was about protecting the homeland. Which was precisely why he recruited him into Mossad without hesitation more than a decade ago.

  Tyrone felt the need for a subject change. There would be plenty of time to revisit the Germany topic and their reason for being there. Later.

  "You have a son, right?" he casually asked.

  Seth's eyes moistened a touch. Jessica and Azriel were the only two people in the world capable of making him feel emotions.

  "Yeah," he responded.

  "When was the last time you--"

  Seth cut him off: he knew the question. The answer didn't come easy, nevertheless. "Five years."

  Tyrone let out a low whistle.

  Baruch decided to participate in the conversation and join with the question,

  "How old is he now do you think?"

  "He's a full-fledged Markov man by now. Eighteen, I reckon," Seth reflected.

  "Damn," Tyrone said. He didn't know what else to say. He never got to experience the joy of having a kid. As he sat there and watched the broken yellow lines on the road go by in a blur, all he could do was imagine the pain that must have been there for Seth having missed most of his son's teenage years.

  --

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  The flying car came to the bottom of the wave of gravity it rode on, coming to rest on a helipad high up on top of a modern tower. Azriel was no fool. They hadn't dropped him off at his apartment.

  He squinted. "Where are we going guys?"

  Esther reached for his arm, but Azriel shrugged her off. The young Jewish boy recoiled for once from the girl who had previously held him captive under her spell. "What's wrong?" Esther said in a concerned sort of way.

  Azriel balked. "Like you don't know?!"

  Stacy had already gotten out from the driver's seat and stealthily moved towards the side hatch closest to where Azriel sat. Esther had bought her just enough time so she could be in position to block any way of escape. Not like the boy had anywhere to go anyways.

  She flung the door open expertly. All her motions were fluid and precise with little energy wasted on needless movements. Stacy had no intention of knocking Azriel out cold for the moment. She needed his mind to be the farthest thing from groggy in order to perform the operation on him that would change his stars forever.

  From her pocket she took out a mysterious cylindrical object and brandished it. It emitted a pulse invisible to the human eye. But its effect was certainly visible.

  All of Azriel's muscles went into lockdown. He was as good as a paralytic. Esther moved forward just in time as the youth collapsed into her outstretched arms.

  His skin turned a few shades pinker. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  "What'd you do to me!" he cried. "Relax and don't struggle, you'll only hurt yourself," Stacy informed him.

  "But why? What's this all about?"

  "You must come with us, Azriel. You'll see."

  Esther smiled sympathetically at the incapacitated boy she held on to.

  The winds gusted at their height, high above Tel Aviv.

  Stacy helped her daughter with the limp body of Azriel's. They struggled for a little ways until they came to a shaft on the east side of the building just before the parapet.

  Esther raised her palm near the door; it recognized her immediately. An implant in her arm provided her the security clearance she needed. The elevator waited to receive them.

  The group of three laboriously entered the box in due time.

  Stacy reached forward and mashed a button to go down.

  A noise of the break disengaging gave the passengers just enough warning before the little elevator raced for the floor it was called to. Azriel's eyes rolled to the back of his skull. It appeared as if he stared at Esther who propped his head up with her knees. She didn't seem to pay any attention. Right then Stacy got a tone on her headset buried deep in her ear canal. She swiped at her smart watch to accept the call.

  "Hi hon....I'm with the boy and Esther....Wait where?....They're not ready yet?"

  Esther shot a questioning stare at the last thing her step-mom had said.

  Stacy waited a bit before eventually saying,

  "We're gonna make a beautiful family."

  --

  Barcelona, Spain

  The room began to spin. Wendel reeled from the many blows. His body had never undergone such a beating before. He hadn't even gotten in a fight as a lad in his early years let alone torture.

  Sweat dripped off his eyelids and stung his eyes.

  Alfonso had by now turned his chair around and sat backwards on it. His torso leaned against the chair back, enough to tip it forward until his forward progress was halted by the edge of the table.

  He leaned in uncomfortably close to the detainees, his elbows steadying himself on the flat surface. In a lightning-fast maneuver, his hand clapped down against the tabletop like a fly swatter.

  This startled Amalia more than Wendel.

  He decided to throw the trick question out there: "Who do you work for?" Alfonso looked to the male to say something this time. "The German government--even you must know that," Wendel said with disgust. "I don't like your tone," the interrogator shot back. He then shifted the bullseye back to Wendel and motioned for his cohort to go through with the retaliatory strike.

  Alfonso's eyes traced the path of the blunt object that appeared to lift itself off the ground. It traveled in an elongated arc with the bottom of its trajectory being Wendel's head.

  At the very last possible second Agent Marcello held out a hand to stay the impending blow that would've knocked the German into the following week. The weapon that would have connected with Wendel's head clanked to the floor right next to where he sat.

  Alfonso watched the German jerk his head at the sound of the noise. "That could have gone a lot worse for you." He rested both forearms on the table and cupped his hands. "Now I'm gonna ask you again, who do you work for?"

  Amalia grew extremely flustered and threw her hands up. "We've already told you," she whined.

  "Pity."

  "No! Wait!" she appeared to have turned a corner.

  Alfonso's bushy eyebrows were hiked with anticipation. Would the woman make his job a little easier right here, right now?

  To his disappointment what he saw was a woman harden once again with increased impudence than before. Amalia bore the distinct resemblance of Pharaoh saying no to Moses.

  She then lowered her head and narrowed her eyes. "Go to hell," she uttered. Alfonso could feel the heat in his bones from the hatred in her speech.

  "Well," he began, "I was hoping you'd spare me the pain from going forward. But all this unnecessary pretext must be punished until I hear what you won't tell me." When neither one of them braved an answer, Alfonso sighed. "As you wish."

  --

  The Ozarks

  Damion's eyelids were heavy with sleep. It had been f
orty-eight hours since he last resigned himself to a bed. Why? There were simply just too many things that troubled his mind.

  Many projects at Westover Ventures got Damion's signature from a notorist, but not his due-diligence review. One such project as a matter of fact happened to escape the company think tank and be free—ultimately getting a new lease on life in the mission bays of Scorpion’s shuttles of great deception which lurked around in low-earth orbit.

  Call it a premonition or a pure gut feel….Damion began to ponder Project Canvas. He didn’t possess intimate knowledge of the program’s innerworkings, but he knew what mattered. If used by the wrong people, on a large scale? Psychological warfare of the holographic nature which could lead to a great deception never before seen since the days of Adam and Eve back in the garden.

  “I’ve gotta get outta here and warn them,” he blurted while suddenly feeling out of breath by the startling new reality. Christophe shifted on his cot to better position himself for conversation.

  “Say what?”

  “They took you and me because we’re the only ones dangerous enough to wreck their plans.”

  “Which are?” Christophe struggled to follow.

  “Isn’t it always an issue of world domination with people like whom were dealing with?” “Well no,” Christophe begged to differ. “It’s more spiritual than that, really.” Damion looked panicked. “Don’t go there with me again. We won’t revisit that topic.” “Why is it you’d rather not talk about anything in the spiritual realm, yet you’re more than comfortable slipping into bed with a woman you don’t even know the name of?” Damion’s face contorted. “I fail to see the correlation.”

  “Right, because you only see what you want to see. You don’t need to tell me that.” “Can we get serious here?” Damion glared at Gerard. “Scorpion plans to use the military grade holo-emitters and retrofit them to work with a littleknown spacecraft.”

  “How in God’s name would you know that?” the scientist gasped. He wondered if the sleeplessness hadn’t finally worked a number on his business partner. How else could he have yielded such a fantastical revelation?

  “Remember that break-in at my house?” Christophe searched his memory and said, “I vaguely remember.” His brain continued to sift through layers of dormant files. “Oh!

  Right.”

  “It’s coming back?”

  “Iris the virtual thief. She started you on your journey for answers.”

  Damion swung his legs over the side of his bed now. It excited him that they were both on the same page now.

  “That day I called you with the news and told you to come over?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What I didn’t tell you was the directory for Project Canvas also had been accessed…in addition to my Mark I test vehicle.” Damion looked at Christophe to see if the old man would fill in the blanks on his logic. And he did.

  “So they were really after your hologram technology…delving into your little pet project was by way more of a distraction than anything else.”

  Damion gave a single clap and pointed at Christophe, “Sharp as a tack! I am never disappointed by you my friend. What else do you think you can tell me on Scorpion’s end game plans?”

  “Why ask me when you already know?” “Do I?” he facetiously put in.

  “Do you?” Christophe fired back.

  Damion rolled his eyes. “Did I complement you too soon, Gerard? You really can’t finish this or you need me to….”

  “There’s a Jeddah connection,” the scientist began to say, causing his friend to start. “Wait your turn monsieur, I have more to say,” he flagged Damion down. The billionaire merely folded his arms across his chest and patiently listened. “They haven’t integrated your invention to their armada of spaceships quit yet because they have to use Jeddah’s spaceport.”

  “Because FRN would otherwise be alerted to a launch from the War Room’s space pad off the coast of S6.”

  Now it was Christophe’s turn to lavish praise for Damion’s strategic mind. “Yes, that is precisely the reason. And what’s more, Howard has all but made the world his footstool with the world rulers bowing down to him. King Kahlil of the UIC has fallen in line with the Great Deception without a doubt…one of the last dominoes to tumble before we see the long awaited New World Order brought to bear.”

  One could hear a pin drop in the room after Christophe said his piece. “Is this thing too far along from being stopped do you think?” Damion asked. Christophe nodded his head. “From one professional to another, I think we’re out of time.”

  Damion was a little surprised by his friend so quickly dismissing any possibility of flipping the situation around.

  “You never used to give up so easily.” He hung his head and contemplated the floor while he said it.

  Christophe made a face. “I haven’t rolled over and played dead yet. I just stated my opinion on how good our chances are.” Before Damion could open up his mouth to speak, Christophe further added, “You’d better hope those Viper agents just got lost.” Damion waved him off, “Nah, they ain’t comin’. There is an outside chance though that Israel’s intelligence might piece the puzzle together quick enough…and maybe attempt a rescue,” he twirled his wrist, “…you

  get the picture.”

  “What do we do in the meantime?” Christophe wondered.

  “Be proactive. Talk with Heather. Tell her all we know. Maybe she knows something we

  don’t that can be helpful to us.” “I like your thinking.”

  “I’m sure you would do the same,” Damion complimented the French man. Christophe only smiled. In an anticlimactic way, he gave the suggestion they both find a little sleep. To his surprise, Damion actually agreed to it.

  --

  Chapter 11

  After Alfred Demsky was through talking to Israeli Prime Minister Tuvia Elkin, he immediately dialed another number. The unsettling afterthoughts of what Israel’s leader had told him regarding antichrist vexed Alfred.

  Howard, that bastard! he thought.

  While he waited to be connected with Peretz Scheffer, acting director of Mossad, he once again felt his human frailty. His stomach churned and gurgled. The antacid meds remained open on his desk. Demsky quickly popped another into his mouth and dry swallowed. It didn’t go down as easily as he would have liked, causing him to wince. Suddenly a new voice filled his office.

  “My deepest apologies, Peretz Scheffer is currently away from his post on assignment. Would you like to speak to the department head of the Kidon branch?”

  Demsky’s stomach dropped. Kidon?

  (Mossad’s tip of the spear.) In his mind, if he couldn’t get the director, the head of Kidon would more than suffice.

  “Mr. Demsky?”

  He finally answered, apologizing first.

  “Yeah, sorry--that would be excellent.

  Put him on, if you would.”

  “Please hold.”

  A little while later a man’s voice with a heavy Hebrew accent answered, “Malach Kemper, Kidon division. What can I do for you today Mr. Demsky?”

  “A lot, hopefully,” Alfred quickly replied, feeling grateful to be talking with someone powerful in the Mossad hierarchy.

  The man whom identified himself as Kemper went out on a limb with his best guess on the reason for the phone call. “Maybe a little agency collaboration on a priority target perhaps?”

  “We’ll get to that,” he said thinking of Howard with his last words. “But first I would like to dialogue with you on your friendly Middle-Eastern neighbors.”

  “Oh? The Saudis? Jordanians....Iranians?”

  “Why do you still refer to them by their previous nationalities and not the United Islamic Caliphate?”

  Demsky could almost hear the man smile over the phone at this.

  “You see Alfred, they are not united under King Kahlil. Until their Promised One Imam al Mahdi comes riding in on his white stallion, those blood-thirsty Arabs will no
t cooperate with each other. Their interests are too divided currently. They need a leader like none other who can bind them together into a single people group with one purpose in mind.”

  Alfred fiddled with a lever on his chair which enabled it to recline. Once his seat went back his gaze naturally wandered to the black ceiling up above.

  “Which is partly what I wanted to talk with you about.”

  “You have my attention.”

  “From my last conversation I had with Prime Minister Elkin he took me down a trail of interesting possibilities.”

  “Go on,” the monotone voice on the other end encouraged him. “What I am about to share with you is very sensitive information. Are you absolutely positive this line is secure?” “God won’t even hear what we say.” Alfred liked his answer. “Our security forces recently clashed with Scorpion and unknown bogies over Sector Six at the Westover Ventures Complex.” Malach Kemper’s breathing grew a little quicker. “What happened there?”