Helius Legacy

by S Alexander O'keefe

  Paquin slowly pushed open the door and saw Mason standing by the far wall looking out the window. When Paquin stepped into the room, Mason turned and looked at him as if he were a stranger, assessing him from head to toe. Mason was tall, tanned, and in excellent physical condition. He had a tennis player’s body, and in fact was a skilled and avid player.

  Mason’s face was handsome in an aristocratic way, with a high forehead, a narrow, prominent nose, chiseled cheeks, and a strong, angular jawline. His iron-gray hair was trim but thick. Mason’s eyes were his most distinguishing and unsettling feature. They protruded abnormally and had a striking greenish-blue cast, conveying the impression of a perpetual stare. When Mason’s heavy gray-white eyebrows were added to the mix, the entire effect was cold and penetrating, even predatory.

  Paquin knew the image was also the reality. Mason was a cold and utterly ruthless individual. In many ways, he was not so different from the top officers of the STASI and KGB that Paquin had reported to more than a decade ago in East Germany. The only real difference was Mason’s social pedigree and national origin.

  At a certain level, Paquin disliked people like Mason. He disliked their arrogance, the psychological games they played, and the natural contempt they felt for their fellow human beings, including those who did their bidding. On the other hand, Paquin was a realist. People like Mason paid well for his services. In return, he was willing to accept the burdens inherent in the relationship, at least up to a point.

  Once Mason realized that Paquin was prepared to endure his stare for as long as necessary without saying anything, he changed tactics. A neat pile of financials was laid out at the head of the long mahogany table that dominated the center of the room. Mason walked over to the large leather chair in front of the stack and started to sit down. Then, almost as if it was an afterthought, he waved Paquin to a chair without looking in his direction.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Paquin.”

  Paquin nodded and started across the room to the nearest chair. As he emerged from under the recessed lights that lit the entrance to the semi-darkened room, he realized that someone else was seated at the far end of the table. Although the figure was partially shrouded in darkness, Paquin recognized the outline as he approached a chair that was just past the one indicated by Mason.

  A rich baritone reached across the room to him.

  “Good morning, brother Paquin. It is, of course, a pleasure to see you again.”

  As he spoke, the figure at the end of the table leaned forward into the sphere of light shining on the table immediately above him, revealing an almost coal-black man with a bald head, broad, strong facial features, and a powerlifter’s massive shoulders and arms. The smile on the man’s face radiated absolute confidence and more than a hint of challenge.

  “Good morning, Onwuallu. What an unexpected pleasure,” Paquin said, keeping the surprise out of his voice. Although Mason acted as if he was too engrossed in the financials in front of him to notice the kinetic undercurrent of antagonism that flowed between the two men, Paquin knew otherwise. Mason had staged the confrontation. Now he knew why Mason had insisted on the meeting, at least in part.

  Onwuallu served as Helius’s liaison to the various African countries where Helius had economic interests, or was seeking to develop such interests. Unlike Paquin, Onwuallu’s professional pedigree was not in the espionage trade. Onwuallu had been a top lieutenant in Charles Taylor’s kleptocracy in Liberia, until Taylor’s brutality and theft had spawned a rebellion, driving him from power. In his own words, Onwuallu was a “persuader of men,” otherwise known as a torturer.

  Mason undoubtedly knew that Onwuallu believed he, not Paquin, should be the head of Helius’s security apparatus, which was why he’d arranged the meeting. What Mason didn’t realize was that Onwuallu’s ambitions had caused a fatal clash between the two men in the past, turning rivalry into deadly enmity. The incident had occurred six months after Paquin took control over Helius’s security resources. Paquin had been advised by his predecessor that Onwuallu’s primary function was to bribe African dictators when necessary to advance or protect Helius’s interests. Onwuallu, however, viewed himself as being the unquestioned czar of all of Helius’s security operations on the African continent. This difference in outlook had laid the foundation for the clash between the two men.

  In 1995, Paquin had mounted a successful operation to extract one of Helius’s corporate executives from the hands of a warlord in Somalia. Paquin, always suspicious of anyone he did not personally vet and hire, planned and implemented the operation without notifying Onwuallu, or more importantly, in Onwuallu’s mind, seeking his consent. When Onwuallu learned of this perceived slight to his authority, he’d tried to compromise the operation by alerting one of the local drug lords about the extraction operation beforehand. Fortunately for Paquin, the betrayal had come too late to disrupt his plans. The extraction went off as planned.

  The failed intervention had infuriated Onwuallu, making him that much more determined to punish Paquin for failing to respect his turf. A week later, the Somali who’d guided Paquin’s team in and out of the sector of Mogadishu controlled by the drug lord was killed by one of Onwuallu’s lieutenants.

  After the killing, Onwuallu assumed that Paquin lacked the resources to discover who was behind the killing. The risk of retribution had never crossed his mind. This assumption had been in error. Within two weeks, Onwuallu’s top operative was found dead, with a picture of the murdered Somali in his pocket.

  Onwuallu had considered retaliating, but unlike Paquin, he lacked the necessary assets outside of Africa to exact retribution. He also realized that his own death was a near certainty, unless he succeeded in killing Paquin himself. Faced with this choice, Onwuallu had reluctantly stood down, but he’d never forgotten the incident, and neither had Paquin.

  Paquin had come to the meeting prepared to deal with Mason’s questions, complaints, and quiet threats. Onwuallu’s presence made the situation more complicated and dangerous. Onwuallu would use any information disclosed in the meeting to obtain an advantage, with the end-game being Paquin’s destruction. In the face of this threat, Paquin knew that he would have to be more circumspect, and this would impair his ability to respond to Mason’s questions. Paquin also had to consider a far more ominous possibility. Onwuallu might be there to replace him. Although Mason might well contemplate that such a transition would be peaceful, Onwuallu would view the situation differently. He would have come to the meeting with a plan in place to kill Paquin as soon as he left the building.

  After Paquin sat down, Mason closed the file that he was pretending to look at and sat back in his chair. Mason looked at his steepled hands for almost a minute, and then he spoke without looking up.

  “Mr. Paquin, we seem to have a problem—a systemic problem. Helius sends out a team of your handpicked soldiers to eliminate a simple problem in California. Yet they fail miserably in this endeavor and lose a million-dollar helicopter in the process.”

  Mason stopped and looked over his steepled fingers at Paquin, awaiting a response. Paquin simply returned the stare, forcing Mason to continue.

  “Very well, mistakes can happen. However, the very next morning your team made a second attempt to eliminate the problem and failed again.”

  Mason hesitated again, looking over at Paquin, who again made no effort to respond.

  “Now I am advised that another team of your handpicked soldiers was sent out to deal with another problem. This time the target is the woman, Ms. Marenna. Once again your people failed in this effort, and worse, they allowed themselves to be ambushed by an unknown individual.”

  Mason’s tone steadily climbed in intensity, ending with barely restrained scorn.

  Mason stared over the top of his reading glasses at Paquin, all but demanding a response. Paquin remained quiet. He knew from experience that Mason’s preferred manner was quiet intimidation. He would lay out what he considered to be the damning facts and then intentio
nally stare at whoever was the target of his dissatisfaction until the subordinate made the mistake of trying to provide an explanation, at which point in time Mason would hold up a restraining hand and advise the subordinate that he wasn’t finished, forcing an apology from his mortified victim.

  Paquin almost smiled as he recalled how the STASI interrogators used a similar technique. The difference was that in the STASI interrogations the subject received more than a restraining wave of the hand when the “interruption” occurred. He or she would be beaten to the floor. This treatment would induce the subject to hesitate too long before responding to future questions, which would then result in more beatings. The technique was designed to destabilize the subject physically and mentally to the point where complete subservience resulted. Paquin knew how to play this game better than Mason, so he simply waited, hiding all reactive emotions, in the face of Mason’s stare and the arrogant smile that he could see on Onwuallu’s face.

  The silence continued. Then, with a quiet but audible sigh, Mason continued.

  “Would you agree, Mr. Paquin, your organization seems to have a competency problem?”

  Paquin didn’t respond right away, playing Mason’s own game. He looked out the window at the cityscape that was beginning to come alive. After what he considered a sufficiently long interval, Paquin turned, looked directly at Mason, and answered the question without emotion.

  “Each team could have performed better. However, the core problem was a lack of intelligence.”

  Then Paquin hesitated until Mason responded to this comment, with the sought-after follow-up question.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Two teams were sent out after what they understood to be soft targets. In fact, we’re dealing with a hard target, a very hard target.”

  Onwuallu interrupted. “Or, Mr. Paquin, maybe you and your team have just grown too soft, no?”

  Mason didn’t allow Paquin to respond to Onwuallu’s obvious provocation.

  “What do you mean a hard target, and are you suggesting that the same target caused tonight’s problem in Texas?”

  Paquin leaned forward and looked directly at Mason when he answered.

  “Yes, I am. Consider the facts. The first team was sent to take out what they understood to be a wayward accountant in the middle of the night. They approached this individual’s cabin in the early hours of the morning. The target anticipated their attack and responded by creating a unique diversion. He fired a flare into the night sky: a flare that’s specifically designed to blind enemy soldiers. That’s not something you buy at the local hardware store. When that flare exploded, it temporarily blinded the assault team, and the target used this opportunity to escape on a snowmobile. The assault team then regrouped and pursued the target in the chopper. Once the target realized he was being hunted from the air, he planned and executed an ambush, taking out the chopper. Given these facts … only a fool would suggest that we’re dealing with anything but a highly skilled and experienced professional.”

  Onwuallu started to interrupt with a growl, but Mason’s raised hand stopped him. The quiet tension in the room was almost palpable.

  “Tell me what you have learned about this hard target, as you say, Mr. Paquin.”

  Paquin nodded and continued. “My sources indicate the target is a former member of the U.S. Army Rangers.”

  Onwuallu scoffed, “So what. He’s a soldier boy. I have listened to many soldiers scream and cry in Liberia when they were tested. This means nothing.”

  “Yes,” Paquin said, looking at his hands, “I am sure you tested, as you say, many men, even a few soldiers. I’m also sure that every one of them was chained to a chair when you took their measure. The results might have been very different but for the restraints.”

  Rage sparked for a second in Onwuallu’s eyes, but then he slowly smiled and spoke quietly, his baritone carrying an undercurrent of menace, “We shall see, brother Paquin, we shall see.”

  Mason watched the exchange, but his mind was elsewhere. “What else did your inquiries yield, Mr. Paquin?”

  “The target left the army in 1980 and his file ends there, which makes sense, because it’s a Pentagon file.” Paquin hesitated a moment and then continued.

  “However, the file included notations that suggested it had made the rounds to other agencies.”

  “What other agencies?” Mason interrupted.

  “The CIA, NSA, and DIA,” Paquin answered quietly.

  Mason’s face tightened and his steepled fingers lowered and interlocked in front of him, in a tight grip.

  “What … does that mean?” Mason asked.

  “It could mean a number of things. Caine could have been part of a covert operation while he was with the Rangers, or he could have just been reviewed for participation in such an operation and then passed over. Worst case, he could be CIA or DIA today. We don’t know for sure. Our source doesn’t have the clearance to get that kind of information.”

  “You need to acquire a more highly placed asset then,” Mason responded with obvious irritation in his voice.

  Paquin nodded for a moment, as if considering the idea, and then responded, “We could try, but that has its own risks. Top-drawer intelligence assets are very difficult to compromise, and a failed attempt could trigger an exhaustive investigation that could well have serious implications for Helius.”

  “Well, we don’t want that, do we, Mr. Paquin?” Mason said, his face tightening. “Now tell me, why have you come to the somewhat fantastic conclusion that our California problem has found his way to Texas, identified the individual here that we are concurrently hunting, and then whisked her away from your supposedly competent and well-trained unit?”

  Mason’s voice was both skeptical and challenging, and Paquin could almost feel Onwuallu’s responsive smile in the darkness. Had Mason asked this question an hour ago, Paquin’s answer would have been simple: He didn’t have one. At least not the kind of definitive explanation Mason was after. Fortunately, on the way in from the airport he’d received an update from the wire team monitoring the Marenna woman’s condominium.

  The update gave him the definitive factual support he needed to answer Mason’s inquiry, but he decided not to disclose the information initially. Onwuallu’s presence and his effort to suborn Paquin’s position necessitated a more subtle game. He would guide Mason down a path that would intentionally heighten his fears and intensify his frustration at the lack of progress, then he would pull him up short with the release of the information. It was a dangerous game, but if it worked, Mason’s sagging confidence in Paquin’s abilities, and in his critical role in the chase, would be restored.

  “I don’t know for sure. I haven’t had the time to analyze the facts in detail. But my preliminary read is that there are … just too many coincidences. In both situations the teams were confronted by a skilled opponent, and in both instances there was a common operational pattern. The target turned and fought only when required to accomplish his primary objective.”

  Paquin heard a quiet scoff from Onwuallu, but he ignored it. Mason’s dissatisfaction with the lack of concrete information was what he needed, and it came right on cue.

  “Mr. Paquin, that is all well and good, but you have not told me how this individual managed to identify and make common cause with our Texas problem so quickly.”

  “That’s because I cannot without more information. My guess is that someone put the two of them together.”

  Mason’s reaction was immediate.

  “What? The only one who could have put them together would be someone within our network. Are you suggesting a leak? No one here knows. It would have to be someone—”

  “In Mr. Paquin’s organization,” Onwuallu finished Mason’s thought, his deep baritone quietly resounding across the table.

  The room was deathly quiet. Paquin looked out the window, feeling the two men staring at him in the semidarkness. During his employment with Helius, Paquin had disco
vered that Mason’s greatest fear was the possibility that a government informant would worm his way into his domain and bring down his empire from within. This fear was one of the reasons why Mason particularly appreciated Paquin’s unique ability to design a series of blinds that kept an impenetrable wall between Helius and the black ops he ran around the world. Paquin’s scheme played on this paranoia.

  When Paquin answered, he continued to look out the window, avoiding Mason’s gaze.

  “That’s possible, but unlikely. If such a source existed, he or she would already have access to sufficient information to bring the police to the door. No, I am inclined to believe that the recently deceased Mr. Steinman sent out a message to Mr. Caine before his demise. However, if you give me a moment, I may be able to obtain clarification.”

  Paquin took out his cell phone. He had five of them. Each phone used a different service, and each phone was registered to a different corporate entity. He used a different phone every day, and the numbers were switched every three months. Although it was possible that a determined government agency, with a roving wiretap authorization, might be able to intercept his signal, it would be very difficult.

  Paquin dialed David Weill. Weill was in charge of Paquin’s telecommunications espionage department. He was an expert in intercepting and monitoring information transmitted over any kind of telecommunications system. He was also expecting Paquin’s call. Weill picked up on the second ring.

  “Weill here.”

  “It’s Paquin. I’m going to put you on a speaker. I need an update on Andrea Marenna’s line.”

  “One minute. No calls were made from the subject’s landline today. Six were made yesterday—three in, three out,” Weill answered.

  “I want to know about calls made to or received from a male caller with a California area code.”

  “One minute. There were four calls. One was a message left by a male calling from California. Marenna left a message for this same caller. Then there were two calls where they connected.”