Heart Strike

by David Bishop

  “Welcome to the Marriott, how may I direct your call?”

  “Please connect me to the room of Ryan Testler.”

  “One moment, please.”

  The voice Benoit heard on the other end of the line was less threatening than he remembered Testler sounding a year ago in the basement of the glassblowing shop in Aleppo, Syria. Still, Benoit had no doubt the man on the other end of the line was the same man. Still, he wanted to confirm his recognition. “Is this Ryan Testler? Or should I say, Louis Goodman, the third?”

  Ryan’s voice turned stern. “Who is this?”

  Benoit squeezed the phone. “You know damn well who this is. You demonstrated an oven the last time we were together.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We need to meet.”

  “I have nothing—”

  Benoit interrupted. “As soon as possible. Today. Believe me, our meeting is in the best interest of your principals.”

  “When? Where?”

  “You’ve got more experience at this than I do. You tell me. But no official locations.”

  “Call me again, here, in an hours. If I don’t answer, call in another hour and repeat that frequency until we speak. When I’ve got the location set, I’ll answer. When I do, I’ll say the name of the hotel and give you a room number in a simple code. The first number of the room I give you will be the number of the floor in the hotel. The next numbers will be the actual room number. Subtract two from the floor number and add seven to the room number. Do you understand?”

  “Oui. If I am to come to room fourteen on the fourth floor, you will say room six-zero-seven. But, which day? What time?”

  “You’ve said this is urgent, and it better be, so today. I won’t mention the day or time of our meeting. It’ll be two hours to the minute after we end that phone call. If you can’t make that, say, that’s a nice hotel. I was there X days ago. The number of days you say will tell me the time you can meet. If you say I was there two days ago, then I’ll add two hours to our meeting time, or, in this example, four hours after we speak. Agreed?”

  “This needs to move fast. I will arrive at the room two hours after you give me the coded hotel room.”

  Ryan hung up as Linda came out of the bathroom. She moved toward him, a towel wrapped around her waist. With each step, her right leg parted the wraparound. She stood before him. “What was that about?”

  “A totally unexpected call from a contact. An informer.”

  “Is he the business part of this trip to Europe?”

  “No. His call came out of nowhere.”

  “Is it good news?”

  “Could be. I’ll know when we meet. It requires my immediate attention.” Ryan headed for the door.

  She moved in front of him. “You usually pay me more attention when I’m topless,” her hands on her hips, her breasts swaying with her motion.

  Ryan shrugged. “Ah, most certainly giving you my full attention would be my preference, but duty calls.”

  “Do you know when you’ll be back?” She ran the edge of her finger over her lips. “I can’t stay like this all day.”

  “In a few minutes. Right now I need to make a call, get things on standby in case this is what I think it is.”

  “I can stay quiet if you want to call from here.”

  “Best you not hear any of this.” He turned and put his hand on the doorknob, then looked back. “Don’t lose the mood. I’ll be as quick as I can.” He smiled and shut the door.

  Chapter 11

  Henri Benoit walked down the hallway on the third floor of the Hotel Pullman. He knocked gently, then took two steps straight back from the door of the room he calculated from the coded room number Testler gave him on the phone. He expected Testler to first look through the peephole. Recalling his fear when he was last with Testler, Benoit’s forehead sprouted sweat. He took out a handgun and held it at arms-length along the side of his thigh. He wiped his forehead and ran his hand across his trousers.

  * * *

  When Testler rented the room where Benoit waited in the hallway, he also rented a second room, one with a connecting door. He chose the Pullman Hotel because the doors to its rooms are recessed a few feet, rather than flush with the walls of the hallway as in many other hotels. Upon arriving, he tested the door from the adjoining room to the hallway, it squeaked. He threated the hinge using a bar of soap from the bathroom until it moved silently.

  Testler did not consider Benoit a killer, not directly anyway. Not by his own hand. He financed and otherwise aided terrorists so he was comfortable with accepting money for making murder possible, but was not a hands-on killer.

  After a quick look through the peephole to confirm the knock was Benoit, Testler briskly moved into the adjoining room where he quietly opened its door to the hallway. He eased his arm around with his gun pointed at Benoit. Testler knocked on the wall to get the French banker to look to his left.

  “Set your attaché on the floor. Cup your left hand over the barrel end of your gun you hold and walk backward toward me.”

  Benoit didn’t move.

  “Unless you want your life to end in a heap in a hotel hallway, I’d do it right now. Slowly.”

  Benoit placed his hand over the barrel and began moving toward Testler.

  “Stop,” Testler commanded.

  Benoit did.

  “Move the gun around behind you with your left hand still over the end of the barrel, holding it with only the left hand. Pick up your attaché with your right hand and continue backing toward me.”

  Benoit began moving again.

  Testler moved quickly toward Benoit to counter any maneuver the banker might be considering. Coinciding with Benoit’s second step, Testler moved close enough to unexpectedly take the gun from Benoit’s hand. “Keep backing toward me.”

  They moved inside the adjoining room. Testler told Benoit to shut the door. The banker spoke with his hand still on the knob. “Why do you hold a gun on me?”

  “Cautious men live. Fools die.”

  “With what you did to me in Syria you can appreciate my fear. My reason for bringing a gun.”

  “Not important. I’m guessing you’re here because you think your shit will soon hit the fan and you want asylum. I’m here to tell you I can arrange it depending on what you’ve got for us. In short, you gotta pay for it with information we want – no routine stuff. If you don’t have sufficient vital information, you’re of zero value. In that case, you should leave and find another way to deal with your risks.”

  Benoit looked thinner than Testler remembered from Syria. Despite the weather being relatively mild, Benoit wore a hat with a muffler around his neck. The jumbled nerves of the impeccably dressed and coiffed man showed through the frequent licking of his lips. Other than that, his manner projected what Benoit’s manner always projected—I’m wealthy, connected, and dress like what I am, a bigshot European banker—with shit for a soul.

  The room’s drapes were drawn. Testler told the Frenchman to drop his attaché case on the bed. After he did, Testler frisked him for another gun. He ordered Benoit to open the leather case. When he had, Testler motioned toward the couch.

  “Sit.”

  Benoit sat.

  “What have you got?”

  “May I?”

  Testler nodded.

  Benoit stepped to the case and removed a thin folder, a single audiotape, and a bottle of French cognac. He put the bottle on the coffee table between them. Benoit pointed toward a tray on top of the dresser. Testler made an approving gesture with his hand. Benoit walked over and brought back two water glasses from the tray. He held them with his fingers inside the glasses and put them on the table next to the bottle.

  “May I remove my jacket?”

  “Move around as you wish, just no sudden movements.”

  Benoit turned the case so the front of it faced him. He wiped his brow with his hand, rubbed his palms together, took his jacket off, and draped it over the foot of the bed
. After removing his hat, he turned it in his hands. After several rotations, he tossed the hat on the bed. “You’re correct. I want asylum in the U.S.”

  “I’m sure you can imagine generally how this kind of thing works. Asylum is rarely given and it’s expensive. You pay for it with information of great value. What are you offering?”

  Benoit unwound the muffler from his neck. He dropped it inside his hat. One end trailed over the brim. He returned to the couch.

  Testler sat in a facing chair.

  “In here,” Benoit lifted the thin folder, “I have a list of three people that will be of major interest to your CIA, the intelligence agencies of your European allies, and the Jews’ Mossad.”

  “And the tape?”

  “The voice of a high U.S. government official saying enough to clearly establish she trades information for money. The time of this particular recording was during the administration of a former U.S. president. However, the woman staffs an even higher position in your current President Wellington’s administration.”

  “And the significance of all this?”

  “These people regularly provide assistance to ISIS and other similar organizations in return for cash. There’s also the names of two of the bigger hawaladars in the U.S. who, I can tell you, routinely move funds for terrorists.”

  Testler leaned forward and partially filled one of the glasses with cognac. “When last we met, you told me you knew nothing about funny-money banking inside the U.S.”

  “Oops. I lied.” Benoit smiled, more a smirk than a smile. “You got good value from me in Syria. This time I’m offering the whole kit and caboodle, as you Americans say.”

  Testler scooted the glass toward Benoit. “Drink a good gulp, at least half. As for this,” Testler mockingly waved his hand toward the folder, “you’re going to need a lot more than what you claim is in that folder.”

  Benoit took the glass and drank two swallows. He sat the glass down with half its content gone. “Don’t worry about the integrity of what I’m offering. If anything, I’m overpaying.”

  “Is overpayment possible for a man buying life in America over torture and decapitation at the hands of ISIS?”

  Benoit’s face whitened.

  Testler’s expression remained stern, his eyebrows lowered. “How did you get my real name?”

  “I was shown your picture and asked what I knew about a man using the name Ryan Testler. You have been observed during the last several days going in and out of the German Chancellery and in and out of 10 Downing Street in London.”

  “Who showed you the picture of me?”

  “Not so fast. First we need to play, Let’s Make a Deal.”

  “Throw your first pitch.”

  “For starters, I brought evidence,” he motioned toward his case on the bed, “that’ll prove I have cash and investment grade assets in Europe, mostly in France, worth seven million U.S. I’ll need to leave those assets where they are to avoid doing anything that could suggest I plan to disappear, and to avoid leaving a money trail. I’ll need my seven million replaced. Your agency must provide me an ironclad new identity with all the requisite documentation.

  “My wife, Elouise, doesn’t know and is not to know anything about what we’re discussing. We have tired of one another. Our two children are grown. They will miss their poppa, but should be fine on their own. Elouise knows about roughly half of the seven million. She will retain that. My wife has become a prune, wrinkled and hard to chew. She’ll be happier without me. I’m certain your people can somehow get the half of my seven million she doesn’t know about. If your government is successful in obtaining those funds, I’ll have reimbursed them half what they provide me. But our deal remains as described whether they achieve that recovery or not.”

  Testler poured two fingers of cognac into the second glass. He set it on the table near Benoit, and took the glass from which Benoit first drank. “Sounds like you’re hustling the U.S for a prepaid divorce plan.”

  Benoit smiled thinly, closed his eyes, and shrugged. “Such is life. My Elouise has forgotten she’s a woman. She is comfortable being old, and no longer desires what a man provides.” He picked up the glass, sat back, and drank.

  “So you want seven million dollars and a cost-free divorce.” Testler sipped cognac from what had been Benoit’s first glass.

  “The change of identity provided by your people, I will need to approve. I don’t want to end up collecting garbage in a suburb of Chicago. As I said, U.S. assets to replace my abandoned seven million. The form of said replacement assets subject to my approval. Relocation to a town in America. Besides France, America is the only fit place in the world to live; the choice of town subject to my approval. I’ll need lifetime healthcare and an emergency number in the event I need to make contact.”

  “All this at the expense of the American taxpayer?”

  “Correct. America will save many times that amount through preventing terrorist attacks by the people I give up to you. You should abduct all these people in as short a time span as possible, squeeze them for every drop of information they have. When you’re done with that, kill them. They’re all fanatics beyond redemption, or whores who sell anything they can for money. Those individuals will be the easiest to extract information.”

  “You better have some damn good stuff.”

  “That I do, Mr. Testler. That I do. For all its idealistic bullshit, cash, not faith, sustains terrorism and allows it to function. Money is the blood of the circulatory system of terrorism.

  “I will provide a detailed list of the banks, and the hawaladars who move money throughout the world, the politicians, those who donate to the terrorists, and the middlemen, mostly fat-cat attorneys who insulate the connections between the terrorists and those people and companies.

  “The small-brained fools who willingly blow themselves up are a dime a dozen. Fanatics whipped into a frothy state. Along with what I gave you a moment ago, all this and more will satisfy your criteria, ‘damn good stuff.’ I assure you this will be America’s best deal since your country and the British broke the Nazi’s Enigma code late in World War II.”

  “And when do you see us receiving all this?”

  “Inside my coat pocket … may I?” Benoit raised his open hands.

  Testler nodded.

  Benoit went to the bed and removed a few pages folded lengthwise from the inside pocket of his coat. “Here is a summary of a good part of what I just mentioned.” He handed Testler the creased pages.

  Testler perused the first page, turned to the next, and glanced at the rest. He gave Benoit a blank stare, closed the pages along their crease line, and tossed them onto the table. “There are no names here of the individuals or the banks or the public officials.”

  “Those pages contain only a general overview of what I can provide. The names will come once I’m in America with a new identification and my assets are in my possession under my new name.”

  “If you don’t deliver your end, I’ll arrange for your new name to be chiseled on your gravestone.”

  “Understood, Mr. Testler. Now, let’s get it done. I need to disappear from Paris as quickly as possible. The longer it takes, the greater the risk to each of our objectives.” He handed Testler a business card-sized paper with a handwritten phone number. “I have a new prepaid cellphone. Within the seedy layer of life, I believe they are referred to as burner phones. You are the only person with the number. When the phone rings, I’ll know it’s you. Call when you have my extraction plan set. Please provide me a one-hour notice.”

  “Where do you want us to pluck you from?”

  “The street in front of my bank. When I’m in Paris, I go in and out several times a day. My doing this will be seen as completely normal.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Don’t you want to know my reasons for doing this?”

  “Either you’ve experienced an epiphany of conscience, or you figure seven million is enough and you’re ready to leave y
our wife without dividing your assets. If you’ve got information we can use, I couldn’t care less about what motivated you. Maybe someday, but not at this point in the process.”

  “One more thing, Mr. Testler.”

  “Yes?”

  “A little something to show my sincerity and the extent of which I can be of help.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Benoit again motioned toward his coat. Ryan again nodded. The Frenchman slipped his fingers behind the mouse hanky in the small front breast pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a small paper. He handed it to Testler who looked at it and turned it over to see a few names.

  “Who are these people?”

  “The man listed first, Claude Robin, has procured women for Mademoiselle Lefebvre, a lesbi-butch. She’s a high female officer in the French DGSE whose officials you will be meeting with while you’re here in Paris. The woman lives like an obscure poet, yet maintains households for two other lezzies. Robin gets information from her by threatening public exposure; he has films of her with each of the two women. I doubt that, in itself, would persuade Mademoiselle Lefrebvre, so Robin pays the rent on the two flats occupied by her two tribadic lovers. I know of this because my bank provided some financing for those flats. Robin is the man who ordered a tail on you when you got to Paris and also on your companion, Linda Darby. The man listed below Robin is the one who actually followed Ms. Darby.”

  Testler startled upon hearing Linda had been followed.

  Benoit stopped speaking. “Is anything wrong?” His eyes narrowed.

  Testler shook his head. “Go on.”

  “The man ordered Darby followed, not abducted. On the other side of the card are the addresses of the flats he provides for the other two Lesbos along with their names. As for Ms. Darby, she is in no danger, only being observed.

  “Do not confront these men until you have picked me up for extraction. If you do it sooner, they will know it could only have been a couple of people who told you, one being me.”

  Testler folded his arms. “It would appear we have the outline of a possible deal. Now I need something to show the quality of your information.”