by Ian Graham
The captain opened the door, standing aside for Declan to enter. When he was in, the captain closed the door and stood in front of it with his hands folded in front of him. Seated at a desk in the center of the room was the warden, a stout man with blonde hair, a ridiculous comb over and a thick mustache, twisting a toothpick between his teeth, and another man Declan didn't know in a suit and tie, with neatly combed black hair and a playboy smile.
With a question on his face, Declan walked further in. The office was octagon shaped and ornate by prison standards. Mahogany stained moldings crowned the ceiling and floor, a gray commercial grade carpet with specks of blue, red and white stretched from wall to wall and the desk, filing cabinets and gun locker, stocked with multiple rifles and shotguns, matched the dark moldings perfectly.
"Mr. McIver," the warden said. "Come in. Have a seat."
"I prefer to stand," Declan said.
"It wasn't a request, son." the warden said removing the toothpick from his mouth.
Declan took a seat opposite of the man in the suit in one of the two gray upholstered chairs. Inside the prison, the officials held all of the cards and regardless of his training and expertise, the odds of a successful escape were long. Besides, he had no desire to hurt innocent people, he'd seen enough of that to last the rest of his life.
"Now, the State of Massachusetts, represented by this man here," the warden said waving a hand towards the man in the suit seated next to Declan, "has told me that an order from the governor has come down granting your unconditional release. So congratulations, son, as much as I disagree with releasing someone, that as far as I can tell, took part in a gunfight in the middle of South Boston, torched a building causing millions of dollars in damages, ran a sports car at a high rate of speed through downtown Boston and then got into another gunfight in a historical district, that's what I've been ordered to do and I'm in no position to argue."
Declan nodded, doing his best not to seem surprised. He had no idea what the warden was talking about, but if it meant getting released, he was willing to play along.
"Mr. McIver," the man in the suit and tie said, standing from his chair. "My name is Matt Stacey. I'm an assistant state attorney for the southeastern region of Massachusetts and I've been charged by Governor Ryan with supervising your release. I'll make sure your property is returned to you and that you're set up with everything you'll need to get you safely back home, wherever that is."
"I understand," Declan said. He had no idea why a governor in the United States would grant his release, but he suspected it had something to do with Abaddon Kafni.
"Do you have any questions?" Stacey asked.
"No. Nothing comes to mind."
"Then I believe Warden Moore has some release papers for you."
The warden nodded and opened a file on his desk. Pulling out a form, he clicked open a pen and signed it before handing it over. "You're all set. Captain Broadmere will accompany you and Mr. Stacey to a private facility where you can shower and shave if you wish and then you'll be escorted to the front gate."
Declan nodded, hiding his elation. "That's grand. Thank you."
* * *
Half an hour later the gate slammed closed behind him and Declan stood on a concrete sidewalk looking over a sparsely occupied parking lot. With his freshly shaven face and showered appearance, he looked like a model preparing for a photo shoot. Among the pickup trucks, four door sedans and a few motorcycles that sat dormant in the lot, a black GMC Suburban with darkly tinted windows, parked at the far end, stuck out like a sore thumb. Upon seeing him, the driver of the SUV pulled forward to the curb. The rear door opened and Abaddon Kafni stepped out, a dark gray suit hanging loosely on his wiry frame, his right arm out of the suit coat and secured in a sling. He pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and smiled. "I imagine you need a ride."
"Aye," Declan said, smiling, not the least bit surprised to see him.
Standing next to Declan, Matt Stacey looked at the obviously armored SUV and said, "Must be some pretty good political connections you have, Mr. McIver. I guess you won't need the standard prison issue cab fare."
Declan ignored him. As Kafni held the door, he entered the vehicle. Inside the SUV was dark and the rear seats had been changed so that the occupants could sit facing each other. He slid onto the leather seat noticing the vehicle's driver. The man was of obvious Arabian decent with a thick head of curly hair, a neatly trimmed goatee and a physical presence that only a man with military experience carried. He wore a dark colored suit, dark sunglasses and kept his hands on the steering wheel at the two o'clock and ten o'clock positions as he looked forward out of the SUV's tinted windshield. Getting in, Kafni struggled to close the door behind him having the use of only one arm. Declan reached out and pulled the door closed as he helped Kafni into the seat across from him where a brown leather briefcase sat in the next seat. As the vehicle pulled away from the curb, Kafni said, "Thank you, for everything."
"So you're the one responsible for getting me out of prison?" Declan asked rhetorically.
"Oh not me," Kafni said nodding his head sideways. "At least not alone anyways. Governor Ryan and Prime Minister Harel go back a long way."
"Prime minister huh?" Declan said raising his eyebrows having not realized Kafni was so well connected.
"Yes. When I explained the situation to him, he made a phone call at once. He feels that the nation of Israel is in your debt and while I cannot speak for Israel, I can speak for my family, and I know that we are in your debt."
"No you're not. We're even."
"I thought you would say that. But still, I am grateful for what you did and apologize for your release taking so long. I've been a little occupied," Kafni said moving his right arm slightly and grimacing in pain as an indication that he'd been busy with medical issues from the gunshot wound inflicted by the Chechen.
"What about your bodyguard?" Declan asked remembering the man he'd found on the floor of the restaurant.
"Levi's injuries were far more serious than my own, but he will survive."
"Good."
"Yes it is. He is a good friend and a trusted ally. Undoubtedly he will want to return to his job when he is released by the doctors."
Declan nodded, "Good friends are hard to find."
"Yes, they are, and the world has no shortage of villainy to test them, which brings me to the other reason I came here today, besides seeing to your release."
Declan looked at the professorially Jew, his interest piqued.
"The Prime Minister feels that the dangers to my well-being are far from over. He feels that with the enemies I have made throughout the last two decades with Mossad and because of the public life 1 will be leading that I can look forward to many years of threats. While I'm loathe to believe that 1 am so important, recent events speak to the truth of his statements."
Declan nodded his agreement. "Public life?" he asked.
"Yes. I am an educated man, Mr. McIver. Throughout my years as an agent of my country I have always privately pursued and aspired to a much more learned position. I have two master's degrees, a PH.D, and decades of experience to back up the research that awarded me all of them. The culmination of my work is this," Kafni said clicking the locks on the briefcase in the seat next to him and withdrawing a book.
Declan reached across and took hold of the thick volume. On the cover were the flags of both the United States and Israel, crossed at the pole and waving in the air above a night skyline of New York City, the twin towers of the World Trade Center standing tall above the rest of the skyline. "The Coming Storm by Dr. Abaddon Kafni," he said turning the book over in his hands.
"Yes. It was published in Israel two months ago and is due for release worldwide this fall. Its already being called controversial by critics and the reaction in certain communities in Israel has been…shall we say…impassioned."
Declan nodded. "The men in that restaurant weren't trying to kill you because of a book. That was per
sonal."
"Yes. That was personal. The man you killed on the roof was Deni Baktayev. I was responsible for the death of his brother, Vadim, about a year and a half ago while I was still employed with Mossad. While this attack was personal, the ones that are to come will not be. Are you familiar with the works of an author named Salman Rushdie?"
Declan shrugged. "Vaguely, my life over the last decade hasn't left me with a lot of time for reading."
"I imagine so," Kafni said nodding. "Mr. Rushdie wrote a book in the late 1980s called The Satanic Verses. While his book was fiction and my works are not, it is the reaction to the overall subject of both books that matters. Members of the Muslim community declared a fatwa against him, a holy order asking for him to be killed by a follower of Islam. Several assassination attempts have resulted and he has lived largely in hiding ever since."
"And you think they will do the same to you?"
"They already have. The leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in the West Bank has publicly announced that he intends to see me killed for my irreverence to Islam. He is the first, but I am quite certain that he will not be the last. Prime Minister Harel has been very gracious in donating to me both this armored SUV and in paying for the services of its driver, the first of the men he has asked me to hire as a personal security detail for myself and my family. That's where you come in. I'd like you to meet Altair Nazari, a former member of the Israel Defense Forces special operations unit, Lotar Eilat."
Nazari nodded, looking into the vehicle's rear view mirror. Declan nodded in return. He looked out the tinted window of the SUV as the idyllic New England town of Norfolk passed by. He knew what Kafni was about to ask and he wasn't interested. His days as a gunman, whether hired or volunteered, were over.
"I'd like you to consider becoming one of those men," Kafni continued. "Although we haven't known each other very long, in that short time you have displayed both commendable honor and incredible skills."
"I'm sorry. I can't help you. I'm done with violence. 1 came to America to build a peaceful life and to try to bury my ghosts."
"That's a feeling I can understand all too well, which is why I think this could be very beneficial to you and the main reason I am asking. I have no intention of leading anything other than a peaceful life, but at the same time, the Prime Minister is correct, I cannot ignore the danger posed to my family. I chose to lead the life I've led, but they did not. I do not want them to pay for my sins. With this arrangement you will gain something that you do not currently have, but want and will need in order to accomplish your other goals."
"And what's that?"
"Legal residency. Working with us, and with our help, you will be able to apply for American citizenship in a few years' time."
"How do you know that's what 1 want?"
"I managed to rescue some of your things from the apartment on Cutler Court after the police were done with them," Kafni said, reaching into the briefcase again. He handed Declan three books. Two were books he'd been reading on immigrating to America and the third was a black bible-like journal. While the books on immigration had been borrowed from the Boston Public Library and were probably available at any bookstore in the country, the black journal was irreplaceable and something that Declan had thought was lost forever.
"Those and some clothing were the only items that looked like they actually belonged to you and not the apartment," Kafni said. "1 hope you don't mind my having taken a look, but your father's diary reads like those of some of the greatest minds in history. He must be a great man."
Declan touched the cover of the black leather book. "My father's dead."
Kafni nodded solemnly. "I suspected as much. But the dreams he had for his son don't have to have died with him."
Declan nodded. He knew Kafni was right. As a man with few other skills besides combat, what he needed was a job, a legal job that would allow him the freedom to study and begin making inroads to the kind of life he wanted to have in the future. "Alright," he said. "I'll do it."
Kafni reached over and put a hand on his knee as the SUV turned north onto Route 1A heading towards Boston. "Maybe, somehow, through all of this, we can both find what we're looking for, a new life."
At Close Range
Chapter One
6:22 a.m. Central US Time — Saturday, August 21st, 1999
Megiddo Valley
Eighteen miles south of Sudan, Texas
Torrance Sands tore through the high desert of Northwest Texas, dodging patches of sagebrush as he moved over the hills and valleys. Equipped with an Xtreme silencer, the ATV made little noise, a cloud of dust the only evidence of his passing which was made invisible by the early morning darkness. Anyone hearing the low hum of the engine would easily think it was one of the many bi-planes used in the neighboring areas as crop dusters. Bringing the black Yamaha FZ8 to a stop at the crest of a high ridge, he killed the motor and looked out over the expansive desert that opened in front of him.
Shielding the bike from view, he focused on the only signs of life in the valley below, a set of searchlights that swept back and forth, illuminating only dirt and sporadic vegetation. Beyond the beams he could make out the darkened outline of twelve buildings lined up in rows and girded on all sides by a chain link fence, spiraled razor wire encircling the top.
The compound was home to the Davidian Codex, a cult of religious nut jobs who'd laid claim to the valley decades earlier and renamed it Megiddo after the site in Jerusalem where the final days of mankind were to transpire in a battle known as Armageddon. Whatever. The only battle Torrance Sands cared about was the one that was about to take place, a battle in which he would kill the chief nut job, a man called The Prophet.
According to law enforcement agencies that had been watching the group for decades, The Prophet was actually Samuel Snowden, an aggressive sociopath and known pedophile with a sexual appetite for young girls. It was for that reason Sands' services had been sought out.
As a contract assassin known by the codename AU, Sands had been hired to kill Snowden. His employer for this job was a US senator whose wayward daughter-in-law had joined the ranks of the cult and, in the process, had put the senator's granddaughter in Snowden's path. Snowden's inability to keep it in his pants had bought him a one way ticket to hell, courteous of AU's twin Makarovs. Whenever possible, he preferred to kill from a distance. However, the terms or the contract had dictated that the kill had to be at close range. To further complicate matters, the senator wanted to look into Snowden's eyes as he died. Sands pulled a black balaclava from one of the ATV's saddle bags. Sewn into the forehead of the mask was a tiny black jewel that was in fact a camera, allowing the senator to watch as the target's fate was carried out. AU had swept the mask for tracking devices and every other dirty trick he could think of, but it had come up clean. He didn't like using equipment provided by someone else, and he liked being watched even less but this job was an opportunity. It would mark the first time he'd operated on US soil for a US citizen. A successful kill could lead to more valuable contracts in the land of the brave.
Sands' phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, covering the LED with his hand. He recognized the number.
"What?" he answered, knowing the caller was Ciaran Donovan, AU's handler and a computer hacker codenamed Queranus.
"Haven't you waxed that God bastard yet? We've got others in need of your services."
"Relax old son" Sands answered. "He'll be dead by sunrise and I'll be on a plane back to Belfast."
"Don't plan on getting too comfortable. I've a mate in Sydney needing your attention."
"Grand." Sands said as he ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket. The pair had worked together since the nineteen-eighties when each had been loyal to the Provisional IRA, Donovan as the commander of the Provo's notorious Belfast Brigade and a rising political figure in the Sinn Fein party, and Sands a part of the IRA's secret weapon, an elite terror unit trained in Russia and known throughout Ireland as B
lack Shuck, an omen of death from British folklore.
It was in Russia that he'd picked up his affinity for the Makarov while training with the legendary Spetsnaz squadron Vympel, Russia's equivalent of the Green Berets, but made far more deadly by the communists' lack of value for human lives. Removing the twin pistols he attached a custom suppressor to each and holstered them, focusing on the other two weapons he used on every job, an SRS compact sniper rifle custom designed to fire a 7mm Winchester Short Mag and two razor sharp pairs of titanium push daggers with handles made from African Blackwood.
Tying his golden hair into a ponytail and securing the rifle with a shoulder strap, he jogged towards the compound, his slender frame moving as deftly as a shadow across the coarse ground. As he reached the bottom of the ravine and drew within a hundred yards, the compound rose out of the desert like a maximum security prison, looking just as menacing, with the fences easily twelve feet high and the razor wire looped in gigantic spirals daring even the most agile to try to pass. At eighty yards he stopped and cradled the rifle on the branch of a cactus.
Through the scope he could see two guards standing atop twenty five foot watchtowers on either side of the front gate following the beams of the searchlights with AK-47s. Each man wore a white robe bearing a red cross and a tan rawhide belt, their beards and hair unkempt. Judging by the way they handled the weapons, they were experienced. Whoever they were, they were about to meet whatever god Snowden had convinced them existed.
Removing the rifle from the branch he secured a suppressor and adjusted the shoulder rest. After measuring the wind and adjusting the scope he took aim and pulled the trigger. With an inaudible POP the first guard fell silently, his head exploding like a shattered pumpkin. His death had been so quiet that his counterpart didn't even know he'd been slain. The next guard met a similar fate, falling to the ground with the right side of his head missing and the wall of the tower covered in scattered gray matter, the 7mm round making a clang as it passed through and struck the watchtower.