Terminal Rage

  Once the Egyptian military rulers had gone through the top of the food chain, it was only a matter of time before they pounced on people like him who had done the dirty work for the country’s former masters and kept their darkest secrets. When the true nature of his crimes became known, Interpol would come after him and he would be cornered in London like a rat in a blocked sewer. Britain could very well ignore the lack of extradition treaties with Egypt and hand him over as a token of goodwill based purely on the amount of blood he had on his hands.

  Not a day passed when he didn’t explore his few remaining exile options. Buying a passport in a Caribbean country. Striking an unholy deal with a Gulf sheikh to be his patron in return for any number of sinful services. Or smuggling arms for an African tyrant, then disappearing under their protection in the dark continent. The tricks of his trade and the millions he had skimmed could keep him safe for a while. Peace of mind for his remaining days on earth, however, would be more elusive.

  Now that the Mubarak empire had imploded, Adly Sarhan was running extremely short of friends. No amount of money or cunning can keep you alive if you don’t have the right set of friends looking out for your best interest.

  Christmas lights installed along the posh Kings Road in the heart of Chelsea raised his spirits momentarily. It took his mind off the cold, damp London winter and back to the city that beats them all when it comes to Christmas magic. New York. The last time he had called Manhattan home was more than six years ago, and it had been a whole two years since he set foot on the island. That reminder alone dampened his mood again.

  After the Sharm El Sheikh attack in 2005, Adly had been ordered to disappear. Suzie Greiss was fired and the office left unattended, used only as a treasure trove for the wealth laundered by the US-based corporate fronts owned by his bosses, Balmoral Westwood and the Aswan Group.

  For a while, Adly’s role was reduced to making deposits or withdrawals from the New York office in the dead of night, but even that eventually ended.

  Shortly after power had changed hands in Egypt, he received coded instructions from his bosses behind bars to avoid at all costs being seen at the Manhattan office again. The international community would start hunting for the billions of dollars laundered under Mubarak, and someone like Adly, who was clearly connected to them, was now a huge liability.

  Not long after, Adly was officially cut off. His monthly retainer wired to his offshore account stopped. No more coded instructions delivered to his Hamburg safe house. No more suitcases of cash or gold to deliver somewhere across the globe. And no more assassinations. How he missed the assassinations.

  The fall of the Mubaraks left him unemployed, but still a very wealthy man. Yet the backstabber in him couldn’t resist plotting to profit from their demise. To grab whatever he could from the assets he’d once controlled on their behalf. Leviathan, his brainchild, was topmost on his mind. The thought of all those orphaned properties waiting to be scooped was near sexually arousing for him.

  One of the copies of the five passcodes required to access Leviathan was stored in the safe in New York. The other was with his former boss at a location never disclosed to Adly. Leviathan was but a drop in the bucket compared to the real billions they had siphoned and stashed across the globe. Numbered accounts in Switzerland. Warehouses chock-full of gold bullion in Cyprus. Millions of acres of prime agricultural land in Sub-Saharan Africa. Infinite business interests and ownerships in as many countries. These were just the things Adly knew about. Leviathan, however, was within his reach and his brainchild. His legitimate severance package.

  When he had first flirted with the idea of slipping into the New York office and looting Leviathan and whatever else he could get his hands on, he was certain his building pass had been revoked. When he checked online, remarkably, it was still valid for two more years. The quick turn of events leading to the downfall of Mubarak had left them little time to worry about destroying the New York nest. He set a plan in motion.

  Leviathan had one export function, which he would use to prevent anyone else with another copy from reaping the wealth it held. Slowly and from behind the scenes, he would liquidate the assets and divide the wealth among his five children as his lasting legacy.

  Adly had eyes and ears everywhere, that’s how he operated. Paid informers who fed him vital information on matters of interest to him. Small-time government employees. Cops struggling to make ends meet and looking to earn a little extra on the side. Pretty much anyone willing to sell the information Adly was in the market to buy.

  Exactly one year ago, a mid-level security staff member at 200 Park Avenue had called him and tipped him that the building had been besieged and the safe in his former office pillaged. Either his former bosses had beaten him to it, which would explain why they hadn’t bothered revoking his building pass, or someone else on the inside had the same idea. Adly wasn’t sure which explanation was more crushing.

  Not that he hadn’t skimmed enough money over the years, but Adly had developed a fixation to impart immense wealth on his children so they would never have to walk in his shoes and do the dirty work of other people. A seismic and poetic change of events is what he sought. The stolen money of his masters would change hands and create a new caste of top men.

  His grandiose dreams of empire-making were all devastated with that one phone call he received from New York and replaced with a more primal need. A quest for survival and to avoid a long prison sentence. Or worse, execution.

  Tantalizing aromas of charcoal-grilled chicken and lamb shawarma reminded Adly of the sorry state of his fridge. He made a quick stop at Al Dar, the local Lebanese eatery on the high street, to buy a few wraps for dinner. When he’d first moved to Chelsea, he ignored the restaurant staff’s attempts to speak to him in Arabic and pretended he was Turkish. He always tipped them well, but wasn’t interested in developing a chat routine.

  The sandwich-maker packed some extra bags of fresh pita bread and a tub of crisp cucumber pickles, then wished Adly a good night. In Turkish.

  Outside his apartment building on Draycott Place, his cold fingers struggled to fish out his keys from his coat pocket. He laid the plastic bag with his dinner on the doorstep, removed his gloves, and rubbed his hands vigorously to restore life and function to them. Then he took out his keys and turned the key in the lock.

  Once he was inside the building, he stood there for a minute to thaw in the warmth of the indoors. The light in the hallway was on. Someone must have walked in seconds earlier and activated the motion sensors.

  Adly had kept to himself since he purchased the apartment in cash eight months ago. The building had been renovated—the only one on the street stripped of its Victorian identity. There were five floors, each with two apartments.

  The woman who lived in the unit next to him was an attractive middle-aged Estonian, plump just the way he liked them. Friendly enough and possibly easy, but Adly, who had to keep a low profile, refrained from unleashing his charm offensive on her. If anyone asked, he was a Turkish engineer working for a German petrochemical multinational. Quite possibly the dullest history he could fabricate to kill any interest in prying into his dark life.

  But deep loneliness had set in. To protect his children, he had severed ties with them and vanished from their lives. And he’d done the same with the three women he’d frequented in as many cities, not to shield them, but because he couldn’t trust them. Which is why these days he yearned for some meaningful companionship to take the edge off this gray, depressing city. At least something beyond the fleeting encounters with the odd Lebanese or Moroccan hookers he picked up on Edgware Road.

  He went to retrieve his mail, but his box was empty. When he’d left the apartment in the morning, there were already two bills from Virgin Media and British Gas, which he’d forgotten to collect the day before. And surely there must have been something for him in today’s mail, even junk. He assumed anoth
er tenant must have picked them up by mistake.

  Adly exited the elevator on the third floor to find himself in pitch darkness. A few waves with his hand in the air failed to activate the light. Struggling in the dark to find the right key, he glanced at his neighbor’s apartment.

  Usually at this time of the night, the chubby Estonian would be listening to Queen or Abba, but it was all quiet in there. Maybe she was out. Or perhaps she had picked someone up from a bar or a club and they were quietly fucking under a soft duvet. Some lucky guy suckling on those ample bosoms and mounting her Rubenesque figure.

  As he conjured that image, the notion of eating greasy shawarma wraps on his own, and watching Al-Jazeera rehashing exactly how much shit had hit the fan in his part of the world, felt even more pathetic than it probably was.

  Inside his apartment, the amber night lights were dim.

  What’s going on here?

  He flicked the corridor light switch repeatedly, then stopped when he decided a burned-out fuse must have caused a blackout on the entire floor. Which could explain why the Estonian wasn’t listening to her music.

  Before he could reach into his back pocket for his mobile phone to call the building manager, a sudden burst of foul-smelling chemicals slapped him in the face.

  Dry mouth.

  Gritty eyes.

  Nagging pain shooting from his eye sockets to the back of his head.

  An industrial lamp with a blinding light hung from the ceiling.

  Where am I?

  If he’d hit his head in the dark they sure as hell hadn’t taken him to a hospital. The ceilings and walls were metallic. No windows. Perhaps a shipping container or a warehouse.

  A rancid, nauseating taste lingered in his mouth, like fermented mushrooms. An unmistakable funk of cow manure now registering made him want to hurl even more.

  He tried to get up or turn away from the light, but he was lying flat and his hands were tied. The only thing he could move was his head, which he raised slightly only to notice he was completely naked.

  Adly couldn’t even wiggle his toes or lift his legs. His entire body from the waist downwards was out of commission.

  Something is horribly wrong.

  Then, when he saw a drip with a tube hanging on a metal pole next to him, connected to his back, Adly’s stomach lurched and his heart started pounding erratically. As much as he tried to prevent it, he couldn’t keep the contents of his stomach in.

  This is what they must have felt like, the men and women his bosses had unleashed him on to viciously destroy their lives. Respectable people cowering at his feet, the fear of God in their eyes as if they were facing Beelzebub. Begging. Screaming. Making promises. Offering money. Their bodies. Anything to avoid the inevitable.

  Adly had always known this day would come. He’d sold his soul a long time ago and it was only a matter of time before his turn came up.

  Judgment day.

  Who was it that had finally hunted him down?

  More people in this world wanted him dead than alive. Top of that list were his bosses.

  In his thirty years as their servant, he’d never once seen them dispense loyalty as a fringe benefit. But he hoped as their top assassin and chief mover of their sullied money, he would be the exception. Working for them, he’d terminated their business competitors with ruthless precision. Erased political opponents who dared challenge their patriarch. Even murdered in cold blood their lovers and mistresses who knew more than they should or expected more than they deserved. None of that meant anything now.

  And if it wasn’t his bosses, there were countless enemies his masters had trampled on. His entire country was seething under years of oppression, with millions of people with sufficient motive to annihilate him, even if only for his guilt by association.

  When he had managed to bring his heart rate under control, a faint ray of hope reverberated through him. Despite his current predicament, he was still alive. If whoever had knocked him out and disconnected his lower half had wanted him dead immediately, that’s exactly what he’d be.

  Adly was a professional killer, and he was now thinking like one. The logic of his situation presented an opportunity for Adly to do something at which he excelled. To negotiate and haggle for his life, and do exactly what none of the people he had killed were ever able to achieve. His only hope was to win the upper hand, even from this miserable position. He tugged lightly at the drip connected to his body to get someone’s attention. Anyone.

  A familiar voice cut through the silence.

  “It’s an epidural. And I wouldn’t try to pull it out if I were you.”

  In his best helpless-wounded-old-man voice, Adly asked for some water.

  There was no answer. Just a clicking sound followed by the smooth hum of well-oiled machinery. His scope of view changed in the process. No longer staring at the ceiling, Adly felt his torso moving up as if his body was on some sort of inclining mechanical bed.

  A silhouette of a man sitting in front of him got up from the chair and moved closer.

  A ghost!

  Of all the people Adly had feared would come to collect retribution, standing right in front of him was the least likely one. Not just because this man lacked the character or the skills to find Adly, let alone take him out, but because he was supposed to be dead.

  The improbability that this was the guy who had come to settle Adly’s bill now made him question his sanity for the first time since he had come around.

  I am hallucinating. Or I’m already dead and paying for my sins.

  “Sam? Sam, is that you?”

  “Why me, Adly?”

  This was really happening.

  The clarity of the voice.

  The inflection.

  Sam Morgan was alive. And Adly needed to think fast.

  “Whatever you think I did, Sam, it was not true, I swear on Allah.”

  Sam clicked a remote control and switched on an LCD screen suspended in front of Adly’s eyes. Footage of Adly speaking off camera and then interacting with Nabulsi and Madi during their trial in 2005 played in a loop.

  He turned his head away from the incriminating screen and his eyes met Sam’s. The game was up. He might as well save them both the charade of pretending otherwise.

  Adly managed a forced grin. “How’d you find me, Sam?”

  “The Jordanians. They ratted on your Bosnian friend, Demir Salimovic. I dangled some money and shopped around for snuff and kiddy porn until he bit the bait and sold you out.”

  “What’s this thing attached to me? Take it off. Please?”

  “Drip bags. One contains anesthetics and sedatives pumping through your spine. You’re paralyzed from the waist down. The other has the exact dose of chemicals to end your life if I turn this red dial.”

  Adly stopped smiling.

  “Tell me what I need to know, Adly, and I give you my word I’ll set you free. You’re just a filthy dog on a leash, I get that. It’s not you I’m after, I want the guys who called the shots.”

  Adly sighed deeply. Even while lying on a bed paralyzed, tied and facing death, he could still muster cunning. He’d manipulated this moron before like soft dough, and he could do it again.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Start by telling me why I was chosen to build Leviathan.”

  “You never did quite get it, did you?”

  Adly stopped speaking and started gasping for air.

  “I have a weak heart. Stop the drugs. I beg you.”

  Sam just stared at him silently, unblinking.

  “I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but get me out of here. Take me to a hospital. The London Clinic. They’ll know how to fix me up.”

  “A hospital?”

  “Yes, after that, I’ll give you everything you want. Names. Addresses. Accomplices.
Their wives and kids hiding in Europe and America. I’ll show you how to take them out and hit them where it hurts. Even Leviathan, I still have access to the building. We could get the passcodes and loot the whole damn thing and split it fifty-fifty. This is my job, Sam. I can help you.”

  Sam leaned over him with venomous eyes and touched the red dial on the drip.

  “All right, all right!”

  “Everything.”

  Adly swallowed hard. The foul taste in his mouth was stronger than ever. “You really want to know?”

  Sam didn’t say anything, but Adly knew the jig was up.

  “Because you were the greediest one we found, Sam. Hungry enough to really want the money, and arrogant enough to believe you were special and indispensable. You were also an outsider to the security software community. Anyone else would have turned us in. You, on the other hand, were the kind of guy who wouldn’t ask any questions, let alone the wrong ones.”

  “Then why did you have to silence me? You sent me to Sharm El Sheikh to die. It was a trap.”

  Adly chuckled like an adorable kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and then proceeded to justify just how delicious those cookies really were.

  “Do you have any idea how much money we’re talking about? The real estate locked in Leviathan? Billions. Not millions. Billions.”

  Sam challenged that logic. “But you said yourself I was chosen for my discretion.”

  “My former employers didn’t get to control a country of one hundred million people for more than thirty years by leaving themselves exposed. You did a good job and seemed benign enough, but they couldn’t risk the fact you had seen their inner workings.”

  “Did you think I was a threat, Adly?”

  “I tried my best to dissuade them. I liked you, Sam. But in the end, when you’ve done this job as long as I have, you understand it’s never personal. Just an everyday business decision.”

  “You murdered my family. That’s personal.”

  “You have to see this from their perspective. The moment you were privy to their vulnerabilities, you became an enemy. And in our world, it’s a zero-sum game when it comes to adversaries. George Bush said it best, ‘you’re either with us, or against us.’”