ALL ACTION THRILLER BOXSET: THREE MURRAY MCDONALD STANDALONE THRILLERS

by Murray Mcdonald

  “Until today?”

  “Until today,” repeated Baker, “I’ve not seen Sam for over three years. Not since he saved the CNN journalists, just before the bombings in Israel…”

  Clark turned to look at Baker as his voice dropped. She was expecting to see a tear in his eye but instead, saw a look of horror.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, looking down the carriage towards where the Senator was staring blankly.

  “I’ve just shivered all over. It’s like somebody walked over my grave,” he said quietly. “Something very bad has just happened.”

  Part Three

  Chapter 22

  London

  Rebecca tapped on the door gently. “Room Service!” she announced.

  “Can you come back, please? I’m not quite ready,” responded the guest.

  Rebecca Cohen smiled. He certainly wasn’t ready for what he was about to receive, nor would he ever be.

  She inserted the master key borrowed from the front desk and began to enter, as if not having heard the guest. Footsteps came rushing towards the door as it opened.

  “Sorry, I said I’m not ready.” Irritation replaced the guest’s jovial tone.

  As the door opened fully, Rebecca was faced with the limping Izz al Qassam Brigade Commander she had seen over a year earlier. He, of course, did not recognize the woman in front of him, as she was fully dressed. Although, he did recognize that she wasn’t wearing the correct attire for a cleaner. She wore black trousers, a black top and more worryingly, on a hot day, a pair of gloves.

  As he stepped towards the door in an attempt to shut it, she lifted her arm and fired. The small darts flew towards the Palestinian, catching him in the chest. Over 50,000 volts pulsed through his body, sending him crashing to the floor. Rebecca closed the door behind her and placed the Taser X3 on the small table before manhandling the Palestinian towards the bed.

  “Come on, wake up!” urged Rebecca.

  The man looked up at Rebecca as his eyes opened. He remembered going to the open door and then nothing. He looked down and saw that he was naked. He tried to move, but his arms and legs were secured to the four corners of the bed frame. He tried to speak, but his mouth was stuffed full of what felt like a sock.

  Rebecca smiled as the fear in his eyes grew, and the realization of the situation sank in.

  “My name is Rebecca Cohen,” announced Rebecca. Her voice almost sang as she savored the helplessness of the terrorist scum’s situation. “And you, my friend, are going to tell me everything you know.”

  The man shook his head wildly in protest at the thought of telling her anything. The realization that it was a Jew bitch that he was lying naked in front of, replaced fear with anger.

  “Before you make up your mind, there are a few things you should be aware of.” Rebecca stared coldly into the young Palestinian’s eyes as she spoke. “Firstly, this is not going to end well for you. You are going to die and secondly, you are going to tell me everything you know before you do.”

  Rebecca could see from the arrogance in the man’s eyes, that he thought she was very mistaken. It was always the same, she thought. This foolish misconception that they couldn’t be broken. Everyone could be broken, and much quicker than they ever imagined.

  She almost pitied him, almost. She looked into his eyes and made him an offer while removing a small scalpel blade from a belt around her waist, a belt that held many other tools.

  “If you talk now and I believe you are telling me the truth, you will meet your seventy-two virgins intact.”

  The subtlety of her threat was not missed. The Palestinian’s fear returned instantly. The bravado dropped as his eyes fell towards his crotch. However, he shook his head. He was a proud and strong Palestinian.

  Rebecca shook her head. It was such a shame, the naivety of these men. Of course, this would not be easy, being in a busy London hotel added to the complexity of the situation. Noise was going to be a problem. His screams would have to be contained.

  Rebecca turned on the TV, selected a radio station and turned up the volume to almost the highest setting.

  She moved the scalpel to within a few millimeters of the Palestinian’s manhood and watched his eyes for any hint that he may forego the pain and suffering. The defiance in his eyes suggested not. She shook her head and started cutting. The screams were almost entirely muffled by the boxer shorts in his mouth. Anything else, was nicely covered by the music.

  It took just over ten minutes and the loss of one testicle, for the man to tell Rebecca everything he had ever known. His name was Rafik Azzam and, as she had thought, he was a deputy to Mohammed Deif. She listened without emotion as he talked of the plan to deliver a blow to both Israel and America. Some details he knew, others he did not. He was in London to make a final payment to a third party. A ship had been fitted specially for the American bomb, but he did not know where the ship was, its name, or what the special fitting was. He didn’t know who he paid the money to, other than he sounded Russian. Finally, and under the threat of losing his manhood entirely, he divulged the timescale for the attacks.

  Happy that there was nothing left he could tell her, she fulfilled her first promise. She placed a small .22 caliber pistol against Rafik’s head and pulled the trigger. She turned off the TV, left the room, placed the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door, and made a call to the Mossad office in London. There was a mess to clean up. Her next call was to Ben.

  As she waited to be put through to Ben, she thought back over the last year. It had been the shortest year of her life. The more time she needed to track down the nukes, the less she seemed to have. After the revelation a year earlier, she had informed Ben of the Sheikh’s plan before announcing to him that she would go deep. Ben had not even had the chance to discuss it with her. She had ended the call, and to all intents and purposes, disappeared into an abyss. Ben had tried desperately to find her, but to no avail. Six months earlier, he had all but written her off as dead.

  As he ended the call with the Prime Minister, he picked up the waiting call.

  “Ben Meir!”

  “Uncle Ben,” she began.

  “Rebecca, my dear!” he exclaimed, loud enough for the top floor of the Knesset to hear.

  “My God, Ben you’re going to burst my eardrum,” she said smiling. She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Where are you? You must come in,” ordered Ben, gushing and overjoyed to hear her voice again.

  Rebecca remained motionless. “I’m sorry, Ben, but time is not on our side. The nukes will be detonated on Yom Kippur, just two weeks from now!”

  Ben sighed.

  “I know,” he said slowly.

  “You know?” repeated Rebecca. “What are you doing? Holding meetings? We have to evacuate major cities, high profile targets. We can’t let them win,” she argued.

  “We can’t and we won’t. Please, what do you know?” he asked again.

  Rebecca remained silent. Just because she had gone deep, did not mean she was not aware of the intel Mossad had and didn’t have. She knew Mossad was not aware of the two-week deadline.

  Ben read the silence and filled in some detail.

  “We’ve tracked all five weapons to their locations and have teams watching them. It's all in hand. We’re waiting for the right moment to take them down. The weapons need to be armed. At the moment, the weapons are safe. When they come to arm them, we will take them down. Everything is in order.”

  “Thank God,” exclaimed an extremely relieved Rebecca. A year of worry evaporated in an instant.

  “But how? How did you find them?” As the worry subsided, reasoning took the initiative.

  “Let’s just say, I have my sources,” replied the old master, tapping his nose. “I’ve not lost it yet, you know. Now tell me, where have you been?”

  “All over. I’m in London right now, but mainly in the camps.” Rebecca was referring to the many Palestinian refugee camps, the breeding ground for the terrorists. “I got
a break and discovered that one of the Al Qassam Brigade commanders was going to be in London. I tracked him down to a hotel in Paddington.”

  Rebecca had been one of their most successful deep cover agents. Her skin tone and facial features blended perfectly with the Palestinians. It was amazing how a change of clothes, altered make-up and hair, could transform Rebecca from Jew to Palestinian freedom fighter, to French heiress, to Italian beauty and in fact, with her linguistic talents and natural Mediterranean beauty, could pass off being from anywhere she wished.

  “I just finished interrogating him. I can’t believe you already knew, but thank God Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Rishon le Zion will be saved.”

  Ben knew better than to ask what she had done with the Palestinian.

  “Don’t worry, we have them under constant watch. As soon as they come to arm the weapons, we’ll pounce.”

  “And the American city?”

  Ben wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. “Sorry, what did you say?”

  “The American city, which one is it?”

  “What American city are you talking about? There are five nukes and we’ve accounted for all five.”

  Rebecca counted out the cities on her hand. “Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Rishon leZion, that’s four.”

  “But there are two in Haifa?” panicked Ben, beginning to realize a massive error might have been made.

  “There were, but one was destined for America. They want to make amends for missing Washington last time. All I know, is that it’s not Washington they’re targeting.”

  Ben’s face turned white as he lifted his other phone. “Get me the Unit’s Commander.” The unit was the nickname for Sayeret Matkal, Israeli Special Forces, modeled on the British SAS and was the elite force within the Israeli Defense Forces.

  After a brief wait, Daniel Rosenberg was on the line.

  “When was the last time we had eyes on the weapons?” barked Ben with no preamble, catching Daniel off-guard.

  “Hmm...”

  “Don’t hmm me, man. Tell me, when did we last physically see the weapons?”

  “If you’re meaning the nuclear devices, we’ve been watching them for the last few days, and nobody has been near them.”

  “Check the Haifa ones now and call me back. I want physical checks of their presence immediately. Call me back,” ordered Ben, not waiting for Daniel to confirm the order.

  Hearing the end of the other call, Rebecca continued. “But what if I’m wrong? You may tip them to the fact that we’re watching them?”

  “It’s a risk we have to take. The weapons are Israeli, stolen from us. If they go off anywhere but on our soil, all hell will break loose and we could end up losing our nuclear mandate.”

  “Jesus, do you ever think of anything but Israel, Ben? What about the millions that could be affected by the blast? No, you just move to the next step, a weakened Israel.”

  “That’s why I’m in this office and not in any other. I’m paid to protect Israel.”

  Before the argument could really take hold, the other phone rang. Ben answered it immediately.

  “Yes?”

  “They’re not there, Ben,” said an almost breathless Daniel.

  “Shit! Check the rest?”

  “We have, they’re all gone. All five are unaccounted for.”

  “How the fuck did we lose five nuclear weapons?” he screamed, his anger welling over. A headache instantly pounded in Ben’s head, as the ramifications of the news began to sink in. Five nuclear weapons under their surveillance had simply vanished, and if Rebecca’s information was correct, at least one was bound for America; an ally they could not afford to lose.

  Chapter 23

  Mediterranean Sea, Cyprus

  Akram ‘Pock-Mark’ Rayyan had obtained his nickname like most who had suffered from severe acne as a teenager. However, not many dared mention it in front of him, particularly since he had become Deputy Commander and one of the most ruthless members of the Al Qassam Brigade. Akram stared across at the Cypriot coastline, the nearest he had been to his homeland for some time. The warmth of the air was a blessing from Allah after his last few weeks on the Northern coast of Russia. Severodvinsk was, even in the summer, cold and wet. Pock-Mark was not a sailor. He loved land and particularly, his people’s land. Palestine. Pock-Mark had been honored by their leader, Mohammed Deif, with the task of delivering the momentous blow to the American infidels. He looked again at his hand-picked team, twelve young men in their prime, who would sacrifice themselves for the cause. Ten sailors and two young men trained to deliver the weapon, although only one would have the honor of taking the weapon into the heart of America. It was going to be one of the hardest choices he would have to make on the mission: to whom to bestow the honor. He genuinely did not know who should go. Both men were worthy, so it may even be decided by a toss of the coin. Perfect, he thought, that was the solution. Allah would choose, as only Allah could make the coin fall the right way to ensure success.

  For a man who loved land, he had been at sea for what felt like months, although it really had been only fifteen days. However, the work on the cargo vessel had taken some time and thanks to Deif’s paranoia, Pock-Mark had had to stay on the ship throughout the work, as had the engineers who were being paid handsomely for their efforts. Unfortunately for them, it was not handsomely enough. Pock-Mark’s instructions were clear. The men had been lured to a job in St Petersburg and had then, been taken by private jet to Severodvinsk in darkness. For the three weeks, they were on board a ship in a closed dry dock and had no idea where they were. After the works were completed, a celebratory drink to mark the end of the job turned into a slaughter, that saw the four engineers stowed in a meat freezer. After a couple of days at sea, they were tossed overboard to feed the fish.

  Pock-Mark spotted a small fishing trawler. Using his binoculars, he checked the name. It was their contact and he was exactly on time. Not that he’d thought that he wouldn’t be. So far, everything had gone exactly as planned by Deif. The equipment required to convert the cargo vessel into one of the most lethal ships on the seas had been exactly where Deif had said it would be. The Soviet military power-base had resulted in bureaucratic disaster at the end of the cold war. The port of Archangelsk, was the country’s oldest seaport and had been a key military installation throughout the country’s history. Deif had reckoned on a fifty-fifty chance, that the equipment would have survived the collapse of the old Soviet Union, mainly because no one would know what the hell it was. His only concern was scrap value, but even then, that would probably have been worth less than the shipping costs of transporting it from what was effectively, the middle of nowhere. Pock-Mark had been sent to the warehouse on his arrival, and a rather bewildered owner accepted the offer for the ‘junk’ that had been there as long as he could remember. The world’s largest shipyard lay just thirty miles away. Having been built during World War II, it provided the ideal location for the conversion. The old Russian freighter had been a steal. Its owners were glad to be rid of it, as it cost more to keep than it was worth, thanks to the recession. Although it had seen better days, it had two major plusses. It was the perfect size, at around 8,000 tons, and it flew under a Russian flag. Despite being the only superpower, the United States did not lock horns with the Russians readily.

  Pock-Mark smiled again at what they were planning to do. It was ingenious and was going to surprise the hell out of the Americans. Even if they were aware of the impending attack, they’d be defenseless. And all thanks to an old British cartoon book.

  The trawler pulled alongside and transferred the weapon, which had been sneaked out of Haifa under the eyes of the Israelis. The false bottom of the containers that held the weapons had been another ingenious plan by Mohammed Deif. Deif trusted no one, not even the Sheikh. From the moment the Sheikh had offered the weapons, Deif’s deception plan had begun. The storage locations for each of the weapons were carefully selected, and long before they were delivered, tunnels and
false floors had been prepared. When delivered, the containers were carefully placed over the secret trap doors and Deif waited. His watchers did not watch for containers, they watched for people watching the containers. It hadn’t taken the Israelis long to track the weapons, their spy satellites could search for such things with ease, something Deif knew very well. However, he was also confident that once they’d found the weapons, they’d stop looking any further.

  As the Israeli watchers got comfortable, Deif’s men had used their tunnels, removing the weapons from under their eyes. Pock-Mark couldn’t help but smile as he thought of Deif’s master plan. All five weapons were now secured in new locations, one of which, was with him. As for the other four weapons, only Deif knew where they were. He believed in compartmentalization, as Deif called it. Deif read a lot of western spy thrillers. He believed it gave him an edge. Pock-Mark had tried, but reading books that were fundamentally anti-Muslim just didn’t seem right.

  Just as they had fooled the Israelis, Deif’s plan would fool the Americans, too. If they looked for the weapons, they’d never suspect a cargo ship. Its destination was Nuuk, Greenland, and then Sao Luis, Brazil. At no point, would they be within five-hundred miles of US soil. They would be pretty much the last ship expected of being involved in an attack.

  Pock-Mark went aboard the trawler to personally thank the captain of the boat. It was a magnificent day for the cause, he reiterated, before drawing his pistol and executing him, and every member of the trawler’s crew. Deif’s plan was to be followed to the letter. Nobody who saw the boat was to live to describe her. The plan was bigger than any individual Palestinian, and any who did die, would die a martyr’s death. A small charge in the bow ensured the trawler sank quickly. As he re-boarded the freighter, he heard a chirp from his mobile phone. Purchased on a pay-as-you-go contract in Cyprus, it had never been used for voice calls and never would be. The chirp simply alerted him to a new tweet that had been delivered to his account. An account that only one other person knew existed, Deif. Twitter had proved invaluable to the terrorist community. They no longer needed to send emails, SMS texts or make calls. Messages could be sent to Twitter and deposited on any account that followed it. The messages were tiny and created no trail, since the recipient read them through a message server. It seemed there was one method of communication from the 21st century that was untrackable.