The Council of Ten

by Jon Land

  “Only four, five times maybe they were cocaine all right, but the rest …”

  “What about the rest?” Drew demanded.

  “Those times a few days before the old women arrived, a shipment made it here from Spain. Always by water but never to the same port twice.” He hesitated. “It was powder, captain, but it wasn’t cocaine.”

  “How could you know?”

  “I … kept some two shipments back,” the man confessed. “Just a small bag. Never thought it’d be missed. Never meant to—”

  “How’d you know it wasn’t cocaine?”

  The man swallowed hard. “Sold some, captain. Watched a man snort a line right in front of me. Watched him die. Horrible it was, captain, like he exploded from the inside.”

  Drew looked down at him, confused. The white powder that wasn’t Trelana’s also wasn’t cocaine. What was going on? What had his grandmother gotten herself involved in?

  “I figured they’d send someone sooner or later, captain. I knew I made a mistake, but there wasn’t nothin’ I could do about it ‘sides hope the bag wasn’t missed. Then, when I got word ’bout the gold coin today …”

  No wonder the man had been terrified of him back in the apartment, Drew reasoned.

  “This bag,” he started, “do you still have it?”

  The man did his best to nod. “Figured I could return it in trade for my life if it came to that. Hid it back in the apartment under the center floor boards lined up with the kitchen table. Let me live and I’ll take you to it.”

  “The grandmothers didn’t know there was any … difference in the shipments, did they?”

  “I didn’t tell ’em, captain. I just made delivery when the signal came through all those times. I got no idea what they knew or didn’t know.”

  “Then why—”

  It was sudden fear in the man’s bulging yellow eyes that made Drew stop and twist in the direction of their gaze. The motion saved his life. A hook flashed by his face and imbedded in the man’s midsection. His blood-curdling scream gave way to a gurgling rasp as blood streamed from his mouth.

  Drew jumped back. The hook was in motion toward him again.

  At first he thought the attacker was wielding it as a hand-held weapon. Then he saw the hook was his hand. He dodged to the left and the hook sliced clear through a wooden counter on the Cay.

  Teeg yanked his arm upward and swung to stalk his target.

  Drew backpedaled, eyes focused on the huge figure before him. He’d thought the man back at the shack was big, but this one was mammoth. The darkness made his features indistinct. There was only the hook.

  Teeg lunged forward again, sweeping the hook in a crosscut.

  Drew jumped back, but the pointed edge caught his shirt and tore it. A thin line of blood appeared on his flesh and began to widen.

  Teeg sensed the kill.

  Drew watched the giant raise the hook mightily again before he sent it into a blurring descent. This time Drew ducked to the inside to avoid it, realizing at that instant that he still held the conch knife in his hand. He swung it up quickly, arm climbing at a virtual ninety-degree angle to find the monster’s throat.

  Teeg caught the flash of motion and whirled his hook upward in an uncharacteristic move of defense. He was going for the target’s wrist, but the soft clang told him he had miscalculated slightly and had clapped his hook against the knife itself.

  Drew’s wrist stung and he lurched backward. A set of crates tripped him up and he tumbled over them. He looked up to see the hook descending for his throat, and he wrenched his head to the side. The hook imbedded in the floor surface of the Cay.

  Drew grabbed for the arm it was attached to with both hands, and in desperation he snapped a foot out at the pitted face leaning over him. The move staggered the monster enough to buy him time to regain his feet. Drew nearly tripped on another crate and grasped it as the huge attacker rushed him once more.

  Teeg bellowed as he raised the hook over his head.

  Drew tossed the crate into his face.

  There was one crash and then another, but Drew didn’t let himself turn to see the giant topple. Instead, he ran down the center of Potter’s Cay at the best speed he could manage toward the staircases. His plan of escape yet unclear, he nonetheless knew that the Cay offered him nothing but death. He reached the stairs and took them quickly.

  Another scream sounded behind him as he neared the top. He felt the hook slice through his shoe and yanked his foot out of it, crawling the rest of the way up to the bridge. He heard the hook clang against steel as he lunged to his feet and raced down the walkway. Immediately the sounds of heavy footsteps reached him. He glanced back and saw the enraged giant coming fast, hook raised and ready. There was no way to escape him on foot. Just one move left to make.

  Drew grasped the bridge railing and began to hoist himself over. He heard himself scream when the monster rose over him, hook already into its descent. The hook sliced through his shirt and made a thin tear down his back, but not enough to stop his leap. His wail of agony came as he was airborne, unable now to adjust his position in relation to the water. He smacked it hard, teeth gnashing together, but consciousness thankfully staying with him.

  Dazed, he began to paddle his arms in the semblance of a stroke, tense against the knowledge that another plop in the water would mean the monster was following and he was finished.

  He could see the giant coming up on him from below, like a hungry shark. But the plop never came and nothing rose from the dark depths. Drew’s strokes settled and he turned in the direction of the mainland. Gazing up, he saw that the bridge was deserted. He kept his mind focused on the task before him, but something else tugged at his thoughts: If the white powder the grandmothers had been smuggling wasn’t cocaine, then what was it?

  Part Five:

  White Powder

  Chapter 20

  THE CALL CAME INTO the Tel Aviv building at noon on a closed channel that rang directly in Isser’s office. The sudden chiming startled the Mossad chief and he reached the receiver.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Elliana, Isser.”

  “Ellie, this number, how did you—”

  “It doesn’t matter. In your office last week you asked me for proof, Isser, proof that the Council of Ten exists. I think I have it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “That doesn’t matter either. And I don’t plan on staying on this line long enough for anyone to find out. Nothing’s safe, Isser, not even where you are. Two men tried to kill me in Prague. They were Mossad.”

  "What?"

  “I don’t recall their names. One was bearded. Worked with me on the Libyan rescue. It’s all in the files. You’ll find that he’s disappeared.”

  “Ellie, you’re not making sense.”

  “Aren’t I? Mossad’s been infiltrated, Isser. Even our hallowed halls are no longer safe. I’m getting too close to the Council for comfort, so they mobilized. Trace the bearded man’s background, his past. There’ll be a clue there, some shred that must link him to the Council.”

  “Then your proof is a rogue agent who tried to kill you. He could just as easily have been sent by me.”

  “In which case you would have had no reason to let me reach Prague in the first place. But the Council needed my contact there out of the way as well. They had to wait.”

  “Then come in. Stay under guard while I check this out.”

  “No, Isser, I’d be playing right into their hands. There’s no telling how deep they’ve penetrated us. I’m safer out here on my own.” She paused. “I don’t expect you to believe me yet, but check out what I’m saying. Follow the threads. And, for God’s sake, do it on your own. Trust no one.”

  “If I find something, we will back you one hundred percent. But if I don’t I will have a dead agent killed admittedly by you. You know what that will mean.”

  “It won’t matter by that time. Believe me, it won’t.”

  Ellie hung up the phon
e. She had made the call from a post office near Berga the day after leaving Getaria. She knew little about Berga other than the fact that, like many other towns in the northeast of Spain near the French border, it was dominated by the textile industry. Most of the town’s 14,000 residents drew their living from the industry in one form or another, and factories of varying sizes and modernity filled out the main streets.

  Berga lay at the foot of a mountain landscape known as Queralt Sierra, a steep, multifaced landmark that provided the town with what little fame it enjoyed thanks mostly to the Nuestra Senora de Queralt, or Our Lady of Queralt Chapel. The chapel was a huge structure built centuries before and run by nuns. It was constructed more than two-thirds of a mile up the mountain and its backside featured a panoramic view looking down over a wall of rock that even the best climbers claimed made an impossible scale.

  Elliana was not interested in such landmarks, however, only in the address Lefleur had provided her back in Getaria. She finally located it in town but well off the main drags. She found it with a mixture of surprise and disappointment.

  It was an old textile factory, abandoned and boarded up. She checked the address three times to be sure.

  Had Lefleur lied to her about the address those strange shipments had arrived from? No, he had no reason to. Of course, this building could easily have served as a front and nothing more.

  Ellie moved to the front door, which was secured by a single sturdy padlock. She fished in her pocket for the proper picks and had the door open in less than thirty seconds. It squeaked loudly as she pushed it to the inside, propping it ajar since the doorway would supply her sole source of light other than what rays were able to sneak through the covered windows.

  There wasn’t much to see in any case. Empty crates and boxes lay strewn randomly about. There was no machinery, but Ellie could tell from the impressions on the floor and the sagging in certain areas that not too long ago a textile business with all its heavy lathes and other machines had indeed been housed here. Past tense. Her trail stopped at this apparent dead end. The shipments Lefleur had received might have originated here, but, as she had feared, the building was only a front, nothing more than an address.

  No, wait. There was something else. The building, stick with the building, Ellie urged herself. The clues lay there… . She paced about the wide factory floor, once manned with workers who sweated and ached for pennies a day. She stepped in and out of the offices where the employers spent the days before whirling fans. A few of the desks were still there, but their drawers contained nothing.

  Ellie kept walking about the interior, letting her thoughts roam. Enough light filtered through the boards nailed over the windows to allow for a careful search.

  Wait! The windows! Her heart began to beat faster. She was on to something and she knew it. Her memory had stirred. She made a mental photograph of the interior layout of the building and hurried back outside, matching one picture to the other.

  There was another forty feet of building beyond where the last window seemed to indicate the building ended from the inside. Forty feet hidden behind a false wall and lacking windows. Ellie rushed back inside.

  The offices were lined up against what must have been the false wall, and she tried two before the third yielded what she was after. The rear wall was discolored in the shape of a door that a simple shove from her shoulder sent swinging inward.

  The smell assaulted Ellie first, a smell of must and mold and rot and gloom from an airless building within a building. There was light, however, from a pair of skylights Ellie hadn’t spotted from the outside, and it was more than sufficient to allow for an inspection. She stepped slowly into the inner structure and felt her heart racing with the excitement of discovery.

  This part, too, was empty and abandoned. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness and she noticed that this section had been partitioned. The main floor took up the bulk of space, but several smaller quarters of varying sizes had been constructed.

  The second smell she noticed as she walked forward made her nose wrinkle slightly. It was a chemical scent for sure, strongest around the partitioned sections, which were complete with counters and supply closets.

  What had she discovered? Something else must have been produced here besides textiles or why bother to hide it?

  Ellie gazed up at the ceiling and felt her heart pick up even more. Suspended from the rafters were two huge filtration and air-conditioning devices. Ellie had seen them before in large commercial factories and chemical plants, their role being to continually purify the air of toxic gases.

  She walked about. If not textiles, then what? Something had been produced in secret, its manufacturers wanting no one to know of its origin or existence. Whatever it was had then been shipped from here to Lefleur in Getaria for transfer to the Bahamas. But what was it? Ellie didn’t have a hint. She continued to walk, surveying all that lay around her.

  There wasn’t much, nothing in fact. She made herself calm, trying to feel with her senses what had been produced here. The strong chemical smell continued to assault her. The room was large, 3,000 square feet perhaps. The possibilities were endless. Anything could have been made within these walls.

  No, Ellie thought to herself, not anything. Something to do with chemicals produced and shipped over a long period of time. Lefleur said the shipments had been coming regularly for over four years. And he had indicated clearly that they weren’t very large. Why so many shipments spread over such a long period? Moreover, what of their ultimate destination? Ellie felt certain that the Bahamas were just a midpoint, as Getaria had been. The direction, then, was west.

  Toward the United States.

  Ellie felt frustration nip at her. Those shipments were the key to uncovering the Council of Ten and learning what they were up to. She was so close, yet—

  The rustle of the hidden door opening again froze her thoughts. She spun, going for her pistol, but her eyes found the dark figure in the shadows before she could whip it out. The figure raised what must have been a shotgun and steadied itself before her.

  “Move and I’ll kill you,” the figure warned.

  The voice was female.

  “I know you’ve got a gun,” the woman in the shadows said. “Take it out and drop it on the floor. Slowly. Do it now! I know how to use this.”

  Elliana started to do just as she was told. She knew this woman was not a professional; no professional had to announce their proficiency. In the darkness from this range, she felt certain that she could quickly gain the advantage. But she sensed there was something she could learn from this woman if she remained calm and did not act rashly.

  Her pistol clanged to the floor.

  The woman stepped farther into the glimmer provided by the skylights. She held the shotgun tight before her, hands steady.

  “I knew you’d come back. I knew they’d send someone,” she said.

  Ellie saw there was more than rage in her eyes; there was hate. Still she said nothing.

  “You’ve got to make sure no one returns,” the woman continued. “You’ve got to be certain there are no more problems.”

  She moved forward until she was almost eye-to-eye with Ellie, separated by little more than the barrel length of the shotgun. For an instant, Ellie thought both its chambers were going to be emptied into her midsection.

  “I waited for you!” the woman ranted. “I prayed I’d get this chance!”

  The fury was plain on her face. Ellie was certain she was going to pull the trigger now, certain enough to force herself into action. The shotgun was her biggest concern and she grasped its double barrels with both hands, forcing it away from her as she lunged toward its bearer. The woman tried to pull it back, which made her midsection an open target and Ellie slammed it with an elbow. The woman groaned, her grip on the shotgun slack enough for Ellie to pull it from her grasp as she ducked behind the woman and knocked her to the floor. She aimed the shotgun right for her face so the woman would make no sudden moves. Fe
ar replaced rage in her eyes.

  “Listen to me,” Ellie began with surprising calm. “If I were one of those people you speak of, I’d kill you, wouldn’t I?”

  The woman beneath her made no motion to nod or speak. The answer was obvious.

  “I’m not the one you think I am,” Ellie continued. “I don’t work for whomever it is you think I do.” In an instant she had tossed the shotgun aside and jammed her fingers into the woman’s throat in a way that made movement agonizing. “I’m not going to kill or hurt you. We’re not enemies, do you understand that? I’m going to ease the pressure off your throat now. I have questions for you and I’ll answer yours as well.”

  Without waiting for a response, Ellie released her fingers. The woman made no move to resist further.

  “Who did you think I worked for?” Ellie asked her.

  “The owners.”

  “Of the factory?”

  The woman shook her head and gazed around her. “No. This.”

  “The owners were different?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The factory was just a front.”

  Ellie noticed the chemical smell again. “For what went on back here, of course. But what was it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yet you wanted to kill me,” Ellie said. “Why?”

  “For revenge.” The woman’s eyes glazed over with tears. “For my mother.”

  “She worked here?”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “How many others?”

  “It fluctuated. Around twenty I’d say, always from this region. But there were others. They looked different, acted different, never spoke with the locals.”

  “Listen to me,” Ellie said gently. “I’m being hunted by the same people who are behind whatever was happening here. My only chance to stay alive is to find them first. You’ve got no reason to trust me, but I beg you to.”

  The woman looked up at her.

  “I need your help. I’ve got to find out everything that went on in this building. Much more is at stake here than a few lives. Believe me. Please, is there anything else you know?”