by Blake Banner
There was total silence in the room. I saw Hennessy lean over and speak to somebody in the shadows. Then Gibbons was bellowing again.
“And the seven trillion balance is profit! Interest! Interest paid to Hennessy and his cohorts through the Hennessy Foundation! Interest sucked from the blood of fallen soldiers!” His face was flushed and you could see he was barely controlling his rage, but when he spoke again, his voice was quiet. “If the necessary steps were taken to address climate change and world overpopulation, the Hennessy Foundation and the criminals who associate with them—you can find most of them in Forbes—would lose trillions, trillions, of dollars, and all their global influence. Their plan, which is infinitely more profitable, is to allow climate change to run its course, allow catastrophic change to happen, and when it does, make sure they are in the dominant position of top dog so that they can profit from it. And they plan to do this through an organization….”
There was a stir and a gasp in the audience. Gibbons faltered and stared. I turned and looked. There was a scuffle at the back of the room. Somebody shouted, “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”
A woman screamed. I saw the guy shouting. He looked Middle Eastern. A couple of security guards were wrestling with him, but half a dozen other guys joined him and a fight broke out. There was more shouting of, “Allahu akbar!” and a voice screamed, “He has a gun!” Then pandemonium broke out. People were scrambling and running in all directions. I looked back at the stage. Gibbons was scowling at Hennessy. Hennessy was smiling back. He shrugged and left the stage.
I sat and waited for the chaos to subside. I saw Gibbons turn and walk off the stage in the opposite direction. It had been a good attempt. I was impressed by the way he spoke. It showed another side of the man, he was intelligent, charismatic and powerful. But it had been naïve. Omega were dirty fighters. They always had been and always would be. To expect to outsmart them like this was unrealistic. What he had managed to do was to damage his own reputation. He would appear in the press the next day as a deranged crank and the establishment media would have a feeding frenzy picking over his bones.
Eventually, a security guard came down and asked me to vacate the room. I followed the throng up to the first floor and into the night. There I pushed my way through the crowd and made it to First Avenue, where the people dispersed some, and I walked down to 41st, where I had left my car. I had opened the door and was about to climb in when I saw a large, black limo emerge up the ramp from the UN parking garage. As it cruised past, I saw that it had the Awad royal family crest on it. I climbed into the Zombie and followed at a discreet distance.
I wasn’t very surprised to see them take West 42nd as far as Madison Avenue, and then turn north. I followed them as far as East 79th. There I parked on the corner and watched them pull up in front of Prince Mohamed’s house, where we’d had the party the night before. I watched as an Arab in his fifties, in an elegant suit, climbed out of the limo, closely followed by Ben and Dick Hennessy. They walked into the house and I drove away.
As I drove I could feel hot excitement in my belly. I couldn’t see it clearly yet, but I knew the connections were there as surely as I knew that I was breathing. I needed to get Marni out of that conference. I needed to get her to safety, and I had to do it within the next couple of days or it would be too late.
I dialed Gibbons’ number. It rang for thirty seconds, then stopped, and a voice told me it was either switched off or out of range. That left me just one option. I needed to go back to Echo Bay and take Marni by force. I didn’t want to hurt Gibbons, but if he stood in the way, I would have to. One thing was real clear to me right then. The opponents we were up against—the problem we were up against—was vaster than even I had imagined. Whatever Gibbons and Marni intended to do, they were headed for disaster and Gibbons was refusing to see it.
I decided to go home and work out how I would take Marni, which I would execute that night. If I was lucky, Gibbons would stay in Brooklyn and Marni would be alone. I pulled my tracking device from the glove compartment and switched it on. The cell I’d dropped into Gibbons’ pocket was still active and it showed him heading south toward Brooklyn Bridge. I smiled to myself. At least that was in my favor.
I left the car in the parking garage and rode the elevator to my penthouse. I went through my usual routine but the apartment was clear, so I cracked a beer and switched on the laptop. I selected the audio file for the bug at Amethyst Street and while I listened to the meaningless noises of people opening and closing cutlery drawers, coughing, spitting, and mumbling, I opened Google Earth and found Marni’s safe house.
It didn’t help much. The focus was poor and there was little detail. If I postponed the operation by a day, my best bet was an inflatable dingy. I could purchase that in the morning, but if I went that night I would have to swim, so I should take a change of clothes in a plastic bag. The advantage of going that night was that I would not have to deal with Gibbons.
I decided that that advantage outweighed the inconvenience of getting wet. Power and phone cables to the house were probably underground, so there was no chance of cutting them. My best plan, then, was to go in late, after she had gone to bed, find the fuse box, and disable the phones and the wifi. I would use my night-vision goggles and find her room. An unknown quantity was the staff. I had no idea how many there were or if they were live-in or went home at night. I would have to get there early and watch to see who arrived, who left, and how many upstairs lights went on and off after bedtime.
It wouldn’t be hard. It would be a straightforward in-and-out operation.
That was when a new voice on the audio file made me stop and listen. There was a lot of effusive greeting and praising of Allah. Then, a strong, clear voice asked them all to sit down and listen, because he had important news.
“Today, my brothers, I can identify for you your target. You will strike at the United Nations. This will be even bigger than nine-eleven!”
There were whoops and laughter that were pathetically reminiscent of excited schoolboys. Then a voice I knew to be the Pakistani kid asked, “Abdul, Allah be praised, how will we get the bomb into the building? The security is very tight! It will not be easy!”
“Don’t worry about that, Ali, that is not your concern. Trust me, that has been taken care of. I have the components here for you. You will each carry a separate part. Ali, you will carry the C4. Hassan, you will carry the detonator, Aatifa, you will carry the agent. You will arrive separately on Friday, at eleven o’clock, eleven fifteen, and eleven thirty. You will not be detected at security. Forget about that.” Then again, more emphatically, “Forget about that! You go down to the basement at exactly eleven thirty-five and you meet in the gentlemen’s toilets between the Public Counter and the coffee shop. There you assemble the device exactly as you have practiced it. Then you take it up to the second floor, to the General Assembly Hall. Any questions so far?”
There was a general, negative murmuring.
“OK, you will be provided with passes for Professor Gibbons and Doctor Marni Gilbert’s talk. It will begin at twelve noon. You will detonate the device as the talk begins. Your deaths will be the most glorious of heroic acts in the eyes of Allah.”
Hassan said, “I have a question, Abdul.”
“Yes, my brother?”
“I realize that there will be some very important delegates there…”
“Some very important men and women, representing the major governments of the western world, Hassan.”
“But the death toll will be only in the hundreds…”
Abdul laughed. “Spoken like a true warrior! No, Hassan, the death toll will be in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions. It is impossible to calculate.” There was a rustle and a metal clank. “This sealed canister, my brothers, contains enough SF2 to wipe out several million people.”
An awed silence, and then, “SF2?”
“The key parts of a lethal strain of influenza that in 1918 killed more than
twenty million people. It has been genetically modified to make it highly resistant to known antibiotics. The blast will kill a few hundred people, maybe, Hassan, but everybody who leaves that building will be carrying this virus. And nobody will know.”
“Allah is merciful!”
“Allah is great!”
“Allahu Akbar!”
I stared at the screen, not hearing anymore what they were saying. I was looking at the time stamp for when it was recorded. Five thirty. Two and a half hours ago. I grabbed my jacket and walked to the door. Now at least I knew what I had to do. I had to do what I was good at.
Killing.
Eight
I left my car at the corner of Rhinelander Avenue and Unionport Road in a pool of depressing lamp light, and walked around the corner onto Amethyst Street. I had my Sig, my Fairbairn & Sykes, and my night vision goggles. I figured it was better to be over-equipped. The echo of my feet on the blacktop and the sidewalk had a flat, dead sound. The road was a dark tunnel, with hazy patches of amber that filtered through foliage and reflected in liquid pools off the cars. Houses and cars with dead, black eyes.
There was no Ferrari today. I was pretty certain he didn’t live here, with the cell. He would have an apartment in Manhattan. Maybe he was a guest of the prince. I looked up at the windows of the house. They were all dark. The boys were either out or asleep. Either one suited me.
I stepped to the door and slipped in the pick. The lock gave. I remembered from my first visit that the hinges did not squeak. I moved in and gently closed the door behind me. The house was dark and silent. I closed my eyes and remained motionless, listening. Nothing. I pulled on the goggles, turning the world into a weird, green and black nightmare. I pulled the Sig. I had cocked it in the car. Four long steps took me to the kitchen door. I knew it would be empty and it was, but it pays to be double sure.
I moved up the stairs. There were two bedrooms here. Both doors were closed. I took one long step to the nearest and gripped the handle. Quick is quiet, slow makes a noise. I pulled gently toward me and yanked down. The spring squeaked slightly. I pushed the door open with my gun leveled toward where I knew the bed was.
The sheets were a translucent green and his face was slightly luminous. His mouth was open but his eyes were closed. He was snoring softly. It looked like Ali, the kid from Pakistan. Nineteen years old and secure in the belief that all God wanted from him was that he kill people who did not believe his name was Allah. I moved in, closed the door behind me, holstered my Sig and drew the Fairbairn & Sykes. Another step took me to his bedside. I looked down at his unthinking, unquestioning face. One thing the world didn’t need was more stupid people. I pressed my left hand hard on his forehead and simultaneously shoved the long, razor sharp blade through his trachea and out the back of his neck, severing his spinal cord on the way.
His eyes snapped open and stared at me while his body jerked and quivered for a second. Air hissed and bubbled out of the wound and he was gone. I gave the blood flow a second to settle and then withdrew the knife, wiped the blood on the luminous green sheet, and sheathed it.
I opened the door with the Sig in my hand and stood listening. The house was still quiet. I took hold of the handle of the next door, pulled and yanked down as before. Nothing. I pushed it open. This was the British guy, Hassan Barr. He had his back to me. That would make the kill a little more awkward, but easy enough. I took a long silent step and clapped my left hand over his eyes and his forehead. I had the option of slipping the blade through his jugular, the carotid artery and then his trachea. If done effectively, it causes an almost instant, silent death. But it is best done standing. In this position, with him horizontal and roughly at the height of my knees, it could go wrong, and the last thing I needed was a scream and a fight, with Aatifa still alive.
Instead, I opted to ram the point of the knife hard into the vertebrae at the base of his skull, severing his brain from his body. Even if death was not instant, whatever his brain told his body to do in those last few seconds, it wouldn’t do them, including scream.
His body jerked and quivered, his breath hissed out of his lungs, and he lay still. The last thing Hassan Barr ever saw was my fingers clasped over his eyes.
That left Aatifa Ghafoor upstairs. These two had been naïve amateurs, but I figured Aatifa was experienced and battle-hardened. My money was on him and Abassi being old friends from Afghanistan.
I withdrew my knife, wiped off the blood, and sheathed it. Then I drew the Sig and moved up the stairs through green luminescence and black shadows to the next floor. I didn’t want Aatifa dead. I wanted him talking.
I didn’t try to be quiet. I kicked open the door, holding the Sig in both hands trained on the bed. I shouted, “OK, Aatifa! On your feet with your hands in the air!” But before I had finished, I’d seen that the bulk under the covers was not a man but a roll of bedding and cushions.
I swung left to where I knew he would come at me, but it was too late. He had the barrel of the gun in his left hand and was rushing me to slam the heel of his right into my elbow. His face leered at me in a weird, green grin. I let go the Sig with my right and bent my left elbow hard, pulling him to me as I slammed my right fist into his nose. He rolled with the punch and didn’t let go of the gun. Instead, he gripped it with both hands, trying to lever it from my fingers. For a man fighting almost blind, he was doing OK.
When somebody grips the barrel of your piece and levers, there is only one thing you can do. I released the magazine, pulled the trigger to empty the chamber, let go, and landed three punches on the side of his head with my right fist while gripping his collar with my left; but most of the power was wasted on his hunched shoulder. Then he struck at my floating ribs with the butt of the gun. It hurt and I stepped back.
It was all he needed. He slammed on the light and lunged for the magazine on the floor. I ripped off the goggles and kicked at his head. I caught him a glancing blow, but the guy was tough. He took it, gripped my ankle, and twisted. I let myself fall, expecting him to jump me and try to pin me down. Then there would probably be a knife. It was going to get ugly.
Instead, he made a mistake. He reached again for the magazine and with scrabbling fingers, tried to ram it into the butt of the Sig. As his fingers worked feverishly, he watched me with bulging eyes and a swollen, corded neck as I rose to a squatting position, pulling the knife from my boot, and rammed it into his elbow joint. He screamed and dropped the weapon and the magazine. I left the blade in and slammed my fist into his jaw. His eyes rolled and he fell quivering to the floor as though he was in an epileptic fit.
I picked up my gun, rammed the magazine back in, and holstered it. Then I pulled the knife from his elbow, wiped off the blood, and sheathed the blade. In the wardrobe I found several wire coat hangers. I took four down and opened them up. After that, I went down the passage to the can and filled a tooth mug with water. I brought it back and threw it in his face. He spluttered, grunted, and opened his eyes to look at me. He said something in Ugly and then the pain in his elbow kicked in and he started moaning.
I showed him the business end of the Sig and said, “Stand up.”
He struggled to his feet. He was shaking badly, and if he hadn’t been a man planning to kill an entire city, I might have felt sorry for him. Instead, I waved the gun at the stairs and said, “The living room, get moving.”
He shrugged and made a face like stupid. I pistol-whipped him and as he staggered back I stepped to the door and took the bug from the top of the frame. I showed it to him. “Lying to me is not a good idea, Aatifa. And every time you do it, it will become a worse idea. Get downstairs or I’ll blow your kneecaps off right here. Go.”
He swallowed and nodded, then made his way down the stairs. I followed with the coat hangers. When we were down, I said, “Grab a chair, sit.”
He pulled out a chair and sat. I stood behind him. He’d gone very pasty and he was shaking badly. “Put your right hand behind the chair.”
; He did and I looped one of the hangers tightly around his wrist, then twisted the other end around the top of the leg. I did the same with his other wrist and with his ankles. Plastic zip-ties and duct tape are OK, but if you know the tricks you can bust them. Wire coat hangers—there is no way out.
By the time I pulled a chair out and sat in front of him, he looked very scared. I set my cell phone to record, put it on the table, and stared into his eyes for a long time, then I said, “Aatifa, I am going to go to the kitchen now and get the big kitchen knife.”
I left it at that and went into the kitchen. I took my time and selected the big cleaver from the block, then I brought it back and put it on the table. I sat down again.
“Aatifa Ghafoor, you need to understand that Ali Kamboh and Hassan Barr are both dead upstairs.” I pulled the Fairbairn & Sykes from my boot and showed it to him. “I killed them with this, while they slept. I am a professional.” I put the knife back and picked up the cleaver. He was shaking badly by now. “I am going to cut off your fingers, one by one.”
I stood.
“Wait!”
“You have something to say to me?”
“What do you want?”
“You know what I want.”
“Information! You want information! I give you information! I tell you!”
I sat. “I know about your plan to release SF2 into the United Nations Assembly Hall on Friday. I know your cell commander is Abdul Abbassi. What else can you tell me?”