by J C Ryan
“No, there’s still a lot to talk over,” Sean replied. “Take your time.”
Dylan added, “And please don’t feel under any pressure to agree. We’ll not be disappointed if you decide against it.”
“Thanks. It’s good to know there’s no pressure. I guess the important thing for us” —Carter pointed to Mackenzie and himself— “is to find out how something like this would impact on our lifestyle here. I know that might sound self-centered, but Freydís is a very special place for us, and we want to keep it that way.”
Mackenzie slowly nodded. “Yeah, what Carter said — Freydís is special to us, but I have to say I’m not experiencing any immediate allergic reactions to the idea.” She smiled. “I would like to hear more and think about it.”
“Well, in that case, I am sure we could work it out,” Sean said, sounding relieved. “Let’s talk about the details then. If that’s okay with the two of you?”
Carter and Mackenzie both nodded.
For the next hour and a half, Sean and Dylan provided the specifics, with Carter and Mackenzie stopping them every so often with questions.
Their idea was to assign two or three semi-permanent staff members, who would be instructors to take care of the training of new recruits. Semi-permanent because they would rotate them every few months. The trainees would number no more than six to seven at any given time, depending on what type of training they had to undergo.
They had already studied the aerial maps and satellite images of Freydís and identified a valley about two miles to the east of the homestead that looked like the ideal place to set up the training base.
Sean explained that President Grant had approved the idea, and the Director of the CIA, Bill Griffin, had discussed the plan with his counterpart in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, who was also positive about it.
Dylan explained how Rick Winslow would set up impenetrable communications links, which would give them secure high-speed access to DC and any other location in the world via satellite.
“Are we not setting ourselves up as a target by doing all of this?” Mackenzie asked.
“Yes, Mackenzie.” Sean nodded. “That is a possibility. I’d be dishonest if I told you otherwise. But I can assure you that we’ll take all the necessary security steps to protect you as well as us. Rick will be setting up twenty-four seven drone and satellite surveillance and other electronic protection measures.
“As far as possible, we’ll make sure that our buildings and presence here are invisible to drone and satellite detection by unfriendlies or snoopers.”
Just then Mackenzie saw movement amongst the trees and bushes about a hundred yards away. She squinted. Keeva and Loki were standing under a tree quietly observing them.
“Excuse me for a few minutes,” she said as she got up and walked over to them.
Everyone went quiet. Sean and Dylan were worried they may have said something to upset Mackenzie. Carter’s eyes followed the direction she was going and saw the wolves.
“The wolves came to say hi to her.” He pointed towards the trees.
“Those wolves will never cease to amaze me,” James said. “It’s just the most unusual thing I’ve ever experienced — at least as far as animals are concerned.”
They all watched in awe as Mackenzie approached the wolves and sat down with them. Putting her arms around them in turn, scratching their ears and backs while she was talking to them. They were clearly listening to her, and with a bit of imagination, one could be forgiven for thinking the wolves were talking back to her.
Maybe they were.
About ten minutes later, she got up and walked back to the group — the wolves followed her.
Everyone watched her and the wolves approaching.
She saw the inquisitive looks and smiled. “Oh, Keeva and Loki said they haven’t met Beth yet, so they want to meet her and just wanted to say hi to all of you. Apparently, they have met all of you before.”
“Wha . . . how . . . Mackenzie, what the . . .” James stuttered. “You can’t be serious!”
Everyone started laughing except Carter. He’d told her about James’s meeting with the wolves but not that the wolves had met Irene, Sean, and Dylan before — she had no way of knowing that.
She led the wolves to Irene, who was still holding Beth. She took Beth in her arms and knelt in front of the animals — they sniffed and made little joyful sounds, wagging their tails while they looked at the little human bundle. After a while, they had seen enough and went around to everyone, sniffing and licking the hands held out to them.
Mackenzie handed Beth back to Irene, looked at Keeva and Loki, and said, “Come,” as she started back to the trees where she’d met them.
Loki and Keeva followed her back. She spent another few minutes talking and rubbing them, and then they left.
Mackenzie watched them disappear amongst the trees and then returned to the group with a beaming smile. They guessed there was something for her to pass on and were waiting for her to tell them.
She did. “Sean, Dylan, I’ve made up my mind. If Carter agrees, then I agree.”
“Advice from the wolves, Mackenzie?” Sean quipped.
She just laughed. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“Well, in that case,” Carter said, “let’s get back home and start planning. We need to bring Bly and Ahote in on this as well. Any problem, Dylan, Sean?”
“No problem, of course, they must know,” Sean replied. He and Dylan were smiling broadly. It had gone a lot better than they anticipated.
Beth was placed in the baby carrier on Carter’s back, and they wandered back to the homestead.
Carter fell in step next to Mackenzie. “Mackie, I hadn’t told you Irene, Sean, and Dylan met the wolves before. How did you know?”
She shrugged and laughed. “Just an intelligent guess, Carter. I know they’ve been here before, so I imagined they had met them then.”
“Of course,” Carter replied with a grin. “And what about making up your mind so quickly after meeting with Keeva and Loki?”
“I took their advice.” Mackenzie giggled. “Just like Sean said.”
“Come on, Mackie, I’m serious.”
“I don’t know, Carter. I told them about my dilemma, and they started licking my hands, and . . . well . . . the next thing I knew, I felt convinced it’s the right thing to do. It’s impossible to say how it happened. But that’s what happened, and I feel relieved about it.”
“Mackie, you and your wolves . . .” Carter was shaking his head. “One day I’m going to write a book about it!”
Chapter 17 -
It ain’t over till the fat lady sings
Perrin Durand had been watching Mayon and Aisha for a few days, and it was a dreary job. The subjects were observably nervous. They didn’t appear in public much, and whenever they did, they were constantly looking around and over their shoulders. It was clear as daylight that they had no idea about counter surveillance — how to blend in and look inconspicuous. Their behavior made them stand out like sore thumbs. For him, there was no challenge in this, no excitement. If not for the money he would earn for the job, and keeping his mind occupied about his tropical island retirement plans, this mission would have been utterly mind numbing.
For the first few days, Durand kept a distance to get an idea of his subjects’ routine and to see if anyone else was tailing them. The only thing they did that remotely resembled evasion tactics was moving to a different hotel, motel, or backpacker’s every day. That guaranteed that Durand could practice boredom in a different location daily.
By the fifth day, he was confident that no else was following them and decided he knew enough about their habits to get closer. He needed to plant surveillance bugs on their luggage and perhaps install a little GPS tracking program on their mobile phones — if they had mobile phones, because he had never seen them use one thus far.
It was 1:20 in the morning when Durand approached the door of the motel roo
m on the ground floor. He had been watching the area since early evening. Mayon and Aisha’s room lights had gone out two hours ago. There were not many guests — the place was practically deserted — all factors that favored his plans. He had studied the door locks and the poor excuse for a security system — antiquated electronic door locks, no security cameras, only fire alarms — no challenge. He stopped at the door and swiped the electronic lock jammer. Exactly five seconds later he heard the click of the lock.
Slowly he cracked the door open and dropped a small canister containing a non-lethal dose of the powerful knockout agent Fentanyl. He closed the door and slowly counted to twenty while pulling out and donning a small gas mask from his backpack before entering.
He had thirty to forty minutes to finish the job. He did it in ten — planting small inconspicuous bugs on each piece of their luggage, and the laptop bag took him less than two minutes. Finding their mobile phones and laptop and loading the GPS tracking and remote activation software took him another eight minutes. The two never moved once during the time he was in their room.
Apologies in advance. Unfortunately, the two of you are going to wake up with a bit of a headache.
When he was done, he checked the hall outside carefully for a minute, making sure he would not be spotted by anyone, before leaving.
With the bugs in place, Durand’s observation mission became much easier, and he also hoped a bit more eventful than the past five days. At least now he would be able to listen to their conversations.
It was shortly after seven a.m. when Durand heard the voices of his subjects for the first time.
“Aisha, it’s seven. We have to get moving,” the male voice said in Arabic. “I have a terrible headache. Come on, Aisha, wake up!”
“Huh . . . what . . . Oh! My head!” It was a female voice, which Durand assumed belonged to Aisha. “Mayon, what’s going on?”
“We’ve overslept. We have to get going; otherwise we’ll miss the appointment at the clinic,” replied Mayon.
“Good. From now on we will be on a first-name basis.” Durand smiled. “You may call me Perrin.” He’d once been stationed in North Africa for many years and spoke fluent Arabic, both the North African dialect and the original.
For more than half an hour he listened to their irritable voices, bickering and complaining about their headaches, the miserable room, bed, food, and people, nearly every time they opened their mouths.
Spoiled brats.
Finally, they made their appearance, their baggage in tow. Mayon went to reception, dropped the room keys off, and returned to help Aisha move their stuff to the parking lot where a taxi was waiting for them.
On his GPS tracker, Durand saw one of their mobile phones was on — probably the one they used to call the cab. Once their vehicle pulled into the traffic, he allowed three more cars to pass before he pulled out onto the road and followed them.
He had no trouble tailing the cab, but other than knowing they were going to a clinic and that for the past hour had been heading south, he had no idea about the location or purpose. Nothing came over his earphones except the sound of the taxi’s engine and other street noises—no conversation, not even “look there” or “what’s that” or “that’s beautiful” or anything else tourists in Rome would usually be saying.
Maybe they know Rome well enough that there is nothing to impress them anymore, or maybe the language barrier is preventing them from talking to the driver, or maybe . . . stuck-up, rich, spoiled Arabs never satisfied with anything.
Almost ninety minutes after leaving the motel, they were in the peaceful, exclusive Appia Antica neighborhood about twenty minutes south of the city center. Secluded villas with gardens and swimming pools within the boundaries of the Appia Antica Park, a regional nature and catacombs park, created a rural atmosphere.
The cab pulled up to a gated entrance to a villa, which was not visible from the road. The driver spoke into the intercom, “Mr. e Mrs. Zaid per la loro nomina.”—Mr. and Mrs. Zaid for their appointment — the gates rolled away.
Durand drove past the entrance and tried to take in as much as he could without looking too interested. He parked a block away, still within range of the signal from his listening devices, took out his tablet, and called up Google Maps.
Family, friends, or business contacts? he wondered.
He didn’t have to wait long to get his answer when a woman’s voice welcomed them and asked them to take a seat, saying, “Doctor Bordereau will see you in five minutes.”
Okay, so it’s a private clinic. Hmm . . . wonder what could be ailing them?
Again, Durand didn’t have to wait long for an answer as he heard doctor Bordereau explaining the plastic surgery procedures and expectations to them in French — his mother tongue. Bordereaux was good — he took time to put his patients at ease. He gave them a bit of an overview of the history and methods used during cosmetic surgery.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be implanting plastic into your bodies. The word plastic, in this case, refers to shaping or, as in your case, reshaping some of your facial and body features.”
There were some muffled sounds from Mayon, which Durand could not hear.
“Contrary to what many people believe,” Bordereau continued, “plastic surgery is not really a modern branch of medicine. In fact, it has been around for thousands of years.
“Did you know that the ‘plastic’ repair of a broken nose was common practice in Ancient Egypt? There are texts about this procedure that go back to 3000 BC.
“I have seen documents coming from India that describe reconstructive surgery techniques performed in 800 BC. In the late 1700s, British surgeons went to India frequently to learn how to perform rhinoplasties, nose-jobs as we call them these days.
“The first major nose-job in the West was done by the British surgeon Joseph Constantine Carpue at the Duke of York Hospital in Chelsea in 1815.
“But let me give my host country some praise as well.” Bordereaux chuckled. “More than two thousand years ago, the Romans also performed cosmetic surgery. More simplistic than the Egyptians and Indians, but still they repaired damaged ears and other parts of the body.
“The first American was John Peter Mettauer, who performed the first cleft palate operation in 1827.”
Another muffled noise, which Durand couldn’t hear properly and thus made him swear. “They must be sitting on one of the damn microphones.”
“Yes, don’t worry. It is not invasive surgery. I’m not going to cut you open — all of it will be happening at the skin level. It is not like the old days when these procedures were performed without anesthesia. You will be fast asleep while I do it, and with the proper painkiller administration, the most you will feel will be the anesthetist’s needle when we put you to sleep.”
“How . . . long . . . can . . . leave . . .” was all the frustrated Durand could make out of Aisha’s words.
“Ten to fourteen days,” the doctor replied. “I prefer to keep my patients here to make sure there are no infections or any other complications. The day when you walk out of here, not even your own mother would be able to recognize you.”
More muffled speech followed.
“Good. Now let’s look at exactly what it is you want. “
For the next hour, Durand listened while the three of them looked at and discussed various images the doctor was bringing up on-screen, after he had taken pictures of them. The software the doctor used showed what they would look like afterward with different nose lines, eyebrows, contact lenses, bleached skins, changed hair color, and other features.
To Durand’s surprise, he even heard a few bouts of laughter coming from Aisha and Mayon. He’d thought they had no sense of humor.
The operations were scheduled for the next morning at seven a.m. for Aisha first and then Mayon. Each would last between two and three hours.
They were already booked into the clinic and had paid the $200,000 USD cash in advance as agreed.
Not a bad rate for six hours’ work.
Durand started the car and drove back to his hotel. There was not a lot more he could do but wait until the “new” subjects made their appearance outside the clinic in ten to fourteen days.
Back in his hotel room, he typed up his progress report and copied it onto a small flash drive, which he would leave at a dead drop location — a coffee shop close to the Vatican—the next morning. For the next ten to fourteen days, he would visit the clinic once a day to “check” on his subjects’ recuperation. The rest of the time he would be sightseeing Rome and the surrounding areas.
If this mission continues on this trend, it might just be the easiest $1.5 million any hitman has ever earned. Durand grinned at that thought — he knew, as the American’s say, “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”
He had to follow them until they reached Paris, if that’s where they were heading.
Chapter 18 -
Tala camp
James, Irene, Sean, and Dylan extended their visit to Freydís by two days to finalize the plans for the training center. Ahote and Bly were now involved as well. The group visited the canyon about two miles from the Freydís main house, which Sean and Dylan spotted on satellite maps before. The area was about twenty acres, surrounded by high cliffs on three sides and covered with lush, dense vegetation and tall spruce trees right up to the cliff walls. It was the perfect cover from prying satellite or drone cameras. A perennial stream would supply fresh water, and a small turbine could generate electricity. An abundance of timber ensured they had enough building material to construct as many log cabins as they wanted. Carter showed them a cavernous rock overhang, about nine hundred square feet, on the eastern cliff wall. With a little bit of imagination and carpentry, this area would serve as their communications center and office.
It was the ideal place — secluded, quiet, and easy to secure. The high, vertical cliffs, fitted with strategically placed solar powered laser “trip wires”, would make it all but impossible to approach the area unnoticed, other than from the narrow cleft in the rocks on the south side.