The Ruins: A Taskforce Story

by Brad Taylor

  Which is where Chin’s research came in. He’d worked on the weapon for years, solely as a functionary of the North Korean state. He’d never thought about where it would be used, or, more precisely, whom it would kill.

  Kim Jongun had labeled every weapon he made with some outlandish title, but in this case, he’d kept it secret, calling it the same name as one of his ballistic missiles on the off chance it would end up in some intelligence chatter. Chin’s weapon was called the Hwasong, like the Hwasong12 missile, or the newly launched Hwasong15, but unlike the missile systems, it wasn’t given a number. It was given a color—red.

  The faceless bureaucrat next to the lone telephone in the control room said, “What are you waiting for?”

  Turning his eyes from the man in the chair, Chin wanted to say, “For you to get the hell out of my life.” He couldn’t, of course. The bureaucrat had the ear of the Supreme Leader, and as such, he held Chin’s life in his hands.

  Chin said, “The command.”

  “You have it.”

  Chin leaned over the desk and pressed an innocuous red button. One of many on the control panel. He rose slowly, knowing what he was going to see. What was unknown was what he would feel in an hour.

  A gray mist sprang out of the stainless steel nozzle above the man’s head, the only reaction from the man in the chair being his glancing up at the droplets spackling his skull. It spewed its odorless, colorless death for a fraction of a second, but it was enough.

  The three men in the control room leaned forward, two unsure of what they would see. One not wanting to see it.

  The man in the chair sat still for another second, dropping his head into his chest. Five seconds passed with no response. The bureaucrat looked at Chin, about to form a question, when the man’s legs shot out.

  The prisoner jumped up, staring at the panel of glass, and shouted. Chin saw the effects taking hold. The man’s face became necrotic, turning blue. He yelled something else, and then fell to the floor. His body began bucking up and down, his legs kicking the ground as if that would stop the climb of the neurotoxin, every muscle in his being receiving signals to contract. Including the lungs.

  The man began frothing at the mouth, his entire body vibrating, his hands slapping the floor. Chin saw the dark stain of his bowels releasing forcefully, an embarrassing sight, and Chin wondered if these two functionaries would see the same thing when he entered the room.

  Within thirty seconds, the man ceased movement. The bureaucrat said, “And now we wait.”

  An hour later, Chin was dressed in a chemical/ biological suit and descending the stairs to the chamber. He put his hand on the door latch, wanting yet again to tell the men in the control room to initiate the vacuum protocol and followon decontamination of the room, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. The whole point was to see if his creation worked.

  He turned the handle and swung the door open, hearing a slight exhale of air, as if the dead man in the room were sighing. He knew he’d now contaminated the entire hallway with the death in the room.

  Or not.

  He walked to the body, the breath from his mask rasping out, a labored effort to keep him alive. He glanced up at the window and saw the two functionaries staring at him intently. Chin checked the body and said, “He’s dead,” then realized nobody could hear him. He glanced up again, and saw the primary bureaucrat motion for him to remove his mask. He didn’t want to.

  But he did.

  He stood tense for a moment, waiting on the symptoms. Waiting on what he didn’t understand. For all of his work on the weapon, he had no idea what it would feel like to be killed by it. He took two deep breaths, then began running, sprinting back out of the room. He charged up the stairs, his forward motion designed to keep from him the awful truth that he was dead. He barged into the control room, breathing heavily and sweating.

  The two men looked at him in horror, one leaping out of his chair, wondering if he’d brought the death with him. Chin saw the reaction and felt the anger flow, reminding him he was alive.

  He took two more breaths, looked at his hands, and said, “You can calm down. The trial was a success. You can go into that room now as well. If you want.”

  The bureaucrat sagged back in his chair, shaking his head, a slow smile spreading on his face. He said, “The Leader will be pleased.”

  Chin nodded, then realized he’d had no thoughts before he’d removed the mask. No grand visions of his life. No fond recollections before he faced his eternal solution. He’d been simply paralyzed with the fear of death. He remembered the man in the chair, and the fact brought him shame. He was sure the man had thought more on his death than he had. Sure that man held more honor than he did.

  The bureaucrat picked up the phone, telling Chin his work was done and waving him away. Chin staggered toward the door, still amazed he was alive, and heard the bureaucrat say into the phone, “It was a success. Tell the contact we will transfer it at his location. But tell him it will cost him much more than he expected.”

  Chin left the room, not thinking of the words the man had said into the phone. Not realizing there was profit to be made from what he’d designed, profit that would help alleviate the pain of the sanctions imposed on his country. He was only thinking that he was still alive. At least for a few more days in the Hermit Kingdom.

  It would be later, when he saw the deaths, that he would realize he was but a pawn in a game of someone else’s choosing.

  Chapter 2

  The throng began to grow in front of the palace, and Amena sensed that their fortunes were looking better. The changing of the guard at the Prince’s Palace of Monaco was always a draw, and while this time it did not seem as crowded as usual, it was still large enough to provide a target.

  Set high on a hill overlooking the famed harbor of Monte Carlo, the Prince’s Palace was as grand as one would expect, with a courtyard surrounded by buildings constructed like a copy of Versailles. Once an actual fortress, today it was the official residence of the prince of Monaco, and a tourist destination not unlike a myriad of other European palaces.

  Amena looked at her brother, Adnan, and smiled. Today was going to be a good day. If they were lucky, they would get enough loot to last them an entire week. Which would be nice, because if they returned to this ceremony too often—if the tourists complained a little too much about getting their pockets picked or their cameras stolen—they’d spoil the area like a fisherman overworking a pond. Because of it, she restricted their excursions here to once every other week, even though it was the richest environment in all of Monte Carlo. And counterintuitively, also the easiest.

  When the ceremonial changing of the guard occurred, the tourist crowds packed into the square, all pressing forward against the ropes with cell phones and digital cameras focused on the parade, squeezed together until they were touching, not really paying any mind to the bodies rubbing against them left and right, their attention focused on the ceremony and not on their valuables.

  On the outskirts of the courtyard, sitting on a park bench overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, Amena ignored the view, instead focusing on the tourists, still swelling five minutes before the start of the ceremony. She sent Adnan out to scout. He returned and said, “I found one. A fat guy with a selfie stick and baggy pants. His wallet is in his back pocket.”

  She said, “How deep?”

  “He’s wearing jeans. Not deep at all. Easy in—easy out.”

  “No, I mean how deep in the crowd?”

  “He’s in the second row. We’ll have to work our way to him, but if you do it right, we’ll get out clean.”

  “Nationality?”

  Amena knew that the Americans were the easiest to steal from. They always felt themselves invincible. The hardest were the Koreans. She imagined that country was full of pickpockets, because they were almost supernaturally aware.

  �
�I don’t know, but he speaks English.”

  “Good. Okay. Lead me to him.”

  “What’s the play?”

  “Let the parade start, then you do the cell phone plea. Just like last time.”

  Adnan said, “But our phone’s camera doesn’t work. Last time, it caused the target to question.”

  Amena snapped, “Just do it.”

  Adnan knew better than to disobey his older sister. Not after she’d gotten him through the barrel bombs in Aleppo, and then the crossing. At this point, she was more revered to him than their own father. An incurable optimist, she seemed to genuinely believe that better times were just around the corner, and he relied on her every day for his own sanity.

  He held up an old iPhone 4S they’d stolen a few weeks earlier, and said, “Just get the wallet before I have to hand him this piece of crap.”

  Because it had no service, a cracked screen, and an inoperable camera, Amena had decided to keep it for decoy work instead of attempting to sell it.

  Amena nodded, then stood, saying, “Lead the way.”

  They crossed the courtyard, a seemingly innocent thirteen-year-old girl following a doe-eyed eleven-year-old boy, their practiced mannerisms hiding the fact that they were much more worldly than their ages let on. They appeared just like any other gaggle of such children romping around, their parents clearly somewhere on the grounds.

  They reached the back of the crowd, and Adnan pointed to an older guy two levels in, a selfie stick held in the air above the heads of those around him. Amena studied him, seeing a protruding gut ballooning out a tuckedin polo shirt over a pair of jeans, and a huge silver handlebar mustache. She noticed the mustache had crumbs in it, giving her confidence. The man had no attention to detail. And best yet, she could see the top of his wallet edging out of the patch pocket of his jeans.

  The ceremony started with a shouted command, and the soldiers began marching in a practiced formation toward the palace, the tourists kept at bay by a pair of ropes. She motioned to Adnan, and they both began worming their way into the crowd, the drums from the marching soldiers beating the air. Adnan got in front of the man’s gut and said in English, “Can you take a picture for me with your stick?”

  The target ignored him, and Adnan pulled his sleeve. Irritated, the man said, “What?”

  Adnan repeated the question, and held out his phone. Amena waited until the man was focused solely on Adnan, then snaked her hand to his pocket, shielding the move with her body. She snicked the wallet with two fingers in a practiced move, then turned to retreat. The wallet was ripped out of her hand. Astonished, she rotated back, and saw it dangling below the man’s waist, a thin nylon cord attached to a corner and running back into the pocket of the jeans.

  Before she could even assimilate that her “easy mark” was much more switched on than he portrayed, he whirled around, felt his dangling wallet strike his legs, and grabbed her arm, shouting for the police. Adnan sprang forward, using his smaller hands to rip the man’s bigger one free, then both children squirmed through the crowd in a panic, the target behind them shouting for help. For someone to stop them.

  Amena and Adnan wove through the people like snakes through grass, Amena hearing the target behind them simply bulling his way forward, the shouts of the crowd marking his passing. Within seconds, others were trying to stop her, but she was too quick, slapping some hands away and sliding through others like a greased pig at a county fair.

  She broke free of the crowd, searching for Adnan, and saw the bear of a man coming for her, slamming two people to the pavement. Adnan sprang out from behind him, and they both began sprinting, Amena shouting in Arabic, “Toward the church!”

  Outside of leaping over the cliffs into the sea, there were only two ways to escape the courtyard, and one would lead them deeper into the crowds. Which left Rue Colonel Bellando de Castro, the road to the Monaco Cathedral, a claustrophobic lane lined with buildings.

  They ran to the back of the parade square, their target’s bellows fading behind them as he huffed, trying to catch up. Amena saw two policemen on the far side of the field orient on them, then begin to run to cut them off. It was a footrace now. She saw the arch over the top of Rue Colonel Bellando, only a hundred feet away, two more policemen loitering near it, oblivious to the drama playing out.

  She heard her target still shouting behind her, falling farther and farther back, then the original policemen began blowing whistles, causing the two at the arch to snap their heads in confusion. The running cops shouted and pointed at the pair of scampering children.

  She reached the arch and the two policemen finally realized she and her brother were the objects of the running cops. They tried to snatch her, and she slapped their hands away, ducking under their arms. She tripped on the cobblestones, slamming to the ground on her knees and rolling forward. Adnan used her diversion to dart behind their backs. They whirled to him, but he was already past. He jerked her to her feet, and they were through the cordon, sprinting down the street and dodging pedestrian tourists, Amena desperately searching for a place to hide.

  She realized her call to run toward the Monaco Cathedral had been a bad choice, as Rue Colonel Bellando was boxed in with buildings on both the left and the right, leaving them one choice—to run straight ahead. The pedestrian crowds would help, but she knew she couldn’t outrun a radio, and when they broke out into the open at the cathedral, other police would be waiting.

  The road took a bend, blocking the view from the parade ground, and she saw an alley to the left, a hamburger stand with tables scattered haphazardly about fifty meters in, the alley continuing past it. She grabbed Adnan’s hand and shouted, “This way!”

  They sprinted past the food stand and continued running deeper and deeper into the palace complex, hearing the bleating whistles of the cops fade as they continued straight down Rue Colonel Bellando. Eventually, Amena slowed, gasping for air, and she realized they were alone. She sagged against a wall, catching her breath.

  Hands on his knees, sucking in oxygen, Adnan said, “What happened?”

  “That idiot had a pickpocket wallet, but the cord was hidden.”

  Adnan laughed, and said, “At least we got away.”

  Amena grimaced, and began slowly walking back the way they had come, saying, “But we can’t return here for a long time. If ever. And we got nothing.”

  They reached the hamburger stand and she saw the road ahead, afraid to take it just yet. Wanting to get a feel for the response. Most likely it would be nothing, as the cops wouldn’t waste their time searching for a couple of kids, but it wouldn’t do to give them an easy target. She said, “Let’s wait here for a bit and see what happens.”

  She dug into her pocket, pulling out the last of her change. She said, “Get us a couple of Cokes to keep the guy at the register happy.” The last thing they needed was to be shooed away as vagrants.

  Adnan went to the counter, and she took a seat at a table with a view of the road, two tables away from a man talking on a cell phone.

  She kept her eye on the street, patiently waiting to see if there was still police activity, then the man’s voice on the phone penetrated. He was speaking Arabic. With an accent from Syria.

  Adnan returned, and she said in English, “Any change?”

  Adnan looked at her in confusion, and she flicked her eyes to the man. He heard the conversation, and understood. She didn’t want the man to hear them speak Arabic—and possibly realize they were refugees. Illegal refugees.

  Adnan sat down and handed her a can of Coke, saying, “It was actually more than you gave me, but he let it slide.”

  She said, “Keep an eye on the street,” then discreetly turned to glance at the man. He was tall and lanky, wearing a tailored suit and tie, with a swarthy complexion, black hair, and a large black mustache, his eyes hidden by sunglasses.

  She strained her ears, h
earing snippets of the conversation, and understood he was from Syria, and he did something with the government. Unbidden, the realization sent a spasm of rage through her. She wanted to harm him. Wanted to give him just a small taste of the punishment her family had experienced at the hands of the despot Bashar alAssad.

  Then she noticed his phone. A brand-new iPhone X, worth at least five hundred US dollars on the streets of Monaco.

  He finished his call and stood, picking up his trash and depositing it in a bin. He walked to Rue Colonel Bellando without a glance back.

  Amena said, “Come on. Let’s follow him.”

  Startled, Adnan said, “Why?”

  She said, “A little payback.”

  Chapter 3

  The cab pulled up the circular drive and I saw a Ferrari Portofino and a Porsche 911 Cabriolet on either side of the hotel entrance. We were in a minivan, which pretty much summed up our status.

  I said, “Looks like someone’s gone a little overboard on this one, but I’m not complaining.”

  The cab stopped, and an unctuous bellman ripped the door open. To my left, my partner in crime, Jennifer, said, “This’ll be the first time getting pulled from an actual project will be a step up.”

  Behind me, my 2IC, Knuckles, said, “Living with the Taskforce motto. Money is no object.”

  We exited the van in front of the Hermitage Hotel in Monte Carlo, me suitably impressed with the cars out front, wondering who would park a Ferrari at the curb like it was a VW. It wouldn’t be until later that I learned it was all a charade, with the hotel renting the cars and rotating them daily to keep up a Hollywood image that just didn’t exist.