Baksheesh (Bribes) Read online

  They spoke for ten more minutes, and Sheldorf made sketches for her. She stayed overnight, wondering what she truly wanted her new face to look like.

  * * *

  The next day, Lester Dushov, one of her bodyguards, picked Cassie up at the hospital and returned her home just before noon. Despite the surgery, she felt ready to work for a longer period and take shorter naps between stretches of work. Again, she ignored the wrenching pain in her face. No painkillers!

  The first thing she did was make coffee and drop in a few ice cubes to take the heat from it. She drank it through a straw. Just one cup improved her mood and focus, but within minutes she felt herself fading away. Slowly, she stepped up the staircase to the master bedroom and lay down for a while. As she pulled the cover up to her face, Gizmo the cat jumped on the bed and rubbed her face against Cassie’s chin.

  When she could once again move, she called a well-recommended wedding planner she found on the Internet.

  “Joyousweddings.com, this is Lynne.”

  “Hello, my name is… uh, my name is Chrissie Card. I just got engaged but I have no idea how to make the necessary arrangements. I’d like a wedding planner’s assistance.”

  “How much time until?”

  “Figure three months, but it won’t be in Washington and we’d like to keep it small and quiet.”

  “Where, then?”

  “That’s part of what I need a wedding planner for.”

  “How soon can we meet?”

  * * *

  Cassie thought about their future and grimaced. While concerned about Lee, at least he’d been trained in countersurveillance, martial arts, and basic weapons training. But Ann had been trained by Lee, and Lee was no expert. Cassie hadn’t had time to even evaluate Ann’s state of knowledge. And, after all, Ann was only sixteen.

  She needed to buttress her daughter’s skill set. Some of what Ann needed, Cassie could supply, once she had recovered her strength. But there was someone else who could help train her teenager. She dialed Wing’s number. “William, it’s Cassie.”

  “Wow! Been hoping to hear from you. How’s your recovery coming?”

  She touched her cheek without realizing it. Pain shot through her face. “Slow. It’ll take months until I’m back up to speed. But I’m calling with a request. I’ll be bringing Ann with me when I return to the office.”

  The voice on the other side of the phone line seemed hesitant. “Uh, sure. How can I help?”

  She paused to ensure what she wanted came through clearly. Took a deep breath. “I want you to teach her how to use a computer. Not the weenie stuff they teach her at school. And not so much that she becomes a hacker. Something in between. They’ve already taught her how to use Excel and Word. I want her to know how to set up and maintain a secure home network, and how to keep it from being hacked.”

  “So you do want her to know about hacking?”

  She nodded unconsciously. William Wing couldn’t see it. “Yes. To keep it from happening.”

  “Cassie, if she knows that much, what’s to keep her from going to the dark side? Ah, like me?”

  Of course, she thought. She shook her head. “That’s up to me and Lee. Can you tutor her?”

  “Yes. But you don’t have to bring her here. I can come to your house if you want to get started sooner.”

  She scratched her forehead. “I hadn’t thought about that. Okay. She’ll be back from Boston in about a week. Call her directly to make arrangements. And thanks.”

  * * *

  To her happy surprise, Cassie was able to work steadily through lunch. And there was so much to do. She scheduled the meeting with the wedding planner for the next morning and made an appointment with a seamstress for the next afternoon. She left time between appointments for naps.

  After lunch she slept, then returned to her computer to research possible places where she could move her family. She needed proximity to a big city with an international airport, so they could flee in case they were discovered. Most of the locations she selected were suburbs of major cities, with airports and bus and train stations nearby. Some she’d visited before, many she hadn’t. There were military logistics and other considerations she’d have to research. She’d have to visit each of them in person before she selected one as her next home.

  And how would they earn a living? It was a massive life change. She feared she’d become bored. How to ensure that if—no, when—her cover was once again breached, she and her family could swiftly and gracefully exit?

  CHAPTER 4

  December 5, 7:33 a.m.

  The ancient fort in Buraimi, Oman

  A small boy, not more than seven years old, sat on the old fort’s ramparts, playing with a ragged plastic gun. The boy’s olive skin made him hard to see in the fading rays of sunrise. His almond-shaped, dark brown eyes glowed with pleasure as he pointed the gun. Below the rampart wall, he heard two men talking in low voices. He saw both men carried Kalashnikov semiautomatic rifles.

  One of the men shrugged his shoulders. “Hussein, we’re so few. I’m sure that they’ll attack tonight in the dark. Has Allie sent our request for rescue?”

  The other man, much shorter, fatter, and older, shook his head. “He’s trying to get through now.” He shook his head again. “But Allah help us, you’re probably right. If we can’t arrange rescue for tonight, we’ll have to load that old school bus and try driving through the town. Very likely every one of us will die. That old wreck can’t go very fast.” He touched its rusted fender. “And its engine might not even start.” He pointed down the slope to the flat plain that separated the modern section of the city from the fort. “The logical place they’ll come from is just northwest of the city. There’s good cover. They’ll spend little time exposed.”

  A hot evening wind began to blow in off the ocean, a few hundred feet away, behind them. The two guards examined the desert plain as if it might hold an answer to their survival. But there was none, and after a few seconds, Hussein dropped his gaze. “Please try starting the bus. We’ll need another way out. A backup.” His companion began to walk off when Allie appeared wearing a grin.

  “I’ve arranged for the United States Navy to send a helicopter from one of their aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. It will arrive in under an hour. We must get ready to leave now.”

  * * *

  From a mile away, Khalid Muriami held a worn copy of the Koran and pointed toward the old fort’s broken ramparts. His deep-set eyes glowed, stirring the emotions of his followers, almost five hundred of them. He held a newspaper with his left hand, lifted it, and shouted, “They defile our religion. They served liquor in the palace. It is past time we took the kingdom back from them!”

  Brandishing the Koran, he continued shouting. “The punishment for serving liquor is to have the offender’s tongue cut from his mouth.” He handed the Koran back to his mullah, a short grubby man. The mullah had been forced at knifepoint to nod at the interpretation Muriami had just offered.

  Muriami pointed again toward the fort. “It is past time. We must remove these pretenders from the palace.” Although now he was standing in the Oman sultanate, the fundamentalist leader had been a former resident of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the neighboring United Arab Emirates, where he’d served as a loan officer of the Bank of Trade twenty years before. Some politicians in the United States called the BOT the “bank of terrorism.”

  The crowd cheered. Their angry tone matched their desire for revenge, and slowly they began their march from the small mosque embedded in the otherwise empty streets of Buraimi.

  * * *

  Hussein watched through the binoculars. “They’re coming! Where are the damn choppers?”

  From the entrance to the fort, fifty feet away, Allie struggled with the bus engine. “We’re in trouble. Bus won’t start. Help me.”

  Hussein ran to him. The bus was filled past capacity. “Get in and pump the accelerator when I tell you.”

  Allie pulled himself into the
driver’s seat. “Ready now.”

  Hussein gripped the tweezers and the wrench. He twisted the bolt and pulled the wires tight. “Now.”

  The engine cranked but didn’t turn over.

  Hussein made an adjustment to the ancient carburetor. “Pump it again and try it.

  The engine cranked harder but didn’t turn over. Allie pumped the accelerator repeatedly.

  Hussein shook his head. “Too much! Take your foot off the accelerator and turn the key. When it starts cranking, then hit the accelerator a bit and keep tapping it until it turns over.”

  This time the engine roared to life. Hussein ran through the bus door and tapped Allie’s shoulder. “Go, go, go!”

  The bus moved a few feet before its engine sputtered and stopped. Allie turned his head to Hussein. “You do it.” He rolled out of the driver’s seat as the other man slid into it.

  Hussein closed his eyes and prayed. He gently pushed the accelerator as he turned the key. The engine roared again. He pushed the clutch and shifted into first gear. The bus inched along and he shifted again, to second gear. The bus accelerated, crawling through a gap in the ramparts. The charging throng was less than two hundred meters away. He gulped and turned the bus toward the beach, where he hoped the helicopters were landing.

  Into third gear, he looked over his shoulder at the frightened royal family and their servants, all praying. The mobile mosque rolled forward and gained speed.

  Hussein saw the choppers settling on the sand and slowed about twenty meters away. He stopped the bus and bellowed. “Get out. Now. Board the helicopters.”

  He pulled people from their seats and pushed them out onto the sand. Several were so fearful they were frozen in their seats. “Allie. Help. Pull them out or they will die.” Allie sprang from his seat.

  Soldiers helped them board and, one by one, the helicopters lifted off. Hussein was the last to clamber in. The last thing he saw of his home was the frustrated mob, stopped at the fringe of the beachhead, shaking their angry fists at the copters.

  * * *

  As the sun rose the next day, almost fifty refugees—men, women, and children—found themselves in a camp bordered by barbed wire. Allie looked around and frowned. “If this is a rescue, then death might have been preferable.” He faced Hussein and frowned as he pulled a cellphone from his pants pocket. Allie stared at the battery indicator. “Unless I find an electrical outlet, soon we’ll have no way to contact the rest of the world.”

  Hussein ran his fingers through his greasy hair. “Not gonna happen.” He looked at the cellphone. “How much juice is left?”

  Allie grimaced. “About twenty minutes of phone and data connection. Ten hours of standby.”

  Hussein looked away. “Who can we call for help?”

  Allie pondered for a few seconds. “Hmm. Swiftmeadow or Swiftswallow. Something like that. They are a new mercenary organization I read about recently. Let me think. Ah, it was Swiftshadow.” He loaded Google into the cellphone’s Internet browser and punched the link for Swiftshadow. “I’ll send them an urgent plea.” Hussein watched as Allie began to key the email:

  “We are the surviving family of the ousted government of the Sultanate of Oman. Our country has been stolen from us by Islamic fundamentalists. We want you to kill them all and return our country back to us.

  We escaped by the barest of margins from the old fort in Buraimi serving as our temporary compound. We fled in middle of the night on an ancient school bus, and were flown to Turkey in US Navy helicopters. Now we are kept captive in a refugee camp, supposedly for our own protection.

  Please reply to this email as soon as you can.

  He turned off the cell to save its battery.

  * * *

  Ann studied the screen on her notebook computer. Less than two hours ago, she’d spoken with William on her cell to schedule her first “class,” and an hour later, she’d cranked up the secure vid-cam and he’d given her a brief lesson.

  Her gleeful smile reflected the image in her head: opening the door to a wonderful playground.

  She tried something that Wing hadn’t taught her, fingers flying across the keyboard, followed by a flourishing tap on the Enter key. She watched, grinned.

  Had she exceeded her teacher? She thought about this for a few seconds. And what irony! Hacking into the private school she attended, she’d figured out the password for their network administrator in under fifteen seconds.

  Cassie would be so proud! Of course she wouldn’t tell her mom. One thing she’d learned from her family was to keep secrets well. Not bad for having had just one computer lesson from the master hacker.

  But now, it was time to travel. She had to answer for killing the man who’d almost killed Cassie. As she logged off, she wondered what call sign to give herself. Ann packed her notebook computer into her suitcase.

  Then she sped down the stairs looking for Lee. JD, one of the family’s bodyguards, grabbed the suitcase and took it to the Ford Escape Hybrid sitting in the driveway. The vehicle was standard issue to all agency employees. Lee had failed to return it when he resigned. Cassie had hacked their records to show she’d purchased the vehicle from the agency.

  Lee waited outside their house in Chevy Chase.

  She hugged Cassie and said, “Bye, Mom. Wish me luck. I think I’m gonna need it.”

  Cassie kissed Ann’s forehead. “I wish I could come with you. I wish you didn’t have to be in the middle of this. But you saved my life and I thank you from the very bottom of my heart.” She carefully kissed her adopted daughter. “Call me as soon as you can. I’ll be thinking of you both. I love you.” She handed Ann a document. “Here’s the affidavit that should help clear you. And JD was there as a witness.”

  * * *

  The ride up from Washington to Boston took almost the entire day. Ann worried about her fate. She felt trapped in her memories of the past year, going from being an orphan living by her wits to an adopted daughter loved by her new parents. She’d saved her mother’s life by shooting a person dead. Not at all an accident. She’d been trained to be a killer by her new father. Neither he nor Ann had realized what would happen. And now she was the prodigal hacker, having surpassed her teacher, the master hacker William Wing. She felt uncomfortable knowing how dangerous she’d become.

  In the passenger seat next to Lee, JD—Jacob David Weinstein, a specialist in explosives and automatic weapons,—scanned the highway looking for threats. And found none.

  Lester Dushov, an expert in chemistry, especially for interrogation and killing, sat in the back seat, next to Ann. He asked her the questions they thought the Assistant District Attorney would ask her. Ann shook herself to alertness and answered him, rote answers by now.

  Lee drove down the Massachusetts turnpike into downtown Boston. “Remember what Cassie and I told you, Ann?”

  She looked at Lee’s face from the mirror. “Uh huh. Answer truthfully but don’t volunteer anything. The prosecutor will try to twist everything I say, and don’t get excited. It’s his job. Just smile and take a deep breath, then correct him. Best to speak so quietly that everyone has to focus to hear me.”

  “Good.” He took the exit at the downtown Government Center and began scanning the street for a parking space. “Uh, looks more difficult than I thought. Where’s a lot?” He circled the block and found a lot two blocks from the courthouse. He displayed his federal government parking permit on the dashboard. “Guess this will have to do. Ann, you ready?”

  She frowned. “Not really. I don’t understand why I have to be at a murder inquisition when all I did was save Mom’s life. Not fair!”

  He got out and walked around to her side of the SUV, opened the door for her, and shrugged. “I know. But we’ll get through this.” He took her hand and together, they marched toward the courthouse, flanked by the two bodyguards.

  * * *

  She lay prone on the roof, her legs wide apart and her arms braced against the ledge. From Durgan Park, one of America’s
oldest restaurants, Louis Stepponi’s friend and sometimes sex partner, Sharon Marconi, prepared to take a life. A professional hitter, she watched the front steps of the courthouse through the scope of her Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova (SVD), or Dragunov sniper rifle. It fired 7.62x54 cartridges, one shot per trigger pull.

  She’d climbed up the side of the building during the night and sat atop the roof. When it grew unexpectedly cold, she shivered in the light coat she’d chosen to wear because, afterward, when she had to walk the street back to her car, it would make her appear more like everyone else working nearby. She constantly cursed Ann’s name until sunrise. She’d vowed revenge for the teen who murdered Louis, and she was about to get her chance.

  The three men surrounding her target made a clean shot impossible and they were moving fast up the stairs as she took a breath to steady her hands. The sniper rifle was a friend she’d embraced many times before. She held the breath. Now or never.

  * * *

  In the brisk chill of winter, Ann, Lee, and their two bodyguards hurried up the old stone stairs. They reached the midpoint of the steps to the courthouse entrance when a quiet pop rent the air. The head of a suited man inches in front of Ann exploded in a splatter of red. Lee pushed Ann to the ground and dived to the pavement on top of her. He looked around, recognizing the sound. A sniper’s rifle, but from where, and at whom? He saw the corpse had lost its head. Armor-piercing rounds, he thought.

  JD and Lester rolled away, examining the tops of buildings across the street.

  Lester pointed. “Red building, roof, reflected scope glare. Get ’em inside, JD. I’m outta here.” He rose and sprinted across the street, seeking the sniper.

  Ann looked in horror at her hands, coated in the man’s blood. The eyes of the dead man’s head stared at her. His headless corpse slowly rolled down the steps, picking up speed.

  JD tapped Lee’s shoulder. “We’ve got to get all of us into the courthouse. Follow me and do exactly what I do. Now!”

  He rose and darted up the stairs, dodging left and right. Ann’s movements followed his with less than a second between his feints and hers. Lee dodged behind them until they all reached a pillar at the top of the staircase. JD pulled Ann and Lee behind the pillar with him. He stared across the street.