Baksheesh (Bribes) Read online

  He tapped his pen against his desk in time to the thoughts flashing through him. The foremost thing in his mind was the unconscious mother whose throat was being slit in front of the daughter. He scanned JD’s amicus curiae brief, as well as the one from Cassandra Sashakovich.

  He sighed. There was nothing to consider here. Had the girl not acted, her mother would have been murdered as she watched.

  The judge dropped the pen on top of the blank pad. Rising from the armchair, he buttoned his robes and marched to the door of the courtroom. He felt clearheaded about rendering his decision.

  * * *

  Mastoff examined the document and scratched his head. He didn’t understand any of it. Technical banking stuff. He’d need an expert, and one he could trust. Once he’d found the right person, he’d put his plan into action.

  He remembered growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi. When he was ten, his father had called a Middle Eastern man “heathen.” That man had murdered Amos’s father right in front of him. As the Baptist minister dropped to the floor, his last word was to repeat the name he’d called his killer. At ten years of age, Amos Mastoff had learned his most important lesson. His father was right, Muslims were heathens. He thought, they have no right to breathe.

  He closed the SafePay System User Guide. He needed someone who could alter the system to do what he needed. There was a name listed on its first page: Samuel Tyler, Systems Architect. Who could he trust to “handle” Tyler?

  CHAPTER 6

  December 8, 2:04 p.m.

  The Swiftshadow Group headquarters,

  2099 K Street NW, Washington, DC

  In his office on the third floor, Avram Shimmel, Director of Mercenary Operations for The Swiftshadow Group, ran his huge hands through his hair. He wondered what to do with this request? Oman was in tatters. How could seventy-eight mercenaries change that?

  On the one hand, he might be able to supply a small and insignificant force to assist these refugees, but it wouldn’t be enough. And he didn’t have the type of load-out needed for a counter-revolutionary assault mission of this type. No aircraft, no tanks, no howitzers. They were set up for covert warfare. Could Swiftshadow be of any help at all?

  This situation might be a harbinger. Would one of the neighboring emirates be next?

  He sat back in the leather chair, running alternative courses of action through his mind, discarding the ones that had no potential for success.

  Outside, in the reception area, he heard the arrival of his expected guest. Shimmel saved the document containing his thoughts on the possible Oman mission and rose. Judy Hernandez stood directly in front of the rail-thin, tall visitor, blocking his path.

  “Judy,” said Shimmel, “this is Israeli Ambassador Yigdal Ben-Levy, their Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is my guest. Let him by. I apologize for forgetting to tell you to expect him.”

  Judy, a pit bull of a woman, stopped sneering and went expressionless. “Oh.” She extended her hand to meet Ben-Levy’s. Then, as if she’d never tried to stop him, she said, “Pleased to meet you. May I get you something to drink?”

  Ben-Levy smiled and said, “Yes, please. Tea. Darjeeling, plain.” He looked at Avram. “And you?”

  Avram said “Two,” and waited for Judy to pad off to the snack room. “You said you had an urgent assignment for us.” He led Yigdal into his office and closed the door. “How can we help?

  “I have come to collect on my previous favors to you. There is a major problem that our soldiers cannot solve. And yes, it will repay all I have done for you and Ms. Sashakovich. Even more, it might save the world from its worst war ever.”

  They sat down around the tiny table that served as Avram’s desk in the corner of his office. Ben-Levy sipped his tea. “We’ve been listening to chatter and it leads us to believe the overthrow of the moderate Islamic government in Oman will lead to a full-blown confrontation with the West. I have the aircraft you’ll need for transporting your troops. Israel cannot be seen having anything to do with an Islamic revolution in an Arab country. How long for you to get load-out for your mercs?”

  Shimmel thought about the politics behind this mission. Of course Israel would have an interest in this. They would pay him and get him the weapons he didn’t have. He nodded at his visitor and former handler. “We can be ready to go to JFK in under three hours.” Shimmel turned to his desktop computer monitor and executed a program. “What type of load-out are you offering us? And what special skills should I need to cover?”

  Ben-Levy sneaked a look at the screen. “We’ll supply several Black Hawks when you arrive in Tel Aviv. Of course we’ll need to paint over our insignias. Do you have a corporate logo we can use?”

  Shimmel shook his head. “Wing is developing one. But we don’t want identification.” He thought for a few seconds. “Can you give us some air transports, heavy-duty parachutes, and a few tanks?”

  Ben-Levy drew a cellphone from his pocket and pecked at the on-screen keyboard. “Yes. We’ll have a transport loaded when you arrive to get the copters.”

  They continued exchanging information. As Ben-Levy got up to leave, Shimmel clicked the mouse on the mercenary operation application’s set-up radio button, triggering text messages to sixty of his mercenaries. Then he contacted the weapons warehouse in suburban Washington to fulfill his load-out requirements.

  He turned toward the window and watched Ben-Levy exit the building into the back of a limousine on the street. Then, he poked another number into his cell.

  “This is Avram. I am finally in payback mode. Ben-Levy wants us to remove the revolutionary leader of Oman and replace him with the government he overthrew. High risk, but it pays off all favors we owe him. Call me back on my cell. Avram out.”

  He knew she’d get the message soon, but hoped it might take a long time before she called. He wanted the aircraft long gone from Washington before she realized he’d taken the mercs on a mission. There was no way he wanted Sashakovich involved when she was damaged. No way so soon after barely escaping death. He rose from behind the desk and walked out the front door, moving faster than his enormous size would have led an observer to believe. “Ms. Hernandez, I’ll be gone for a few days on a work assignment. I can be reached on GNU Radio and by email.”

  Before Judy had a chance to reply, he was gone.

  * * *

  Total silence reigned in the darkest part of the night, about 3:45 a.m. The man, tall, thin, and geeky looking, snored away in his studio apartment at 211 Gibson Avenue, Pacific Grove, California. He dreamed he was walking down a dark alleyway, strange noises from danger lurking nearby. Something big and angry appeared in his path, shrieking at him. His eyes popped open to his cellphone’s announcement of an incoming call, using an old Muddy Waters blues tune, “Too Hot to Handle,” as a ringtone. The notes pounded out from the night table beside his bed in the darkness.

  Sam Tyler reached to grab the phone before the vibrations that accompanied the song pushed it to the floor. “You know what time it is?” He looked at his alarm clock. “Fucking-three-fucking-forty-six in the fucking black-as-hell night!”

  “Midnight Rider. 1208-12n-sly.” A sotto female voice. Someone he’d never met. Each letter and number was stated discretely. He understood the message. The caller terminated the call.

  “Rats.” The world stopped spinning for Tyler, rocking him from sleepiness to being totally alert in a single moment. Almost a year had passed, and he’d thought they’d never bother him again. But now he was going to need all the time he had remaining before the noon meeting she’d demanded today, December 8, at Sly McFly’s Bar and Grill in Monterey.

  Tyler bolted to the shower. As he soaped up, he considered the possible reasons they had to contact him, and what it was they’d demand he do.

  None of this was good.

  * * *

  The courtroom filled with cameras and microphones as people milled around and spoke in hushed whispers. The click of camera shutters was so loud that the att
orneys had to lean close to talk to their clients.

  The judge entered and the bailiff requested that everyone be seated, Ann gripped Lee’s hand. She held her breath as the judge scanned the room.

  Arbuckle sat, his eyes resting on Ann. She gulped. The judge opened a folder and briefly scanned a page. “This was a difficult case in many regards. So many assumptions were made by the attorneys representing the two sides of justice here today. But, in the end, the case boils down to one question: Would it not have been a bigger crime for this young woman to watch her mother murdered right before her eyes?”

  He stared at Ann. “Young lady, you shouldn’t have brought a weapon into a hospital. But I’ll let that point go. I find that insufficient evidence exists to remand you for trial. This inquest is ended. You are free to go.”

  Ann and Lee rose from their seats and hugged. They thanked the judge several times. Arbuckle nodded and left the courtroom.

  Ann wasn’t smiling. She knew there was lethal danger waiting outside the courtroom. But it was time to head back to Chevy Chase. The bodyguards formed a human shield around her and Lee as they slowly moved through the crowd of media and paparazzi, headed for the exit to the courthouse.

  The hallway was jammed with microphones held by the media’s talking heads. Their progress was excruciatingly slow until JD pushed them sideways into a stairwell. “Run down the stairs to the lobby. Wait for me there. Go, go, go.” Ann nodded and looked over her shoulder. She saw JD jamming the door behind them with some kind of a silver gloppy substance.

  In less than a minute they pushed open the door to the lobby. JD joined them and they all ran toward the exit doors into Government Center.

  Lester and JD continuously scanned the tops of buildings as they ran. Lester saw it first. “Sniper scope reflection in the open window across the street. Two floors up. Into the nearest west-facing doorway. Hurry!”

  JD lifted Ann off her feet and dashed with her into a sandwich shop, followed by Lee. Two near misses pinged against the sidewalk, kicking up dust and bits of concrete. Lester had vanished.

  They hurried through the door and JD flattened Ann and Lee against the floor near the coffee stand. Another bullet shattered the store’s front window and blew holes through one of the coffee urns. JD pointed to the area behind the glass sandwich case. “On your hands and knees. Go now.” As Ann and Lee scurried behind the counter, JD crawled to the broken window. “Damn. If someone’s out there in Boston, they could easily travel south to Washington. We need to end this now.” He turned on his cellphone. “Lester, tell me status and give me directions.”

  There was no answer.

  * * *

  Lester Dushov sneaked into the lobby of an ancient building at the edge of Government Center in Boston. It had taken him less than a minute to get from the doorway of the sandwich shop across the street, running and dodging at full speed. Not bad for a fifty-year-old, he thought. Now the big question. Where’s the sniper? Certainly not stupid enough to still be on the third floor after missing a kill shot. Then, where would I go if I were the sniper and I missed?

  He knew the sniper would likely be someone small and not strong. Most big people didn’t like sneaking and killing from a distance. He was looking for someone compact and stealthy. Maybe in disguise as they flee from their second failure. There was an elevator in the lobby. Not a sniper’s mode of transport. Too confining. No way to evade. No, the sniper would use the staircase. He positioned himself behind the stairway’s door, on the west wall of the lobby, and crouched there below its glass and wire window, waiting.

  He heard footsteps, the sounds clicking fast through the fire door, as someone descended the stairs toward him. Taking a deep breath, he drew his weapon, a plastic Beretta .22-caliber snubnose that used plastic bullets. The palm-sized weapon had easily passed through the courthouse detection gate. He moved away from the door just in case the shooter slammed it open. But he was almost certain it wouldn’t happen.

  The door budged open, a tiny crack from which the person on the other side could see out, but only to the east, toward the street. Dushov crouched on the west side of the door. He smiled. Soon.

  The door cracked open, and the shooter started to pass through. A short person, and thin. Just as Dushov had guessed. A gray hoodie sweatshirt covered the shooter’s head. The door still provided Dushov with adequate cover, but from the back he couldn’t see the other person’s face. However, as the shooter’s gun case moved through the door, Dushov made his move, grabbing the person’s sweatshirt and pulling it sharply toward him. The hoodie was zipped, and with it pulled down around the elbows, the shooter was unable to move away. Dushov got the shooter in a headlock from behind. He used his other hand to pull down the sweatshirt’s hood, revealing a tangle of long red hair. Twisting the person around abruptly, he saw a female face of someone about thirty-five, and plain looking. “Ah, gotcha,” he said. She tried struggling but he held fast. He shifted her hands behind her back and placed plastic cuffs on them. The gun case fell. “You’re wanted for murder, sweetie. And you can consider this a citizen’s arrest.”

  CHAPTER 7

  December 9, 7:43 a.m.

  Agency headquarters,

  K Street, Washington, DC

  Gilbert Greenfield wore the smile of a Cheshire cat. “Come in, Bob. Have a seat.”

  He pointed to the couch across the room from him. He waited for Bob Gault to drop his pear-shaped body onto the brown leather. “I’d like you to consider a promotion to agency-level management from your current job assignment as senior analyst. Your title would be assistant director. You’d have a higher ‘G’ rating and a higher salary as well. Interested?”

  Bob Gault’s face lit up with a grin. But then he thought about how he’d felt just a few weeks ago when he saw three thousand of his fellow citizens die at the wharf in Boston. And how the man seated contentedly in front of him had planned to execute not just a former operative and her boyfriend, but also their sixteen-year-old child. An innocent. Nightmares had plagued him since he’d found out.

  Gault tried to control his emotions, but he wanted to flee. He realized, for the first time in over twenty years, he couldn’t do this work any longer. It might have been different if he’d received this offer three weeks ago. He gulped and ran his hand over his thinning hair. “Sir, I’m not sure.”

  Greenfield frowned. “Let’s talk. Want coffee?”

  Gault remembered what Greenfield had done to Lee Ainsley, getting the poor man to unwittingly swallow a microscopic bug that recorded and transmitted everything Lee saw and heard, forwarding everything to the agency for review by agency analysts like him. “No, thank you, sir.”

  His eyes turned away from the director as he tried to center himself. “Sir, I’m troubled about our black op in Boston. I have two weeks’ time off coming. I’d like some time to think before I give you my reply. Maybe we should postpone this until after I return.”

  He guessed that Greenfield had never had someone decline an offer of promotion. Greenfield’s expression seemed to be filled with a complex of undecipherable emotions. “Okay, Bob. We’ll do it your way. As long as you’re here, let’s talk about the new position, to give you more data points for your decision.

  “Sure.” But Gault already knew he was finished as a covert operative at the agency. No one had ever declined a promotion at Greenfield’s agency. He wondered, what would the old man do now? Do to him?

  * * *

  As the aircraft flew toward Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Avram Shimmel sat staring out its window, wondering what he’d find at their ultimate destination: Buraimi, Oman. He fingered the pages of the battle plan he’d scribbled into his cellphone as they’d traveled to the airport.

  But he’d learned it was best to sleep and eat before a battle. As one of the mercs passed around food, he selected potato chips and a tuna salad sandwich. Soon after, he was snoring away.

  He woke to the sound of the aircraft’s wheels falling and unlocking into l
anding position. He yawned and looked at his wristwatch. It was the middle of the night. Lights from the military runway winked up at him.

  When the rumble of wheels on tarmac reached his ears, he stretched. Soon it would be time to check the equipment the Israelis were “loaning” him.

  As the plane slowed and stopped, he unbuckled his seatbelt and headed for the exit.

  It took less than fifteen minutes for him to inspect the goods. Ben-Levy had loaned him sixteen helicopters, all but one an armed lightweight troop ferry. He waved to the mercenaries and they boarded. For this operation, none of the mercenaries was from Israel. Except for him. He hadn’t set foot there since avenging the murders of his wife and daughter a few years ago.

  The choppers lifted off the runway and he soon fell asleep again.

  Eight hours later, his eyes hunted the landscape for trouble as the copter descended to the sand. A gentle bump signaled his troops to empty onto terra firma. He flipped down the heads-up display on his helmet visor and touched the button activating the embedded Bluetooth earbud. “Find cover in the oasis garden. Establish secure perimeters.”

  The other helicopters descended and landed. He hustled his troops from the landing zone and scooted near a tall palm.

  Avram pressed a button on his helmet that transmitted a map and order of battle to each of the more than two hundred mercs—one hundred forty-seven untested freelancers and sixty-three Swiftshadow employees.

  As now-empty troop carriers started leaving, the final helicopter landed. The heavy carrier emitted a light battle tank that was occupied by three mercs and armed with a 200mm cannon. It crawled onto the edge of the oasis.

  Time to fight.

  * * *

  The plan was straightforward, but its execution might be a different matter.

  Find Khalid Muriami and interrogate him. Who had funded his operation and how did they communicate?