Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (49 page)

The two Brazilian-appearing women who cleaned
the Levins' suite each morning, were readily recognized after a few
days by the morning shift of the security detail.

Following the daily ritual of one of the
agents checking the women, food, and cleaning carts each morning,
the empregadas set to work in an orderly routine that never
varied.

“Bomdia, meester Esmeetchee!” Maria, the
first of the two maids entering the suite, bade a good morning to
the security guard she knew as "Mr. Smith." Agent Pereira, fluent
in Brazilian Portuguese, Hebrew, and English, smiled to himself as
he responded in kind. He liked his operation alias, Smith. Dark
auburn hair with hazel eyes, it seemed to suit him.

“Good morning, senhoritas Graciella and
Maria!"

Knowing that they liked to speak in their
broken English, as did all of the staff when they thought the
guests were native English speakers, Agent Pereira continued, “And
how are you this morning?"

“I go well, tank oo!” He noted that Graciella
directly translated her response into English precisely as she
would have responded in Portuguese. Maria's English was much
better, but she wasn't a person overly given to idle
conversation.

“I'm glad. Please, come in." Completing his
visual, metallurgical, and chemical scan of the women, as well as
their carts of food and assortment of cleaning equipment, he
stepped aside to allow them entrance.

“Obrigada, não. We clean, feeneesh soon."

“Very good.” Realizing she didn't understand
a word he said, he let it go. He wasn't here to teach English.

As Pereira went back to his magazine his
partner, Agent Cohen, barely looked up before focusing again on his
eBook. Every once in a while, though, Cohen would steal a furtive,
shy glance in Maria's direction. When fortune met her eyes with
his, she'd grace him with a sexy little wink, then return to the
task at hand.

The two women set to work immediately. Their
routine started in the bathroom, then bedroom, sitting and
entertainment rooms, dining area, and then finally scrubbing down
the surfaces of the kitchenette. Once all was cleaned they
restocked the various drinks, foods and imported Swiss chocolates
in the mini-refrigerator, refilled the counter fruit basket, set
out a freshly baked selection of breads, then three bags of ground
Brazilian coffee.

One of the sealed bags of freshly ground
coffee beans in the food cart was laced with a powerful sleep aid,
Temazepam. There was nothing in the composition of the potent drug
that would have set off the chemical scanner alarm.

Noting that the agents were creatures of
habit, the bag of coffee with the drug additive was placed furthest
from the coffee machine. While it was possible that one of the
daytime agents might open that bag first, it was unlikely.

Though the two men enjoyed the bubbly,
cheerful personality of Graciella, Maria was nearly always the one
who caught their full attention as the women bustled about.

Full and sensuous lips matched every other
part of her ideally proportioned and curvaceous body. Maria had
sculpted curves in all the right places, with a small waist
providing a very appealing and striking contrast.

She triggered in Agent Pereira's mind the
quintessential Brazilian song, "The Girl From Ipanema":

Olha que coisa mais linda,

mais cheia de graça.

É ela a menina que vem e que passa,

num doce balanço a caminho do mar.

Humming the song to himself, he thought of
how perfectly ravishing Maria would look in a skimpy Brazilian
bikini on Ipanema beach. Pereira's thoughts invariably reverted to
the poor translation, as sung by Frank Sinatra. He accepted this
rendition as it equally well suited the raven-haired, buxom
beauty:

Tall and tan and young and lovely,

the girl from Ipanema goes walking.

And when she passes.

each one she passes goes – ah!

All too soon Graciella announced their
departure, taking the gloriously sensuous Maria with her.

“Até logo, senhores. We see you tomorrow, na
manha, 'ta bom?” It was adorable the way Graciella mixed her
English with Portuguese.

“'Ta bêm. Até logo Graciella e Maria! We look
forward to seeing you tomorrow morning."

Pereira didn't feel even the slightest twinge
of guilt by bidding the women farewell until the next morning,
knowing his team and their charges would be packed and long gone.
Every security precaution was to be maintained. To let these ladies
know that they wouldn't see him again would have been a serious
breach of protocol.

He didn't know who the Levins were, but he
fully understood that they were the highest priority detail
assigned to this team in a very long time. Whoever they were, they
were clearly important to his country - even at their advanced
age.

Having enjoyed the view as Maria bent over
while she dusted in her low-cut uniform, that somehow managed to be
within what might be considered professionally acceptable, both
agents wished that more such assignments came their way.

Pereira looked forward to ending his shift
and grabbing a quick bite to eat before going with the advance team
to São Paulo. They'd arrive early enough to setup the requisite
security precautions, the advance Red Team having already made its
rounds.

~ ~ ~

The Levins, knowing that they had to get a
very early start the next day, decided to retire sooner than usual.
The warm humidity of the Rio climate, combined with a full day of
sight-seeing and shopping, left the aging couple happily tired.

“We are going to turn in a little sooner than
usual tonight. Hope you don't mind your cafézinhos this early in
the evening, agents." Mrs. Levin enjoyed making their coffee for
them, a gesture of gratitude for their service.

“Not at all. These things are habit forming!
Sure you won't join us?"

“Oh, no young man, not before bed or we'd be
buzzing the entire night!"

“Good night then ma'am, sir."

“Boa noite!” True tourists, the Levins
delighted in the new words they were learning.

The Mossad team leader was one of the two
agents on the night shift. Double checking the bedroom, he wished
the Levins a good night's rest, then returned to his television
show and freshly poured demitasse of the almost syrupy, thick
Brazilian coffee. In two short gulps the cup was empty, the other
agent downing his at the same time.

Before they even realized what happened,
unable to communicate even slurred words that would have alerted
outside agents monitoring the rooms, both agents slumped
unconscious in their chairs.

A slight
click
at the entry door
signaled the acceptance of a key card. Three men wordlessly entered
the room, each with a silencer-equipped sidearm held just below
shoulder height.

Walking quietly but quickly into the main
living area, three men dressed in black clothing and soft soled
shoes wordlessly divided their work with virtuoso precision. One
immediately went over to the agents, shooting both in the head
twice to assure the kills.

The other two, making no sound as they moved,
entered the bedroom where the Levins were both sound asleep; Mrs.
Levin snoring rather loudly.

Pop, pop. Two bullets in her head. Mr. Levin
stirred slightly, remaining fast asleep.

They had less than eight minutes from the
time of entry to get him out of the suite and away from the resort,
before the Levins' security backup would be alerted to the lack of
sound coming from the suite.

The plan was to evacuate both, but inclement
weather conditions pushed the boundaries of already restrictive
time constraints, requiring an on-site decision by the agent in
charge to abduct just the doctor. Of a necessity his wife was left
behind.

As Moshe continued sleeping, the second man
in the bedroom produced a hypodermic, injecting him in his fleshy
upper arm, simultaneously covering the old man's mouth with his
free hand to prevent him from shouting and alert to the off-site
agents monitoring the suite with audio equipment.

Levin awoke, startled, eyes widened in fear
and confusion as his pupils adjusted to the light, allowing him to
see the two strangers in his room. Aborting attempts at screaming,
his right hand searched for his wife. Grasping her hand, he shook
it as if to awaken her. Feeling her hand remain limp and
unresponsive, Moshe attempted to turn his head, now heavy as lead
from the drug injected into his arm, to look in her direction.

Viewing his consciousness ebbing, the man who
injected Levin removed the grip he had over his mouth, manually
turning the aged husband's head to view his wife one last time.
Face-to-face now, Moshe's eyes widened as he saw blood ooze from
two bullet holes in her forehead. Anger and confusion etched in his
face before his eyelids, no longer obeying the diminishing command
to stay alert, ultimately closed on this last visage of his beloved
Rivka.

Struggling to hoist his limp body from the
bed and into the lower compartment of a food cart, the men silently
left the room. Returning to ground level in a cargo elevator, they
exited the building via a loading dock at the rear of the
resort.

Relieved to have made it this far without
complication, double checking to confirm they weren't spotted or
followed, they made their way to the beach.

Carefully taking Levin's body from the food
cart's concealed compartment, they transferred him to a rubber raft
half carrying and half dragging him over the deep, wet sand that
would have mired the wheels of the cart.

Reaching the ocean, they joined Levin in the
raft, releasing oars from their securing Velcro ties to paddle
toward the radio beacon of an anchored, larger black Zodiac rigid
inflatable boat, softly bobbing on the moonless, equally dark
Brazilian coastal waters.

The steady, tumultuous sheets of rain
obscured their forms as they moved farther out to sea. Lifting Dr.
Levin's heavy body into the Zodiac, made all the more unwieldy by
the water-logged clothing, took longer than expected and time was
running short. Just because they were a few miles out into the
ocean by no means meant that they were safe and in the clear. After
securing Levin, they started the outboard motor and sped toward the
awaiting yacht.

Table of Contents

1. Fatal
Disappointment

"
Just because
something didn't work out your way, or somebody disappointed you,
that does not change who you are."
-
Pastor Joel Olsteen

Somewhere Over the Atlantic
Ocean

Miriam Northup was on
a private flight to
Brazil when she received the message that the "Big Fish" has just
been reeled in.

During the long flight from London's Heathrow
Airport to Brazil, she had time to contemplate her mission,
reminiscing on events that led up to this point.

It all seemed so impossible, even dreamlike
more than reality. Yet the view out the small window of one of the
agency's private jets, as she soared over clouds and glistening
ocean below, reflecting a brilliant golden sunrise cresting the
Brazilian coast, confirmed this life that was so unexpectedly
hers.

Miriam had been working undercover with the
SIS, often referred to as "MI6," to acquire invaluable industrial
technology being developed by the Israelis. She gained a coveted
position with Dr. Aharon Shmu'el, one of the world's leading bio
technology experts. Industrial spies couldn't get close to his
lab.

Little crumbs of information, here and there,
began to spread regarding his innovations in nano-technology as it
applied to the location and treatment of cancer. The work he
accomplished in his company was several years, if not decades,
ahead of that of any other country.

Graduating third in her class, with a
Doctorate from the University of Oxford in Microbiological Sciences
and a second in nano-technology, Miriam had a number of job offers
and research grants from which to choose. A self-admitted over
achiever, with a love for academics, she chose the lucrative offer
from a corporation based in Wales, one which she felt gave her the
greatest freedom to pursue pure research, with the least
bureaucracy to deal with.

Taking the typically crowded bus to her flat
at the conclusion of a particularly dreary, wet night, she was
happy to gain a seat after a couple of routine stops thinned out
the number of passengers.

Approaching the next stop, the person seated
next to her got up to leave. His breath was so disgusting that she
was about to move to another place in the bus just to get away from
him. Glad she hadn't yet relocated, a reasonably attractive guy,
who she noticed as soon as he boarded at the previous stop, asked
if the newly vacated seat next to her was available.

"Certainly!" Miriam checked his wedding
finger. Neither wedding ring nor the tell tale pale stripe of one
recently removed. These days, though, a wedding ring, or lack
thereof, didn't mean much, if anything at all.

Taking in the expensive yet comfortably
casual manner in which he dressed, Miriam sized him up as either a
metrosexual with a girlfriend, or gay. Either way, she dismissed
him in terms of any romantic interest, acknowledging the obvious;
she wasn't in his league.

Inheriting the rather plain genetics of her
mum, coupled with not being one to care very much about the latest
fashions, she didn't stand much of a chance if he were the former.
Were he the latter, she had no chance at all.

"So glad it's Friday. You?" His accent was
definitely that of the educated, upper-crust of London. Neither
outlandish nor pretentious, it was, however; reminiscent of British
royalty with a slight affectation.