The Assassin's List (5 page)

After the selection process and recruit training, he was given specialized training to work with foreign local forces that France wanted to support militarily, especially in the Middle East. Colonialism was a thing of the past, but providing the assistance of its Quiet Professionals, as its special forces were known, often reaped some of the same benefits.

While he was in Iran working with the Shah to assist the Sultan of Oman to put down a rebellion, he came to the attention of the movement. When the Shah fled Iran in 1979 and the
Savak
, Iran’s secret police, was dissolved, Barak and other foreign sympathizers were imprisoned. When his true sympathies were discovered, albeit under torture, he was asked to join the Islamic fundamentalist movement. He hadn’t hesitated.

In the end, a farsighted plan was approved with his unique gifts in mind. It required him to assume a new identity and move to America, to establish a base for training fifth column forces capable of striking deep into the heart of the Jews’ ally.

With a nest egg of twenty-five million dollars and twenty-five years, he had accomplished everything that had been asked of him. Now he was directed to discuss it all with someone he’d never met and had little reason to trust.

When his United Airlines flight landed at Aeropuerto Internacional Reina Beatrix in Oranjestad, Aruba, Barak collected his Hartmann carry-on and deplaned. After passing through customs, he made his way directly to the taxi area in front of the island airport. Waiting beside a white Mercedes S600 sedan he saw a driver wearing the dark green cap he’d been told to look for. He nodded to the man and glanced around. Several men seemed to be interested in the Mercedes, but no one seemed to be overly interested in its passenger. Aruba was only twenty miles long, and six miles wide at its widest point, so the five hundred ten horsepower of the S600 Mercedes was transportation overkill on the small island.

The chauffeur opened the rear door without offering to take his carry-on. They drove east and then southeast on a road to Boca Daimari, a beach area on the rugged east coast of the island. The terrain was mostly flat, with few hills and only scattered vegetation. It offered little in the way of scenery to enjoy.

As they neared the sea, however, the view of the Caribbean along the highway south was breathtaking. The ocean stretched to the east as far as the eye could see, and small beaches carved from the black rock of the island’s crust passed by on the left. Occasionally, he saw a villa or small resort perched on a rocky outcropping, isolated and private. At least Ryan understood their need for privacy.

Beyond a desolate stretch of shoreline, a white villa came into view atop a rocky finger reaching out into the sea. Its outline suggested Moorish architecture, with square lines, a scalloped roof, and arched windows. The white-graveled drive leading to it from the highway was lined with palms. The villa itself was surrounded with beds of bougainvillea, hibiscus, and frangipani.

When the chauffeur pulled to a stop in front of the villa, a tall blond man stood in the shadows of the arched portico spanning the front of the villa. He wore white linen slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Large aviator sunglasses hid the color of his eyes, but Barak knew they would be blue. The man was a poster boy for the Aryan race, military bearing and all.

Barak got out of the Mercedes and walked to greet the man in the shadows. As he approached, the man turned and led him into the interior of the villa before turning and extending his hand.

“I never know which of our enemies might be watching. I’m Ryan. Did you have a pleasant flight?” he asked.

“I usually don’t fly commercial. It was a long flight.”

“Quite. Sorry it was necessary. Travel here is carefully monitored, thanks to the antics of Venezuela’s El Presidente. The Americans were used to watching Cuba, but when Chavez invited the Cubans to run his intelligence apparatus, you don’t fly down here without caution. That’s why we’re here instead of Isla Margarita. Hamas and Hezbollah are almost as numerous there as they are in the Middle East. Come, sit by the pool and we’ll talk.”

With that, Barak’s host turned and led him through the villa. Dark-tiled floors and heavy, dark wood furniture contrasted with the alabaster walls and drapery. Bright floral paintings, however, gave the place vibrancy and spirit. If the villa wasn’t someone’s permanent residence, it certainly was a beautiful safe house.

White tiles outside the villa surrounded a large zero-horizon pool. Ryan, or the Aryan, as Barak was beginning to think of him, signaled a servant and a tray of beverages and appetizers was brought to their umbrella table. He saw his host knew he drank Glenmorangie Scotch, but he didn’t recognize the small potato
tapas
that filled the serving platter.

“I thought you might be hungry and, perhaps, thirsty.
Salud,
” Ryan said.

“
Salud.
Do you come here often?”

“Shall I call you David or Barak?” Ryan asked.

“Barak will do.”

“I know you have many questions. I will answer the ones I can. It isn’t important how often I come here, who owns this villa, or who I am. You trust the people who told you to come here, just as I trust the people who told me to meet with you. I was told to find out if there are services you might provide us, in exchange for financing your cause.”

“My company provides security services and sometimes business intelligence for our international clientele. What services are you interested in?”

“Barak, let’s not play games. Your company, ISIS, was started with a twenty-five million dollar stake from the Muslim Brotherhood. You were sent to gain a foothold, to develop a front capable of carrying out strikes against America. You have done that remarkably well. But, plans change. I’m here to see if you are flexible enough to take on more than you were originally asked to do.”

Barak had assumed as much. What he didn’t know was whether he could trust this man, or the men he was fronting for.

“And why would you want to do that? You seem to know a lot about me, but I don’t know a thing about you. What do you care about my cause?”

The man calling himself Ryan smiled and helped himself to a
relleno.

“You should try one of these, mushroom stuffed with
chorizo,
excellent. To answer your question, we need someone to provide the services you have trained your elite recruits for, assassinations. Some of our clients have a clumsy way of dealing with adversaries. Their methods need to be more sophisticated, if you will. As for your cause, your enemy has been our enemy for a very long time. We failed before, and now we may have another chance.”

Barak picked up his crystal tumbler and swirled the scotch around the ice that remained. The tropical climate had many attractions, but ice lasting more than a couple of minutes wasn’t one of them. From what he was told, Ryan’s organization was powerful in Europe, North Africa, and Latin America. Its specialty was money laundering for major crime syndicates, and it owned or controlled banks around the world, originally financed with stolen Jewish money and gold from World War II. After the war, it had developed a relationship with the Brotherhood. What he didn’t know was what the Alliance was doing these days, and what their ultimate goal was.

“Ryan, you are quite the diplomat. If I hadn’t lived in America for nearly half my life, I would enjoy continuing to beat around the bush, as we say. So let’s speak plainly. You want me to provide assassins for your drug cartel clients, in exchange for money you’ll funnel to me. Why?”

His blond host took off his sunglasses and smiled.

“I have lived in South America as long as you have lived in America. Perhaps I am used to speaking obliquely. The answer is, since 9/11 the terrorist finance tracking program the Americans put together is causing both of us problems. You have legitimately earned money you wish to put to illegal use, and we have illegal funds we want to place in the international financial system. We propose a bartering arrangement. You provide the assassinations our clients want, without a trail back to them, and we provide untraceable funds to you.

“Personally, my grandfather was branded a war criminal by the Jews, but he wasn’t brought to trial. They killed him in Brazil where they found him. My father organized our current efforts, and I work to see those efforts succeed. We share a common goal, Barak. You want to avenge your father, just as I want to avenge my grandfather. We can do that by working together.”

The hatred burning in the eyes of the Aryan warmed Barak’s soul. There were many details to discuss, but he felt a kinship he was willing to trust.

“Ryan, I’m willing to work with you, but you only. My true identity is not to be revealed to any of your clients. I will only communicate with you, face to face. Our meetings will be arranged by hand-delivered correspondence. If that’s acceptable to you, then let us begin.”

Both men stood, touched their glasses, and drank more of Barak’s favorite Scotch to toast the destruction of their enemies.

Chapter 8

After Drake brushed aside Detective Carson’s blustering interference in Richard Martin’s office, he led the CEO outside.

“Is there some place we can talk privately? Carson will leave you alone for now, but I need to get a handle on this pretty quickly.”

“There’s a cafeteria in the basement. I’ll treat you to an espresso.”

“Don’t tell me there’s a Starbucks here,” Drake moaned.

“Don’t insult me. I like coffee, but I don’t need it with a triple shot of caffeine. We buy and grind our own,” Martin said, leading Drake to the elevator.

They rode down to the basement. Black and white photographs of the Oregon wilderness lined the light saffron walls of the cafeteria. A salad bar and small food service counter ran along the wall, advertising daily specials listed far below local market prices. Obviously, Martin Research took exceptional care of its employees.

Martin asked for an espresso and Drake asked for a cafe au lait. While they waited for their coffee, Drake asked about the cafeteria.

“Is there an outside service entrance?”

“No, everything comes down the service elevator from the first floor. Surveillance cameras monitor the place twenty-four seven.”

Drake saw two cameras over the service counter and three more spaced around the large room.

When they were seated, Martin held his coffee in both hands and fixed his eyes on the nature scenes lining the walls.

“I have no idea how this happened, Drake. The detectives asked me every question they could think of, and I told them the same thing.”

“Tell me what you told them.”

“That I was not having an affair with Janice. My God, she was my secretary for almost twenty years. People can work together without having affairs. There’s no way I would ever have crossed that line. I respected her too much. I’m married, and I’m not looking for anything else.”

“Okay. She was married too. How were things on her side? Any chance she was seeing someone?”

“No way. She adored her husband. She lived for him and her kids. Her biggest thrill was when the two of them could get away for a long weekend.”

“What was she doing here so late at night? She was murdered between ten o’clock and midnight, if the police are right.”

“She was getting ready to leave for a vacation. She told me she wanted to make sure everything was covered for the two weeks she’d be away. I guess she was here working.”

“Is there any reason someone would want to hurt her? Any problems her husband had that could have led to this?”

Martin shook his head and set his coffee down.

“You had to know Janice. There’s no reason anyone in the world would want to hurt her. She could convince a mugger to turn himself in rather than take her purse.”

“So that leaves us with someone stealing from your company, or something involving you, since they were in your office. Any ideas?”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about this, that somehow I could have prevented this. I hired the top security firm in the country and installed everything they recommended. I still had problems. I don’t know what else could have been done.”

“I’m not suggesting there was anything, Richard. What about something business related?”

“I have competitors who fought me for the Homeland Security contract, but that’s all that I know of.”

“Okay, what about your competitors? Anyone who might be involved in something like this?”

“No, there was only one real competitor, and DHS wound up splitting the contract between us. We work on biological and chemical monitoring, and they work on nuclear monitoring. There’s no way they’d do something like this for the rest of the research. They have enough work to keep them busy.”

Martin finished his coffee and stood up.

“You need to talk to my head of security. He might have some ideas, because I sure as hell don’t.”

Chapter 9

With Martin’s directions, Drake found his way to the first floor office of Risk Management & Corporate Security. The secretary in the small front office announced his presence, and soon a grim-faced man of fifty or so brushed past her and greeted Drake. Short and broad shouldered, the man had the piercing look of law enforcement in his eyes.