The Great Deception (13 page)

The book flattened once more and a dull
voice answered, "Yes?"

"Rafael, are you doing your job or enjoying
one of those paperbacks again?"

"Both, sir," the assistant principal
mumbled into the receiver.

"No. I'm paying you to watch the boy!"
Curses

and incoherent threats ensued. "Has he
noticed

the girl yet?"

Rafael scratched his head. "I think so?" In
truth, he HOPED so.

"This is why you need to be diligent to
watch your monitor!"

Rafael gave the answer he thought the man
would want to hear. "I'll do my best." "I don't have to remind you
how important it is these two connect. She's our key to get to the
boy."

"I understand sir."

"Good."

--

"Go, go, go!" lieutenants urged their
troops.

The fireworks continued in the sky above
with loud bangs and different colors. Red from the glow of
exploding aircraft lit up the scurrying platoons that hastily
retreated back to their planes. The soldiers left behind vehicles
and machine guns in favor of expediency. What they didn't leave
behind though were the items they had collected from Westover
Ventures.

...

The FRN thought they had
made off like bandits. In truth, they hadn
’
t. What President Alexander
Toporvsky and his administration didn't know was Scorpion had got
what they needed. Howard and company weren't going for a knockout
punch to the FRN. Instead their endgame followed along the lines of
making the enemy believe they had achieved a partial victory
despite the heavy losses inflicted.

…

The large transport aircraft had their
rocket turbines pointed towards the improv runway in preparation
for an imminent vertical takeoff. Several squadrons of fighters
were ready to be their escort.

Despite the diamond formation of
protection, two more heavy-lift craft wouldn't make it out of
Sector Six airspace alive though.

--

President Alexander Toporvsky sweated
bullets. Until the last plane had lifted off only then did he
decide to breathe.

At last the images came in. Alexander
didn’t fail to miss that two more big planes fell prey.

His lungs drank in the oxygen as if he had
just surfaced from underwater after holding his breath for a
while.

"Mr. President, are you feeling alright?"
Secretary of State Edith Wharton asked. "If you must know the
truth? No. I'm not doing alright Edith," Alexander admitted. It
didn't make him feel any better to speak the truth either.

…

Ever since the republic's president was
sworn in his body became accustomed to the barrage of security
briefings that woke him in the night. Not like he could get much
sleep anyway with the fate of the FRN always heavy on his
conscience.

The stress only continued to pile up. It
became easier to miss meals. Add to that, members of his own
cabinet wondered if his backbone had begun to erode away.

The person he needed the most wasn't there.
Margaret. He had a chief of staff, a national security
advisor...heck, a whole phalanx of advisors. Yet it was his wife's
judgment he trusted most. The vacuum left in her absence couldn't
possibly be filled. But he did his best anyway.

...

Ahmed Negler's
analytical mind had been working overtime. Unfortunately his
foresight didn't get him any raises; an occasional pat on the back
or ata boy couldn
’
t hurt though

"Mr. President, of
course we'll track the process of the returning planes until every
last one is grounded," he said in a reassuring sort of way.
"Where are you going with this?" Alexander
rested his chin on his knuckles. "Sir, I think our focus needs to
be on an investigation of Damion Westover and the reason Scorpion
went after him. And who knows? Scorpion beat us to Westover Complex
today. I doubt for the purpose of picking off some Viper
agents."

"Your point?" Demsky
said. He looked at Toporvsky who undoubtedly wondered the same
thing.
"What if..."

Alfred cut the national
security advisor off immediately to stress a point. "Please spare
us the what-ifs. Governments won
’
t do well dealing with the world
through hypotheticals based on pure speculation."

Alexander gave the
director of Sentinel a stern gaze. "You May proceed Ahmed."
Alexander
’
s
security advisor showed his appreciation for being allowed to go on
via a curt head nod.

He said, "What if
today's events really are just a sideshow to something even bigger
going on here. I think Damion had something Scorpion wanted. They
maybe didn't need him to tell them how it works, but simply to keep
quiet about it."
"Won't we know if
something's missing by checking the logs of the inventory control
system at Westover Ventures?"

Demsky had raised a good point.

"I'm no hacker," Ahmed said, "but Donald
Holiday from CCC (Central Cyber Corps) would corroborate my theory
that records like that could easily be tampered with--manipulated
to say what they want."

Alexander took a moment to sip his coffee
to mull it over. "When this operation is over, we start a new one.
Demsky?"

"Yes Mr. President?" the
director almost shrunk back, afraid of the president's
answer.
"I need you and your agency to
get with Mossad and anyone else capable of doing the groundwork on
this next task."

"Which would be?"

"Get Damion. Find out anything you can on
Scorpion. They've been too quiet. Almost like the calm before the
storm."

--

Moldova

Other than his brief time in training, Seth
didn't know the enigmatic Tyrone Banks well enough to interpret
what this former-Mossad man actually meant by his "end of the
world" statement.

"What have you been smoking tonight,
Tyrone?" Seth cocked his head and waited for an answer.

Baruch continued the attack. "Why should we
even trust you?"

"Because deep down you know I'm right. And I
have evidence."

"Keep talking," Seth encouraged him.

"Many years ago, when I was in the field..."
"Hold it, you were in the field?" Baruch found it hard to
believe.

"You gotta start somewhere son. Anyways,
where was I? Ah yes. Mindin' my own business, followin'
orders...running a helluva lotta ops." He paused for a breather.
And a sip of coffee. He swore. "They forget how to teach you how
many beans to stick in in

proportion to the water?"

"Why?" Seth countered.

"This is potent enough to stick in a spray
can instead of that Roundup you get at the hardware store."

"Thanks."

"Looks like your weed-eaters aren't doing
good enough of a job either," Tyrone observed as he stared down a
spindly green shoot rising above the edge of the porch. A confused
Baruch uttered, "What?"

The older man in his fifties rose midway off
the bench, enough to stretch out with the cup and empty it over the
offending weed. "You can thank me later."

"Tyrone!" Seth whined. "Are you gonna tell
us why you're here or not?"

"No need to get bent out of shape. I was
just doin' y'all a common courtesy. But as to the end of the world
stuff, which I guess could come before your weed problems, here's
the bottom line. In the Special Operations Division, we went after
some guys who claimed they didn't know nothin'. They'd rather die
than tell us who they worked for. And believe me, we didn't give
them the easy way out either."

"You tortured these...." Seth waited to hear
Tyrone tag these men he was talking about. But Tyrone
didn
’
t.

He simply answered, "Right. The people we
used enhanced interrogation techniques on." Seth rolled his eyes at
the euphemism.

Tyrone pretended not to notice Seth's body
language and continued. "Looked like they belonged to an Al Qaeda
cell or something. But these guys were different than your typical
jihadists with suicide vests."

Baruch became curious. "How so?"

"Well young man," Tyrone put his best story
teller's voice on, "these holy warriors weren't who they said they
were. They're the first of their kind: a secretive track existing
right alongside those that truly wage the holy war."

"Double agents?" Seth wanted to know if he
understood correctly.

Tyrone grew quiet. "Yes, in a manner of
speaking." The ex-agent with his gray patchy stubble and wandering
eyes seemed to lose himself in that moment in a troubling thought.
"Somehow the director of Mossad is involved in this subterfuge."
His face fell as he condemned the director to be a bad guy.

"Peretz Sheffer?" Seth inquired, stunned at
the news.

Tyrone nodded somberly. "I've always
considered the man a friend, too."

Baruch didn’t react to the news like Seth
had. Instead his brain formulated a quick question: "Have you fully
traced the corruption to see if there are any other unknowns
calling the shots?" he asked. "Or is Sheffer the extent of it?"

"I'm afraid we don't have all the pieces to
the puzzle. And there's no way we can get the director to resign.
Even if we tried, he'd know and we would all be toast." Baruch
didn't understand the idiomatic expression on toast, but Seth made
it easy for him by tracing his finger across his throat in a
straight line.

Seth had been thinking real hard up to this
point. As a leader figure he thought it prudent to strategize first
before speaking. "So what's the play?"

"Since you guys are on the inside but I’m
not,
you
will be assets and I'll be the spotter. The goal is
to find out where, when, and how Scorpion plans to take over the
world. Then we take down the sons of bitches."

A chill went up and down Seth
’
s spine. "You didn't say anything about Scorpion
before Tyrone."

The other man held a stupefied expression.
"I said this had to do with the end of the

world, didn't I?!" "Yes, but--"

"Then why didn't your mind immediately make
the connection to Scorpion?"

"I dunno."

"Boy, you've been playing in the sandbox for
too many years
…
doubletapping princes and
clerics. It's time you grow an analytical side to that killer brain
of yours."

He would be right. As much as the reproof
stung, Seth learned to eat crow. That's what made him a good agent
and so valuable to Mossad.

Baruch's shoulders rose and fell as he
laughed on the inside at Seth. Momentarily he threw his head back
and downed some more strong drink. The tough guy scrunched his
eyes, swallowing hard. It somehow brought clarity.

"What else do you know about Scorpion and
the end of times?" he asked. Tyrone answered, "Their leader has
made a deal with the devil. Heck, if I didn't know any better, I'd
say he
is
the devil. What's more, I believe they
’
re going to invade the earth from the heavens."

Seth gave it his best guess. "Nukes?"

"No, there are no more such things after

World War Three."

Both men sat there dumbfounded.

Tyrone leaned forward and looked from his
right to left. "You really had no clue, eh?" Seth managed a head
shake.

"What if I were to tell you we're gonna have
visitors from space? Made to look like the

real thing."

"Shutup."

Baruch's eyes widened. "No, don't tell him
that!"

Another time in the conversation where he
failed to make the connection.

Cultural barriers.

Seth ignored him. "You say we have less than
five days?"

Tyrone pointed a bony finger at Seth and
said excitedly, "So you're in then?"

Seth had to think about this a little while
longer. Tyrone Banks
’
s visit had been one
of the strangest things to happen to him lately.

But the message seemed sincere. He didn't
have a reason to lie: the man would die for his country a patriot.
"Yeah, I'm in."

"If Seth Markov thinks it's a good idea, you
can count me in too," said Baruch with a gutlevel sincerity.

Tyrone looked mildly relieved. "Good deal.
Alright, we'll need to make preparations before morning."

Seth leaned up against a pillar supporting
the covered porch. "Going somewhere?"

"Downrange. You can always back out now. I
understand. But once you're in this thing, I

can't guarantee your safety, much less
you

making it out alive." --

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Night had fallen on the crown jewel of
the

United Islamic Caliphate. Spotlights lit the
sky

from the many construction sites across the
city building the towers that reached for the clouds. Downtown in
fact was a futurist's fantasy with its tightly compact, dense urban
core with few gaps.

The city's residents were very rich: poverty
had been expelled decades ago.

The
AirTaxi
waited at a light, thirty
stories above street level. Three other lanes of traffic also
caught the same light. All the flying cars were fully autonomous,
no driver's input. To the uninitiated, they
’
d be in for a real jolt after they hailed a taxi.
Instead of seeing a smiling local behind the wheel of one of the
city
’
s many cabs, there
’
d be no driver at all. These autonomous taxis were
supremely adept at zeroing in on humans with their
hitchhiker
’
s thumb raised high. In a city
where millions needed to get around at a moment
’
s notice, the absence of the human touch in the taxi
industry wasn
’
t missed at all because of
the increased efficiency in servicing passengers that autonomy
allowed for.