Agent of Influence: A Thriller (5 page)

             
“Eleven is a winner.” The monotone voice of the dealer brought Alex out of his happy excursion down memory lane. It looked like it could be a very profitable weekend as the dealer dropped fifty more dollars worth of chips in front of him.

“Same dice, please,” Alex said
sternly, not wanting to jinx the streak of luck he was having. He promised himself he would go to bed as soon as he crapped out. The jet lag was catching up with him as the excitement of the arrival began to wear off.
Besides, I’ve got all tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday to continue this.
Grabbing the offered dice, he rattled them in his fist and sent them hurtling across the table. The dice showed a total of three. Alex kept his promise to himself, accepted the loss, picked up his winnings, and headed off to bed. He did not notice the obese man in the brown suit hurriedly cashing in his own stack of chips for larger denominations.

The door’s dead bolt lock silently slid into its housing, and the two men peered inside the tiny office before entering. The small
, darkened room was a mess. Rows of miniature televisions lined every available space on the walls, and boxes of VHS tapes were scattered across the floor. They were at the airport, underneath it to be more precise, thanks to triple the usual fee. They left the night watchman standing outside in the cool desert air, nervously chain smoking cigarettes, and counting the wad of hundred dollar bills they gave him. It was just after three a.m., and they were in a hurry to complete their self-appointed task. The two men, both with grim looks on their faces, each grabbed a box, and began flipping through the tapes.

             
“Somebody hit it big,” Gregor commented as he glanced at one of the television screens showing various parts of the airport. The slot machines in the airport, like any other gaming area in Las Vegas, were constantly under surveillance. The lady on the screen appeared to be in her mid-fifties, and while there was no sound coming from the television, both men could clearly see the steady stream of coins cascading out of the bin and onto the floor. The lady was in hysterics, not quite sure what to do as strangers began to stop and gawk as if they were looking at the aftermath of a wreck on the freeway.

Paying three thousand dollars to get in tonight was exorbitant, but they had no choice in the matter. They rarely made an unannounced appearance, but when they did, they knew the greedy prick would really stick it to their pocketbooks.

At least it’s not
my money
, Solomon told himself. Aman had told him to do whatever was necessary, and he was obeying those orders. When Aman called him to complain that a girl had seduced Zachariah and made off with a private cell phone, Solomon thought it sounded comical. He stopped laughing when Aman went into a tirade, and had Solomon put the entire network on alert. The specific orders were that nothing else mattered until she was apprehended with the cell phone.

“That little bitch has no idea what she has gotten herself into,” Aman
had seethed to Solomon before slamming down the phone. Solomon’s network of watchers picked up her trail within minutes of being given the order. Solomon took personal control of the operation and followed her to the airport. Nabbing her there seemed like it was going to be easy, until she suddenly vanished through the security checkpoint with the rest of the departing travelers. He thought she made a fatal mistake when she hopped out of the cab and ran into the airport. He now realized it was a premeditated move. Solomon hurriedly purchased a ticket, and rushed through the security checkpoint after her. He left his weapon with one of his men outside the airport.

She played the cat and mouse game surprisingly well. She weaved through the crowds, disappearing for seconds at a time as she darted around, behind, and through the sea of heads coming and going from
Sin City. It was impossible to tell if she discarded the stolen cell phone in a trash can or handed it off to an unknown accomplice. He caught sight of her just as she bumped into a group of three people, but he was too far away to get a good look at the trio. That was when two airport security guards grabbed him from behind, slammed him into a wall, and began harassing him. She had spotted his surveillance. The questions the cops bombarded him with implied that she told them that he was an ex-boyfriend that was stalking her. Solomon was impressed with her quick thinking. He found it difficult to believe she was just the stripper Aman claimed her to be. After twenty minutes of trying to finagle his way past the security guards he finally used a stern warning followed by a good old-fashioned bribe. He found the stick followed by the carrot to be a more productive way of getting what he wanted. Once he dropped the name of his boss, the cops gladly accepted the bribe and let him go. As soon as he was freed, he phoned his men outside and gave instructions to trail any group of three people that consisted of two guys and one girl. The descriptions he was able to provide were vague at best, but it was at least better than nothing.

             
“Got it! This is what we need,” Solomon said, the sigh of relief in his voice quickly repressed by professionalism. The Frenchman was slowing losing his accent, and his English almost sounded like he was a native speaker. It was Solomon’s linguistic skills that first brought him to the attention of the French SDECE; the French security service that eventually morphed into the DGSE in 1982. He had a short career in the French army, during which time he mastered Russian, English, and German. His linguistic ability combined with his average height and skinny build, made him the ideal intelligence officer. He was quick- witted and capable of easily vanishing into a crowd. Both skills proved useful during his time on the African continent as he helped the Nigerians in their failed attempt to wrestle control of their oil-rich Biafra region away from the British and Americans. 

             
After the debacle in Africa, he was moved back to France by his superiors to work counter-intelligence. He spent much of the 1970s and 1980s tracking spies on French soil. In 1986 he was moved into the Operations Division, orchestrating clandestine operations against allies and enemies of the French government in countries all over Europe and the Middle East. The end of the Cold War changed his superiors’ thinking, and many in the DGSE who were previously lauded by the politicians, soon came under close scrutiny for their shady dealings with the dictators and despots of the world. Solomon decided it was time to vanish before his past caught up with him and made him another nameless body in a back alley of any of one of the numerous countries in which he operated illegally.

He had
been preparing for the day of his escape for years. There were large sums of money sitting in bank accounts in Grand Cayman and Rio de Janeiro. When another DGSE agent named Jacque Mille disappeared into South America amidst heavy suspicion of selling radar secrets to drug lords, Solomon was finally given his opportunity. He was sent to track down the defector and bring him back. Instead, he used the opportunity to vanish into the mountains of South America. Ironically, he wished he was back in the steaming jungles of South America now. They were dangerous and wild, but the lawless mountains provided easy remedies for dealing with traitor and whores.

“This is the tape for the hour we chased her,” Solomon said as he grabbed the tape. “Let’s have a look at it. I was in ...Terminal One, right?”

“Yes, put it in,” Gregor replied. “The kid was jittery about us showing up. Let’s make this as quick as possible. We don’t want any surprises.” Originally from East Berlin, Gregor enlisted in the army at the age of eighteen. His clandestine potential was noticed by a member of the Stasi, East Germany’s security service that collected thousands of bits of information on everyone in East Germany during the height of the Cold War.  When the Berlin Wall collapsed, so did Gregor’s unflappable faith in Communism, and his love for East Germany turned into a seething hatred. All the leaders of the promised revolution disappeared, telling the West whatever it wanted to know and collecting large sums of money for doing it. Solomon used every moment available to him to poke fun at the tall German for actually believing that Communism was a viable form of government. 

Arab oil billionaires who paid top dollar for the best bodyguards available on the open market eventually recruited Gregor. Despite the exceptional income, Gregor did not like living in a region as unstable as the
Middle East, and he quickly accepted a job offer from Aman. Solomon continued to remind Gregor that he got his job only because of Solomon’s recommendation. It was just one of many areas of difficulty that caused friction between the two former Cold Warriors.

             
Solomon shoved the tape into the closest VCR. He could not believe that the airport had not upgraded their surveillance equipment to a newer format. He pushed “play” and a full view of Terminal One appeared on one of the numerous televisions. The time showed as 10:07 p.m. at the bottom of the television. Solomon fast-forwarded through the first portion, watching in silence as crowds of people flew threw the airport in the hyperactive motion that could only be provided by holding down the fast forward button. He keenly observed the clock in the corner, searching for the correct time. Gregor peered over his shoulder like a fifth grader trying to cheat on a test, and followed the speeding clock as well.

             
“This should be about the correct time,” Solomon spoke softly. Both men stared intently at the screen, looking for the woman. She finally came into view for the first time. The camera doing the filming was located behind her, and they watched her hustling through the crowd. She disappeared into the bathroom once before coming back into view. She appeared to make several circles around the same area as if she was searching for something or someone.

             
“There’s one possible drop,” Solomon said. “We need someone to search that bathroom immediately. Check all the toilets,” Solomon commanded Gregor, who nodded silently. 

             
This same sequence of events continued for twenty minutes with the different cameras throughout the terminal. She would disappear off the screen and another camera would pick her up a few minutes later. Solomon finally saw his own figure come into the picture. He allowed himself a small smirk of pride. He moved methodically and patiently in the video. The performance was pleasing, even to his critical eye. Finally he stopped the film at the point when he almost caught up with her. He closely studied her collision with the three strangers, and decided it could have easily been avoided.  He pushed “pause” on the VCR and stared intently at the surveillance video. It was not much help in identifying the three people.

“Worthless. This tape is worthless. Can you see their faces Gregor? I certainly ca
n’t,” he asked in a frustrated tone.

“Nothing
,” Gregor replied.  “They all have their backs to the camera.”

Solomon
once again made a mental note of their appearance as best he could tell. Perhaps he could find some better shots of them somewhere else in the tape.

             
“That cell phone could be anywhere, but my bet is these three,” Solomon concluded. “They’re the only group she actually collided with. All the other contacts were simply brush ups,” he added, now even more convinced she was an agent. FBI?  DEA? He would have to check with Aman when he returned. Aman possessed several great resources inside the government. He never divulged how he obtained the information, but Solomon had some hunches.

             
“I think you’re paranoid. Look at her erratic movements,” Gregor quickly disagreed. “She’s scared shitless and doesn’t know what to do. Are you sure it wasn’t just pure luck that she was able to escape? She could be sitting in some motel room on the strip getting high, and debating whether or not to flush that phone down the toilet. Worst case she could be a society slut or gossip columnist looking for a breakthrough story,” Gregor said in a staccato voice. Although Solomon did not say it out loud, Gregor could tell he was debating whether she could be some type of government agent.

             
“No, Gregor.” Solomon pointed at the footage and began to explain. “Her skittishness and jerky movements. It looks like she went up and down this same terminal five or six times. Why?” He answered his own question. “Because she knew exactly what she was doing,” Solomon nearly shouted. “This was planned. She had to have purchased a ticket beforehand to get to the departure area. This can only mean that was her intention. She was going to catch a plane, and we would have never caught her! Instead, we caught up to her quicker than she anticipated, so she was forced to dump the merchandise,” Solomon finished and waited for a response. After a few seconds of silence, he turned to see Gregor’s sharp-edged face and closely cropped salt and pepper hair still staring at the small television in front of them.

             
“Yes, I have to admit you could be right,” Gregor finally spoke. “Still, we should keep all options on the table. If you’re correct, then the real problem we have are those three people,” Gregor said as he pointed at the frozen image on the monitor. “Are they someone she just chose in a panic to dump it off on, or are they friends?” The German’s analytical mind contemplated the options. “If they are friends that makes things much more difficult. Nevertheless, we know our job. Find her. Kill her. It’s that simple,” Gregor concluded calmly.

“I hope so,” Solomon replied. “Let us go. This tape is going as well.” Solomon hit the “eject” button and gently placed the tape inside his sport coat. He hoped that after reviewing it again, he would be able to find a better shot of the three mystery people. Things would be much easier if they could narrow their search. As they stood up to leave the night watchman suddenly came back in unannounced, startling them both.

              “That’s it, boys. Time’s up. Now get out of here before you get me fired,” the watchman said sternly, his trembling hands revealing the false bravado of his voice.

             
“With pleasure,” Solomon said with a smile. “Thanks for the time again, Jimmy. Here’s another grand for your trouble.” Solomon reached into his pocket for a wad of bills and pressed them tightly into Jimmy’s hand. “We’re taking a tape. Use a blank one in its place, and erase this night from your memory completely,” Solomon said in a relieved tone. He was ready to leave.