Fortunes Obsession (2 page)

Consequently, he saw men of lesser ability and knowledge, go on to command positions, while he was fitted into slots that involved technical expertise.  What he was not, was a team player.  This was the part of his psychological profile that washed him out of the astronaut program.  He was a bitter and crushed man with a psychopathic desire for revenge.  He had begged Fahd's contacts to let him be part of whatever it was they were going to do but here too was rejected.  Since retiring from the Navy, he had held two high paying jobs in high technology companies and while they were satisfied with his technical knowledge, he could not fit in with their research and development teams.  He spent much of his time in the small house he rented near Orlando, drinking heavily and sleeping more hours than he needed.  His brain felt like it was about to explode from his frustrations and he walked the tightrope between sanity and insanity.  He had absolutely no idea who the man who passed him the briefcase was but he knew they knew everything about him.

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     The developed film was dry and ready for printing and the first step was to make contact sheets.  Peter cut the negatives into six exposure strips and placed them in the glass frame, which when exposed on the enlarger, made a sheet of thirty six negative size prints.  When these were inspected with a magnifying glass, the photographer could see which prints he wanted to enlarge and how he wanted to crop them for creative composition.

     He carefully inspected each print under the magnifier and found several immensely printable shots.  There was a young hot dog vendor, receiving a ticket from a policeman who could have been sent from central casting to play the mean cop.  There was a beautiful young woman eating a peach.  A balloon vendor selling a balloon to a small boy and countless other photos of note.

     When he got to the last pictures in which he shot out the roll on the group sitting on the park bench, he carefully inspected each person and groups of persons in the shot to see if there might be a picture within a picture.  It wasn't until his third time through the shots that he noted the two men with their hands on each other's briefcase.  At first he laughed, thinking that each had mistakenly taken the other's case.  The next time he looked, he saw a sequence of five frames in which it was obviously a purposeful act.  In another negative, the two furtively walked off in opposite directions.  Peter placed all of the frames under his large magnifying square and poured himself a Scotch on the rocks. He studied the shots over and over again and was convinced he was witness to some sort of crime or espionage.

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     Dara rang Fahd's doorbell and when he opened it had a look of joy on his face.  He took one of her slender hands kissed it and literally danced her into the room.

     " My darling", he said, " I am not at liberty to give you the details but I am in the midst of the largest business deal of my life.  I will be able to heap so many more luxuries upon you, my sweet one.  You will be like a queen."

     The aphrodisiac of greater wealth coursed through her body and she pushed him down on his large, white leather sectional and opened the kimono in which he came to the door.  His squat body covered with dark, bristly hair lay before her, already erect with desire.  She knelt before him on the floor and devoured him, hardly hearing his moans and cries as she went about her very professional skills.

     Later, as they sat on the couch sipping champagne from silver goblets, Fahd spoke.

     " Tomorrow, my love, I want you to do a very important errand for me,  I am going to give you an envelope.  You will drive to Paramus, New Jersey and give it to the person who answers the door at the address I will give you. He, in turn, will give you another

envelope which you will bring instantly to my office.  You will sleep here tonight and my driver will drop you at your garage. Do not go to your apartment. Go directly to the address I give you."

     Dara knew better than to protest or complain about a change of underwear.  She had long ago learned that her blind obedience paid off in enormous wealth.

     The next morning, Fahd's driver picked her up and drove her to her garage.  The driver watched her until she was in the car and on her way.  She had been instructed that the second envelope might take some time and that she was to wait for an answer no matter how long it took.  What she did not know was that the envelope contained a description and an asking price for the information on Cape Canaveral that Fahd had received from Collins.

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     All day Sunday, Peter puzzled over the photographs.  Obviously, something sinister was going down.....but what?  His first inclination was that it was none of his business but the longer he thought about it, the more he thought that it might be a Police matter.  He decided to show the shots to the Detective Squad at the local precinct.

      The detective he sat across the desk from looked nothing like anyone's idea of a detective.  His name was Nicholas Rapuano and he was thin and slight.  His longish hair fell over his ears and his nicotine stained fingers were topped off by nails bitten to the quick.  He wore jeans and a tattered sweatshirt.  Only his plastic identification badge, gun and handcuffs gave a clue that he was a policeman.  Rapuano looked at the photos, shaking his head.

     " Now let me get this straight.  You want us to open an investigation based on a picture of two creeps switching briefcases in the park?  In case you don't know it, Mr. Fortune.....this is not a felony.....it isn't even a misdemeanor.  This is fuckin' New York City.  People are killing each other and ripping each other

off all the time." He slapped the photos down in front of Peter, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and muttering to himself.

     " In other words", Peter said, " You're telling me to take a hike."

     " Now you got it", Rapuano said, his smile showing jagged chipped teeth.

     " Thank you very much for your support", Peter said facetiously.  " It's always nice to know the finest are looking out for us."

     Rapuano got up and walked across the room, rummaging through a file.  " Have a nice day, Mr. Fortune."

     Peter took the envelope with the photographs and walked toward his building.  The more he thought about it, the more he understood what the detective was saying.  He guessed that he was a fool for even pursuing it.  His fascination continued, however and when he arrived at home, he blew up the entire sequence, put them on the dryer and hung them on his corkboard wall.  He spent the rest of the afternoon studying the photos until the two men were firmly implanted in his mind.  When he went to sleep on Sunday evening, he awoke fitfully several times during the night.  He had a repeating dream where the two men switched briefcases again and again. He awoke for good a five a.m.  A hot shower and several cups of steaming black coffee took the bugs out of his head.  He drank the coffee in his studio, staring at the photographs until his eyes hurt.

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     Dara rolled the Porsche through the city streets, yearning for a stretch where she could open it up.  She felt at her freest when she was speeding along an interstate.  The power of the automobile was yet another aphrodisiac.  She thought nothing of the envelope that was beside her on the passenger seat.  She truly believed that Fahd was a wealthy silk broker and that she was taking a bill of materials for perusal by a client.  She turned the radio to a Spanish language station and put the radio on full bass and high volume.  The beat of the salsa music gave her a light and breezy feeling which added to her euphoria.  She truly enjoyed being affluent, having come from a family in which her steel worker father had to scrape and save and work himself to an early death at fifty five , in order to clothe, feed and educate his family. She thought of her father often and of how proud he would have been of her wealth, if not the way she achieved it.  Sometimes, in weaker moments, she thought of a normal existence with a young, attractive man with whom she would spend the rest of her life in connubial bliss.  Someday, she would like to have children of her own and give them what her parents couldn't give her.  For this reason, with the advice of Fahd and other financially adept friends, she was putting away money in solid investments for her future.

     Five miles past the George Washington bridge, she was finally able to achieve the speed that thrilled her.  With her state of the art radar detector on, she brought the speedometer to eighty five. The windows and the electric sliding roof were open and the wind ran through her long blonde hair while the salsa beat provided the

background.  When she reached her exit in Paramus, she was disappointed.

     The address turned out to be a modest white house on an unpretentious street.  She took the envelope in hand and rang the bell. When the door opened a stout, middle eastern looking man with a full black beard flecked with grey opened the door.  He wore a T-shirt which was stained and dingy and his wrinkled trousers hung below his pot belly.  He exhibited an unsavory smile and showed stained teeth.  He leered at her as if stripping her naked with his eyes.  She was suddenly conscious that she wore her dress over her naked body with no underwear or stockings, having no clean underthings this morning.  She was suddenly frightened and would have liked to wait outside but was ever obedient of Fahd's bidding. This kind of blind obedience had made her a rich woman and she wasn't about to jeopardize that.

     She was led to a couch and motioned to sit, while the heavy man read what was in the envelope.  During the reading, he kept looking up at her with that lascivious smile.  She was conscious of the eerie quiet in the house and of the smell of lamb.  The combination of sensory stimuli, the heavy, frightening man, the quiet dark ambiance of the house and the smell of long ago cooked lamb, all but nauseated her as she sat uncomfortably on the couch.

After reading the letter, he walked to a phone and dialed, all the while looking at her with satanic lust.  He spoke Arabic fast and loud, with intermittent laughing and glances in her direction.

He then did something strange.  He walked into the kitchen, which

was visible from the sitting room and lit a match to the envelope and it's contents, after which he flushed it down the drain.

Dara sat demurely, not showing she was watching.

     " Is nothing to take back. Your boss say you are part of deal. You stay with me for while."  He leered at her and his black eyes seemed to pierce through her very being.

     She felt her blood run cold with fright. She was only about ten feet from the door and calculated a run for it.  She could see the dead bolt wasn't locked, so it would be a simple matter of turning the knob and running like hell.  She did not want to jeopardize her relationship with Fahd, so she decided to go to the phone and call him.  There was one time that he asked her to have sex with a customer.  That one, however, was a beautiful young man with movie star good looks and a body to match and Fahd himself stayed to watch and later join in.  She couldn't believe he would give her, his jewel of jewels, to this monster.  She coolly walked to the phone and started to dial Fahd's number.  He reached around her and pushed down the receiver with one hand.  He had the other hand on her buttocks and was squeezing so hard that she was in pain.  She could hear him panting and his foul breath reached her nostrils.  She got her wits about her.  She was five inches taller, thirty years younger and determined as hell to get out of this bind. The fear had been replaced by a burst of adrenaline. She spun around quickly and kneed him in the crotch.  As he doubled over in surprise, she ran for the door.  She looked up as she entered her car, trembling and saw him at the door. He did not follow her.

Instead, he stood at the door, laughing, his head thrown back and the rolls of fat around his middle vibrating.

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     Peter dressed himself in a blue suit, blue shirt and floral patterned tie.  There was no resemblance to the free form young man of the weekend.  He looked every inch the young, successful executive.  He walked to his office each morning, rain or shine. Like most young people who walked in Manhattan, he wore running shoes and carried his polished black dress shoes in a gym bag.

In the gym bag, he also carried a folding umbrella and a light, waterproof poncho.  The events of the weekend were mind boggling but he tried to cleanse them from his mind.  After all, he had a life to lead and the exchange of briefcases was probably nothing, anyway.  The more he tried to convince himself, the less he believed it was an inconsequential act but what was he to do?

     He stood at the elevator of his

third avenue

office building,

ready to start his working day. If he had looked at the building directory and seen the name Trans Orient Silks it would have meant nothing to him at that point in time.

               ************************************

     Fahd hung up the phone and grinned from ear to ear.  Ali Bokaar, his New Jersey contact had read the description of the documents in his possession and was out of his mind with enthusiasm. This was just what his organization was looking for.

This was something that would make the WorldTradeCenter look like an amateur caper.