Kill Them Wherever You Find Them (56 page)

Director Pierce was reminded of a recording
that one of the SIS Covert Communications listening stations in
Europe had made of a mobile phone conversation between the Holy
Father and a Bishop in Germany known as the "Bishop of Bling." What
he wouldn't have given to have been in Vatican City when the
gently, but pointedly, chastised bishop arrived.

The SIS, every bit as much as the American
Homeland Security, monitored global communications, including that
of their closest allies. The only difference between the SIS and
Homeland Security was that the SIS hadn't been caught with their
hand in the cookie jar. Recent events with the Americans listening
in on private conversations with world leaders, including the
German Chancellor and even the Pope, proved quite the embarrassment
to the POTUS. A joke even circulated that Homeland Security was the
only
American governmental agency that actually
did
listen to people!

"When do you expect the mission to be
completed?"

"He will be in Israel by this time tomorrow.
Because she is not a high-ranking employee of The Project, security
around her place of residence is not quite as restrictive as it may
well have otherwise been. I would expect all to be tied up no later
than Thursday night."

"Very good. This still leaves us with the
situation regarding Dr. Levin. You are certain there is no possible
way to coax the information we need out of him?"

"No, Sir. The background information we had
on him, including the psych profile, indicate a very high degree of
certainty that we would encounter significant resistance in
obtaining the data our scientists required to complete our own
Project. With his wife dead, not only will he have lost the will to
live, he would kill every one of us, were that possible. No, he is
useless. I would point out, I was against this from the
beginning."

"Yes I know, more than once you went on the
record with your opposition. It was my call to make. Under the
circumstances it was the right call. At the time, he was our best
chance at going operational on schedule. I am open to
suggestions."

"He is under heavy sedation. I propose we
terminate him, he has no life worth living now. Certainly he will
be of no value to us except as a bargaining chip with the Israelis,
should it come to that."

"No, I meant that I'm open to suggestions in
the matter of acquiring the technology and expertise we need to
close the final gaps. Dr. Levin is to remain unharmed. Am I
clear?"

"Yes Sir, perfectly. From the wealth of
information that Agent Northrup has passed on to us, we've
assembled dossiers on a few scientists who we believe would be able
to fill in those gaps."

"It stands to reason, however, Prime
Minister, that security will now not only be heightened, but
impenetrable where the leaders of their Project are concerned."

"That indeed stands to reason. My concern is
that only the people who are the heads of the three facilities
within the Israeli Project would be able to give us what we
need."

"That is correct. And of the directors of the
facilities, only one, Dr. Barkat, would have complete knowledge,
equal to that of Dr. Levin. With his kidnapping, certainly with the
circumstances surrounding it, she will be untouchable. We believe,
with a high degree of probability, our best option is Dr. Rachael
Siwel. Based on the dossier we've put together on her, we are given
to understand that she has worked with The Project since its
inception. It also appears that she formed a friendship with Dr.
Levin since well before The Project. Having worked in his facility,
a facility which combined its work with that of the other two
facilities, she is our best option; very likely our only
option."

"What makes you think that she'll cooperate
with us?"

"Frankly, sir, I don't know that she will.
But, unlike Dr. Levin, she has children. If we can get to her
children, she is ours. Getting to her children, that's going to be
the most difficult obstacle. It may be that the families of
Project
members will be brought into their compound until
they assess what they want to do in light of Dr. Levin's abduction.
I have people working on that angle now."

"Neville, we can't allow this to become an
international incident. If the Israelis were to discover what we
are doing, who knows how they would respond. Whatever the response,
given their capabilities both militarily and in terms of time
manipulation, it wouldn't bode well for either of us."

"Quite right."

"I've instructed MI5 to tighten security
around the buildings and personnel of our own Project. Should the
Israelis discover what we're doing, they will target our Project
with everything they've got."

Sir Pierce absentmindedly nodded his head in
agreement.

"I trust you will be at the meeting with the
lead scientists of our Project, and their security detail?"

"Yes, Prime Minister. The military liaison
will be there as well?"

"Yes, of course, of course."

"Then, if there's nothing more . . ."

"I believe everything has been covered, for
now. Thank you Neville."

The Prime Minister, ever the consummate
gentleman, stood and shook the hand of his SIS Director; a
formality the PM extended to all, regardless of rank or
circumstance.

"One more thing, Neville. Inform me when Dr.
Levin reaches his destination. Additionally, I want confirmation
once Agent Northrup has been dispatched."

Table of Contents

6.
Stranglehold

“
I believe the biggest problem that
humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is
right or wrong and identifying what one's
strengths
and weaknesses are.”
- Ray Dalio

Atlantic Ocean, off the Coast of
Brazil

"Detective, I need to speak
with you for a
moment please." The partner of the man conducting the interview
deferentially called him out of the room for what, apparently, was
something more important than this interview.

"Too many people, too many questions," Marco
thought to himself. More than anything he just wanted this whole
debacle to go away. Life was difficult enough without having the
investigation of the kidnapping from the resort to complicate
it.

Marco had worked his way up the ladder from
maintenance to the head of the human resources department, earning
a degree in Hospitality Industry Human Resources Management while
attending over four years of night school, first getting the
prerequisites - most of them useless - out of the way.

He was proud of his accomplishments, even
more proud of his ability to support his family and enjoy a
comfortable lifestyle that still seemed to him a fantastic
daydream, more than a reality.

Unaccustomed to the kind of money he was
making, he enjoyed this financial freedom to something of an
extreme he had to admit, especially easy access to safe and
reliable drugs.

Heroin had asserted itself as his drug of
choice, becoming a demanding mistress. Before he realized what had
happened. This mistress proved to be a master who he could never
appease; muscles aching and thoughts fragmenting whenever she chose
to assert herself.

Nervous, always moving, pacing, irritable, he
was certain that somebody would find his stash and steal it from
him. Without realizing it Marco was always looking over his
shoulder, fearful that his life that both loved and hated would
come crashing down around him.

Anna, his wife, looked at him suspiciously
every time he came home later than expected. She had to be on to
him, surely she pieced together the fact that the 'other woman' was
something he shot into his veins regularly.

Trying to hide the tell-all needle marks, he
took to shooting in the veins of the soles of his feet, never
removing his shoes until he got ready for bed. Somehow, he managed
to keep his feet out of view, even from his wife. It had been
months since he joined his wife and children on the beach - this
did not go unnoticed by his vocal daughter.

Marco did everything he could to avoid his
wife's stare, her questioning and condemning look. His children
were no different. He could tell that they somehow knew. Most
nights now he came up with an excuse for being so late, if he even
came home at all.

Food, shelter, medical bills, and expense of
a private education, were just barely within the budget that his
income allowed him. His addiction-driven debt to his heroin
supplier exceeded his income, but he just had to have it.

He needed a 'fix' just to get through the
day. Lately, what with all the pressure and all, he found that he
had to shoot up two, sometimes even three, times a day.

Paying cash the first few times his dealer
told him that his credit was good, should Marco ever find himself
in a pinch. The initially generous dealer even gave him a little
more with the first three purchases as a generous token of his
esteem and trust. Now in serious debt to the man, the plush life
that Marco enjoyed had turned into a living nightmare. No, even
worse than that. One eventually awakens from a nightmare.

In his youth he grew up in the favelas, an
area of sprawling slums around the city of Rio de Janeiro. To
support her family after their father abandoned them his mother
turned to prostitution as a source for income.

Marco thought that he understood desperation
and fear in his mom's hollow eyes. Her once beautiful face turned
gaunt, haunted, selling her body and dignity to barely feed her
family - her pimp extorting her nightly for the lion's share of the
cash, sometimes exacting from her more than money as an 'employment
insurance policy.'

Having fallen prey to one of the fatal
diseases of her profession, young Marco had to take care of her and
his sibling while she lay dying.

True fear hit home as he scavenged the trash
of others to bring home scraps of food that instantly disappeared
inside the mouths of his emaciated siblings.

Unable to find a compassionate doctor who
would come into the favela even once to take care of his mother, or
write a prescription sight unseen to alleviate her pain, he hatched
a plan to give her some relief from her suffering as well as stock
up on medicines that would be needed by her and his siblings in the
future.

Marco convinced some other scavenger children
from the favela to join him in an exciting adventure that would
give them enough money to buy anything they wanted.

The next morning they made their way to a
large pharmacy on the outskirts of the city, just a few kilometers
from where their favela ended. Meeting half a block away from the
pharmacy they reviewed their plan to rob the pharmacist, taking all
of the cash.

During the confusion and hysteria that was
certain to ensue he would empty as many drugs as he could from the
shelf closest to him into a wadded up shopping bag he held tightly
in his hand. He would be out of there before the boys had their
money.

Nothing went as planned.

Marco, of course, knew about roaming gangs of
young men, thugs in reality, who were paid by shop owners in the
more affluent areas of Rio to keep waifs and child beggars away
from their places of business. Little children who constantly
begged the tourist for food or worse, money, were bad for
business.

As they were discussing their plan,
attempting to bolster their group courage, and excitement at the
very audacity of it all, one of the roving for-pay shop protection
gangs tore into them like a pack of ravenous wolves among
defenseless kittens.

All but one of the boys managed to escape
with their lives. Until now that was the greatest fear Michael had
ever known.

His second month of indebtedness to his
dealer brought with it a warning in the form of a box, delivered
directly to his office in a gift wrapped box by special
courier.

Innocently opening the box, expecting some
form of gratuity from a grateful employee of the resort as such was
not uncommon, he was totally unprepared for what lay therein.

A note accompanying a bloodied, graying
severed hand explained to Marco that this is what happens to
deadbeats who don't pay their debts. The transparent meaning, and
the identity of the sender, were not lost on him.

Given his increased levels of stress and
fear, the fortuitous timing of the stranger who offered to pay his
drug debt, if he were to simply employ two maids without looking
into their background or work history, was an answer from a heaven
that he didn't really believe in.

Their first day on the job one of the maids,
named Maria, knocked lightly on his door to tell him that his drug
debt had been paid-in-full. Before leaving she dropped a full
week's supply of heroin on his desk for him.

It wasn't until a file containing a video of
him shooting up in his office was also left on his desk sometime
later that the haze parted, allowing his drug-clouded mind to
process the fact that he was in bed with an unknown devil.

Adding to his already growing mountain of
problems, a guest disappeared from the resort and detectives were
snooping around, asking a lot of questions.

Everywhere he looked he saw faces that he
couldn't trust. What had initially been a healthy sense of
self-preservation was now full-blown paranoia.

This third interview with the detectives was
untenable. He felt as if a hangman's noose was tightening around
his neck, choking the will to live out of him. If they dug into his
life and questionable hiring practices, the facts alone would
provide the materials to build the gallows for the hangman.

He had to think of a way to extricate himself
from the situation. His dealer had proven himself adept at making
people disappear, perhaps he'd be willing to help Marco, a valued
customer.