Sudden Deception (A Jill Oliver Thriller) (17 page)

“How will this mule get the money into Germany?” the staunch man asked.

At the other end of the table the bald man shifted in his chair. “This, my brothers, I have taken care of.” His accent, except for the tongue curl on the r, could pass as American. But he was Arab. His eyes beamed bright blue, and his skin was slightly tanned. “I have someone on the inside at airport security. The mule will pass through customs and security; he will not be checked.” He leaned confidently back in his chair, slouching to the right.

“Who is this mule?” asked the quiet man next to the Chechen. It was the first time he had spoken in this meeting. The fat man’s cigar was squashed in the ashtray, remnants of smoke floating skyward.

“He’s a contractor. Experienced. Trustworthy,” the Arab answered abruptly. “I have used him before in Afghanistan; he will do the job well.”

“My brothers are ready,” the Chechen bragged in broken English. “We are always ready.”

“Brothers,” the fat man spoke, “when this transaction is complete we will have what we need to secure more than just the Russian oil.” Shoulders around the table shifted to relax. Blatant smirks abounded when the fat man lifted both his arms and said loudly, “Ochrana.”

“Ochrana,” they replied in unison.

***

Jill blinked back disbelief as she looked down at the clay numbers. She heard her mobile ringing, but she did not answer it. She just sat there and stared, her jaw dropped. This was different than any viewing she had ever had. The page in the notebook was blank. Screw the phone, she thought as she grabbed her notebook and splashed what she had just viewed onto the page.

Ochrana, Russian oil, Operation Silhouette. “What the hell is Operation Silhouette, and what the hell is Ochrana?” As she sat back, she contemplated what this viewing could mean. She did not see David in the viewing, and she couldn’t see the face of the fat man as her view had been from behind the man at the head of the table. All she could see was his shadow, his silhouette.

“What did you get yourself into, David? What did you get us both into?” Jill was pissed off. She was mostly pissed off at David for not disclosing more of what he was doing. She was also pissed that her search for him took her into dangerous territory. She had killed a man, Goddamnit! That realization haunted her. She killed him trying to find David. Kill or be killed, she'd have to reconcile herself to that fact. But she was more pissed off than ever that her vision did not contain David or anything recognizable to help her find him.

She stood up fast, marched over to the mobile, picking it up. The call display was showing a number she didn’t recognize: 00.

She was still holding the phone when she heard a ringing. But it wasn't her mobile. It was the black handset beside the printer on the desk.

“Oliver here,” she barked into the phone.

It was Johan’s assistant, summoning her to the brief. GSG’s HQ was in the heart of Hamburg, and it was no wonder that the city was called the Gateway to the World. A few hundred kilometers upstream from the North Sea, large deep sea vessels would anchor at the port here, one of the biggest and busiest in Germany. Jill could hear David giving her the rundown, “Hamburg is Germany’s most influential city. It houses Germany’s most prominent media houses oldest stock exchange, and has the highest cost of living in Europe.” She thought she could hear the national anthem of the US playing on a loudspeaker as they drove along the Elbe on the way to HQ. The driver sensed her curiosity “Each vessel plays its national anthem when they sail toward the port, like a welcome salute,” he said.

They drove over so many bridges that Jill thought of Venice, then at last they parked in front of GSG. The barren gray building exterior did not hint to the beauty of the high-tech briefing room. The glow of technology blipped around the dim room. A clear screen depicted a world map punctuated with smatterings of red glowing dots. At the top left of the screen was what appeared to be two live closed-circuit television (CCTV) video cameras that transmitted a signal to a specific set of monitor feeds. The cameras in the feeds were focused on two different locations. One looked like it was covering the outside of a warehouse, but it was dark out now and hard to distinguish from the angle where Jill stood. The other feed was a shot of a deserted street where a lone white van was parked. On the right of the briefing table sat a group of computers that formed a large circle facing inward toward the middle of the room. Empty chairs sat in front of their screens.

A straight-backed man spoke English, clearly for Jill’s benefit, and directed her to sit down in the last open chair. There were four men and one woman dressed in form-fitting black suits surrounding the round table. The man annoyed by her interruption stopped and turned in her direction. “Team,” he said half-heartedly, “this is Jill Oliver. She is on special assignment from America. She is familiar with this level of terrorism and is renowned for her profiling skills.” He then continued as he turned back to the group.

“As you know, an Egyptian name Ibirham Akhmed is trying to sell two bars of enriched uranium. We’ve heard from our NOC, non-official cover for GSG, and it appears the sale is going to happen tomorrow night.” The stocky man’s black suit matched the rest of the staff sitting at the table. He stopped speaking when another man walked into the briefing center. Heads turned as he approached Jill.

“You must be Jill.” He extended his hand. “I am Johan Rhein, but you can just call me chief.” He had no accent. “If you need anything, please let me know personally.”

Taking a step back, he addressed the team with a nod. “Jill was recently in Afghanistan and I am told she was given the name Petrovich by an informant there. I haven’t had time to speak to her in detail.” He looked over in Jill’s direction. “Jill, can you tell us what you know?”

“Well, I was in Afghanistan working on an unrelated assignment and was given an address in Kushka…” Jill trailed off when their eyes began to glass over. The lone woman was clicking her pen as if to speed Jill up. “Kushka is in northern Afghanistan. I followed the lead to a smaller town. It turned out to be deserted. I did, however, find a large villa that had a power generator running. It was guarded by a watchman, but I managed to get inside without being noticed.” The lone woman sighed loudly, egging Jill on. “The villa was empty; there was nothing there. Sorry I couldn’t be of any more help. But I will say this. Somehow Petrovich must be connected with LSA.” Just then all eyes came to attention. “The reason I was in Kushka was based on a lead that had something to do with the Lost Soviet Arsenal. I just don’t know why I was given his name. You see…”

One of the men was about to say something when Johan interrupted.

“Petrovich.” Johan reached over, shuffled a couple of the folders, and handed one to Jill. “We think he is behind the sale of the uranium and we feel that sale is imminent.” Jill opened to a photo of Petrovich. He had weathered skin with a strong jaw—and maybe a broken nose in his past - aged fifty-two according to the file. Dark eyes, deep cold black eyes. Jill slightly cringed as she looked at the pictures of his buffed tattooed body and skinhead look. She wouldn’t want to meet him in a back alley, or anywhere else for that matter.

“How sure are you about this?” Jill enquired. “Is Petrovich working with Matta Al Jazzeria or Al Qaeda?

“We don't think they are connected. Petrovich is Russian and the Russians regard Al Qaeda as kleine kartoffel.“

“Kleine what?”

“Small potatoes.” There was a slight chuckle in the room.

“Do you have any information on Petrovich’s whereabouts?” Jill asked. “Was he in Afghanistan recently?”

“We believe he was,” Johan said. The sound of rustling pages began anew, and he handed out folders to everyone seated at the table.

Jill looked down at the gray folder and flicked it open. They collectively reviewed the list of potential buyers and their backgrounds. Ibrahim’s thin file told Jill that he was a new player in the terrorist game. To have a pending sale of this magnitude, there must be someone with more clout higher up in the organization pulling his strings. The exposé detailed the evidence of connections with East Germany’s Secret Police, who until the fall of the wall, regarded the Soviet Union as a loyal partner. That would make the Petrovich connection possible.

She didn’t know much about the Stasi. “The Stasi was run using an estimated 300,000 political informants,” Johan said. “Although known for a successful underground system of record keeping, the Stasi disbanded in 1989. Since then the records of all the people under surveillance have been released and published. We have matched two of these names from this open source database. We believe that the buyers may be from one of the Arab countries currently suffering current unrest, but don't have anything further.” Pages rustled again as the agents flicked through the lists of people.

As unsettling as it was to Jill, America was not so different these days. Wikipedia, Wikileaks. It's all out there for people to find. You just have to look hard enough.

“It’s going to be a long night, folks. In your folders is your assignment. It must be completed before twenty-three hundred,” he commanded. The sounds of chairs scraping across the floor indicated the briefing was over.

“Chief, can I speak to you in private?” Jill asked, feeling the glares of the others burning a hole in her cheek. He paused, allowing her to join him beside the empty computers. He was over six feet tall and his pale face looked down at her. His hair would put him in his early fifties, but he had no wrinkles to match. He crossed his arms and slight creases in his black suit bunched the inside of his elbows.

Jill began impatiently, “I am sorry to interrupt, but I think this may be important. Eric said you would give me access to your resources.

“Yes Ms. Oliver you have been cleared to our level of security, equivalent to the CIA in your country. We need as much insight on Petrovich as we can get before tomorrow night and you are the first to have recent information.”

“I am not sure if Eric told you why I am in Hamburg?”

“Yes, he said that your husband is the missing reporter and you think he is here.”

“I can’t explain this, sir, but I think these names may be related to Petrovich. Can you run them?” Jill pushed the post-it note toward him.

“Americans, David and Stan Brown. Highly unlikely.” He looked back at Jill. “But I will run their names.” He was humoring her.

“When is the sale happening? Do you need me?”

Resting his right butt cheek on the table, he said apprehensively, “Jill, this is a very sensitive operation. We’ve put too many man-hours in this to have anything go wrong. A female American law enforcement officer would potentially raise a red flag. You could be part of the communications team.” He explained that she could be in the surveillance van and watch the take-down. “But that’s pretty much it.”

Jill didn’t insist. Frankly, she wasn’t much interested in German policing. If it hadn’t been for Petrovich, she wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about it all, and would be doing her own investigation on German soil.

“I’ll have the driver take you back to your hotel. Report in at thirteen hundred tomorrow,” he said, a little too gruffly, as he walked away.

21:09 Zulu Time—HAMBURG, GERMANY

Food sat on the plate, picked through. Back in the comfort of her hotel room, Jill clutched a glass of Cab Sav and lay on the bed. She thought since it was past eleven o’clock in the evening that she would be hungrier than she was. She nursed a long sip and attempted to digest her day. With no resolve, she gulped down the rest of the glass and laid her head back. Her thoughts swirled around David and Petrovich.

Why Petrovich, David? The sale of uranium—man, that was a great story. Her heart sank just a bit as she wondered why David had not taken the time to contact her, and now with it being international news that David was officially missing … maybe that was why she hadn’t heard from him. He must be undercover. She knew she was getting closer to David; she could feel it. But where would she start in Hamburg? If Petrovich was David's story then the sale of uranium from Petrovich would make sense of why David was in Afghanistan. Based on Jill's experience she couldn't imagine that Petrovich would be in Germany where the sale was about to take place. Unless Petrovich's group was thin. Then he'd have no choice. Jill’s mind was racing in the tunnels. There would be no sleep tonight.

She sat up and walked over to the desk, opened her computer then walked over to figure out the cappuccino-maker.

After twenty minutes of fiddling, Jill sat and sipped the cappuccino while she checked her e-mails. The one from Karine had two words only.

Call Me. Then a P.S. No matter what time.

Alarm stung Jill, and she quickly dialed Karine.

“I couldn’t find any connection to the Star of David,” Karine said. “Are you sure it was the Star of David?”

“Well, it’s a drawing, Karine. A scribble in my notebook, you know the kind.” The caffeine had a kick to it, her answer coming out fast.

“Is it a six-pointed star? Does your drawing have six points?”

“Stand by.” Jill walked over and grabbed her notebook. She sat back down, propped up her feet, picked up the phone and held the notebook open on the desk. “Yup, it has six points. Why?”

“I did a lot of reading regarding the Star of David for you. People today relate it to Judaism. Did you know that prior to World War II the Star of David was not truly a Jewish symbol?” Karine skipped a beat, excited that she had some information of interest, as trivial as it may be. “The origins are quite vague, Jill, and it was also used by Christians and Muslims. The six points represent the absolute rule of God over the universe in all directions. The north, south, east, west, up, and down are all under one God's rule. It may also symbolize the dual nature of good and evil and could be used to protect people against evil spirits.”

“Interesting … I guess.” Jill was only slightly intrigued.

“Do you think your drawing is about protecting yourself, a warning maybe?” The vocal vibration and the slight voice pitch told Jill that Karine was worried.

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” she said trying to ease Karine’s fears away. However, Jill felt a nag tickle her brain.

“There’s more, Jill. This star is called a hexagram and dates back to 922 BC in Egypt. It was also known for its role in Arab magic, and was used by the freemasonry as early as the seventeenth century. Jill, Hitler used this as a symbol of shame to the Jews in the Holocaust, and today’s version of the hexagram is used as a proud symbol of Jewish honor on Israel’s flag.”

“Arab magic. What is Arab magic?” Jill shifted her feet off the desk and sat up.

“I thought that would get your attention. So far I can’t seem to find much on it, but it is strange that you have been pretty much in the Middle East. There has to be some sort of connection.”

“Hmmm, I will see what I can find on the net about it; maybe I will ask around. But people will look at me like I'm a nutcase if I ask about magic, never mind Arab magic. But I guess it’s worth a shot,” Jill negotiated with herself.

“Well, that’s about it to report. I can’t find any information on Ochrana, if that’s even a word. It’s as if it doesn’t exist, just like Zayed. Speaking of Zayed, I gave his alias to Eric. He said he’d make a few calls to see who he is.”

“No need, Karine. He’s dead,” Jill said with a tired sigh.

“Dead, how?”

Jill gave Karine the Coles Notes version of what happened in Kushka. “Anyway, let me know if Eric finds anything on him. It may help us figure out where David is. And Karine, I think there may be a connection between that car I thought was following me in Tucson and the Chechens here. Did you get any info on them?”

“I haven’t heard from Eric about it. When I speak to him next I’ll ask. Wow, Jill, this is getting crazy. Oh, I almost forgot. Take this number down. Leila keeps calling. She said she hasn’t heard from David but needs to speak to you.” After rechecking the number, they hung up.

Leila, finally. She’s probably just worried about me. Jill got up and brewed another cappuccino, then returned to the indented seat in front of the computer to Google “Arab+magic”.

“No Arab magic wiki, that’s gotta tell you something.” She uttered to herself. She needed to stay focused on Ochrana, but somehow she was pulled to find more about what this Arab magic was. More out of interest, than any relevance to finding David.

Looking at the scratched number on her pad, she reached over and dialed.

“Sorel,” a groggy voice answered.

“Leila, this is Jill.” She glanced over at the time. “What time is it there? Wait, where is there?”

“Don’t be pissed at Karine, Jill. She told me you were in Hamburg. I was in Brussels and hopped on the train. I got into Hamburg around midnight. Jill, where are you staying?”

Silence. Jill realized she did not take notice of the name of her hotel. Was she losing her touch? She felt comfortable in Germany; after all, it was Europe, with more CCTV cameras than one would hope to encounter.

“I-I don’t know. It’s a long story, Leila. Hold on.” She riffled through the top drawer of the desk to find a letterhead. “Fairmont on Neuer Jungfernstieg nine-fourteen.”

“Are you okay?” Leila pitched. “Why are you in Hamburg?”

“I am okay, but well … I can’t talk about this over the phone. Why did you go to Brussels? Have you heard from David?”

“Not exactly.”

Jill’s heart skipped. “What do you mean … not exactly?”

“Like you said, Jill, not over the phone. But I need to see you. I have been doing my own search and I’ve found out some interesting information. I’m on my way over to your hotel now.”