The Bleeding Sun (5 page)

It seemed like someone had managed to get
hold of a few pieces of the prototype which had purposefully not
been destroyed during the purge. Surely there were other pieces of
the prototype in the market since Lucas was too small and
unimportant a target to waste such a valuable weapon on. If there
were other pieces of the APTS around, then Lucas needed to find and
destroy them before they could be misused. He also needed to find
out how these prototypes managed to stay intact after the purge.
Someone from the Indian or the Russian side must have been involved
and Lucas needed to find them out too. As the cab approached the
road leading to Maria’s duplex in Marianao, he noticed the presence
of the police and emergency vehicles. A plume of black smoke could
be seen around the corner. He was shocked at the sight of the place
when his cab turned around the corner.

Maria’s house had been reduced to a heap of
rubble and the entire neighborhood was burning in flames. As per
the policemen and the medical teams, a series of explosions had
rocked the neighborhood earlier in the day. The impact of the
explosions had damaged the entire neighborhood and the old
buildings nearby were beginning to collapse. While the police and
the firemen tried frantically to rescue the residents from the
nearby buildings Lucas sneaked into one of the police vans and
grabbed hold of a laptop. The last logs showed the details of the
distress call made from the area by one of the residents about a
possible missile strike. The police headquarters had later played
down the claims of a missile strike and treated it as a terrorist
attack. Maria’s residence had been identified and marked as an Al
Qaeda hideout which was destroyed by the terrorists as they tried
to cover up their operations when neighbors had started suspecting
their actions. All the terrorists were killed in the process when
their bombs detonated before they could leave the place. The
deceased list showed Maria Rosario Morales as a prime Al Qaeda
operative among four others who were possibly killed in the
incident.

Lucas connected his watch with the terminal and
logged into the ANNT network. He searched the database for ‘Viper’
and ‘Dimitri’. The results were quite amusing. Dimitri Bertsekas
was Rosmus’s right hand man…the one who handled all his illegal
transactions in the Middle East. No one had ever seen his face and
none of the security agencies around the world had any details on
what he looked like or even his whereabouts. He was a Ghost and the
only identification mark that the security agencies knew about was
the tattoo of a rattle snake wrapped around a dagger along his
spine. He initially belonged to Romanovich’s payroll before moving
over to Rosmus’s team. Apparently Romanovich was a close friend of
Rosmus and had personally suggested Dimitri’s name since he had
made a big investment in Rosmus’s operations as well and wanted to
have the entire operation monitored by someone he could trust.

As for Viper, it was the name of the security
organization which handled the security of Romanovich’s business
establishments all over the world. The notorious crew mostly
consisted of handpicked ruthless mercenaries and criminals from
around the world who were paid enough dough to ensure that they
would do anything that Romanovich wanted them to do. Seems like
Rosmus was up to something big with the Al Qaeda and Suleiman
involved and was using Romanovich’s help in terms of finances,
contacts, establishment as well as crew to execute his plan.

Suddenly the scenario was starting to make a little
sense. From the very moment Lucas had landed in Cuba, he had been
under constant surveillance. His whereabouts were being tracked
through the APTS. Maria had had to pay the ultimate price owing to
this. However he was still not sure how the APTS was implanted in
his PDA in the first place. Was he tracked from the very moment the
mission was handed over to him? What happened to Annie and was this
somehow related to the attack on the Serpent as well? He even
started wondering whether Major Kapoor was involved in this
although his conscience was not willing to believe it.

He was now pretty sure about the work Agent Alpha
was doing in Cuba. Alpha must have had received Intel on the fact
that prototypes of the APTS were still available and had fallen in
the wrong hands. He must have traced it back to Suleiman and Rosmus
before he was brutally mutilated and murdered. Only two questions
still remained unanswered…What was Rosmus planning to do and how
was the APTS used to track him down. Lucas turned off the console
and swiftly left the police van. He had to prepare for the next
night. He was going to pay Rosmus, Suleiman and Romanovich a
surprise visit…at their own backyard…the Tropicana casino. But
first, he needed to rescue Annie, wherever she was being held.

Tropicana Casino

Lucas took a cab and headed off to Centro Havana. He
ensured that the power source of the APTS module was not working
anymore and could not track him any further. He took the remains
with him in case it would come handy at a later stage. He had to
work on his reconnaissance as well as be prepared for alternate
plans to find Annie, in case he wasn’t able to extract information
from the casino about her whereabouts. Also Rosmus and his henchmen
would surely not oblige to his requests of sharing their secret
without a bloody battle. Owing to the incident with the tracker,
Lucas could not trust anyone anymore, not even his home base in
Dehradun. There was surely a mole somewhere in the system which he
would eventually need to find out. Hence Lucas was in a completely
unknown territory, without any form of Intel, fighting against an
unknown set of enemies and on top of that would need to conduct a
rescue mission to recover his partner. So any form of
reconnaissance would be crucial before he could make any plans.

He had a personal acquaintance named Charlie Hang
who worked at the Los Dos Dragone’s restaurant in Chinatown. Hang
was a Cuban resident born to a Chinese father and Cuban mother.
Hang’s father Mr. Xiao had opened up a chain of Chinese restaurants
all over Cuba. Hang was in charge of the Los Dos Dragone’s supplies
and deliveries. A few years ago, Hang had gone over to the
Guangzhou province in China to visit his ancestral home.
Incidentally Lucas was at the same place on a routine mission for
the ANNT, trying to track down and eliminate two extremist leaders
who were planning to eliminate the Chinese premier. During an
encounter with the extremists, who tried to use the civilians as
cover, Lucas had saved the life of Hang and his family among many
others. Since then, Hang had been constantly nagging that Lucas
should visit Havana and spend time with him in Chinatown. Lucas
could not trust his home base anymore. He certainly couldn’t trust
the Cuban police and bureaucrats. Hence he decided to pay Hang a
visit in order to arrange for resources for the night.

When Lucas finally arrived at the restaurant and
looked for Hang, the little man could hardly hide his joy. His
friend had finally come to visit him in Cuba. He promised to show
him around and also arrange for his accommodation and food for
free. However, he could not help but wonder why Lucas didn’t have
anything apart from a backpack. Well, Lucas was already prepared
with the excuse. His luggage was lost during transit and hence he
would need new clothes and shoes to survive the next few days till
his luggage arrived.

Based on their interaction in China, Hang had always
known that Lucas worked with the Peace Corps and moved frequently
all around the world helping underprivileged communities by working
on various social activities. This identity was perfectly suitable
for Lucas in this case since he needed some form of changes to his
overall outlook and face to ensure that Rosmus and his henchmen
would not identify him easily. As far as Hang was concerned, he had
been told that Lucas needed the attire, wig and makeup kit for a
small skit that he was planning to do in a nearby locality to help
educate underprivileged children.

On the next day, Lucas went around with Hang to the
markets near Centro Havana, purchasing clothes and accessories and
at the same time keeping a constant eye on the roads leading to the
casino for the number of guards, cameras, vehicles, nearby traffic
signals, policemen and whatever else would be helpful to him for
his nocturnal visit. Hang also managed to arrange for a few sets of
fake beard, moustache and wigs which Lucas would apparently use for
the skit. Lucas had a light supper and headed back to his room to
sleep. He particularly requested Hang that no one should disturb
him for the night as he needed to get a good and long sleep to get
over the jet lag.

Around 9PM at night, Lucas left the locality in
disguise and hired a cab to take him to the Tropicana casino. He
slipped straight through Chinatown in front of Hang and his
friends, but they couldn’t recognize him. Well, he was dressed up
as a middle aged European businessman with blonde curly hair
carrying a small backpack. He also put up a goatee and his glasses
to complement the look. He was now William Adams, the CEO of the
rapidly growing logistics company named Zipline. He asked the cab
to stop and wait for him at the back of the casino. He got down,
got his backpack disposed through one of the service elevators of
the casino that he had noticed that morning, quickly headed back to
the cab and asked the driver to drop him at the main entrance. This
was particularly necessary since he could not carry a backpack with
a gun and explosives through the main entrance with all the
security measures that were in place. He carried a tracking patch
with him assuming that it could come useful later.

Tropicana casino was a real
extravaganza on this particular night. It was jam packed with
guests ranging from famous celebrities, bureaucrats, politicians
and businessmen. Jessica Lopez, the famous Columbian pop singer was
performing on the main stage on the first floor. Lucas quickly
looked around. He had very little time to figure out how he was
going to execute his plan. He took the stairs instead of using the
airlift to head to the first floor. He wanted to get a good view of
the position of guards and others that may be of interest to him.
He also wanted to locate Rosmus and his troops.

On reaching the
first floor he could see that there was a different bartender in
the main bar. However, Alberto was also present in the casino. He
was working as a personal bartender to a group of people who were
sitting in the VIP enclosure. Lucas headed over to the Blackjack
table while his eyes and wits were constantly focused on the VIP
section. He could immediately identify Romanovich, a well-built man
who was enjoying his champagne with the two blondes sitting by his
side. On the other side an Arab sheikh was constantly debating
something with a guy in a black leather jacket. Lucas could not see
his face, but the tattoo creeping out on the back of his neck was
clearly visible….A black serpent with the words
‘
Дерево
жизни
’ written below it. The words spelled
as ‘Derevo zhizni’ which roughly translated to ‘The Tree Of Life’
in Russian. Lucas had found his man, he was looking at Yuri
Rosmus.

Yuri Rosmus was once the right
hand man of Sergei “Mikhas” Mikhailov and had helped him turn the
SoIntsevskaya Bratva into the biggest criminal organization in the
Soviet Union. Later after the Soviet Union was disbanded and
Mikhailov was killed, Rosmus took over the reign of the
organization and concentrated on expansion and world domination. He
founded the Odessa Mafia which was the most prominent and dominant
Russian criminal organization in US and Canada. They had also
started expanding into the rest of the countries in Central and
Latin America. Rosmus’s organization also had operatives working
and supporting the Georgian, Albanian and Chechen mafia
groups.

It was said that Rosmus had
entered the Arab countries with the help of Al Qaeda and Suleiman.
Rosmus was a good friend of Romanovich and assisted him in taking
care of his dirty business in St Petersburg and all around the
world. In return, Romanovich often helped him get in touch with and
influence diplomats, bureaucrats and ministers thereby smoothly
paving his way for entering new territories. Well Lucas had got
hold of Rosmus and Romanovich just like he had planned. However he
needed to find out Suleiman and more importantly Dimitri ‘The
Ghost’. Also he was pretty sure that the Viper operatives were in
the casino as well, most likely dressed as civilians, providing
additional security to the VIP enclosure.

Lucas needed to get closer to the
enclosure and engage in a conversation with Rosmus and Romanovich.
He wanted to observe Rosmus face to face to try and find more about
him before taking him down. He also needed to get Dimitri out from
hiding to take him down. To accomplish these tasks, he needed to
get close to the VIP section and engage in conversation with Rosmus
and Romanovich without having to force his way through. He also
needed to ensure that the guards would not stop him as he
approached the VIP section.

Lucas left the Blackjack table
having lost all his money. He cursed the dealer a bit, grabbed and
gulped a glass of scotch from the guy that was sitting beside him
and left his seat. He could hear the abuse the guy was throwing at
him, but he simply didn’t care. He needed to create an even bigger
tantrum. He headed off to the main bar, ordered a few round of
drinks and then grabbed the glass and slowly headed towards the VIP
enclosure. As he reached the VIP enclosure, few of the security
guards and enforcers gathered in front of him.