The Great Deception Read online

  Another searcher nearby stopped what he was working on to take a look.

  Looking at diagrams didn't help matters. If anything, they further confused both men's efforts. Either they were looking at a radical new weapon or a kitchen appliance for the twenty-first century.

  The agent who claimed he had struck a vein of gold scrolled to the bottom of the document. He double clicked on the small print to zoom in.

  "The Oaster Toaster 3000?" he read aloud in disbelief.

  "Some weapon you got there, Miller," Tony snorted.

  Miller had the good sense to look embarrassed. "There's gotta be some mistake."

  "The only mistake here would be yours," Tony was quick to point out. "Just wait till the boys hear this!"

  "Hear what?" another guy joined the two.

  Miller rolled his eyes.

  Tony began to laugh. "Tell him!"

  "We all have more important things to be doing than making a mockery out of one man's honest mistake."

  The lead agent who observed his team's movements from a second floor lookout grew restless as the minutes ticked by. We shoulda been done by now, he thought. Apparently the outside world thought so too.

  His earpiece began to go crazy: an incoming transmission.

  "Agent Jennings, this is the president here with my chief of staff. What's the status of your mission?"

  "My men are working very hard to recover anything useful, Mr. President."

  "So you don't have what you came for yet, is that what I'm hearing?"

  "Unfortunately, that's what we're looking at sir."

  A moment of silence. "Let me know when you have anything."

  "Of course Mr. President."

  Their window was closing and Jennings knew it. Pretty soon he'd be given the order to pack it up and report back to the planes. The longer they stayed the more dangerous it became.

  --

  Barcelona, Spain

  By now Alfonso Marcello knew Sofia Keller's meeting had ended. A parabolic microphone he had set up behind some topiary in the dining room let him know that. The only way this all worked? Keller's staffers overlooked the listening device planted there to eavesdrop on a very important meeting. Why? In short, money talks. They were paid off handsomely to keep quiet. What's more, he overheard a state secretary of the Interior Ministry along with a commissioner making plans to discuss a possible security breach over coffee later that day. Pay dirt.

  Alfonso's previously open afternoon now had plans. No, he didn't plan on ending anybody's life today--not unless it was required. However, an additional little intelligence payoff would go nicely with what he already had from the meeting.

  Suddenly his own nutritional needs needed to be met. But he didn't have time for a sit-in restaurant or take-out. The agency had instant meals for a time such as this. It would suffice.

  He had a little bit of homework to do though before he could follow up on the lead. For one, he didn't know which cafe the politicians would go to. Only a minor detail. More importantly though, he didn't know which state secretary and commissioner he would tail: the German Interior Ministry had several commissioners and state secretaries. Lucky for him he heard the names Wendel and Amalia come up in conversation...enough to go off of to do a search on the government website for their full names. Agent Marcello didn't have a computer at his static post where he listened to the event at Hotel Omm. However, his cell phone was as good as a computer if not better. He put "German Interior Ministry" into the search field and pressed enter for results. The search engine returned the query with a dot gov website he'd be visiting. A few screen taps later and Alfonso was rewarded for his efforts. Now he had their names, but still lacked the knowledge of where they were meeting. No problem. There were websites for that.

  Alfonso knew the SIM card in his cell phone gave away his position by sharing his location. Whenever he wanted to go dark, out came the card and off went his phone. But these were government officials. Their phones were always on: that's what he was counting on anyway.

  Sometimes his job was just too easy. Agent Marcello turned to the old cell again, logged on to a social networking website called FindME, and voila...he had two red pins on a map showing both of his targets' real time locations.

  The pins weren't together either. No matter though. All he had to do was follow one straight to the meet-up and he was golden. At that moment hunger messaged him again: "Feed me."

  Alfonso had with him a brown fabric messenger bag. His snacks were inside. What he had packed was nothing to get excited over. Instant pizza with almost an indefinite shelf life would be the highlight of the meal. Chemicals loaded with cheese...mmm. A loaded chocolate chip cookie sounded especially good--he would eat it first.

  He sat on the cracked pavement in an alleyway behind a dumpster. The cookie crumbled and chocolate chips bounced off his lap as he bit in. Just then a door opened up somewhere behind him. An employee from a local eatery tossed the trash out with a clink. Alfonso resumed eating desert. Shortly after he had the phone on again to see the status of where his subjects were. They hadn't moved yet. The good news? The targets weren't too far from him.

  His eyes stayed glued to the screen. Meanwhile one of his hands groped in the bag for something that felt like pizza. One thing the agency got right were the chemicals they included with the instant meal. When the meal pouch opened up, exposed to the air, the oxygen reacted with the catalysts to start a thermal reaction which heated the pizza up instantly.

  The melted plastic with red paste and seasoning, topped with pepperoni, agreed with the hungry agent more today than it normally did. A motion on his screen made his muscles tense. Someone was on the move. It happened to be the one closest to him too. What luck.

  The wiry man got to his feet quickly and looked every which way. He looked like Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean that day with braided dark hair, faded red kerchief, patched rag clothing. What he needed more than a new change of clothes though was a hot shower and some potent soap to cut through the grease and the grime that coated him.

  The undercover street bum emerged from the alleyway and onto a major street that snaked through the bustling city. It had been a while before he last checked in with the agency to give them a report. He didn't need to though. His last instructions were to come in after dark that day. That's what he would do. A shower awaited him then...and a change of clean clothes. Since Alfonso had ditched his transportation that he had stolen earlier, he would have to walk it. That didn't present a problem however. Unless the people he tailed decided to go mobile and take a cab to their destination. Then he'd be screwed. His chances of hailing a taxi much less getting them to escort him places were slim to none. Being a street bum had its advantages and disadvantages.

  He picked up the pace and moved faster than the flow of human traffic around him. Every once in a while Alfonso looked over his shoulder. His cover was good, no one suspected a homeless man of being a secret agent. There were enemies though that wanted him dead. He had to watch his back. If he didn't maintain an alertness, pay attention to details, read people...Alfonso would expire early.

  --

  Chapter 4

  Mossad safe house, Moldova

  Only one of the five helicopters landed in Moldova. The remainder had orders to disperse their crews at various locations in Europe.

  It looked more like a farm than a safe house. All by design. Thirty miles south of the Ukrainian border, there was nothing but farmland and a river which happened to irrigate the fields. Trees were few and far in between. Consequently, so were people.

  At almost two in the morning the men from the chopper had an appetite something fierce. Seth didn't want anything. The rest had to fend for themselves. There would be no cooking around a fire. No need. The building had running water, a stove--anything a man would ever need to fix supper.

  "You sure you wouldn't want any of this stew?" one man offered to Seth who sat on a rocking chair.

  Judging b
y the grin on the guy's face, the one holding the pot with an offensive odor emitting from it, the contents most likely were spoiled.

  Seth shook his head stubbornly. "Nah, you eat it. You'll need the energy." The practical jokester with his smoking pot of stew sauntered away disappointed without a word. It was probably better for him that Seth didn't eat it, then he'd have more problems to deal with than an overcooked meal.

  With no one to confide in, Seth confided in himself. The rocker creaked under the rhythmic back and forth sway of the Mossad man. He didn't smoke, nor was he one to wander the grounds aimlessly deep in thought. For the most part, he lived a life with no regrets. Seth learned to deal with death as it happened all around him. It struck his own wife thirteen years ago shortly after the birth of his only child, Azriel.

  Whenever he dreamed, a pretty American woman would pop up at some point randomly and disappear inconveniently when his eyes opened and it was back to reality. Her name: Jessica, his deceased wife. She didn't die from pregnancy complications. Though he would tell people that, that wasn't the real reason. A terrorist who believed himself to be doing Allah's will took her life. It devastated him. But it also gave him a new calling in life. Before Mossad, Seth worked a desk job as an analyst at an investment firm. He did well for himself, made his employers wealthy, but that didn't do it for him.

  Making money would have been a wasted life for him.

  Like one reads in books, Seth's story fared no different. A spy gig literally fell into his lap. He didn't go bouncing from his plush job as an analyst. Nor would he have had it not been for a coincidental run-in with an agency man, Tyrone.

  Ten years ago...

  "Bartender, another scotch."

  The keeper of the bar observed the impassable expression on Seth

  Markov's haggard looking face. There were bags under the eyes. "Coming right up."

  Billiard balls cracked in the background after someone broke the once tightly compact triangle of numbers one through fifteen. A couple waitresses in their late twenties hoisted trays with beers and greasy burgers to deliver them to the boisterous crowd. The air smelled of cigarette smoke. Neon signs in the shape of martini glasses and olives cast a glow on the patrons seated at the counter. A basketball game played for anyone that cared.

  Seth sat sideways on his stool--divided. At twenty-eight years of age he didn't have a whole lot to be optimistic about. Jessica, the mother of his three-year-old son, would never be there to see him grow up and become a proud, respectable Markov man. Even worse, little Azriel grew and matured to an age where he understood something was missing from the home. And night after night Seth couldn't keep coming home to his son, look him in the face, and tell him everything was hunky-dory...nothing out of place. Before long the little boy would ask where momma was. Soon he would start school and observe mommies dropping their little kids off. Then it would sink in--he would get it.

  Seth had to do the hard thing. Tell the boy. Watch him tear up, look crushed and all pathetic. This far exceeded the level of difficulty in delivering the bad news on a bear market via a public conference call to company investors who eagerly waited to hear his fundamental analysis on whether to buy, sell, or hold their securities on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

  Yet a few drinks that night to dull the pain seemed the right play to make. He would procrastinate and put off telling the truth until Monday.

  It was still Friday.

  When he got his glass back, stingily filled only a fifth of the way he estimated, Seth undertook the effort to analyze the newcomer to his side of the counter. A man no greater no less than four times ten seated himself next to Seth. The stranger made no eye contact, didn't want anything to do with talk. Apparently Seth wasn't the only one there for the alcohol.

  This guy didn't go for the hard stuff though.

  Leave it to the financial analyst to claim that.

  Instead he sipped on mixed drinks. Some gin. Seth lost interest and vacated his stool. Three empty glasses littered the counter where he formerly sat. He got up to stretch the legs a bit. Maybe walk over to the billiards table and join a game.

  Two mahogany wood tablets, their baskets laden with balls and green carpet seeing some action, took up the back room of the place. Most of the group playing pool appeared to be affluent with jobs in the technology or banking sector, just like Seth. This wasn't one of those bars that a biker gang plagued from time to time.

  Seth walked up looking like he belonged. "Next game?" one of the four asked the approaching Seth.

  "Me? I don't really play, maybe I'll just watch."

  This made the man with an athletic build and wide shoulders smile broadly. "I don't think you came over here to watch four men play pool after work."

  "You're right," Markov conceded the point. "I'll take winner." He looked over his shoulder and caught the man he previously sat next to a moment ago staring at him.

  Five minutes later the same guy from before held out the triangle towards Seth and said, "Would you do me the courtesy of breaking?"

  He had zoned out there for a minute.

  "You're done already? Sure, I'll break." The men watching Seth leaned on their sticks. What they witnessed was a man who had done this one too many times. The cue ball raced for the colorful formation with full intent of scattering them in order to set up for an easy next shot. Balls started sinking into the corner and side pockets at random.

  Seth had his pick since the break put away two stripes and solids. "Solids it is," he said under his breath as one foot left the floor while he postured for his next move. He systematically, one stroke of skill after another, cleared the table. His opponent watched in disgust as perfectly placed shots kissed the painted targets at precisely the right angles to send them to their final resting place.

  Only one ball stood in the way of a victory.

  Seth pointed with the stick and called it:

  "Corner pocket."

  Could he do it? Make a clean sweep? The other man actually hoped the first game to be over with. He would take his chances into the next one because obviously the first had been a fluke. Luck.

  The forecasted loser of the first match didn't even bother to watch the miss or make. But he heard the ball roll the full length of the table, the clink, and the climactic jiggle of the eight ball joining its cousins in the right hand corner pocket.

  Seth felt a nice release after destroying the competition.

  "Two out of three?"

  It couldn't hurt. He had missed this. "You wanna break?" he kindly extended the offer. "I had better say yes, otherwise I might not ever get a turn!" the man in the blue shirt said with a chuckle. "My name is Hector by the

  way."

  "Not from around here?"

  "Born in the U.S.A.," he proudly answered.

  "Ah, good for you. I've visited a number of times. The Big Apple is quite something." Seth continued the small talk while he watched Hector set up. Twenty minutes later after a more contested battle, Seth walked away the champ. Unfortunately for him the alcohol began to have its way. His steps to the door zig-zagged a little.

  "You look a little sloshed there partner," a patron quipped, blocking Seth's path from exiting.

  "Yeah? Why don't you get outta my way so I can pass."

  The man with a boxer face and substantial midsection didn't budge.

  "I'm sorry, did you want something, pal?" "Maybe I do."

  A brawl seemed likely as the two faced off, each man waiting for the other to make the first move.

  Seth simply tried to walk around him, but it wouldn't be that easy. In an attempt to escape he got knocked off balance by a powerful shove.

  The owner of the bar cried, "Gentlemen!" as he stepped out from behind the swinging doors of the backroom. "Take it outside."

  "No, we'll finish this here and now." Seth glared at the aggressor.

  The big guy moved in and threw a big hooker that missed everything.

  Seth ducked and nailed him in the solar plexu
s.

  The assailant grunted and doubled over.

  Not expecting such a well-placed blow. Nevertheless, he charged at Seth's midsection like a bull.

  Seeing someone run at you could have been a very paralyzing thing, but Seth came prepared for anything. At the last possible second he jumped out of the oncoming path of the snarling bellicose fighter and grabbed him by the waist and the shirt collar. Seth flung the man like a heavy log into a table. It collapsed into a pile of splinters. When the big guy attempted to rise from the debris Seth was already there, whaling on his head left and right. The fight had ended.

  Afterwards Seth Markov fled the premises. He didn't know how, but the mysterious stranger who had not said a word before now seemed ready to talk, standing under the wash of a nearby light pole. "You certainly know how to handle yourself."

  "What is it you want?"

  "We need to meet. I don't have time tonight, nor is this a good place for me."

  Seth blinked.