The director was tired, and the dark circles under his eyes showed the fatigue setting in. He no longer felt like God’s just instrument or simply a man resolving life’s inevitable iniquities. Instead, he was a man who was about to break the basic tenets on which he’d built an empire that had thrived for over two decades.
Never take a job you do not intend to see through to the end.
Never pass judgment on those who hire you.
Never reveal your client’s identity.
Tenets that were the cornerstones of not only his business but his life. And yet he was about to break not one but all three.
“Yes, I’m certain,” his operative said in reply to his question about the target’s status. Any other time the trembling of her voice would have been a red flag, but now it only added the necessary measure of truth. She was as wounded and vulnerable as she’d told him she was.
“Alex—” the director started to say, but cut short.
“Afraid to say my name, father?” the operative said. “Guilty conscience after trying to kill me?”
Alexis wasn’t his real daughter, but he’d raised her up from the darkness that had swallowed her after she’d been discharged from the U.S. army, replacing an unquenchable hunger for poison delivered by a needle with a new hunger delivered by special messenger. A hunger for correcting wrongs and injustices.
“It was necessity, not personal.” Before speaking again, he looked at the phone’s display and the timer ticking off the seconds of the connection. Even with all his precautions, he tried to keep his calls to 60 seconds or less and to minimize the words spoken. This call had already gone on for a minute and 23 seconds. But that didn’t matter now, nothing mattered now. “I’ve initiated a house cleaning. A full house cleaning. Where are you?”
As the seconds ticked by without further comment, Alexis knew the director was as shocked by what he’d said as she was to hear it. She gazed absently out the window and wondered where the day would lead her. Wherever it was, she was absolutely certain that tomorrow the world would not only look a lot different, but would in fact be very different.
Adrenaline had carried her this far, she knew though that it might not take her much farther. “So you can send someone else to kill me?” She continued the conversation because she wanted to and because she still felt obligated to him. “That’s not going to happen because you’re not going to find me.”
“You’re wrong,” the director said. “I’m looking at the coast of Sicily in the distance. Malta by early afternoon. How long after do you think?”
There was a time when she wondered if the director was someone she could be with, if he was someone who wanted her as those she traded her body for drugs did. But then she’d figured out that he didn’t want her because she was damaged.
She choked back emotion. Something outside the window caught her eye and she bolted upright. “I can still finish the job.” She held the phone away as she coughed blood into her other hand. “Let me do that for you, and then forget me.” She stared out into the street at the armed men and their machine guns. The Armed Forces of Malta Air Squadron was based in the southern corner of Luqa international airport, defended by a rifle company of regular infantry and an air defense company with RPG’s and .50 heavy machine guns. “You owe me that, at the least.”
“Too long I’ve looked the other way,” the director said. “I forgave your proclivities because you didn’t let them interfere with our operations, but you’ve gone too far this time. There’s no coming back from this.”
“Obviously, you think otherwise, or you’d have hung up long ago,” she said, watching a second rifle squad rush past outside the window. No doubt the Armed Forces of Malta were on high alert with the USS Kearsarge parked nearby, barely within international waters, and reports of the wounded medivaced off the ship making their way up the chain of command.
“Goodbye, Alexis,” the director said, hanging up.
Alexis twisted the phone in her hand and broke it in half. Then she pulled out the battery and the SIM card. Discarding the phone, she dragged herself away from the window. After descending a service staircase and climbing into an idling delivery truck, she drove off.
Chapter 3
Dave Gilbert’s revelations were eye-opening and Scott’s thoughts spun with all the possibilities as Edie wheeled him toward operations with the MAs a few steps behind. His plan was to talk to Master Chief Roberts first. Then with the chief behind him, he’d approach the Operations Commander.
“Bathroom,” he said as soon as he saw the signs.
Edie swung the chair around and thrust backward into the Men’s room door. “Out,” Edie shouted, not only to the MAs who tried to follow them in, but to the ensign at the urinal rushing to zip up his pants. In response to the ensign’s indignant stare, she said, “Didn’t see a thing, but trust me when I say you’ve nothing to worry about when it comes to the ladies.”
The ensign rushed out, red-faced.
“That was wicked,” Scott said. “Where’s that Edie been hiding lately?”
“Right here,” she said, kneeling beside him. Then quietly, she added, “You know everything, don’t you?”
“How?” Scott said, wishing suddenly he could wheel himself away from her probing eyes.
Edie took a deep breath and said calmly. “Your voice changed, like Dave’s, and the look in your eye was the same then as now. It’s your tell, you know, but then it’s very hard to hide feelings of betrayal, isn’t it?”
Without hesitation, he replied, “Why, Edie? I thought… I…”
“I do,” she said, her hand cupping his cheek. “I warned you, gave you so many chances. It should’ve been obvious.”
Nothing was obvious to Scott at the moment. “I thought you were just playing with me.”
“I was.” She stood and swiveled around in front of him, her hands gripping the armrests of the wheelchair. “But it was more than that too. Surely, you know that?”
He shifted nervously, almost not wanting to hear anything more that she had to say. It wasn’t the first time he’d been played or likely the last, but it hurt almost as much as if she’d cut out his heart and served it up to him. “Did you know this was coming?”
She shook her head, stepped back. A single tear glistened on her cheek. “You know what I have to do next.” She walked to the door, locked it even though they both knew the locking mechanism was flimsy. “You know I don’t want to do this.”
“I know.” He gave her a reassuring nod. He knew what was coming and accepted that she’d at least try. “Better you than any other.” He was silent for a moment. “But tell me why first? Are you a double?”
“As I’m sure you were told, Aleph Bet, not just Mossad. Isn’t it answer enough that I gave you the one name that could give you that information?”
Aleph Bet was a secret division of Mossad that specialized in deep cover operations, often in the US without the approval of the US government and just as often working against its interests. He lowered his voice. “You don’t look Israeli.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
Victoria Edilene “Edie” Marshall actually wasn’t the first name she’d given him — just the first he believed held some true meaning. Dave’s alert though had only listed her as suspected affiliation, not operative, so he couldn’t help wonder not only why she was telling him this specifically but specifically at this moment.