American Terrorist (The Rayna Tan Action Thrillers Book 1) (8 page)

“Thank you very much.” Ahmed hung up and looked to Casey sitting at the computer. “She’s in the States. Time to rock and roll.”

“Yes!” said Casey, pumping his fists.

Fatima made another call.

“Hello,” answered Hank.

“Darling, I miss you,” purred Fatima. “Please come soon. I need you to spank this naughty Aida girl and make her behave. She is just sooo bad.”

Hank panted lasciviously. “I’ll join you tomorrow. I’ll go directly to your uncle’s.”

“Okay, but please make sure you tell your wife you’ll be four hours late. And I hope you won’t mind...”

“Mind what?”

“I went to Victoria’s Secret and bought some things for you to rip off my body.”

He tried to hide it, but his heavy breathing prevented Hank from saying another word.

“I’ll see you soon... Superman.” Fatima closed the phone, stepped out of the car and threw it into a trashcan.

An hour and a half later, Reverend Geraldine Swanson was on a flight from Buffalo to Los Angeles.

Chapter 8
 

For the next half hour, Julio gave Rayna a guided tour of the hidden wilderness resort for the possibly infamous but most definitely rich. For those who wanted to arrive by air, there was a helipad. For those of nautical persuasion, there was a private dock where Rayna noticed two very high-powered speedboats moored.
 

She had a funny, confused feeling during this time. On one hand, she heard everything the bearded man said. On the other, she was trying to process this organization that she was now part of: dedicated to ridding the world of a greater evil by killing or murdering on a moment’s notice, but compassionate enough to save an abandoned baby from the Colombian jungle and from heaven knew where else.

She liked it.

There was a private organic garden where she saw Helena picking weeds with her gaggle of toddlers. They had a great time, giggling as they rolled in the dirt with their mom.

The next part of the tour was inside the main lodge. Rayna noted that it was built from wood, as were much of the Resort’s furnishings. She turned to Julio for an explanation.

“Most of the wood you see has been harvested from the forest around us. The building structure, the bed frames, desks, tables, wooden artifacts—all of it made to our specifications.” Julio took a tablet computer from the receptionist. “Place your hand on this please.”

Rayna complied.

Julio smiled. “Good, Rayna. You now have access to all public places at the Resort. Your room is private. The hand and fingerprint reader is part of your room’s doorknob and doesn’t need the whole print to recognize who you are. It will then automatically unlock the door. Want to see it?”

Rayna shrugged. “One hotel room is the same as another.”

“Not.”

Five minutes later, Rayna watched Julio try to open the door. It wouldn’t open.

“Your turn,” he said.

Taking the doorknob, she turned it easily. She pushed the door open and gasped when she stepped inside—there was a magnificent lakeside view. In a room three times the size of the average cramped hotel room, she was greeted with fresh flowers from the Resort garden, a selection of California organic fruit and an iced bottle of her favorite sparkling water. The king-sized bed was made with white Egyptian cotton sheets with a thousand-thread count. Rayna fell back and laid flat on the high-end Swedish-made bed, spreading her arms out like an eagle on the elegant mattress, finely crafted of horsehair, pure cotton and mohair.
 

She spotted several hidden cameras in the room. “Are you planning a Kim Kardashian film?”

“Good eye. We could, and we could make more money blackmailing our guests than we ever could from renting our five-thousand-dollar-a-night rooms to them. But it’s security. Our guest list includes the most powerful people in the world. Privacy, yes. Protection, even more so... we even know the color of your pee.”

“Barry said you know this place better than anyone. Who exactly are you, Julio?”

***

Twelve Years Ago

A prison van carried nineteen-year-old Julio Ibanez, “the most dangerous man in the world,” for a pre-trial hearing in Dallas. Julio, an illegal Mexican immigrant, had managed to hack into the National Command Authority’s computers and given himself POTUS’s
 
authority to launch nuclear bombs on Mexico City, Tokyo and Paris. The only reason this disaster was averted was that Julio didn’t know that execution of a launch order required secondary confirmation from the Secretary of Defense. When Secretary Henderson did not confirm, a full-scale investigation from the FBI and Homeland Security was launched instead of the bombs, and Julio was caught within hours at a multi-million dollar mansion in Dallas. He had purchased his home and several others like it by hacking into Ameribank’s credit card system and having one ten thousandth of one percent of each transaction transferred to his personal account.
 

En route for pre-trial sentencing, he was heavily guarded and secured. Suddenly, the road in front of them exploded and a dense thick cloud enveloped the van. Sledgehammers banged at the windows with bulletproof glass-shattering force. The prison security men fired, but the smoke was so thick that they were shooting blindly. Unseen assailants crashed the back door down while gunfire stormed against them. The security guards screamed in pain as the attackers fired back, inflicting serious injuries.

Then silence. The mission had taken all of forty-five seconds.

Moments later, inside an inauspicious panel van marked “Plumbing Masters,” Julio shivered in front of a masked commando who pointed a gun at his face.

“What do you want? I can give you money, girls, drugs, anything,” pleaded Julio.

“If I can afford to spring you like this, do you think I need your money?”

“What do you want then?” asked the trembling Julio.

“I want you to work for me. I want you to build me the most sophisticated intelligence and information-gathering system in the world. I want to know what every satellite sees, I want access to every real estate transaction, every bank deposit or withdrawal, the lovers of every person in the world, the antidotes for every known poison in the world... I want to know what the world thinks in every situation before they’ve thought of it. Saying ‘no’ will cost you your life.”

“I... I... I can’t do that! I’m not good enough. I don’t know if anybody can do that.”

The hostage-taker put his gun down. “Good. You’re hired.”

“What? You said you would kill me if I said no.”

“It was a test,” the gunman said. “I wanted to see how honest you are. You passed. What I just asked for is what I want and you are going to do as much as you can to provide it.”

“What if I don’t accept?”

“I can take you back to Dallas.”

“You don’t give me much choice.”

“Glad you see it my way. Where I am taking you is where you will live for the rest of your life. You will never leave the premises. That way you will have ultimate protection.”

Julio breathed a sigh of relief—he’d be safe. “Okay.”

Julio’s captor removed his mask. “Nice to meet you, Julio. My name is Barry Rogers.”

When Dallas authorities made it to the prison transport van five minutes later, they were absolutely shocked. All the transport security force was unconscious but alive. Their assailants had fired dummy bullets, enough to momentarily stun, after which the guards were chloroformed. No injuries at all.

Barry orchestrated and led the attack to spring Julio. He knew what everyone else knew—Julio’s abilities to code and hack websites, then hide traces of his activities, were rivaled by very few, if any, others in the world. He knew he wanted someone just like Julio for Fidelitas.

He also was pretty sure Julio would not refuse. Why? Because guys like Julio were not motivated by money. As Barry explained the vision of Fidelitas, Julio grew more and more excited. This was a cause, not a job. More than that, it gave him a real reason to live—the truth was, Julio had no intention of firing the nuclear bombs. He had performed the feat for the same reason people have affairs or climb dangerous mountain peaks or wrestle crocodiles: life is boring and they want to challenge its limits.

Julio turned over his entire fortune to Barry for the design and construction of the Resort. With a twinkle in his eye, he told his boss, “Any time you need more, just let me know.”

Barry declined, but he knew that wouldn’t mean anything to Julio. Every year since Julio’s coming onboard, ten million dollars was added to Fidelitas’ secret operating account from an unknown source.
 

A text message signaled Julio. “Lunch is ready,” he told Rayna.

***

Pandemonium reigned in the small twelve-seat sushi restaurant that was part of the Resort’s dining area. Helena was there with the kids already and they were running around being chased by Hirito, an eighty-year-old sushi master wearing a white Japanese Hapi coat and a
hachimaki
, the white cotton headband with the red Japanese sun flanked by two Japanese characters. Seeing the arrival of Julio and Rayna, Hirito stopped for a moment and bowed. “Welcome.”

Then the madness resumed. The sight was totally unlike the Zen-like serenity of many respected sushi restaurants.

“I get you, Nali,” yelled Hirito. “You must eat!” He picked up the little girl and brought her behind the counter with him—another definite no no. There was a bowlful of live shrimp jumping around.

“AA!” squealed Nali.

“You eat!” Hairdo took one of the squirming crustaceans out of its shell. He deftly removed the head and shell and stuck it into the two-year-old’s mouth.

Nali’s face lit up with glee and she opened her mouth. “More, Hirito. More.”

Hirito obeyed with a smile. He turned to Barry. “It so nice to see someone who love food.”

Unlike the staid, high-end sushi places in New York that Rayna used to go to with Tanner, Hirito ran an informal shop. Or at least it was for today.

Sea urchin was scooped alive from its purple prickly shell. Bluefin otoro sashimi tuna from Japan was the most exquisite melt-in-your-mouth delight Rayna ever experienced. And all the little touches that separated the excellent and the sublime were just a matter of course. The soya sauce was made by Hirito himself in small batches.
 

While Julio, Helena and the children got plastic plates and chopsticks, Rayna and Barry received a special treat. The plates, cups and bowls, made by master craftsmen in Japanese ceramic towns, were personally picked by Hirito; even the chopsticks were handcrafted by Japanese artisans.
 

“That was the best sushi I’ve ever eaten,” Rayna exclaimed as she leaned back in her chair, rubbing her stomach enthusiastically.

“Hirito is probably in the world’s top ten sushi masters in the world,” announced Barry. “He’s here for the same reason all of us are. He wants to be. When I met him in Japan, it was through his sons. I had been negotiating a deal with the elder son, Hotaka, in their father’s restaurant. When we finished, Hirito and I sat down for some sake. Unknown to me, two Yakuza came in. Hirito had not paid his protection money to Ahi-san.”

“Ahi-san?” asked Rayna.

Barry nodded. “The gangsters were martial artists and they headed for Hotaka. For thirty seconds, they kicked him, chopped him, and finally launched a throwing star into the center of his forehead and used the sharp blade of another to sever his jugular. They were going to break Hirito’s arms and legs when I stepped in… I broke the neck of one and gouged the other one’s eyes out. I told them that if they ever came back again or tried to harm any of Hirito’s family, I would finish the job on them. Hirito insisted then that he would work for me and who was I turn that down?”

Barry motioned for Hirito to come over.

“Yes, Barry-san?”

Barry took out his cell phone and played the video of what happened at the Fidelitas office.

Hirito broke and down and cried when he saw Ahi-san’s death. “It is done. It is done. Thank you Barry-san.”
 
Hirito turned to Rayna. “Thank you…”

“Rayna. Rayna Tan.”

Hirito bowed deeply. “Thank you, Rayna Tan.”

The bowing Hirito returned to his spot behind the sushi bar, tears still flowing.

“What happened to the other son?”

“He’s one of our ‘researchers’ in Japan. He’s the son who built up the relationship with Ahi-san.”

“Oh.”

“Eventually, all the dots connect, Rayna. It might take a while but, sooner or later, they connect.”
 

There was a tug on Rayna’s top. She looked down to see two of the kids pulling on her. “Nice to meet you, Auntie Rayna. We love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Nap time.” Helena winked at Rayna.

With one perched on his shoulders and another in his arms, Julio and Helena took the kids and marched off.

Hirito opened a bottle of sake, bowed and left Rayna and Barry in peace.

“I don’t get it, Barry. Fidelitas is a killing organization, yet you take care of kids. You’ve got this place in the middle of nowhere...”

Barry savored a sip of his chilled sake. “Organic. Brewed twenty years ago.” He lifted the tiny cup. “Look at the color. Amber golden... soft... aromatic... made by an artisan... which is who we are. Fidelitas is not a big operation. We’re small. Efficient. We’re not trying to save the world. Don’t have the resources or the temerity or temperament.”

“Yeah, I get that, but how does the Resort fit in?”

“Very simply. The Resort is CenCom. Central command.”

“There’s nothing to indicate that at all.”

“Which is what we want. We don’t need hundreds of people in the field, our own satellites, our own research systems. Someone else is already doing that and we’ve just figured out how to invisibly piggyback off their intel and use their hardware for our own purposes. What we do is very simple.” He paused for a moment, watching her reaction, then continued. “There are a lot of bad guys out there. Some are easy to track, capture or kill. Those are the ones for the government agencies to catch. We’re different. We exist between the cracks and operate in the shadows, targeting the not-so-obvious or the too-well-hidden ones. Sometimes the fish are big; sometimes we’re going for minnows. Because we’re not answerable to anyone but ourselves, we get to pick and choose.”