Deception of the Heart (5 page)

He’d probably hear from
Bernard, nevertheless. For a reason he couldn’t comprehend, Mariah, Bernard’s wife, had taken to Daphne in a way that put him in a truly uncomfortable position. He suspected it had to do with the version of their failed love story his ex-fiancée fed to the older woman. He didn’t even want to know what it was because he guessed that she’d stretched the truth to its last, thinnest skin.

Once on the plane to Italy, he relax
ed. He pulled out the few pages of info he had received at the last moment. The team working in Rome had dug up some still uncovered snippets of information that might prove useful. Most of it he knew by then, of course. After all, the agency had spent the last few months monitoring Pete’s every move, both in the States and in Europe. He read through the short memos, his eyebrows pulled into one dark line in concentration. A flight attendant walked up and asked him for his drink preference. He looked up, momentarily confused. He snapped out of it instantly of course. Years of training had taught him to deal with surprises and interruptions. An automatic smile appeared on his face, and the girl’s face beamed in response as she handed him a glass of red wine. She wished him a good flight and moved on, leaving him to get back to his work.

The seat next to him was unoccupied, which was helpful. He was pretty sure he owed
Bernard for that. The agency’s funds probably paid for both seats to give him some much needed privacy. He skimmed over the pages, the letters P and M standing out in numerous places. Of course most of the additional info was about Pete, giving Jon extra in depth knowledge about the man he was about to confront. Melanie Bennett featured in it as well, although far less. He had to wonder what kind of a person she really was, since facts about her childhood and friends painted a rather normal picture of a woman with no idea what was she stepping into. Or maybe she did know; he reminded himself to be open-minded to all possibilities.

Ever since he
’d joined the agency ten years ago, he had learned that things weren’t always what they seemed. In his last year at the university, earning his diplomas in science, politics, and sociology, he had been contacted by Bernard White, an enigmatic, eccentric professor who had watched him for the last two years of his studies. The invitation to Bernard’s extracurricular courses seemed like an unexpected yet most appreciated gift at the time, and Jon jumped at the opportunity to spend time in the company of the man he’d come to admire. He still remembered his excitement when he realized he had been handpicked to join Bernard’s private group of excelling students. The meetings soon convinced him that being a professor was only one facet of the man’s mysterious personality. The team of young men just like himself spent numerous afternoons and evenings at Bernard’s country house, where they learned the true purpose of their meetings.

The
agency was a part private, part government sponsored organization to fight and detect crimes and terrorism, both domestically and globally. Jon’s IQ and outstanding results in psychology and human behavior investigation prompted the agency to offer him a job in the New York office. He accepted gladly, images from Bond movies and the spy novels he remembered devouring as a teen swirling in his head. The truth had proved both more exciting and terrifying. He had joined numerous operations uncovering potential threats to the public and soon advanced to a second in charge position.

And then he went to Iraq. It was supposed to be a month
-long reconnaissance trip. The military had contacted the agency with a request for their input in a developing terrorism case that was slowly spiraling out of control. Training the Iraqi military personnel had been difficult enough. The daily danger of being attacked by insurgents took its toll on everyone on base. Jon had soon realized that the news back home didn’t paint the true picture of what went on in the dusty roads and barracks on the outskirts of Baghdad. Understaffed and underequipped, the base personnel tried to juggle educating the local police and military with the safety of both the westerners and the local population. He had spent numerous hours talking to the soldiers, listening to their stories and watching them work in conditions that were unimaginable to anyone back home. He had made some really good friends there, too.

His main objective was cracking down on the insider terroris
t cell that had originated in the Iraqi army. One of the local informants warned the Americans about the ever growing group of insurgents joining the base under the pretense of signing up for the police forces. Apparently, there was a plan to attack the base if the cell numbers and organization advanced enough for them to actually stand a chance of overthrowing the leadership. The usual methods of pinpointing the culprits didn’t work in those exceptional circumstances. With few resources and hostile attitudes from numerous local politicians, using the agency seemed like a good choice for the frustrated commander.

The
one month project soon stretched beyond two months. Jon’s official position as a private contractor allowed him access to daily activities inside the base and in the surrounding areas. He had worked cautiously yet steadily, tightening the loop around the cell and gathering the information needed to successfully stop the potential attack.

He hated thinking back to those final days before hell broke loose
. As he took a big gulp of his red wine, he realized he should have asked for something stronger. He craved the burning sensation of alcohol going down his throat. Not that he really enjoyed drinking. Quite the opposite, truth to be told. But it would distract him, the physical pain diffusing other, much deeper kinds of misery.

I
n the end, he had failed his friends. He’d delivered his final report to the commander too late to save the soldiers that went on patrol, right into the trap set by the insurgency. Helped by police cadets who had joined the attackers, the insurgents blew up three cars carrying American and Iraqi military personnel and the two journalists that accompanied them on that fateful day. It didn’t really matter that his line of communication with headquarters had been sabotaged by an insider who managed to make sure Jon’s report never found its way to the commanding office. The bottom line was he didn’t warn them in time, and the preplanned destruction of the allies’ base was carried out right under their noses.

One of his friends, Eric, died in
that attack. Twenty-four and with a baby son back home in Florida, he had been blown to pieces, along with other unfortunate soldiers who happened to be in the convoy. Jon had gone to see Eric’s family, his heart heavy as he watched them struggle to make sense of the disaster. They didn’t blame him for acting too slow. They welcomed him into their home and hearts with a warmth and lack of reservation that only made things worse.

They didn’t need to do anything. He blamed himself enough for all of them
. The events of that fateful June day played out in his head over and over again. His leave of absence from the agency didn’t do much good either. If anything, it pushed him even deeper into the downward spiral of guilt and self-destruction. He needed to work to be able to breathe, so he’d asked Bernard to consider using him in part of a project. Any project would do, he’d begged, as long as he could be useful and fill his days with actual hope he could save another human being, no matter where and how.

In the end, he went back to Iraq. At the time
, he questioned his boss’s decision to put him back almost exactly where he failed, and he’d regretted his agreement to accept anything at all. In the long run, he had to admit Bernard seemed to know him even better than he knew himself. In his usual wry and non-sentimental way, the older man explained that until Jon finished a successful mission there, he’d never find peace again. Bernard was right, of course. Spending six months in the Euphrates and Tigris Valley turned his life around, for the better. Except for his engagement.

Two months into his project, he had received that fateful letter
. Daphne’s message left no space for doubts or second-guessing. She had gotten tired of waiting for him, she said. She was tired and bored of living by herself and seeing him via Skype once or twice a week. She couldn’t live like that for another four months, let alone consider him doing it later on as well. Which he would, she stated. His job with the agency was more than she should have agreed to when they first decided to get married. She had found someone else. Her choice added insult to injury. She was dating their building manager, a balding, unpleasant man she used to joke about as they moved into the solid, red brick townhouse. She’d nicknamed him “The Brick,” making fun of his expressionless face and slow speech. Apparently it didn’t bother her any longer, all things considered.

He didn’t want to think of it. He had a job to do, and that was all that mattered. Peter Brunner was planning to assassinate the famous writer and publicist Daniel
Spitieri. As a senior member of the Peace Brigade, an organization that claimed western civilization needed a revival through chaos and anarchy, Brunner was extremely well prepared to complete the task. Spitieri was the perfect target, even though his life’s work revolved around the constant search to improve human conditions and social justice. His books and programs called for fairness and changing the way wealth was spread throughout the world. His works pointed out the flaws of the political and social systems guiding the world toward an abyss of self-destruction. Still, it didn’t matter. His death would certainly create enough impact to gain the world’s attention, bringing the Peace Brigade out of obscurity and into the spotlight it craved and thought it deserved.

Bernard
’s team, along with the government and FBI, had been working on eradicating the group for many years. Extremely cautious and elusive, its members managed to slip through cracks each and every time an agent closed in, and they left behind no traces or clues that could lead the agents to cracking the case. Their aggression seemed to have escalated in the recent months, leading the agency to believe they were gearing up for something major with the potential to shake up the current political scene. A series of attacks on affluent and influential people could spark a chain of reactions that could lead to larger scale operation, Bernard had argued, urging the government to step up to the plate and do its share in stopping that from happening. With the info gathered from his informants, Bernard could say with certainty that Daniel Spitieri was the first name on a much longer list. His violent death was sure to cause confusion and panic in the right circles.

The
y had no basis on which to arrest Pete Brunner was the infuriating answer. He had not given them any plausible reason to suspect he was plotting an assassination, so any attempt to arrest him would lead to a dead end. He’d be out in no time, and his lawyer would make sure they paid for each and every penny of damaged reputation the whole commotion might cause. With the Brigade’s cautious approach, tracing any crime to its members was virtually impossible. Plus, if they managed to stop one of the Brigade’s members, the others planning to carry out similar attacks would regroup and be even harder to hunt down. They needed to be taken down one by one, each of them unaware of the other’s fate, Bernard had insisted, and his plan was brilliantly simple. If coordinated correctly, “Operation Dove” could intercept six major plots virtually simultaneously, leaving the organization’s members with no time to reconnect and regroup. Just like Hydra’s heads needed to be cut off at the same time, they needed to destroy the Peace Brigade completely and irrevocably. Leaving any of its senior members long enough so they could go back into hiding and restore the organization from the ground up was just like Hercules trying to destroy the mythical beast by cutting off its heads one by one. As long as one was intact, the rest grew back over and over again, his efforts futile and doomed to fail.

Jon closed his eyes, the complexity of the operation overwhelming him for a second. Coordination and speed were the keys to success. He could do it, he told himself firmly, not allowing panic to set in.
Ever since the fiasco in Iraq, he had promised himself to make sure no other human being would die because of his incompetence or lack of resolve. He had managed to live up to that lofty plan so far. There was no reason to doubt himself now, he reminded himself, reopening his eyes and skimming the last page. Melanie Bennett’s name popped out, her image capturing his attention.

He was ready to meet her and her boss. It didn’t matter that her smile looked innocent and fresh
and brought back an unreasonable yearning for things he knew couldn’t be found. Like complete trust and honesty, or purity and simplicity. He was beyond the point of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. If anything, his life had taught him that whenever things looked too good to be true, they probably were. And then some.

‘This place is absolutely amazing!’ Melanie’s her wide eyes took in the pinkish walls of the small villa basked in the late afternoon sun. The golden ball of pure fire highlighted the pure, classical lines of the house and emphasized each crevice and carving. Framed by tall chestnut trees and dark cypresses, Spitieri’s residence seemed miles away from the hubbub of the Fiumicino Airport. Nestled at the beginning of Via Appia Antica, the house was surrounded by the lush greenery of the park-like setting, a riot of blooming oleanders, roses, and flowers she couldn’t even name enchanting her. Huge palms and pine trees guarded the wrought iron gate while ruby red cascading begonias overflowed the large, intricately carved urns placed strategically along the long, stone-paved driveway.