Taum Lee.
Three
Pay back.
The safe house sat in a nondescript neighborhood of modestly
priced homes. Mostly occupied by
middle-income families with kids, dogs, and a few chicken coops thrown in. Basketball hoops every two or three houses faced
the street; it's a peaceful, quiet place to raise a family.
2238 NE Brooks sat mid-street, on a slight dip from front to
back, making the rear of the house a couple of feet higher than the front. The builder had thrown in a modest-sized wood
deck with railings above the lawn by three steps. The house had three bedrooms with a double
garage, a small formal front room, and a small family room in the rear opening
out onto the deck through French-style doors.
The garage took up the right side of the house, and the
three bedrooms, one large bath, finished the left side. A six-foot wood privacy fence started with
a gate at the garage to the right, surrounded the small backyard, ending with a
second gate on the far left at the house's left corner.
Taum Lee had been living in this Agency home now for nearly
six weeks. He was between jobs and
enjoying some free time. This evening,
he had a new girlfriend over and had cooked a wonderful dinner with salad, fried
rice, shrimp, along with a nice light white wine. Amber had rained compliments over the
meal. They sat cozily on the couch, chatting
in the family room after the dishes were done, the dishwasher humming in the
background.
Leaning over quickly, Lee pressed his left hand over her
mouth, his right hand giving her the quiet sign; her eyes were instantly huge
with shock. Pulling his hand from her
lips, he pointed sharply at the floor, giving the urgent, “now” motion. She slid to the floor without a sound. Reaching under the coffee table, he pulled
out a huge black pistol. Dropping to a
sitting position, sandwiched between the couch and the coffee table, putting
himself between her and the French doors as they exploded inwards, glass and splintered
wood hitting the far wall.
The first through the door was waving his rifle, trying to
find a target. Taum Lee nearly yelled,
“Armor,” as they had during years of training. He saw that the man was covered
head to toe in body armor.
The man was wearing a black bump helmet rather than the
normal ballistic helmet most Police and Armed Forces wear. He knew this was a sign of special combat teams
who wore bump helmets rather than ballistic helmets because, against large
caliber weapons, ballistic helmets were useless and heavy.
Taum Lee placed one round in the man’s left temple, causing
him to pull the rifle's trigger, emptying all 20 rounds, piercing the flooring,
through the dividing wall into the formal living room, blowing out the front
window and front door, spraying splintered wood and glass into the front lawn.
The second man through the door ran straight into the back
of the lead man as the round hit. This
told Lee that this team had not worked together before this job, as the second
man should have passed to the right of the first man, keeping him from running
into or tripping over the first man’s feet.
Hitting the dead man, it stopped him with nowhere to go. Lee's shot hit the man, leaving a perfect
round hole in his left ear, straight through his head, adding to the blood
painting as it slowly ran down the wall.
Both hit the hardwood floor together.
Number three slid to a stop just inside the blown-out French door, a
surprised look on his face. As he
brought his rifle up, Taum Lee shot him twice in the face. As he crumpled to the floor, he tangled in the
window curtain, ripping it off the wall.
Jumping to his feet, Lee watched as number four turned from
the doorway and attempted to flee across the deck. Taum Lee’s last two rounds caught the fleeing
gunman in the lower neck and high in the forehead, flipping him off the deck, landing
in the mowed grass below.
Deafened by nearly 30 gunshots in a small area, it took Lee a
couple of seconds to realize the high-pitched sound was Amber screaming to his
right. Grabbing her up off the floor,
he carried her to the car in the garage and sat her in the passenger seat. As gently as he could, “It’s all right,
you're safe, I’ll be right back, I’ll get you out of here!” He disappeared back into the house.
Lee grabbed his bag, which he’d been living out of, and his
go bag in seconds. Lastly, throwing off
the mattress to the bed, he pulled the rifle case, slinging it over his
shoulder.
Running through the house, he threw the bags in the back
seat. “Get down, this is going to be a
rough ride!”
Engine roaring to life, he plowed backwards through the
garage door, leaving parts of the garage door spread down the driveway into the
street. Hitting the brakes, he could hear
sirens in the distance. Lee could see
that the front window of the house directly across the street was shattered
from one of the rounds.
Neighbors were standing in front doors, mouths agape, watching
the car disappear down the street.
……………………………..
In the car, making a number of turns and reversing
direction, he felt it was safe to head to Amber's apartment.
Lee drove Amber to her front door and pulled her from the
car, having to help her to the door. No
words were going to help, so he just said, “Goodbye.”
As he dropped the car into gear, his phone rang. “Ah Taum, I see you are still with us, what
a shame.”
“Will, if it isn’t Grigoriy Rostislav, my friend, how nice
to hear from you. I take it my visitors
were of your hire.”
“They professed a much higher level of expertise than they
apparently showed. I hope it wasn’t too
much of an inconvenience.”
“Not at all, I hope we will be seeing each other shortly,
it’s something I’ve been looking forward to.”
“As I have, old friend.”
The call ended with a click.
……………….
At the next bridge, Lee rolled down the window and threw the
phone over the rail into the river. He’d
pick up a burner phone in the next day or two.
On Wednesday, the 22nd, Lee made the call into
the “Office”. Five minutes of
verification, he was finally on the phone with his unpopular boss, Theodore
Spencer.
“Mister Lee, nice to hear from you. We got left with a rather large mess, didn’t
we? It’s been a scramble to get it all
cleaned up, and the locals are in an uproar that just isn’t quieting down
quickly.”
“I had a little run-in with my old friend Grigoriy Rostislav
hired people. They didn’t leave me with
much of a choice but to find another place to live.”
“And the reason it took you six or seven days to be in
contact with us?” “We really don’t like surprises, especially like this one!”
“We’re compromised.
They have someone inside the organization giving out information, or our
computers have been hacked. There’s no
other way they could have found me.”
“I’ll be moving from where I’m at and dumping this phone as soon as we
are done here.”
“Okay, let me run this down. Give me a few days. Make contact via a safe computer or one you
can dump. I’ll send a zip file of what
I’ve found and any information I can get about Grigoriy Rostislav that’s
recent.”
The phone clicked dead in his ear.
……………….
Dell 15” laptop in hand, Lee signed into the agency's
computer banks. He found the promised
zip drive and downloaded it, and immediately signed off. They’d found the leak, and it was terminated,
which brought a smile to Lee’s face; plugged, terminated, ended, and maybe just
signed off—small chuckle.
Buried deep in code was an urgent job. Lee started packing.
……………….
The landing in Denver, as normal, was rough; the wing stabilizers
were working hard, flapping like bird wings trying to control the radical
bounce of the plane through the vortices of the swirling wind.
Snow was forecast, the first of the season, and they
promised it was going to be a doozy.
Flakes were coming down, blowing in the wind.
The taxi took the shortest route, Pena Blvd to I-70 to I-25,
then a few side streets, dropping him off at the Crawford Hotel on Wynkoop
Street. The street was nearly deserted,
with three inches of snow and stacking up fast.
From the curb to the double doors was a blanket of blowing snow that
followed Lee into the Hotel lobby.
The Crawford is from a different era, with a huge reception
area, gilded staircases, and chandeliers.
Rooms are large with overstuffed furniture, a step back into the
twenties.
Lee picked a suite along with the special offer of in-room
dining. Plush, no, opulent came to mind.
Dinner came at
exactly 5:30 pm as he had ordered. Prime
rib rare, all the little extras, and a bottle of Pinot Noir. Perfection, a well-run business deserving of a
large tip.
An hour later, a soft knock at the door. Through the peephole stood a man with a rectangular
box riding on a four-wheeled stainless-steel cart.
No words were exchanged, just a modest tip and the box
placed on the floor just inside the hotel room's door.
Grabbing a fresh glass of wine, Lee split the box, dumping
the supplied tools on the carpet. He got to work.
……………….
The target sat one table away from the large window of the
Café, sipping coffee and reading what looked like a manual. One foot further into the Café and he would
have been hidden behind the café’s name on the big window.
Lee pushed the scope's magnification up to 20 power. A little higher and he’d be able to read the
text. The crosshairs settled four inches
above the target's head, no bounce, no movement side to side. Lee slowly squeezed the trigger, knowing that
the Café window would be a quarter-inch pane, deflecting the bullet eight
inches lower than he was aiming.
……………….
With the heavy snow, grabbing a taxi would be hard if not
impossible; the downtown streets were just now getting plowed, so Lee walked
the four blocks back to the Hotel. The
sirens screamed in the background.
Everyone in the lobby looked up when the double doors
opened. Lee walked to the front desk.
“What’s all the excitement about?”
“There’s been a shooting downtown, the news is calling it an
assassination. They are saying an
Iranian nuclear engineer was killed.
They think Israel did it!”
……………….
One thing Lee knew, America’s law enforcement would turn
every stone over looking for the shooter.
Lee packed his bag and called for a taxi to pick him up at a coffee shop
a block from the Hotel in half an hour.
Taking the back door, Lee left the Hotel. He timed it so he only waited five minutes to
be picked up at the front door of the coffee shop. He had the taxi take him south a dozen blocks. He paid the driver and walked two blocks,
hailing another taxi, taking him to the nearest rental car company. Hitting I25 south to Colorado Springs and the
airport.
……………….
JFK was unusually quiet, almost eerie, and the staff looked
bored. He boarded flight UT1522 and was handed
a full glass of Pinot Noir within a couple of minutes of hitting his seat in first-class,
the steward openly flirting with him; this was going to be a nice flight.
……………….
The landing was smooth, and taxiing was relatively short at
the Mohammed V International Airport, Casablanca, Morocco. A major airport for the region, it was a short
walk to his next flight to N'Djamena International Airport, Chad.
Totally exhausted, he checked into Hotel La Tchadienne, formally
known as Novotel, N’Djamena, Chad. Concrete with steel railings, the Hotel had
zero appeal, but surprisingly, the large picture window of his room was filled with
the view of the Grand Mosque, just east towards the City center, the view
making him remember his short stay in Libya during the Civil War, ending Gaddafi’s
reign. To the south, the Chari River.
……………….
Meeting at 10 pm Chad time, Lee caught a ride to the
southern part of the city, the Avenue du General Kerim Nasour was heavy with
traffic at that hour. Stopping just a block away from the Yemeni
Restaurant, Lee walked the short distance, checking for surveillance. Entering the restaurant, Lee spotted two tables
towards the back on each side of the aisle with three bodyguards each looking at
him as he entered the front door. Lee asked
the first man standing, “Sayid Yuad, min fadlika, 'iinah yantaziruni.” (“Mister
Yuad, please, he is expecting me”.)
With a nod, the man took Lee down a narrow hallway ending in
a heavy, solid wood door. With a quiet knock, the door opened into a large office
area, the walls covered in ancient artwork, and an exact copy of the hominin
skull sat on the large desk. Mr. Yuad
sat behind a large desk, making him appear smaller than he actually was. Standing close behind Mr. Yuad were two large
jet-black men and two matching caught Lee as he entered the room. Both carefully searched Lee, making sure he
carried no weapons. Lee instantly recognized
the four as Sudanese special forces, the equivalent of Delta Force in the U.S. They
stood between Mr. Yuad and Lee, leaving just a narrow window between Yuad and
Lee. Yuad was taking no chances.
Mr. Lee, I have a dossier that is very important to your
people. We have come to a value, a sum if you’d like for it, if it is of
interest.
“I’d like to see it if I may, I’ve been instructed to purchase
it in the full sum if it is ethnic.”
……………….
Lee scanned the document and was clearly shocked.
……………….
The N'Djamena International Airport was nearly empty as Lee
caught the first available flight out, regardless of the destination. His secure cell phone was glued to his head
as he read the dossier to his handler.
World War III had already started.
From the Ramblings.
t
