Taum Lee, Three, Pay Back.

 

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 22^nd, 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.

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