Mysterious Islands. David Meade
Читать онлайн книгу.
and furnace-like heat permeating the atmosphere. My thoughts are on my case assignment - I was summoned here on less than a day’s notice - this house where the black ops division of The Company is headquartered. James Ranier sent an encrypted mail to an anonymous account I keep and monitor - the instructions were to report here at 1200 hours.
People die and disappear at Ranier’s orders. They are neutralized - their reputations can be destroyed. I remember one case where the Voodoo drug Burundanga was used like chemical hypnosis on a political candidate. Twenty minutes after ingesting it he was under the influence and like a zombie. He would be under the influence of it for twelve hours, and later not remember a thing. Until he was sent a video - and instructions. The advantage of Burundanga is that even those around the target don’t realize they are under the influence of anything - and the target will do precisely as instructed.
The candidate was neutralized. The other party to the incident was terminated with extreme prejudice. I was the paymaster. On a need-to-know basis, I knew the entire scenario. I paid the team in hashish, which they later converted to currency in Argentina. I knew the team that was involved. I knew the reasons. I knew everything.
Because of what I knew I kept files in three capsules - at three different locations - with instructions that if I didn’t contact my people every six months they were to release those files.
I enter the house after encoding a security number and immediately go into a room where Ranier is sitting. Seeing me, he dims the lights and using an armchair control he begins flashing slides on a wall. In the darkened room the macabre slides begin. The first set of slides is of a South American General, by all appearances. He is middle-aged and heavy-set, probably involved in drug-running in cooperation with us on some level. He is walking down a street when from one hundred and fifty yards in back of him gunfire erupts and his head is blown off. His aides run for cover. The pictures are taken with a telephoto lens and show grisly detail.
The second set of slides is even more threatening - they show the former head of one of the alphabet agencies, in a wilderness area. He is in a kayak. He is alone. A speedboat approaches him, and two men subdue him as one shoots an injection into his neck. He is alarmed - wide-eyed - and slumps over, the apparent victim of a heart attack. I read about this incident in the paper some time ago and it was attributed to a heart attack. There had been no autopsy.
The third set of slides comes on in rapid succession. A motorcade of a foreign country. Moving at a rapid speed down a winding mountain road, the driver, apparently out of control, careens off a narrow embankment and into a river bank and the car is submerged.
The man in the chair operating the controls over the slide presentation looks up at me. In the dimly-lit room, he says, “You’re familiar with the first two incidents. They’re history. The third - we simulated it - we’ve been instructed to target the Cassandra One. It will take place in Madrid. You’re to accommodate the team with negotiable instruments. Go to Hamilton, Bermuda and call our traders there. Wait for instructions from Mover.”
Mover...I had never met him but he controlled everything. I had heard about him. I heard at meetings he was always in the shadows. So with those few words, and a briefcase handed to me, I was on my way.
The sunshine covered the sky as I walked out of the dark aisle of the Boeing 747 onto the tarmac of Hamilton, Bermuda. A listful feeling that had been with me in the aircraft as I had dozed off and on was replaced by an alert and careful mentality, a watchfulness. A suspicious feeling. That someone was still watching me, as I had felt in the airport in Miami prior to takeoff. The flight to Bermuda had been with an average group of passengers, tourists, young people, some natives and only one strange man - ink had spilled out of his pen onto his shirt and he had dabbed most of it away - but not all of it. He looked foreign, somehow, but I couldn’t place him. And of all of the passengers, he had sat in the aisle opposite me. I had talked briefly with him. His name is Donovan Roberts, a solicitor whose family settled in Bermuda over a hundred and fifty years ago.
On the aircraft he talked of his ancestors, who had come here to escape religious persecution in the Carolinas during the last century. There was a town named after him - Roberts Harbor. He said it was a very small settlement until around the turn of the century. Then it grew and the land became valuable and his family was rich - rich from land, and then his father went into law. He attended the University of the West Indies and became a solicitor, practicing for a while with a firm in Nassau before returning to his native Bermuda. He complained of wealthy clients, but they had made him wealthy - he had a home in Toronto and one in London.
I only talked to him for a short while. My mind was on the case at hand - I was a courier today...handling fifty million in negotiable securities. It was to be delivered tonight to a firm - First Bermuda Limited. I had worked in the international departments of the largest investment banking firm in the world when I had been hired - retained, by the Company. The Company is not what a lot of people think it’s about - it is about intelligence gathering, and disinformation dissemination - but it has a black element. That black element some investigative reporters have termed ‘black ops’ - but they don’t know the extent of it. A little, maybe. But if you follow the money - you’ll always find out what makes any organization run. The money - that’s what I was carrying - fifty million in securities - bearer - in my briefcase. Technically more than ten thousand carried offshore requires a Currency Transaction Report. But there’s not a single method of detection - unless I open my mouth - that can determine if negotiable securities are being moved.
I enter the long hallway with windows on both sides and proceed to customs. A line is developing - not a long line. A motherly type is ahead of me. Ahead of her are two children, and then a Bermudian. I overheard her on the jet - she was in training in Atlanta for an insurance operation she works for here in Hamilton. Middle-aged, nothing unusual about her. Dark hair but some grey showing. Her intelligence was obvious - she had just spent two weeks prior to the Atlanta training in Jersey - not the state but the country. The Channel Islands. Off the coast of England. Headquarters to some of the richest companies on earth. Her job reminded me of mine - travel, interesting people. But she didn’t have the constant concerns I did. I was concerned about everything. Almost everything. I knew a lot - in fact I knew too much.
This group of funds was on its way to a securities firm which was a front for our operations. It traded securities...produced good returns but primarily just invested in government securities. U.S. government securities - a safe return. Under the guise of a foreign corporation – Touchstar Holdings. The Company had been formed in Nevis, about eight hundred miles southwest of Miami. It had been formed by a Registered Agent and the bearer shares assigned to the handler here in Hamilton. Two signatures were required on each check, though. John Maplethorpe and Jason Meadows. Both recruited at an early age by the Company. Both very reputable. They don’t even pad their expense accounts. Meticulous. They’re expecting me shortly. All that I have to do is get through customs. The customs lady is waving me through.
“Your passport, sir. Do you have anything to declare?”
“No, Ma’am. Nothing...here for about two weeks.”
“Staying at a hotel?”
“Yes, for the Financial Seminar - Global Trading and Investments...”
“I see you’ve been to the Bahamas a great deal.”
“My favorite islands...next to Bermuda. Only it’s closer and I can get there - well, easier.”
“Welcome to Bermuda, Mr. Sorenson.”
“Thank you. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my stay.”
I walked through. My briefcase was not even looked at. If it had been it wouldn’t have mattered. It had secret compartments.
I continued to walk down the long corridors of the airport…until I was in the baggage area. I still felt uncomfortable.
My baggage came through on the first round - a young man offered me a cart. I paid him five dollars, for which he was quite grateful.
“Will you be needing a taxi, sir?”
“Yes, I’m staying at the Balfour Hotel.”