Mysterious Islands. David Meade
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Bermuda from the air is magnificent. I could see the harbor, the hotels and shops, the offices gleaming in the morning sun. We flew down the beach until we came to a hotel and golf course, and we veered inland. We descended until we were at three hundred feet, and then we leveled off and I saw a large estate on the edge of the country, opposite the ocean. It had three stories and was a Mediterranean style. A pool with deep blue water was in its yard. The estate was surrounded by shrubbery on three sides and a gate at the entrance. The gate was large and ornate, and closed. A large green space in front of the pool was apparently used for landings. That’s where we were headed.
As we set down another man - this one I recognized - emerged from the back of the villa. Jason Meadows. With short-cropped hair, tanned and heavy set and wearing wire-rim glasses, I remembered him well from prior meetings. He looked up at me with recognition.
“Vince, good to see you,” Jason cheerfully spoke above the sound of the rotors.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you,” I carefully replied.
“Come this way...we’re waiting for you.” He led me into the house via a path that led past brightly-colored vegetation and plant growth. The pool shimmered in the morning sun. I was in deep thought about my last visit - to their trading office off Front Street. It’s located up a small via, four flights up, in a Penthouse. It has a receptionist, and one administrative assistant named Shana. The Penthouse overlooks the harbor and has a patio outside the office for lunches. It has computerized, on-line transaction ability with bond trading, both in London and New York. It actually has a few real clients who are friends of the Company, but it existed mostly just to perform trades for the fund - the black ops fund.
Entering the house I found the rooms to be unusually large and well-done in terms of appointments. The paintings on the wall were of European castles and forests. A breeze entered from the open doors. We entered a room whose ceilings were topped by large long beams of wood. A nautical theme dominated the room. Models of sailboats and trawlers and cruisers were on the tables and desks. A splendid array of museum-quality artwork decorated the walls.
Inside the room were piles of paper and photographs - I couldn’t make out the nature of the files but there were at least six of them. I placed the briefcase on a small credenza and waited. Jason shut the doors behind us.
“It’s all right to speak - this house is ours. We use it for debriefings.”
I spoke. “All right - in the briefcase are the securities - the denominations are one hundred thousand, they’re bearer - it’s just a matter of filling in the endorsements.”
Jason shot back, “Leave it there and let’s take a walk.”
We exited and went outside, into the blue and green expanse of sky, sea and land. We walked towards a bluff. Jason looked at me and said, “Are you aware of what these payoffs are for?”
“Two recent hits - one in South America, one the ex-Director - and to fund a third – a foreign assassination called Operation Cassandra.”
“Did you know anything about the plan?” he asked.
“Not at all. Not until I was in Rock Key,” I responded coolly.
“The driver will be given capsules in his drink that morning - they later expand in his stomach and cause him to lose control.”
“How many know about the plan?” I asked.
He answered, “Mover, yourself, myself, Ranier, and the team that’s involved ”
I asked, “Which team ?”
He answered, “Victor Team - four men, one ex-Special Forces, and three are our assets.”
“Are they here?”
“They’re arriving this afternoon. They’re going to use the money to go to a safe haven - plan it and then wait everything out. We’ve already handled new passports.”
I answered back, “U.S. newspapers - they’ll count it a tragedy and blame the condition of the roads. But the Egyptian newspapers. Middle Eastern news - they’ll call it a conspiracy.”
He said, “They’ll have disinformation planted. How I feel about it is one thing - when we took these jobs we knew there would be some cases we wouldn’t have complete peace about - on a personal level.”
I knew what he meant. On a personal level, to authorize something - or be part of something - against the very nature of our beliefs is hard to accept. On a professional level - we do the job and forget the moral codes. But I could tell he was deeply disturbed by the incident - that we had financed it - arranged it and authorized it. And if anyone was listening right now, we might both be targets. Too sympathetic. Too personal. Security risks. I looked around and saw no one. But that didn’t guarantee anything.
I thought of past relationships I had with Company people. They had always been straight arrows. You knew their direction - and their purpose. Once in a while - in a great while - one went off on his own. That didn’t last long. There was a euphemism we used about eliminating a target - about ‘getting the measles.’ The other alternative was to discredit them - a trumped-up charge. Neither alternative was pleasant. They were rare - having to deal with people like this - but I understood it happened. No one wanted it to happen to them.
The other alternative, if you disagreed with policy, was to take a lateral transfer - out of the Company. And into one of its many fronts - travel agencies, detective agencies, offshore consulting groups. That would have been my preference. If I had been given one.
Jason came from a family of intellectuals - he pretty much accepted what he was told by the New York Times. Not that they’re often wrong - there’s a story about a man in North Africa - head of one of the stations. He decided to transfer intelligence to another station on a test basis and he used only one source - the New York Times. The briefings were so accurate they thought it took him months to develop the scenarios he listed. He ‘gamed’ a certain situation as if he were one of the players - method acting transferred to the Intelligence Community. But all of his information came from the Times - a few dollars from petty cash developed his briefing reports.
This same station chief had at one time developed a tremendous level of disinformation he wanted to influence Israeli Intelligence with. He provided briefing reports to them - they wouldn’t read it. And so then he took a briefing report - changed the name on the cover and marked it ‘Top Secret’ - left it in the King David Hotel in a conference room and within one hour it was missing. It was later read and acted on by Israeli Intelligence. There’s always more than one way to operate.
There’s always more than one way to operate - those words filled my mind as Jason and I looked over the beach, into the sun and sky. Each thinking his own thoughts. Each looking for a way - maybe a way out. My thoughts were on survival - I knew not to say too much. I knew my thoughts couldn’t be read and I was safe to think and plan. In my thought life just then I reflected on what an unusual coincidence that I was meeting a beautiful woman of the same name as a paramilitary operation we were covertly conducting.
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