the trade union

CHAPTER ONE

H

AROLD DAVIDSON was about forty and a detective by profession. He worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in Philadelphia. He was married and had two children, both of whom were boys, aged between twelve and fourteen years old.

Davidson, or simply Dave, as family friends and folks alike popularly knew him, came from a reasonably affluent background. His dad had been an oil millionaire from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and when he died, almost one year earlier; he had left his son a fortune of one million U.S. dollars, which was then safely stashed into a bank account. Dave hoped to buy a house and maybe even several horses when he finally retired from the FBI.

Dave and his wife, Michelle Geraldine, who was a florist by profession, had always desired to have a baby-girl. But after having three miscarriages in a row, Geraldine realized that dream might never come true, after all… that was of course unless she opted to adopt a baby-girl from the relevant authorities.

Their two children, Brian Joe and Vivian Carl, were in a primary boarding school in Manhattan, New York, and only came home during holidays, and so because of this the Harolds’ home often got lonely. To beat the loneliness Geraldine was thus on the look out for the correct baby-girl and was optimistic of becoming successful on the mission soon.

That Sunday evening Dave had promised to take his wife out for supper. In fact, he had already reserved a table for two in a posh downtown restaurant in Philadelphia and hoped it would be a romantic dinner. It was then six o’clock in the evening and the couple was expected at the restaurant in an hour’s time, so they were busy preparing themselves for the merry making rendezvous, which also happened to be their first date in a very long time.

The couple was just about to leave the house for the restaurant when the phone rang. Dave took it at the fourth ring and soon discovered it was a close neighbor calling. His name was Winah Rastam and he said he had a sick daughter in his home and desperately needed Dave’s assistance in rushing her to hospital for treatment. Rastam further explained and said his own car had unfortunately broken down and yet his daughter’s condition seemed to be getting worse each passing minute.

Although Dave felt sure this latest development would interfere with his dating plans that evening, his conscious could not allow him to let Rastam down in his hour of need, so he promptly promised to help him then hung up.

Dave had known Winah Rastam for a long time, but had been particularly close to his son, Reith Blest, before the latter had died under very puzzling and mysterious circumstances just over a year earlier.

Reith had been a tabloid journalist and had met his death after he had unwittingly poked his nose in the wrong place. He had tried to infiltrate a dreaded clandestine organization called the International Resources Redistribution Syndicate (IRRS), which mostly dealt in drug trafficking and firearms’ smuggling, but unfortunately had been killed before he had wrecked havoc on the organization.

As Dave replaced the receiver, after talking to Rastam, his eyes came into contact with those of his wife, Geraldine, who stood at the window of the house looking outside, pensively.

“Who was that on the line, dear?” she asked, picking a cuticle from a thumb.

“It was Winah Rastam and he has a sick daughter at home whom he wants me to help take to hospital for treatment. The poor man’s car had broken down, so he’s unable to rush his ailing daughter to hospital, yet it seems her condition is deteriorating each passing minute.”

Geraldine seemed surprised by this. “I didn’t know Rastam had a daughter. I thought Reith was his only child. Now what do we do about this? Remember we have already reserved a table for two at the Primera Restaurant.”

“Just give me half an hour and I’ll be back. I promise that. It would not be in the spirit of good comradeship at all to let the old guy down in a moment like this one when he so desperately needs me.”

“I’ll go with you,” she volunteered instantly. “I really would like to see Rastam’s daughter.”

“No, Ger,” he called her by her favorite baseball name. “Please remain here. The sight of the hospital and the sick depresses you and might easily spoil your appetite. I wouldn’t like that to happen on a wonderful evening like this one when we’re having a date. Just give me half an hour and I’ll be back… I swear.”

Geraldine looked down rather dejectedly. In the fifteen years she had been married to Dave she had never won a single argument against him and so did not expect to win this one, either.

“Okay, dear,” she mumbled, albeit reluctantly. “You may go alone… if that’s your wish. But make sure you don’t keep me waiting for too long.”

“I won’t.”

Dave was a huge man standing at about six feet tall and weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds. He had a dark brown hair and blue eyes and on that day he wore black denim jeans, a blue tee shirt and blue sneakers. On his wrist was a white gold watch, with sapphire baguettes and silver zoned dial Roman numerals. He got inside his yellow tuxedo dinner jacket and took his navy-blue hat.

The hat had the initials H.D – standing for Harold Davidson – inscribed on it and was something quite precious to him. Geraldine’s parents had given it to him during the couple’s fifteenth wedding anniversary. It was the symbol they had bestowed on him to show they loved and respected him as a son-in-law.

He got out of the house and briskly walked to his blue sedan car, which was parked outside on the driveway. He immediately drove to Rastam’s house, which was about two hundred meters away.

Rastam was waiting for him at the door when he arrived there and he had an anxious look on his face. “I’m so glad you’ve come, David,” he said plaintively, shaking his hand warmly. “Sorry for bothering and inconveniencing you with my problems. But under the prevailing circumstances there was nothing else, really, I could have done but seek your help.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Rastam,” Dave said, feeling rather guilty due to the apologetic remark. “You don’t have to apologize for anything, my friend. In fact, I feel quite privileged to be of any help to you. Where is your daughter?”

“She’s in bed. She can hardly walk.”

Rastam then led Dave to a room at the basement of the old-fashioned building. Dave noted the walls of the room were decorated with portraits and mural paintings of Trotsky, “Che” Guevara, Carl Max and Lenin.

A lone table stood on one corner of the room and feminine lingerie and clothes were strewn on it. On the single bed in the dingy and frowzy room was a woman.

The woman did not look anything more than thirty-five years old and although her skin was smooth and well tanned, she seemed terribly sick. She was partly covered in bed quilts and duvets and on her wrist was a stainless steel watch. There were several gaudy bracelets on both her arms and she had a simple bronze ring on her finger. Her eyes were closed and there were tiny sweat droplets on her forehead. Rastam’s wife, Primar Lusgeil, sat on the edge of the bed and held the woman’s hand lovingly inside hers. “Belta has suffered another heart attack,” she announced poignantly and rather melancholy, when the two men entered the room. There were tears in her eyes and Dave felt somehow touched by this.

Rastam sat on the edge of the bed too and felt for the woman’s pulse. “Too bad,” he announced after a while. “We must give her an intravenous injection immediately.” He then turned to Dave. “Her cardiologist said we should give her an injection each time she suffers a heart-attack. This is so as to help release the pressure building on in her heart.” He instantly left the room in search of her medicine.

Dave now had the time to scrutinize the woman carefully. She wore a self-stripe dress with lilac lining and her hair, which was long and dark, was kept in place by a blue ribbon. She had a thick forehead and chubby cheeks and although her eyes were closed, Dave could tell she was a beautiful woman.

Rastam came back into the room moments later carrying a hypodermic syringe filled with a substance Dave presumed was medicine. He gave the syringe to Lusgeil then left the room in search of her tablets. From his anxious look Dave could tell Rastam was deeply troubled and distressed by the young woman’s sickness, and he couldn’t help but feel sorry for him too.

Lusgeil fumbled with Belta’s arm for a while searching for the correct vein then said: “Dave, I can’t quite make out the correct vein. My eyesight is very poor, and that apart, I hate to inflict pain on the daughter I love so much. Please, inject her for me.” Her voice was weak and hoarse as she said this and there were dark circles around her eyes. From her worried countenance it was obvious she too had spent sleepless nights due to the young woman’s sickness.

“I guess it would be wise to wait for Rastam to come back here and give her the jab. I’ve never given anyone an intravenous injection in my whole life and I feel I might make a fatal mistake if I attempt doing that now,” he said reticently, trying to avoid doing the unpleasant duty.

Lusgeil gave him an imploring glance and it was obvious she was getting distraught and frustrated. “Rastam’s eye-sight is worse than mine. He had an eye operation several weeks ago and might make a mistake if we allow him to give Belta a jab. Please, inject her before it’s too late.” She gave him the syringe and moved away from the bed.

After thinking about it for a while Dave decided to help her do the odd job. With the syringe in his right hand he used his other free hand to identify the correct vein then ceremoniously gave Belta a jab. He heard Lusgeil heave a profound sigh as she returned to the bed.

“That was quite a superb job,” she commented, a radiant smile suddenly flashing on her face.

“Can we now take her to hospital?” Dave asked, giving the syringe back to her and straightening up.

“No,” a tough male voice said behind him. Dave turned around to find Rastam standing on the doorway, a pistol in his right hand. “Do you know what you’ve just done? You’ve just given the woman a lethal dose of diamorphine. Within five minutes she’ll be dead.” Dave noted he had a small Polaroid camera on his left hand.

“But you told me to do just that!” he exclaimed, rather puzzled. “Isn’t she your daughter, after all?”

“No, she’s not. The bitch was once married to my son, Reith. But ever since Reith died, about a year ago, I’ve always suspected she had had a hand in his killing and thus have been longing to avenge his death. But since I didn’t have the courage to kill her myself I called you here so that you could help me do just that.”

“But Rastam, the woman was quite sick when I came in here… I can swear about that.”

“No, she was not. We had put barbiturates in her coffee to induce sleep. But now that you’ve killed her, it’s up to you to know what you’ll do with the body. And David, I warn you now… don’t involve the police in all this, otherwise, you’ll be in a lot of trouble for that.”

Dave looked at Belta and noted her lips were turning blue. He touched her forehead and realized it was cold. She was dead. He panicked. “ I can’t understand all this!” he said totally bewildered, looking around for answers.

Rastam smiled in a wistful manner then said: “Maybe I’ll need to explain some things to you so that you may understand. As you may well have known by now my son, Reith, was a reporter with the Washington Post and died under very mysterious circumstances, about a year ago. In the course of duty the tabloid had instructed him to investigate the clandestine activities of the terrorists’ organization called the International Resources Redistribution Syndicate (I.R.R.S), with the aim of publishing the same. Reith was a cunning journalist and realized the only way he could infiltrate the I.R.R.S was by befriending some of its members. One such member was Belta Pinasoge, this woman you’ve just killed. Reith befriended her and after several months of friendship and courting he even moved ahead and married her, against my wish, of course. Six months later the I.R.R.S discovered Reith was a spy and ordered her to kill him, which she did. She was three months pregnant when my dear son died and to date I still don’t know what happened to my grandchild. Belta could not give me a chance to meet the poor child.”

“As you may have noted by now Belta is a beautiful woman,” Lusgeil chimed in, a shy smile on her face. “Eight months after Reith died she got married to the I.R.R.S’ boss, Eddie Levis. Levis loves Belta with all his heart… she means the world to him. In order to marry her he had to leave his first wife, Eleanor Joan, in a bitter and acrimonious divorce civil law suit that was all over the papers. I’m sure Belta’s death would devastate him terribly and the ruthless and irascible person he is, it’s highly likely he’ll stop at nothing to avenge her death.”

“I took a picture of you as you killed her and if you don’t do everything I ask of you, then I’m sending a copy of the snap-shot to Levis right away. Since you’re a federal agent by profession, Levis will no doubt imagine you were trying to extract some sensitive information about him and the I.R.R.S from Belta when she died, and I’m sure you won’t know what has hit you when the goon come for you,” said Rastam. “There’s simply no way you’ll be able to convince him otherwise, since the power to reason well and understand things sensibly are two virtues Levis had unfortunately never possessed in his whole miserable life.” He then pressed a knob on the Polaroid camera and the machine instantly produced positive prints within a matter of seconds. “There you are, Dave,” he said, hurling a picture at him.

Dave caught the picture in mid-air and studied it carefully. The picture had prima facie evidence clearly incriminating him in Belta Pinasoge’s death and he instantly realized he would be in a lot of trouble if the goddamn it fucking picture ever reached Eddie Levis and the I.R.R.S.

“What do you suggest I should do then?” he asked defeated, his breathing a little bit fast.

Rastam smiled serenely. “Good, I can see you’re now starting to think like a mature responsible adult should. What I want you to do is this: take Belta’s corpse and dump it as far away from here as possible, then go home and shut your mouth. Don’t tell anyone about this: neither your wife nor children. That way, no one will ever know what happened to her. The police and the I.R.R.S will no doubt imagine she’s a victim of pure mugging and no one will ever connect us to her death. But if you’re stupid enough to open up your fucking mouth, then you’ll have left me with no any other option but to send my wonderful snapshot to the I.R.R.S. You’re now free to go, Dave,” he said, backing a few paces behind and pointing his pistol at his forehead.

Dave hesitated for a while then picked Belta’s lifeless body from the bed and started for the door, in slow unsteady steps.

“Good luck, Dave,” Lusgeil mumbled poignantly, as he reached the door. The federal agent turned around slightly gave her a condescending and opprobrious stare then trudged out of the room, the dead woman in his arms.

HE OPENED the main door into the house and peeped outside. He could see no one on sight. Once satisfied there was no one around, he made giant steps towards his car, which was parked on the driveway several meters away, opened the passengers’ door and put Belta’s lifeless body inside. He made her to seat upright on the velvet-padded passengers’ seat and securely fastened the safety belt around her. He then removed his navy-blue hat and placed it on her head, pulling it to just several inches above her eyes. He wanted to give the false impression that she was asleep. Once satisfied she looked okay, he locked the door, walked around the car and got on the driver’s seat. He was just about to switch on the ignition when a neighbor came running down the cul-de-sac.

“Is she okay?” she asked breathlessly, her eyes on Belta. “I was upstairs in my apartment when I saw you get the woman inside the car. What happened to her?”

Dave looked at her puzzled. “I guess that’s none of your business …is it?” he snapped, rather irritated and shot out of the driveway at top speed. He hated clumsy neighbors who didn’t mind their own business. The woman looked at the car speed away removed her spectacles, then put them on again bewildered.

Dave didn’t stop until he was two kilometers away. He looked at Belta and noted saliva was dripping from the corner of the mouth and her head lay on an awkward position on her shoulder. He adjusted her head into an upright position, got a rag from the glove compartment of the car and wiped her face clean. He wondered which was the best place to dump the corpse. After pondering over the issue for a while he decided to drive to Washington D.C. and leave the corpse there. That was the furthest place he could think of at that moment.

The blue Honda Accord was driving at just over a hundred kilometers an hour and Dave had not realized he was driving a little bit too fast until the driver of the car in front of him suddenly applied emergency brakes at traffic lights. Dave’s car rammed onto its rear and the hat on Belta’s head flew off and hit the windshield. The somewhat confused federal agent quickly took it and replaced it back on her head.

The driver of the other car got out fuming and started for Dave’s car. The FBI agent decided he was not going to wait for him. He promptly reversed his car and shot out of the place at top speed. As he darted through traffic he could hear other vehicles hooting and screeching, but he didn’t care. He missed an on coming truck by inches, swerved violently to the left and was soon gone, leaving the smell of burning rubber in the air.

A state trooper who had his car parked near the traffic lights saw him and decided to give chase. Dave’s adrenaline shot high when he saw the police car behind him and he stepped hard on the accelerator. But his car was no match to the patrol car, for it soon overtook him and blocked his path. A trooper got out, a pistol in hand, and ordered Dave to stop. Dave instantly reached under his car’s seat and pulled out a revolver. He opened fire puncturing the police’s car tires. The trooper ducked the hail of bullets and hid behind his car.

As Dave reversed his car and shot out of the place at top speed the trooper too opened fire damaging the trunk of the former’s car, but that didn’t stop Dave from getting away from the scene. This was the first time in a very long time the federal agent was getting involved in crime and all this somehow surprised him.

As a detective of many years Dave had in the past dealt with several crime cases involving the I.R.R.S and he knew the organization could get nasty when provoked. I.R.R.S was a sort of a clandestine Trade Union made up of drug cartels from many parts of the world and it was known to mercilessly destroy anyone who was foolish enough to cross its path. With its strong mob ties it ensured its unfortunate victims disappeared without traces and the FBI and the CIA had long given up hope of ever dismantling the organization. To make matters even worse the I.R.R.S’ boss, Eddie Levis, was quite close to the American president, Eugene Lewis, who was married to his sister, Roselyn Verona, a former model and movie star. The couple had three children and their marriage seemed to be growing stronger each passing day.

The FBI and the CIA had for many years known that Eddie Levis was the I.R.R.S’ boss; but few federal agents or their CIA counterparts could dare launch investigations against him, since he was known to send I.R.R.S’ thugs to terrorize or even kill anyone who considered himself snazzy or smart enough to challenge him. It was precisely for that reason that Dave hated to imagine what would happen to him and his family if it was true Belta Pinasoge was Levis’ wife and the steps the latter would take to avenge her death, once he learned Dave was the killer. He hated Winah Rastam for dragging and involving him into all this and swore to revenge against the bastard one day in the near future.

At forty-one Eddie Levis was quite an influential U.S. Air Force general based at the Pentagon. The president had promoted him to this prestigious position several years earlier when he got married to his sister, Roselyn Verona. Prior to the promotion Levis had been a lowly paid military officer in the U. S. Air Force and it was highly likely he would have remained in that position for a long time, if his powerful brother-in-law had not intervened.

Dave arrived in Washington D.C. when it was already dark, selected a convenient place to dump Belta’s corpse and was just about to open the door when he heard a tap on the window. His heart missed a beat and tiny sweat droplets formed on his forehead, as he lowered the window.

He looked outside and noted it was a soldier. He had a bright torch on one hand and a rifle was strapped across his shoulder. “Excuse me, sir, you’re not allowed to park your car anywhere near this place. This is the official residence of the Norwegian ambassador to America. Who are you? Can you identify yourself?”

Dave hesitated for a while and tried to appear calm. “Name is Tim Fravier and I’m a banker by profession,” he said confidently. Although he knew this was a lie, he felt comfortable with this since he could easily produce documents to prove it as ‘true’ if the need to do that arose.

“Where is your ID? Can you give it to me?”

“Sure.” He reached inside a pocket on his tuxedo jacket, pulled out an ID and handed it to the soldier. He often traveled with a false ID in order to conceal his true identity as a federal agent. This was necessary so that he could beat thugs in their own game in case anything untoward happened to him and he got kidnapped while in the course of duty.

The soldier regarded the ID for a while then asked, “And who’s this with you in the car?”

Dave thought quickly. “She’s my wife,” he said in a relatively calm manner, although his heart was beating wildly behind his chest.

The soldier flashed his torch on Belta’s face and Dave panicked when he did this. Once again saliva was dripping from the corner of her mouth and all her skin had turned blue. “What’s wrong with her? She looks sick!” the soldier exclaimed, surprised.

“It’s like this,” Dave said somehow apprehensively. “My wife and I are coming from a wedding party where we had been invited and I think she took too much alcohol while there. I have tried to warn her against the habit several times in the past, but she just doesn’t listen to me. One of these days I might consider divorcing her if she persists on the habit and continues being an embarrassment to me.”

“Does her skin always turn that color when she gets drunk?”

“To tell you the truth, today she looks a little bit better. The last time she got this drunk was a month ago and I almost rushed her to hospital thinking she was sick, but she pulled out of it unscathed. She’s six months pregnant at the moment and I guess that’s one reason why alcohol is affecting her so much. Please, put off the torch. It might irritate her and wake her up, and I’m afraid you’ll be shocked by the violent anger tantrums she’ll throw all around while she’s in that inebriated state.”

The soldier switched off the torch and shook his head apologetically. “You’re not the only man suffering because of an irresponsible spouse. My girlfriend is even worse. She drinks like a fish and gets mad at me whenever I tell her to kick off the habit. Anyway, let’s stop all that and get down to business. Why did you stop here, if I may ask? ”

The question caught Dave unawares. “ I wanted to piddle.”

The soldier was quiet for a while then said: “I have a strange feeling in my heart that you’re lying about something. Get out of the car and open the trunk.”

Reluctantly, Dave got out of the car and opened the trunk. The soldier flashed his torch in there but could see nothing of importance. He was just about to switch off the torch when he saw a bullet lodged in there and noted the trunk of Dave’s car was partly damaged. “What’s this?” he asked, taking the bullet into his hand.

He turned around to find Dave pointing a pistol at him. “Make a noise and you’re dead, bastard!” he said, taking the soldier’s rifle and strapping it across his own shoulder and closing the hood of the car softly. “Get that idiot out of the car.” He commanded then took his ID from the guard and put it back into his own pocket.

The guard seemed bewildered by this. “Who? Your wife?” he asked, not sure he had heard right.

“Stop talking and do what I tell you, else I’m going to spray bullets into your fat sorry arse, profligate rookie.” He hesitated for a while but when he noted Dave’s pistol was pointed at his forehead, he walked round the car and pulled Belta out.

“She’s dead! What happened to her?” he asked surprised, when he noted she was lifeless. He flashed his torch on her face once again then put it back into his pocket.

Dave ignored his question and instead asked, “Is the ambassador around?”

“Yes, he’s having some visitors inside the residence. He is having a champagne cocktail with some visiting diplomats and other members of the diplomatic corps.”

“That’s great. Now I want you to do me a favor. I want you to give this woman lodging inside the residence tonight, will you do that?”

“No, I can’t. Besides, the ambassador can’t allow such a thing here, since she’s already dead!”

“You’ll do just that,” Dave said, pulling a pair of handcuffs from a pocket on his jacket and throwing them at him. “Take those handcuffs and chain yourself to the dead woman’s corpse. Mind you, I don’t have the whole night to spend here... so you’ll have to be quick at it.”

The soldier took the handcuffs and stared at them sheepishly, fear jumping into his eyes. From the ambassador’s residence, which stood several meters away, he could hear peals of delirious laughter coming from the visitors inside, and knew it would be another hour or so before the visitors finally went home.

“Chain yourself to the woman!” Dave hissed between clenched teeth when he noted the guard’s hesitation. Reluctantly, the youthful looking soldier chained himself to Belta’s corpse. Dave smiled with smug satisfaction. “That’s good. The corpse is now in your hands and you can do whatever you want with it. But, for heaven sake, don’t make the foolish mistake of carrying the dead body into the residence when the ambassador is still having his important visitors inside there. For all I know this might frighten the visitors and your boss might not take that very kindly. He could easily fire you from your job due to such a blunder, if I’m not wrong. The best you can do is wait till the visitors had gone home then report the crime. Good luck, pal.” With that Dave threw the soldier’s rifle away, got inside his car and was soon gone…leaving the soldier stranded there beside the road, the dead woman beside him.

SAMANTHA DELPHIS stood at the window of her duplex apartment looking outside. She was a housewife by profession and often spent most of her time at home, attending to household chores. From where she stood at the window she could clearly see Winah Rastam’s house, which stood several meters away.

She saw a green truck stop outside the house and the Rastams’ hastily began to pack their household belongings inside the truck. This somehow puzzled Samantha. Several minutes earlier she had seen Dave leave the Rastams’ home with a very sick woman, but what had surprised her most was Dave’s reaction when he had confronted him on the driveway inquiring about the woman’s condition.

As the Rastams’ neighbor for a long time, Samantha had known Belta Pinasoge personally when she was Reith Blest’s wife and she somehow liked her. She always considered her a kind and generous person.

When Reith had died Lusgeil had confided in her that she suspected Belta was involved in his death but so far no one had been able to substantiate that allegation.

That same day at about nine o’clock in the morning Samantha had seen Belta arrive at the Rastams’ home and she seemed to be in perfect good health. She had been carrying a suitcase and a traveling bag and after a simple hello to her she had gotten inside the Rastams’ home. That was the last time Samantha had seen her before Dave had taken her out of the home in critical condition, several hours later. Now as she watched the Rastams’ hurriedly get their household belonging into the truck Samantha felt all was not well. She suspected foul play and decided to call the police.

The truck carrying the Rastams’ household belongings was pulling out of the cul-de-sac connecting the neighborhood homes when Samantha dialed the police’s number. She explained everything she knew about the Rastams and Belta Pinasoge to them and in turn the police instructed her to phone the FBI and pass the same message to them, which she did and then hung up.

Although she hated to rise false alarm she felt sure something nasty had happened to Belta while inside the Rastams’ home and her consciousness could not allow her to keep quiet over the issue. Ten minutes later she went to Dave’s home to find out whether the federal agent had came back home from his mysterious trip.

DAVE FELT SOMEHOW TIRED as he started the journey back home from Washington D.C. For the first time since he had left home, just over two hours earlier, he realized he was hungry. He remembered the promise he had made to his wife of taking her out for supper that evening and felt somehow guilty. It was obvious by the time he arrived home it would be too late for that and he knew Geraldine would be profoundly heart broken due to the unfulfilled promise.

He arrived home to find Geraldine waiting for him, an anxious look on her face. “What happened, Dave? Did you take the sick woman to the hospital?”

He remembered Rastam’s words: “Don’t tell anyone about this, not even your wife or children.” So he said, “Yeah, I took her to the hospital.” He removed his tuxedo jacket and sank on a nearby settee, exhausted.

“How is she?” She came and sat beside him.

“Not too bad. She got admitted into the Clevers’ Hospital and the doctors are right now monitoring her condition closely.”

Geraldine was quiet for a while then said: “You had a navy-blue hat when you left here ... where is it?”

Dave touched his head and for the first time realized he had forgotten to take the hat off Belta’s head when he had ordered a security guard to chain himself to her corpse, outside the official residence of the Norwegian ambassador to America in Washington D.C., earlier that evening. “I forgot it at the hospital,” he lied. “Goddamn it, guess I’m growing old too fast and that’s one reason as to why I’m becoming too forgetful of late.”

“That hat is something quite precious to me, Dave. Remember my parents gave it to you during our wedding’s fifteenth anniversary and we simply can’t afford to lose it now. Which ward was the woman admitted into? I guess I’ll go and fetch the hat from the place tomorrow in the morning, if you don’t mind.”

Dave’s mouth ran dry. “I didn’t mark the ward. Hospitals somehow scare me and I was in a hurry to get out of the pathetic place and come home immediately. I wish you were there with me today, I’m sure you could easily have fainted. There were so many road accident victims in the casualty section of the miserable hospital tonight and I must admit the sight of human blood flowing so freely somehow freaked me out.”

“All that sounds rather strange.” She hesitated for a while then asked, “Do you know one thing, Dave? The Rastams moved out of their house soon after you had left with the sick woman, why did they do that?” She was observing his reaction keenly as she asked this question.

His mouth instantly flew open. “But who on earth told you that?” he asked, nervously lighting a cigarette. He noted his hands were shaking slightly as he performed this little ceremony and tried to control himself in vain.

Geraldine heaved a profound sigh. “Soon after you had left this place a neighbor came calling in here, she said she had seen you put someone quite sick inside your car, but when she tried to inquire from you what had happened to her, you were rude to her and drove away at top speed. She’s the one who told me that the Rastams had moved out of their house. Are you sure the woman you took to hospital is alive and not dead, honey?” She threw him an imploring glance and he avoided her eyes.

He sucked hard at his cigarette and released gray smoke out of his mouth, pensively. A thick cloud of smoke hung just above his head for a while but soon dissipated into the atmosphere. “Of course she’s alive and might pull through. I sincerely don’t see any good reason as to why I should lie to you, darling.”

She shrugged her shoulders dismally. “Alright, I’ll take your word and hope she’s fine. Are we still going out for supper tonight?”

“No, it’s too late for that now. We’ll have to postpone the date until another day.”

“I guessed that.”

CHAPTER TWO

T

HE GUARD looked at the taillights of the car disappear around a bend then looked at the dead woman beside him. He got his torch from a pocket on his jacket and flashed it on her face once again. He noted she had a navy-blue hat on her head and he wondered what the initials H.D inscribed on it meant.

The dead woman had a ring on her finger and the guard, known as Sergeant Mostaveig Frizan, guessed she must have been married before she died. He wondered why she had been killed. He decided to frisk over her clothes to find out whether she had any identification papers on her or any other clue that could shed some light as to the reason why she had been killed.

His quick hands ran over her body and he was just about to give up hope on her when he felt something hard between her breasts. He dipped his hand in there and pulled out a purse made of fake fur. He opened the purse and inside he found a large piece of paper that was neatly folded.

Frizan unfolded the piece of paper and scrutinized it carefully under his torch. The information on it was written in code language and he could not understand what it meant. He folded the paper neatly and put it back into the purse and put the purse into his own pocket. He decided he would show the document to the ambassador when he got back into the diplomat’s residence.

Frizan next carried Belta’s limp body into his arms and walked to where he had seen Dave throw his rifle. Once he had found the firearm he sat next to it and wondered on what was the best course to take next.

Several weeks earlier a fellow guard called Sergeant Elsen Melon had arrested a drunk who was passing on a nearby road and he had unwittingly taken him into the residence, when the ambassador had some important visitors inside. The drunk had somehow gotten hysterical then pulled out a pistol from under his pants and most of the guests had taken cover in fear. Melon had been forced to shoot the hand holding the pistol and things had gotten nasty after that.

Although the situation had finally been brought under control when the police were called in later on, the damage had already been done. Most of the visitors had been frightened out of their wits by the bizarre episode and the ambassador did not take that kindly. He had bitterly and furiously reprimanded Melon for that and the guard had regretted his unwise move.

Now as Frizan stared at the corpse beside him he wondered whether or not it would be a smart move to carry the corpse into the residence while the visitors were still in there. After pondering over the issue for a while he decided against doing that at that moment, since such a move could easily have earned him the wrath of the ambassador. The best he could do was wait till the visitors had gone home then walk into the residence. He felt pretty foolish for having allowed the killer to chain him to the dead woman against his wish, of course, and then get away scot-free.

One hour after Harold Davidson had left Sergeant Mostaveig Frizan chained to Belta Pinasoge’s body, the confused guard noted the guests were starting to leave the ambassador’s residence and he sighed with relief. He was just about to carry Belta’s corpse into the residence when he felt something cold pressed to his neck. He turned around to find another soldier standing behind him, a rifle in hand. “Please don’t shoot me, Melon. It’s me, Frizan,” he mumbled.

The other soldier withdrew his gun and put it back onto his shoulder. “I guessed you’re up to something when you disappeared from the ambassador’s residence just over an hour ago. So all that time you’ve been here in the dark with your girlfriend having a good time?”

“Puh! She’s not my girlfriend. She’s dead!” Frizan said, disgusted.

Melon got his torch and flashed it on Belta’s face. “Who killed her?” he asked surprised, backing a few paces behind.

“How on earth am I expected to know that? Someone chained her to me at gun-point then left.”

“But why didn’t you raise an alarm the moment that happened? He could have been trailed, you know.”

“I was afraid I would frighten the ambassador’s visitors if I did that, so I held my peace.”

Melon was quiet for a while then said: “All this is so pathetic and sad. I never imagined such an hideous thing could ever happen here.” He shrugged his shoulder dismally and pouted. “Anyway, now that it has already happened we have to be practical and do something realistic about it. We can’t remain here the whole night complaining and swearing at the killer. We have to go into the residence and report the crime to the ambassador right away.”

Five minutes later Frizan carried Belta’s corpse into his arms and the two men walked into Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg’s residence, which stood several meters away. Melon towed behind him and carried his friend’s rifle in one hand.

Once inside the compound they got into the soldiers’ booth near the gate and placed a call to the ambassador, who was inside his study room in the main house down-loading some information from the Internet, now that the visitors were gone. He immediately got out of the house to go and view the body.

DIXIE ROSTIBORET drove into Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg’s residence and parked the yellow sports car on the driveway, beside a row of other cars. He was twenty-three and the eldest son of Aspeyl Constansborg and his wife, Savilla Goelia.

Dixie was a student at the Washington University where he was studying architect and the sports car, a Toyota Splinter Trueno, had been bought for him as a gift by his dad, several months earlier during his twenty-third birthday.

Apart from Dixie, Constansborg and his wife also had a daughter, called Morrina Roneo, and aged twenty years old and a student at the King George’s University where she was studying medicine.

That evening Dixie was coming from a date whereby he had taken his girlfriend, Tresira Cadgam, out for a romantic dinner in a fancy restaurant in downtown Washington D.C. Cadgam was twenty-one and a fellow student at Washington University where her mom happened to be a tutor. Her dream was to become a surgeon, and so she was taking a course on surgery.

As Dixie got out of his car he could hear merry laughter coming from the residence and he guessed his dad was throwing yet another cocktail party. Although the noisy parties no longer bothered him like they often did in the past when he was younger, Dixie always tried to get as far away from them as possible. All the same, he felt quite proud to have such noble and respectable parents.

As he stared at the visitors’ cars parked inside the compound he found himself wishing Cadgam’s dad was one of the visitors in there. For although Cadgam’s dad, Haslevia Dessantim, was Constansborg’s deputy at the Norwegian embassy in America the two men never got along well. Several nasty incidents had happened in the past that had marred their friendship and this was always a major cause of concern to Dixie. An amorous young man by nature he wondered how his dad would react when he learned he was courting Dessantim’s daughter.

Their friendship had been a well-guarded secret for the past several months but things were now getting out of hand. Cadgam was insisting that he should tell his parents about it and Dixie did not know what to do about that. He realized all this was frustrating Cadgam terribly and knew he had to act fast, if at all he was to save the situation. So that evening he had planned to tell his dad all about it when he found him with visitors. He decided to wait till the visitors had gone home then discuss the whole damn issue with him in full later on. Meanwhile, he went to his bedroom inside the elaborate residence to have some rest.

Twenty minutes later when all the visitors had gone away Dixie went to the study-room where his dad sat in front of the computer browsing the Internet. He took a seat near him then said, “Dad, there’s something very important I would like us to discuss tonight, if you don’t mind.”

“What about, Dixie?” the ambassador asked, his eyes still on the screen and his hand clicking the mouse tenderly.

Dixie heaved a profound sigh and rubbed his sweaty palms together. “I have found a woman I would like to marry and I thought you should know about this.”

Constansborg threw him a puzzled look, adjusted his thick reading glasses then rubbed his temple thoughtfully. “But you’re still too young for that, Dixie. Besides, you’re still in college and aren’t ready for marriage, yet,” he said his eyes narrowing.

Dixie fidgeted uneasily on his seat. “I’m graduating from college in a few short months and I feel I can’t live without the woman.”

Constansborg was quiet for a while, stared intently at the information flashing through the computer then asked, “Who is the woman?”

The phone rang before Dixie could answer that question. Constansborg took the phone, listened keenly for a while then replaced the receiver back in the cradle, his face a shade darker. “It seems some goon had left a dead body around this place. I must go out and check on that immediately.” He disconnected the modem then switched off the computer. “As for your girlfriend, I guess we’ll have to discuss that issue another day.” With that he left the room and Dixie followed a few paces behind, his heart beating wildly behind his chest.

THE NIGHT WAS COOL and only a few stars were visible on the dark clouds high above the horizon. Constansborg and Dixie soon reached where Mostaveig Frizan sat on a couch near the guards’ post, still chained to Belta’s corpse. He seemed shaken and Dixie could almost hear his teeth chattering inside his mouth.

Sergeant Elsen Melon stood near him and he had a silly smile on his face. The ambassador’s three alsatians slept on the grass several meters away and now and then they would cast awkward glances at the corpse. The dogs had just been released from their kennel, now that all the visitors were gone.

Constansborg’s wife, Savilla Goelia and daughter, Morrina Roneo, were on a three weeks’ vacation trip in Norway and they still had two more weeks to go before they finally returned home. Constansborg’s family often spent their vacation in their native land, Norway, whenever finances permitted that and this time round it was the duo of mother and daughter who had gone there. Last summer it had been Dixie and his dad who had been to the country for several weeks.

The three domestic workers employed at the residence were also at the scene and they moved away when the ambassador approached the group.

“Who left the body here?” Constansborg asked breathlessly, when he reached the guards’ post.

“I don’t know his name, sir. He was a total stranger to me and chained the body to me at gun-point then left,” Frizan said in a weak voice, his most innocent look on his face.

Constansborg moved closer and inspected Belta’s face keenly. “Gracious good Lord!” he exclaimed, rather surprised. “This is my cousin, Belta Pinasoge! Why on earth didn’t you sound an alarm the moment the killer left the body here?”

Frizan’s mouth flew open, surprised at this latest development. “You had visitors inside the residence and I was afraid I would frighten them if I raised an alarm,” he said trying to appear calm.

Constansborg instantly slapped him hard on the face and the smack caught the guard unawares. “That’s the most foolish thing I’ve heard in a long time. The commissioner of the police was here and he could easily have mobilized the entire police force to track down the dumb arse within minutes. What sort of car was he using?”

Frizan rubbed his jaw, thoroughly embarrassed. This was the very first time the ambassador had dared slap him since he got posted to the residence from the Norwegian embassy, almost a year earlier, and he felt thoroughly humiliated because of all this.

“It was a blue Honda Accord, sir, but I didn’t see the number-plate, because the car was covered with mud and dust.”

The previous day, which happened to have been on a Saturday, Dave had taken Geraldine and some family friends hiking to some remote picnic sites near Mt Mitchell and it had rained heavily while the group was there. The muddy terrain leading to the picnic site had become practically impassable and Dave had had quite a rough time steering the vehicle out of the place.

By the time Dave and company returned home later on that evening it was already too late and he didn’t have time to take the car to a car wash. It was only when Dave was driving Belta’s corpse to Washington D.C. when he had noted the car looked rather pathetic, but then he didn’t have the time to exchange the vehicle for a better one.

“Can you describe the killer?” the ambassador asked, pacing up and down furiously.

“Yes, sir. He was tall and huge, the military type with a crew cut. I can certainly recognize him if I ever see him again.” Frizan silently cursed under his breath. How could Constansborg dare to slap him in public as if he was a foolish little boy? He there and then decided he would not show him the coded-document he had pilfered from Belta’s corpse earlier on that evening. He would either throw it away or give it to a code-breaking expert, who could decipher it for him.

Constansborg stopped pacing up and down and carefully scrutinized the navy-blue hat that was on Belta’s head. He felt certain it must have belonged to the killer. It was too large for her head and that apart; he had never known Belta to be fond of hats when she was alive.

He wondered who could have killed her and why he had done that. He was sure it was all the work of his enemies who were all out to destroy him and this filled him with rage. That was when he saw the initials H.D inscribed on the hat and his heart instantly missed a beat. He stared at the initials for a while and everything suddenly made sense to him.

The initials could mean only one thing to him — Haslevia Dessantim — and as realization dawned on him tears formed on his eyes. This meant his arch-rival at the Norwegian embassy, Haslevia Dessantim, was involved in all this and had this time round actually moved a step ahead, murdered his cousin and dumped her body at his gate, to see how the ambassador would react to that.

That was when Constansborg remembered another thing. Dessantim was quite fond of hats and was always seen around with one on his head. He was particularly fond of large blue hats, just like the Stetson on Belta’s head. Constansborg bit his lower lip in fury and swore to avenge her death. He too would touch something Dessantim loved and cherished, to see how the envoy would react to that. This time round he too would teach the ‘bastard’ a bitter lesson he would never forget.

As a ‘wise’ man he decided he was not going to tell anyone what he had planned to do against Dessantim, since he was totally determined to clip the Charge d’ affairs’ wings once and for all.

Dixie looked at his dad who stood beside him, with tears in his eyes, and felt deep compassion for him. He realized Belta’s death had affected him tremendously, since the two were very close, and he wondered what he could do to alleviate and mitigate his pain and heartache.

Dixie too loved Belta when she was alive and he had always considered her a generous and a kind relative. It was a great pity someone had murdered her and chosen to dump her corpse at the gate of their residence, and Dixie found himself wondering who could have been responsible for such a morbid action and why he had done it.

He decided he would refrain from telling his dad about his love affair with Cadgam for the time being, at least until things had calmed down a bit. He would give him about two weeks to grieve over Belta’s death then bring up the matter to him again. But unknown to Dixie this was the biggest mistake he ever made in life and it cost him his own life.

Dixie then inquired around to find out whether anyone had called the police about this. Once he had learned no one had done that so far he went to the main house and called the police immediately.

HASLEVIA DESSANTIM and Boreige Toskaveg had been twin brothers and had been born and bled in Bergen, Norway. Quite naturally they adored and liked one another dearly and as children they never imagined anything would ever happen in their lives that would separate them.

At twenty-six Toskaveg had met a young woman called Edrin Dorien and after several months of friendship and courting he had married her. At around the same time Dessantim had met a woman called Fontina Evageis and he had married her on the same year.

After two years of marriage to Toskaveg, Dorein had conceived and given birth to a baby-boy whom she had named Septain Wenzam. But her marriage to Toskaveg had been short lived. One year later the couple had divorced and Dorien had left Bergen for Oslo, where she had gone to start a new life.

At thirty Toskaveg had been diagnosed, as having Leukemia after bouts of ill health and it was obvious he had no long to live in this World. On his deathbed he had called his brother, Dessantim, privately.

“Brother, you realize I am sick and have no long to live,” he had started, taking Dessantim’s hand into his. “As I die I leave my young son, Wenzam, with you. Take good care of him and bring him up as you would your own son. This world is a cruel and uncompromising place at times, so never allows anyone to crush his spirit… stand by him always.”

“I will do that,” he said, trying to break the ominous silence that followed.

“Teach him to shun vices, coach him to become a noble person and for my sake lead him towards the correct direction in life, making sure he become a responsible citizen in the future.”

“I promise I’ll do that too, brother,” Dessantim said, tears forming in his eyes and he squeezed his sibling’s arm lightly.

Two days later Toskaveg died and Dessantim took Wenzam into his custody. The boy was then two years old and quite a precocious child to say the least. He had quickly been assimilated into Dessantim’s family, whose wife was by then pregnant with their first-born child, Tresira Cadgam.

At eighteen Wenzam had become interested in journalism and after a series of interviews with various newspapers and magazines the New York Times had taken him on as a special correspondent. By then the family had already emigrated from Norway and was at that time living in Washington D.C., where Dessantim was a senior government official at the Norwegian embassy in the country.

Knowing all too well that Wenzam was the nephew of quite an influential foreign diplomat in the country and that he often socialized with the rich and famous the New York Times had struck a deal with him. He would supply them with juicy and scandalous information about private lives of diplomats in the country and in exchange the newspaper would give him a scholarship to study journalism at the prestigious Sussex University, if his work proved good enough.

Since he wanted so much to have a degree in journalism Wenzam had naively accepted the assignment and soon after that had set out to please his paymaster, the New York Times.

The first bit of information his sharp ears had picked up from the ground was based on Ambassador Aspely Constansborg’s private life. He discovered Constansborg was hiding a dangerous rebel leader from Sri Lanka at the Norwegian embassy, which was obviously contrary to diplomatic ethics and mode of conduct.

The rebel leader was Jaffri Naveed Shah, of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government troops in Sri Lanka had launched attacks on LTTE’s strongholds around Vanni jungles, about 220km north of Colombo, and fearing arrest Naveed had fled to the United States of America, where Constansborg had taken him on and offered him political asylum.

When this report appeared in the New York Times several days later, American commandos and deputy U.S. marshals immediately raided the Norwegian Embassy, arrested Jaffri Naveed Shah and sent him back to Sri Lanka; where LTTE has since the early nineteen eighty’s been fighting for a separate homeland for the minority Tamils, mostly found in the North and East of the country. LTTE was often blamed for the deaths and murders of tens of thousands of people and the Sri Lankan government was determined to crush this rebel movement once and for all.

This report about Norway’s involvement in the LTTE’s saga caused ripples around diplomatic circles and the Norwegian government was compelled to apologies to the Sri Lankan government for Constansborg’s mistake, and the ambassador was consequently subsequently criticized from every quarter for that.

Wenzam further investigated and discovered Constansborg had imported an assortment of firearms and ammunition from Bulgeria and intended to pass the same to the LTTE. When this report appeared in the New York Times the police immediately raided Constansborg’s official residence in Washington D.C., in search of these dangerous weapons.

But what they found weren’t sophisticated weapons as expected but simple guns for game hunting. Constansborg was apparently crazy about game hunting and often traveled to Africa to participate in this hobby. It was precisely for that reason he had imported the guns.

By then the ambassador was beginning to suspect there was someone somewhere deliberately carrying out witch-hunting activities against him and he wondered who it was. At the same time Haslevia Dessantim discovered his nephew, Wenzam, was supplying newspapers with malicious and damaging reports about the ambassador, called the boy privately apart and severely warned him against the somewhat loathsome habit.

Dessantim realized Constansborg might carry out private investigations into the matter and could easily discover his nephew was involved in all this and so decided to apologize in advance on behalf of the boy. To protect Wenzam’s identity and for the sake of his dead brother, Boreige Toskaveg, he told the ambassador he was the one who had unintentionally supplied newspapers and magazines with malicious and damaging reports about him, but promised such a thing would never happen again in the future.

Maybe the confession was a miscalculation on Dessantim’s part, for soon after that word had started spreading around diplomatic circles that there was bad blood between him and the ambassador. A week after the deadly confession a bomb was planted inside Constansborg’s residence at Preston and Dessantim’s ID and passport were found inside the compound. Luckily, there was no one around at the time and the bomb had only killed the dogs, but this shocked the ambassador.

But maybe the person who was most shocked by the episode was Dessantim himself. He wondered who could have done such a nasty thing and why, for he somehow liked Constansborg and could never have dared to plant a bomb at his residence. That was when it occurred to him there were people out there who were deliberately trying to fuel animosity between him and his boss and he resolved to tread more carefully from then onwards.

But Constansborg never forgave Dessantim for the malicious newspaper reports or the bombing event. That was ostensibly why he decided to teach him a bitter lesson when he found Belta’s corpse dumped at his residence with the hat with the initials H.D on the head… and for that he lost the son he loved so much, Dixie Rostiboret.

BELTA PINASOGE was born in Oslo, Norway. The daughter of a struggling Anglican church minister who had strong links with the Free Masons Organization, she was only three years old when both her parents, Joseckil Montagou and Anatolina Viresa, perished in a horrific automobile crash. Reports circulating around Norway at the time of the cleric’s death indicated the church minister and his wife had been killed by the enemies of the Free Masons Organization, who were concerned that Joseckil Montagou was spreading the doctrines of the organization too far into Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries in particular, and were thus consequently desperate to stop that.

Her maternal aunt, Rosvin Denpiss, took her on soon after that. Although Rosvin was a single parent, she had two more children of her own and Belta became the fourth member of the family. Rosvin earned her living as a clothes designer.

The eldest of Rosvin’s children was Aspeyl Constansborg who although was twelve years older than Belta simply adored his young cousin. A bright student at school Belta was only eight years old when Constansborg left Norway for Sussex University in the U.S. where he had been admitted into to study political science.

Ten years later when Constansborg finally returned back home, after completing his further studies abroad, he was employed as a senior civil servant in the Foreign Office in Oslo, and that marked the beginning of his diplomatic career. In the next few following years he was sent to several other Norwegian diplomatic stations around the world, before he was finally sent to the U.S. as the Norwegian ambassador to the country at the age of forty-five.

THE GREEN TRUCK transporting the Rastams to their new home arrived in New York City when it was already dark. Although Rastam felt somehow tired, he was glad he had managed to move out of his former home on time.

Since he did not trust Dave not to report Belta Pinasoge’s murder to the police he had instructed his nephew, Adan Farid, to trail the FBI agent’s movements and find out where he planned to dump the young woman’s corpse. Farid had not yet returned from the assignment and Rastam was waiting for him to come back home and inform him on the latest development.

Several minutes after Farid had left Rastam’s house a Serbian secret agent (SSA) called Terry Polmac had called into the home, taken the top-secret documents and classified information Belta Pinasoge had been carrying in her suitcase then disappeared with them.

As the couple began to unpack their household belongings into their new home Rastam had to admit to himself it certainly had been quite an eventful day.

The new apartment the couple was moving into belonged to Rastam’s nephew, Adan Farid. He had agreed to share his four-roomed house when he learned his uncle was in deep trouble. Farid who was an Iraqi citizen by nationality was the eldest son of Rastam’s younger sister, Clare Sandon, who was married to an Iraqi businessman, a Shia Muslim from Basra, going by the name of Alhaj Seif Tiab, and had came to America several years earlier for further studies.

The house Rastam had previously occupied at Chestnut Hill, in Philadelphia, had not actually belonged to him. He had rented the residence through a realtor several years earlier, but now that Belta was dead he did not think it wise to remain in the house any longer. He realized anything could happen and he could fall into trouble with the police over the murder, and so he had hastily vacated the house when the time was still there.

Once the Rastams’ had finished unloading their household belongings into their new home the truck left and the couple began to rearrange furniture in a more decent manner. The truck belonged to a close friend of Rastam, Weinner Teckil, and the former had warned him severely against informing anyone of his whereabouts.

Rastam looked at Lusgeil with the corner of his eye and noted she looked rather angry and frustrated. He immediately realized a violent storm was blowing and consequently resolved to keep out of her way.

“Rastam, do you realize by killing Belta today you have totally ruined and destroyed my life?” she finally asked when she could no longer keep quiet over the issue, then sank on a deck-chair in the room.

He seemed taken aback. “But she killed our son, Reith Blest, and we had to do what we did!” he retorted throwing her a cold stare, arranging flowers in a vase.

“You know as well as I do that Belta had nothing to do with his death and Reith was killed by the I.R.R.S. So you should not have killed her under whatever circumstances in the first place. Belta was innocent ... I can swear about that.” There were tears in her eyes, and she wiped them off with the back of her hand.

“Does that mean you liked the mother fucking bastard?” he asked surprised, a flower in one hand.

She got a handkerchief from a pocket on her dress and wiped off the tears flowing down her cheeks, then blew her nose noisily. “Of course I did. She was such a remarkable person…. a rare find. You have totally destroyed me by your shameful action today. I was a respectable woman with a home, but now I have nothing to live for. You’ve made me the laughing stock of the whole neighborhood, which is something quite pathetic and sad to do.”

Rastam was quiet for a while, rubbed his jaw pensively, and then said: “Lusgeil, you seem to forget I could have gone to jail for bombing the British airliner if I didn’t kill her, don’t you?” His voice was weak and tired and he sincerely hoped Lusgeil would shut her mouth and give him some peace after that.

“But all that was your fault, Rastam. Before you bombed the plane I had warned you severely against doing that, but you just didn’t listen to me. Over three hundred innocent people lost their lives in the plane crash and the memory of it all will linger in my mind and memory forever. It was all so barbaric and savage, not something anyone decent would ever imagine doing.”

Rastam’s mouth flew open, surprised at her harsh words. His next words though slow were calculated, but full of bitterness when he spoke again. “I didn’t bomb the British airliner without a good reason, my dear gal, and I can do it again if I’m given another chance.” He pushed the vase holding the flowers away and sat on the table in front of Lusgeil, a far away look on his eyes. “I had to avenge the deaths of the over six million Jews who perished during the holocaust of the Second World War. I lost many people I loved and cherished, including my dear parents and close relatives, during this senseless orgy of killings, and I simply could not afford to sit back and watch the Germans and the British refuse to compensate the holocaust survivors. I had to do something about that and God knows I tried my best. I forced the world to address the issue more seriously.”

She frowned and the dark circles around her eyes grew even deeper. “I admit we lost almost everything that ever mattered to us during the holocaust but you should not have allowed bitterness and anger to develop inside your heart because of, Rastam. The bitterness will one day destroy you, if you don’t watch out. You must learn to forgive. Personally, I lost my dear parents too and my only natural sister, Elvina, but I don’t hate the Germans or the British for that. That a part, most of the tourists inside the British airliner you bombed had nothing to do with the holocaust. They were innocent people and today you’ve made matters even worse by killing a woman who trusted you so much, Belta Pinasoge. You broke that trust and it’s all so shameful and disgusting.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you consider it shameful and disgusting or not, the fact remains you too participated in her killing and you’re as guilty as I am in the whole crime,” he snapped, hoping to end the emotionally taxing argument once and for all.

Her eyes opened wide, threatening to pop out of their sockets in wonderment. “But you threatened me with divorce if I didn’t help you kill Belta! I’m definitely getting tired of all this nonsense, Rastam .I’m going to call the police right away and explain the whole bizarre business to them right away. You certainly don’t expect me to spend my whole life in this filthy hole you’ve just brought me into. I promise I’ll call the police and set the record straight once and for all.”

“Go ahead and do it,” he said in a nonchalant manner, pointing at a phone in one corner of the room. “Come on ... call them, chicken. I too have several smart things to tell them about you and I’m quite eager to have a chat with them. For one thing, you’re in America illegally and have neither a valid passport nor visa. Secondly, you’re the one who persuaded Dave to give Belta the poisonous jab, not me. I’m sure Dave can easily testify to that fact if he’s picked up and questioned further about the matter. Besides, I know for certain you’re right now quite broke and don’t have any money on you to enable you go back home to Israel, even if you’re lucky enough to escape a jail sentence, and so because of that be sure you too will be sank, if anything untoward happens to me and I go to jail for whatever reason.”

Lugseil’s passport and visa had expired several years earlier but she had not bothered to follow up the matter with the relevant authorities to see what could be done about it.

There was a knock on the door and Adan Farid walked into the room. “I’m back,” he announced amiably, sitting on a wonky lounge-chair in the room. He had a wide grin on his face.

“What happened?” asked Rastam, anxiously. “Where did the dumb arse dump Belta’s corpse?” He moved from the table and stood in front of Farid, his huge frame towering above him.

“He dumped it outside the official residence of the Norwegian ambassador to America. In fact, he chained it to a guard at the residence at gunpoint.”

A thin smile flickered on Rastam’s lips. “Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg is Belta’s first cousin and I wonder what the xenophobic but eccentric diplomat will have to say about it, when he sees the body at his residence. Did anyone see you trailing Dave’s car?”

“No, I’m sure no one saw me do that. I was very careful to avoid being spotted.”

“That’s good. Unless Dave opens his mouth too wide it’s highly unlikely anyone will ever connect us to Belta’s death,” he said, morosely. “Meanwhile, we’ll have to wait and see how things develop after this.”

That same day in the evening after Dave had dumped Belta’s body outside Constansborg’s residence Rastam planned his next move. The move was a plan to blackmail the federal agent into giving him the one million U.S. dollars stashed in his bank account.

CHAPTER THREE

A

LTHOUGH WINAH RASTAM’S ancestors had been Jewish by birth he had been born in Berlin, Germany, where his parents had fled to several years earlier to escape persecution from hostile anti-Jewish elements back at home in Palestine. His early childhood had been quite normal and uneventful, but in1933, when he was only seven years old, everything had changed. Fanatical Jew hunters called the Nazis had come to power in Germany. Rastam’s younger sister, Clare Sandon, was only four years old then.

Fearing persecution from the Nazis Rastam’s parents, Danfix Kenfren and Selvina Edarin, took their two children and went back to Palestine, their homeland. But the British who were responsible for law and order in most of the Middle East at the time could not allow them entry into the country.

Eager to please and placate the Arabs in the region the British had put a limit on the number of Jews allowed to immigrate into Palestine from abroad each month and the rest were turned away. Most of the Jews who were denied entry into Palestine either committed suicide or drowned in the sea, while the rest were returned to Europe where the Nazis were waiting for them.

Kenfren and his family belonged to this last category of Jews and when they arrived in Europe, they were immediately arrested and sent to several Nazis’ concentration camps in Eastern Europe, before they finally ended up in the death camp called Auschwitz — Trebrinka in Southern Poland, where after intense interrogation the deeply traumatized couple was gassed and their bodies burnt in ovens, while their two children were given away for adoption to a friendly but childless German couple.

But although Rastam’s adoptive parents always tried to be kind and generous to him and his younger sister, Sandon, he still felt bitter against the Germans for the rather morbid role they had played in his parents’ untimely deaths and swore to revenge one day. Also quite understandably he often felt bitter against the British for denying his parents entry into their homeland, Palestine, during their hour of need. Inside his soul and heart of hearts he strongly believed the deaths of the over six million Jews who had perished during the holocaust of the Second World War could have been prevented if only the Germans and the British had been more tolerant and understanding.

He was a bright pupil at school and realizing this his adoptive parents had given him sound education. At twenty-five he had graduated from the Bonn State University as a civil engineer. A year later he had met a young Jewish woman who was residing in Germany at that time, called Primar Lusgeil, and a friendship had soon developed between the two. After three years of courtship the couple had gotten married and immediately left for Tel Aviv, Israel, to start a new life.

Meanwhile, Rastam’s sister, Clare Sandon, was not academically inclined and had dropped out of school several years earlier. She had secured employment in a food-processing factory owned by an Iraqi businessman, Akram Hisham Kharim. Kharim had a son called Alhaj Seif Tiab who had taken a strong liking for Sandon and after two years of friendship and courting the couple had gotten married and soon left Germany for Baghdad, where Kharim had other business interests.

For many years after Rastam and his wife had settled in Israel Lusgeil could not bear children. She had a number of gynecological and health problems that prevented her from conceiving and she was just about to lose hope of ever getting her own children when Reith was born in her tenth year of marriage. To show her appreciation for the child she named him Reith Blest, to prove he was a pure blessing from God.

As an only child Reith was in many ways a blessing to his loving parents and they simply adored him. They had great plans for his future and made sure he got a decent education. He was only fifteen years old when the family left Israel and immigrated to Miami, in the U.S.A, in search of greener pastures. A Miami construction company that dealt mainly in the building of dams, canals, docks, railway lines and roads, immediately employed Rastam.

But although Rastam had emigrated from Israel, his homeland, he still had great love for his country and was a true Zionist at heart. When he arrived in Miami he immediately joined a clandestine movement called the Holocaust Survivors’ Movement (HOSUM), formed by Jewish extremists who were residing in America at that time and clamoring for compensation for Jews who had either lost their loved ones or suffered physical or emotional damages during the holocaust of the Second World War. They hoped the German and the British governments would without delay apologize publicly and address the holocaust issue seriously.

HOSUM was quite a popular and wide-spread movement with branches in many cities in America in the early 1960s and it was mostly made up of wealthy American-Jews who had refused to go back home when Israel finally became an autonomous sovereign state in the late nineteen forty’s and the movement’s main objective was to raise funds and start self-help projects for the poor and needy Jews who had chosen to remain abroad rather than go back home due to the fear of persecution by anti-Jewish elements still common in the Middle East at that time.

But the world refused to address HOSUM’s grievances seriously and this irked the movement. It decided to resort to terrorist activities in order to force the world to see things its way. It resolved to bomb either a German or British passenger airliner and Jewish volunteers were requested to come forward for the job. Against Lusgeil’s advice Rastam immediately volunteered to carry out the ignominious but intrepid act.

A British passenger airliner was immediately identified and Rastam was meanwhile instructed on how to carry out the job. The plane had three hundred and nine British and German tourists returning back home from vacation in America and seemed ideal for the bombing.

Full of vengeance, anger and hate Rastam successfully bombed the plane and immediately went underground to avoid arrest. Several days later he took his family and immigrated to Washington D.C. where he went to start a new life, glad that at long last he had avenged the deaths of his parents and countrymen.

Meanwhile, Reith Blest grew up like any other normal child and at thirty-two had met and married a Norwegian woman, Belta Pinasoge, against his parents’ wish. But his marriage to her was short-lived. For several months later he disappeared mysteriously and his body was a week later found dumped in a ditch In New York with gunshot wounds. Eight months later Belta Pinasoge got married to the I.R.R.S ’ boss, Eddie Levis.

For a long time the Serbian secret agents (SSA) operating clandestinely in America had always suspected that the U.S. president, Eugene Lewis, was a member of the I.R.R.S, but they lacked the facts to prove that allegation. After the U.S. and NATO air strikes in Bosnia and Kosovo in 1993 and 1994, during the so called ethnic cleansing of Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, the S.S.A’s machinery was bitter and was looking for any scandalous information that would paint America and its president in bad color.

They realized if they could get any scandalous information that would prove to the whole world that the American president was a corrupt person and was actually a member of the terrorists’ organization, the I.R.R.S, then the world would in future refuse to give the super power blind allegiance, like it had happened during the Balkans’ region bombings or even during the Gulf War in the early 1990s.

But getting any scandalous information about president Eugene was something hard to do. Loyalty to the president, official red tape at top level and tight-lipped bureaucracy surrounding Eugene Lewis prevented any scandalous information about the president’s private life from filtering out of the white house, and this terribly frustrated the S.S.A’s machinery’s espionage efforts.

When Belta Pinasoge got married to the I.R.R.S’ boss, Eddie Levis, the SSA immediately realized they could use her to get the much needed information that confirmed and even proved that president Eugene actually had some secret links with the I.R.R.S, if they played their cards right.

Before Reith died he had been a popular tabloid journalist and the SSA suspected he had been killed by the I.R.R.S, so they were confident Belta might try to investigate this possibility now that she was married to Eddie Levis. They knew she had loved Reith dearly and with all her heart when he was alive and would not hesitate to get in touch with her father-in-law, Winah Rastam, once she had finished her investigations into the matter, so they decided to bug Rastam’s telephone lines and wait for the anticipated phone call.

Although this possibility seemed far-fetched and rather remote, they all the same decided to give it a trial, sent a spy who bugged Rastam’s telephone lines when the couple was away from home, they then rented an apartment about two hundred meters away, where they installed another spy with powerful receiving equipments that would pick up all the telephone conversations from Rastam’s house and transmit them to the Serbian espionage network.

It was while the spy was monitoring Rastam’s phone-calls when he over heard the Israelite arguing with his wife about his involvement in the bombing of the British airliner several years earlier, and he noted that down in his file for future use.

Several months later when Belta Pinasoge finally phoned Rastam with some juicy information about I.R.R.S’ involvement in Reith Blest’s death the SSA instantly realized their hunch had paid-off at long last. In her phone conversation Belta further explained and said that she had gathered some very incriminating evidence that clearly suggested that it was President Eugene Lewis of America himself who had personally murdered Reith. She promised to bring the Rastams’ some top-secret documents that proved these allegations as true in a few days time and that was when the SSA reacted.

They immediately phoned Rastam and ordered him to kill Belta and pass over to them all the top-secret documents (TSDs) she carried with her once she turned up at his house.

Naturally, Rastam at first refused to obey this command and that was when they confronted him with all the secret facts they knew about his involvement in the bombing of the British airliner several years earlier. They threatened to turn him over to the relevant authorities for the crime, unless he cooperated and obeyed their command, and that was when the jittery Israelite realized he was in a tight corner. He either killed Belta Pinasoge or was going to jail for bombing the British airliner.

Although he strongly believed Belta had immensely contributed in causing Reith’s untimely death Rastam did not hate her enough to kill her and this latest development troubled him greatly.

As a wise man he realized it was possible the SSA might come for him next in order to silence him, even if he obeyed their command, killed Belta and gave them all the T.S.Ds they needed, so he knew it was important that he should have some money to enable him get out of America as quick as possible, once the job was done. The problem was that he was flat broke at that moment and did not have any idea on how he was going to raise the much-needed cash. After pondering about the issue for a while he suddenly had an idea and it seemed appealing to him.

For several months he had known his neighbor, Harold Davidson, had some money stashed in his bank account at the Meridian bank. What if he blackmailed him into killing Belta on his behalf… wasn’t it also possible he could successfully blackmail him into giving him the cash, once the job was done? The idea seemed brilliant and appealing to him and he decided to give it a trial. That was when he prepared a lethal dose of diamorphine then rang Dave and told him he had a sick daughter whom he needed help to take to hospital.

TEVIN COLLINS was just about to leave his office for the day when the intercom buzzed. As a federal agent in Washington D.C. he often worked odd hours and that day was not exceptional. He picked up the phone and soon discovered it was his boss, Don Vernon, who was on the line.

“Tevin Collins,” Don started in his usual rasping voice. “A woman has been murdered and her mortal remains dumped outside the official residence of the Norwegian ambassador to America, Mr. Aspeyl Constansborg. Apparently, the killer chained the corpse to a guard at the residence then drove away immediately after that.”

“Is the guard dead too?” he asked the only sensible question that formed on his mind at that moment.

“No, he isn’t ... actually he’s alive and well. The killer had a pair of handcuffs and chained the dead woman to the guard at gunpoint. The guard didn’t raise an alarm when that happened. Apparently, the ambassador had some important visitors inside his residence and the boy imagined he would frighten them if he raised an alarm, so the killer got away scot-free. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?”

“Very odd, indeed,” Collins agreed. “ The boy must be a fool to have allowed the killer to get away so easily. Now what do you want me to do, sir?” he asked.

“I want you to go there immediately and find out whether you will come up with any clues, which might lead us to the killer. Get an ambulance and some para-medics to help you take the body to the morgue for an autopsy. And Collins, please don’t damage the handcuffs on the cadaver’s wrists, since they might turn out to be vital tools that could lead us to the killer. And another thing, the woman happens to be the ambassador’s first cousin and so the diplomat is of the opinion that the murder is politically motivated, so you must investigate on this possibility thoroughly too. Meanwhile, I will get another FBI agent to help you keep tabs on the guard who witnessed the corpse being dumped outside the diplomat’s residence. I have a gut feeling that he knows much more than he’s letting out, so he must be followed on a twenty-four hours basis. From your side, in case you came up with anything worthy listening to, please drop me a line immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Collins said, then hung up. Soon after the telephone conversation Collins got an ambulance and some para-medics and immediately left for Constansborg’s residence, located at Preston.

Tevin Collins had been with the FBI for the past fifteen years or so and was used to investigating murder and homicide crimes, and so this latest case did not surprise him at all. Before he got posted to Washington D.C., two years earlier, he had been a federal agent based in Philadelphia for many years. His boss, Don Vernon, was a crime buster of many years too and he had served the FBI in Philadelphia for several years too before he came to Washington D.C., so the two men were quite close to one another and had solved many crime cases together in the past.

The first thing Tevin Collins’ sharp eyes noted when he arrived at Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg’s residence was the navy-blue hat on Belta’s head. He took it with his gloved hands and studied it for a while then asked, “Was the dead woman wearing this hat when the corpse was dumped here?”

“Yes,” said Frizan, rubbing his jaw pensively

“Can you describe the killer, please.”

Frizan promptly described the killer to him in detail. Tevin Collins listened keenly for a while then turned to Aspeyl Constansborg, who was pacing up and down listlessly several meters away. “I understand this woman was related to you by ties of consanguinity, sir. Was she married before she died?”

Ambassador Constansborg stopped pacing up and down then sank his huge frame on a deckchair that stood nearby. “Yes, she was married. Her name is Belta Pinasoge and she was married to a very senior man in the U.S. Air Force called General Eddie Levis.”

At the mention of the name Belta Pinasoge and Eddie Levis a bell rang inside Collins’ head. That same day in the afternoon Collins had visited the FBI building in Philadelphia on official duties and had been in the office of a fellow federal agent, Trevor Gene, when an anonymous woman had called. She said she had seen a woman going by the same name and married to Eddie Levis being removed from the home of her neighbor, Winah Rastam, at Chestnut Hill in critical condition by a federal agent called Harold Davidson. She had suspected foul play because when she had seen Belta Pinasoge several hours earlier she had been in perfect good condition and so was convinced something nasty had happened to her while in the Rastams’ home.

Tevin Collins then took the navy-blue hat that had been on Belta’s head and once again studied it keenly. That was when he saw the initials H.D inscribed on it and his heart skipped a beat, as everything suddenly made sense to him. The initials could only mean one thing to him – Harold Davidson. As a man who had worked as a federal agent in Philadelphia for many years Collins knew Dave personally and he found it hard to believe he was the murderer in this case. Collins next studied the handcuffs on Belta’s wrists for a while. They were the ordinary types of handcuffs commonly used by law-enforcement agencies in most parts of America and he found nothing unusual about them. He instantly decided he would travel to Philadelphia the next day, somehow find a way into Dave’s office, then pick the finger prints on his phone and desk. He would then match them with the fingerprints found on the hat and on the handcuffs to see whether they were the same. Only then would he know for certain whether Dave was involved in this crime or not.

Meanwhile, he resolved he would not tell anyone what he had found out about Dave’s involvement in the morbid crime, yet…at least not before he had completed his investigations into the matter fully and satisfactorily.

CHAPTER FOUR

H

AROLD DAVIDSON parked the gray Astra SRI in front of the Federal offices in Philadelphia then got out. Dave and his wife, Michelle Geraldine, had three family cars, which they often shared amongst themselves, depending on circumstances. The other car was a beige Toyota Hilux Surf and the Honda Accord he had used to drive Belta’s slain body to Washington D.C. the previous day.

That same day in the morning before he had left home, Dave had rang a motor vehicle mechanic and instructed him to fetch his car, the Honda Accord, from his home for repairs. After the shoot-out with the state-trooper the previous day, while en route to Washington D.C., the car’s trunk and hood had been damaged and Dave did not fancy using the car while in that damaged condition. Otherwise, he was optimistic and fully convinced the trooper had not seen the car’s registration numberplate, since it was covered with dust and mud after the picnic trip to Mt. Mitchell a day earlier.

As Dave locked his car a white Volkswagen Golf parked several meters away from him and a pretty young woman got out of the car. When she saw Dave she smiled and walked straight towards him.

She did not look anything more than thirty-two years old and her walking was quite elegant and graceful. She stood about five feet eight inches tall and was a blonde with green-brown eyes. She wore a printed A line skirt and Georgette blouse. Under her armpit was a blue leather handbag and on her face were yellow tinted aviator shades that made her to appear much younger than she actually was. On her neck was a multi-strand choker, sparkling drop earrings hang from her ears and on her feet were silk-satin ankle-tie shoes.

As she walked she held her head high, full of self confidence and Dave could tell she was a woman who knew she was beautiful and enjoyed being noticed, especially by men.

Her name was Melody June and she was the widow of Charlie Shambac, an FBI agent who had been gunned down under very mysterious circumstances at about the same time Reith Blest, the Washington Times reporter had been killed. Dave and Shambac had been quite close when he was alive and so the latter had not surprisingly introduced him to his wife, several months before he died.

“Hey, Dave,” she said, shaking his hand warmly. “I’m so glad to meet you.”

“Hello, Melody, I’m glad to meet you, too. What brings you here so early in the morning?”

She was quiet for a while threw surreptitious looks around the FBI compound then said in a low voice: “There is something very urgent and important, which I would like us to discuss in your office, if you don’t mind, please.”

Dave smiled. “Of course I don’t mind. Let’s go.” He led her to his office, which was located within the federal building, opened the door then motioned her to seat on a lounge-chair, which stood nearby in the room, while he sank on a recliner behind his desk.

Once Melody had sat down she reached inside her handbag, got a pack of cigarettes then lit one. Dave too got a cigarette and lit it. He sucked heavily at it then released the gray smoke out of his mouth in a slow deliberate manner. “What did you want us to discuss, Melody?” he finally asked, unable to bear the suspense any more, looking inside her eyes.

She didn’t answer; instead she reached inside her handbag once again and pulled out a picture. “Do you know that woman?” she asked, giving the picture to Dave.

Dave took the picture and studied it keenly for a while. In the picture was a woman who looked anything between thirty and thirty-five years old. She wore a red and white-stripped bikini and on her face were large unisex sunglasses. Her skin was smooth and beautifully tanned and she had a broad smile on her face. Beside her was a little girl, who did not look anything more than three years old, and she had the same broad smile on her little somewhat excited face.

Dave could tell the picture had been taken somewhere on the beach and although the woman’s face looked somehow familiar to him, he could not tell immediately where he had seen her before.

He was just about to give the picture back to Melody when he suddenly remembered where he had seen the woman’s face before and his heart skipped a beat. It was Belta Pinasoge, the woman he had murdered at Winah Rastam’s house the previous day.

“No, I don’t know her,” he lied, although his voice sounded rather weak and unconvincing. He placed Belta’s picture on his desk and adjusted his necktie, his heart beating wildly behind his chest.

“Are you sure of that?” she asked, looking inside his eyes.

Tiny sweat droplets formed on his forehead. “Of course I’m sure of that, Melody.” He leaned forward and tapped the ash on his cigarette off on a mahogany ashtray on his desk, in a clever bid to avoid her eyes. “Why do you ask that question?”

Melody was quiet for a while then said: “I guess I’ll have to explain some things to you so that you may understand why I am so inquisitive about the woman. The woman in the picture is called Belta Pinasoge and quite a good friend of mine. Several days ago she called me from Jersey City where she lives and told me her life was in danger. She had lost her first husband, a man called Reith Blest, at around the same time Charlie Shambac, my late husband, had died and was now married to a man called Eddie Levis, whom she does not love but had to bear living with for convenience’s sake. Apparently, Belta’s heart was still on Reith Blest, whom she had loved dearly before he died, and after a series of private investigations onto the cause of his death, she had found some very sensitive top- secret documents, which described in great detail important data about who had killed him and why the murderer had done that. She wanted m to give her legal advice on how to proceed on with the prosecution of the criminals who were involved in Reith’s death, but since I don’t have a good working knowledge about the law and such legal matters myself, I instructed her to bring the T.S.Ds to you.”

Dave relaxed and his breathing became easier. “But why the hell didn’t you ring me to tell me she was coming?”

“Oh…I couldn’t do that, Dave. Ever since my own husband, Charlie, died my life has never been the same again. I’ve noticed several strange looking men who have been trailing my movements day and night and this worries me immensely, and it gives me jitters just to imagine Shambac’s killers might be closing on me too. That apart, my apartment had been broken into twice in the past few months and some valuable documents were stolen. Right now, I’m not quite sure on whether or not my home phone is bugged and that was why I was reluctant to place a call to you concerning Belta Pinasoge’s visit to you. Of course I could have called you through a cellular phone, public telephone booth or through any other means, but I preferred to come here and talk to you personally about the matter.” She removed her aviator shades and massaged her temple thoughtfully.

There was a long silence then Dave asked, “How did the woman get the top-secret documents in question, if I may ask?”

Melody closed her long shapely legs, got another cigarette from her handbag, which was on her lap, then lit it with the butt of her dying cigarette. “It’s a long story but I’ll tell you part of it so that you may fully understand the issues at stake. When Belta’s first husband died his parents accused her of having have had a hand in his killing and this had hurt Belta’s feelings profoundly, since she loved Reith dearly and could never have done such a hideous deed. She decided to investigate his death in order to prove her innocence once and for all. Since she strongly suspected Reith was killed by the I.R.R.S, of which she was a member too, she resolved to investigate the organization, in a bid to bring his killers to book.”

She sneezed emotionally then got a handkerchief from her handbag and blew her nose. “As a smart woman she realized the only way she could get the much needed information about Reith’s killers was by befriending I.R.R.S’ boss, Eddie Levis, who apparently had a soft spot for her. So she seduced Levis and after several months of friendship and courting the couple got married. This was something quite risky and dangerous for Belta to have done, since Levis himself could turn out to be the killer she was looking for, but she was an impudent and audacious person and totally managed to convince the guy she was in love with him, though she wasn’t.” She hesitated and looked around Dave’s office absent-mindedly, a far away look in her eyes.

A bee got inside the room through the window, buzzed around care freely for a while then left. Melody returned her handkerchief back into her handbag, got a napkin and began to clean her aviator shades. “During her private investigations into Reith’s death she found out some very interesting information. One of the things she discovered was that as a senior official in the U.S. Air Force Eddie Levis often carried some top-secret documents about America’s security apparatus home. Of course this was something quite dangerous for him to do, since it could easily endanger the internal security of our beloved country but the Air Force general didn’t care. He had a strong metal safe where he kept these documents, once they got home, and no one else had the keys to this safe, except him. Realizing the T.S.Ds might help resolve Reith’s murder puzzle Belta decided to steal the keys and siphon the documents out of the said place. So she stole the keys, made duplicates of them and would often assess the information inside the safe at will.”

Seconds passed slowly and for a moment time seemed to have stopped moving. “A kleptomaniac by nature, In case she found any document containing some interesting or helpful information, she would either photograph it or produce photo copies of it and hide the data in a suitcase she had bought specifically for that purpose. But, like anything else done in secret her small adventures were not to go on for too long. Levis soon discovered what was happening and gave her a week to return all the T.S.Ds and classified information she had stolen from him, else he was going to kill her. That was when she rang me and told me her life was in danger. With the T.S.Ds in her hand she was optimistic she had made a major break through in resolving Reith’s and Shambac’s murder puzzles, so I advised her to bring you the data right away.”

“When was that?”

“That was about four days ago, to be precise.”

Dave was quiet for a while, then asked, “Do you think Levis could have harmed her in case she refused to return the stolen classified information to him or was he only bluffing?”

“I’m not sure of that myself, but Belta was convinced Levis would do just that in case she failed to obey this command. The Air Force general is quite a ruthless and irascible person and often used to abuse her both physically and emotionally and so Belta was afraid to return the T.S.Ds to him. In any case, she was sure Levis would never trust her again after that and so preferred divorce, rather than negotiate with him on the issue. In our phone conversation Belta further told me she had plans of showing the T.S.Ds to Reith Blest’s parents, the Rastams’, in order to convince them she had not had a hand in his death, as they had always believed in the past. But this morning before I came here I paid the Rastams a visit at their home at Chestnut Hill to enquire on whether or not she had turned up at the place, but the janitor taking care of the building told me the couple had moved out of the house yesterday in the evening. Do you have any idea where they went? I understand the Rastams have been your neighbors for a long time.”

“No, I have no idea.”

She rubbed her temple pensively then said: “I wish they had known Belta was coming ... they definitely could have left their contact behind.” She then shrugged her shoulders dismally. “Anyway, let’s stop all that for the moment. I came here to tell you I’m leaving for Jersey City today. I must go and find out what happened to Belta and why she had not turned up here, yet, as expected.”

Dave’s mouth flew open in surprised. “But Melody, going to Jersey City at the moment could endanger your life too. The same elements that killed Reith and Shambac might come for you too, if they learn you’re close to Belta and she confides important secrets to you!” He hated to tell her Belta was already dead and he was the one who had actually killed her, since he was sure she would never forgive him for that.

She smiled. “I’ll take good care of myself when I arrive there, so don’t worry about that. The T.S.Ds Belta stole are also very important to me, since they might help me understand who killed my own husband, Shambac, and why he did it. You understand I loved Charlie dearly and without him my life has completely lost meaning, so I must help apprehend his killers at whatever cost. That apart, Belta is someone quite precious to me and I must help her get out of the mess she’s currently in. Without her it’s highly likely I could never have met and married Charlie. The big- hearted person she was she introduced me to Charlie, who was quite a good friend of hers then, and made sure we eventually got married. For that I’ll always be grateful to her and I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t help her and her daughter, Daise, get out of the clutches and fetters of Eddie Levis.”

“She has a daughter?” he asked, absent-mindedly. The phone rang and Dave took it, spoke on the mouthpiece for a while then replaced the receiver back on the cradle. He looked at the clock on the wall and noted it was eight- thirty- seven in the morning. The offending bee came back into the room, danced around Dave’s head for a while then rested on an electric typewriter, placed on a tripod next to Dave’s recliner. The door of the room opened slightly and a colleague popped his head into the room, said hello to Dave then left, locking the door softly behind him.

“Yes, Belta has a sweet little girl called Jasriamis Daise, who is a clear copy-right of her. She’s the little girl photographed with her on the beach when the two were on a holiday in Mombasa, several months ago. For some time now Belta had been quite worried about Daise’s future in case anything untoward should happen to her. Daise is Reith’s daughter and so quite spontaneously Levis cannot be expected to take good care of her. In fact, in our phone conversation several days ago she hinted to me she would like me to adopt Daise in case anything untoward happened to her. Belta is a Norwegian citizen by birth and lost both her parents when she was a child. Of late her husband, Levis, had been in the process of helping her get American citizenship, but I doubt it highly whether that would now be possible, since the couple had fallen out. Her only close relative in America is Mr. Aspeyl Constansborg, the Norwegian ambassador to America, who happens to be her first cousin. But although the two get along just fine Constansborg’s wife, Savilla Goelia, hates Belta with all her heart. She considers her an I.R.R.S’ thug and wants absolutely nothing to do with her.”

At the mention of the name Aspeyl Constansborg Dave’s heart missed a beat. He remembered he had chained Belta’s body to a guard at Constansborg’s residence and realized he would be in a lot of trouble if the ambassador ever learned he was the killer. Constansborg was quite an influential man in American diplomatic circles and Dave instantly suspected he would demand compensation for Belta’s death from the American government if he learned the killer was American.

Dave took the picture of Belta, which was on his desk and studied it once again carefully. True to Melody’s words, though still quite young Daise was a near replica of her mom and Dave found himself wondering what would happen to the child now that Belta was dead. “I hope you won’t mind if I keep this picture, will you?” he asked, squeezing the stub of his dying cigarette on the ashtray on his desk

“Of course I don’t mind.” She then quickly looked at her orient watch. “ I guess I should get going now that we’ve discussed everything I wanted us to talk about. I’ll let you know what I have found out about Belta when I come back here from Jersey City.”

Dave opened a drawer on his desk and put Belta’s picture inside. “ I still would not recommend that you go and look for the woman in Jersey City. There is so much danger involved in all this and besides, you’re not quite sure she’s still at the place.”

“I’ll never know that for sure unless I go there personally and confirm her whereabouts. Otherwise, thanks for your concern.” She put on her aviator shades, rose from her seat and offered Dave her hand. “Thanks for giving me your time.”

He rose from his seat and squeezed her hand lightly. “Thank you too for paying me a visit. You’re always welcomed back here anytime you feel like it.” He escorted her to the door and once she had left the room he walked back to his seat. Inside his heart he felt rather guilty for having failed to stop her from going to Jersey City to look for Belta when he knew very well she was already dead and thus her journey to the place was all in vain. He shrugged his shoulders and lit another cigarette.

THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON was bustling with activities as students came out of their lecture halls that Monday morning. Dixie Rostiboret too got out of a lecture hall and looked around for a while before his eyes rested on his girlfriend, Trasira Cadgam, who stood several meters away, chatting with a group of girls.

Cadgam was about five feet ten inches tall and a brunette with brown eyes. She had a dark hair, which was long and fell to her small feminine shoulders, caressing them soothingly. That day she wore blue Levi jeans, blue tennis shoes and a yellow cashmere sweater.

Dixie walked up to her, nudged her on the back then led her to a quiet place where they could do some talking. “You look gorgeous today,” he commented, looking inside her eyes lasciviously.

She smiled serenely at him. “Thank you. Did you tell your dad about me?” she asked, suddenly getting serious and sitting on a wooden bench, which stood under an oak nearby.

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t. Something quite nasty happened yesterday in the evening that prevented me from doing that. My aunt, Belta Pinasoge, was murdered by some unknown people and her corpse dumped at the gate of our residence at Preston.” He sat down beside her on the bench.

Cadgam’s mouth flew open, in surprise. “Who on earth could have done such an ignominious thing!” she exclaimed, her eyes opening wide in horror. “It’s simply unbelievable!”

“I don’t know who did that, yet, but the police are working on that. My dad is of the opinion that the murder is politically motivated and has sworn to get even with the killer.”

Cadgam was quiet for a while then said: “I too hope the killer would be found and punished.” She picked a cuticle from a thumb, studied her beautifully manicured fingers coyly, and then said from nowhere. “I told my dad about our relationship yesterday in the evening.”

“And what did he say about that?” he asked, suddenly alert and leaning towards her.

“Not much, really ... but one thing I’m sure of is that he certainly isn’t against the relationship. Some how, my parents admire your family. They believe it is a noble family and wouldn’t mind if we get married to one another.”

Dixie took her into his arms and kissed her sensual lips passionately. “That’s nice to hear. I sincerely hope my dad would see things the same way too. I’ll try and talk to him about us when things have calmed down a bit to hear what he’ll have to say about it. I’m confident I won’t have any difficulty with him over this.”

“I hope so too,” she said, clinging tightly to him and running her hands over his hair and the nape of his neck. Her lips caressed his lips soothing and he felt hot. “I love you so much, Dixie. I can’ t live without you.”

Dixie thought he heard a twig break behind them and when he turned around, his eyes came into contact with those of Diffas Rogers, the college bully, who stood several meters away from them, a murderous expression on his eyes. His buddy, Bunny Leon, stood behind him, smoking a cigarette, a silly smile playing on his face.

“Don’t you two have anything else more sensible to do with your lives, except to shamelessly express your lust in public?” Rogers asked in a rough contemptuous voice. Cadgam had been his girlfriend before Dixie had snatched her away from him and it seemed the former had never forgiven him for that.

As the son of a notorious drug baron from Colombia called Rabovim Bastaskeris, Rogers was feared in the whole college but Dixie was not about to allow himself to be bullied.

He quickly disentangled himself from Cadgam’s arms. “I’m giving you ten seconds to get out of here silly arse, otherwise I’m going to knock some sense into your thick head right now,” he hissed lividly between clenched teeth, unimpressed by the ill-timed splurge.

“Go frighten your yoyo at home, mother fucking bastard,” Rogers snapped, removed his red leather jacket, passed it over to his buddy, Leon, then yanked a danger from under his pants. “Today I’m gonna bust your sorry arse, miscreant. You’ll regret the day you enrolled into this college.” He began to move around Dixie menacingly, the knife raised in his right hand ready to strike.

Dixie removed his blue jacket and gave it to Cadgam. Fear jumped into her eyes. “Please, don’t fight, Dixie. It’s you I love…you really don’t have to prove anything.” She clung tightly to his arm, and her voice was somehow hysterical as she uttered these words.

Rogers turned to her. “Will you get your little pretty arse out of all this, libidinous coquette? Otherwise, I’m gonna slice your fat provocative lump right now, if you linger too long into business that does not really concern you, nymphomaniac.”

As he charged towards the couple Dixie pushed Cadgam away and supporting himself with his right foot, he turned around slightly, raised his left foot from the ground and viciously kicked the hand holding the knife. Briskly, he put his left foot down and using his right foot, he kicked Rogers hard on the jaw. As the latter stumbled Dixie punched his ribs viciously with his right hand. The knife instantly flew out of Rogers’ hand and landed at Leon’s feet. Cadgam’s eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets in complete wonderment.

As Dixie moved towards Rogers to give him a neat hook on the jaw the latter blocked his hand with his left arm and using his right hand he dropped a mightily blow on Dixie’s stomach, catching the latter unawares. Rogers followed it up with a kick on Dixie’s jaw, which the latter blocked and lunging himself forward energetically he landed a mighty blow on Rogers’ forehead. The blow was well calculated and it lifted Rogers off his feet and he fell down with a thud. Dixie sat on his stomach and landed several more blows on his face. Rogers instantly began to nose bleed and Cadgam’s mouth flew open in surprise as she tried to anticipate on what could possibly happen next.

College students flocked around the place to witness the fight and when Leon saw that his buddy was almost being defeated, he took the knife that had landed at his feet and aimed it at Dixie’s back.

Cadgam saw him do this and screamed: “Be careful, Dixie, Leon has a knife in his hand!”

Dixie looked around and was just in time to duck the flying knife, which landed several meters away from him. In deep anger he stopped pushing Rogers and charged towards Leon. That was when he heard an authoritative female voice behind him.

“Stop, Dixie, please don’t fight again!”

He turned around to find Cadgam’s mom Fontina Evageis, who was a tutor at the college, standing behind him. “What happened?” she asked breathlessly.

“The boys attacked me, madam,” said Dixie, ruefully.

“I was in my office when someone told me there is a fight going on here. Do you realize what you’re doing is something quite dangerous and a person can easily get hurt because of that?” she asked, looking at the boys for answers.

“I have nothing against them, ma’am. They are the one who started it all.”

Rogers rose from the ground where he had fallen, looked around for a while then said: “This was just the beginning. Next time one of us gonna die.” He then disappeared from the vicinity, his buddy, Bunny Leon, towing behind him. .

Fontina took the knife that had fallen to the ground, studied it for a while then commented, lividly: “All this is very serious. I must speak to the college’s principal about it to see what can be done. Such nasty behaviors cannot be tolerated in this college.” She then turned to Cadgam. “May I talk to you in my office for a while, please.”

She left the scene briskly and walked towards her office, which was located within the college grounds. Cadgam gave back Dixie’s jacket to her somehow shaken boyfriend then walked sheepishly behind her mother. Fontina reached her office, placed the knife on her desk, then sank on a swivel chair behind her desk.

“I hope you now understand why I always urge you to stop this love nonsense when you are still in this college, don’t you?” she asked, looking inside her daughter’s anxious eyes questioningly.

“Yes, mom,” she said, studying her beautifully manicured fingers coyly.

“Let that be the last time I hear you have been seen with Dixie again, do you understand?”

“Yes, mom,” she said, although she knew it would be a difficult thing to do.

“Pause for a moment and imagine what could have happened today if the boys had seriously hurt themselves because of you. Do you know how embarrassing that could have been? Considering your dad and Aspeyl Constansborg don’t get along well, how do you think the irascible ambassador could have reacted if he had heard his own son had been injured in a fight over Dessantim’s daughter? I’m sure he could not have been amused by that at all and that’s why I urge you to terminate your relationship with Dixie immediately.” She paused for a while then asked, rather anxiously. “Does his parents know about your relationship, yet?”

“No, Dixie haven’t told them about it, yet.”

“That’s good. Then you must terminate your friendship immediately, do you hear?”

“Yes, mom, I understand.”

“I hope that’s the last time we’re revisiting that topic about Dixie and you.” She then looked at the knife on her desk. “I guess I’ll have to confiscate this knife I took from the boys and show it to the college’s principal. Such nasty behavior cannot be tolerated in this college any longer and as my daughter you ought to know better than that, since it could easily ruin my career in this place. You’re now free to go,” she dismissed her from her office.

For a long time after Cadgam had left the office Fontina stared at the knife on her desk in deep thoughts. Inside her soul and heart of hearts she too liked Dixie immensely. In fact, he was her best student in the college and she could have given everything to see him marry her daughter, Cadgam. But she could not tell Cadgam all this. To do that would be tantamount to encouraging violence and petty rivalry at the college and no wise mom could ever do such a thing. She sincerely hoped things would clear out spontaneously and the young couple would be able to get married one day in the near future.

CHAPTER FIVE

H

AROLD DAVIDSON sat behind his desk at the Federal offices in Philadelphia going through the crime file of Thomas Boden, a mentally deranged man from Jersey City, who had opened fire on unsuspecting pedestrians on a busy Philadelphia street several days earlier killing two and injuring five others critically

Boden, forty-three and divorced, had been raised up in foster homes since the age of four when his parents divorced and he had always had a deep resentment and grudge for the society, which he ostensibly believed had given him a raw deal through-out his life.

A man with a long crime record he had drifted from one menial job to another until that fateful and sweltering Wednesday morning when he had finally cracked up and opened fire on unsuspecting pedestrians before he had shot himself on the foot. The police had soon after that arrested him and he was right then in hospital recovering from the foot injury that he had inflicted on himself.

Dave looked at his watch and noted it was nine-forty five in the morning. About an hour had passed since Melody June had left the office and the fragrance of the powerful feminine perfume he had applied on herself that morning still lingered in the air. As usual the FBI building was bustling with activities and now and then a colleague would pop into Dave’s office, chat for a while then leave.

The office was about fourteen by twelve feet wide and although not particularly posh or spacious it afforded him the comfort and freedom he needed, and that was enough for him as far as he was concerned at that moment. His desk was made of dark oak and its top was lined up with glass. On his desk there was a phone, a folder and several other office paraphernalia he normally used.

Next to his desk was a low table with a computer for data storage and processing. Several feet away from his desk was a similar desk that was crammed up with files of all sorts. The desk belonged to a colleague he normally shared the office with, Peter Albert, who was on his annual leave at that moment.

On one corner of the room was a filing cabinet, which had a vase placed on its top with beautiful flowers placed on it. Although Dave did not have a personal secretary, he always made sure the office was tidy and brought in fresh flowers whenever he could. Sometimes when it was really necessary to do that he got them from his wife, Michelle Geraldine, who was a florist by profession.

The phone rang instantaneously and Dave caught it at the third ring. “Hello, Dave speaking. Can I help you, please?” he said into the mouthpiece.

There was a long pause then a voice came through: “Hello Dave, this is Winah Rastam calling. How are you, my good friend?”

Dave sat up upright, full alert. “I’m fine, Rastam. Where are you calling from?”

“Never mind about that at the moment. Now, listen carefully to what I have to say. I’m dead broke and hard pressed for cash at the moment and I desperately need your help. How about you giving me the one million U.S. dollars in your bank account at the Meridien Bank? I promise I won’t bother you again after that.”

Dave’s mouth ran dry and his jaw-line hardened. “Forget it, bastard, you won’t get even a penny out of me... I swear!” he hissed lividly, between clenched teeth.

“Have you forgotten I have a picture of you killing Belta Pinasoge and I can send it to General Eddie Levis anytime I wish?”

“Puh, go ahead and send it, I just don’t care,” he snapped, rather irritated. “I have established from my contact that Belta was on the run when she came to your house. She had fallen out with Levis and he had threatened her with death, so Belta had to flee from his residence in Jersey City in order to save her arse from trouble.”

Rastam chortled mischievously, genuinely amused. “You must be quite a good detective to have found that out within such a short period of time. But there is clearly one thing your contact may have forgotten to tell you, which I must let you know immediately. When Belta left Levis’ residence in Jersey City several days ago, she took with her some very sensitive top-secret documents that contained some classified information. These documents touch on the internal security of America and quite naturally Levis would do anything to get them back. When I send my wonderful snapshot to him he will no doubt automatically imagine you incited Belta to steal the T.S.Ds from him then murdered her in cold blood. This is obviously a very serious crime and I assure you you can quite easily face a firing-squad because of that, since everyone concerned would imagine you’re a shameless and detestable spy, working for a hostile foreign country.” Rastam hesitated for a while to allow what he had just said to sink in.

Dave pondered over what had been said for a moment and realized it made sense, so he asked, “Where did you take the T.S.Ds in question?”

“That’s my secret and I won’t let you into it, my boy. Another thing, when I sent you out to dump Belta’s corpse yesterday in the evening, I also dispatched a spy to trail your movements. Among other things, he discovered you had taken the body to Washington D.C., where you chained it to a guard at the official residence of the Norwegian ambassador to America, Mr. Aspeyl Constansborg, which was quite a fatal mistake for you to have made. For your information, Constansborg is Belta’s cousin and I hate to imagine what the xenophobic diplomat he will do to you when I send a copy of the snapshot to him and he learns you are the killer. He’s quite an influential man in American political circles and might demand for your immediate prosecution, which could be awful. But you have a choice in all this: You either give me the one million U.S. dollars in your bank account at the Meridien Bank or I’m sending my wonderful snap-shot to both Levis and Constansborg right away. I want the money tomorrow before mid-day. You’ll leave it at the Upper Hill intersection near the bank, where my man would be waiting for you. And David, I warn you now, don’t involve the police in all this, otherwise, you’ll be in a lot of trouble.” And the line went dead.

Dave noted his knuckles had turned white as he replaced the receiver back on the cradle. He slapped his desk with both his palms deeply agitated. The federal agent’s restless mind instantly went back to an event that had happened in the past that partly resembled this latest development in his life. He had only been sixteen when it had happened but he was sure its troubling memory would linger on his mind forever.

Dave was the first born in a family of four boys and a single girl. The girl, Sheila Levin, was two years younger than Dave was but he simply adored her. One day in the summer the Pennsylvania Mafia had kidnapped Sheila. Knowing all fully well that her parents were quite wealthy the Mafia had demanded a ransom of half a million U.S. dollars from them before they could set her free.

Dave’s dad, Milton Depac, had decided to inform the police about the kidnapping, against the Mafia’s advice, of course. What had happened next was a sad tale to tell. The Mafia had immediately murdered Sheila, amputated both her arms at the shoulder then dumped her body near Milton’s residence in Pittsburgh.

That event had changed Dave’s life forever. Young as he was then he had sworn to avenge her death some day in the future. To make this possible he had decided to take a career as a federal agent, since he believed such a move would help him apprehend Sheila’s killers more easily. His dad had been quite upset at his decision to join the federal service, since he wanted him to go into business instead, but Dave had stuck to his guns and to that day, almost thirty years later, he was still with the FBI, although he had so far not managed to nab his sister’s killers just yet.

That event about Sheila and the Mafia had taught him a bitter lesson about life. One thing it had made him to understand clearly was that it always didn’t help much to involve the police in matters of life and death. That was why after much thought and heartache he had decided to give Winah Rastam the one million U.S. dollars in his bank account, rather than risk giving the wily and canny thug a chance to turn the I.R.R.S and Aspeyl Constansborg loose on him and his family.

SERGEANT MOSTAVEIG FRIZAN left Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg’s residence and started for his favorite restaurant, which was about a kilometer away. The events of the previous night, which were related to Belta Pinasoge’s death, somehow weighed him down and his steps were rather dull and heavy.

The restaurant was called Olavin Inn and was about half an hour’s walk from Constansborg’s residence. It had a pub on one side and this was where Frizan often went to for refreshments and social intercourse, whenever he had the time.

But that day he was not going there for any of these reasons. He was going to look for a code-breaking expert who could help him decipher the coded document he had pilfered from Belta’s corpse the previous evening .He had a number of important contacts at the place, whom he was sure would help him in this respect and he felt rather excited at this small adventure of his.

The discovery of the coded document on Belta was the biggest secret he was withholding from the ambassador so far. He had planned to show the document to him, but after Constansborg had slapped him in public for allowing Belta’s killer to get away scot-free he had changed his mind. As a trained soldier he knew information was rarely written in code-language unless it was very important and so he was determined to know what it was all about.

He arrived at the restaurant after about half an hour’s walk and went straight to the counter of the pub. His friend, Terry Polmac, sat behind the counter of the posh restaurant, deeply engrossed in a ledger book he was reading.

Though Polmac’s real name was actually Rasescu Merivo Gostina he preferred to call himself Terry Polmac, since he believed the name was much more appealing and romantic. The name had stuck fast and few people knew it was not his real name.

He smiled when he saw Frizan. “How are you my friend, Frizan? Which drink will you take today?”

Frizan sat on a raised stool beside the counter and leaned towards Polmac. “I’m quite fine, Polmac, but I’m sorry I won’t take anything today. In fact, I’m right now supposed to be on duty at ambassador Constansborg’s private residence, but I had sneaked over to this place because I have some serious business to discuss with you.” He then looked around the restaurant surreptitiously. It was still so early in the day and business hadn’t picked up yet, so the place was rather deserted. “I have a coded document, which I would like deciphered, can you organize that?” he asked, in a low voice.

“Of course I can. Where is it?” Polmac inquired, pushing the ledger book he had been studying aside then screwed the top of his pen back and put it inside his shirt’s pocket.

Frizan put his hand inside a pocket on his denim jacket, pulled out a document and gave it to him. “Here it is. How long do you think it will take for it to be deciphered?”

Polmac was quiet for a while then said: “I know of a good code-breaking expert somewhere who can decipher it within minutes, but of course he won’t do the job free of charge. He will need some payment for that.”

“How much money do you think he will charge for the service?”

“I don’t know that for sure. But I’ll have to ask him first then give you an answer in the shortest time possible. Just give me three days to contact him then I’ll give you the reply,” he said, folding the document neatly then stashing it inside a pocket on his bomber jacket.

Frizan then leaned closer to him and whispered into his ear. “I trust this is only between you and me, Polmac, and no one else, except maybe only the code-breaking expert, should know about it, isn’t it, chum?” he looked inside his friend’s eyes anxiously.

The tapster smiled reassuringly. “Of course no one else will come to hear of it. You can trust me on that, my friend. Meanwhile, let’s hope the document contains something worthwhile.”

Frizan nodded and walked out of the restaurant in brisk steps. Now that the document was out of his hands he felt lighter and could even afford to think clearly.

He had known Polmac for the past one year and mistakenly imagined he could trust him with a secret, but he was wrong. For soon after he had left the restaurant the tapster went into his boss’ office, which was located within the business premises, and handed the document to him.

“Who gave the document to you, Rasescu?” his boss, Washyl Silovin, asked pushing the newspaper he had been reading aside and scrutinizing the document keenly.

“A guard at the official residence of the Norwegian ambassador to America gave it to me. He wants it deciphered and I told him he should come back for reply in three days time.”

“How did he get the document?”

“I don’t know that, sir ... he didn’t tell me.”

Silovin pinned the document onto his folder, rubbed his fat nose then adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses with his thick finger. “I’ll see what can be done about it. I’ll give it to our code-breaking expert, Dikel movina, to hear what he’ll have to say about it. Meanwhile, you can go back to your work and continue with your duties.”

Polmac nodded and left the office. The two men were part of a larger group of the Serbian secret agents (SSA) who were operating clandestinely in Washington D.C. Mostly they concentrated on gathering espionage material that would help fuel the rumor and propaganda mills against America back home, in Belgrade.

SERGEANT MOSTAVEIG FRIZAN started for Constansborg’s residence in quick steps. He knew he would be missed at the residence if he stayed for too long while on this mission and he hated that. He reached inside a pocket on his jacket, got a pack of cigarettes and lit one.

Frizan was twenty-five and not yet married. He came from Trondheim in Norway. That was his third year in America, where he had been sent to guard the Norwegian embassy in the country. He had spent the first two years at the embassy before he was sent to guard Constansborg’s official residence at Preston in Washington D.C., when a bomb was planted at the place by some unknown people almost a year earlier.

Like most world governments in this century Norway too often sent its soldiers to guard its diplomatic stations around the world in a bid to expose them to the outside world and also as part of military exercises and Frizan was just one such soldier.

Now and then vehicles continued to pass on the idyllic tarmac road beside him and Frizan hoped no one would notice him. He hated to sneak out of Constansborg’s residence without a good reason, but that day he felt convinced he had a good reason for doing that.

He had been walking for about ten minutes when a car suddenly stopped beside him. He turned around and noted it was a red sedan car and a lady was behind the wheel. She smiled sweetly at him. “Mind a lift home?” she asked in a sweet voice.

Frizan silently cursed under his breath. These prostitutes were nowadays almost everywhere and he was not in a mood to take a woman home right then. “No thank you, I’m almost home,” he said walking faster, his heart beating wildly behind his chest.

“It’s a command,” the woman said, opening the car’s door and getting out, a pistol in hand. She promptly opened the trunk of the car. “Get inside here quickly,” she snapped, a dangerous gleam in her eye.

Frizan’s mouth ran dry. “Who are you?” he asked, fear jumping into his restless eyes. He looked around and noted vehicles continued to pass past them at top speed, unawares of what was happening to him. His hand instantly gave way and the cigarette he was holding fell to the ground.

“Stop talking and get inside the trunk quickly, else I’m going to spray bullets into your fat sorry arse, right now. And please, don’t try to be smart, otherwise, you’ll regret it,” she said morosely, pointing her pistol at his forehead.

Frizan looked at her face once again and realized he was in deep trouble, since she seemed dead serious about it all. Sheepishly, he got inside the trunk and the lady banged the hood hard above him. Moments later the car drove away at top speed.

After driving for what seemed like an eternity to him the car suddenly came to a stop. Heavy footsteps approached the trunk and frizan expected the worst. The hood instantly flew open and the lady appeared.

“Get out,” she commanded. Frizan obeyed the order, got out and when he looked around he noted he was in front of the FBI building in Washington D.C. The smile returned on the lady’s face. “I’m sorry for carrying you inside the trunk of the car, but I had to bring you here so that we could do some real talking. My name is Kathy Dails from the FBI,” she said, producing her ID and showing it to Frizan.

His mouth instantly flew open. A claustrophobic by nature, when he got kidnapped from beside the road he had expected the worst. But now this latest development troubled him even much more. “ But why on earth did you have to carry me inside the truck? I’m not a criminal, am I?” he asked, puzzled.

“No, you’re not, but I had to do that and I’m sorry it ever happened. Soon after you had left ambassador Constansborg’s residence the press invaded the home and is right now camping outside the residence waiting for you. Apparently, they got wind that the ambassador’s cousin, Belta Pinasoge, was murdered and her corpse chained to a guard at the residence yesterday in the evening, so they came to get first- hand information from you about the event. Since investigation into the matter are still incomplete I felt it would not be wise for you to talk to the press about the matter just yet, since this could prompt the killer to go underground. I had to smuggle you from beside the road inside the trunk of the car because I was sure the press would give chase if they spotted you inside my car.”

“But you violated my human rights when you did that. I could easily have suffocated inside the trunk and I can sue you for that.”

“I promise it won’t happen again. Now tell me, what took you to the Olavin Restaurant?”

Frizan thought about that for a while shrugged his shoulders then said: “I went there for a drink.”

“But I had followed you into the place and didn’t see you take any drink. I have a feeling in my heart that you know much more about Belta Pinasoge’s death than you’re letting out. What was it that you passed by stealthily to Polmac while inside the restaurant?”

“I was paying for drinks I had taken on credit from the place several days ago.”

She toyed with her key-holder for a while, her large brown eyes on him. “I also saw you whisper something into Polmac’s ear, shortly before you left the place, what was it all about?”

He seemed irritated by this. “That was private stuff, madam. You certainly don’t expect me to tell you about it, do you?” he asked in a tough voice, in a desperate bid to shake her off his shoulders.

“I demand to know what it was all about," she pushed on relentlessly. “Otherwise, I’ll take it to mean there’s something very important about Belta’s death, which you’re hiding from me and the FBI and at that stage I would be compelled and forced to turn you over to my superiors for further inter-rogation.”

Frizan was quiet for a while then said: “Polmac is selling his old car to me. That was what I was asking him about.” He sincerely hoped the bitch would leave him alone after that.

She went back into her car, got a telephone directory and checked up the Olavin Restaurant’s phone number. Once she got the number she took her cellular phone and called up the place. Frizan’s heart sank

There was a long delay then a male voice came through: “Polmac speaking here, can I help you, please?”

“Yes, sir. I understand you’re selling your car, would you consider selling it to me?”

“Me selling my car? You must be crazy to imagine such a thing is possible. Who are you, first of all?” he asked, puzzled.

“I’m a customer who desperately need a car just like yours.”

There was a long pause then Polmac asked, “But who told you I’m selling my car?”

“Never mind about that at the moment. Just tell me one thing… are you or are you not selling the car?”

“I don’t have a car at the moment and I sincerely wonder how I’m expected to sell a thing I don’t even have. Whoever told you I’m selling my car must be crazy and only fit for a nut house,” he said truculently and rather abrasively then hung up.

She heaved a profound sigh then turned to Frizan. “There you are, Frizan, I’ve just caught you with your pants down and confirmed Polmac isn’t selling his car, after all. In fact, he told me he doesn’t even own a car at the moment. That means you lied to me deliberately, isn’t it?”

Frizan thought for a while then smiled. “No, I didn’t lie at all, ma’am. For your information, Polmac is a very honest man in his dealings and I certainly don’t expect him to sell his car to two different people at the same time. That would be double-dealing and only a very corrupt and unethical person would ever do such a hideous thing. Since he had already cut a deal with me over the car I sincerely don’t see how he could have done the same with you. When he told you he doesn’t own a car at the moment, he was somehow correct in that since the car is right now in my hands, after he had already verbally promised to sell it to me.”

Frizan had bought a second hand car several weeks earlier and although it was right then at a motor vehicles’ garage for repairs he knew he could always use it to prove his allegations as true if the need to do that arose at any moment.

It was then Kathy’s turn to get surprised. This man was being smart, and yet she was convinced he was a criminal and was hiding some very important information from the FBI. But since she had not arrested him doing anything really wrong she decided to set him free for the moment.

“Alright, I’m going to set you off the hook today. But next time you might not be so lucky. Any small mistake from you will bring the FBI knocking at your door.” She was thoughtful for a while then said, “I want you to understand this, Frizan. Polmac is a very dangerous person to associate with in any way. For some time now the FBI had been trailing his movements and we’re convinced he’s a spy working for a hostile foreign country. That was why I was surprised to see you chatting with him only a day after Belta’s death. I hereby urge you to sever all relations with him from now henceforth; otherwise, you’ll soon find yourself in all sorts of trouble. And another thing; remember what I told you about the press. If they ask you any questions about Belta’s murder, just tell them you have no comment to make about the issue, whatsoever, since investigations into the matter are still incomplete. Should they want to know anything more, please refer them to us. You’re now free to go.”

She watched him leave the FBI compound, locked her car then entered the Federal building, the telephone directory still in her hands.

TEVIN COLLINS sat in his office in deep thoughts. In front of him on his desk were Dave’s navy blue hat and the handcuffs he had taken from Belta’s wrist the previous day. That same day in the morning the federal agent had traveled to Philadelphia and over lunch break had sneaked into Dave’s office and lifted his fingerprints from his phone and the other office paraphernalia he normally used .He had done this with the help of a fellow federal agent based in Philadelphia called Trevor Gene, whom he had managed to convince Dave was involved in a serious crime, which he did specify. Gene and Dave did not get along well and the former had been quite eager to help Collins in this respect. Since investigations into the matter were still incomplete Collins had urged Gene to hold his peace and not let anyone into their small secret, and the latter had promised to do that.

When Collins traveled back to Washington D.C. later that day he had matched the fingerprints with those found on the hat and handcuffs and discovered they matched. To him that meant Dave had been involved in Belta’s murder or had been at the scene of crime when the woman had died and that made him the prime suspect in this case. All that remained then was to pick him up for interrogation and further questioning and if by any chance he turned out be the killer, then this was going to be one of the simplest crime cases Collins had ever solved, during his long but illustrious career with the FBI. He sincerely felt quite thankful to the anonymous caller from Philadelphia who had tipped off the FBI about this crime, for she had definitely saved him the many hours of investigations and heart ache he would certainly have endured as he tried to find Belta’s killer.

Meanwhile, Collins decided to inform his boss, Don Vernon, about what he had found out concerning the crime so far. He found him in his office producing some photocopies on a photocopier in the room.

“What can I do for you, Collins?” he asked, looking up at him, a tired bored look in his eyes.

Collins sat on a nearby seat, lit a cigarette then said: “Sir, I guess you remember I was in Philadelphia on official duties yesterday when Belta was murdered, don’t you?”

“Sure, I do… you had taken some criminals who were suspected of bombing a restaurant in Philadelphia to an identification paraded at the FBI offices in the city. Why do you ask that?’

“I have just found Belta’s killer and I think you should know all about it. When I took the bombing suspects to Philadelphia I was informed Trevor Gene, our former colleague while we used to work in the city, was handling the case and so I went to his office for a chat. It was while I was in the office when an anonymous caller was connected into the office by a federal agent called Morris Santana, who had only moments earlier taken her call, but unfortunately could not comprehend what she was saying. Apparently, the anonymous caller had seen a woman going by the name of Belta Pinasoge being taken out of her former parents-in-law home at Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia in critical condition by a federal agent called Harold Davidson, but since Santana was quite busy at that moment and did not consider that a crime in itself, he immediately referred her to Gene, to see whether the latter would make out the head or tail of the whole business.”

“Did Gene take the matter seriously?” he asked, for lack of a better question to ask.

“Yes, very much, sir. For reason I don’t know just yet, Gene and Dave do not get along well, so when the former heard the latter’s name being mentioned he immediately took the whole issue very seriously and noted it down somewhere. So when I heard Belta Pinasoge had been found dead here in Washington D.C. I immediately suspected Dave was the culprit in this crime case and decided to investigate that possibility. To confirm whether what I suspected was correct or not I traveled to Philadelphia today in the morning to get Dave’s finger prints then matched them with the ones found on the handcuffs on Belta’s wrist and on the navy-blue hat she wore yesterday in the evening, and I found they were the same.”

“How did you obtain Dave’s finger-prints, if I may ask?”

Collins paused for a while then said: “I sneaked into his office during lunch-break and lifted them off his phone and the other office paraphernalia he often uses. Gene helped me in that respect.”

Don’s eyes narrowed and he stopped photocopying for a while. “That means you violated Dave’s privacy without his knowledge, didn’t you?” He had known Dave personally when he worked in Philadelphia and did not consider him a particularly dangerous person, so he was not amused at this crude invasion of his privacy.

“I had no choice in this case, sir. Since I was not sure he was the criminal just yet, I felt certain I would have messed things up if I had confronted him outright without ample evidence and proof concerning the matter.”

Don had still been Collins’ boss when the two men worked in Philadelphia and since the two always got along so well, when Don got transferred from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. he had organized the transfer of his royal lieutenant to the place too. Collins had not complained when that had happened, since Don had ensured he got some sort of promotion and a pay-rise to accompany the juicy offer. Their friendship, which was based on mutual respect and trust, had survived a lot of tests and challenges in the past and Collins hoped it would survive this latest misunderstanding too.

Don reflected on what Collins had said for a while then muttered: “ I trust you did what deemed right and best for you at that moment and I certainly don’t blame you for that. Anyway, let’s now get down to business.” He stopped photocopying, switched off the machine and walked back to his desk. “Belta’s husband, general Eddie Levis, had been calling me the whole day inquiring on whether we have found any clues that might lead us to his late wife’s killer, yet. According to him when Belta left his residence in Jersey City two days ago she took with her some very important and invaluable top-secret documents. Levis is of the opinion that she was killed because of these documents and since they touches on the internal security of America he’s naturally very anxious to get them back. I will call him right now and inform and update him on what we have come up with so far regarding his late wife’s death to hear how he intend to recover the stolen T.S.Ds back from the killer. You may now go back to your office, Collins. I’ll call you back here when I’m through with him.” He sank on his seat and instantly reached for the phone. Collins immediately left the office.

Once he had dialed Levis’ number there was a long delay then a voice came through: “General Eddie Levis speaking, can I help you, please?”

“Yes, sir. This is Don Vernon from the FBI calling. We’ve just found some very important clues that I believe could lead us to your late wife’s killer and I thought you should know all about it.”

Levis held his breath. “You’ve been very quick in the job, I must say. What have you found out about the killer so far?”

Don made himself more comfortable on his seat then explained to him in detailed what Collins had told him about Harold Davidson and the anonymous caller from Philadelphia. Levis listened keenly for a while then asked, “ Have it occurred to you that the anonymous caller herself might be the killer we’re looking for and could have been trying to distract the FBI from reaching her?”

“Yes, I have thought about that possibility, sir, but since we now have a prime suspect in this case, I think I should immediately pick up the guy for questioning and ask him to produce an alibi on where he was yesterday in the evening when Belta was murdered .If by chance he turns out not to be the killer, after all, then too bad we’ll just set him free and continue with our investigations.”

“That means you haven’t told him what you’ve found out about him just yet, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“That’s good. I would urge you not to tell him anything at this moment, since he might panic and go underground and that would definitely make it much more difficult for us to get the T.S.Ds he ‘took’ from Belta. Mr. Vernon, if you have no objection over this, I would be quite glad if you’d allow me to handle the guy personally and force him to produce the T.S.Ds in question.”

“Of course I have no objection about that, sir…you can take over the investigation into the matter from now henceforth, if that’s your wish,” he mumbled, somehow taken a back by the rather and unprofessional demand.

“Good, tell your boys to keep their hand off the guy too for the moment. Will you do that that?”

“I will, sir.”

There was a long pause then Levis asked, “Have you told Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg what you’ve found out about the killer, yet?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Please, tell him nothing at the moment. In case he calls you about the matter, just tell him investigations are still incomplete and thus you have no comment to make about the issue, whatsoever. I tell you all this because I know fully well that Constansborg is a very eccentric and complicated person and once he learns Belta was killed by a federal agent, he might start getting funny and weird ideas into his head that could easily convince him Belta was killed by the FBI at the instructions of the American government, in a desperate bid to recover the top-secret documents she stole from me, and this could very easily poison the existing good and cordial diplomatic relations between Norway and America. I hope you understand what I mean by that, don’t you?”

“Sure I do, sir.”

“Then get him out of all this for the moment.” Levis was quiet for a while then said: “I want you to give me all the details you have about the killer so that I can note it down in my file. Secondly, get a person to bring me, here in my office at Pentagon, the handcuffs that were on Belta’s wrist and the navy-blue hat that was found on her head yesterday in the evening.”

Don Vernon promptly gave him all the details he had about Dave then hung up. He immediately called Collins back into his office. “Eddie Levis would prefer to handle Harold Davidson’s crime case personally and he has requested me to allow him to continue with investigation into the matter from now henceforth .As I told you earlier on, his late wife, Belta Pinasoge, had stolen some very important top-secret documents from him before she died, so Levis is naturally quite anxious and eager to get these documents back from the killer at whatever cost. Another thing, he has instructed me not to tell ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg what we have found out about the killer just yet. This is ostensibly because he would hate to see the diplomat interfere in all this.”

Don Vernon felt glad that the responsibility of investigating the matter further had been removed from his hands. He hated to investigate or prosecute people he knew personally, like in Dave’s case, and he sincerely hoped Levis would be successfully in recovering the stolen T.S.Ds from the ‘criminal’ on his own.

CHAPTER SIX

H

AROLD DAVIDSON parked his car on the parking lot several meters away from the Meridian Bank then got out. He looked around for a while locked his car then walked in to the bank in slow calculated steps.

He had sneaked out of his office, at the Federal building by using a false excuse, claiming and saying that he was going to see a physician over persistent chest problems, and he knew he had to withdraw the one million U.S. dollars in his bank account within the shortest time possible.

He looked at his watch and noted it was twenty minutes past ten o’clock in the morning, so that meant he had about two hours to withdraw the cash and give it to Winah Rastam’s emissary like he had been instructed to do by the former the previous day.

Although he felt totally frustrated and angered by all this he had decided not to involve the police in the deal since he was sure this would only make matters more complicated for him. So he preferred to give the cash in his bank account away rather than risk facing either Eddie Levis or Aspeyl Constansborg to explain to them how Belta had died and why he had chained her corpse to a guard at the ambassador’s residence.

The Meridian Bank was one of those modern banking institutions that allowed its customers to withdraw a maximum of one million U.S. dollars within a moments notice and Dave knew he would not have any problem with the bank’s management over this.

Once inside the bank he filled out the necessary forms to facilitate the withdrawal then gave them to a plump but pretty cashier behind the counter.

The cashier regarded the forms for a while then asked, “Where’s your ID and account book, sir?” Dave promptly pulled out the two from a pocket on his coat then gave them to her. She looked at them then smiled up at him. “No doubts you’re closing up your bank account, aren’t you, sir?”

“Yes, madam,” he croaked self-consciously, an impish smile on his somehow anxious face.

She was quiet for a moment then said: “ I guess you plan to buy a house or do such other noble ventures with the money, isn’t it?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

She looked around for a while then mumbled in a low voice: “I know of a good house somewhere that’s going for much more less than this amount of money you’re withdrawing from the bank. Can I make arrangements for you to view the property? There would be strictly no obligation in all this, once you’ve seen the house ... I swear.”

Dave smiled, rather embarrassed. “Sorry, madam, but I have already found another house. All the same, thanks for the offer.” He wished the bitch would shut her mouth and mind her own business.

The lady smiled up at him again sweetly but didn’t say anything more after that. She quickly processed his forms and after waiting for what seemed like an eternity to Dave he finally left the bank with the money in a thick manila envelope.

The next stage then was to take the money to the Upper Hill intersection where Winah Rastam’s emissary would be waiting for him and Dave felt rather apprehensive about this. “What if the man opened fire and killed him as he took the money away from him, will anyone ever know the main reason as to why he had been killed?” he wondered to himself. He touched his Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol, which was inside his coat’s inner pocket and the warm firearm some how reassured him and gave him enough confidence and courage to proceed on. He promised himself he would open fire first if the worse came to the worst and the emissary unexpectedly started shooting at him.

After leaving the bank Dave walked to his car, which was parked several meters away from the bank, got his car keys and it was while he was opening the door of the vehicle when he felt something cold pressed to his neck. He turned around to find a man with Semitic features standing behind him, a pistol in hand. “Give the money,” the guy commanded in a rough voice.

Dave had dealt with criminals before and he knew one false move from him could mean instant death, so he gave the money away without further hesitation.

Rough hands frisked over his clothes and in a flash his pistol was gone too. Within seconds the thug then got inside a get away car parked nearby and was soon gone, leaving Dave standing there stranded beside his car.

It was a pretty fast job and no one around the bank seemed to have noted what had happened. That was when the federal agent looked at his car again and noted one of the rear tires was flat and he cursed silently under his breath. It was obvious to him the thug had interfered with the tire in a bid to prevent him from giving chase once his money was gone.

He then got a jack and a wheel-spanner from the trunk of the car and proceeded to change the damaged wheel. Once the job was done, he got inside his car and drove straight away to his office. He felt pretty foolish for having allowed the thug to get away with the money so easily and promised himself such a thing would never happen again in the future.

Dave arrived at his office after driving for about twenty minutes, got inside and sank on his recliner. He realized calling the police and telling them he had been robbed of his money outside the bank wasn’t going to help much, since for one thing, the thug was by then long gone and secondly, he suspected his wife, Michelle Geraldine, would come to hear of it, somehow, if he was foolish enough to involve the police in all this. He had not told her he was going to withdraw the money from the bank and he was sure she would develop a heart attack when she came to learn of it.

Dave had been in his office for about ten minutes when the door instantly flew open and two U.S. Air Force soldiers walked into the room. They had guns strapped across their shoulders and they instantly produced their badges.

“We’re from the U.S. Air Force and we have orders to take you to Pentagon right away,” one of them said, standing in front of Dave’s desk.

“Who wants me there and why?” he asked, scrutinizing the two men carefully.

“General Eddie Levis from the U.S. Air Force wants you there but we have no idea as to why he wants to meet you,” the younger one said, a cigarette sticking out of his mouth.

Dave’s heart sank. He had never met General Levis in person before and he wondered why the latter wanted to meet him then. He thought of acting tough and refusing to accompany the soldiers to the said place but thought better of it.

Finally he said: “We may go, boys.” He rose from his seat and after informing his colleagues at work that he was gone for a while he left the FBI building with the two soldiers trailing beside him.

As the trio walked to a green U.S. Air Force van, which was parked on the main parking lot several meters away from the federal building, Dave noted there were curious stares from several on lookers who were in the vicinity, but he tried to appear calm and composed. The trio then got inside the van and soon the vehicle left for Pentagon.

But although Dave tried to appear calm and composed his heart was beating wildly behind his chest. Was it possible general Levis had discovered he was Belta’s killer and if so who had informed him about it and what was he planning to do about his late wife’s premature death? Dave dreaded the thought of facing the Air Force general and explaining the whole damn business to him, and once again he hated Winah Rastam for dragging him into all this.

After the van had been driving for about one and a half hours it finally reached the Pentagon and parked in front of the magnificent building. The trio then got out of the van, entered the building and immediately got onto an escalator that took them to the second floor of the building. Once there they left the escalator, walked through a corridor and stopped in front of the door with a small brass plate with the words: GENERAL EDDIE LEVIS — U.S. AIR FORCE.

One of the soldiers turned on the handle of the door and led Dave through the office of General Levis’ personal secretary, Fiona Bowens, and into the general’s office. Levis sat on a recliner behind his table talking on the phone, an anxious look on his face. He momentarily looked up when the two men walked into the room, motioned to Dave to seat on a sofa in the room, then continued with his phone conversation, a cigar sticking out of his mouth.

The soldier waited till his boss had finished talking on the phone introduced the two men then left the room, locking the door softly behind him.

For a moment there was deathly silence in the room then Levis cleared his throat and asked, “Mr. Davidson, I’m sure you know the reason as to why I have called you here today, don’t you?”

“No, sir, I don’t know the reason. Maybe, you should be kind enough and explain that to me.”

Levis regarded him for a while, sucked heavily on his cigar and release blue smoke out of his mouth and into the atmosphere. “I want you to give me the top-secret documents you took from my late wife, Belta Pinasoge, when you murdered her two days ago in Philadelphia,” he dropped the bombshell.

“I don’t understand what you are talking about, sir. I have never heard of anybody going by that name in my whole life!” he exclaimed, desperately trying to feign innocence, although his heart was still thumping wildly behind his chest.

Levis instantly opened a drawer, which was on his table and pulled out a navy-blue hat and the handcuffs that had been on Belta’s wrist when she died and placed the two on top of the table.

“These two things were found on Belta’s slain body when it was dumped in Washington D.C. two days ago and I have every reason to believe they are yours, since your finger-prints are all over them. Can you explain to me how your finger-prints came to be found on these two items before us and why that is so?”

Dave’s mouth flew open, genuinely surprised. He certainly had not expected to see these two personal items again in his whole life. “I still don’t understand what you’re talking about, sir. I have never seen these two things before.”

At that stage Levis got angry. He rose from his seat and walked to a window on one wall of the room. He was a huge man standing at about six feet two inches tall and weighing about two hundred and sixty pounds. He was fairly dark skinned and his hair, which was dark, was graying at the temple.

A relatively well groomed man in his early forties, he wore a U.S. Air Force general’s uniform, which was covered with gold braids, and he cut the figure of quite a successful career soldier, whom Dave could tell had had quite an illustrious military career in the past.

“Don’t force me to be tough on you, Mr. Davidson. I assure you you’ll soon find yourself in all sorts of trouble if you insist on lying about Belta’s death. Like I told you before, these two items I have just shown you have your fingerprints all over them. They were given to me by the federal agent investigating my late wife’s murder and he have every reason to believe they are yours, so you must speak the whole truth about Belta’s death under all costs. The top-secret documents you took from her when she died touch on the internal security of America and you can easily face a firing squad because of that, if you don’t watch out. On the other hand should you tell me whom you’re working for and where you took the T.S.Ds in question I might consider forgiving you for the mistake and I’ll consequently instruct your superiors at the FBI not to take any disciplinary action against you for the crime?”

Dave thought about what Levis had said for a while and realized lying about the matter further wouldn’t help in the least. With the navy-blue hat and the handcuffs before his very own two eyes he realized lying about the whole thing would only make matters even worse for him, so he decided to tell the truth about the whole damn issue.

A phone rang and Levis walked back to his table and picked it up. As he spoke on the phone Dave had the time to scrutinize the office carefully.

The office was quite spacious, posh and tastefully furnished. Levis’ table, which was quite large and made of dark oak was decorated with the American flag and had three phones on it. Next to the table was a small desk, which had a computer, a modem and a fax machine on it. A thick green carpet covered the floor of the room and it looked quite expensive and of the commercial type. There were also two wooden cupboards in the room, several filing cabinets and numerous other office’s paraphernalia. On top of the cupboards were several golden, silver and bronze medals, which Levis had been awarded during his long and illustrious career in the U.S. Air Force.

The walls of the room, which were painted white and yellow were lined up with huge portraits of President Eugene Lewis, General Eddie Levis and pictures of several U.S. bombers and planes, Ostensibly captured in action during the Gulf War in 1991 and also in the former Yugoslavia during the Balkans War, or in any other trouble spots in the world, where America had seen it fit to sent its troops in recent years.

Levis finished speaking on the phone after a while replaced the receiver back on the cradle then sank back on his recliner. Dave cleared his throat then explained everything he knew about Belta Pinasoge’s death to him, including how Winah Rastam had blackmailed him into killing her and how he had unwisely ended up chaining her corpse to a guard at the official residence of the Norwegian ambassador to the U.S.A, Aspeyl Constansborg.

Levis listened keenly for a while then asked, “But why on earth didn’t you report the crime to the police the moment it happened? As a federal agent with many years experience behind you I would expect you to know better than to allow yourself to be blackmailed so easily by a thug.”

“I admit I was wrong in this respect, sir. I guess I panicked when Belta died and beside, things were happening so fast...I didn’t have time to think clearly about the matter.”

Levis was quiet for a while, puffed on his cigar again then asked, “But how do I know whether what you’re saying is the truth or not. For all I know, you might be framing all this on the guy called Winah Rastam in order to get yourself off the hook for the moment.”

“What I am saying is the plain truth, sir. I sincerely stood to gain nothing by killing Belta. I had never met the woman before and at that moment I didn’t even know she had stolen any T.S.Ds from you ...I swear. When I agreed to help Rastam rush his ailing daughter to hospital for treatment in our phone conversation moment earlier I did it purely on humanitarian ground. I didn’t know the guy had any hidden agenda up his sleeves.”

“Where does Rastam live at the moment?”

“I sincerely don’t know that, sir .He moved out of his former home at Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia during my absence, so I have no idea where he went to.”

A lengthy silence followed then Levis said: “I’m giving you a week to find the guy and bring back to me the stolen T.S.Ds within that time. If by the end of the week you won’t have done that ... just know for sure you’ll be in a lot of trouble. Some of the T.S.Ds Belta stole from me touches on the private life of President Eugene Lewis...so the president is as desperate as I am to get the T.S.Ds back. So if you fail to obey my command, I’ll be compelled to turn you over to Eugene and I promise I’ll prevail upon him to summon his executive powers as the American president and order your summary execution. I will assume you’re a spy working for a hostile foreign country and because of that you will have to die in order to prevent the cancer of espionage and betrayal from spreading throughout the country. And for heaven sake, I warn you now, Davidson, don’t make the foolish mistake of trying to flee the country because of all this. I will instruct my boys to trail each and every one of your moves and any false move from you will mean instant death. You’re now free to go,” he dismissed him from his presence.

After Harold Davidson had left the office Eddie Levis slumped back on his seat in deep thoughts. His mind instantly drifted back to how he had joined the I.R.R.S and a thin truculent smile flickered on his lips.

He had been in his mid-twenties then and several months earlier his elder sister, Roselyn Verona, a practicing model and movie-star aged twenty-eight years old had gotten married to Eugene Lewis, a fast rising republican senator from New York City who had his eyes set on the U.S. presidency in the near future.

Eddie Levis had just joined the U.S. Air Force as a sergeant then and as a young soldier he was often sent to guard the homes of senior Air Force officers whenever the need arose. It was during one such posting when he had met and fell in love with the youthful wife of a senior military officer when he had gone to guard the officer’s residence at Manhattan.

Actually, it was not Levis’ fault, altogether, but the young woman called Belinda Flavia seemed to have developed a strong liking for him right from the start and also appeared to have decided she wanted Levis to be hers at all costs. Levis an amorous young man, then didn’t make any effort to block her bid to become his lover, since he was hopelessly in love with her too ... and so a strong friendship soon developed between the two young people.

Belinda aged twenty-six years old then was just the sort of woman Levis could have given everything to have. For apart from being quite charming and beautiful she was also very kind, generous and understanding and Levis found her simply irresistible. And to make matters even worse for him she was willing to do anything for Levis, even risk her marriage to Major Neil Steward, a ruthless thirty- year- old Air Force soldier, whom Levis always tried to avoid at all costs.

At the age of twenty-four and obviously quite inexperienced with most important issues regarding life, Levis too decided he was going to do everything possible to make Belinda his ... even if it meant him losing his job in the Air Force in the process.

One day in the evening when Major Steward was away from home Belinda had called Levis into the main house where she was alone. Although Levis found this rather strange and odd he could not turn down her invitation and friendly gesture, since by then he was so much under her spell and influence and could not resist anything she suggested.

During that memorable night Belinda was dressed in a breath taking red dress that reached several inches above her knees and a pair of red vintage shoes to match. Her sensual and luscious lips were painted red with lipstick and her eyebrows were somehow raised due to the different shades of mascara she had applied on herself. Her hair, which was rich brown, long, and thick, was in braids and she had sprayed herself with a strong feminine perfume, whose endearing fragrance had a soothing effect on Levis’ jittery nerves.

“Have a seat, please, Levis,” she said in a sweet voice, motioning to Levis to seat on a sofa, which stood nearby, when he entered the posh and spacious living room of his boss. That was the very first time he was entering into the house in the absence of Steward and he felt rather apprehensive about all this. “You seem to be somehow surprised,” she commented, smiling sweetly and reassuringly at him when she noted his hesitation.

“Of course I am. Where is Steward today?” he asked, sinking on the sofa, his restless eyes surreptitiously sweeping across the room.

“He is in Ohio on official duties. He won’t be back in three days time.” She sat next to him on the sofa and crossed her long slender legs, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Levis relaxed and his breathing became easier.

Moments later she rose to her feet went to a fridge in one corner of the room and got a bottle of cognac, two sodas and two glasses. She placed them in front of Levis and proceeded to pour him a drink.

“You look gorgeous tonight,” he commented, for lack of something better to say, observing her keenly.

“Thank you.” She smiled shyly at him.

There was a long awkward silence then Levis asked, “Which official duties did Steward go to attend in Ohio?”

This seemed to irritate her. “He went to the Wright-Patterson Air Force base in the state to attend a seminar on nuclear warfare. I hope you won’t mention his name again ... it makes me uneasy.” She poured herself a soda and took a tiny sip.

“I’m sorry for that. You’re not taking cognac, why is that so?” he asked, when he noted she was taking pure soda water.

The dazzling smile returned to her face. “Don’t worry about me, honey. You’re my guest tonight ... so just go ahead and enjoy yourself as much as you can. I’ll take some alcohol when I’m ready for it. I have a gut feeling that Steward might call me up from Ohio any time from now and I want to be sober when I speak to him on the phone. He doesn’t like the idea of me taking alcohol at all.”

Levis nodded with understanding, emptied his glass of cognac in a single gulp then poured himself another drink, feeling totally relaxed and completely at home. Although he too never liked to take any alcoholic drinks when he was supposed to be on duty, he considered that night rather exceptional. Since he had learnt his boss, Steward, was in a far away city attending to some official duties, he decided to enjoy that moment as much as possible and make the night memorable.

The couple chatted aimlessly for about two hours then she took him to the master bedroom in the home and made him sit on the bed. By that time Levis was quite drunk and inebriated and could hardly stand his own two feet.

“Do you realize how privileged I feel to have you as my guest tonight?” she asked, planting a kiss on his lips and starting to unbutton his shirt.

“Why is that, Belinda,” he asked, staring at her with half-closed eyes. She ran her hand over his hairy chest then fawned, flatteringly “I have so much respect for your family and I would gladly give everything to be part of it. Do you realize your brother-in-law, Governor Eugene Lewis, might soon become the next American president, then you’ll have a chance to become really rich and famous?”

He smiled, somehow uneasily. “No one in his right mind would make the ruffian a president .No one has any respect for him in America,” he said in a nonchalant manner, in a bid to shrug off her kind words, although deep down inside his heart he felt extremely proud of Eugene

She looked at him with round eyes and massaged his navel soothingly with her warm hands. “Personally, I have much respect for the guy. He has every noble and good quality I would like and desire to see in America’s future presidents and I would thus consequently give everything I have to see him rule the country .I’m sure most Americans are of the same opinion as I am about him and would gladly give him the mandate to rule the country, if he vied for the presidency even today.”

There was a long silence in the room, but when it was obvious she expected him to say something he mumbled, stoically: “You admire and respect Eugene just because you don’t know much about his private life, otherwise, he is a very useless and worthless fellow. A shameless murder who has no respect for human life.”

Her eyes opened wide in horror. “I don’t believe anything you’ve said about Eugene is true .The guy is my hero and I would hate to hear anyone describe him in such filthy and disgusting terms like the ones you’ve just used. To me the guy is quite harmless and can’t even harm a fly, so I wonder who he have killed to make you call him a murderer.”

“Let’s forget all about the clown and discuss something more worth while and constructive. Do you realize how much I love you, Belinda?” he asked, in a bid to change the topic. “ I can marry you even today if I’m given a chance to do that. I must admit today that I always envy Steward so much for being lucky enough to have you for a wife and I can easily kill the miscreant, if that would make you mine. I hate him with all my heart,” he hissed, between clenched teeth.

“I love you too, Levis. But some of the things you say are just so alarming, dear .For example, when you say Eugene is a murderer and yet refuse to substantiate the allegation you leave a lot to be desired. You unknowingly make me to lose confidence and trust in you.”

“I was only joking when I said Eugene is a murderer who have no respect for human life… I swear. I didn’t mean any of the words I said and I’m surprised you took me so seriously,” he said, looking inside her dark-brown eyes, and then reached out for her hand.

But she moved further away from him on the bed. “Don’t touch me, Levis. I don’t respect people who go around maligning other people’s names for no good reasons at all ... next time you might say I, Belinda, too is a murderer if you don’t watch your loose tongue.” She seemed genuinely angry with him.

Levis had never seen her so angry before and for a moment he was totally bewildered and shocked. To assuage her hurt feelings and also in a bid to impress her with the vast knowledge he had about Eugene’s private life he blurted out. “ I will tell you about one prominent person Eugene has killed in the recent months if that will satisfy you. But I sincerely hope this is only between you and me and you won’t repeat it to anyone else. Eugene is the one who murdered Melvin Smith, the former powerful mayor of New York, and no one else has this scoop, except me and my sister, Roselyn Verona, the governor’s wife

He sneezed emotionally then continued in the same dreary voice, “I had gone to visit the newly married couple in their ranch in southern Colorado when I witnessed the gruesome murder. Eugene had apparently hired thugs who kidnapped Mr. Smith from New York and took him to the senator’s ranch in Denver, where after an angry exchange of words Eugene had shot his opponent thrice through the heart. My sister, Verona, and I were standing at the window of the governor’s mansion in the ranch when we saw this happen and Roselyn took five pictures of the killing with a small camera she held in her hands. Ostensibly, she had a premonition that something nasty was just about to happen and so was armed with a camera ready to take it all in.”

Levis had no personal grudge against Eugene and these words he had just said about him somehow surprised him. But he knew the words were true and he felt a lot of inner thrill and satisfaction as he shared the experience with someone else. Belinda was the first person outside his immediate family circle he was narrating the traumatizing episode to and he hoped she would keep her mouth shut and not repeat it to anyone else. “Roselyn gave me two of the pictures and kept the other three,” he continued, drunkenly. “ She said she hoped to use the pictures to blackmail Eugene into giving her a huge amount of money, in case the couple should divorce in the future.”

Belinda pondered over Levis’ words for a while then asked, “Where did you take the two pictures Roselyn gave you, honey?”

“They are in my house.” He reached for her again, pulled her to himself and kissed her lips passionately. He began to unzip her dress and his breathing was somehow fast as her warm hands caressed him tenderly. “ Let’s skip this morbid and irrelevant topic about Eugene and his small adventures and escapades, since I’m sure it won’t get us anywhere at the moment. Instead, let us now discuss our love affair and our future plans together. Can you marry me, Belinda?” he asked, looking inside her eyes.

“Yes dear, I can. But I’ll have to divorce Steward first before I can ever do that.”

Levis thought he had heard a car drive into the compound and when he rushed to the window on one wall of the room and looked outside, he saw Steward’s car stop on the driveway. He panicked and turned white.

“I thought you had told me your husband is in Ohio attending a seminar on nuclear warfare!” he pointed out, the effect of alcohol beginning to clear from his mind. “What happened?”

She instantly joined him at the window. “Yes that’s what I told you but I guess something must have gone terribly wrong somewhere, or he must have missed his flight.” There was a moment of awkward silence, then she asked, “Now what do we do? There sure gonna be some trouble when he finds you here. You will have to hide inside that wardrobe over there until I let you out,” she suggested, pointing at a wooden wardrobe in one corner of the room.

Fear jumped into Levis’ eyes. “But he will find me in there in case he need a change of clothes and opens the wardrobe.”

“No, he won’t. That’s my personal wardrobe and that’s where I normally keep my feminine things, so Steward never opens the wardrobe.” She took his arm, led him to the cupboard and pushed him inside, before he could protest further. “Stay in there until he falls asleep, then I’ll let you out.” She locked the wardrobe with a key then kept the key inside a drawer in the room. She then jumped on her bed, covered herself with quilts and pretended to be asleep.

Meanwhile, tired of knocking on the main door of the house Steward got his own personal set of keys from a pocket on his coat, opened the door and walked straight to the bedroom. He woke her up.

“What happened, honey? You slept with the lights on.”

“I’m sorry I forgot to put them off. I thought you’re supposed to be in Ohio, what happened?” she asked, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

He winked and smiled knowingly at her. “I missed my flight.” He next opened a drawer hidden under a table nearby and pulled out a tape-recorder. He switched it on and instantly voices came through. The tape recorder repeated all the conversation Belinda and Levis had had in the bedroom moments before the Air Force major had came in and Steward’s smile broadened on his face.

Inside the poorly ventilated wardrobe Levis was locked in the younger soldier started sweating and his heartbeat wildly behind his chest.

“Where is Eddie Levis, Belinda?” he finally asked, when he had finished listening to the tape.

“He’s inside my wardrobe,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation and Levis’ blood turned cold. She got the wardrobe’s keys from the drawer, where she had kept them and gave them to her husband.

Steward got his gun from his coat’s inner pocket, opened the wardrobe then thundered, “Levis I’m giving you five seconds to get out of the wardrobe, else I’m going to start shooting right away.”

Levis promptly got out of the wardrobe, his arms raised up high in the air. Steward regarded him for a while then asked, “What were you doing with my wife in my own bedroom, Levis?”

“It was all a terrible mistake, sir, and I’m very sorry about it all. I promise such a thing will never happen again in the future.” He wore his most innocent look on his face and he was shaking uncontrollably all over the body.

There was along ominous silence then Steward asked, “ So you hate me with all your heart and can easily kill me, if you ever get the chance to do that, chicken, so that you can marry my wife, Belinda, the woman of your wildest dreams?” The Army Major had a profoundly hurt look on his eyes and for a moment, Levis thought he was going to shoot him dead right away.

“Er…no, sir. I don’t hate you at all and has never wished you any harm in my whole life. I was only telling Belinda that in order to please her and make her happy.”

Steward regarded the younger soldier for a while then shrugged his shoulders. “Anyway, we’ll come back to that later on when I am ready for it. As for now just tell me one thing; so Eugene Lewis, your ruthless brother-in law, is the one who killed the former mayor of New York City, Melvin Smith, and you have the evidence to prove that? Where are the two pictures that Roselyn gave you about the killing, that you told my wife about in your exciting conversation only moments ago?”

Levis mouth instantly ran dry. “I was only joking, sir. Roselyn never took any pictures about the killing and I must admit I got carried away by Belinda’s inquisitive questions and was consequently tempted to lie to her in order to satisfy her morbid curiosity.”

Belinda instantly rose from the bed, where she sat shyly picking a cuticle from a thumb, and left the room, leaving the two men to square it all out on their own. The fragrance of her perfume lingered in the air long after she was gone but Levis did not think the fragrance romantic anymore.

“Let’s agree on one damn thing… Levis, you either give me the two pictures you spoke about or I’m sending my tape to Governor Eugene Lewis right away ... then he will know for sure what a goddamn it useless brother-in-law you really are. This tape will also definitely get your sister, Roselyn, into a lot of trouble too and if you really care about her then you must do as I tell you.”

That was when it occurred to Levis that all this had been planned in advance and Belinda had lured him into the bedroom with sinister motives. Unknown to him both Belinda and Steward were prominent members of the dreaded terrorist organization called the I.R.R.S and they were all out to recruit him into joining the organization.

For sometime then the I.R.R.S had known Governor Eugene Lewis was quite an ambitious man and might vie for The American presidency in the near future, so they sought out ways to recruit him into joining the organization. But they realized Eugene was a cunning fellow and to recruit him into joining the organization could be a difficult task to do, so they targeted on his naive and youthful brother-in-law Eddie Levis instead. They knew if they could blackmail Levis into joining the organization they could also use him to get Eugene into the I.R.R.S in the future and so a plan was subsequently hatched to make that possible

Belinda was instructed to lure him into a love affair by using her good looks and charms and to do everything possible to earn his trust and confidence. Also she was instructed to get as much information as possible from him about Eugene’s private life and pass the same to the I.R.R.S.

On the night Levis was to be blackmailed into joining the I.R.R.S Belinda was instructed to lure him into the bedroom where a tape recorder was secretly installed to tape all the conversation the two had in the room.

Hours earlier the room had been bugged and wired and meanwhile, Steward was instructed to park his car about a hundred meters away from his home with powerful receiving equipment that would enabled him to monitor all he conversation Levis was having with his wife in the bedroom. When he was sure he had heard all he needed to hear from the couple, he drove into the compound to give Levis the shock of his life.

Several hours earlier Belinda had been given a knife and a gun to protect herself with in case Levis attempted to rape her as she carried out the dangerous assignment I.R.R.S had given her. Since it was generally known that Levis always spoke too much while under the influence of alcohol, wines or spirits she was instructed to give him plenty of cognac in order to loosen his tongue but the ‘good’ wife she was, she was severely warned against partaking of any of these drinks.

Not surprising Belinda and Levis never met again after this nasty episode at Steward’s residence ... for Levis was never again allowed to guard his boss’ properties and anyway he never missed her friendship or love after what she had done to him.

For quite sometime the I.R.R.S had suspected Governor Eugene Lewis was involved in Melvin Smith’s death, which had occurred under very mysterious circumstances several months earlier, but they did not have the facts to prove the allegation as either true or false. So when Levis unreservedly spoke to Belinda about Smith’s untimely death and the role Eugene Lewis had played in it, the I.R.R.S instantly discovered their hunch had paid off.

Using a combination of threats, intimidation and some coaxing Steward prevailed upon Levis to give him the two pictures he had told Belinda about in their conversation, and when Levis finally agreed to give up the pictures, after an hour of intense negotiation, the I.R.R.S used the snap-shots to blackmail Eugene into joining the organization.

By the time the former New York governor of Colorado finally became the U.S. president, just over a decade later, he was already a distinguished member of the clandestine organization and he regularly used his vast and enormous powers as the American executive president to make the I.R.R.S more powerful and aggressive in it’s dealings.

But although Eddie Levis had joined the I.R.R.S against his wish he soon found his way around the organization and within a decade of careful, shrewd and crafty maneuvering he had already became the I.R.R.S’ boss ... thanks to his strong will power and determination to succeed and conquer in life in spite of obstacles.

AFTER HIS MEETING with Eddie Levis in his office at the Pentagon Dave arrived home earlier than usual that evening. He needed time to think clearly on how he was going to produce Winah Rastam within a week like General Eddie Levis had commanded him to do.

His wife, Michelle Geraldine, who had arrived home moments earlier, was waiting for him and she seemed glad to see him. She met him at the door as he came in and she had a broad smile on her face.

“You’re home early today, dear,” she commented, planting a kiss on his cheek. He noted she had a newspaper in one hand.

He forced a smile that did not reach his eyes. “I had quite a busy and taxing day at work and so I decided to come home earlier than usual and have some rest.” He took her into his arms and kissed her lips.

He thought of telling her of the latest development in his life but quickly changed his mind. He realized she might panic once she learned the I.R.R.S was on his back and he did not wish to frighten her at all.

There was some silence in the room then she said from nowhere: “I know maybe you won’t believe this, but I have just found the dream house we’ve been looking for all along, Dave.” She led him to a sofa nearby, made him to sit down then opened the center-page of the newspaper in her hands. “The house I’m telling you about is right here in the newspaper, it’s exactly what we’ve been looking for all along.” She showed him an advertisement in the paper, her breathing a little bit fast due to excitement.

Dave took the newspaper from her and regarded the advertisement rather absent-mindedly. The Ad had information on a five-roomed house, which was being sold in Newark. It was built on half an acre plot and had three bedrooms, two of which were en-suite and a living room, which had a separate dinning-room and a spacious guests’ wing.

Among other valuable facilities in the home, the property also had a swimming pool in the back yard, high-electrified fencing, a full central heating system, a tennis court and a squash court. Yet, it was only going for nine hundred thousand U.S. dollars.

“It’s definitely a good offer,” he said, giving the newspaper back to her after a while.

“You don’t look excited over the offer, Dave, do you?” she asked, regarding him closely, somehow bewildered by his aloofness.

“I’m excited, Geraldine,” he said, removing his blue and red necktie and resting it on his laps. “ It’s only that I feel so tired at the moment.”

She sat down next to him. “Then when do you want us to go and view the property? I have already talked to the owner on the phone and I requested him not to sell the property, since we need a home exactly like that one. I made him to understand that we have the cash ready and we’ll go and view the property in three days’ time. I hate the idea of our one million U.S. dollars remaining in the bank forever. I really would like to see us invest the cash in a more worth-while manner.”

She held him tight and looked inside his blue eyes. “The offer makes me so excited, Dave. I have dreamt about this for a long time and now it seems my dream is finally coming true at long last. With a good home of our own we’ll spend our old age without a care in this world and as a woman that means a lot to me.” Dave noted there were tears in her eyes and he felt somehow touched by this. “I sincerely don’t like the idea of us remaining in this rented house forever. I want a home I can call my own. I hope you understand what I mean by that, dear, don’t you?”

“Sure I do,” he agreed

“Then we’ll go and view the property on Thursday, this week, won’t we?” It was more of a statement than a question and he just did not know what to make of it.

“I’m not in a mood to view the property, Geraldine,” he said, after a while. “Besides, I feel the house is not the correct one for us.” He hated to tell her their one million U.S. dollars was gone, since he was sure she would develop a heart attack when she learnt that.

She instantly released him and moved several feet away from him. “I’m not sure I understand exactly what you mean when you say that, Dave. How do you know the property is not the correct one for us when you haven’t even viewed it?” She seemed genuinely puzzled by all this.

“Look here, Geraldine,” he suddenly said. “Please give me some peace. Like I told you when I came in here moments ago, I feel so tired and worked-up and I don’t want any disturbing noise near me. We will discuss the whole issue next week, if you don’t mind.”

Her eyes opened wide in horror. “But the property would have been sold by then and we’ll definitely miss this golden opportunity!”

“I just don’t care about that,” he snapped. “Just give me some peace, will you? We’ll find another house if they sell that one,” he mumbled petulantly, thoroughly irritated.

Geraldine opened her mouth to say something then changed her mind. She hated to argue with her husband when he was in a foul mood and that day was not exceptional. Although she felt sure there was something troubling him deeply, she decided to leave him alone for a while to calm down first then inquire from him what it was all about later on.

For the past couple of days she had noted he had been behaving very strangely and she longed to know what was bothering him. She instantly left the room and went to the kitchen to prepare some supper.

Moments later the phone rang and when Dave took the receiver in his hand he discovered It was Winah Rastam on the line. “Where is my money, Dave?” the Israelite asked without wasting time, once he had introduced himself.

Dave thought of telling him about the little conversation he had had with General Eddie Levis at the Pentagon that afternoon, but quickly changed his mind. He realized Rastam could easily panic and flee the country once he learned the I.R.R.S was on his back, so instead he said: “It got stolen from me outside the Meridian Bank this morning when I went there to withdraw the cash. A man with Semitic features ambushed me on the parking lot as I entered my car and took the money away from me at gun point.”

Rastam laughed hilariously when he heard that. “That was my nephew, Adan Farid. I had sent him to fetch the money from you at the bank since I didn’t trust you to deliver the cash at the Upper-Hill intersection, as we had agreed earlier on. You behaved maturely when you agreed to give the boy the cash without a fight, and I called to thank you for that.

Dave’s mouth flew open in surprise. “But Rastam, that was quite a rude way to take the money away from me! Someone could easily have got hurt because of that and I don’t like it at all. You shamelessly cheated and conned me out of my money and I swear you’ll pay for that one day—” But the phone was already dead.

As he replaced the receiver his eyes came into contact with those of Geraldine, who stood on the doorway. “Which money was stolen from you at gun-point outside the bank, Dave?” she asked morosely, scrutinizing him carefully.

He thought quickly. “You see, Geraldine, I had won some money in a lottery game several days ago, but I didn’t want to tell you about this, since I planned to buy you a surprise gift; maybe a fancy dress or something like that, but unfortunately the money got stolen from me outside the bank this morning, when I went there to withdraw the cash.”

“That sounds very strange, indeed!” she exclaimed, paused for a while and then asked, “That was Rastam on the line, where does he live nowadays?”

“I sincerely don’t know that, he hasn’t told me, yet.”

“You never seem to know anything anymore these days, Dave, do you?” she snapped, thoroughly irritated, anger boiling up in her chest, “God surely knows I’m getting fed up by all this, honey. I have a gut feeling there’s something quite cheeky going on behind my back...but you just don’t want to tell me exactly what it is all about. There is simply no way we’re going to run our home on lies and mistrust and I guess it’s time you know I won’t tolerate this nonsense from you any longer,” she said, then left the room in a huff and went back to the kitchen, tears in her eyes.

STELLA CHANTEL was thirty-two years old and had a steady boyfriend called Teddy Leslie, aged thirty-five, and a businessman by profession. Stella was a waitress in a restaurant in New York, which was owned by her Uncle, Steve Peters, who was quite a senior man in the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C., and she was in charge of the other waitresses at the business premises

On the other hand Teddy Leslie or simply Les, as friends and folks alike popularly knew him, was the stepson of quite a prominent businessman called Freddie Alex, who owned an insurance company at Manhattan, and the future could have looked quite bright for the young couple were it not for a few problems here and there.

Business was not doing very well at the insurance company, called the Eclipse, and Alex was suffering from prostate cancer, which made it likely that he had no long to live in this world .He was over eighty years old and had been sick on and off for many years, which had prompted him to close down some of his enterprising business ventures in the past, and this had negatively affected his family financially in many ways.

Les was actually not Mr. Alex’s biological son, in the real sense of the word ... for the latter had married his mom, Olivia Maxine, when the boy was only one year old, but the old man loved him and always treated him like his own son. But although Les too loved his stepfather he naturally longed to know who his natural dad was, but his mom, Olivia, never told him much about that topic.

Apparently, Olivia was still bitter that Les’ natural dad had spurned and jilted her when the boy was young, and so wanted nothing to do with him. All Les knew about his dad was that he was a former Colombian soldier from the Medellin City, who had came to America on military exercises, just over three and a half decades earlier, then gone back home when his duration in the country was over

Les and Chantel could long have gotten married if business was not doing so badly at the Eclipse Insurance and if the company was not tottering on the brink of collapse due to financial problems. Les needed at least eight hundred thousand U.S. dollars to return the once successful and thriving Insurance business back to its former glory, yet he just did not have any idea on how he was going to raise the much needed cash.

He often discussed this issue with Chantel and it depressed her as much as it frustrated him, prompting her to seek out means to bail him and the Insurance Company out of the financial mess. She somehow believed Les would marry her if he could raise the much needed cash, since at thirty- two she was getting rather frustrated and tired of being single any longer, and desperately needed a home, a husband and children.

But as time passed by and it became pretty obvious to her that Les was putting precious little effort to raise the much needed cash nor marry her, she decided to flirt with another man in a bid to provoke his jealousy and probably hurt his male ego.

There was a regular customer in the restaurant where she worked who had an eye for her and who desperately wanted to get married to her. His name was Adan Farid, aged thirty and an Iraqi citizen by nationality.

But Chantel did not love him at all. Her whole heart was on her fiancé, Les, and she simply could not bring herself to love another man at that stage in her life. But in order to force Les to marry her she decided to use Farid to achieve her selfish ends and even started to go out with him on dates, to see how Les would react to that. Although Chantel realized what she was doing was morally wrong she did not give a damn about the future consequences of her insincere actions, and quite innocently Farid was thrilled by her sudden change of heart. He considered her a beautiful and decent lady and believed she could make quite a good wife if he ever married her.

But the main reason as to why he wanted to marry her was because she was an American citizen and he secretly believed he could get American citizenship more easily if he could marry a woman from the country…so quite naturally he was determined to make her his too.

Besides, he was also sure her rich and influential uncle, Steve Peters would somehow intervene and speed up matters for him at the State Department and he would get American citizenship more easily once the couple got married.

Quite spontaneously Les was furious when he noted Farid had started to go out with fiancée, Chantel and he longed to hit back at the bastard. The couple had gotten engaged only six months earlier and Les was not amused by the trend their relationship was taking of late.

An exceedingly brutal man by nature he had killed a man at seventeen by slitting his throat in a ][fight over a girl in a brothel and he knew he could not hesitate to do it again if the need for do that arose.

In those early days his step-dad, Freddie Alex, was quite wealthy and had used money and his great influence to get the boy off the hook, but the killing had gone a long way to prove that Les was a man who could not hesitate to kill if his interest were threatened.

93

It was against that back-ground that he began to map out strategies on how he was going to hit back at Adan Farid for snatching his girlfriend, Chantel, away from him.

STELLA CHANTEL was born and brought up in Philadelphia where both her parents still lived. For a long time she had had a bank account at the Meridien Bank in the city, but due to the great distance between Philadelphia and New York City, where she lived at that moment she had decided to close down the bank account and instead concentrate all her activities in New York, where she spent most of her time.

It was precisely for that reason that she had been in Philadephia that Tuesday morning and she had just managed to complete her mission successfully at the Meridien Bank when she saw a familiar face outside the bank, as she left the financial Institution.

The face was that of her boyfriend, Adan Farid, who was pointing a pistol at a stranger she did not know on the parking lot. She saw him take a thick manila envelope from the frightened fellow at gunpoint then get inside a white sedan car parked nearby and drive away at top speed. She did not know Farid as a particularly dangerous person and this weird action somehow surprised her. She decided she would ask him all about it when they met again.

That same evening when Farid turned up at the restaurant where she worked for a drink, she immediately went to his table and sat opposite him. As a wise woman she realized confronting him out right with all the secret facts she knew of his daring and weird action outside the bank might not work, since for one thing he might panic and refuse to tell her the whole truth about issue, so instead she said: “ Farid there is one thing I really would like to know from you. Why did you ignore me when I saw you outside the Meridien Bank in Philadelphia this morning?”

Farid looked at her with jittery eyes. “I didn’t see you, Chantel, dear. I sincerely stood to gain nothing by ignoring you. What were you doing at the bank, if I may ask?”

She quickly explained to him all about her mission at the bank, including how she had gone there to close down her bank account then added, “I didn’t have my car at that moment and since I needed a lift home I called your name twice in order to attract your attention, thought I saw you turn around slightly, then get inside a car parked nearby and drive away at top speed. Why did you do that, honey?” she said this to see his reaction.

Real fear jumped into his eyes. “Did anyone around that place hear you call my name, Chantel?” he asked, all color draining from his face.

“Yes, I thought everyone around that place heard me call your name ... maybe except only you,” she mumbled, hoping to play him along, all the time observing his reaction keenly.

“Did anyone ask questions about me after I had left the place?”

“Why are you asking that, dear?”

“Stop asking silly questions and instead answer my question. I’m the one doing the talking… not you, chicken,” he quipped, gripping her arm viciously and twisting it roughly. “Did anyone ask you questions about me after I had left?” he repeated his question, petulantly and menacingly, a dangerous gleam in his eye.

“No one asked questions about you, Farid.”

“Are you sure of that?” he asked, suspiciously.

“Yes, I’m very sure of that. Please you’re hurting my arm,” she muttered, trying to disentangle from his firm grip.

He released her arm. “I’m sorry I got carried away, Chantel. I guess I’m simply tired and jittery and in need of some rest. I promise such a thing won’t happen again, honey. Now go and fetch me some whisky and mineral water, please. Double whisky would just be fine,” he clarified, wiping his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

Although the one million U.S. dollars he had taken from Dave at the Meridien Bank that morning was right then safely kept in Winah Rastam’s hands Farid felt somehow nervous about the whole project. He did not know exactly how much Chantel knew about his mission at the Meridien Bank that morning, and that was his major cause of concern at that moment.

He suspected she knew much more than she was letting out and this made him worried and rather uneasy. So far he was not sure he could trust her to keep a secret, since the couple had only known one another well for the past four months, so he instantly realized he would need to tread very careful while in her presence... at least not until he had known for sure what exactly was in her heart and mind.

When Adan Farid had been instructed to fetch the cash from Dave by Rastam the previous evening, he had not expected the whole mission to be so simple and straightforward. He had erroneously imagined Dave would try and put up a fight in a bid to protect the cash, then he would be forced to shoot him dead and the whole damned business would get messy. So when Dave had given up his money without a fight Farid had been genuinely shocked and the best he had done was to get inside a getaway car parked nearby and drove away from the vicinity at top speed.

The Iraqi hated federal agents and he certainly would not have hesitated to spray bullets into Dave’s arse-hole, if the latter had offered slight resistance.

Chantel left his table and went to bring his order. She returned several minutes later carrying a tray loaded with double-whisky, some mineral water and a glass and placed them in front of him on the table.

As he began to mix-up the drinks she decided to leave him alone for the moment then return to him later on when he was drank and inebriated and inquire about the mysterious manila envelope she had seen him carry outside the bank that same day in the morning.

Moments after she had left the table two other customers joined him at the table and the trio began to chat the night away. She waited patiently for about an hour, and then when the two customers had left the restaurant she went back to his table and sat down beside him.

“Farid, I demand to know what was inside the thick manila envelope I saw you carrying outside the Meridien Bank today in the morning.”

He looked at her with sleepy eyes. “ I carried some papers and they have absolutely nothing to do with you, my dear gal,” he said, in a nonchalant manner, a silly smile playing on his face.

She took in a deep breath then looked inside his eyes. “I saw you with my very own two eyes take the parcel from a man outside the bank at gun-point and unless you tell me what was inside the parcel, I will assume you robbed the poor fellow of his cash or some other personal property and thus would be compelled to turn you over to the police for the crime.”

His eyes narrowed and he placed his glass of whisky carefully on the table. “But you have no concrete evidence to prove what you say as true and no one is likely to take you seriously, even if you’re dumb enough to report the imaginary crime to the police. Besides, I guess there is no any other witness who saw me commit the crime, maybe except only you and the guy whom you presume I robbed of the cash or personal property, so I sincerely don’t see how you can convince anyone I’m a criminal.”

“I know the poor guy you robbed the cash from personally and he is quite a smart arse to say the least,” she lied. “In case I ring him and tell him about you just know for sure you’ll be in a lot of shit for that. But things need not be like that at all. Since we love one another dearly and even plan to marry soon I would sincerely hate to put you into trouble, if I can help it. That was why I was reluctant to call the police and inform them about you when I saw you commit the crime. So you must be wise and tell me the truth about the whole damn issue, if you really want us to continue being friends.”

Farid was quiet for a long time then asked, “Will you repeat this to anyone else if I tell you the truth about the whole issue?” He had already decided lying about the matter further wouldn’t help much, since she already seemed to know too much about the damn issue, anyway.

Of course I won’t ... you can trust me on that, honey.”

“Promise.” He looked inside her large green eyes.

“I promise.” She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, a truculent smile on her anxious face.

His jaw- line hardened slightly. “All this could put you into a lot of trouble, Chantel, if you ever repeat what I say to you to anyone else, do you understand?” he tried to sound tough, in order to frighten her.

“Yes, I do understand, Farid,” she said, somehow impatiently.

“Will you still marry me after I tell you the truth?”

“I surely will, honey ... since I love you dearly and with all my heart.”

He seemed satisfied by that answer. He looked around the parked restaurant surreptitiously then said in a low voice. “It’s like this, Chantel, dear. My uncle, Winah Rastam witnessed the man I took the thick manila envelope from murder an innocent woman in cold blood a couple of days ago. The woman happened to be the matrimonial wife of someone quite prominent here in America, and Rastam who apparently is a real piece of scum, to say the least, threatened the shameless murderer that he would turn him over to the police for the horrible crime, unless he gave him the money in his bank account at the Meridien Bank. Rather than go to jail for the homicide the man decided to buy Rastam’s silence by giving him the money in his bank account. When you saw me at the bank I had gone there to fetch the cash from the mother fucking bastard on behalf of my uncle.”

“How much money was it?”

“One million U.S. dollars to be precise. Rastam will give me half the amount of money then keep the other half. Since I love you dearly I will marry you immediately and take you for a holiday to any place of your choice. When we come back here in New York I hope to open up a small business for you, if finances will permit that ... then you won’t need to work for your uncle, Steve Peters, any longer. I hope you can now see for yourself how much concerned I really am about our future together, Chantel, can’t you?”

“Yes I can, honey, and that’s exactly why I love you so much. You’re always so enterprising, marvelous and full of wonderful ideas. I’m sure we’ll have quite abundant nuptial happiness and marital bliss once we’re married, since we have so much in common.” She held his hand tightly under the table and looked around the noisy restaurant for a moment.

She noted with relief that the other waitresses inside the posh business premises were executing their duties perfectly and serving customers well, and so it was obvious to her that no one was missing her services. “Where did you take the cash after you took it from the man in question?” she finally asked, in a bid to break the lengthy silence that followed.

“Rastam is keeping it safely in a room, which I gave him in my house. Once we split the cash in two days time he plans to leave the country for his ancestral home, Israel, since he’s totally fed up with continuing to live here in America. As for you and me I hope we’ll leave for our honeymoon to any tour destination we choose in the world ... that is, if finances will permit this.”

Seconds ticked by slowly then she suddenly said: “We’ll discuss the whole issue properly tomorrow. Meanwhile, let me check out on how things are going on in this restaurant. In Steve’s absence I’m always the boss in this place and so I have to ensure things are running smoothly in here at all times.” She instantly left his table and went back to her job of supervising the activities of the other workers inside the business premises.

One hour later once Farid had left the restaurant Chantel went to the phone and dialed Les’ number. “Les, I know of some money somewhere, which can bail out the Eclipse Insurance Company out of the deep financial mess it’s currently in,” she said breathlessly, after introducing herself once Les’ voice came through.

“Who has the money?” he asked, somehow excited.

It had been three weeks since the couple had spoken last and he had somehow missed her. Of late he had noted that she had been deliberately avoiding him, but now that she had called him up and broken the ice, he hoped to use the opportunity to return their friendship back to its former glory.

“Farid’s uncle, Winah Rastam is keeping the money in the formers house at Manhattan here in New York City. It’s One million U.S. dollars in hard cash, enough money to enable you put more life into the Eclipse Insurance Company.”

Les whistled softly on the other end of the line. “How did the bastard get the cash?”

She promptly explained to him how Rastam had gotten the money, including how he had blackmailed Dave into giving him the cash, then asked, “How do you intend to get the cash from him?”

“I’ll let you know that once I’ve gotten the cash.”

“Make sure you don’t do anything silly, Les,” she said, then hung up.

CHAPTER SEVEN

T

RAFFIC WAS QUITE HEAVY on the road that Wednesday morning as Dave drove to work. He looked at his watch and noted it was ten minutes to eight o’clock in the morning. He adjusted his neck- tie and switched on the radio of his car. It was tuned to some FM station somewhere and there was some easy listening music playing, so he cranked up the volume since he loved such music.

The previous evening, after he had had a quarrel with his wife over Rastam’s phone-call, Dave had not slept a wink the whole night. He had tossed on the bed for hours without end trying in vain to figure out how he could get himself out of the mess Rastam had plunged him into.

For a moment he had wanted to tell his wife about his numerous problems but quickly changed his mind when he realized she might not understand the complexity of the whole situation, or maybe she could even quite easily blame him for keeping the whole matter a secret from her for two consecutive days and thus messing things up so much.

Dave arrived at his office in the Federal building after a while and was flipping through the morning paper when there was a knock at the door. The door instantly flew open and Melody June walked into the room.

That morning she was dressed in black Calvin Klein diesel jeans, a pair of white sports’ shoes and a brown woolen jacket. He noted she had no make-up on her face and she seemed somehow nervous and distraught.

“Belta Pinasoge is dead!” she announced, after formal greetings, taking a seat opposite him in the room. She got a pack of cigarettes from a pocket on her jacket and lit one, with shaking hands.

“You can’t be serious about that, Melody, can you?” he exclaimed, feign surprise. By that time he thought everyone around that place knew he was the one who had killed Belta.

“I’m sorry I’m very serious about it all, Dave. Like I told you two days ago when I was here, I went to Jersey City to look for her but unfortunately couldn’t find her. Her neighbors told me she had left her home two days earlier carrying a suitcase and a traveling bag, but no one knew for sure exactly where she had gone. That was when I decided to place a trunk call to her cousin, Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg, in Washington D.C., and inquire whether he knew anything about her whereabouts. He was the one who told me Belta had been murdered by some unknown people and her body dumped at the gate of his residence a day earlier.”

“But who could dare do such a terrible thing!”

“I don’t know that, just yet, but some federal agents in Washington D.C. are right now trying to figure that out. I came back here with Belta’s daughter, Jasriamis Daise, and the little girl is right now in my home at Bellefonte. Before she left home Belta had left the child with a friendly elderly couple down the street and they are the ones who told me she had left a will with her lawyer stating that I should take care of Daise in case anything untoward happened to her, and so I had no option but to bring the little girl along with me back here, in Philadelphia, when I learned her mom was dead.”

She puffed hard on her cigarette, released the smoke out of her mouth in a ring then said rather poignantly, “ But like I told you before I left here a couple of days ago, I feel I can’t take good care of the child myself since my own life is somehow in danger at the moment. Strange looking men have been trailing my movements day and night and my apartment had been broken into twice, so I feel I can’t give Daise the proper secure home she deserves. Would you consider adopting the poor kid, Dave? I understand for some time now you’ve been longing to adopt a baby- girl.”

Dave’s mouth instantly flew open, in surprise. He certainly hadn’t expected such a proposal from her. “Of course I’d be quite glad to adopt the child, if you feel you can’t do it yourself, for whatever reasons. But I’ll have to consult with my wife first about the matter to hear what she’ll have to say.”

“Please do that by all means then give me a feed back in the shortest time possible. She’s a sweet little thing, to say the least, and I’m sure you’ll like her the moment you meet her. It’s certainly a great pity that I can’t take care of the child myself and I feel so cruel to give her away when Belta trusted me so much and wanted me to take care of the child, personally. But I sincerely believe deep inside my heart that your family and home environment are the best the child can ever get, and that’s certainly what matters most at the moment. I promise you’ll never regret it at all if you take the kid into your custody, Dave.” Tears formed in her eyes and began to stream down her cheeks. She got a handkerchief from a pocket on her coat and wiped her face clean then walked to a window in the room.

He rose from his seat too, walked to where she stood and took her into his arms. “It’s okay, Melody, please don’t cry. It breaks my heart when I see you do that.”

She threw her half-smoked cigarette out of the open window, rested her head on his chest then said, “ I feel so brutal and heartless to give Daise away when I know it’s my personal responsibility and obligation to take care of her myself. I’m sure Belta can never forgive me for that if she would wake up from the dead today, since she had so much confidence and trust in me. She was like a dear sister to me and we loved one another so deeply and dearly. It troubles me greatly and profoundly when I try to figure out what anyone sane and reasonable would have hoped to gain by murdering a woman as harmless and generous as Belta was. I can sincerely shoot the shameless and senseless murderer dead if I’m given a chance to do that.” She clenched her fist tightly, as more tears formed in her eyes and descended on Dave’s blue shirt, soaking it slightly.

“It’s okay, Melody, please don’t cry anymore, dear,” he repeated in an emotional voice, holding her tight. At that moment he had a strong urge to cut the crap and tell her he was the one who had unintentionally murdered Belta, but then he quickly changed his mind when he realized she might never forgive or trust him again after that. He waited till she had calmed down a bit then walked back to his seat. “The other day you were here, I remember you telling me that Belta Pinasoge was an I.R.R.S’ member. How did she join such a nasty organization, if I may ask?”

She walked back to her seat too and sat down, a far away look in her restless eyes. “It’s a long story but I’ll tell you part of it right now so that you may fully understand Belta’s past.” She crossed her long shapely legs then returned her handkerchief back into a pocket on her coat. “Like I told you the other day I was here, Belta Pinasoge was a Norwegian citizen by birth, but she had lost both her natural parents in an automobile crash when she was a little child. Ambassador Aspeyl Constansborg’s mom, Rosvin Denpiss, who happens to be her maternal aunt took her on and brought her up after that. Belta was not an academically inclined child right from the start and quite naturally did not go very far in school. By the time she was fifteen years old she had already dropped out of school and the streetwise kid she was then she had joined bad company that subsequently introduced her to illicit drugs.”

She massaged her temple thoughtfully, then continued, “To make ends meet and seeking adventure and independence she began trafficking illegal drugs for a drug cartel called The Oxafom, which was based in Oslo at the time. Oxafom was quite a powerful drug cartel then and had wide connections in the world. It was especially quite notorious for supplying illicit drugs to Holland, Denmark, Switzerland and a host of other European countries, where it had branches and a huge following. By twenty Belta was already a distinguished member of the Oxafom and was often involved in illegal drug trafficking deals to other parts of the world like America, Canada and Asia. It was during one such errand abroad when she was arrested in the restive Seaport City of Karachi, in Pakistan, where she had taken a huge consignment of cocaine concealed in perfume bottles and containers. Due to the harsh Islamic sharia of the country against drugs trafficking and such other vices at the time, she was immediately sentenced to hang by the neck till she was certified dead.”

“How awful!” he exclaimed plaintively, rather flabbergasted. “What happened next?”

“I’ll tell you that in a moment, Dave. Luckily, Norman Stanfield, the son of the I.R.R.S’ founder member, Braitter Rex, was visiting the country at that time. He cut a deal with the Pakistani government on behalf of Belta. I.R.R.S promised to supply Islamabad with a huge consignment of firearms, ammunition and medicine in exchange of Belta’s freedom. Pakistan was having yet another bruising battle with her neighbor, India, over the Kashmir border in the Himalayas and was naturally quite pleased with the deal. Several days later when the I.R.R.S finally fulfilled its promises and supplied these military equipment and medical supplies to the desperate Asian country Belta was immediately released from jail and flown to Washington D.C., where the I.R.R.S’ secretariat was waiting for her.”

“But why on earth would an organization as powerful as the I.R.R.S care to rescue a member of a rival drug cartel from being hanged in an Islamic republic like Pakistan?” He seemed genuinely puzzled by all this. He lit a cigarette too and sucked heavily at it, his eyes surreptitiously sweeping over her. “Wait, I’ll come to that right now.” She toyed with a diamond ring in her finger for a while then continued, rather poignantly, “Stanfield’s dad, Braitter Rex, had been murdered by a rival drug cartel, which feared I.R.R.S was becoming too powerful, and his untimely death had affected Stanfield tremendously. After Rex’s untimely death Stanfield realized there were just too many unwarranted deaths and murders all around the world, being caused by rival drug cartels, as each cartel tried to assert its control over the lucrative drug market and so decided to do something positive and realistic to minimize these senseless killings.”

She sneezed emotionally then continued, “That was when he decided to turn the I.R.R.S into a Trade Union that would supposedly fight for the rights of member drug cartels, look after their interests and address their grievances with impartiality. He strongly believed if the drug cartels all over the world would operate under one umbrella body like the I.R.R.S, then they could easily become as strong and powerful as the United Nation (UN) or even The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and thus could subsequently quite effortlessly force the world to legalize the sale of illicit drugs such as heroine, cocaine and marijuana. He had a dream of one day seeing such illicit drugs being sold over the counter in shops, restaurants, pubs or any other available outlets, just like ordinary cigarettes are sold.”

“That’s a crazy dream, to say the least, and I’m sure it can’t work in today’s civilized world. Besides, such a move would only make the prices of illicit drugs to plummet, since the market would be saturated with the commodity, if everyone interested would be allowed to engage in the business, and I suspect the drug cartels would certainly be the ultimate losers in the long run.” He released the cigarette smoke in his mouth out in a slow deliberate manner.

“That’s exactly one of the reasons the Medellin drug cartel from Colombia gave for refusing to join the I.R.R.S when the organization was finally transformed into a Trade Union, due to Stanfield’s intense and aggressive lobbying towards the cause. Medellin believed the drug trade would not be so profitable and lucrative, if it was legalized all over the world and every Tom, Dick and Harry was indiscriminately allowed to engage in the business. Besides, Medellin also suspected I.R.R.S was out to fatten itself on the sweat of its members, since every cartel, which joined the clandestine Trade Union was expected to contribute at least ten percent of its profits each year to help run the operations of the organization, and so because of this the Medellin wanted nothing to do with the I.R.R.S.”

“You still haven’t told me why I.R.R.S thought it necessary to rescue Belta from being hanged in Pakistan,” he reminded her, in a bid to break the lengthy silence that followed.

“Oh, yes, for a long time I.R.R.S had been seeking to make the Oxafom a member of the Trade Union, but had been unsuccessful in doing that so far. So when they heard that Belta was a distinguished member of the Oxafom and risked being hanged in Pakistan they decided to rescue her from imminent death and subsequently use her as a bargaining chip to convince the Oxafom of the need to join the Trade Union. Ostensibly, I.R.R.S was concerned that so many drug traffickers were getting hanged in Islamic countries such as Iran, Pakistan and India and hoped to use Belta as a symbol to sensitize doubtful drug cartels of the importance of them joining a Trade Union like the I.R.R.S, which supposedly would fight for the rights of their members and save them from the gallows when the worse came to the worst.”

She hesitated for a while and when it was obvious she expected him to say something he asked, rather naively, “Did the I.R.R.S succeed in that objective?”

“Yes, very much. Today the Oxafom and a host of other drug cartels from Europe, Asia, Australia and even Africa are members of this giant clandestine Trade Union. Each year they contribute a good margin of their profits to this organization and in exchange, the I.R.R.S ensures its members are able to export huge amounts of illegal drugs to America, Canada and any other place of their choice with impunity, since many prominent and powerful world leaders today secretly support and finance this awesome organization.”

“What about the Mafia, do you think it’s a member of the I.R.R.S too?” he asked, for lack of a better question to ask, as the topic became more interesting to him.

“There are wide-spread rumors doing the rounds that the Mafia too is a member of this horrible Trade Union, but so far no independent authority have been able to positively confirm these allegations as either true or otherwise, since most of the I.R.R.S’ operations and deals are shrouded in deep secrecy and mystery. But the Medellin was one drug cartel that I’m sure refused to join the I.R.R.S and the repercussions for that were immediate and catastrophic, to say the least. The I.R.R.S immediately banned the Medellin from selling its drugs in North America, Europe and any other continent in the world, where the organization has a huge following. When the Medellin insisted and continued to sell its drugs in these forbidden markets and territories, I.R.R.S reacted by either murdering its members in cold blood or simply tipped off the police before the drug haul could be sold.”

She yawned absent-mindedly and gave a profound sigh, her lips trembling lightly. “I strongly suspect my late husband, Charlie Shambac, and Reith Blest were killed when they were caught in the crossfire between drug cartels, which wanted to operate independently and the I.R.R.S. But anyway, let’s not speculate on anything before we have the facts to prove it.” She then looked at her orient watch quickly and noted it was eight- forty-nine in the morning. “I guess I should get going now, Dave. Thanks for giving me your time. I trust you’ll ring me and tell me what your wife has said about adopting Jasriamis Daise, won’t you?” She rose from her seat and lit yet another cigarette with a gas- lighter she got from the top of Dave’s desk.

“I sure will, Melody.” He rose from his seat too and escorted her to the door. “Thanks a lot for paying me a visit. You’re always welcome in this place any time you feel like it.” He cycled his arms around her waist and looked inside her green brown eyes. “Take good care of yourself, Melody, won’t you? I like you a lot and I’d hate to see anything untoward happen to you, if I can help it. In case you have a problem and you need my help, please drop me a line immediately… I would be quite glad to assist you in any way possible.”

She smiled sweetly at him. “ I like you a lot too, Dave, and thanks for your concern. I’ll be paying you another visit pretty soon…. I promise,” she said then left the room.

He locked the door softly behind her then walked back to his seat, ready to start that day’s work. He lit yet another cigarette with the stub of his dying cigarette and stared pensively in one spot for a moment.

Right then he had to admit to himself one thing and the whole realization somehow troubled him. He was hopelessly falling in love with Melody June. Next to his wife, Michelle Geraldine, she was the only other woman he truly liked and admired in the whole World, and for the past couple of days he had caught himself thinking about her countless times.

THE INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES REDISTRIBUTION SYNDICATE (IRRS) founder member, Braitter Rex, was born in Miami, Florida, in 1923. The son of a black man and a white woman he was only four years old when his parents divorced, due to the racial prejudices quite prevalent against inter- tribal marriages in America in those early days.

His mom, Aletha Rims, took the little boy into her custody after the divorce and although he was a clear copyright of his dad, Anthony Rivers, who was an orphan and a typical black man, the boy was never allowed to associate with his father again after that.

Several months after the divorce went through Anthony left Florida for Mexico, where he had been born and brought up, and that was the very last time Rex ever heard about his dad again.

Three years after the divorce Aletha, a beautiful thirty-year old blonde, remarried and took the little boy with her into her new marriage. Her new husband was a Spanish businessman, Meina Izagol, from Latin America and he had a number of curio shops around Florida, which were doing quite well then business- wise.

But right from the start, maybe due to the boy’s color Izagol never really liked Rex nor welcomed him into his home. He often mercilessly punished him for no good reasons at all and this always irritated both mother and son terribly. But determined not break her new marriage Aletha never opposed or criticized the boy’s mistreatment openly and this often pained Rex tremendously. He longed for the day he would finally be independent and free from all this mental, emotional and physical abuse

Realizing that his maternal grandparents might not accept him into their home either, Rex discovered the only option available for him then was to flee from the home and go to a far away place of his own choice.

By fifteen Rex was finally ready to flee from home and go to whatever destination his restless and profoundly troubled heart led him to. He had saved some money along the way, most of which he had stolen from Izagol’s businesses, and he knew the cash would turn out handy whenever he needed it, so he bided his time and waited for the big day when he would finally leave home.

In the spring of 1938 Rex finally left his home in Florida for New York City with only fifty U.S. dollars in his pocket, not exactly sure of how he was going to get to the big far away city but all the same quite determined to reach the place at all costs and circumstances.

For the next several weeks he moved from one city to the next doing menial and odd jobs here and there in order to raise some pocket money until the start of 1939 when he finally reached New York, the city of his wildest dream. Alas, he had spent over four months on the road in a journey that could undoubtedly have taken him only a few hours, if today’s advanced technology was available then and he had plenty of cash in his pockets.

Once in New York he did not waste time but he began to search for a nice and promising job, which had better prospects of a good future ahead. But getting a good job was a formidable task for him, since for one thing he was still too young, secondly, he had not gone too far in school due to his troubled past, and thirdly, because his color often discouraged most prospective employers from offering him any meaningful job.

The only job he could get quite easily then was that of a domestic worker and as much as he detested doing such menial jobs he discovered he had no option but to do them, if at all he was to survive in the mean but fast expanding cosmopolitan city.

After drifting from one private home to another for about three years he was finally permanently employed as a house-help by a prosperous New York’s gem dealer called Gostipolic Lentipos.

Right from the start Lentipos, a white man of Greek descent, seemed to have developed a strong liking for Rex, who was quite a pleasant young man, obedient and well behaved, and soon promoted him to become the head of his household servants.

Lentipos had a daughter about the same age as Rex called Linna Moskoul who developed a strong liking for Rex too and as years went by a love affair soon developed between the two young people. Five years latter Rex and Linna got married, of course with Lentipos’ blessings, and seeking to improve the young couple’s lifestyle for the better Lentipos cut in the young man into his fast expanding gem’s business and thereafter made him a partner.

That was the beginning of Rex’s good fortune in life. Three years into the marriage the young couple got their first born child, a sweet little girl, whom they named Emily Ruth, and who was followed four years later by a baby-boy, whom they called Norman Stanfield. Rex was thirty-two years old when Stanfield was born and although he was a typical black man, Stanfield was white and a near replica of his grandpa, Lentipos, who had dark brown hair and blue eyes. On the other hand, Ruth was of half- caste breed, half-white and half-black and had her dad’s prominent large eyes and broad nose.

With a good business in his hands, two children and a good wife the future seemed bright for Rex and he quickly settled down to await any other miracle Mother Nature had in store for him.

By thirty-five Rex was already an established businessman in his own rights and had grown quite rich and prosperous. Seeking to expand further and become more independent, he broke off from his father- in- law, took his family, which by then had three children, and left for Washington D.C., to look for greener pastures.

But the more he got prosperous the more he became troubled by the life the majority of blacks in America were living then. Poverty, despair and degradation were quite prevalent among the black community in those early days and this did not please Rex at all. He noted that most black people worked in farms, mines or as domestic workers in whites’ homes because they lacked the necessary capital to enable them venture into private businesses, and so he decided to start a co- operative society that would help them solve their financial problems.

With a few prosperous businessmen by his side, in March 1960 Rex formed the International Resources Redistribution Society (IRRS) in Washington D.C. The main objective of this co-operative society was to grant soft loans to poor people, mostly blacks, which would enable them to venture into private businesses of their own choice and, which they were expected to repay at low interest rates within a specifically given period of time.

The main reason as to why he called the savings and credit co-operative society by such a strange sounding name was because he hoped it would tap the country’s abundant resources and wealth and redistribute it equally to all people, irrespective of their color, sex, class, religious or political conviction and affiliation etc., and thus effectively bridge the wide gap between the very rich and the very poor people in America then.

The forming of the I.R.R.S was a turning point in Rex’s life. Within a few short months thousands of people, mostly blacks had joined the SACCO and money was exchanging hands at a faster rate than Rex had ever imagined. As years went by and ostensibly quite determined to make the SACCO bigger, more effective and popular, Rex opened up new branches in almost every state in America and employed at least two thousand workers to foresee the successful operations of the I.R.R.S. But as the I.R.R.S expanded and became bigger as days passed by, another problem subsequently presented itself.

Rex discovered he needed plenty of cash to keep the SACCO running smoothly, yet he had no idea on how he was going to raise the much needed cash. Realizing that the SACCO was in danger of collapsing due to financial constraint and problems, he decided to approach the U.S. government and seek aid support.

But the government of the day flatly declined to give him the much needed aid support claiming I.R.R.S was a chaotic racial organization that was all out to bring bloodshed and chaos into the country. Totally disillusioned, profoundly hurt and frustrated by the government’s open hostility and sentiments, Rex approached the only people he knew who could help at the time, drug barons around America.

Like he had predicted, most of the drug barons and cartels he approached seeking financial assistance promptly agreed to finance the operations of the I.R.R.S. And not surprisingly, as different drugs cartels joined hands to finance the operations of this SACCO, I.R.R.S was instantly catapulted into becoming one of the most powerful organizations in America… that is apart from becoming more efficient in its dealings, thus prompting more membership.

Soon after that industrialists, entrepreneurs, manufacturers and even some quite aggressive media companies joined the I.R.R.S and that was when it was recommended that it should be transformed from being a SACCO and into a syndicate that would connect manufacturers of different products in America with the buyers of the same products in the continent and abroad.

Afraid that he would lose financial support from his sponsors if he turned down the proposal Rex consented and so I.R.R.S shifted its status from that of being a harmless SACCO to a syndicate representing different interests.

At around the same time, realizing that the I.R.R.S was becoming too powerful and popular the U.S. government banned the syndicate’s operations claiming that there was a plot by bogus human rights activists, disgruntled opposition elements and hooligans to hijack the syndicate’s leadership and subsequently use the organization to bring chaos and bloodshed into Mother America. Soon after that Rex went underground to avoid arrest.

But the U.S. government had unwitting underestimated the I.R.R.S’ power and strength when it banned the organization. The days that followed were ones of the most troubled times in American history as black people from all over the continent rioted and protested against the banning of the I.R.R.S. Hundreds of people were either killed or arrested while buildings and vehicles were burned down in weeks of civil unrest, disobedience and strife that followed. As the volatile situation threatened to get out of hand the U.S. government realized the I.R.R.S was quite a popular movement and decided to relent and allow it to continue with its operations in the country.

When the news that the I.R.R.S had been authorized to operate hit the streets after it was officially announced over the radio and on T.V, thousands of blacks assembled in the streets of most major cities in total jubilation. Braitter Rex too resurfaced from his hideout in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he had remained holed up for five consecutive days and was given a red- carpet welcome when he arrived in Washington D.C., aboard a police helicopter. By that time he had became a sort of a legend and was even setting his eyes on Capitol Hill, where most of his enthusiastic supporters were recommending he try his luck as a senator.

But although most people were genuinely pleased that the I.R.R.S had been legalized, not everyone was, however, pleased by the move. Some of the people who were not happy about it were drug barons from rival drug cartels who had refused to support the I.R.R.S right from its inception in 1960.

As the I.R.R.S became more powerful and popular these drug barons realized Rex might some day turn against them and totally destroy and annihilate them, so they decided to stop him when the time was still there.

A plan was subsequently hatched to kill him and in a carefully maneuvered assassination bid Rex was gunned down while on vacation in Sydney, Australia, in 1975. At the time of his untimely death he had left behind a widow, Linna Moskoul, and four children. His son, Norman Stanfield, was only twenty years old then and had just joined the U.S. army.

Soon after Rex’s death the drug barons who had all along supported the I.R.R.S’ operations elected their own man and put him at the head of the deadly and hideous organization’s hierarchy. To ensure the organization’s future survival these drug barons transformed the I.R.R.S into a fully fledged drug cartel and subsequently decided to use it as their vehicle and weapon to settle down old scores with rival drug barons who had caused Rex’s untimely death.

As the I.R.R.S slowly drifted away from its original noble and constructive course of trying to help uplift the living standard of the poor and the down- trodden members of the society and instead became an aggressive and quite a ruthless killing machine, the U.S. government decided to do something about it. Due to public outcry occasioned by the organization’s often brutal and quite effective manner of enemy elimination and annihilation, the government decided to ban the I.R.R.S for the second time.

In June 1983 I.R.R.S was banned again and some of its prominent members, mostly drug lords, were arrested and aligned in court on charges of bombing a passenger train in Los Angeles several days earlier, in which fifty people had died and over a hundred others were wounded. From then onwards I.R.R.S never operated again freely or openly. Most of its operations were henceforth done clandestinely and in deep secrecy.

But most ordinary people who had not followed the I.R.R.S’ activities closely over the years always believed it was the Mafia at work whenever they encountered this deadly organization in their daily lives. Most could not differentiate between the two and simply referred to the I.R.R.S as the mob. But in reality I.R.R.S was sort of a Trade Union and was thus in effect much more powerful and effective than any other drug cartel in the world, since it was up of hundreds of different drug cartels.