Abigail – The Avenging Agent: The agent appears again (49 page)

            The
beep of an incoming call was heard on his telephone and Khaidar glanced at it.

“Call
urgently.”

            Effendi
called immediately and raised an eyebrow when he heard the voice speaking to
him.  It was his friend, Mustafa, but his voice sounded estranged and distant
and not like that of a friend.  He thought that something could be wrong until
he heard the first sentence.

            “The
Kurd is driving a car just like yours.  He’s in Italy and is planning to kill
you.”

            “What,
what?”

            “He’s
staying at “The King’s Hotel,” in the working-class neighborhood of Maestri. 
In the underground parking garage, there is an identical car to yours with a
bomb set to explode on Saturday, ten o’clock at night.”

            After
a pause, Effendi heard the words:

            “Take
care.”

            “How
will he come to me this Saturday night?”

“If I were you, I
wouldn’t risk it.  I would go to him, neutralize his plan, the bomb and him,”
he said and hung up.

Effendi was not at ease and his
suspicions had been aroused.  He was familiar with the people in his
organization and feared that this may be an attempt to trap him.  This
conversation reminded him of one he had held with his good friend, Rulam, who
had invited him for coffee at “Amana” and he paused to reconsider his
situation.

‘It’s a quarter past eight in the
morning,’ he said to himself. ‘If I drive without a stop to “The King’s Hotel”
in Italy, I will only arrive the day after tomorrow at night.  In other words, in
three days’ time,’ and he hesitated again.

If he connects the sense of alienation
of Rolan's last night and Mustafa's today, and decide to wait - it may have
been acting rather not risking his life. but that's not what happened.

Now, he thought to himself.  ‘What if
it’s really true?’

He decided not to take a chance and set
off on the long journey, intending to reach his brother-in-law and check it
out.

The sun made its way across the sky, the
heat was intense and he looked for a place to rest. A sign directed him to a
caravan park and Effendi, who was exhausted from the continuous driving, turned
into a large plot, full of vehicles.

When he got out of his car, he stamped
his feet and enjoyed the renewed flow of blood in his arteries.  All around him
were colorful containers that served as roadside kiosks and he made his way to
one of them.

“A bottle of coke, please.”

Children ran around gleefully and he
smiled.  They reminded him of his two nieces, Kahit and Naziah, the daughters
of his sister and Karma, the man he had been told today, was a threat to his
life.

The kiosk owner looked at him and asked,

“What do you want?"

“Give me a hot dog,” he said as his eyes
followed a little girl running away from a boy, who was chasing her. She fell
on the sand, picked herself up and carried on running.

“Mustard? Some Salad?” the kiosk owner
waited and followed Effendi’s gaze.  “Kids, eh?" he laughed. “Are you
missing yours?”

“Ah, yes,” Effendi replied, noticing the
sliced bread roll in his hand.

“Add anything you wish.” He said and his
mood improved.  He waved his hand, refusing the change.

“Hey, how much longer is it to the Czech
border?” He asked as he bit hungrily into the hot dog, only now realizing how
hungry he was.  A young man standing beside him said:

“If you take me with you, I can show you
the way to the border.”

“What’s your destination?”  Effendi
asked him and decided at once that the journey would be pleasanter in the
company of a passenger.  They both took their meal to the car and Effendi
noticed that the young man had a limp.

All the while, a yellow light flashed on
Michael’s beeper, indicating that Effendi Khaidar’s car was at present in the
Ukraine, close to the Czech border, and he was surprised.  He called his son,
Timmy, who was still sitting in the identical car under the tree opposite “The
King’s Hotel” in Italy.

“Timmy, he’s near the Czech border.”

“Is that so? What’s the distance between
us and what time do you estimate he will get here?"

“I’m not certain he knows about the car swap.”

Just
then the light flashed to indicate that the car had changed its position and
Michael summed up that he would call when he discovered where Effendi was
heading to.

An hour later Effendi crossed the Czech
border, glanced at the young, fair-haired man, who sat beside him and wondered
whether to wake him up now or continue further on with him. All at once, he
noticed that he was peeping at him through a crack in his eyes.  The youngster
straightened up in his seat and began by saying:

“I’m Oleg.”  He paused for a second then
continued speaking.

“Where do you come from, man, and where
are you going, eh?”

Effendi glanced at him briefly and
continued driving, watching the excellent highway racing beneath them.  The
young man casually put his arms out towards the glove compartment in front of
him, where the bomb was hidden in a square box, and Effendi sat bolt upright in
alarm. The sensitive steering of the car responded immediately to his fright
and the car began to zigzag almost as if it was about to capsize.  Effendi
pumped the brakes and steadied the car to cruising again, but his elevated heart
rate led him to slow down and stop. He turned to the youngster in anger, but
the latter behaved as though what happened had nothing to do with him.

“Sorry, may I move to the back seat?” he
asked.  “I’m exhausted and this car is fantastic.  What comfortable seats it
has. I can imagine the back seat is as comfortable as a bed.”

His manner annoyed Effendi and he wanted
to ask him to get out right away but, Oleg got out of the seat beside him and
opened the rear door.  Suddenly alerted, he cried out:

“Look I found a lovely silver button
fixed to the padding of the car door.”  He picked it up and examined it.  Effendi
stared at the tiny button and understood that he was now under surveillance.

“Give that to me!” he yelled and the
young man recoiled.

“You’re being followed,” he told
Effendi, still standing outside the car, “are you running away from someone or
smuggling something?”

This was the last straw for Effendi.  In
his anger, he accelerated and the car leaped forward with its rear door still
open. In his rear-view mirror, he noticed that the fellow was talking on his
telephone.  Effendi stopped and reversed.  When Oleg saw the car reversing, he
threw away the surveillance bug and ran in the opposite direction, as he shook
his phone.

Effendi stopped the car, took his
revolver out of his pocket, aimed at the back of the fleeing youngster and
fired twice.  Oleg stopped on the spot, threw his arms out to his sides and
fell on his face as the telephone flew out of his grasp.

Effendi came out and ran him, turned him
over with his shoe and stared at his expressionless eyes.  Voices were heard
coming from the telephone that had fallen on the road and Effendi picked it up
and placed it to his ear.  He heard words in Arabic and someone calling:

“Nimar, speak to me!  I heard shots. 
What’s happening there?”

Effendi pressed the key, ended the call
and put the telephone in his pocket.  He pushed the young man’s body to the
shoulder of the roadway with his foot.  When he returned to his car, which was
still idling, he thought about the words he had heard on the telephone.  He
stopped again on the side and pulled the phone out of his pocket to check where
the call was from.  On the monitor the number 112 appeared and he realized that
the fellow had called the Ukraine police, probably to snitch on him.

“That’s all I need now – the Police!” he
yelled and used the instrument to make a call right away.

“Jurgen, go to the Czech border!” he
demanded, “one or two kilometers before the descent to Italy.  Get rid of a
body lying on the side of the road before the flies and the police get to it.” 
A second later, he added:  “Come unarmed.”

“Without arms, boss?” the young Czech
was surprised.  “Is he heavy? Should I bring Mahmoud with me?” 

But Effendi no longer answered.  He
carried on driving, safe in the knowledge that everything would be okay.

Jurgen
was Effendi’s slave.  He owed him his life ever since they became acquainted when
they fought in the Revolutionary Guards.  It was a short battle in which many
were killed and Jurgen was injured in his abdomen and knee.  Effendi carried
him on his back for many hours and brought him in for medical attention and
ever since, he had a limp in his left leg.  He never forgot that Effendi came
to visit him, accompanied by two guards and he felt honored by him.  He was
about eighteen years old then.

As Effendi continued driving he recalled
the tiny bug that had been left with the passenger he had killed and roared at
the windshield in front of him:

“Who was the bastard who planted that
bug on me?!”

Now he wondered if he should go back and
look for the bug but he feared that someone would get there before him and link
him to the murder.  He decided to keep moving ahead, knowing that he had to
hurry to “The King’s Hotel” in Italy to attend to something more important than
bother with Oleg, who he had already defeated.

“Ah, who cares about that bloody bug!”
he barked at the window and put his foot down hard on the accelerator.

The surveillance bug lay on the road and
continued transmitting to Michael as if the car was still parked there without
moving, close to the Czech border.  After ten hours, it was clear that he
should check what was delaying the “Bentley” and he called Timmy.  To his
amazement, there was no response.

“What’s going on?” he asked himself.

Stubborn pessimistic thoughts took
control of his mind. 

“There’s no way that he isn’t answering
or available and how come the car hasn’t moved for more than ten hours?”

*
* *

            Half
an hour after receiving Effendi’s message, Jurgen and Mahmoud’s car arrived and
they discovered Oleg’s corpse.  They both got down and Jurgen bent down over it
and his eyes widened in panic.  He pointed to the body and yelled out in
fright:

            “It’s
Nimar! He was one of the agents of the Republican Guards that almost killed
me.”

            “Is
that so? Well, let’s get him out of here quickly.  I’ll grab his arms and you
get hold of his legs.”

            Just
then a car siren whined and a flashing blue light lit up beside them.  Two
policemen got out of the front doors and stood beside the surprised fellows,
who let go of the corpse.

            A
quick check by the police officer revealed they were unarmed.

            “What
are you doing here?” one of them asked.

            “We
were passing and happened to see this dead body,” Mahmoud said.

            “Show
us some I.D., both of you.”  The officer demanded.

            The
officers stepped aside and checked out the documents the two men presented. 
They spoke Czech, which Jurgen understood, of course, and he listened to them
quietly.

            “They
just seem to be harmless passers-by.”

            “Wait,
what are they doing here, near the Italian border?”

            “I’ve
no idea, but would you arrest them for that?”

            “I’m
not that certain what to do with them.  Look at the one on the right.  He’s
behaving suspiciously and looks quite scared,” he said as he threw a glance at
Jurgen. He was unable to hide his tension and could barely breathe, especially
as he understood what the policemen were saying.

            “Fine
then, let them go and send them to hell,” one of them said.

            They
returned the documents to Jurgen and Mahmoud, who left the place a minute
later.

            One of the policemen went
through the pockets of the dead man and found a folded note.  It bore a written
instruction.

“Stay close to a man called Effendi
Khaidar.

He is on his way to the Italian border in
a silver-colored “Bentley”

with registration
number, MS
-102.”

            The
order was written by Rulam after he warned Effendi about his brother-in-law. 
He had given it to Nimar because he assumed that this would make it easier to
hand over the man, who had once been his friend.  He did all this to ensure
that the leaders of the organization would not be accused of his murder.