Agent of Influence: A Thriller (6 page)

             
“I don’t even know what day it is fellas,” the watchman responded, his eyes lighting up at the additional cash. Solomon knew what he would do with it. It would be blown at one of the brothels on the outskirts of town; one of the brothels that Aman had a secret ownership stake in.

Chapter 7

The private elevator silently glided upwards until it reached the penthouse suite of the Desert Dust Inn. The “ding” of the elevator announced that it had reached Aman’s floor. He set aside the papers he had been scanning for the President-Elect. Aman watched Solomon burst out of the elevator and rush across the long expanse of lavender-colored carpet.
The man is moving much too quickly for such an early morning hour
.  He turned and maneuvered the blinds so that they blocked part of the early morning desert sun beginning to stream into the office. He ignored the magnificent view of Caesars and the rest of the Las Vegas strip just a few blocks away from his hotel. At twenty after six in the morning, it was one of the few times during the day when traffic was sparse. Anyone on the road was typically returning from an all night drinking marathon, or up early to hit the golf course before the blistering Las Vegas sun hit its full stride.

             
At a shade over five feet five inches, and weighing two hundred fifty pounds Aman Kazim was a large man in pure size, if not height. His hair was jet black and it was one of the few parts of his body that seemed unaffected by his seventy plus years of hard living. He preferred spectacles to contacts since they did not irritate his eyes, and his face was a small oval that looked out of place on his large frame. He said a silent prayer that Solomon was bringing him good news. Bad news had the potential to destroy the empire that surrounded him. Losing his wealth was not his concern, it was losing what the money was so close to finally bringing him that made him nervous. My father would be so proud, he thought, as he reminisced about the beginning of his journey. Lately he had found himself to be much more sentimental than he ever imagined possible as he flashed back to his early days.

Born during the 1920s, Aman spent his formative years running through the streets of
Cairo with his friends.  His mother was Jordanian and his father Egyptian. They escaped to the United States just before the Nazis began their march across Europe and North Africa in 1941. His father secured a job working in a factory that mass-produced tanks for the war effort, and he was killed when he was crushed by a tank in a freak accident at the plant. The death of his father was a shock to Aman, and made him shut down emotionally. With many of the nation’s youth off fighting the war, Aman was able to gain admittance to a small college in New York City, where he later graduated with honors. He quickly followed up his accounting degree with an MBA.

The end of Aman’s schooling brought along with
it another strange and traumatizing event. His mother was killed in a mugging attempt gone wrong. The cops could not solve the case, and Aman grew more frustrated and depressed by the day. The war was wrapping up, and he was now an orphaned immigrant. As far as he was concerned, his adopted country had killed his parents. His life had been stripped from him before he was ever given a chance.  He contemplated returning to Egypt. There seemed no place for him in America.

Aman recalled the frustration he felt during those times as he stared at the tattered photo of his long deceased parents sitting in a gold encrusted frame on his desk. He raised his eyes from the photo as Solomon came to a stop in front of his desk. He looked up at the Frenchman. The realization that his father’s legacy now depended on the help of the French made him squirm with fear. He adjusted the tight fitting polo shirt as best he could and grabbed for the whiskey and water sitting on the left of his desk. He took a long pull and stared at his head of security with tired, bloodshot eyes.

“Please tell me you have some good news,” Aman stated gruffly. He sat the drink down a little too roughly and precious whiskey sloshed onto the shiny desk.

             
“Nothing of the sort boss,” Solomon replied. He never liked mincing words unless he was plying his tradecraft in the pursuit of a member of the opposite sex. It was one of the reasons Aman kept him around. Solomon got straight to the point, and as a man whose time was precious, Aman greatly appreciated it.

“Let’s hear it,” Aman beckoned. He gestured like the conductor of an orchestra, giving his approval for Solomon to continue.

  “Sir, we could have a serious problem on our hands. I have been viewing the surveillance tape taken by airport security for the past hour. I can’t tell what she did with the cell phone you’re after. We tailed her to the airport, so I know that was the first public place she was in. She was able to get through the security checkpoint at the airport though. I got in myself, but it took some time. She had a lot of opportunities to do something with it.”

             
“Could the idiot whore have just stuck it in someone’s bag?” Aman asked.

“It’s possible, but if she is what I think she is, she would have held onto it. My concern is how she handled herself at the airport and managed to escape. The film footage I saw suggests she was not some hooker high on drugs. It looked more like a very methodical and very professional escape
given her circumstances. There are very few places in this city she could have gone to escape your reach. We have informants all over this city. But she went to the one place that allowed her to buy some time. I believe she intended to jump on a plane. We thwarted that by sheer luck. It will be hard to find her before its too late. What’s on that cell phone that’s so important anyway? If I knew, it may be able to help me in my search. It could give us some clue where she is heading perhaps.”

             
“Don’t worry about that. When I think you need to know, I’ll tell you.” Aman wagged his finger at his employee to express his disapproval. “It’s your job to find her and bring her back here!” Aman suddenly brought his fist hurtling downward. It pounded into the desk, and he let out an animal growl that was part frustration and part pain as more of his drink spilled. “This can’t be happening.”  Aman forced himself to relax. “What do you think she is?” He was afraid he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear an explanation from Solomon. This was the kind of thing his head of security was paid an exorbitant amount of money for after all.

“Sir, she went straight to the airport and right through
security. She had every intention to hop on a plane and get out of this city. I stopped her from hopping a flight because I was close enough to her where I would have known what flight she was on. We would have stopped the plane and pulled her off, or met her at her final destination. When she realized a flight was not an option she went to plan B; a diversionary tactic to fool us.” Solomon paused briefly to try and gauge Aman’s reaction before he continued. “There is one group of three people she came into contact with. They are either her friends, or a way to throw us off guard. She must be some sort of spy or government agent of some sort. Either that or a very good undercover reporter. You could help me narrow that down. Who would want to set up, Zachariah?”

“Half this country would,” Aman fired back. “He has more than his share of enemies. Don’t worry about that though. Can we catch her?”

“Possibly,” Solomon replied, clear hesitation in his voice. “No matter how good she is our organization here is huge. I have the city on lockdown and every available man working on it. I pulled the surveillance photos of her coming into the hotel for your party, and had copies dispersed to all our people. I also have a few other potential leads I am looking into.”

              “Good,” Aman said. “And Solomon, it’s
my
organization. Not ours. Just remember that.” Aman had grown to depend on his head of security, but never hesitated to remind his subordinate of his authority. “What does Gregor think? Is he of the same opinion as you?” Aman hired them both because he liked a second opinion to satisfy his highly paranoid personality.

“Gregor thinks I’m a little paranoid but
that is coming from someone who can’t come to grips with the fact that a woman got the better of him.” Although Solomon tolerated working with his partner, he also took advantage of his opportunities to dress Gregor down for his flaws as a spy and bodyguard. “He’s a chauvinist, just like all the Germans. He still refuses to believe what his father did as an SS man with Himmler was wrong.”

             
Aman chuckled at the childish jab. His two heads of security would never trust each other, and this was the way he preferred it. Europeans had long memories that were easily exploited.  Solomon still looked at Gregor as a Nazi barbarian, and Gregor had more than once hinted at the weakness of the French; a country that relied on the U.S. and Britain to do its dirty work.  They could be overly critical of each other, but both were professionals who were the best at their business. Their different backgrounds and nationalities kept them leery of each other without hampering their ability to do the job properly. Aman found this got him excellent intelligence while minimizing the off chance that they would ever plot against him.

             
“Where do we go from here?” Aman asked as he downed the rest of his drink and reached for the half-full decanter in the cabinet behind him to pour another.

             
“I have everything in motion, sir,” Solomon quickly responded. “Spotters are out all over the city. I have tracked down where she lives. At least I have the address she gave to her employer at the club where she danced. She hasn’t been back there, and I would be shocked if she showed up. I have somebody there though, just in case. You may have to use some of those favors you have saved up over the years.”

Aman put the decanter of whiskey away and turned around so they were face to face again. “What is that supposed to mean?” He asked in a hostile tone. “Am I going to have to start digging under Hoover Dam to hide some bodies?”

              “I hope not, but it’s a possibility.” Solomon had no desire to start killing people, but he knew it was going to be necessary. He had been in this business too long, and his instincts told him that the only way to stop this from reaching the wrong hands would be liquidation.

“
Okay, you have free reign to do whatever you see fit, but no deaths except for the girl unless absolutely necessary,” Aman said emphatically. “I will pay whatever it takes to keep this under wraps.  I can’t afford anymore screw-ups.” He then made a mental note to check with his senator friend in Washington D.C. Perhaps he had heard some rumors.

“Also, if you get me out of this unscathed you will get a
250k bonus in your numbered account. I’m going to make some calls. Use up some of those favors. I’m going to catch a few hours of sleep before my round of golf with Zachariah. Call me as soon as you hear anything new,” Aman finished, and motioned for his employee to leave.

With Solomon gone
he wheeled around his leather chair to face the early morning rays of sunshine that were filtering through the partially closed blinds. Unnerved, he turned around to face the opulent suite of offices. The cavernous room yawned back at him. “I did not come this far to have my destiny stolen from me,” he muttered to himself. His mind drifted back once more to those lonely days in 1945 when he began his first steps towards a seemingly impossible goal.

***

It had been a few weeks after his mother’s death. He was at her tiny apartment in the Bronx, cleaning it out as best he could when a middle-aged man who appeared to be an Egyptian appeared in the open doorway. He was tall and slim, and although there was no hair on his head, his face was covered with a coarse black beard that was just beginning to show a few specks of grey. The stranger introduced himself only as Hussan, and he said he had something important to discuss with him. Aman remembered acting like a petulant child and yelling at the man to get out. The man was insistent, and when he said it was in regards to Aman’s father, he reluctantly agreed to accompany Hussan to a small mosque.

While sipping hot tea and sitting on cushions on the floor of the basement, the news shared with Aman
changed his life forever. He remembered sitting in rapture as Hussan first told his own biography. He described how he had escaped the German assaults in Egypt, and was granted asylum in the United States in exchange for providing the U.S. government with information regarding the Nazi stampede across North Africa. Hussan also described how he and Aman’s father became close friends and business partners throughout the 1930s, and worked to free Egypt from the tyranny of British rule. Aman’s father managed to escape before the war started. Hussan explained that he and his father eventually became members of a small cadre of men working to restore the Caliphate. For too long now their people and their religion had been hijacked and used by the Western governments.

Aman remembered Hussan venting about how their forefathers were betrayed at the peace conference after World War I. Their lands were carved up like pieces of pie and divvied out to the glutinous victors who did as they pleased.  They were nothing but pawns to be moved so the West could conquer their lands, and keep their people enslaved. It must change.

The first step was to learn about their enemy up close. The European countries were the junior members of the peacemakers of World War I. He remembered Hussan’s voice choking with emotion as the man said, “In order to see the true face of our adversary, we sent your father to America.”