The Puppetmasters (25 page)

The coffee was served, and they all began to eat the sumptuous treat. The room got very quiet as everyone nodded and exclaimed at the exquisite taste. The children finished quickly and asked Rashid if they could have another piece. He looked over to their mothers who smiled and agreed so long as the piece was small. Rashid retrieved several “seconds” while effusive praise was being bestowed on Kendall’s cooking abilities.

The Afghan leader had eaten and drunk copious amounts and was beginning to stumble on his words. “Kendall, dear, perhaps you might consider staying on and overseeing the meal preparation and management of the kitchen?”

The men’s wives had said very little during dinner. One look at Shazeb’s wife, and Rashid thought he’d better collect the palace knives. Ahmad and Saaqib, though, thought it was a wonderful suggestion and heartily approved. As the bantering continued, the children began to yawn and nod their heads. The president noticed immediately and ordered the women to take the children away for their evening baths and to put them to bed. Often the women would signal that they would like to stay and would simply summon a servant to see to the children. But on this evening, the women were unusually compliant and seemed to be nodding off themselves. They gathered up the children and shuffled out of the dining room without the usual grumblings and beseeching to stay up later.

President Shazeb was puzzled and irritated. “What is all this sleepiness? Those women had better not have overindulged on wine, or there will be hell to pay.” He was still itching to take the whip to someone.

Rashid proposed they move into the sitting room overlooking the meadow, and have a glass of brandy and a cigar. He hesitated quite openly and the others looked at him wondering what the issue was. The president said, “Yes, my son?”

“Sir, do you mind if Kendall joins us, since she’s the only female left at the table?”

Shazeb waved his hand and said, “Not at all. Kendall, my dear, come join us. We are quite civilized. There is no reason you cannot enjoy a drink with us.”

While the Afghan constitution prohibited the consumption of alcohol by its citizens, President Shazeb chose to view the law as intended for the ordinary Afghanistan citizen but not himself. Being the leader of the country, he was expected to entertain international guests. He reasoned that it was therefore necessary to keep a well-stocked supply of liquor for those esteemed occasions.

The men stumbled into the sitting room and Rashid poured the brandy. The president’s humidor was full of imported hand-rolled Cuban cigars. Shazeb
and his boys helped themselves to a cigar and a snifter of brandy.

Fields looked downright scared, his eyes wide and wondering. Rashid was livid and forced a glass of brandy into his hand, glaring at him in the process and willing him to calm down. If he looked any more guilty, they would all be beheaded before the night was through.

The Afghan leader slowly ambled across the Persian rug with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other. He walked over to the French doors leading out onto the large courtyard. He looked over to Kendall and inclined his head, “Come here, my dear. Why don’t you and I take a walk in the gardens. They are very fragrant this time of night.”

She froze and didn’t dare look at Rashid. A million thoughts ran through her head. She gave the president a brilliant smile. “I would love to see the gardens.” She moved towards him, and he opened the door. As she stepped out onto the terrace, she saw there was a rather large gazebo-type building several hundred yards from them, off to the side. It had huge marbled columns and was obviously meant for privacy. President Shazeb put his hand on the small of her back and urged her toward the pathway leading to the small structure.
Oh, Lord, what am I going to do?
She walked very slowly toward the gazebo, chatting amiably and stopping to ask about various unique flowers they came upon.

In the sitting room, the brothers glared at each other. There was a tense silence while the two fumed and stalked about the room. Rashid feigned trouble with his guillotine cutter and cigar. It looked as if he was going to cut into the cap a little too deeply, causing damage to the body of the cigar. This would most assuredly cause the wrapper to unravel, and the pricey cigar would be ruined. Saaqib was watching the awkward sequence, when he strode over and angrily grabbed the cigar and guillotine cutter from Rashid. “Here, give it to me. You’ll ruin it for sure.”

Ahmad had had enough of Saaqib’s sanctimonious bluster. “Saaqib, you are such an ass!” They were both itching for a fight. It had been in the making for weeks now and had finally reached the boiling point. The now expertly-cut cigar was roughly shoved into Rashid’s hand, and it promptly split in the middle. This enraged Saaqib, and he flung the guillotine cutter at Ahmad, hitting him across the bridge of his nose … as if it was his fault the cigar broke.

Saaqib was on a roll, not to be deterred. “You bastard! Haven’t you done enough for one night? First, you interrupt me when I was talking to Kendall, then you tell her some stupid story to impress her, and finally, you monopolize her during dinner and shamelessly flirt with her in front of your wife and children.”

Tears of pain were streaming out of Ahmad’s blazing eyes. He sneered, “You’re jealous because she likes me better. Just because you’re the oldest doesn’t mean you always get what you want.”

Both Rashid and Fields unconsciously took a step back. Fields’ eyes were wild with fear. Without warning, Saaqib pulled his sidearm from his dress uniform and fired directly at Ahmad. Ahmad’s eyes widened, and he fell to the floor, bleeding profusely from his gut. Upon the loud discharge of a weapon, President Shazeb whirled around in confusion and panic and ran back to the palace. As he flung open the French doors, he saw Saaqib with a still-smoking gun, and Ahmad lying dead on the carpet. Both Rashid and Fields looked appropriately shocked and distressed … frozen in place.

Not thinking but only reacting, the president let out a roar, ran over to the prostrate body of Ahmad—his favorite son—grabbed his gun, turned, and shot Saaqib in the chest, but not before the older son shot his father right between the eyes.

T
HE
U.S.
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY WAS
still in the dark. They were stumbling around checking all angles, including conversations with their international counterparts. They were no closer to locating the Orion people who had been gone for weeks now. None of the three missing people had attempted to access their bank accounts or use their credit cards. Nothing made sense. No ransom note had been received and no crash site had been located. The only communication was that suspicious cryptic note delivered to one of the buildings at the Orion campus. FBI Agent Zanders wondered how, in this high-tech day and age, three people and an airplane could go missing.

Of course, no one spoke much of the two pilots and the flight attendant. Their pasts had been thoroughly researched and scrutinized. Nothing stood out. They all led fairly ordinary lives. One of the pilots was going through a divorce, but even then it was not contentious. The couple had filed jointly and already divided their assets. The soon-to-be ex-wife was as distraught as any loving, caring wife.

There was just no explanation for a plane and its passengers to disappear out of the sky. This fact alone baffled the aviation industry. They were the experts. They should be able to provide a logical, rational explanation or at least research the events leading up to it, and then offer a plausible theory.

The press was having a field day. Rumors were rampant, and the public and Orion’s employees and shareholders demanded answers. People were sure that the truth was being withheld. Conspiracy theories abounded and investors panicked. The Orion spokesperson assured the public there was no factual basis in the stories that an airplane crash had occurred. But no one, including the FAA, Orion, or the charter jet company, could provide a reasonable explanation for how the plane could fly under the radar without detection. Obviously, the emergency beacon and communication systems had been deactivated, but the plane should have still shown up on radar.

The families of Paul Fields and Glenn Carson were in a continued state of shock. Their lives were in limbo as they awaited the critical information on the whereabouts of their loved ones. The wives were convinced their husbands had died and were steeling themselves for the ultimate news. They were already planning the funeral services and memorials, all while assuring their children that their fathers would be home soon.

No one, however, worried about Kendall Radcliffe, except her friend at work, Gwen Albertson, and her neighbor, Heather Jacobs. The company investigators had learned that the elder Mrs. Radcliffe had unexpectedly died of a heart attack and didn’t know what to think.

Kendall’s two bank accounts and her cell phone were being monitored. Nothing was seemingly amiss. Nothing stood out except for the $10,000 that the Mossad had wire transferred into her account. The local FBI picked up Kendall’s mail daily and read everything. Eric “Mickey” McDougall personally opened Kendall’s work mail and emails every day. His team also monitored all business-related correspondence and communications to Paul Fields and Glenn Carson. Security patrols had been stepped up the last couple weeks, and additional surveillance had been set up.

They were also no closer to finding the author of the mysterious note that had been delivered to the Orion offices.

Jeremy had been re-interviewed several times and stuck to the same story that he had broken up with Kendall just days before she went missing. On second thought, he decided that she had indeed been acting strangely the weeks leading up to the breakup. He was effectively throwing her under the bus. Although nothing was amiss or irregular with her bank accounts or cell phone records in the weeks or months leading up to her disappearance, the authorities could not rule out an international bank account. If one was smart enough and flashed enough money, it was fairly easy to get around the international banking laws. The authorities surmised that she could have created different aliases and opened international accounts under those names. But there was nothing of an incriminating nature pointing to that on her home laptop. The hard drive had been thoroughly searched, and it was clean.

Both her friends, Gwen and Heather, strenuously objected to the inferences that were being made about Kendall. But Gwen was beginning to falter. She admitted that Kendall was very upset the day she traveled to DC, and Gwen never inquired why. She was beginning to think that Kendall was not the person she thought she was. Maybe there was this hidden side to her. Either way, in the event Kendall was implicated in the disappearances, Gwen needed to dump her fast. She had her career to think about. She now downplayed the friendship label and defined it more as a business association that sometimes extended after hours. And even then, any socializations were due to an office function or celebration of some sort.

Law enforcement had mixed feelings about Gwen. She was obviously looking out for her own interests at the expense of any so-called friendship. Gwen told herself that in the event Kendall came back and was found not to have been involved in the disappearance, then Gwen would make it up to her and become the best friend she could. After all, Gwen reasoned, it’s possible that if Kendall was a victim in this mystery and survived, she could end up being a hero. Gwen would want to share in the limelight with Kendall and help her through the difficult transition back to a normal life.

The NSA and CIA offices were busy and focused but not making any headway. There was much discussion and theorizing about the missing plane and its important passengers. International chatter spoke of shipments of high-valued heroin that were currently in transit both at the manufacturing stage and ultimately to their unknown destination. The most crucial pieces of information missing related to the farms, manufacturing facilities, and transshipment points.

Frank, Alex, and Ping were monitoring the international law enforcement communications using
Prophecy.
They had already ruled out South America, and specifically Columbia, as being the source of the much-anticipated shipment. That left Asia. They started with the obvious culprit, Burma. But Burma had never produced as much as the mysterious massive shipment that the Mossad had implied was currently in process.

While nothing out of the ordinary appeared to be occurring in Burma, Frank caught a thread of a heated discussion regarding Afghanistan. A known major drug manufacturer in Burma was complaining that Afghanistan had cornered the heroin market and was driving the prices higher because of the high-quality end product. Frank took a quick gulp of coffee and allowed himself to get that familiar fluttering in his gut. He knew he had stumbled on the answer. But what exactly was it? He was sorely lacking in details, and it was driving him nuts.

He directed Ping and Alex to focus strictly on Afghanistan but to program
Prophecy
to kick out any communications anywhere in the world that referenced heroin. He found it puzzling that strings were trickling in from everywhere except Israel, where it was strangely and noticeably silent.
Those bastards,
he thought.
They must have discovered
Prophecy
and figured out how to shut it out.
He made a mental note to discuss this with Paul, when or if he returned.