In the twenty-four hours after the business deal, the people of interest had been cut down to a few hundred by agencies who confirmed alibis. But of the 367 ‘potentials’ that were left, a name of great interest remained on the register, that of Amal Purakayastha. When the photos were placed side by side on the wall monitor inside the Comm Center beneath St. Peter’s Basilica, there were some obvious similarities, but not enough to confirm that the person in question was Amal Purakayastha. This had begged the question if the man had altered his appearances. But what gave credence to the possibility that this man was Purakayastha was Purakayastha’s background. He was known as the Bangladeshi, a silent partner to Abesh Faruk, an international arms dealer who sold his wares to anyone with deep pockets, including terrorist organizations. Furthermore, a meeting between Ahmed Jaziri and Amal Purakayastha made sense since one man specialized in selling specific hardware, whereas the other fronted terrorist causes by supplying weapons to extremist organizations. Jaziri was simply the conduit between the supplier—which was Purakayastha—to the consumer, which could be the Islamic State or the Taliban.
Standing on an elevated tier within the Vatican’s Intelligence Comm Center, Fathers Auciello and Essex were examining the screens. The similarities were there to justify the 45% match. But 45% was far from creating a particular matchup. What bolstered confidence from the co-directors, however, was that the meeting in Paris between two possibly ‘significant’ people in the arms and terrorist trade had come together to communicate. Within the day of this meeting—the transfer of money in the amount of five hundred million dollars in American currency, which was summarily converted into cryptocurrency, had quickly disappeared from Jaziri’s account.
Father Auciello tilted his head slightly as he compared the photos. Purakayastha’s skin tone matched at 100%, according to the computer’s hue measurements, whereas a skin blemish, a slight scar that had been shared by each man in the two photos, remained. The scar itself was highly indicative that this new-faced man and Purakayastha were the same, since the design of the scar and its fine ridges matched perfectly. That small imperfection was the million-dollar giveaway. But was the other man, based on the movements of his choppy gait, Ahmed Jaziri? That remained to be the question.
“I genuinely believe that the man in both photos is Amal Purakayastha,” Father Auciello remarked, “though with obvious alterations such as his eyes, cheekbones, his chin—all different.”
At the moment, the co-directors were on a conference call with the major intel agencies across the globe which included Interpol, MI6, the Mossad, Germany’s BND, the DGSE of France, Italy’s AISE, and many others.
“If this is the case,” stated Efrayim Leibowitz over a speaker system, and someone who was a leading principal within the Mossad, “then it is to be understood that Purakayastha’s history with Abesh Faruk is a concerning one. We all know that Faruk was in possession of the Goliath Chamber that contained three nuclear suitcases with each possessing one-kiloton yields. We even raided one of Faruk’s armories in Tunisia using our own Sayeret Matkal based on intel which proved to be incorrect. But we believe that the Goliath Chamber exists, nonetheless. We just don’t know where.”
“Perhaps,” Father Essex stated with his British accent, “Purakayastha did, given his close ties with Abesh Faruk. If this other man proves to be Ahmed Jaziri, which it could be, then we can justifiably deduce with a measurable degree of probability that the Goliath Chamber might be the vessel that had been placed on the bidder’s block by Purakayastha. If that’s the case, then what are the three major-targeted areas? Or will they pool these devices together to be a single unit that would yield a three-ton detonation? What are Jaziri’s intentions, seeing that his clientele is made up of terrorist factions?”
“Jaziri is a man with a dark past,” said David Bennett, a principal of the CIA. “We know little about him since the man’s trying his best to stay under the radar and succeeding. What we do know about him is that he’s also known as the ‘Puppeteer.’ This transaction of five hundred million dollars that was moved from his account in Yemen and into the account of a fictitious owner, where it immediately turned into cryptocurrency and disappeared with the money trail untraceable, could mean that Ahmed Jaziri could be getting wise to our surveillance of his accounts, which we obviously follow in order to gauge his next move . . . Or it could mean that something major is about to happen. Maybe both.”
“You’ve been following the money trails for some time?” Father Essex asked.
“Yes. We never freeze accounts because it allows us to follow the money for this reason: We sit back and watch what weapons and incendiary purchases are made and to who they’re going to—who the key players are. Then we intercept all matters of communication, discover their reasons behind the weapons acquisition, and then we mobilize counterterrorist units to defuse the situation. Unfortunately, few engagements slip through our net at times but not a
