There were additional screams of those who were suddenly eclipsed by white-hot pain and agony, only for their cries to be cut off with mercy shots to either the head or to center mass. Still, the Metsada pressed on with the presence of mind seeking not only Baghdadi for mining, but also the Man from Paris as well.
More screams.
More gunfire.
And more dreams instantly shattered with the deaths of Baghdadi’s teammates.
After the Metsada took down the extremists and cleared the main area, they continued the hunt for Baghdadi and the Man from Paris.
* * *
Baghdadi had heard the explosion and the subsequent gunfire of AK-47s. Then came the cries, the screams, that of pain and agony, all swiftly cut off.
And then silence.
Baghdadi grabbed his AK-47 that leaned against the far wall. But when he attempted to turn around to confront his enemies, the point of an assault weapon was pressed against the base of his skull from behind.
In Arabic, the Metsada officer yelled, “Drop your weapon!”
Baghdadi was never a brave man, but one who was subservient to a greater power than he.
“Hands on your head!”
Baghdadi dropped his weapon and did as commanded. After releasing the weapon to the dirt floor, Baghdadi was tossed to the ground and bound by flexcuffs. When he was turned onto his backside, he saw three shapes looming over him, all black, all menacing. From this grouping a man stepped forward, pointed what appeared to be a cellphone, and took a photo, the room lighting up with a blinding flash. Then as the shape toyed with buttons on the cellphone with Baghdadi’s frozen image in the phone’s window, he stated over his lip mic, “Image sent for analysis and confirmation.”
Over his earbud came a reply: “Copy that.”
* * *
Inside the truck, Efrayim Leibowitz received a photo of Suspect One, a man he already knew to be Saheem Baghdadi, on his iPad, but needed electronic verification, nevertheless. After initiating the start-up software program for facial recognition, dots appeared on the image to measure pinpoint landmarks with lines connecting these dots to map out and identify the person. As the lines geometrically connected from point to point to measure facial distances down to a high degree of certainty, the match numbers rose exponentially. Rising from zero to 100% in less than two seconds.
“Identification confirmed,” said Leibowitz. “Hold and maintain. Locate Suspect Two.”
“Copy that.”
* * *
The sound of gunfire was all around the Man from Paris as he sat on the mattress with his knees drawn up into acute angles and his arms embracing them, the man a tight mass.
There were cries and screams of obvious pain, not the battle cries that were meant to spur armies forward against their enemy. There was gunfire, the sound of ensuing chaos, and then a horrible silence.
As the breathing from the Man from Paris became more erratic as though he were hyperventilating, the door to his room, having been kicked wide, flew open and a metal object was tossed inside. It bounced across the floor with the tinkling sound of metal. A flashbang. But before the Man from Paris could raise his arms to shield his eyes, the device went off. The flash was as bright as a thousand suns, blinding, and the concussion of the blast rocked his senses, the man becoming numb to his surroundings.
A number of hands grabbed him roughly and tossed him to the mattress where he was handcuffed. And then he was turned over so that he could see the ceiling. Silhouettes stood over him, nothing but blackened shapes whose voices sounded as though they were speaking from the bottom of a well, far and distant and hollow. Then came a flash of light.
The Man from Paris could barely make out the words which sounded like the slow-moving track of a recorder, long and drawn, though the words he recognized were definitely Hebrew.
A moment later, as though receiving orders over his earbud with the shape who took the photo nodding, said, “Copy that.”
Then the Man from Paris was hoisted to his feet and ushered forcibly out of the room.
In the corner was a suitcase whose shell had a dull aluminum finish to it.
A Metsada officer took the few steps to the suitcase, leaned over, and through his NVG goggles, he noted the emblem on the suitcase, that of three sixes. Here lying before him was the Antichrist.
Hitting his earbud, he said, “Commander.”
“Go.”
“I found the package.”
“Does it have the marking?”
“Affirmative.”
“Copy that and stand by.”
The Metsada officer shut off his earbud and, as ordered, stood by.
* * *
When Efrayim Leibowitz received the photo of the second man on his iPad, the facial recognition program wasted no time in identifying the person of interest. It appeared that the Man from Paris was a high-level courier who was adept at disappearing entirely from the grid, even when the best intel agencies had him under surveillance. He was considered to be a magician and a ghost, someone who was here today but gone tomorrow. His name was Pierre Fabron, a suspect who partook in terrorist bombings in Dublin, Manila, Istanbul and in Ankara, with more than 300 souls lost.
As he was reading the biographical history of Fabron, he received communication from within the safe house. “Commander.”
“Go.”
“I found the package.”
“Does it have the marking?”
“Affirmative.”
“Copy that and stand by.” Setting the iPad aside, Leibowitz said to his driver, “Let’s go.”
Exiting the vehicle, Efrayim Leibowitz, commander of the Mossad’s Metsada group, headed for the safe house along with his armed driver.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vatican Intelligence
Vatican City, The Vatican
Since this was a concerted effort between intel agencies who were uniformly trying to discover the whereabouts of the suitcases that had been labeled as ‘the nuclear stash’ within Abesh Faruk’s fabled Goliath Chamber, Fathers Auciello and Essex were keeping watch over the computer monitors for live communication feeds. So far, they’d received nothing of value from
