Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (e reader for manga .txt) 📗

not here, but most probably is standing on the other side of the curtain.” She looked behind her and whispered, “Follow me.” We walked along the short corridor, the noise from the other side of the curtain had calmed down. She pulled the curtain aside and the guard glared at me. She ignored him, put her arms around me and gave me a long kiss. I played along, willingly. From the corner of my eye, I could see he relaxed a bit and turned around.

She smiled and said, “Come and visit again…” and vanished into the corridor. I thought that in her smile she hid a promise to more than just a kiss to a stranger.

I also had to get back to Laura with the news. I once again glanced at my watch. The time had flown by and it was close to midnight. The place had started to fill up with men, but the drunk was not amongst them. When I walked out, the bluish neon lights blazed on all of a sudden and hit me, as did the stickiness of the humidity. I stopped for a moment and checked my surroundings. He sat down with his back to the wall, between two garbage bins, which hid him from the road. What gave his place away was the flickering of his cigarette. When he saw me, he got up and came up to me. He was a young man but looked older because of the disheveled beard and the look of the sloppy drunk. I didn’t take my eyes off him and didn’t move from where I was standing.

“Sir, a green dollar for a black day?” He came up to me with his hand outstretched.

I put my hand in my pocket and took out a dollar note. I put it in his hand without breaking eye contact with him. He took the note without thanking me, put a cheap lighter on the lid of the garbage bin and went on his way. One might think that his last cigarette, which hung between his lips, had finished the lighter and that’s why he left it there. I walked over to the alleyway, collected the lighter in a swift move and put it in my pocket. While my hand was still in my pocket, I quickly dismantled the lid with my thumb. A round silicone ball rolled into my palm. I quickly strode towards the car. The crispiness of the air in the car felt especially good. “Cancun, Mexico.” I said and sat down.

“Sounds logical. She has some great connections there.” Laura checked her mirrors and announced, “I have to stop at two other places and from there, to the most beautiful beach in the world.”

“It really is a nice beach. And we are looking for something that has to do with a sword, most probably.”

She gave me a disappointed look. “That’s all the information you came up with?”

“That’s all the information she had. We will have to make do with it, even though it is minimal.”

Within seconds Laura had donned her cold identity once again and answered, “I suppose you are right; this is a start too.”

The first stop was less than thirty minutes later, next to a well-lit, isolated glass building. The FBI offices at Miramar. Laura’s authority allowed me a visitors’ access to the entrance of the extravagant lobby, where there was a place to buy coffee, sandwiches and snacks, along with a huge TV screen that reported the news non-stop. Three people waited there, ignoring the news flickering on the screen. One of them lay down, sprawled out across three chairs, the other two sat next to each other and had fallen asleep with their heads leaning on one another. Their heads together formed a cloud of dark, wiry hair, which looked as if it could pour down from the sky at any minute. In contrast to the three peaceful people, the fourth, a Hispanic woman, nervously nibbled at a snack, making crunching noises and never taking her eyes off the screen. Her crunching reminded me just how hungry I was. It was already past midnight and all I had eaten in the last hours was peanuts on the plane and some cheap whiskey. I had tried all three vendors by the time Laura returned. My phone was fully recharged and so was I. Thoughts of Jonathan haunted me and, despite the late hour, and that I was certain no one was awake to take my call, I called the house.

“There is no news. They are combing the streets, trying to look in the last place his computer sent a pinpoint,” my brother updated me. I heard the despair in his voice, and I was sorry I could not be there, beside him.

I remembered that when my wife was killed in front of my eyes, all those years ago, I was consoled in the knowledge that she hadn’t suffered. It was unexpected, it was quick and fatal. A terrorist attack on a bus in Jerusalem. A sliver of metal penetrated her neck, ending her life then and there.

But for my brother… I didn’t have the words to console him. His kid had been taken from him by someone known for his cruelty, and if the kid returned, who knew what kind of rehabilitation he’d need to go through after such trauma. “Think positively,” I mumbled into the telephone. “All of the American forces are on hand and behind them the State of Israel, too. We’ll get him back home.”

He was silent. I could hear his ragged breathing. He was crying or trying not to. “We will get him back,” I said again, this time to reassure myself.

My next call was to my boss. I just said, “I have received it.”

And he answered, “I know.” After a moment he added, “Because of the circumstances, this is the maximum I can do in such a short notice.”

“I know and I appreciate it greatly.” I thought it was important