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I woke Sami up and kept playing Herr Simon Heinrich for one last time. Mustafa came into the room as the real villain and did the talking.
"So, you were planning to take the money and kill me before you leave."
"No, I was planning to kidnap you and kill you away from here."
"And you thought that piece of shit Tony was enough?"
"I underestimated you. It won't happen again."
"Oh, I can assure you it won't happen again."
Sami kept looking at me.
"What are you looking at? Oh, Herr Heinrich. Allow me to introduce Stan Holtz, ex-military, present assassin. Yes, you were right about one thing. We had in mind to kill you both before we leave as revenge, but we came up with something much better."
I could see Sami losing his farcical nature and fear started to creep onto his face.
"We hacked into your servers and found some trophies you might regret you ever kept on your private server."
"Bullshit, no one can..."
"No one can crack your highly secure system? Is that it? Don't you know that back in Germany, we create systems like this?"
"How could you...?"
"Trade secrets, my friend, we might teach you a trick or two one day, or..." Mustafa looked at me then turned to Sami, "maybe we won't."
The chair under Sami vibrated, and his face matched the color of the white leather he was sitting on. Mustafa gave me a signal, and I played one video that showed one of Sami's rape films.
"This is one sample of many others we got from your own highly secure private server. You sick fuck, you know I'd better tell our friend to kill you right here. The world is a much better place without you."
"What do you want? If you wanted to kill me, I'd be dead already. What do you want?"
"I want you to tell me the story of your becoming a partner in Rachidy Software when you were just a small-time IT guy."
"Is that it?"
"Well, not really. What you saw that day which made all this possible. I will leave you to think about what you would like to do in the last hour or two of your miserable life, or you could think of one way out of this, and that is by telling me everything you know." Mustafa said that and left to the other room as we planned. There was this last trick up my sleeve, we set the bait for Sami, but I had no idea if he was going to take it. I knew we didn't have a lot of time to maneuver. We had to act quickly, or the police might be at our doors at any time.
I was alone in the room with Sami who kept looking at me with horror at first, but I made sure my professional smile disarmed his fears, and he felt the opportunity in the air. I wanted him to seize it. It was not long before he tried,
"Hey, Stan. Mr. Holtz." Sami was whispering to me, "come close. I have a proposition for you."
I looked at the door as if I didn't know Mustafa was waiting just behind it for my cue to come back in. Then I came close to Sami but said nothing.
"How about I give you the ten million dollars in that case there in the other room? What say you?" Sami kept whispering.
I still said nothing, but I put the right expression on my face to show Sami that I was interested.
"All I want you to do is kill Mustafa and that nerd. He must be around somewhere. The whole ten million dollars is yours." Sami looked at me to see how I would react, and he seemed to understand what I tried to convey to him.
"Ok, I will give you ten more million dollars after you get the job done. Do we have a deal?"
"We have a deal, Mr. Sami. I was going to kill you for far less than that, but I can still kill you if you don't pay."
"What do you think I am crazy to cross you? Just get me off the hook, and I will have more work for you in the future. I will pay you much more to get rid of the head of the snake. I will pay you the same to kill George. Just get me off the hook now."
"We have a deal. You just play along with Mustafa and let me seize the opportunity to finish both him and the nerd."
I went back to my place and coughed. A minute later, Mustafa came back into the room.
"So, did you think about it, Mr. Hafez?"
Sami was silent for a while. But he smiled at Mustafa, and he had shed all his fear away. He thought he had the upper hand one more time.
"I assume you are recording our conversation and you want to give that to George back home and kill me afterward, and maybe kill Tarek, so his revenge is complete. I don't blame him, we fucked him really bad."
I wanted to jump right at him and tear his throat apart, the motherfucker laughed, but I had to wait and keep reeling him in.
"Well, I have something that is much better, but I won't give it to you unless you give me this bag in the other room and let me walk out of this room free."
"This is not a poker game, Sami, so there is no need for bluffing."
"If you know your poker game well, you will look at my face and know I am not bluffing." Sami took his time, and he regained his confident posture on the chair.
"I'm sure you are familiar with the case files, Tony himself delivered them to you, but you stand here and judge me for keeping a secret camera in the office bedroom to capture my intimate moments. You see, Mr. Rachidy used to keep cameras in places that will make a man like me an angel."
I wanted to believe what he was saying, but how could that be possible?
"You see, there was a hidden camera in the ladies' room. I installed it there myself. Everything was supposed to work out with that bitch like all the others, but your friend came out of nowhere and wanted to play the hero. I saw it all in the video I deleted from the system, but I made a copy for myself. It was an opportunity for little Sami to become big Sami. I also kept all the other videos. Tarek was such a fool to believe I was going to destroy the only thing that would make me rich. The poor guard, what was his name, Omar, I think, called Tarek after you left and told him about what he saw. He once saw Mr. Rachidy coming out of there and learned of the value of keeping his mouth shut. Tarek told him to stay put and not to let anybody in. He was the first to find his beloved dad lying in a pool of his own blood. Tarek knew about the cameras and all, so I was the first he called.
When I arrived, we looked at the video and knew there was no way to invite the police in before we cleaned up everything. I removed the hidden camera from the bathroom and deleted the security video feed of that day and told the cops it was your friend who did it, but I guess you already know that from the police report. Well, all that took us some time, so we had to change the hour of death. Without cameras to tell when your friend got in and out. I changed the time of his proximity card checking in and out, and we told that idiot Omar precisely what to say to the police. You see such a big favor to Tarek made him in my debt forever. He thought he could buy me with a few dollars like he did with Omar, but after the wake, I invited Tarek to my place and showed him a copy of the videos and after that, becoming a partner in the company was a walk in the park."
Mustafa may have done the whole thing based on his trusting me alone, but now he was listening to the ugly truth from the man who twisted it firsthand.
"Now you might think you have got what you want, and you can kill me, and your friend can be at peace, but guess what. I still have those recordings, especially the one showing that your friend is innocent. I want that disk of yours with all my private, intimate videos because they are none of your business, and I changed my mind about the money in the other room. I want a hundred million dollars. I will give you my account number. You can make the transfer, and I will give you the videos. You see after I give you the videos, I cannot stay in this country anymore. I'm sick of staying here, anyway. I would like to go somewhere tropical, Brazil, perhaps."
"I'm just curious about that poor guard. How come he died in a hunting accident less than a month after the accident?" Mustafa asked
"What the fuck do you care? Do you want to give me my money and get your videos or not?"
"Please indulge me. Call it a side dish. I'm just curious because it just didn't make sense to me."
"Of course, it didn't make sense. Anybody with a bit of a brain should know that we wacked the guy. He should have been clever and taken the one hundred thousand dollars Tarek offered him. He used to make like what five hundred dollars a month. That should have called for early retirement for him, but no, that stupid fuck grew a conscience and refused to testify in court. He said if they made him swear on the Holy Coran, he could not lie. Yeah, he feared God would throw him in hell. What the hell man? How could people still believe in that shit?"
"So?"
"So, what? We sent him someone and made it look like it was a hunting accident. He was a nobody. What are you more interested in him now or in your friend?"
"Right, so where are these videos?"
"They are on another secure server under another name your hacker can never find. I am sure you can call your little Franz in the room, and I will tell him all the details he needs to find them, but not before I receive the money first in my bank account."
"What makes you think I won't kill you right after you give me the videos?"
"You are a businessman Mustafa, not a killer. Besides, I trust you." Sami laughed.
He looked at me while Mustafa was making a phone call, and I nodded to him to tell him the deal was on. He was playing it smart to bring both Mustafa and Franz in the room for me to take care of. All I wanted was to put my hands on the video that would prove my innocence to the world and to my children.
"This is a one-time offer. I know many people who will look for me if I don't show up outside this hotel soon, so you'd better make the deal before I change my mind."
Mustafa knew what he must do, so he made only a portion of the transaction to Sami's account. Then he went outside the room to get Franz.
"Hey, Stan. Wait until he transfers all the money to my account and then they will both be here in the room. Kill them before they leave with the videos." Sami whispered to me, and I raised my thumb to him.
Mustafa came back with Franz, who took all the information from Sami and downloaded all the files there were on the server. I wasn't interested in all the other dirty videos he had, but the one that mattered the most to me was there.
I stayed on the run for fourteen years not knowing until that moment there was proof to my innocence. After Franz got everything we needed, Mustafa gave Sami the drive with his dirty videos on and untied him. Sami was waiting for the rest of his money to be transferred to his account. Mustafa turned his back to us, and he seemed as if he was running the transaction on his computer. Franz was waiting at the other end of the room, and I was within the range of both, ready to strike as Sami thought.
"Now Stan, do it now!" Sami shouted to me and expected some action, but the room stayed as it was, and no one moved, except for Mustafa, who turned slowly with a big smile on his face.
"Are you sure it is time, boss?"
Sami's mouth was wide open as I said that in perfect Lebanese accent Arabic.
Sami's face turned white as I removed the skin patches, the facial hair, and the contact lenses. To him, I was a ghost from hell coming back to torment him. I bet he was looking at Mustafa and Franz to make sure they were seeing the same thing he was seeing. I finished shedding off my disguise and came close to him, face to face.
"George. I don't believe it. I'm sorry man. I didn't mean to do that to you. Tarek made me do it. Please don't kill me."
"I will not kill you. You will get what you deserve, but I am not a murderer like you, and your boss are. You have deprived me of my family and my life for all those years. I promise you. You will never have your life back."
"Please, just let me go. I gave you the proof for your innocence, didn't I? Now please, I know you are a man of your word. I'm just a piece of shit. I am nobody. I will go from here to the airport. You will never see me for the rest of your life. I will give you back the money you transferred to me. Just let me go."
"Do you really think I transferred any money to you? Are you that stupid? Didn't you learn your lesson when Franz first hacked your system? Now I do remember you. You are still that stupid guy I met fourteen years ago in Rachidy Software."
We tied Sami to the bed and taped his mouth and made sure we took all our stuff from the rooms before we left. Mustafa had sent the videos we got from Sami's private server to the police, and we waited until we left to give the police a call to tell them where to find Sami. We also sent a part of the recording to Omar's brother and told him where he could find Sami. I didn't care who would get to him first. I just didn't want that piece to shit to get away this time. I also had Franz post the videos online on all social media channels, and with content like that, the videos went viral in a matter of seconds. That would make bribing the cops a lot more difficult and more importantly that should buy us enough time to flee the country.
My best hope at the beginning of that day was to get out of the hotel alive and with some confession from Sami to prove my innocence to my children. I never dreamed of getting out with hard evidence to prove I was innocent.
We all got in the car Mustafa rented out and went straight to the Holy Cross Hospital. I couldn't wait any longer to call Pam and tell her everything on our way there.