Azrael sat staring at the phone. It was the link with his nemesis and he hated that it had become his electronic leash.
When they had returned to the compound, he had ordered the men to go to their quarters and rest. Nothing would be happening for the next few hours at least and he wanted them rested and refreshed. But for him, seated in the little office space that he had made his own, the long wait had begun. That was part of the strategy, the war of attrition, designed to wear him down. The enemy could call in five minutes, or five hours, or five days! Regardless, he would sit here and wait.
He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, trying to clear his mind.
This operation, given to him personally by his mentor, was entering the endgame. Its complexities had frustrated him and he knew that he would have to make amends for the mistakes that had been made – the failure of the first snatch, allowing Yusuf too much freedom in the planning, then the failed hit on the enemy safe house. Azrael knew that making amends would involve an awful lot of bloodshed and killing, both of the enemy as well as the minions that he had fooled into thinking they still served the Jihad.
No, his mentor was a visionary and a generous man, a born leader in fact, but he was also cold and ruthless and he expected the extreme amount of penance for others’ mistakes and failures. Azrael had seen at firsthand what his mentor could do, the strength and violence of the man; after all, it had been part of the reason why he had become one of his disciples.
Azrael himself, under his guise of Hasan-I-Sabbah, had been on the run following the assassination attempt on his life by the CIA’s drone program. He had wandered, surviving until a chance encounter with his mentor had provided him a place of refuge. His mentor had found him, hidden away in the backstreets of Somalia, hunted and alone and without allies.
“I know who you are, Abu Al-Hashimi. You have no secrets from me. A dead man is of use to me and I have the power to give you a purpose in life, far greater than your so-called belief in Jihad.”
“What purpose? What can you possibly give me?” he had asked the giant in front of him.
“I want to make use of your skills, of course.”
“Why?”
The giant, his mentor-to-be, had smiled. “To help me make the world burn.”
In the years following their first meeting, he had taken many names and had moved around Europe, building the infrastructure of his mentor’s network. His mentor had a vision for the future and the key to implementing that vision was the acquisition of future-technologies. Azrael had become his man and had killed and butchered on command. Once again, he had become Azrael, the angel of death, with a new life and a new cause and was his mentor’s hammer.
The phone rang on the desk in front of him and it roused him from his relaxation. He opened his eyes and registered the unknown number on the caller ID. This was it, the chance to see what the Fisherman proposed. Azrael swiped the icon and put it on speaker-phone.
“The girl, is she alive and well?” said the American. The voice was confident and firm; another power play designed to convey authority.
Azrael took his time to answer. He too was not above verbal manipulation. “She is fine. How is her brother, my scientist?”
“He’s resting. Your little incursion shook him up a little but he’s fine.”
“You have a proposal?” said Azrael. He was keen to redirect the conversation and sometimes, in his experience, being direct was the most advantageous method.
“I do,” said the Fisherman. “Let’s end this. Tomorrow night. Eleven pm. There is a park in the city, the Danube Park. Meet me there, North side by the skate park and we can arrange a swap.”
It was a trap. Of course it was, thought Azrael. But under the circumstances he had no other choice but to play along. The first step in evading a trap is to know that it exists. “Why are you giving up the scientist so freely? You’d trade him for this girl, who means nothing?”
“He’s already told us everything. We’ve bled him dry of information. We have no further use for what is in his brain,” said the Fisherman, turning the screw tighter.
“What? You try to trick us! You think I am a fool!” sneered Azrael.
“No. We are playing it straight. You want the information that he has just as much as we do. We have that now. I am now offering you the chance to end this peaceably so that I can get one of my people back. One hand washes the other. The alternative is that lots of people die and you don’t get any information. Trust me, this is the best deal that you are going to get.” It was another turn of the screw.
Azrael gently drummed his fingers slowly on the desk. He was weighing the options, trying to see the angles that the other man was playing. Was it an ambush? Was it a genuine offer? Either way, Azrael and his Jihadists would be killing everyone there and leaving no survivors. Finally, he said, “So, the girl for her brother? I agree.”
“All that we ask is when you have the information that you want… or whoever you work for wants… that you let Pavel Zeman go. He deserves some peace,” said the Fisherman.
This man, for all his cunning, was a fool if he thought that the Czech scientist would be allowed to live after they had drained him for information, thought Azrael. He who controls the information controls the technology – that was what his mentor had taught him. The scientist would have his throat cut the moment he was of no use and Azrael would carry it out personally.
“You have my word,” he lied.
The Fisherman seemed to accept the answer. “Don’t be late. And come alone. If I see any of your gunmen there, I’ll kill the scientist myself and take my chances.”
I won’t be late, thought Azrael. I will be there, I will be on time and I will kill you all.
The Fisherman hung up the phone
“Are we in play?” asked Wolf, wiping the gel from his face with a towel. Both Pavel and he had just returned from one of the tutorial sessions with Savini on a video call.
“We are,” said Lyth, nodding. “And you guys, are you up to speed with what we have to do?”
Wolf smiled his feral grin. “They won’t know what hit them.”