The Takedown of Phillipe Darcet
Barcelona, Spain. 24th October, 1999.
The car's heating had failed again, and Antonio De Suza was now grumbling half-formed insults into the rain. It was a sad day when people under Mr. Darcet had to suffer broken heaters. De Suza reached down under the dash and closed his hand around the Glock 17 taped to the hard plastic. He turned back to the front and stared out the windshield into the darkening night, hoping that this meeting would go off without a hitch. De Suza was hoping to spend his brother's birthday with him in Florida, and his plans would be slightly disrupted if he found himself with a bullet in his head. The alleyway in front of the car stayed dark. After several moments of suffering, De Suza jerked upright as the twin beams of a vehicle sliced through the gloom. A battered van, so dirty that the colour was debatable, accelerated up the alleyway, the headlights blinding the drug dealer. His hand found the gun again, and caressed it nervously, like a lover.
The van slowed to a halt and the door was eased open. A figure, indistinct behind the headlights' glare, Came forward. De Suza wound the windows down nervously, hand still on the gun. An unmistakably arab face appeared and De Suza spoke first, his voice tight.
"You Muhammad?"
The man was tall and dark, with a neatly-trimmed beard. But the thing that really scared De Suza was his eyes. They burned with a dark fanaticism, the sort that the SS in Russia were reputed to have when murdering entire families of Jews.
De Suza was right to be nervous.
"Yes." The one word held a quiet weight of unmistakable authority and De Suza opened the door, standing up straight and sticking out a hand. The Arab looked at it for a second, then turned his back to De Suza and walked off towards his van.
The arab pulled the side door open with casual force, and reached into the dark interior of the van. De Suza tensed but it was only a wad of dollars. He took it with a mumbled thanks. Muhammad turned to him and spoke.
"There is the money. Now you will give me the weapons."
De Suza nodded weakly and motioned with a large gesture of his hand. Another man came from behind the car, carrying a small breifcase in his hand. The arab was happy with the purchase and said so. He bowed from the waist before getting into his van and swerving around in the narrow alley, almost hitting De Suza. He leapt backwards, hitting the wall. The van accelerated down the alley and turned off, its' tail lights gleaming. De Suza watched for a second, then slid into his car and lifting a bulky satellite phone to his ear, speed-dialling a number. When it picked up, he uttered a single word: "Done."
Two months later, a massive explosion ripped through the crowded shopping centre in Washington D.C. It sent a monumental cloud of black cloying smoke up into the air, and hurled body pieces all across several city blocks. An estimated five hundred people died in seconds, with another hundred dying of their wounds in the hours that followed. Blood ran in streams down the road outside, and the entire area was turned into a charnel house. The United States were infuriated and every effort was made to track down those responsable.
Los Angeles, USA. 5th January, 2000.
The apartment was still dark. The door opened quietly. A chink of light was shown and was sliced in two as a shadow crossed it. A man crossed the threshold of the apartment, weariness evident in every tired step he took, before he slumped into the setee across from the TV. He yawned, jaws cracking, and stretched. He was tired. Really tired. The room was still dark, and the man relished it, loved it, cherished it. It was a chance to unwind for a second before everything kicked off again. He heaved himself off the setee, knocking a photo, framed, from the table beside it. He reached down and picked it carefully up, gazing at the face captured within. John, he thought. John, my poor son, whatever do you think of me now? He set the frame down and headed across the room to a small cabinet. The door swung open and the clinking of glasses revealed it's identity: whisky. The man in the crumpled suit poured himself a shot, ice twinklng at him from the depths of the glass, before toasting the lit cityscape outside. He went to the window, where a beam of moonlight revealed his unshaven face, the blue eyes, the receding hairline. He leant against the widow and took another sip of the drink. His tie seemed too tight for him, and he loosened it. He felt nostalgic, suddenly, for the old days. What had the world come to? The explosion that had changed all of their lives had hollowed him, left him a husk. He knew not how he could go on believing in the integrity of man in such times. He could lament no more. He closed his eyes as he let his mind wander, back through the winding corridors of his youth. The quiet silken darkness was broken by the soft trilling of the telephone. The man crossed the moonbeam and scooped up the phone.
"Yes?" The voice was rough, like a handful of gravel scraping across asphalt. Not an unpleasant voice, a reassuring voice to some, bureaucratic wrath to others.
"Mr. Mason?" The voice on the other end was the anonymous purr of a junior agent of the CTU, the Counter Terrorist Unit. The man called Mr. Mason had returned to the window, and was once again gazing into the pinpricks of light dancing in the city far below.
"I hope this is urgent. I'm on day shift right now, and even then extra hours keep me in. What?"
"Sir, you're needed in. Mr. Chappelle's called a videoconference of all CTU Divisional Directors in an hours time."
Mr. Mason nodded to himself. "All right. I'll be at Division in fifteen minutes."
He hung up. With a final glance out the window, he set the glass down, the remaining whisky rippling across the surface like a minature storm. And George Mason, divisional Director, Los Angeles CTU, slipped from the room, leaving the whisky to swirl around the glass silkily, reflecting the thousand glittering daggers of light from the large windows.