Unlikely Hero-15

Before we get back to Garth and his vanishing uncle, we will spend a few chapters traveling with Alex Cahill as he functions in his double life.1

Please keep in mind the year is 1979. Russia is sitting a top the communist heap. There are still an East and West Germany. Yankee bashing is popular in Iran and those great spy stories are crowding the bookshelves. Oh yes--and Jimmy Carter--grin.2

Chapter 143

The young man had opened the door expecting Room Service. Guns were pointed at him. 4

He froze and his mouth dropped open at the sight of the guns. Four men and a woman forced their way into the hotel suite. 5

"Haut les mains! Reculez!" The order “Back up! Hands away from your sides,” exploded in French. 6

Rocking backwards, with one foot behind the other for stability, twenty-six-year old Jean Pierre Imandi, held his hands out at arms length. Shock and fear registered on his face. The insanity of the situation prevented him uttering a word.7

“Rethink while you can,” another growled at Imandi’s companion who lunged for his discarded coat. Hashem’s right hand reached into a pocket as he ignored the attacker’s advice. A bullet took him in the same shoulder slamming him back against the wall and the gun fell from his fingers. 8

Hashem didn’t scream but Imandi did.9

His scream barely attained an octave when it dropped into gagging sounds as the muzzle of the woman’s gun rapped him in his throat. The sharpness of the pain overwhelmed him. He grabbed the throbbing area and slid to his knees as if anticipating a beheading.10

About this time he saw Ahmed coming from a bedroom. The Palestinian was trying to pull his pants up. His left foot came down on the left cuff preventing him from getting them over his hips. The dark-skinned young Arab was doing a rather silly dance as the man who’d shot Hashem cracked him in the temple with the handle of the gun. He hung in the air only a second as his britches slipped back down, his hands played at an invisible instrument, and then he fell face first into a purple rug.11

"Ne me tuez pas!" Imandi could hear the whore in the bedroom pleading for her life. 12

‘Don’t kill me!’ He wanted to repeat her words as a face came into his view. It was a doll’s face attractive but cold. The lips creased in a cruel smile. Someone else knelt behind him and a man’s grip held him immobile while the pretty girl plunged a hypodermic into his shoulder. 13

Ahmed remained silent, the girl in the bedroom ceased her noise, and only Hashem’s voice spitting accusations in Arabic reached Imandi’s ears. The effect of the drug numbed the pain in his throat, he began to get woozy, his sight blurred, his brain fogged… nothing.14

The three friends had planned a fine weekend. This first night had been spent sampling the pleasures of Paris that French born Jean Pierre introduced his Palestinian chums to. 15

What started as a pleasant interlude, a break from the pressures of family and business turned into a hellish nightmare for Jean Pierre. He felt sensations-- kicks, slaps, and the motion of an auto . . . A terrible darkness and the horror of limited air became his new companions. 16

Eventually Imandi had come awake to full reality in this cold dirty hole in the ground. His bruised throat ached. He saw the cut on Ahmed’s head leak blood into his friend’s curly black hair. Only Hashem’s wound had received any attention. The bullet hole had been plugged with his own undershirt held in place with torn strips from Imandi’s silk shirt. It wasn’t a fresh bandage and was stained with blood and dirt. 17

Somewhere between the posh hotel and this wretched accommodation, the captives had been divested of their clothing. Ahmed had wrapped his body in a khaki blanket. The sight of his friend’s thin and hairy legs sticking out from the cocoon almost made Jean Pierre snicker but his teeth were chattering.18

Hashem was rolled up in a similar ragged blanket. 19

The idea that he’d been left lying there naked, while the others only saw to themselves made him angry. He reached for the one remaining coverlet and discovered that like the others he wore metal cuffs on his wrists and shackles on his ankles. 20

It was a painful chore to get the blanket over his shivering body. At first he assumed the kidnapping had to do with financial gain and he was the target. His weekend cohorts quickly dispelled this myth. 21

"Israelis," Ahmed groaned. 22

Hashem reverted to French from Arabic as he attempted to enlighten Jean Pierre on their wretched situation. They were prisoners of the Mossad, the Israeli undercover agency with the task of cleaning out Arab terrorist groups.23

"Why me?" Jean Pierre struggled with the desire to sob as a frightened child would once he accepted the truth. He had been made party to this game only because of his association with the other two. 24

The wealthy young man who had never been forced to confront filth and fear was certain he would go insane long before they killed him. Execution was something his friends assured him they faced.25

“Taken in a foreign country,” Hashem said. “We aren’t important enough for the Mossad to waste resources trying to get us back to Israel.” 26

Shortly, Hashem disappeared from the vomit and urine soaked hole. He was pulled up out of the stench kicking and squealing. 27

What felt like several days passed and he didn’t return. 28

Jean Pierre never realized what hunger and thirst really were. No food was supplied and they received only a now and then drink of plain water. Soon the pains in his stomach became a constant torment and his throat burned from a raw dryness as he attempted to question Ahmed. 29

Ahmed, his laughing, joking, young friend had turned into a frozen replica of himself. He would only grunt in reply to Jean Pierre's endless begging. "You must tell them I am French. Only an acquaintance, I know nothing of Palestine . . .” But mostly Ahmed sat immobile. 30

Another day must have gone by before Ahmed was taken. Hauled up like a carcass of dead meat. Ahmed did not squeal and struggle as Hashem had done. It appeared to Jean Pierre that the man had accepted his fate and his soul was already dead. 31

Now young Imandi was left to suffer alone in the hole. He tried hard to find ways he could convince them of his innocent nature. Then he conjured up lies to feed them if it became necessary. What can a man do under torture, he pondered, if you have nothing to tell. 32

Ahmed did not return-- and when they finally came for him Jean Pierre Imandi screamed, sobbed, and pleaded. He was not taken from the hole. The woman with the doll’s face laughed at him as he groveled in the filth. 33

An older fellow, his brown hair streaked with gray, nodded disgustedly at the woman. “Lower the food,” he ordered. 34

Another day passed and Imandi was still alive and not aware that at that moment, Alex Cahill was traveling a stretch of the River Road known as the Rheingoldstrasse. This rich wineland was flanked by sheer cliffs and deep forest and followed the gorge carved out over generations by the Rhine River. 35

Doing business with the Germans was a constant necessity for Cahill in a world grown so close that terrorism respected no national boundaries. But though he was in Germany, headed for a small indiscriminate farm, it was not the Germans he'd be dealing with. 36

Cahill’s European press assignments normally didn't require contact with the Israelis. When his other activities forced him to do so he didn't particularly enjoy the experience. 37

To the Israelis the Western World still carried the stench of the sell out of forty-eight, when the English abandoned the tiny state of Israel. Supposedly she’d been left to face her mighty Arab enemies alone and even those who hadn't been born then were adept at showing their lingering contempt. 38

To most Semitics, the Americans as well as the English were untrustworthy, shifting from one side to the other in the never-ending conflict of Palestine. Both Arab and Jew knew the political mood of the moment controlled the decisions of the leaders in those countries. 39

Cahill swung the car down the narrow farm road towards the gray sturdy old house. He frowned unpleasantly with the knowledge of what he was about to encounter. 40

The two young blond males in their farm clothes and rubber boots looked Aryan enough to make a Hitler smile. Cahill sneered to himself, ‘One thing about Jews, they had enough nationalities in their stockpile to put on a good front.’ 41

The men, apparently expecting him, scarcely gave the hint of inspection before waving him out of his auto. Their intentionally garbled English left him lost to their meanings so he simply followed. 42

The girl who opened the door for him was a Palestinian Jew. Cahill had no doubt about that, not only did her looks scream Semitic but the arrogant manner she addressed this despicable creature, namely himself, bordered on loathing. 43

"Mr. Cahill?” she said in a Yankee English voice. “What a pleasure to meet such an important man.” The calf brown eyes glittered mischievous as the naturally curled black hair jiggled with the swing of her head. 44

An older gentleman motioned the lady to silence as he offered Cahill a seat. "Alex," he said for he knew the reporter from a previous encounter. "It would seem from our limited information," the German Jew went on. "You have an interest in our guests?” 45

"I came all this way." Cahill said, "Because my editor was assured that I would be able to talk with your prisoners?"46

"Of course Alex," the older man said. 47

While the young lady put in. "But I'm sorry you will only be able to interview one. The other two had a rather bad accident but the one we still hold is most knowledgeable. He will give your paper an amazing story about the missing Foreigners in Iran.”48

Bad accident-- Cahill knew exactly what she meant for he had been informed of certain details before he left New York. He’d been told it was possible he would discover one or more of the prisoners had died before he reached his destination. 49

Now he followed her down a rickety stairway into a dark windowless cellar. The air was thick with dust and rank from dampness. This was bad enough but even worse was the root cellar. A glass panel modernized the trap door over the hole. A spotlight she flicked on illuminated the filth. She chuckled as the creature within clutched at his single blanket and stared up with terrified eyes. 50

And suddenly Alex Cahill was angry, very angry, at the bitch that found humor in a man’s degradation. "Bring him the hell out of there!" He snapped the order. "I'm not about to crawl down there to talk to him."51

"Of course, Mr. Cahill." She gave another curt laugh before she said, "We wouldn't expect you to soil yourself. If you come this way." She motioned first to Cahill then to some others as she added, "Haul the pig out."52

"And give him some damn clothes!" Then turning on the female who should have been attractive but somehow wasn't, Cahill asked, "Doesn't this shit bother you?"53

She shrugged almost as if to say, it is the way of things. But instead said, "You find our methods disagreeable? How odd? Who do you think taught them to us?" 54

They were not questions she expected an answer for as she sauntered off to lead the way. Mimicking an actress on stage, she bowed before she flung open the door to the interrogation room. Though still part of the old cellar at least the room was clean but this in itself was distressing, for it meant the room was well used. 55

Only one guard escorted the prisoner into the room. The frightened creature had been allowed a loose fitting jumpsuit and his manacles were removed. Cahill was unsure if the Israelis were acting in contempt of the captive or himself. So there was sharp edge to Cahill's voice as he said, "I'd like to talk to him alone."56

"Of course." The woman motioned for the guard to follow and she slammed the door behind them.57

His demand bordered on nonsense, for Cahill knew it would take hours to locate the bugs they had in place. But at least he consoled himself he wouldn't be forced to tolerate their presence and he needed them out of the way. 58

A glance at his watch convinced him he had far less than an hour. 59

Any fool could see the young man slumped in the chair was no terrorist. He was so frightened the muscles in his face beneath the olive skin twitched and his full lips trembled. He might pop pennies and talk brave over a drink but Imandi had been raised to play political and financial games. If he had been tortured the actual bruises were now hidden by the jumpsuit. 60

Alex Cahill had been clearly advised that no one wanted this young man dead. True, his daddy was a Palestinian Arab but a wealthy transplanted one who had wed up with Old French money. And French Granddaddy was not about to sit idle while his one claim at immortality was murdered; he had immediately called in a lot of debts on this one. 61

The Germans had no desire for the youth's blood to soak their soil and cause problems with the French Government who were already feeling the heat fueled by granddaddy's power. 62

The Americans didn't want the youth dead; the investigation could cause embarrassment if it brought out the fact an awful lot of Arab wealth went into their campaigns for political offices. 63

The Israelis themselves could lose significantly if that truth came out. For while Jewish money was considered clean in American politics, it was unlikely the news media could ignore their participation when it went after foreign investors. 64

So one, Alex Cahill, could take a couple years vacation on what he was being paid if he pulled this off. He stood over the wretched young man and said, "You speak English?" while in his palm an electronic devise flashed in French, 'You want to live? Do what I tell you and I'll see you do.'65

Jean Pierre Imandi confirmed, “I speak English,” while he acknowledged the unspoken message with an up and down headshake.66

"Tell me all you know about this conspiracy behind the Iranian kidnappings and I may be able to convince them not to kill you?" Cahill was speaking for their hidden audience. 67

"I only know what the others told me. The Iranian Government has sanctioned the kidnapping of foreigners, both newsmen and businessmen. In the coming months things will escalate." Imandi continued to explain. 68

Alex Cahill ceased to listen. The tale was too contrived; his editor would be a fool to print what the Mossad hand-fed this fool. He knew he had to blank his thoughts to be able to play his part in the next inning. 69

The yelling and noises soon told him it had begun. "Get flat on the floor!" He barked at the prisoner as he flipped the metal table over to create a barrier between them and the door. 70

He jerked a small gun from his ankle holster. He planted himself behind the table, his knees straddling the youth’s head to make it less of a target. 71

Huddled on the floor with only the one man between him and death, Jean Pierre Imandi swore an oath. “The Jews, the Arabs, you Americans, can take the whole fucking world if you want and I will remain deaf, dumb, and blind.” 72

Alex Cahill said, “Smart lad.”73

The door flew open. "You son of a bitch!" The calf brown eyes had hardened to pint points of coal. Her mouth formed into a grimace of hate as she took in the automatic in the kneeling Cahill's hand. 74

Her rifle started to swing into place and he growled, "Don't be a damn fool. We can still get out of here alive. This piece of shit's not worth dying for and I had nothing to do with your apparent discovery." 75

The rife steadied. Death looked them both in the face for only an instant. Then she smiled coldly as her weapon's muzzle dropped to her side. "You're right. He means nothing to us. We got those we were after.” And she dashed from the room.76

Guessing there were more exits from the farm than the German police could find in a week, Cahill hoped the girl chose the right one in her attempt to escape. 77

Certain now the young man was safe, Cahill snapped at him. "Don't move until the Germans find you. They will be here shortly. I’m going to check around. Here." He handed him the gun. “Make sure you don’t shoot yourself. I doubt they’ll pay me for a corpse.”78

He moved cautiously just on the off chance that some Mossad hero hung back to dispatch the American traitor. He smiled coldly as he considered the tales his editor would spiel off to convince the Israelis that the BKA agents had located the farm on their own. 79

He was careful to prevent the two farm boys, the police had in custody, from spotting him. 80

The German law officers didn’t want to see him and he didn’t care to encounter them and be held up. He had an appointment in Berlin. That meeting was on Monday night.