Chapter 40

The man looking out of where the window had been heard someone knocking in the other room. Listening he heard the counter knock then one last series of knocks. As he continued listening, he could hear three men talking in the other room, the voices were muffled and no one sounded excited, the problem was that no one was expected. Easing his pistol from his holster, he got out of his chair being as quiet as possible moved into the shadows the darkened room offered.

Soon enough the light coming in from under the door dimmed followed by a series of knocks, all planned ahead of time. Still he waited, when the door opened he watched as three people entered the room, their hands empty. Stepping out of the shadows, he asked with a heavy accent, "What is wrong?"

One of the men who had entered the room, older than the others and dressed as a shop keeper, his voice little more than a whisper, answered, "The operation has been suspended."

"What do you mean they are suspending the operation? Everything is ready; all we are waiting on is the okay to go."

"That is not all; we are to stay in place with the instruction to prepare for a guest."

"What do you mean prepare for a guest? There are no provisions for a guest, we have everything in place and we are only waiting for the opportunity," the bearded man stated for a second time.

"I am simply relaying the message," the shopkeeper repeated.

"Everyone stay here, I will be right back." The bearded man stated to the room as he moved to a bookcase, pulling out a cell phone from behind a stack of magazines.

For the three men waiting time moved slowly as they could hear their leader talking to whom they did not know. Their leader may have known the person on the other end because as he continued to talk, he would get loud to the point of shouting before calming down only to repeat his shouting two more times before he closed the phone. Approaching the three men, he opened the back of the case and pulled out the battery and the Sim card before tearing the phone in two handing each man a piece, while keeping one for himself.

No longer able to contain their curiosity, one of the men asked, "What's the word?" anywhere else the man's accent and statement would have identified him as an American though he was now a citizen of Israel of Arab descent.

Looking at his team, the bearded man stated, "It is as Sumar stated, the operation is suspended, Hydra has stated the Prime Minister is leery of us killing our target so soon after the trouble in Korea. He is worried the Americans will not intercede on our behalf in front of the Security Council before the new president is sworn into office. All my contact has been told is that there is a specialist arriving in the morning before morning prayers. We are to standby and provide any assistance we can."

"What type of assistance, you know bringing weapons in here will draw too much attention from the militia." The shopkeeper stated.

"They did not say and I do not know, all I was told was to provide assistance. So until the morning we will do what we have been doing to keep anyone from becoming suspicious."

It was a good thing I had been prepaid, as we were twenty-four hours late making the harbor as one of the two engines on the boat had shut down after two days at sea. Adding to our delay was the fact my hosts did not want to arrive in the daytime in case I was spotted so they made the decision to put in a day later. Therefore, when we were just over the horizon my hosts made the decision to just drift around for the day and allow everyone to go swimming.

Making the harbor that evening my first impression was my information was badly out of date as I along with Sven were expecting damaged buildings from the various civil wars as well as bombing from Israel. The problem was that when we made the harbor, it was of a modern city. The waterfront even had couples and families strolling along as if they did not have a care in the world. The people on the docks, the workers as well as the three people standing around waiting for us did not look concerned either.

The first one aboard was the customs inspector and after looking at our passports as well as an envelope mixed in the stack. Looking though the envelope he cut his visit short saying that he hoped our stay in Lebanon would be enjoyable.

The two remaining men looked more the part as to what I was expecting as they approached Mr. Hansen and Ms. Pearl. What was said I had no idea other than it was heated with the bearded one being upset. When the four of them finished talking my guards and I were escorted off the yacht and informed that our gear would be sent to our hotel. They had other plans for me saying they only had two hours to get in place before morning prayers.

The look of the buildings we drove past changed quickly revealing what I had expected when we arrived at the marina. When our guide pulled off the road it was not even to park in front of a building, instead he pulled into a deserted parking garage taking us all the way to the bottom of the structure. There were three other cars parked there none of them looked out of place compared to the Mercedes we were in. Getting out our guide said the first words since we had departed the yacht saying we had a short walk to the elevator that would take us up. Sven and my guards were serious in watching out for trouble but right then the only trouble was the open spaces the garage provided.

Thankfully, there were no issues and we were soon standing in the remains of an office building that fully looked like what I had expected back at the marina. With my guards, Ms. Pearl, Mr. Hansen as well as four men I did not know the room was crowded. Ms. Pearl took over at this point, telling the four men what she was expecting which drew looks of skepticism, as no one believed a thing she was saying.

When the bearded man asked if there was anything I needed I suggested we might want to have a couple of people down on the street starting rumors the mosque was housing chemical weapons. The looks I got back suggested they thought I was a con man. Asking how they would know when to start the rumors, I offered that they would know when the time was right.

The meeting broke up at that point with the two older men leaving after talking with the two that remained. I understood nothing about what was being said though Sven did. Talking to him later, he stated the two of them had to go open their shops like normal. With the lights lowered in their preparation room, I was shown into a second room overlooking a mosque to the south. The windows in the room had been shot out before and looking at the walls it was easy to see where the bullets had struck and never been repaired. The motif fit what I had seen driving here through darkened streets to get here; modern firepower meets the business world.

The hide I was shown was good. Plenty of debris in the room made finding the actual hide difficult yet for anyone hidden inside there was plenty of room and even better visibility. Taking a seat, I could even hear conversations down on the street as people walked below me. I had no idea what was being said but the words were clear enough that if I spoke Arabic or whatever language they were speaking I could understand what they were saying.

Moving my chair around I soon had an unobstructed line of sight to the private courtyard where I was told my target would be making his appearance for the mid-day prayer and sermon. Before then I wanted to make sure I had the range to lock on once my targets arrived. Looking at the people who were already working at the mosque cleaning and doing whatever else, I identified each of them by their body signatures, all were in range. Now all I had to do was wait for mid-day prayers.

Trying to take a nap proved to be problematic because as I stated before I could hear everything being said below me and before sunrise was the call to morning prayers. After the Morning Prayer was over, the streets started to fill up with people heading to their jobs or for more than a few doing business down in the street. All told, I spent a couple of hour's people watching.

How long I had to wait I had no idea but Sven did give me an I-pod with what he was saying were songs that would put me in the right mood for the work I was about to do. Trusting him I put my feet up and he was right as the first song to come up was 'Enter Sandman' only to be followed up by 'Burn it to the ground' there were other songs but by then I was so relaxed I was sound asleep.

The next thing I knew Sven was shaking my shoulder saying people were starting to arrive for the mid-day prayer. Looking at the people heading to the mosque I was thinking they were the early ones and as I watched, more men started to arrive. By the time cars were pulling into the private area, everyone who had stayed in the room were now seated in the hide along with my bearded spotter and myself.

When he announced the arrival of my target, everyone got quiet and waited to see what I was going to do to him. I could see Ms. Pearl as well as everyone else look at me strange when I did nothing to him there. What none of them knew was that as soon as his driver had his door open and he emerged from his car with his guards, I found his body signature and waited for him to go inside. My plan was to stop his heart once he was inside kneeling in prayer. My plan fell apart as soon as he was inside, as I had never tried to stay linked to one person when there were so many others surrounding him without a line of sight to help me maintain my link. With more than two hundred people inside, I was effectively jammed.

I could have just waited until the prayers and sermon was finished and he emerged again but from what the speaker was saying and being translated by Ms. Pearl I decided to take a more proactive approach as the hatred of the speaker was even annoying me. To get my target to show himself, I did what I was good at, blocking the power lines bringing power into the neighborhood. I blacked out everything I could touch and the first good thing that happened was the sermon that was being broadcast stopped in mid rant. Watching the streets below I could see curious people emerging from their homes to stand in the street looking around to see if they could discover what had happened. When nothing was immediately visible, they attempted to talk on their cell phones only to find they were also dead as I had drained them too. The situation was perfect as no one had a clue as to what was going on.

Turning my attention back to the parking lot of the mosque, I had to wait a while as the speaker did not stop his sermon immediately but when a couple people from outside went inside the little I could hear stopped and soon people started to emerge. When my target emerged, he was pointed out by my bearded companion. Focusing where he was pointing, I found him walking purposefully towards his car with his guards around him.

Finding his signal was easier this time, as I had already linked to him once. Not wasting time giving him a heart attack as had been my plan; instead, I had a new ability I had been working on. Instead of blocking a body's electrical signal giving the target a heart attack as I had done previously, I could now absorb the energy from a living being directly. The results from previous tests were most impressive as the animals (mostly fish around my island) simply stopped living. Down in the courtyard my target simply toppled over. His guards in front kept moving while the ones in back nearly stepping on him having no time to catch him as his collapse was so sudden.

What I had not anticipated in my experimentation back on my island was the concept that if I pulled the living energy from a being, their consciousness and their entire minds came with that energy. What I felt at first was confusion as my victim found himself not walking to his car as he last remembered, but was now standing in a building across the street, watching his body falling to the ground. The confusion soon changed to rage then to anger as he tried to figure out what had happened to him and who was responsible. His first thoughts of course were the Zionists, causing me to laugh thinking he was half-right as they had paid me to kill him.

Having heard me laugh at his thought he asked who I was and what had happened to him. Having no reason to be nice, as I had seen in his memories things he had done, I stated that the evil, which he had inflicted on others, would now only be a memory as his reign of terror on the people of Lebanon and Israel was ended. The rage and hatred I felt coming from his consciousness was powerful and for a moment, I felt as if I was losing the battle in my head. My advantage though was I had experience dealing with Peter and his consciousness so I channeled the rage into draining the life from his aide who was even now kneeling beside his boss's body and with nothing more than a thought. His lifeless husk of flesh toppled over on top of his leader.