Two Navy Guys Readers Group – Exclusive #3
The Pandora Deception
Mocímboa da Praia, Mozambique
It was well past midnight before the young prostitute made her way down the alley toward Rachel Jaeger. Rachel waited in the dark, hearing the distant pounding of the surf and the occasional roar of a plane taking off from the nearby airport.
The night was dark and humid and overlaid with a heavy, sweet smell from the battered dumpster a few meters away. As the girl picked her way down the littered alley, a small furry creature scurried across her path. The young woman did not flinch or cry out. Rachel crossed her arms and waited.
The woman stopped a few paces from Rachel. Like most of the prostitutes in the area, she was from Tanzania, working in Mozambique to send money home. Looking all of sixteen years old, she was half a head shorter than Rachel, with a long, lean frame and a generous bosom. She was dressed in neon-yellow hot pants and a matching halter top that left little to the buyer’s imagination. Her hair was braided, and when she turned to look behind her, Rachel saw a scar on her right cheek. She also noticed the young woman’s fierce expression.
Rachel relaxed a tiny bit. Whatever this woman’s motivations for being here, she was unafraid of the consequences.
“Neema?” she asked.
The woman’s smile of acknowledgment made a slash of white in the dimness of the alley.
“I have the information you seek.” She spoke in broken Portuguese, the official language of Mozambique. She pointed back toward the light at the end of the alley. Rachel took a step to the right so she could see the neon sign: estrella’s bar and restaurant. “He’s in there now, drinking, and alone. He likes this place. I sent all the other girls away for the rest of the night.” She smiled again. “He’s all yours.”
Rachel nodded, feeling a thrill of excitement race up her spine. Neema was involved in the two oldest professions on earth: prostitution and spying. The Mata Hari network in this region of Africa had originally been put in place by al-Shabab, a radical Islamist group, as a way to spy on corrupt police officers.
Rachel, a Mossad agent, had been looking forward to this particular job for a very long time.
“Tell me about him,” Rachel said. “Anything you know, even the smallest detail. His favorite drink, his preferences in bed. Anything.”
Neema grimaced. “You can’t miss Abdul. He takes the—” She mimicked a hypodermic being inserted into her biceps. “I don’t know what you call them. Muscle drugs.”
“Steroids?” Rachel asked.
The young woman shrugged and mimed big puffy muscles on her arms. “He has big strong muscles, but a very little prick.” She held her thumb and forefinger a few centimeters apart.
Rachel shared her laughter. “What else?”
Neema made the local crude hand sign for anal sex. “He is a pig. He hits the girls, too. He likes that.” She touched the scar on her cheek and her face twisted into a mask of fierce fury. “I’m glad you’re going to kill him.”
Rachel froze. Was that just an expression or did she understand what Rachel was here to do?
“Why do you say that?” she said as casually as she dared, wishing they had a better common language.
The young woman grinned again. “I know who you are.” She pointed at Rachel’s strapless black lace bustier, flaming red miniskirt, and four-inch high heels. “You are no prostitute. You not from here.”
Rachel allowed herself to take a beat. That admission alone was enough to kill the operation. If Neema knew, then there had to be others, possibly including her mark. She was alone in a strange city with no backup.
On the other hand, she had tracked this asshole for months, carefully figuring out the best way to get close to him. Leaving now would mean starting over, letting a known murderer walk free for another day.
Abdul Wenje and his al-Sunna gang were nothing but common thugs hiding behind a thin veil of Islamic rhetoric to extort money from local businesses. The murder of ten Israeli tourists on the Quirimbas Islands had more to do with real estate than religion.
Rachel was assigned to end him—but quietly. The last thing Mossad wanted was international headlines about revenge killings, no matter how justified.
As a lone operator, she had leeway to interpret the local conditions. Rachel decided to trust Neema. “Who else knows?”
The young woman shrugged. “The girls, we talk, we see things.” Her eyes flared. “But we do not say things.”
Rachel’s mind raced. The threads of intel that she had gathered to pull this op together were not reproducible. If Wenje slipped away tonight, it might be years before her agency had another chance at him. Years before those ten innocent tourists were avenged.
“Can I count on you to stay quiet?”
Neema’s braids, silhouetted in the light of the bar, swayed as she nodded. “Like I said, he is a pig. You are doing us a favor.”
Rachel reached into her tiny clutch purse for some money. Neema shook her head again. “This I do for free.”
Rachel forced the money into her hand. “Take it,” she said. “Divide it among the other girls, but stay quiet.”
Neema stuffed the bills into her bra. “Wait,” she said. “I fix.” She hooked a finger into Rachel’s bustier and tore the lace apart so the flesh of her breast squeezed out the side. Then, gripping the hem of her miniskirt, she ripped it open all the way to her hip. She stepped back to survey her modifications to Rachel’s disguise. “Now you look like one of us.”
Rachel watched Neema hurry away. If she was ever in a fight in a dark alley, she would want that one beside her.
The interior of Estrella’s Bar was as tacky and run-down as it looked from the outside. The place seemed to be in the midst of an identity crisis. With the Mozambique airport less than a mile away, it had the feel of a bar for weary business travelers. But it was also near the beach and tried to play on that theme with a spray of neon palm trees on the wall. Lastly, Estrella’s bordered a seedy neighborhood and gave off a dive-bar vibe.
Rachel paused in the doorway, peering through the thick clouds of cigarette smoke darkening the interior. Besides the neon palm trees, lighted signs for European beers penetrated the gloom as well as an advertisement for Tipo Tinto, the local rum.
She headed to the bar in a slow saunter, allowing her hips to roll suggestively underneath her now-ventilated miniskirt. She parked herself in the center of the bar between two men, a heavyset European who was sweating despite the air-conditioning and a large black man in a business suit.
She caught the bartender’s eye. “Rum and Coke,” she said as she extracted a pack of cigarettes from her clutch and put one between her painted lips. The bartender gave her a light and she sipped her drink.
She felt the two men on either side of her sizing her up, trying to decide if they wanted to make an offer. She smiled at the heavyset white man first.
“Good evening,” she said in Portuguese.
“Beautiful night,” the man responded in English. She shifted into his language.
“You are from Europe?” she said.
The man’s jowly face creased into a smile. “Scotland,” he said, as if his accent didn’t make that fact abundantly clear to her. “My company is bidding on a construction project at the airport. You speak very good English.”
Rachel nodded and let her eyes slide past him to a man sitting along the far wall. The man wore a short-sleeved, collared shirt, but he had rolled up the sleeves to his armpits to expose his biceps. Thick neck muscles sprouted from the shirt collar.
His eyes met hers for an instant and she took a pull of her cigarette before she looked away. He lifted a shot glass of brown liquid and drank it in one go. Wenje was a rum drinker, then.
Rachel turned back to the bar, flirting with the large black man on her right. He was a chemical engineer from South Africa in town to work on a water treatment project. He seemed in a hurry and made her an offer quickly. Rachel refused him and he departed.
She slid onto his vacated seat, leaving an open space between her and the Scot, who continued to chatter away. Another patron took the seat next to her and made an offer. She pretended to consider it, then countered with what she knew was a very high price.
The new john laughed in her face, calling her a whore in a loud voice as he left. Rachel flipped him off as he walked away, then ordered another drink.
It took nearly an hour for her mark to come off the back wall. He inserted himself into the space between her and the voluble Scot, who tried to lean forward to continue his conversation with Rachel.
Abdul Wenje glared at him. “Move on.”
The Scot paid his tab and left.
Rachel sighed and ran a finger down Wenje’s bulging biceps. “Impressive,” she said. “How often do you work out?”
“Every day,” he said. He twisted his arm so the triceps popped. “Sometimes twice a day.”
Rachel slid closer so the flesh of her exposed breast brushed against his biceps. “I like a man who takes his work seriously. Buy me a drink?”
His eyes narrowed. “I saw you refuse two offers tonight.”
Rachel took his newly poured shot of rum and drank it in one gulp. The liquid burned all the way to her stomach. “Tonight is my night off. I’m looking for something more than just money.” She leaned over and let her tongue trail along his biceps. “I was planning to walk the beach later . . . maybe you’ll join me.”
Wenje snorted and tossed back a shot of rum, but Rachel noted the way his pupils dilated and his posture stiffened.
She had him hooked. Now to reel him in.
“Another rum for me,” she said to the bartender. “He’s buying.”
Wenje looked at her sharply but said nothing. He gave a wolfish smile. “Why not?”
Rachel drank one more shot, then feigned drunkenness and spilled the next one. She laughed loudly at the mess, all the while sidling closer to Wenje. She rubbed her hand up his thigh. “I think I want to go to the beach now,” she whispered, nipping his ear with her teeth. Rachel stood, pretending to sway.
Wenje dropped some bills on the bar and seized her hand, causing Rachel to nearly trip in her ridiculous heels.
The street outside was deserted and quiet. Besides the tap of her own shoes, the only sound was the surf a few blocks away. The night air was humid and still, settling on Rachel’s bare shoulders like a thin damp blanket.
Wenje held her hand firmly and walked at a fast clip. They moved between pools of light from the few functioning streetlights. Rachel, still feigning drunkenness, clung to his meaty arm with her free hand.
At the corner, she leaned left, toward the beach, but Wenje pulled her to the right, deeper into the city.
Rachel balked. “I want to go to the beach,” she cooed. “It’s romantic.”
Wenje crushed her hand, then reached across to grip her free arm. He pulled her close enough for Rachel to smell the sourness of his breath. “Is there a problem?”
Her heart beat quickly, but she let her head droop and her words slur together as she replied. “The beach . . .”
Wenje released her arm. He slid his hand into the ripped side of her miniskirt and dug his fingers deep into the cleft of her buttocks. Rachel kept her face impassive as her stomach recoiled at the violation. Instead, she nuzzled his chest and moaned.
He withdrew his hand and reversed his direction, now drawing Rachel toward the beach.
Rachel’s instincts flared an alert. He was toying with her. Something was wrong.
“You’re hurting me,” Rachel said, trying to extract her arm from his grip. With her free hand, she fumbled with her clutch, trying to get at the tiny syringe inside. One quick stab of the needle and the bastard’s heart would stop for good.
Wenje ignored her. Midway along the block, between streetlights, he paused at the opening to a dark alley and gave a low whistle. There was a dragging sound; then a man stepped out of the shadows. He threw something at Wenje’s feet that made a wet, slapping sound as it hit the pavement.
It was a body. Rachel looked down, focusing on a yellow glow in the dark. With horror, she realized she was looking at Neema’s neon-yellow halter top.
She sensed more than saw Wenje’s fist swinging toward her. Rachel ducked and jammed the spike of her high heels into his instep, causing him to release her. With the second man, she wasn’t so lucky. He tackled her, driving her body back into the brick wall.
Rachel felt all the air leave her lungs and saw stars as her head cracked into the wall. She dropped both elbows onto his back as hard as she could, then launched a knee up into his face. His grip weakened, and she hammered her knee up in another strike. He slid to the ground.
Frantically, she ripped open the clutch purse, her fingers seeking the two-inch syringe hidden inside a tampon.
But Wenje was back in action. The big man loomed before her, his shadowed face a mask of fury. He gripped her throat with both hands and pressed her back against the wall. The clutch purse slipped from her hands as she tried to free herself.
She felt the skin on her back scrape away as he pressed her flat against the bricks and slid her upward. Rachel kicked at his chest, but it seemed to make no difference. She tried to claw at his eyes, but the big man had a longer reach and all she did was scrape at the flesh of his upper arms.
She gasped for breath, feeling her vision starting to tunnel. She tried to kick at his chest with her heels, but she had no leverage . . .
Heels. High heels.
Rachel twisted her leg up, clawing at the clasp on her shoes. She felt the blood vessels in her eye start to rupture. The clasp came free and she tore off the shoe.
Her strength was draining away. With all her remaining might, Rachel drove the tip of the four-inch heel into Wenje’s eye.
He screamed as he let her drop to the ground. The damp, foul air of Mozambique was the sweetest breath she had ever drawn. Rachel stripped off the other heel and clawed herself upright. A weeping Wenje staggered down the street. She stalked after him, feeling stronger with each step, the shoe still in her hand.
Wenje stopped, turning to face her, his fists up. “Who are you?” he yelled at her.
Rachel moved with a speed and fluidity born from years of training. She rushed him, seeing him telegraph his punch and ducking under it. She used the spiked heel to dig into his ribs, then stepped away.
Wenje lowered his hand to clutch the injury, and she struck again—this time delivering a roundhouse kick that dropped the big man to his knees. He jabbed out a fist. She let it slip past her, then kicked him in the teeth. He fell backwards and she leaped onto his chest.
“Who are you?” he said again. His right eye was a deep hole of welling blood, his left glassy with tears.
Rachel positioned the point of the heel under his chin.
“My name is Death,” she said in Hebrew. She used her fist to jam the heel up into Abdul Wenje’s skull.
Rachel rolled off the corpse, lying flat on her back in the dirty street. With a grunt, she got to her feet and went back to the alley.
Neema was dead, beaten to death. Wenje’s accomplice was unconscious. She felt along the ground for her lost clutch purse. The syringe hidden in the tampon was still there, as was the infrared flashlight. She needed that to signal her extraction team, waiting for her offshore.
Rachel drove the tip of the needle into the unconscious man’s neck and waited for his heart to stop.
Then Rachel got to her feet and walked toward the sound of the surf.
Copyright 2020 by David Bruns and J.R. Olson