Eves of Destruction Read online

  Copyright © 2009 Roy Berelowitz

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4392-5593-8

  Kindle ISBN: 978-1-61550-548-7

  EAN13: 9781439255933

  Visit www.booksurge.com to order additional copies.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A LOT OF PEOPLE helped me with this novel. My wife is an excellent sounding board to discuss ideas and provide objective and wise criticism, and my parents for always being a source of encouragement and inspiration. My sisters, Dr. Jo-Anne Berelowitz and Susan Berelowitz and many good friends took the time to read early drafts and provide excellent feedback and more importantly, encouragement to keep writing, including John Murphy, Robert Frackelton and Dr. Curt Condon. Mary Kuli and Marty Ortegon provided outstanding help with editing. Dr. Madonna Fernandez was an excellent source of medical expertise as was my brother, Dr. Mark Berelowitz who provided the initial suggestion that made this story possible.

  Dedicated to the ones I love.

  Michelle, Adam and Michael.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  BEFORE THE BEGINNING

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Something wicked this way comes.

  Macbeth

  William Shakespeare

  The nation calls upon the FBI to protect its citizens.

  We at the FBI will always answer that call.

  We remain committed to accomplishing that mission.

  John S. Pistole

  Deputy Director

  Federal Bureau of Investigation

  BEFORE THE BEGINNING

  THE LARGE WOMAN stood impassively in the doorway, her fat fleshy arms folded across her ample bosom. Her body was covered in an ill-fitting faded blue uniform that stretched uncomfortably across her chest and hung below her knees. She stared absentmindedly into the distance, until her eyes focused on a cloud of dust gathering behind the black sedan speeding towards her along the dirt road. She tensed, and then shuddered slightly, involuntarily.

  The sedan bounced along the dirt road and skidded to a stop outside the doorway. The uniformed driver climbed out and quickly ran around the car to open the rear door for his passenger. The passenger climbed out, strode directly towards the doorway and stopped in front of the woman beneath a faded sign with Cyrillic writing that said: ‘Orphanage 132’.

  “Welcome Comrade-” the woman began, affecting the best gapped toothed smile she could.

  “Where is she?” the man asked, brusquely.

  “This way, Comrade,” she said, pointing a fat finger down a corridor.

  The corridor was long and dark. The floor was covered in black linoleum, shiny once perhaps, but now well worn and ripped in places exposing the gray concrete floor below. At the end of the corridor, diffused sunlight struggled through a dirty window; the only other illumination was provided by the few light bulbs still working. The paint on the walls and ceiling, once white, had turned yellow, and large patches of paint were cracking and flaking. A small dark entrance hall separated the two wings of the long building. One wing, on the eastern side of the building, was comprised of classrooms with rows of wooden desks. If the visitor had cared to look inside, he would have seen that behind the desks sat young children, most of them between five and twelve years of age. They were quiet, the kind of unnatural quiet that comes from strict and harshly applied discipline.

  But the visitor did not look. He did not even notice that outside one of the classrooms a small boy stood facing the wall, his face and the wall barely an inch apart. The boy’s back was straight, his thin arms held stiffly by his side. He was slowly clenching and unclenching his hands, but he was careful not to move his arms or feet. Large tears slowly rolled down his cheeks, wetting his upper lip.

  The west wing was made up of large dormitories closer to the center of the building, and a few offices at the far end. The dormitories were sparse and stark. Each bed was perfectly aligned, blankets neatly folded. The walls in the dormitories were completely bare save for one large picture above each row of beds in every dormitory. The eyes of the personage in the picture were dark and without warmth, although the mustache that split his face slightly softened his appearance.

  The man strode purposefully down the west wing in the direction the matron pointed. His beige suit looked as if he wore it everyday, which he did. It was crumpled with large sweat stains under both armpits, the cloth thinning around the pockets. He moved down the corridor at a speed that belied his girth, shoes squeaking with every step. Behind him, the fat pasty-faced woman followed anxiously, skipping every few steps to keep up.

  “Is this the room?” the man said, stopping at the last doorway in the corridor. The sign on the door said ‘Director’.

  “Yes, Comrade,” the woman said heavily, panting.

  The man turned the handle and pushed the door open. The room was an office, utilitarian and sparsely furnished with one metal frame desk and one upright office chair behind the desk. Two rusty filing cabinets lined one wall. In the middle of the room was a faded, thin rug covering some of the black linoleum. Above, a single unshielded light bulb hung from the ceiling on a long black cord.

  Two small children stood in the middle of the room, a strong handsome little boy of about eight or nine and behind him, a little blond girl, about three years his junior. The boy was dressed in dark washed out shorts, a long sleeved shirt missing its breast pocket, and shoes at least two sizes too large for him. His socks did not match. The little girl wore a dress with faded flowers, one side of which hung, apparently unnoticed, off her shoulder.

  The boy stood firmly, eyes fixed on the man in the doorway. The little girl whimpered, barely audible, behind him.

  “What is this?” said the man, turning to the woman. “I told you we are just taking the girl.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the women anxiously affirming his statement. “I thought I would have them both ready for you… in case-”

  “In case what?” said the man, cutting her off.

  “Myda!” he shouted out, looking past the boy at the little girl. The child did not reply.

  “Myda?” the man said again, turning questioningly to the woman.

  “Is this the girl?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the woman. “Come here, child,” she said harshly, directing her small, unpleasant eyes at the little girl, and beckoning with a fat index finger.

  “No,” said the boy. “She stays with me.”

  “Come here now,” the woman shouted, as she reached towards the little girl.

  The boy took a step back, avoiding the fat woman’s hands, s
hielding the little girl.

  “No,” he said again. “She stays with me.”

  The man stepped forward and roughly pushed the boy aside, knocking him to the ground. The little girl cried out as the man grabbed her right hand in his and then swung her into his arms.

  “No,” the boy shouted as he jumped to his feet. “No, she stays with me.”

  But the man had already turned and begun to walk out of the room into the corridor. The boy rushed to-wards him, but the fat woman blocked his path with her large rear end as she too turned towards the door.

  The little girl struggled in the man’s arms and called out to her brother, “Vladi.” “Vladi please…,” as her crying made her words indistinct.

  The man continued to walk down the corridor, striding purposefully, ignoring the girl’s plaintive cries. The woman skipped behind him, blocking the boy’s efforts to get around her. The man reached the entrance hall and kicked the door open with his foot, stepping quickly outside.

  The boy pushed past the fat woman and stumbled through the doorway. By now the man had moved to-wards the large black sedan. The uniformed driver held open the back door and the man climbed swiftly in, pushing the little girl before him. The driver closed the door, rushed around the car, and climbed in. He started the car and immediately pressed the gas pedal, causing the tires to squeal as they bit the dry earth, sending up a cloud of dust and gravel.

  The boy stood still, ignoring the pebbles bouncing off him, his face and body slumping dejectedly. The woman stood behind him, a smug and satisfied look on her face, her fat arms resting on her wide hips. As the car drove off, the little girl stood up in the back and looked out through the rear window, crying out to her brother. He could not hear her, but he could see her, her sad despairing face.

  “Now get back inside,” said the fat woman to the boy. “You will never see her again, so you might as well forget about her.”

  The boy ignored the woman, his eyes focused on the rapidly disappearing car. She grabbed at him, but he ducked quickly away and turned back towards the building.

  CHAPTER 1

  IT WAS A TRAP. She was sure of it.

  There were five of them standing in the hot dusty courtyard, four men and one woman, each in combat boots, khaki pants, standard issue side arms, and an assortment of T-shirts and hats. Two of the men were wearing ankle holsters with small 38 caliber pistols hidden under the cuffs of their trousers. The woman was tall with a strong athletic frame, her blond hair pulled into a short and tight pony tail beneath her cap. Despite the expensive wrap around sunglasses she and most of the other civilians and soldiers in the camp wore, she squinted slightly against the harsh glare of the noon sun.

  Surrounding the courtyard was a series of mud brick buildings common in the rural areas of Afghanistan. The buildings and courtyard were in turn surrounded by a five foot high wall, also built of mud bricks and straw. The wall was generally intact except for a few gaps where it had obviously been shattered by explosives. The exterior of the wall was stacked with rows upon rows of sand-bags. Beyond the sandbags was a huge sand berm rising almost ten feet high, covered with deep coils of barbed wire stretched out ten feet beyond its base. The compound had the air of a fortress under siege which it was; it had been attacked on numerous occasions sometimes with drive by shootings, occasionally by small mortar rounds and often by snipers. Each successive base commander had ordered additional hardening features to provide added security to the forces stationed there.

  The compound, which sat in a vast open plain close to the mountains of eastern Afghanistan had once been the domain of a minor Afghan warlord and his extended family, surrounded by lush orchards of pomegranates and grapes, but when the Soviet army had dropped napalm and seeded his fields from the air with thousands of batwing shaped landmines, injury, death and then starvation had forced them to escape to Pakistan. The landmines remained a danger to US troops and at least two soldiers had been injured not far from the compound in the last week. Strict orders were issued to keep soldiers from walking into unsafe areas.

  Loosely arranged around the courtyard was a range of military equipment and vehicles including a large mobile water tank, two Humvees, one tracked troop carrier and two small pickup trucks. About fifty yards beyond the perimeter wall, two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters sat squat on the ground with their rotors tied down and engine panels removed. One group of mechanics was huddled around one of the Black Hawks while the other was unattended. Both helicopters were also surrounded by huge walls of sand almost ten feet high and dense rows of concertina wire with one small gap to allow access to and from the aircraft.

  On top of every building was a sandbagged guard tower with two mounted machine guns, one high powered search light and two army Rangers. In front of one of the guard towers was a crude and faded hand painted sign that said, ‘Welcome to Camp Doug Hughes.’ No one in the camp ever knew who Doug Hughes was; the first Army Ranger to die at the compound early in the Afghan war. The current set of soldiers had rotated into Afghanistan long after his battalion rotated out and now everyone referred to the outpost as Camp Huge, a name very popular with the young troopers.

  “Look,” said Casey, the woman in the group. “We really need to follow protocol here. The rest of the team is already out conducting a search mission, so we only have the five of us. The Ranger escort is with them and we can’t take the remaining Rangers with us because that will leave this position unprotected. Anyway, how are we going to get there? Both Black Hawks are out of service and the rest are with the Rangers.”

  “No, you look,” said the man directly opposite her, jabbing his forefinger in the air at her. “We have a bona fide lead here from a local that a senior Al Qaeda leader is in the vicinity. If we just sit around on our candy asses waiting for the others to get back, he could be fucking who knows where by then. I say we go and we go now!”

  Peter Mulos, the temporary Special Agent in Charge or SAC glared at Casey. He was a chartered public accountant who, despite his best efforts to toughen up his appearance, still looked like a stereotypical desk jockey approaching middle-age. He wore thick glasses, had soft hands and a slight paunch which he endeavored to hide as much as possible. He had arrived in Afghanistan only three weeks prior and his pasty white skin had quickly burned bright red and was only beginning to deepen to the dark farmer’s tan common to everyone else in the camp.

  Mulos had spent most of his career in the FBI achieving moderate success chasing down white color criminals, but had finally arranged a transfer to a unit tasked with finding Al Qaeda terrorists. He knew, and everyone around him knew, he was completely out of his element. He had neither the experience nor aptitude to be assigned to investigative work in Afghanistan except for one unusual talent: he spoke Pashto fluently. His father had been an official stationed in Afghanistan with USAID, an independent federal government agency tasked with helping disadvantaged countries. Mulos and his family had lived in Kabul for almost seven years until he was fourteen years old and although he had attended an American school, at his father’s urging he had learned to speak fluent Pashto, a fact he had kept mostly to himself until the attacks on the World Trade Center. He quickly realized his special language skill could land him better assignments and more promotional opportunity but despite his language skills, his lack of field experience had kept him out of the best assignments. Only a lack of qualified resources at the FBI had finally brought him to Afghanistan and he had been left temporarily in charge of this group due to his seniority in the FBI. He was absolutely determined to demonstrate he merited the assignment.

  Casey lowered her voice just slightly, trying to ease the tension as she responded. “If we go now, we go in with no backup, no extraction team and no air transport so we’re going to have to hump the last bit to even get there. Shit, by the time we get there it will be way after dark.”

  There was a pause as the four men said nothing and then Mulos responded, his mouth curling into a sneer, voice dripping with
sarcasm.

  “Are you afraid of the dark little girl? Fine, then you can stay here with the rest of the Rangers. We,” he said as he pointed to the other three men, “are going now.”

  Even as he uttered the words, he realized he had made a mistake. His eyes widened and his mouth opened almost as if to retract his comment but it was too late and the words hung uncomfortably in the air.

  The color drained from Casey’s face as she glared at him. There was a brief moment of silence as the three other men either looked down at the ground or shuffled their feet nervously. Her face set and lips tightly pursed, Casey tore off her sunglasses and stepped forward, leaning into his face, their noses barely six inches apart.

  “I don’t know what rock you just recently climbed out from under but don’t you ever presume to talk to me like that again. Do you understand me?”

  She remained in place, her face filling his field of vision and paused for a moment before repeating the question louder, almost shouting.

  Peter Mulos tried to hold her gaze, but blinking rapidly he turned slightly and then looked away. He found most women intimidating and Casey in particular made him feel more uncomfortable than most.

  “Whatever,” he mumbled as he tried to square his shoulders and pretended to ignore her challenge. He could not think of anything to say and realized what he had said was completely inappropriate. He noticed one of the other agents was slowly shaking his head and looking at him with an unsympathetic smirk.