Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (diy ebook reader TXT) 📕

I could have been caught with my pants down. Those Americans excelled at finding financial transactions, even if they were well hidden. That was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. The drugs, on the other hand, were far harder to locate, especially once it reached the streets. The money from those drugs was yet another story. It was usually transferred to anonymous accounts on far-away islands.

“How long are you staying for?” I asked, after exchanging a warm hug.

“As long as it is required,” he answered, with a mysterious smile.

“One can never get a straight answer out of you,” I said. And then I added, more seriously, “I need to know how to contact you. It has happened before that I have left messages and you haven’t returned my calls. Someone too high on drugs to make sense answered the call or you weren’t available.”

“I will call you. I don’t see the problem here.”

“The problem is that at the moment, I am left with excess merchandise. Because of the kid, I am being forced to hide. The rifles aren’t available, and I’ll need a few days heads-up to source them, and need to know how to contact you.”

“I don’t like it at all!” he said. The madness in his eyes was more prominent than ever. The blue eyes were open wide, and his reddish beard only accentuated the redness of his corneas.

“There is nothing to get excited about,” I answered, as calmly as I could. “In the meantime, take this.” I gave him an untraceable disposable cell phone. “This will be our line of communication for the next few days.”

He reached out and took it without looking at it, then threw it with disgust onto the nearest couch.

After a second he stood and walked over to the elegant desk standing in the corner of the room. “I hate devices which allow the world to monitor me,” he said, and took out a yellow pad, wrote something down on it, tore off the page and gave it to me. “This will be our communication line when I call on you.”

I looked at the piece of paper. It was just his signature. “Why would you call on me? I am telling you that in a couple of days everything will work out. At most a week. I will contact you.”

“Our timetable is not flexible at all.” He still complained in the same spoiled tone he had used his whole life when talking to people. “A week late or even a day late would be a total disruption of our plans, and I don’t like it at all.”

“In two or three days the container should be arriving and twenty-four hours after disembarking you will have the weapons.”

I expanded the timetable a bit, to gain some time to solve another problem -- the one that might occur with the Red Mafia. I preferred to think positively. “In the meantime,” I pointed at the kid, “I have a bonus for you.”

“What have you brought us?” His British accent, acquired from the exclusive boarding school he went to, gave him a disdainful tone. “I prefer women…” He said the word ‘women’ but he looked at the boy calculatingly, as if he was the card that cinched the deal in a winning hand.

“I know…” I went along with him. “I have already organized a few women for you…” I said as if I hadn’t already known for years his habits of preferring women, in order to beat them brutally. If he wasn’t a friend and such a predictable client, I wouldn’t have sent him the little whore from Texas, the one that helped the kid escape from the casino. I wanted to tell him that the kid was not a sex toy, but that would have been too big a hint. Instead I added, “He is an excellent hacker. You are smart, Yassin,” I said, complimenting him. “Think about information you lack for your mission and he will find it for you. And he has another advantage -- he is Israeli. He speaks their language.”

“Can he get into their sites, to their timetables, to their secrets?” His question was directed toward me but all the while, he was devouring the boy with his stare.

I began to think that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, because the boy could get hit on the head and become useless so I quickly added, “He will do as you say. The boy will stay with you until the weapons arrive. He will be your insurance against us being late. In a few days everything will have calmed down, you will have your weapons and I will get the kid back.” Just to make clear that I expected to get the kid back in good shape, I added, “I see him as your guest, Yassin.” For emphasis, I lifted the little cup of bitter black coffee, took a little sip, and said, “So you have a few days to make use of his abilities.”

“And if after the ‘few days’ I would like to keep using him?”

“In that case my friend, unfortunately, I would have to refuse you. The boy has already been promised to my Russian friend who is looking for unobtainable information.”

“Is he that good?”

“Try him and see. Try him.” I got up from my seat and gathered myself to leave. The boy looked at me, frightened, as if I was his big brother leaving him with a strange neighbor in the middle of the night. “As soon as I can, I will notify you where to come to retrieve the weapons and then you’ll return the boy to me.”

“What happens if I don’t hear from you?”

“In that case,” I smiled, “I have left you another kind of weapon.” I pointed at the kid. “You have paid, and he is yours. You can do whatever you want with him.”

“No!” he answered, dissatisfied. “Your rifles are integral to start the procedure and the procedure is complicated enough as it is, so