Jeff finds himself in Washington DC on business trying to close a big deal for his company where he meets up with Nancy again, the FBI agent he had fallen in love with in Atlanta nearly two years ago. Jeff is separated from his wife because of Nancy
Chapter 18 of
Monday 2:48 PM: The Deal
Jeff has been
kidnapped, taken to the Iranian embassy (they
have an embassy?). He sees his wife, then he figures out that his Hilton
room was bugged and the Iranians have hired an assassin! Now they are offering him five million dollars to kill the
deal!
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- Chris Lamela
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Author contact: Chris Lamela,
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K Street, Chapter 18
Monday
2:48 PM: The Deal
Soon the car slowed to normal city speeds. Jeff looked out the back
window again expecting to see his cab following them, but there was nobody, not
a car to be seen following them.
The man who had pushed Jeff into the car finally turned to face Jeff
holding a black cloth bag in his hand, “Put this on!”
Jeff took the bag looking at it in wonder, put this on?
“Over your head.”
“I’m not putting that over my head!”
The driver’s bearded face looked around glancing at Jeff with an
encouraging expression telling Jeff to follow along but Jeff only returned a
defiant face.
The man on Jeff’s right put his hand into his coat, his hand reappearing
holding a gun pointed at Jeff.
Jeff put up his hands defensively, “Oooooh, yes, over my head!” opening
the bag pulling it over his head.
A minute later he could hear the car slowing, turning right. It stopped,
he could hear what sounded like the hum of an electric gate outside. He could
feel the car pulling forward turning left, stopping. Car doors opening, the
door to his right opened, he could sense the man to his right getting out.
“Take bag off head.” Jeff reached up pulling it off, the man waved to him
to get out. Jeff climbed out of the car looking around the dark garage with only
four cars parked neatly in a row, no other cars in the huge garage. He glanced
at the license plates seeing diplomatic plates, Republic of Iran
Oh, god, the Iranians kidnapped
me!
The man who sat next to Jeff motioned for him to raise his hands,
patting Jeff down, Jeff turning so he could pat his chest.
He would have found a found the
gun, good call Nancy
They walked forward to the building. Jeff was surprised at the two men’s
casual demeanor given that they had just kidnapped him. The driver, a handsome
man with a very affirmative manner with his erect posture and mannerisms,
sporting a short dark beard, pulled out a security card sweeping it by a small
black rectangle embedded in the door frame, the door clicked. He turned to Jeff
giving him an almost warm nod, turned through the door going inside. Jeff
turned to the second man behind him who motioned Jeff to follow.
Soon they were on an elevator stopping at the third floor, the doors
opened. The same sequence happened, Jeff ended up walking between the two men down
a brightly-lit hallway that could have been in any business park, turning right
through a door. Jeff turned into the door, finding himself standing in a large
spacious office with a man sitting behind a large mahogany desk, another man sitting
in front of the desk on the right, it seemed their entry interrupted a
conversation. Jeff stepped into the office, glanced behind him seeing light
gray aluminum horizontal mini-blinds stretched across a large window that went
from the door frame the length of the office, blocking the hallway from view.
His kidnappers followed him into the room standing at the door.
The man behind the desk stood up with a warm expression, “Ah, our guest
of honor!” Without coming around the desk or even holding out a hand he pointed
to the chair in front of the desk, “Please, sit down, we have a lot to
discuss.”
Jeff walked to the back of the chair, standing with a stern expression,
“Where’s my wife?”
“Please sit down, sit down.”
“I won’t sit down until you tell me where my wife is.”
The man gave a big smile, “She is safe, she is just down the hall. You
will see her presently, but first we must get to know each other, we have a lot
to talk about.”
Without moving, Jeff’s expression hardened, “I won’t do anything until I
see my wife!”
The man sat down with an exasperated sigh, “You Americans are all the same.
So demanding!” He looked to the two men standing at the door, spoke to them in
Farsi, the man with the beard left the room.
“I will tell you what, we will let you have a little visit so you can
see that she is safe. Will that help to calm you down so we can talk?”
He spoke to the other man at the door in Farsi, back to Jeff, “Follow my
man there, we will give you five minutes, but then you must come back here so
we can talk.”
Jeff turned to the other man at the door, followed the man out turning
right down the hallway. A few seconds later they were walking up to a door on
the left, the door open, the man with the beard standing next to it, his right
hand out directing Jeff to the door. As he turned the corner Donna looked up,
“Jeff!” bursting into tears she jumped up running to him, “Jeff! Oh honey, they
took me!” running into his arms sobbing.
He held her stroking her hair, she was wrenching in tears, chest heaving
crying, “Oh, Jeff, what’s going on, what have you gotten yourself mixed up in?
Why are they doing this?”
They stood for a couple minutes until finally her crying was quelled by
his soft stroking of her head on his shoulder, his soothing there-there.
He gently pulled her to a chair, sitting her down, kneeling before her,
“Donna, I don’t know what’s going on, nobody does.” He turned to the bearded man
standing at the door, “Can we get just a minute, please?” The man didn’t
respond, “Please?” The man nodded slowly turning to the door stepping out
closing the door behind him.
Jeff leaned into his wife with his lips to her ear, “Listen to me
carefully, they’re only going to give us a couple more minutes.” She sniffed
wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “You know about the things we make
at Versatec,” she sniffled, nodded, “well there is a sale that we made that
these guys really don’t want us to deliver. They are doing all sorts of bad
things to try to stop it. I am sure that if they wanted to kill us they already
would have.”
She looked down to him shocked, “Kill us, you mean kill us?”
“Look that’s not important right now. I don’t know why, but I have this
feeling that they intend to release both of us.”
“When?”
“Today maybe, or soon anyway. But I think today. I think they are doing
all this because they think that’s the only way to get our attention.” She
nodded trying to follow. “So the important thing is to follow their
instructions, try to be nice to them.” He sat up, stroked his chin with his eyes
looking over Donna’s head, back into her eyes, “I think that this is all going
to be okay. But you need to be patient.” He leaned in with a voice so soft she
could hardly hear him, “The FBI is on this, they are trying to figure this
out,” pulling back in a louder voice, “so we just have to be brave to get
through this, okay?”
The door opened behind Jeff, he leaned forward giving Donna a small peck
on the lips, “Be brave, okay?” She nodded, he stood up, turned to the bearded
man, “I’m coming, thanks for giving us a minute.” He looked down to Donna
trying to signal that’s how she should be with these guys, she gave just the
tiniest nod of understanding him.
“Okay, I’ve got to go talk to these guys. I’ll be back, are you all
right for now?”
She sniffed nodding, “I love you Jeff, I’m so sorry about last night. Thanks
for coming to rescue me.”
He smiled at her reassuring, glad that she didn’t know that he had no
choice in the matter, turned going back out the door, hearing it close behind
him.
A minute later he was sitting in the chair facing the desk, his host in
front of him.
“Okay, my friend, are you satisfied that your wife is okay?”
“Yes, thank you for letting me see her.” Jeff looked at the man sitting
next to him, back to the man behind the desk. “So why am I here, why did you
kidnap my wife?”
“First, let’s get to know each other, then you will see why what we have
done makes sense.” Jeff shook his head incredulous that this could possibly
make sense.
“My name is Omar Shenkl, this
is my brother Abdul.” Abdul turned offering his hand to Jeff who reluctantly
took it, shaking hands. “And where are my manners?” Omar stood up reaching his
hand across the desk, Jeff stood to shake hands with Omar over the desk. The
enthusiasm of Omar’s motions surprised Jeff, like he was an excitedly-anticipated
guest. Jeff sat back down utterly dumfounded by what was happening. He looked
at this man with his dark brown complexion speaking in perfect American
English.
“You have already guessed, I am sure, that we are from Iran America Cambridge
“So I don’t get it, I saw your cars in the garage with embassy plates,
but the U.S. has no
diplomatic relations with Iran
“Yes,” Omar laughed, “no formal diplomatic
relations, yet we still have an embassy here. Not much really, the two of us, a
secretary, a few other hangers on. You already met my two assistants. So yes,
there are diplomatic relations of sorts. I am the ambassador, such as I am. Even
your government knows that old saying keep
your friends close but keep your enemies closer. So we have a full embassy
here, just without the full embassy staff.” Jeff shook his head in amazement at
this news.
“So the reason why you came to our attention is that you are selling
certain items to our good neighbors in Iraq
Finally Abdul turned to Jeff, “You see, we have engaged another party to
try to stop this sale, but they are conducting themselves quite poorly.” Jeff
was amazed at the crisp British accent coming from this man, realizing that he
had his university education at Cambridge
“Who is this other party you’re talking about?”
Omar raised his hands to deflect the question, “The point is,” in an
exaggerated kindly voice, “we think that there are other ways to solve this
problem that doesn’t involve going around killing people.”
“And how is that?” Jeff tried to sound as casual as he could even though
he was awfully glad to hear that
going around killing people was a bad thing.
“We look at it simply,” he nodded to his brother, “that we simply need
to find ways to motivate people to act in our best interest.”
“How would that be?”
“We know that your company is delivering six systems worth of avionics
for the airplanes going through Saudi
Arabia
“So I’m here because…”
“You’re here because we believe we can motivate you to stop this
delivery.”
“How, by kidnapping me and my wife?”
Omar shook his head sadly, aware that he wasn’t getting through, “No,
and I apologize, but how else were we going to get this meeting with you? Call
you to ask you to come here?”
“So I’m here.”
“Yes, and we know that you must be a very smart man to have accomplished
all you have, we truly admire the quality of your equipment, as much as we know
about it.”
“So where is this going?”
“Quite simple. You love your wife, right? We know about your little tiff
with her last night but we are certain that you still love her.” Little tiff? How on earth could they
possibly know about what happened in his hotel room last night? He could feel
that it was coming to a head.
“We expect that such a handsome man would naturally invite another woman
to his room, one just after you have seen your wife, ah, yes, remarkable, but
we are all men here, right? But you do love your wife, right?”
“Yes, I still love her, she still loves me,” Jeff played along wondering
again how they knew so much about what went on in is room last night but he was
too confused to think about it right now.
“So our offer is simple. We will pay you not to deliver the equipment.”
“What do you mean pay me?”
Omar motioned to his brother who pulled out a big white envelope with what
looked like a contract attached to it with a paper clip.
“It’s simple. We will pay you five million dollars to go back to your
factory to tell them the deal is off.”
Jeff’s eyes bulged in confused anger, “I can’t do that! I have a factory
back there, I have people employed building that equipment. What the hell are
you saying!”
Omar shook his head in a tisk-tisk manner, “Please don’t tell me we are
all the way back to square one.”
“I can’t take the money. I can’t cancel the contract. It’s illegal, at
least I am pretty sure for me to cancel that contract, and it is certainly
illegal for me to take money from you no matter what it’s for.”
“Do you love your wife?”
“I told you yes.”
“Do you know what will happen to her if you refuse this offer?”
Terror ripped through Jeff, he felt himself trembling, “You wouldn’t.”
“We will do whatever it takes to
make sure my country’s most mortal enemy does not receive your equipment.
Anything.”
The two brothers turned signaling each other.
“We will leave the room, you will have one minute to decide.” He
motioned to his brother who took the packet from the desk laying it in Jeff’s
lap. They both stood up, walked out the door, closing it behind them.
Jeff sat with his hands in his lap, his head down for an eternity, he felt
the room collapsing on him, burying him, crushed under the weight of the
ceiling, the walls. Listlessly he looked at the paper in front of him. Eight
lines of text with a signature line, his name neatly printed below the line.
The door opened, the two men came back in taking their seats again.
“So, do we have a deal?”
Jeff nodded.
A white-tipped pen was presented to him. Jeff scribbled his name.
“And the date, please,” Jeff scribbled the date.
“One more formality,” Omar motioned to Abdul who produced an ink pad,
presenting it to Jeff, “your thumbprints please, just a formality so that
anyone will know that this was not forged.”
Jeff inked each thumb, pressing them onto the page next to his
signature.
“So what, do I carry out a suitcase of cash?”
“Oh, no, that is so old-fashioned. The envelope,” Omar signaled Jeff to
open it which he did, sliding out ten pieces of what looked like stock
certificates, “contains ten five hundred thousand dollar negotiable Bearer
Bonds.” He smiled, “That is certainly easier than carrying around two hundred
pounds of hundred dollar bills, don’t you think?”
Amid spoke up, “That is what we paid the other―”
Omar snapped at his brother, they had a quick heated exchange in Farsi, both
turned back to Jeff with tense smiles.
Jeff felt exhausted, “So what
are the other terms?”
“Simple, we will let you and your wife go today, right now in fact, you
will go back to Seattle to say that the contract has been canceled then try to
find somewhere else to sell your equipment. We know that there will be lots of
takers. The reputation of your systems is quite remarkable.”
Abdul turned to Jeff, “And of course, if you don’t we will manage to
make sure that your little contract gets into the wrong hands, of course you
will probably be put up by your media as a traitor and it will ruin your life
and destroy your family.”
Jeff slid the bonds back into the envelope.
“Can I go now?”
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K STREET!
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