Consent To Kill

27

Abel sat quietly at his desk. His office was on the third floor of a building built just prior to the start of WWI. The building, like much of Vienna, was a work of art. The immaculate baroque structure was made out of stone and marble. The roof was a patina covered copper and the fifteen-foot-tall plaster ceilings were decorated in ornate relief. It was well ordered, occupied mostly by business professionals. From his window Abel looked out onto Parliament and its monument to Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare. My, how mankind has changed in one century, he thought. No society that he knew of today would associate wisdom with war, let alone erect a statue in homage to the goddess of the latter. Abel continued looking at the golden-leaf headdress of the Greek goddess. Where was it all headed? he wondered.

Great civilizations rose and fell as surely as the tides. The Egyptians, the Incas, the Mayans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans, the Mongol empire, the Ottoman empire all came and went. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the French, the British, the Russians, and the Nazis would someday merit only a footnote. Who knew what waited for the Americans? The other superpower, the Soviet Union, had lasted less than a hundred years with their grand experiment of communism. A blink as far as history was concerned. If Abel had to guess, America's preeminence on the world stage would last no more than another hundred years. The country had too many rights and too much wealth. Not enough sacrifice. Too much selfishness. The civilizations that had made their mark did so through brutality or great self-sacrifice by the populace, and often both. The Chinese would become the next sole superpower. They were hungry for change. Such long-range forecasts were always interesting to him, but in the here and now he had more pressing issues.

There was a certain Saudi prince whom he no longer trusted. Abel drew his attention away from the statue of Athena and looked at the documents on his desk. They represented his complete financial picture. Based on the papers before him, the assassin had been right in his assessment. Abel was not liquid enough. His real estate holdings in Switzerland and Austria were worth approximately $3,000,000. He had an additional $1,200,000 in cash and securities that he could liquidate without too much difficulty. It was not enough to live on for very long if he was forced to run. At least not with the lifestyle he'd grown accustomed to. What the assassin did not know, however, was that Abel was pocketing a full half of the fee. To add to the $1,200,000 in securities he now had $5,000,000 in cash. With that type of money he could probably disappear for a while. If the assassin succeeded in killing Rapp he would get another $5,000,000. Now he was talking real money, but still the thought of leaving behind his current life was not appealing to him.

Abel was facing a real quandary. As things sat now he had to prepare for three possibilities. The first was that the assassin would succeed and the Americans would start beating the bushes in search of Rapp's killer. This was the best outcome. Abel felt confident that, short of capturing the assassin, there was no way the Americans could link him to any of this. He'd been very careful in covering his financial tracks. The second possibility, which he was not even confident that he could pull off, would be to kill the assassin after he completed the job. That approach could blow up in his face in a variety of ways, the worst of which would be the assassin not dying and hunting Abel down. So far the assassin had been ahead of him every step of the way. There was no logical reason for him to think that he could suddenly outwit this extremely capable man. The third contingency to prepare for was that he himself was already a target. It would be just like Prince Muhammad to have already hired someone to take care of him. Any feeling of loyalty he'd felt toward the prince, which was really nothing more than a professional obligation to perform the duties he was paid for in the best possible way, was now almost entirely gone. He had suspected it would someday come to this. From the very beginning he had known the score with the Saudis. Family and tribal members came first. It was time to part ways with Rashid. The trick would be to do it while still collecting the remainder of the fee and keeping his life. Beyond that he desperately wanted to hold on to his real estate possessions.

In the meantime he would have to plan for all three contingencies. First, he would see if he could get any more information from his old handler Dimitri. The former KGB spook had to know more about this assassin than simply a phone number and an e-mail address. If he could find out who the assassin was, matters would be greatly simplified. If the man succeeded in killing Rapp, he would be expecting another $5,000,000 for fulfilling the contract. Abel could probably get the Hungarians to kill him for $100,000, maybe $200,000 at the most. Abel could then pocket another $4,800,000 and sever his business relationship with Rashid in an amicable fashion. If he couldn't find out any more about the assassin he would simply have to tread very lightly until things blew over. He reached a conclusion about what he must do in the meantime.

Abel swiveled in his chair and tapped the space bar on his computer to get rid of the screen saver. His Internet browser popped to full color on his flat-panel monitor. His fingers remained poised above the keys for a second and then he began typing his message. He was well aware of the interception capabilities of the Americans, so he kept his prose businesslike and to the point. For now he would keep his options open, but he would be a fool if he didn't begin to take certain precautions. Once this e-mail was sent he would need to make himself scarce. Now was the perfect time to take a vacation.