AUSTRALIA: The Puppeteer (The Puppets of Washington Book 2)

Chapter 2

Chapter 2One could say that Mark Gilford, a Canadian Secret Intelligence Service agent, was an attractive fellow. Not effeminate by any stretch of the imagination, his boyish face, blond hair and blue eyes hid the unyielding character of a marksman of note. Always dressed in the latest fashion, if transposed in another time or another place, Mark would have been seen as the perfect Clubbing Dandy of days gone by. He looked oh so benign but was oh so deadly.

He was on his way to Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. when Dr. Aziz Hendrix, Talya’s longtime friend and physician, caught up with him in front of the hotel, waiting for a taxi. “Did you say they have gone back to Australia?” Aziz asked.

“At least that’s what I think. I haven’t received any confirmation from Chief Gibson yet, but to me, I think Mossad wants some answers,” Mark replied as he saw a cab pulling to the curb. “Are you coming?”

“Sure...,” Aziz said, grabbing his suitcase and putting it in the boot of the taxi besides Khalid’s.

When both men were seated in the back of the cab, Mark resumed, “I’ve had time to think about this whole affair since the trial started and what stuck in my mind was that Talya didn’t want to recognize Samuel when we picked him up in Georgia.”

“But she explained that...,” Aziz countered.

“Not to us, Aziz, not to us—she never admitted knowing him until she was shot—and it took her some time to admit to their earlier relationship. And I only learned of the relationship when Agent Lypsick and I interviewed Samuel in Vancouver when he first arrived in the city.”

Aziz nodded. “And it’s only when the Sydney police interviewed a friend of Talya in Melbourne that the relationship came to light.”

“And another thing,” Mark said, “Do you remember how she reacted when I planted my gun in Samuel’s ribs?”

“She was furious.”

“Yes.” Mark nodded. “Precisely. Most people would have objected saying, “...but I know this guy..., he’s a friend...” or some such thing. That would have been the normal reaction—but no, Talya didn’t say anything and that to me sounded suspicious as soon as we learned who this guy was.”

“What do you think they’ll do to her if Mossad decides they’re really traitors?” Aziz’s face betrayed his anxiety. He didn’t want to contemplate the retributive actions that could be exacted on traitors of Israel.

“Let’s not think of that, Aziz. Besides, Mossad did everything they could to clear their names, although that was partly a political move on their part; they wanted to show the Saudi royal family that they lay no blame on them for any of it.”

“Yeah, that must have been a bit of a tricky situation for our Princes Khalid and Abdullah, I should think.”

“And it was, Aziz, it was. When they offered protection to Talya on a few occasions, these moves could have been construed as enlisting the help of an Israeli traitor to send faulty armaments to Gaza.”

Aziz looked out the side window. He could not reply. He knew Mark was right on all counts. Prince Khalid could have enlisted Talya’s assistance in not only having Ishmael Assor send faulty armaments to Gaza but also to blur the tracks so that no one would find out she was an Israeli agent. Yet, it could have gone the other way round. When he, Aziz and James Flaubert, the President of Carmine Resources, first called on Khalid to help Talya out of a depression, the prince came to Talya’s rescue and did everything in his power to shelter her from the CIA’s reprisals. Was the prince aware of the CIA’s operations in West Africa from the start? That was a question that had never been answered properly as far as Aziz was concerned.

As for Mark, that question had found its answer when he and Prince Khalid interviewed Muhammad Sadir in Vancouver. The latter accused the prince to play both sides against the middle. Prince Khalid Saif Al-Fadir was aware of the CIA’s operation from the time his father and a drug lord named Osnoir began the exchange of drugs for provision of armaments to the Middle East.

Both men were now on their way to Ottawa. Mark was due for a debriefing at CSIS and Aziz would wait for his connecting flight in Toronto and be on his way back to Vancouver a few hours later.