Black Jade

By Michael Fay

What if the Palestinians gain access to a technologically advanced
weapon that shoots down aircraft with impunity?
US Agent Eric Lantz and Mossad agent Rosalind Benjamin join forces to find and neutralize the weapon which has already brought down two aircraft. Following a lead from the Israelis, they begin their search in Wadi Halfa, Sudan. Their search takes them to Egypt, Palestine, and Israel. As they close in on the weapon, they uncover a connected plot to destroy the US financial system and their quest becomes a race to find the Black Jade before the financial system crashes like another aircraft.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781387939398

Book preview

Black Jade

Black Jade

Michael Fay

Copyright © 2018 by Michael Fay

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

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Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

To my wife, Kris who makes this all possible

To Colonel Michael Koznarsky who double-checks my medical and physiological content.

Chapter 1

The Congo

Eric Lantz sat at a café in downtown Kinshasa, sipping tea and enjoying the bright, humid morning. The slouch of his six-foot frame in the chair, along with his full dark beard and bland, beige kaftan allowed him to blend in with the surroundings.

Although he was fluent in four languages, he spoke to the waiter in Turkish to maintain his disguise. His eyes never rested but scanned the street and the building on the other side. Trucks, buses, and automobiles passed by in a cadence of noise and exhaust fumes. He didn’t notice them because he didn’t need to.

He'd been sent by the US government to Kinshasa to find and eliminate a man known to be an arms supplier to the Janjaweed and Al Qaeda. He was known as the best operative in the Special Operations Administration.  Lantz was also a long time protégé of the agency’s director.  As such, Lantz was called in for the difficult jobs where self reliance and creativity were needed.  After two weeks of searching, he'd finally uncovered the arms dealer’s office. Although heavily guarded, the office sat on the ground floor, making it easy to observe. An idea formed in his mind as he watched the heavily armed guards around the doorway.

He spent the next four days carefully noting times and patterns of the guards and confirming the elements of his plan. Haroun arrived each morning at ten a.m. with six guards who protected the front and rear entrances. At ten thirty each day, two guards - one from the back and one from the front -- left to get coffee and breakfast for the group. They spent about twenty minutes away from the building.  This was sufficient time for him to accomplish his mission.

On the fifth morning, he settled behind a trash bin in the alley behind Haroun's building at eight am. His kaftan covered his working clothes. Under the kaftan, he wore a pair of jeans, a baggy shirt and rubber-soled shoes designed to look like regular shoes, but perform like high end running shoes. Right on time, three guards rounded the corner and assumed their stations on lawn chairs arranged against the wall. At ten thirty, one man, the shortest of the three, set his rifle against the wall next to his companions. After a few words, he left the way he came. Lantz checked his watch and began a countdown.

Four minutes after the short man left, Lantz aimed his CZ 75, 9mm pistol, with a sound suppressor, at the right guard. Exhaling, he squeezed the trigger and heard a small putt sound and the clack of the pistol's arming slide. A dark crimson circle appeared on the guard’s forehead. He shifted his weight and leaned out slightly from behind the bin. Another putt produced a similar hole in the second guard's forehead. He stood and entered the back door, ignoring the two corpses slumped in the chairs.

He stepped into the shadowed interior and made his way toward the front, following the voices he heard in offices on the right side of the hallway. He was about fifteen feet from the front door of the building and could see the back of the shoulders of the flanking guards ahead.  They seemed oblivious to his presence. Slowing his breathing, he stepped into the doorway of the offices. His first shot went into the head of a man sitting at a desk in front of him. A sound drew his attention to another man standing before a row of file cabinets on his left. Lantz smoothly arced the CZ towards him and, as the man turned to see what was going on, Lantz fired two bullets in his chest and throat. Blood spattered on the wall resembling a surrealist's view of some far-away galaxy. Searching for the final voice, he spun to his right and fired two more bullets into the man sitting there. The man's gaping mouth worked twice.  He slid back and off the chair. The sound of the empty chair slamming into the wall seemed incredibly loud in the confined space.

He replaced thepartial  magazine in his CZ with a full one and, as he did, he spotted the door to the boss's office across the room. He took four silent strides and stepped through the doorway. Haroun was getting to his feet behind his desk. He still held his telephone in his hand as Lantz fired two bullets into his chest. Haroun crashed backward and fell to the floor. Lantz walked around the desk and stared down at the man. Haroun lay on the floor with his mouth open, gasping for air, blood pooling beneath him.

Ignoring Haroun for the moment, Lantz hung up the phone and placed a USB drive into the computer. One press on the enter key started a batch file on the drive which compressed and downloaded the data on the hard drive while leaving the program files alone. While he waited for the process to finish, he removed his kaftan and examined the surface of the desk. Ink smudges on the worn blotter and a picture of a woman and three children were the only items of interest.  He wondered if the woman and children knew of the thousands of people their father and husband killed in his business.  "Probably not," he thought. Several folders lay on the desk. Lantz flipped them open but could make no sense of them with only a quick glance. He slid the files between his belt and his back. Pulling down the baggy shirt, he looked at the screen indicating the progress of the download to the USB.  While he waited he searched the file cabinets and drawers of the desk.  He found little of interest.  He moved to behind the desk and stared down at Haroun with mixed emotions.

It’s always hard to kill a man in cold blood.  No matter how inured to the action he became he never lost track of the fact that his was someone’s son, father, brother, friend.  He never balanced these elements against his mission, but he often wondered about the people he’d killed.  He firmly believed that he was doing a job that needed to be done, but he tried not to dwell on the human aspect of it all.  To him, he’d shot an arms dealer and as a result thousands of others would have a chance to live.  It seemed like a fair trade.

Seven minutes later, the batch program finished, and Lantz slid the USB quickly into his pocket as he looked down at Haroun once more. He realized he’d been listening to Haroun’s gasps and pants in the background as he searched the office. The man still clung to life. Lantz tried to gauge the length of time Haroun still had left. Glancing at his watch, he knew the return of the breakfast squad was imminent. Deciding, he moved directly over the man's head and pointed his CZ at Haroun's forehead. Haroun closed his eyes, and Lantz fired once.

Lantz retraced his steps through the outer office and out the back door. He sprinted down the alley for several blocks and then slowed to a walk as he entered the pedestrian traffic flow on the next street over. From there it was a simple matter of returning to his hotel room.  He gathered his bags, dropped the pistol into the toilet tank and took a cab to the airport for his outbound flight to Tel Aviv.

Chapter 2

Lake Nubia, Sudan

Daiyu looked over desert northwest towards Lake Nubia. The evening was cool, and she pulled her jacket tighter against the stiffening breeze.  The wind drew a tear from her eye. She ignored it and stared across the sand. Nothing would interfere with this day, a day she had been planning for over a year since Chinese Intelligence recruited her against her will.  She wore black slacks, a black tunic, and her hair was covered traditionally with a scarf. The only betrayal that she was not a modern Muslim woman was her almond-shaped eyes.

Two cobalt blue SUVs stood to the side of the road, engines idling, drivers inside. Guards stood around the cars and trucks alert and ready for whatever might happen. One enormous guard stood slightly apart from the others. Daiyu noted Caliph's detached position and looked meaningfully at him.

Behind her stood three men. They were as different as any three men could be. The man on the left was tall, thin, and white, with blonde hair. His piercing blue eyes were deeply sunken into his face. The middleman was short, swarthy, dark-haired, brown-eyed and nearly as thick as he was tall. The final of the three was oriental. His black hair and brown eyes topped a medium height, medium weight, and medium proportioned body. He was invisible in any group setting. All three men stared in the same direction as Daiyu, eagerly anticipating the show.

Gentlemen, she said. You are here to see a real-time test of the energy weapon we call Black Jade. This weapon can destroy aircraft, ground vehicles, buildings, and personnel. The range is virtually unlimited if you have sufficient power. As you know, it is in two parts: the lens, and the power supply. The power supply is the differentiator as we can provide power to the weapon with a device small enough to fit a medium-sized truck. Our power supply uses a unique capacitive system to store energy and rapidly recharge. The capacitor is unique and made with the Black Jade crystals for which we named the weapon.

Black Jade is the equivalent of the multi-billion dollar energy weapon projects currently underway in the United States, China, Russia and Great Britain.  The difference is that our weapon is ready now, does not require millions of dollars of supporting equipment, and is supremely mobile.  With this weapon, you are not only the qual of the Israeli military, you are superior.  You can destroy any weapon they deploy against you.  You can destroy buildings, dams, and infrastructure.  All with one weapon.  No huge factories needed, no military industrial complex to drain your wallets and resolve.  One weapon to destroy your enemies, all for the cost of a little electricity.

We know this, grumped the thick man. Get on with it.

Daiyu checked her watch, a Breitling Bentley from her days in Arizona. As the second hand swept towards twelve o'clock.  She raised her eyes again. An aircraft was approaching from Lake Nubia.

The three represented the buyers. She knew if the demonstration failed, this would be her last day on earth. The oriental man would make a call, and she would be dead before the end of the day. However, she was confident she would soon be wealthy beyond imagining and ready for the next phase of her plan. Daiyu smiled to herself. "This is truly the meaning of life, she thought. I risk it all on one throw of the dice."  She raised her hand and pointed to the north. All three men turned to look.

Behind them, she could hear the hum of the high-powered generator. Daiyu motioned to the men who donned dark glasses to protect their eyes. Daiyu did the same and nodded to the gigantic man standing behind the tripod on the old Russian Zil truck. Her crew also donned glasses and focused on the approaching Cessna 208 Caravan. Daiyu ignored the vehicle, knowing what was about to happen.

The plane flew without deviation from its usual course in the regular supply run from Dongola to Wadi Halfa. It carried medicine and surgical supplies to Wadi Halfa yesterday and was hauling mail back to Dongola today. The plane was three miles away when the generator noise amped up noticeably behind Daiyu. As the pitch revved higher, Daiyu began a silent countdown in her head. She had been through this before.

As the generator noise reached a fever pitch, an intense light emanated from the truck. Daiyu completed her mental countdown just as the plane's engine stopped. Seconds later the sound of an explosion filled the air. Daiyu smiled to herself and turned to the three men.

As you see gentlemen, the weapon works as advertised. Daiyu removed her glasses and held out her hand to collect the three remaining pair of glasses from them.

Quite impressive, said the thick man. Exactly as you said. He turned to the tall, thin man who withdrew a Samsung phone from his pocket. He began pressing the onscreen keyboard with amazing speed. Within a few seconds, he was finished and nodded to the thick man.

Your money has been transferred to your Cayman Islands account. Please verify that you have received the deposit.

Daiyu moved to the truck and opened her laptop. She quickly confirmed the deposit. She pressed a button on the computer and waited as data transferred to a flash drive.

Daiyu handed the flash drive to the tall man. He stepped over to the trio and gave it to the third man who stuck it into his laptop. After several minutes, he nodded and closed the laptop. The giant guard returned and stood next to Daiyu.

Everything you need to build your own, gentlemen, said Daiyu. And, I will have the other prototype delivered to you in the Palestinian Territories. Please give Caliph the location.

Thank you. The Palestinian people are grateful, the thick man stepped towards Daiyu. This weapon will help us fight off the Israelis, but we desperately need your financial help to support our cause. The money that we have paid is nearly all of the available cash available to the Authority. Could you please look into your heart and see if there is some way you can help us, financially?

Daiyu looked at the man. Something in his eyes told her that any money she passed back to the Authority would end up in this man's pocket. It was a pity because she could see ways the Authority could be of use. However, if she could not rely on the messengers, she could not rely on the senders. Better to continue on this path without hindrance.

Thank you for the offer, but I believe our business is over, she returned to the truck. She heard a movement behind her, the crunching of sand under a shoe. She did not turn around. The big man had leaped almost before the sound of motion reached her ears. She could hear a scuffle and then a raspy gurgling sound. She continued to the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. A quick glance behind showed a body crumpled in the sand and Caliph closing the last few feet to the truck.

Did you kill him? asked Daiyu.

He nodded and stood casually by the truck door.

I suppose it's just as well, she said. Next time, Caliph, please do not kill them unless I specifically tell you to do so. Leave them the thumb drive. I at least will be an honorable person.

Daiyu nodded her head to the back of the truck, and Caliph strode to the rear to supervise the workers closing up the weapon. Within minutes, Caliph returned to the front of the vehicle. Soon the truck ground slowly forward as Caliph leaped onto the back. Within the hour they were back at their warehouse outside Wadi Halfa.

Take the weapon to the power station, Daiyu said to Caliph. Make sure the guards are alert and ready.

With respect ma'am, the giant said. I still think we should move the weapon away from this area. If anyone comes snooping around, it is too close to the site of the demonstration. Why give them a starting place to find it?

Caliph, as I have told you before, I believe the risk of transporting the weapon any further is too great. It is bad enough that we must deliver one of the weapons to the Palestinian Territories. Two weapons moving around in the area will generate too much interest. Do as I direct.

The giant nodded and backed away.

She took a cell phone from her pocket and hit a number. Several seconds passed as it connected.

It worked as planned, she said.

Very good, came the voice from the other end. Proceed with phase two of the plan.

I need assurance that my family is unharmed, she said into the mouthpiece. Without that assurance, I walk away.

I will forward the message. Expect confirmation tonight.

She put the phone back in her pocket and looked around her. In less than a year, the world would be an entirely different place, thanks to her. With a mixed sense of pride, and foreboding, she gathered her things and headed for Cairo.

Chapter 3

Thirty Thousand Feet above Israel

Major Michael Bar-Lev sat uncomfortably in the seat of his Israeli Air Force F-16. He was loitering at forty thousand feet above Tel Aviv. He had been on station for a little over an hour monitoring the tactical channel and listening to the local talk radio channel on his headset. These flights were four-hour fuel burners. Occasionally, he would be called upon to support a ground operation in the West Bank or the Gaza strip. Usually, he just held station and waited for a request from the ground troops that never came. Once, he dropped a smart bomb on a house in Biet Lahia before the Knesset declared the unilateral withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza. It was a point of pride that the bomb had destroyed the target without any collateral damage. He sincerely hoped he would never have to drop another bomb.

Tiger 47, Tiger 47, this is den mother.

Den mother, Tiger 47.

Tiger 47, take up station at checkpoint Zed. Await further instructions.

Roger, den mother.

He turned the fighter slightly east and flew fifty miles to his checkpoint. The flight took but a minute. Israel is a tiny country, and virtually any target that the IAF would need to hit was within ten minutes of their bases. As he arrived on station, he squawked his position to air traffic control, resumed loitering, and waited for further instructions.

Tiger 47, this is den mother. Prepare for target coordinates.

Roger, den mother, ready to copy.

Target located.  A series of numbers came over the radio. Repeat.

He read off the numbers as he punched them in the navigation system of the F-16.

Target requires one Paveway. Prepare to arm.

He reached out and flipped a switch on his armaments panel. He toggled through the weapons load until the five-hundred-pound Paveway II type 82 bomb was selected. He flipped the switch arming the bomb and turning on the laser system. The panel glowed green, and the navigation system downloaded the coordinates. The weapon would glide to the target following a laser deployed by the ground troops. The GPS coordinates were a new verification process the Israelis had developed. Given the densely populated areas of the Middle East, redundant targeting information was a necessity. The Israeli research teams had worked with General Dynamics to integrate the two systems. It was a unique solution that forced the two targeting systems to agree with each other before bomb release. Either targeting system could cancel the drop. As a result, the precision of the IAF bombing in populated areas was second to none.

Tiger 47, descend to fifteen thousand feet and take up station.

Bar-Lev eased back the throttles and let the plane drop a thousand feet with each lap of his loitering pattern. In fifteen minutes he was at fifteen thousand feet.

Tiger 47, you are green light.

He lined the F-16 up on the coordinates and locked the autopilot on to the course. He heard the lock tone as the system acquired the ground-based targeting laser and then the succession of dings as the GPS system confirmed his target. His finger hovered over the release switch as he approached the target. For an instant, he felt an overwhelming heat like a hot flash that burned his entire body. He was vaguely aware of the plane glowing before he ceased to know anything.

######

Fifteen thousand feet below three men smiled as the F-16 burst into a blazing ball above them. The weapon worked as promised. Better even because this target was closer, and their power source larger than the prototype they'd seen in Sudan. The energy weapon had shattered the plane within three seconds of contact. Salim also thought the full bomb load carried by the aircraft assisted in the destruction he had seen.

The Palestinian people are no longer powerless, he said to his companions. With this weapon, we control our military destiny. Salim was jubilant. We have started a new chapter in the history of the Middle East. You two bear witness to this sea change.

For this to be a sea change, we need to get off this roof, said his companion, Walid. Unless you want to shoot down some more airplanes today?

No, I think the one is enough for now, said Salim. Gather the equipment and let's head home. I need to report to Hamas and begin planning our next steps.

They quickly stored everything in a variety of metal cases that the three men would carry down the stairs to the interior courtyard of the house. The weapon was a duplicate of the prototype seen weeks ago in Sudan.   A small team labored to modify the weapon without the telltale Russian vehicles and minimize the number of people needed to operate the weapon. Their work allowed Salim to be on top of this roof this afternoon.

Years ago, a wealthy merchant had lived here. He and his family spared no expense in creating a home of beauty and grace that reflected the lives they lived in pre-war Palestine. Subsequent wars between the Israelis and Arabs in the area had washed across their home, leaving indelible scars. Here, a rocket collapsed part of a wall. There, a mortar round penetrated the roof and detonated in a bedroom. Over there is where nine-year-old Abeedah died, killed by a piece of shrapnel from a nearby artillery round. Devastated, the family moved to Syria, leaving the house and their daughter in Palestine. As the years passed, the house deteriorated from its previous grandeur to merely a high point of rubble in the urban landscape. Salim had no idea where the family was now, or if they survived in the haze of the Syrian civil war.

For Salim, the house was ideal. The broad flat roof was thirty feet above the street, shielded by a parapet. The house surrounded a square courtyard with the ruins of a fountain in the center. The fountain no longer worked, but the patio accommodated their panel truck easily. A simple gate separated the patio from the dusty street outside, and no one in the neighborhood said anything about strangers coming and going.

Salim hefted two of the smaller cases and carried them to the truck. He patted himself on the back for deciding to remove the lens and business end of the weapon from its vehicle. Two trucks driving into an abandoned house would raise questions even in this neighborhood. One would not raise suspicions, and you never knew where the Israelis had spies.

His companions lifted the largest of the cases and hauled it to the panel truck. As they started downstairs, a loud cracking sound split the air. The three men exchanged glances. Salim motioned for them to set the long crate down. Within seconds he had opened the crate and saw the pieces of lens lying in the bottom of the foam insulation, shattered beyond repair.

Damn, he said.

The focusing lens shattered. We'll check it when we get back to the safe house. Maybe it was just too much heat inside the crate.

Or maybe it doesn't work as well as the Chinese woman said, said Walid.

I saw it work in Sudan, said Salim. We must have done something wrong in the disassembly. No matter, we have shot down an Israeli jet! That alone is a success.

They packed the large case next to the generator mounted in the truck. The men grunted and pushed as they slid the case loudly on the bare metal floor. Salim remounted the stairs and took a detailed look at the roof. He used the toe of his shoe to smudge the dust and dirt around to disguise the pattern of the tripod. As he returned to the truck, his companions were just completing the storage of the electrical cable that reached from the patio to the roof.

Is that everything? he asked.

Yes, Salim. We have it all.

Good, let's get out of here before the Israelis start nosing around.

Salim settled behind the steering wheel while the third man opened the gate. Within seconds they were on the street. They quickly merged into the frantic mid-day traffic and were soon invisible in the city.

Chapter 4

Tel Aviv Israel

The sun set a half hour ago, but an orange glow lingered on the horizon. Eric Lantz sipped his tea and enjoyed a rare moment of tranquility. He arrived in Israel two days earlier, on a commercial flight from Kinshasa. It was rainy in Tel Aviv when he landed, and the ride to his hotel was uneventful. He checked in with his handlers and immediately went to bed and slept fourteen hours straight.

When he woke, he showered and dressed, started his laptop, and waited through the boot cycle to activate a program. A screen popped up, and a progress bar launched. Lantz waited motionlessly. Within five minutes, the progress bar stopped, and a message window popped up.

No spurious signals present,