The Assassins’ Game: A Caleb Frost Thriller

By Ralph Sanborn

The Assassins' Game never runs out of ammoor surprises, as Caleb Frost battles an evil cult of human traffickers and professional killers. If youre looking for action and suspense, Assassins' Game delivers! -Robert C. Yeager, New York Times writer and author of The Romanov Stone This gripping thriller takes us to the Asian underworld where Caleb Frost confronts his nemesis. With rich historical detail, the author immerses us in the scene so that were with the characters all the way. -Lucy Sanna, Author of The Cherry Orchard A Novel

Caleb Frosts sixth sense tickled his brain as he approached his room in Caesars Octavius Tower. Regardless of the sources of the subconscious alarms, when they entered his conscious awareness, he did not question them. Training and experience responded to these stimuli. Something felt wrong. He knew it, but not what.

He drew his P226, gripping it firmly in his hand. Sliding the plastic room card into the electronic key slot, he waited for the little light to shine green. Caleb pushed down on the ornate door handle and slammed the door open. He spun with his butt pressing the door flat against the interior wall as his two-handed grip on the Sig Sauer drew an arc across the room. On the second sweep, he saw it. Like a deadly nighttime chocolate on his bed

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491775851

Ralph Sanborn

Ralph Sanborn was raised in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York He graduated from St. Lawrence University with a degree in psychology. His business career sent him around the world to live and work for several manufacturing and software companies in Europe, Canada and the U.S. He lives with his wife and two dogs in the San Francisco Bay area. “The Assassins' Game - A Caleb Frost Thriller” is the second in author Ralph Sanborn’s Caleb Frost series. As in the first two books, Sanborn addresses social injustice and related villainy for his themes and the development of his antagonists. He is currently working on a third book in the Caleb Frost series and encourages readers to be on the lookout for it in the near future. He previously published “China Red – A Caleb Frost Novel.”

Book preview

1

Sigmund Wohlenberger stood naked in his bedroom, admiring himself in a full-length mirror. Rolls of fat cascaded down his short body. The mirror reflected an image Wohlenberger had convinced himself was manly and desirable. After all, the endless stream of women who visited him attested to his desirability and handsomeness. Wohlenberger’s staff paid well for the women’s deceit.

The fire in his bedroom fireplace burned cheerily. The flame and the red bricks of the room’s wall in which the hearth was located produced an environment of satisfying warmth. Goose bumps rose along his arms as a current of chilly air breezed across his skin through the bedroom’s window, which was open just a crack to let in fresh air. He closed the window and added a log to the fire, rubbing his hands briskly over the flames. The heat from the fire soothed his body. The sound of a jet gaining altitude following takeoff from Zurich Airport reverberated down the chimney.

Seven thousand feet above Sigmund Wohlenberger, Caleb Frost, sitting in coach class on Swissair’s 10:20 p.m. flight to London, flipped open a small cell phone and, quite contrary to aviation rules and regulations, pressed a speed-dial number. Anyone watching the young man would have noticed a flickering tic at the corner of his right eye.

A cell phone rang in a chimney far beneath the white belly of the jet.

Standing in the middle of his bedroom enjoying the warmth, Sigmund Wohlenberger heard a chirp in the distance. He was momentarily curious, as the brick wall around the fireplace bowed out into the room. His millisecond of curiosity went unanswered as the wall’s bricks fired like bullets across the room, pulverizing his body. He did not hear the roar of the explosion that shot him and his bedroom’s furnishings through the exterior wall, bouncing him off an apartment balcony across the narrow street. His body, shredded and unrecognizable, plopped in a pulpy heap in the center of the road.

Caleb extracted the phone’s SIM card. He snapped it in half and returned the pieces and the cheap phone to his pocket, reclined his seat, closed his eyes, and was soon sound asleep. He didn’t awaken until the flight’s arrival at Heathrow was announced. The tic in his eye was at rest … for the moment.

The small phone, wiped clean and broken in half, disappeared into two separate trash containers, and the halves of the SIM card swirled down a toilet’s flush in the restroom. He hurried through the transit lounge to board his flight to San Francisco. Stimulated by the lovely women he’d seen recently, he imagined his forthcoming Las Vegas vacation’s possibilities. Rest and recreation, he thought. I need a lot of it. He smiled an anticipatory smile.

2

One week prior to the explosive conclusion of the Zurich engagement, Caleb had embarked from San Francisco to Washington, DC. After a meeting with his controller, William H. Thorndike, he caught an evening flight to Paris.

Caleb Frost, tall with longish blond hair and startling gray eyes, strolled through the Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport transit terminal waiting for the announcement of the flight departure of the final leg of his journey to Zurich. He stretched out the effects of the hours of flying he had endured over the past twenty-four hours. His muscular build, good looks, and possibly the scar across his left eyebrow caught the attention of many of the women awaiting flights. Caleb was fully aware of the glances in his direction. There never seemed to be enough time to make meaningful connections with the women who crossed his path.

The flight to Zurich was announced in three languages. From his aisle seat in business class, he enjoyed the parade of attractive women on their way to the coach section. A few—a tall blonde with a thick mane of carefully coiffed hair caught his eye in particular. She paused in the aisle at his side, as if to speak. Her eyes slanted down to his—hers alive with messages of promise. Despite his intention to say something, the press of the boarding passengers behind her pushed her on into the aft coach section of the Boeing 777.

He also kept an eye out for men—and not-so-attractive women too. Anyone whose auras gave off a whiff of danger.

During the flight, he reread the communication from Thorndike. The memo justified the kill his team had been offered. Caleb Frost was unique in the world of assassins in the service of their countries. He had the option of accepting or declining engagements, as he defined the wet operations he accepted. He agreed to terminate Herr Sigmund Wohlenberger after having determined in his own mind that the man deserved to die. Caleb was on his way to meet his team in Zurich. Irini Constant had been gathering information about their target, while Frank DeLong and Jake Corbett were arranging for a staging area and gathering the tools of the trade: weapons, explosives, and the necessary building blueprints.

The document on Caleb’s tablet, written in Thorndike’s inimitable style, hardly a formal dossier, read:

Herr Sigmund Wohlenberger is a private Swiss citizen. During his youth, he was bullied mercilessly by his classmates. Grossly overweight and small, he was the perfect target for malicious children in the private Swiss school to which young Wohlenberger’s parents sent him. His mother and father simply wanted him out of the way, or were negligently unaware, or too preoccupied with their business and social whirl to deal with his circumstances. To his credit, he survived the constant torment and excelled academically.

When he was twenty-five, Wohlenberger’s father died, and he inherited 185 million Swiss francs, allowing Wohlenberger to establish his lifestyle. He bought himself financial and personal anonymity and anything else in the world that caught his fancy. Sigmund Wohlenberger became the world’s leading illegal arms dealer.

He is now fifty-four years of age. Physically, he is bald and stands five feet two inches, and he weighs three hundred–plus pounds. When he walks, which is an activity he avoids, he waddles. Wohlenberger has people to buy him his social life and bring it to him.

The attached Swiss Federal Office of Police report details Wohlenberger’s contributions to the creation of chaos and havoc in the free world. The ordinance he sells has indiscriminately killed hundreds of innocent noncombatants. His business makes the tools of destruction available to demented men intent on pulling down civilized structures, and he has forged a position of overwhelming power among munitions and arms dealers. His current wealth is estimated at 2.6 billion euros.

Wohlenberger lives in a well-fortified house on a narrow side street off the Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich’s main boulevard. Unbeknownst to Wohlenberger or outside his realm of influence is the attached tourist bureau video from YouTube, which, as the camera pans down the street, shows a frontal view of Wohlenberger’s home.

Caleb erased the document.

3

Irini Constant slid her red, silk-clad hip onto the edge of a cocktail lounge bar stool, one stool away from Helmut Schmidt, a handsome man of forty something. He was a dangerous man but nevertheless only a pawn in this deadly game. Perhaps a bishop might be a better analogy. He was the consigliere, the trusted advisor, to a truly evil man, and that man was the ultimate target. Tonight, however, Helmut was her assignment. Looking him over, Irini saw a well-dressed, well-coiffed, physically fit man whose stance at the bar with two other men showed confidence and leadership. I’ll crack him like a walnut, she thought. Caleb Frost wanted information from this man, and she would deliver.

Her long, well-shaped leg was visible to Herr Schmidt, courtesy of a thigh-high slit in her elegant Alexandre Vauthier dress. Very appropriate for cocktail hour in an expensive hotel bar in downtown Zurich. She watched the mark conversing in loud tones with his comrades a meter or so away. The men were discussing the escapades of Fussballclub Zurich, the local soccer team, and its chances in the Swiss Super League. Irini had always been amused by the simplicity of the male animal’s intellectual interests and pursuits. Of course, the women with whom she had occasion to engage in her former profession were no more focused on substantive matters than were the men. Generally speaking, the intellectual level was about hip high or at whatever erogenous zone appealed to the client.

During a lull in Herr Schmidt’s conversation, Irini cast a quick, sidelong glance in his direction, signaling the start of the conquest. Irini shook a cigarette from a packet in her small evening bag and held it up to her lips, unlit. She felt Herr Schmidt’s presence. His movement of the air brought the spicy smell of a subdued aftershave. It may be better than I expected, Irini thought. She heard the click of a lighter, and without comment, Schmidt lit her cigarette. Leaning his elbow on the bar, he stared at her for a moment.

Cocktail?

She met his gaze with her own. Taking a puff of her cigarette and blowing a thin stream of smoke across the bar, she said, Extra dry Grey Goose martini. Three olives.

*****

The block of white, claylike material felt good in Jake Corbett’s large hands. Its thin plastic wrapper crinkled under his fingers, making a menacing crackle. The sound was a subtle threatening overture to mayhem. He loved the feel, the sound, the potential devastating force contained in the substance nestled in his palms.

Jake Corbett was very much at home with plastique. He was a munitions professional and had a reverential relationship with all explosives. His respect for the powerful capabilities of the various materials he had handled as a Navy SEAL was legendary among his fellow warriors. Such deliberate care was not surprising, given that Jake had spent his youth on a farm in Iowa. A slip in caution could result in the loss of a leg to a harvester or a hand from chopping wood carelessly. His first exposure to the pleasures of blowing things up came when he was a teenager, assisting his father in removing tree stumps with dynamite. As a SEAL, his horizons were greatly expanded. His explosions now vaporized objects rather than simply rending them asunder. He fulfilled his commanding officers’ expectations.

Jake placed the C-4 in the middle of the table, nodded, and slid euros to the bald-domed man with black eyebrows sitting across the table from him. Blunt fingers seized the money, and it disappeared into a worn pocket in the dealer’s leather vest.

The man’s thick, hairy brows touched above his nose, making a single black arc above a sharp, long nose as he concentrated on the contents of a stained paperboard box he placed in front of himself. The blunt-fingered hand emerged from the box and pushed a nine-millimeter Glock and a box of ammunition toward Jake. Then the box was pushed forward, a broad smile flashing startlingly bright white teeth behind full, red lips. Bad man … good dental habits, Jake thought, watching the man’s deliberate actions.

Jake made selections from the crumbling box’s jumble of component parts: a roll of wire, a couple of cheap cell phones, some blasting caps, a few connectors, a battery, an electronic receiving device, a large ball of twine, and a roll of silver gaffer tape. Jake stashed his purchases in a sturdy canvas bag. Caleb Frost’s shopping list was complete.

His business done, he exited the hovel from which his arms dealer conducted his business. Ducking under the entryway’s low stonework arch, he emerged into a narrow cobblestone passageway filled with darkness and dank air. The cobblestones, capped with minimal available light from a fading sun, led him between oppressively close, ancient buildings. He passed firmly locked back doors and barred windows. The companionship of the recently acquired 9mm in his waistband was reassuring. Eventually, the passage led Corbett to the rail yard behind the Zurich railroad station. It was only a short walk to his hotel.

*****

In a real-estate office in a fashionable section of Zurich, a well-dressed black man negotiated the rental price for a fully furnished, three-story building. The man’s Schweizerdeutsch was flawless, which confounded the Swiss real-estate agent, who was prepared to speak English with an American, particularly a schwarze. In the agent’s experience, blacks were musicians, not businessmen.

This American was an impressive physical specimen and definitely exuded an aura of toughness. Soon the rental agent understood that the man’s rugged appearance correlated with the man’s negotiating style, as well. The American said he was a wine merchant from California. His business card confirmed it. The agent was not going to question his credentials.

At the end of their discussion, the house was rented for cash in advance—the rental agent’s one conditional victory. The American produced a stack of Swiss francs and thumbed the agreed-upon rent into a neat stack, laying it in the agent’s moist palm. Falling prey to stereotypes, the agent warned against raucous parties and loud music. He explained that although one of the adjoining houses was empty, the other was the residence of a former mayor of Zurich.

Smiling, Frank DeLong left with a receipt for the rent and an agreement to move into his new residence the following day. Frank’s background included time spent in the Navy SEALs. He and Jake Corbett had met there and found many mutual interests, including each other. They were partners in life and members of Caleb Frost’s team of assassins.

Frank stopped in a sidewalk café to have an espresso and a croissant. The small cup disappeared inside Frank’s hand as he sipped the steaming liquid. The pastry lasted for only three delicate—in Frank’s opinion—bites. He sent a text regarding the rental agreement to Caleb, with copies to Irini and Jake. The team would gather when Caleb arrived.

A young man two tables away turned and smiled a smile that Frank decided was a seductive come-on. Finishing his coffee, he wondered for the thousandth time whether, in some fashion, it was his appearance that indicated his sexuality. Or was there really a telepathic signal beeping away that other gay men could pick up? Whatever it was, it made DeLong and Corbett nervous and frequently irritated them to the point of physical violence. Frank had always felt that his relationship with Jake was one of a kind, unique. They both professed to never having had an interest in any other man. He left the café without acknowledging the young man’s approach.

*****

Caleb followed the flight attendant’s instructions and stowed his electronic device in his briefcase. The Swissair jet’s tires screeched on the Zurich Airport tarmac. Outside the terminal, Caleb gave the address of the private home Frank DeLong had texted him. The taxi driver recognized the address in an upscale neighborhood of Zurich.

A slight tic had developed in Frost’s right eyelid. A familiar harbinger of violence to come.

4

The process of taking on the Zurich engagement had evolved over a period of three weeks. It had begun late in the afternoon in Burlingame, California. An incoming call’s number appeared on Caleb’s cell phone screen. Caleb knew that it could mean only one thing—someone had an appointment with death. If he agreed, if he believed the target deserved to die, he would accommodate the request. Having the option to accept or decline a job was a very unique condition of his employment

The call was from William H. Thorndike, Caleb’s controller. His business was black, wet operations—assassination. Caleb Frost was a professional assassin in Thorndike’s organization funded by the US government and other nongovernmental parties whose intents were always deadly.

The operational hub of the business was in Thorndike’s brownstone residence in Georgetown, a section of Washington, DC, inhabited by the exceptionally well-to-do citizenry. Caleb understood that Thorndike wanted to be close to the seat of power—and intrigue—and money. Wild Willie Thorndike, was one of the first members of the CIA’s predecessor, the OSS, and an important spook within the organization in its early years. He had proven adept at creative, untraceable killing. Eventually, Thorndike became too old for creeping around the world terminating people; instead, he trained assassins to do the unspoken tasks the United States government required. For the security of the nation, of course.

Caleb answered the call. Speaking without preamble, Thorndike said, I’m calling regarding a Swiss citizen, Herr Sigmund Wohlenberger. Caleb could hear papers shuffling. He’s an arms dealer, responsible for supplying weapons to terrorist groups throughout the world. We have a client’s request for a solution to a problem posed by Herr Wohlenberger. Funding is not an issue, Caleb. Timing is. They want the situation normalized three weeks from this coming Friday. By the twelfth of next month.

Why is that date important? Caleb asked.

A meeting between Wohlenberger and Somali arms buyers. Our client wants the target terminated, leaving the terrorists without a source of supply. Read the dossier I sent you, and let me know if you’ll accept the engagement.

Why not take out the entire meeting rather than just the one guy?

Ah, an excellent question. Thorndike breathed softly. We may assume that there are other plots and plotters at work trying to gain control of African terrorist groups for their own purposes. What better way to infiltrate than to become a weapons supplier to the terrorists? Without Wohlenberger, these gentlemen will have to look elsewhere. I suspect that our client will be at the head of the line offering support.

Understood. It was not his interest to judge the motivations behind his clients’ requests. He only insisted on determining if the termination was warranted, that the target had earned the right to die.

I’ll expect to hear from you by tonight, please, Caleb. Good-bye. Thorndike hung up.

5

Caleb’s team gathered in the Zurich house.

Frank DeLong, aside from being a fighting machine, was a superior computer hacker and electronics technologist. While his cyber targets may have sensed an alien presence in their databases and security systems, they never knew with whom they were rubbing elbows and sharing their data. His contributions to the assassination operations were priceless when it came to gathering data regarding targets, their environments, and gaining access to their secrets. His physical contributions in the field were appreciated, as well.

Jake Corbett towered at six foot five, a couple of inches taller that Frank. Neither Jake nor Frank had an ounce of fat on their bodies. Had they been professional football players, they would have been linebackers. Fast, hard hitting, and vicious in their drive to achieve their goals.

Jake had been raised on a farm in Iowa and had retained many of the farm-boy social skills he had carried away from the farm when he’d left to join the navy and became a SEAL. Not quite the aww, shucks, ma’am level of sociability, but he was shy and deferential to Frank when pleasant discourse was involved. When a situation passed the gentility stage of social interaction, the transformation from gentle to ferocious occurred in a split second. Jake rarely remembered the circumstances, just the stitch count.

Frank had been raised by parents who were comfortable in their chosen roles as social activists; a black, upward-mobile family living in the midst of a white, intensely Southern neighborhood. Frank had never experienced a day of feeling inferior or subservient to anyone. Those attitudes defined his approach to the world, attitudes that created many of the legendary battle opportunities Frank had enjoyed growing up in a white world. His family members were the recipients of death threats and random acts of violence against their home and automobiles, and they were shunned by local society. As the years passed, the attitudes toward the DeLong family changed, at least on the surface. Frank’s parents were included in social and civic events. Frank’s service as a Navy SEAL was lauded by the men in the community.

As SEALs, Jake and Frank discovered mutual interests in weaponry, explosives, and hand-to-hand combat. They also discovered that they shared an appreciation for antique furniture repair. Their partnership in combat developed into a bonding off the field. All the don’t tell or don’t ask shit, as Jake put it, became too much of a hassle. They resigned from the SEALs at the end of their enlistments and went into the antique furniture repair and refinishing business as partners, in business and for life.

William Thorndike recruited Frank and Jake, offering them the opportunity to expand their business through generous financial assistance while providing them the enjoyment and the excitement of quasi-military action with neither political correctness nor senior officer management. They agreed to his proposal.

Irini Constant was the fourth member of the team. Her voice was tinted with the remnants of her Greek background. The accent had a seductive quality, which enhanced her fashion-model elegance. She had earned an MBA in finance at New York University while moonlighting as one of New York City’s most successful escorts. Her clientele included United Nations diplomats—men and women—any number of foreign countries’ military officers, businessmen from around the world, and politicians of all stripes. She also counted special friendships with members of the drug cartels.

At $50,000 a weekend or $15,000 a night, plus insider investment tips garnered during pillow talk with her clients, Irini had a substantial investment portfolio. It surprised her that the men and women who hired her would talk openly among their colleagues about business or political issues when she was present. She listened and took note of opportunities. After a dozen years of socializing, as she put it, Irini Constant had an ever-appreciating nest egg of $25 million stashed away.

William Thorndike offered her a retirement package of sorts. Her contacts made her an exceptionally valuable asset to Thorndike’s business. She accepted his kind offer, framed as it was in veiled threats regarding her past and her relationships with some of her associates.

Irini’s existence in the slums of Piraeus and, later, in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen had, by necessity, taught her to become a skilled street fighter. She had killed in self-defense more than once. Thorndike saw the makings of a trained killer, an assassin. Smart and dangerous. And she proved to be an apt student.

*****

Was it difficult to meet Helmut Schmidt? Caleb asked as the team met in the rented home’s living room.

"No. I went to his favorite bar according to the intel we received from the Swiss police, and voilà, he was there with a couple of his men. He approached me … and … well, the rest is none of your business, if you don’t mind," Irini said with demure, downcast eyes.

Eyes rolled among the three men who knew that modesty was certainly not one of Irini’s character traits. She laughed, and Caleb asked her to expand on the information she had gathered.

What do we know that will put Wohlenberger within our reach, Irini?

Caleb, I know what Herr Wohlenberger does every minute of the day. He is compulsive, according to Helmut. He never goes out, and he eats and sleeps and does business on a firm schedule. He uses three rooms, one on each floor. Conference room on the first, bedroom on the second, and office on the third. Because he has no social life to speak of, you can set your Swiss watch by his schedule.

Excellent. I hope Schmidt was not too difficult a chore for you, Caleb said.

Nooo, Irini said, drawing the word out through pursed lips and savoring again the excitement of her conquest. Pushing a handwritten paper across the table, she said, Here’s Wohlenberger’s daily schedule. Barring something unusual, these are the rooms where he will be at the times you have there. She tapped an exquisitely manicured, long maroon fingernail on the paper.

Okay, Caleb said with a nod to Irini. Tell me about the house, Frank.

Three story, brick construction. Eight rooms, and the main three rooms each have a fireplace. Same floor plan as this building. The house is locked up tighter than a drum. No access without firepower to gain entry. He spread out a blueprint. The houses here, he said, pointing to the two buildings on either side of the target, are unoccupied.

The roof?

Slate with lots of chimney pots and flues sticking up. The edges of the house roofs are about a meter apart from each other. Crossing shouldn’t be a problem, if that’s what you are considering.

Good, Caleb said. We anticipated the fireplaces. Frank, give Jake the measurements from the top of the chimney serving each of the key rooms down the flues to half a meter above the mantels.

Got ya. Frank rolled out several blueprints.

Jake Corbett had waited his turn patiently. Caleb opened a cold bottle of Hopfemandli Lager and joined Jake on the couch, placing the beer in the big man’s hand.

So, you found a source?

Yes, I did. Filled your shopping list. The Swiss are so smug. Talk about shit not sticking. These guys could be selling A-bombs and make them sound like wheels of cheese. He paused and took a long pull on the beer. You going across the roof?

I am.

Got your measurements, Jake, Frank announced from the table with the blueprints.

Jake, let’s check Irini’s timetable, Caleb said, reaching for a sheet of paper on the coffee table in front of him. See where the target is in the evening, and then you can get to work.

Jake’s finger stabbed a time.

Bedroom at ten o’clock, Caleb read aloud. Irini? he asked, turning to the woman seated across the room. He alone at ten?

Depends on the night. He has company every other Thursday. Last Thursday was his big night. He had Chinese for dinner. Two of them. The man has stamina despite his size.

Okay, Caleb said, slapping his palms together. Not a problem. We’ll be gone by next Thursday. As an afterthought, he said softly, And so will he.

Irini, arrange for a final tête-à-tête with Schmidt this evening, please. Double-check to make sure that our target’s schedule for tomorrow is as usual. I want you to fly to Paris tomorrow afternoon. Early. And yes, before you ask, your expenses are covered.

Irini smiled. Oui, monsieur, et merci bien, she said, eyes glittering. I have an old friend I’d like to visit. And some shops too, of course.

Caleb could not discern whether the pleasure showing on her face was about seeing whoever the old friend was or shopping in Paris or the prospect of meeting with Schmidt one more time. Thrusting Irini into another man’s arms was always difficult for Caleb, but he did it as dispassionately as possible.

Frank and Jake, he said, forcing his mind back to business, you guys leave here by 1700 tomorrow. Arrange for a flight to Madrid leaving before 2000. I’ll be taking a Swissair flight at 2220 to London. Clear?

Jake held up his hand. What about backup?

No, Caleb said. I want everyone gone. That’s final.

And they were all on their way the next evening. As was Herr Sigmund Wohlenberger to wherever such people go.

6

Caleb Frost dried his hair with the plush Caesars Palace towel. His twenty-five-lap swim had relaxed his body. From beneath the towel, he eyed the blonde in the very tiny, very bright-red bikini stretched out on the chaise longue next to his. She had been lying on her stomach with her top untied, offering her smooth back to the Las Vegas sun. As he watched, she rolled over, skillfully keeping most of her breasts covered. At least her nipples would not get sunburned,