Читать книгу Mysterious Islands - David Meade - Страница 3

Attached below is a copy of the Intelligence Report I filed with three Intel Agencies - ONI, DIA & the CIA - The Company. One leak occurred - to the London Post wire service. By filing these Reports the conspiracy you are about to read about in the flashback chapters - Chapters One to Three - was unmasked - and my life continued. The Reports showed that a Unit of the Intelligence Community had targeted an individual known as Cassandra One - they had a section, V-Team, which specialized in faked car crashes. This was part of my life, until it was all about to change. After all of this, my life began anew in a small town in America. The chilling facts are that Intelligence Services - here and abroad - often control the very lives of their citizens - they know in advance when certain incidents are going to happen - and they, almost like God, decide who is to live…and who is to die.

DOMESTIC COLLECTION DIVISION Foreign Intelligence Information Report - To the Directorate of Intelligence WARNING NOTICE - INTELLIGENCE SOURCES AND METHODS INVOLVED - FURTHER DISSEMINATION AND USE OF THE INFORMATION SUBJECT TO CONTROLS STATED AT THE BEGINNING AND END OF REPORT

REPORT CLASS: TOP SECRET REPORT NO. 00D 745/1783838 COUNTRY: Spain. SUBJECT: Cassandra One Visit. Source: Vincent Sorenson, Case Agent.

1.Cassandra One is a target of Victor Team. Reliable source reports incident will occur in Madrid in following week.

2.Request to highest circles to distribute same Report.

3.US liaison to MI6 requested to carry report.

4.V-Team, Foreign Intelligence Service - Deep Cover - intends to set up limousine to respond to external radio controls (Report Filed), or set obstruction or other device moments after Madrid meeting. Recommend copies to FBI Counter-Intelligence Wing, Division 5.

5.V Team had successful meeting in Geneva with Mossad.

6.Bristol contact Sir Harry Thompson confirmed existence of Top Secret Mossad group specializing in car crash incidents.

In the south of France, Madame Grenoble is relaxing in her drawing room, overlooking the vast expanse of land in the back of her estate. In an adjacent room, paintings she has paid up to ten million pounds for individually stand like guards at a presidential palace. Portrait of a Woman, The Han’est Times, Au Moulin, and other one-of-a-kind paintings, worth in total over One Hundred Million in US Dollars, stand gazing at each other, as if mesmerized by their own self-value.

Over a wall separating the estate from the outside world and its cares, two men, heavily armed, enter through an opening in the old edifice. Stealthily moving toward the house, they enter through an opened kitchen door. In the main hall sits an elderly guard. Nothing has been noticed.

The men proceed down a mirrored hallway to the room with the art. One by one they cut out each painting with a razor-sharp instrument. Until they are all gone.

Leaving the way they entered, the men advance towards the kitchen. A good return for one day's work. The leader, Samuel Stevens, is a dark, heavy set man. Wanted by Interpol. An Interpol Red Notice has been issued on him. Address unknown. Highly dangerous. A former intelligence community operative.

Moving quietly, Stevens and his partner, Jonathan Magowbie, prepare to exit. Stevens leaves a note written in French and pastes it to the wall. In it - a bank account number and a ransom demand for the paintings. $20,000,000. If not paid within twenty days, they will never see their artwork again.

For a fleeting moment, it appears they will be able to exit unobtrusively. But the guard, on routine rounds, sees motion as they move back into the kitchen area on their escape route. "Hold it - stop!" he shouts toward them. Stevens takes a knife out of his leg pocket and flips it towards the guard, hitting him between the eyes. He drops down and Madame Grenoble begins to approach the room.

She is an elderly matron of a family fortune, and moves with great determination towards the kitchen area. Stevens, knowing he has been discovered, plants C-Four explosive and sets the timer on one minute. He waits for her to enter the room, and then looks at her and says, "Madame, we've left a note for you - I'd suggest you leave the house immediately with the note!"

She eyes him carefully, as he turns and moves quickly away. She grabs the note, and then moves toward a closet. Removing a shotgun, she races out the door and stands about forty feet from the house. Raising it in her arms, she prepares to fire at the ephemeral figures. She curses in French at them.

Suddenly the plastic explosive goes off - the house is engulfed in flames - and breaks into pieces. A firestorm envelopes what remains of the residence. Madame Grenoble is thrown to the ground.

By this time Stevens and Magowbie are far in the distance, by the stone wall to the estate. He watches the dazzling display. His thoughts turn to the art.

Though Madame Grenoble values them as priceless, he wonders to himself whether she will pay the price - if she survived the massive explosion. Maybe she'll just take an insurance loss, and a reimbursement. But if so, they can be fenced for at least ten million. To crazed Japanese centimillionaires who will pay anything for the quality of the works he has stolen. Either way, the only losers are the insurance companies. The perfect crime.

And a stepping stone to his next - the crime of the century! A billion dollars of DeBeers Diamonds the target. And a purchased country - on a remote island. Interpol doesn't worry Stevens. But what should worry him is someone he doesn't even yet know. A man named Taylor.

Montevideo is a spacious community with broad boulevards. It is Uruguay's largest city, and its principal economic center. Meat and wool-processing plants are located in the metropolitan area. It also has a large fishing industry, and the Port handles the majority of the nation's trade at sea.

On this day several crates marked "Orange Juice Concentrate" are being loaded onto the freighter 'Monmouth.' Its crew is not familiar with the true contents, but the Captain, Donald Miles, is. He is part of a Coalition headed by Raymundo de Artimas. Raymundo is watching from the dock as his precious cargo, containing one billion in diamonds, is moved onto the deck of the ship.

He represents the top political leaders of a neighboring country. His money is in those diamonds.

An unusual presence on the Port, he is wearing a suit of midnight blue, with a silver tie and a red handkerchief in his pocket. His thoughts are on his cargo - on its way to international waters outside Nevis, in the British West Indies. There to be trusted to a broker they have contracted - a middleman who will convert them - to ready, usable, spendable and most of all clean cash! That man is Samuel Stevens.