Faithless

Misha was smoking his third cigarette when Jabrel walked into his room.The cigarettes were the only thing that were keeping him from doing something dangerous and stupid.Jabrel had told him,only cool and calm deliberate action can help us to acheive our mission,fulfill the desire of thousands opressed and the incomplete work of so many souls departed.

Misha had been an orphan since before he learned to care for love.His father had been one of the soldiers,Stalingrad no less,who had volunteered to bring te Afghans under the communist control.His ruthlessness had earned him the title,The Butcher among his comrades.Scores of the Mujaheddins had been blown to smithereens in front of his gun.But that was before fortune deserted Russia.The United States of America had come to the aid of the Afghans,for their own ends.They equipped the Mujaheddins with Stinger missiles,portable R.P.G.s capable of being used by a single unit to bring down enemy choppers and take out entire battalions with only a couple of propulsions,at most.The losses had been heavy on the Russian side.But undaunted,The Butcher had led a formation up a steep slopewhere intelligence reports indicated the presence of a large number of Stinger units.He never saw the R.P.G. hurtling towards his jeep.
The Mujaheddins had lost that fight,but the Russians couldn't recover his body.In the land of the enemy, he didn't even get a burial.Misha's mother had died of grief.She wasn't bold enough to be a soldier's wife.Along with the families of those affected by the war in Afghanistan,Misha,by a series of strange events had landed in Cyprus.He was always a lanky fellow.His hair was a natural blonde,something he had inherited from his mother.Unlike most Russians,he had no desire to keep a heavy moustache or beard.His eyes were a dull brown,but there was a perpetual look of alertness about him that would startled everyone.He was always thinking that his father's enemies would come after him.He had been brought up in a refugee camp,he went to school inside the camp.He knew nothing outside the camp,until Khaled came.

Jabrel Khaled had been the leader of a group of Palestinian radicalists.They were bent upon a single intention.Ignite a wave of terror acts on Israel and her ally,the U.S.A.The radicalists wanted statehood and felt that by removing the echelons of the Israel was the only way to acheive it.They knew that the refugee camp was inhabited by Russian immigrants who owed the Americans no good will.Misha had caught Khaled's eye and since then they had together planned and inflicted a series of attacks on Israel,Jerusalem in particular.These attacks had,however,incurred heavy losses on their side too.None of the Radicalists who had been present at the time of Misha's recruitment were alive anymore.

"Misha....Misha".Jabrel's words shook Misha out of his reverie.There was work to do.
Despite that Misha had been involved in so many attacks,he wasn't a vindictive man.He mostly concerned himself with intelligence gathering.The bloody work was done by the more zealous members of the enterprise.But the night's mission was too sensitive to be allowed to go wrong.One wrong step and the would be spending the rest of their lives in federal prison.

The powers-that-were of Israel,namely the prime minister,the Attorney General,the head of the Elite Israeli Police force and the Director of the Mossad,the Israeli intelligence agency,were meeting to discuss and abate the alarming growth of Palestinian attacks.Exactly where the meeting would take place was known only to a select few.But even then,leaks were inevitable and by deploying a brilliant plan,Misha got a huge chunk of intelligence.He knew the city block,the building,the floor and even the room where the meeting would take place.He knew every detail about the positioning of the security detail.Palestine's realization lay in the death of those meetin on the fateful night.The execution would be carried out by Khaled himself.The spider would be finally venturing out of his web again to get the kill.

For security reasons,Misha and Khaled had kept it a two-man mission.Intelligence and execution.Even then,they did not meet intil the day of operation itself,lest Mossad pick up a scent.As a result,Khaled would be getting all the intel on operation day.That was why they were meeting that day.

"Jabrel,you don't have to do this-",started Misha,taking a nervous pull from the cigarette.
But Khaled cuthim to the chase."Misha!Don't fool around!This has been our dream,our conquest!The enterprise had give you a purpose.Are you now doubting that purpose,at the moment of its realization?",retorted Jabrel.
"That is not what I meant,Jabrel.I'm trying to say that we can send someone else on the mission.",reasoned Misha.
"That is impossible.We both know it.It was you only who suggested that it would be best kept between us two until the mission was over.",reminded Jabrel.
In the end Misha had to comply with Jabrel.He gave Jabrel the the blueprints of the building where the meeting was to take place,marking the infiltration and possible escape-routes.Before leaving,Jabrel took Misha's head in his hands and kissed him on the forehead and said gently,"You have been like a brother to me all these years,Misha.I know you worry about my safety.But don't.I can see a new sun o the horizon...our sun."As the door shut behind him,Misha's hands started to shake so badly that he dropped the cigarette.
Night fell and Khaled was in position.He hadn't done this sort of work in years,but he still felt the thrill.It was just like the old days.He was perched on a rooftop,half a block away from the target building.He was wearing black army gear used by Special Forces all over the world.He didn't worry about being spotted.He had ample training and practice in stealth attacks.He was moving light.He was carrying just an automatic pistol,of Israeli manufacture.How ironic,he thought with a grim smile.In addition to that he was carrying three frag grenades of Dutch manufacture and a twenty-metre high tensile strength nylon rope.He would zipline to the target building.Then he would rappel along the wall to the second floor,where the meeting was to take place.He would have to take care of the two guards outside the door to the meeting room in a space of two seconds.Otherwise,he could set off an alarm.Then he would move into the room and shoot the person who would be sitting with his back to the window.Then two grenades would take care of the rest.

He saw seven cars parked infront of the buiding.Good,he thought.That meant the targets were already inside.He ziplined across to the rooftop of the target building.He noticed the absence of the guards on the rooftop.He found a lightning conductor.He tied one end of the nylon rope in a fisherman's knot to it.The other end he attached to his waist using a safety hook.With his back to the nothingness of the night,he jumped off the edge of the rooftop.Half a second later,he brought up his legs in a swinging motion and the friction offered by the wall and his shoes arrested his freefall.He slowly and cautiously rappelled down until he reached above a second floor window.from his position he tried to spot activity.There wasn't any.It was dark.Imitating the older buildings of Jerusalem, the windows of this buiding opened both ways.He dropped six more inches and halted again.He gently kicked the windows with the flat of his feet.Without breaking the panes,he managed to open the window.Muttering a prayer,he swung himself in.Suddenly,the lights came on.But before it registered in his brain,before he could complete the swing into the room,he felt heavy arms pinning him to the ground.His arms were twisted to his back and thee was another hand that kept his head to the ground.None of this was making any sense.He felt a thumb pressing into the back of the base of his skull and he went out like a lamp.

When Jabrel felt consciousness, he tried to make sense of his surroundings.He found himself on a chair with his hands tied behind the back of the chair.It was probably what had kept him from falling off when he was out cold.The room was simply filthy.The paint was peeling off.There was an inch of dust on every exposed surface.The light bulb kept flickering.It was all set up like a cheap horror flick set.But what really scared him was a smell.Most people would have associated the smell with the rest of the grime of the room.But Jabrel knew the smell all too well.Dried blood ,he thought grimly.On cue,he heard a door open behind him.He distinguished two different types of footsteps.One stopped halfway between the door and him.The other one kept walking and eventually Jabrel saw the man facing him.He was moderately tall.His hair was a close crop.Though he looked to be pushing forty,he was in remarkably good shape.The ex-military type,assessed Jabrel.His expression was....expressionless.He started to speak,"So,you thought that removing the prime minister would be a synch,eh?Well,You Palestinian pig?!".In a flash,he delivered a hard punch on Jabrel's right jaw.Blood sprayed out.A couple of teeth fell out.The pain was excrutiating,but Jabrel would not scream.He wasn't afraid for his own life but for the survival of their faction.He feared that there was a mole in the faction and it was none other than....."What's wrong?A little punch knocked out all your radicalism?",leered the man.He continued,"Let me explain my position.I am special agent in charge of the prime minister's security detail.I am not a stranger to your petty violence.Now,we got tipped off that there would be an attempt at the prime minister's life.We have been bearing this sort of nonsense from you peole all the time.So finally,someone high up gets pissed off and now he wants to make sure that we make an example of you.First,I will chop off all your fingers.Then,I'll move onto your toes.After that,your limbs will be hacked off one by one.Your intestines will be torn out and your lungs will follow suit.And then....we shall carry your carcass to the centre of Jerusalem and publicly behead you.There will be no bullet to make a clean job....It will be as messy as when we are finished with taking out your entire faction,which won't be very difficult anymore."
With that, the man took out an Indian knife with a long blade and a lighter.Playfully,he started heating the blade.Even though the type of death he was about to face scared him,he managed a laugh and said,"No negotiation?I thought you people knew only how to negotiate,not hold a gun."The man did not take offense.Instead,he replied,"No..no more negotiations..we just had one a week ago..That is enough for the moment.I think the blade is hot enough now",he said with a sadistic grin,"but a final horror awaits you....Yasser?Bring him in." As Jabrel was finally feeling the real fear he heard the man behind him go out for a moment and then come back again.There was a dragging sound and it looked like the man,Yasser,had brought in a bodybag.Without any nonsense,he opened the zipper and Misha's head flopped out.Jabrel gasped in horror.The face was carved beyond recognition and only his blonde hair had allowed any resemblence to him."Your friend..He was...shall we say....faithless?Yes, he was faithless in your operation.The filthy coward realized that his days as a member of your faction was numbered and wanted to save his own skin.So what did he do?He came to us and revealed every single detail of the plan a week ago.After we grabbed you tonight,we decided that your friend was worthless and we had a little fun with the knife....Faithlessness...can be dangerous."
Jabrel felt tears run down his face.He had realized that it had to be Misha.They were the only two who knew about the plan.But the horror of seeing his comrade's face carved up had overridden his shock and anger for Misha's deceit.
He did not ask himself any rhetorical questions.He prepared himself for the gruesome death awaiting him.
It seemed an eternity when the scalding hot blade touched his finger.