Globusz^® Publishing 

Special Agent Henry Carr was having another nightmare as he slept in after a late night stakeout. The CIA’s top counter-terrorist agent in Western Europe had the same dream several nights every week. Henry wished they would stop, but he was convinced that the more he thought about not having them, the more he reinforced his mind to have them. When he met with the agency shrinks last year they told him the same thing. ‘Just let it go, if it torments you at night, don’t think about it.’ Easy for them to say, thought Henry, God knows he tried, and there wasn’t much else he could do but keep trying. Henry walked into the bathroom to wash his face and cool himself down. The ten-year CIA veteran resembled a lot of the European soccer players with a thin muscular build and medium height. His handsome face had a few scars and a slight bend on his once broken nose.

The dream was usually the same, almost like the real situation, but his conscience always manages to throw a few more things at him every night to kick in the guilt, as if it needed any more kicking.

Henry was assigned to the Berlin office at the time, and spent most of his days checking into one or two names that would pop up on his computer each morning. This one particular afternoon seemed like any other when the ten-year agency veteran went to the Alsterhof Hotel to check on a suspected Irani arms dealer who kept shop in Berlin. The word from German Intelligence was that the Irani’s recent deal with a Sudanese warlord had fallen through and that he might try to make some last ditch arrangements rather than return to Iran empty handed. German Intel had an operative posing as a neo-nazi extremist link up with the Irani and a meeting had been scheduled for 2:30 that same day. At 2:15, Henry took his usual seat in the hotel lobby right in front of the elevator where he would usually wait for the Irani and follow him around town. Today would be different, Henry hoped as he watched the skinhead German agent walk into the hotel and take the elevator to the 5th Floor to meet with the Irani. If all worked out well, the Irani will take the skinhead to his hidden warehouse and the arms ring would finally be busted. At 2:40, Henry looked over at his German counterpart who was working undercover as a clerk behind the hotel’s check-in counter. The German simply shook his head negatively and pointed to his radio earpiece to indicate that nothing is happening yet. At 2:45 the ding of a bell signaled that the elevator had come down to the first floor ground level. The elevator door opened and Henry saw the skinhead operative coming out first followed by the Irani, who was carrying a coat over his arm. A rookie ten weeks fresh out of the academy could easily tell that the Irani had a pistol under his coat and aimed at the skinhead’s back. The skinhead looked at the check-in counter, gave a signal with his eyes and kept walking to the front door with the Irani following closely behind. Suddenly, the agent behind the counter shouted, “Halt.” The skinhead dove for cover and shots rang out in the direction of the Irani who quickly hid behind a desk. Not wanting to blow his cover, Henry immediately fell to the floor and overturned a coffee table to give him some cover from the Irani. Henry pulled out his gun, disappointed that he probably won’t find the Irani’s weapons warehouse, but happy enough to want to send him to his grave. The German agent behind the counter yelled for the Irani to throw out his gun and surrender. The Irani replied by sending two shots directly at the counter and one at the sofa that the skinhead was hiding behind.

The agent behind the counter pointed to his radio earpiece and told Henry that he was just told by the skinhead that the Irani alerted his Embassy before he left his room that there might be trouble. The Iranian Embassy would be sending people over to pull their man out of this mess under the guise of diplomatic immunity. They will be there with half the Berlin police force in less than 15 minutes.

“Not if I could help it,” Henry said, hopeful that he could terminate the Irani and still have time to search his room for information about the warehouse before they get here. Henry asked the German to cover him and the German responded with several shots in the direction of the Irani. Henry jumped to his feet and charged the Irani’s position firing a volley of bullets through the desk. Knowing full well that there is a limited chance that anyone could live through the volley, Henry saved two bullets just in case. He jumped on top of the desk ready to send the last two bullets into the Irani’s head when he came face to face with his worst nightmare. The same thing he saw every night when he had this dream. The little girl with the blood soaked yellow coat. He heard her mother scream her name, ‘Giselle’. A scream that got louder and more horrifying with every dream. He kept asking himself, ‘When did that bastard grab the girl?’ People scattered in every direction when the German yelled ‘halt’. ‘Why didn’t the mother say anything earlier?’

Henry remembers standing on top of the desk at the shooting and seeing the look of shock and regret on the faces of the German agents.

“Why?” he screamed, “Why didn’t you tell me she was there?”

The two German agents quickly grabbed Henry by the arms and hurried him out the back door before the police got there. Henry looked skyward and screamed madly, “Why? Why didn’t you tell me she was there?”

“Each night his screaming would wake him up from the dream. It was like he was getting used to the tear and sweat-soaked pillow and sheets. Maybe this was some sadistic way of helping him repent for taking the life of the young girl. ‘If that was the case,’ he thought, ‘it was the least he could do.’

For six months after this incident, Henry thought about leaving the agency and getting a regular job, but he thought that there were too many more bad men like the gunrunning Irani still out there who would grab an innocent child to use as a shield. Dreams or no dreams, Henry would make it his mission in life to end the miserable life of every terrorist, and who knows, maybe someday he will find some inner peace.

When the report of the shooting was written up, both the Americans and the Germans thought it would be in everyone’s best interest to transfer Henry to a different office.

He was quickly reassigned to Vienna, Austria, where he continued to do his usual outstanding job. He still had the dreams, and now he was overly careful in gunfights, neither of which was any good for his health.

When Henry got to the office that morning, there was an e-mail message from Jack Hoskins of Counter Terrorism requesting him to report to the port city of Batumi in the Georgia Republic. He was asked to lead a team of agents investigating potential terrorist activities involving a radioactive substance. Nothing made Henry’s day more than an opportunity to go up against a ruthless terrorist. Knowing that the terrorist would be messing with a lethal substance that could harm innocent people made his blood boil.