David Bruns: Death of a Pawn: A WMD Companion Short Story

Nisman stepped out of his office, turning down the hallway. The bathroom.

Rafiq’s prey entered the bathroom and snapped on the light, then he stopped suddenly, right in front of the mirror. He spoke in soft Spanish.

He talks to himself?

Rafiq realized he was hearing two voices. Nisman was not alone.

A lover? There had been no conversations. For hours, nothing but silence.

The bathroom door was ajar. Rafiq stepped into the hallway and edged close enough to hear what they were saying.

“You played your part perfectly. We thank you.” The voice was soft, almost feminine.

Rafiq chanced a look into the bathroom. Nisman’s palms were open at his side, but the other person was blocked from Rafiq’s view.

“I trusted you,” Nisman said. “You wanted the same things as me. An end to corruption. True justice for the nation… for the victims from 1994.”

“I don’t give a damn about the Jews. That was twenty years ago. No one cares about them, except you.”

Another assassin? How did I miss this?

“Good-bye, Alberto.”

Rafiq saw the fat cigar shape of a suppressor appear behind Nisman’s right ear. A single shot, like someone had dropped a heavy blanket on the tile floor, sounded.

Nisman sank to his knees and crumpled to the floor as his muscles went limp. He lay perfectly still. For a few seconds, blood fountained from the hole in his skull, then the flow slowed as his heart stopped beating.

Alberto Nisman was dead.

Rafiq stole quickly back into the maid’s closet, closing the door silently behind him.

He waited while the other assassin did his work. The radio went off. Then he could hear papers being shuffled, and the snap of the locks on a briefcase closing. Confident footsteps passed in front of Rafiq’s hiding place, and the lock on the front door clicked when the assassin departed.

Rafiq waited in silence for a full five minutes, then opened the closet door, weapon at the ready.

Nothing. He was alone.

He crept down the hallway to the bathroom.

Nisman lay on the bathroom floor, awash in a crimson pool of his own blood. The heavy, familiar smell of iron filled the air, laced with the scent of gunpowder. Rafiq drew a deep breath and held it, savored it. A .22 caliber Bersa lay on the floor next to Nisman’s body.

His chin shook as he thought about the prize that had been snatched away. Rafiq pushed that feeling down in his gut where it gnawed away.

The job is done. Time to go home.

He looked at his watch. 3:13PM.

Moments later, Rafiq Roshed strolled down the Buenos Aires sidewalk toward his parked rental car. If traffic was light on a Sunday afternoon, he could be in Fray Bentos by nightfall. The power yacht would take him home. Home to Nadine, little Javier, and Consie. Surely Javier would be bursting with news about his latest exploit on horseback.

The thought brought a smile to Rafiq’s face.

This piece of short fiction is based on a true story.

We first heard of Alberto Nisman the same way the rest of the world did: with his untimely and suspicious death on Sunday, January 18, 2015. First ruled a suicide, the determination of death was later changed to homicide, and a massive outcry for justice from the Argentinean people followed.

At the time, we were hip-deep in revisions to our novel, Weapons of Mass Deception . If you’ve read the book, you know that there is a Hezbollah sleeper cell, headed by Rafiq, in the Tri-Border Area of South America. Rafiq is in the TBA at the direction of his Iranian half-brother, Hashem.

WMD takes place in the present day, and Rafiq was in the TBA at exactly the same time as Alberto Nisman was killed. Even better, he was “between scenes” in our book and available for us to fabricate his involvement in this Argentinean tragedy.

As of this writing, the death of Mr. Nisman, mere hours before he was to present the findings of his investigation to the Argentinean Congress, is still unsolved. There is no shortage of people who might benefit from his demise and we list a few of them in the story: the President and her Foreign Minister, the opposition to the President and her administration, the Iranians and their subsidiary, Hezbollah. However Mr. Nisman died, one thing is clear: it is unlikely that the eighty-five victims of the 1994 AMIA bombing will ever see justice.

We have no special insight into this tragedy. In crafting “Death of a Pawn,” we chose to use fiction to show possibilities.

We leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

If you’d like to know more about the Two Navy Guys or the process of co-writing and producing a book, visit our blog, Two Navy Guys and a Novel. While you’re there, join our mailing list at http://davidbruns.com/newsletter to get access to free content, advance reader copies and other goodies. No spam, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Thank you,

David and JR

Aka The Two Navy Guys

P.S. — If you’re a sci-fi buff, you might want to try out some of David’s other works. You can find a complete list on the website.