Raymond Benson: Doubleshot

Sometimes he wore a traditional jellaba, a gownlike garment with a hood. Although no one could pinpoint exactly why, the meetings were always different when Le Gérant dressed in Moroccan clothing. His considerable charismatic powers were somehow more intense when he embraced his mother’s ancestral Berber culture. Those in his presence felt an elusive aura of self-confidence and enlightenment, and this had a significant effect on his powers of persuasion and leadership. Meetings became lessons in philosophy or Union ideology, and money was never discussed. One commandant had said that Le Gérant became more “mystical” when he wore the jellaba.

Le Gérant never used or took notes. Everything was in his head. Always. He pulled sophisticated facts and figures from the air. He never needed to be reminded of anything. Anyone who had the privilege of meeting him always came away impressed by his profound intellect.

He was usually fair and generous with the Union’s profits. The other people in the room, the cercle fermé, were all millionaires thanks to their work for the Union. Each man or woman was a commandant responsible for a geographical area somewhere in the world, and employed anywhere from fifty to several hundred people, depending on the needs of the district. It took a lot of money to keep several hundred people happy and the Union was able to provide stability. That kept the commandants loyal.

Fear was also a major factor in keeping the cercle fermé faithful to Le Gérant. If for any reason he believed that someone had cheated him or attempted to do something behind his back, he became furious. He could extract a confession easily and punishment was, as a matter of course, swift and merciless. Commandant Jimmy Powers had seen a man’s throat cut in this very room.

The twenty-six commandants were required to take notes and be prepared with any documentation Le Gérant might require. Their leader was very strict, even compulsive, about the appearance of everything. He insisted on cleanliness and order. He dictated what kind of pens and paper would be used in the conference room, and what coffee was served and in which cups. He liked everything to be in its place. A desk light was essential at every station at the table, because Le Gérant kept the room so dark. The commandants, although they were used to them, never liked these policies and wished Le Gérant would change them. Why should they matter to him?

After all, Le Gérant was blind.

A servant entered the room with a tray full of tall glasses filled with hot mint tea. A Moroccan tradition, the tea was served with mint leaves floating in the narrow glass, and each person had the option of adding sugar or not. It was yet another part of the ritual Le Gérant insisted upon.

Jimmy Powers disliked mint tea intensely. It was something he put up with, though, for he had to admit that the Union had brought him more wealth and interesting things to do than the founding Union boss, Taylor Harris, could ever have hoped to offer. He had been wise to stick with Le Gérant after Harris was killed in Oregon. The original Union broke up after that, but Le Gérant ’s reformed Union rose from the ashes. While the original Union made a show of being an organization of mercenaries willing to perform any paramilitary task for the right price, Le Gérant transformed the group into something far more serious. Once Le Gérant had outlined what the new Union could do for him, Jimmy Powers turned coat as well and left America for Morocco. He had been there for three years, acting as one of Le Gérant ’s most trusted commandants.

Julius Wilcox, the other American charter member, was the ugliest and meanest-looking commandant at the table. He had a particularly gruesome scar above his right eye, a hawk nose, and greasy, slickedback gray hair. He was, perhaps, the Union’s most accomplished executioner. He, too, was happy that he was working for Le Gérant rather than the temperamental Taylor Harris.

Powers scanned the faces of the other commandants. He had never made a point of getting to know any of them personally—it was against the rules. He did, however, know who each of them was and which districts each controlled.

One of the men who intrigued him was Nadir Yassasin, a black Muslim from Morocco … or perhaps Mauritania … he wasn’t sure. Yassasin was known as the Union’s “strategist.” If anyone could be called Le Gérant ’s right-hand man, it was he. Powers had been promised that he and Yassasin would work together very soon.

The other commandants were from other areas of the globe—Great Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Israel, Argentina, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, and the United States. Collectively, they controlled thousands of Union members worldwide. In the six short years of its existence, the Union had grown into a powerful, deadly force that kept Interpol, the CIA and FBI, MI5 and MI6, Mossad, and other law enforcement agencies on alert for any information pertaining to the capture of Union leaders. The organization’s accomplishments were impressive. The Union were responsible for several audacious terrorist attacks, political upheavals, high-profile blackmail and extortion cases, murders-for-hire, drug smuggling, prostitution, and arms dealing. The only major failure had occurred within the last two months: the one involving the disastrous Skin 17 project. Powers knew that this had been a thorn in Le Gérant ’s side since that fateful day in the Himalayas.

As green and black olives were served with the tea, LeGérant decided it was time to begin. He spoke in English, with a French accent.

“I am happy to report that several of our latest ventures have been successful. Thanks to people working day and night in our communications department, we have penetrated nearly every intelligence agency in the world. If we are not already inside them, then they are not worth bothering with.”

The group applauded politely.

“Mr. Wilcox, could you please inform everyone of our financial status?”

Wilcox sat up and cleared his throat. “Yes, sir, here we are,” he said, thumbing through his notes. “Total income for the last fiscal year was twelve billion dollars in U.S. funds.”

The group applauded once more, this time a little more enthusiastically.

“The distribution of the money will occur by the end of this month,” Wilcox continued. “You are all aware of your percentage. If you have any problems, see me.”

“And recruitment?” Le Gérant asked.

“Up fifteen percent,” Wilcox replied. “The payroll indicates that we now employ over ten thousand people worldwide. Like McDonald’s, we’ll soon have a Union franchise in every major city.”

Some of the commandants laughed.

“Very good,” Le Gérant said, obviously pleased. It couldn’t be said that he didn’t have a sense of humor. “I believe our efforts to escalate the war in the former Yugoslavia were what put us back on track after the failure of the Skin 17 project. We have our strategist, Mr. Yassasin, to thank for that.”

Again, there was applause. Yassasin merely nodded. He was always given the most “impossible” jobs and always managed to pull them off with finesse. Besides being an expert in computers, electronics, physics, and disguise, Yassasin was a master planner. Like a chess champion, he could predict every possible move and countermove in any job he undertook.

“Which brings us to new business,” Le Gérant said, shifting the tone of his voice to something more akin to that of a disapproving parent. “The Skin 17 failure cost us much more than the money we invested in it and the lives of the operatives we lost. We had promised to sell the formula to the Chinese. Not making good on that promise left us with bad credit in the Far East. All of the markets in Asia have dried up, and we’re having difficulties keeping up our operations there. This is seriously affecting our business, not only in the Far East, but everywhere. When the word got out that the Union slipped up on a major job, it made our clients less enthusiastic about working with us. It damaged our image and reputation. We must work on repairing that damage.”