The NAFTA Blueprint

  Roth kept close tabs on Michael and the lawyer when their inquiry landed them in Canada and Walden. Michael lugged around his messenger bag wherever he went, it facilitated surveillance. He wasn’t sure what type of quandary the locating device could suffer at the screening centers, there was a possibility the bug would be located by security officials thereby thwarting the plan, but none had been experienced thus far. One more flight from Halifax to Houston was all that stood in the way.

  Roth knew they had gone to Walden Pond to meet with Emma Marlowe, he also knew they had made the trip across the border to Nova Scotia for the arranged meeting with Jane Milton and the shooting. It was almost out in the open, exposure of the monopoly was inevitable unless Michael was silenced. They were on their way home now, it was effortless.

  Jay Jacobs had also been silenced. There were very few people the late commissioner had trusted with important documents to leak to the media. Michael and Helena were part of that circle, they were the media. These two political activists, who would become martyrs for the cause someday, were well within Roth’s surveillance lens, all he had to do was remain in the apartment until they returned. The next moves were significant. Any mistake could cause severe repercussions.

  When Pencho Slaveykov arrived at Michael’s apartment a few days prior, Roth was taken by surprise. It occurred to him a phone call must have been placed the day he broke into Michael’s apartment, when Michael went out walking for a replacement door lock. He hadn’t covered that, he glanced down in embarrassment. Whoever this Pencho character was, it eluded Roth, more so when they went into the restroom with the music blaring in the background and the hair clippers rumbling.

  If the distraction was done on purpose, they had earned Roth’s respect for cleverness. The reason why Pencho was staying at the apartment was locked in that brief restroom conversation, yet Roth heard none of it because the excessive tangled noise muffled all exchanged dialogue during that time lapse, rendering the listening device ineffective. Roth monitored Pencho during his temporary lodging while tracking Michael’s every step during travel status.

  Pencho did nothing unusual in the apartment, but he did follow a strict routine of exercise and leisure. In the morning he got out of bed wearing a solid pair of white boxer shorts―prison-status, showing a tight, chiseled abdomen and ribcage, he would then drop to the living room floor to do repetitions of push-ups on his bare knuckles, rotating the exercise with crunches and sit-ups. The developed muscles on his arms looked like solid wire mesh as they formed and leaned into a carved ivory sculpture.

  Roth coveted Pencho’s figure, he spurned at his old age in the mirror after he flexed a pathetic posture―youth had vanished. Morning exercise was followed by a swift shower with the door ajar. He exited the bathroom for two days with the same red and white striped point sweater with a pair of tan khakis and Oxford loafers. He drank orange juice and coffee, had toast with fruit, breezed through the day’s newspaper, and then browsed the internet for a few hours before preparing a vigorous lunch.

  Next, he napped on the living room sofa fully-clothed for about two hours, turned a few pages of a Russian novel when he awoke, repeated the morning exercises, had dinner delivered, and went to bed. A stark observation was made by Roth. Pencho did not use the house phone or a mobile phone once. And this was the routine, until the third day.

  On the third day, light trudging of footsteps increasing in sound startled Pencho as he napped on the sofa. He grabbed a weapon he stashed from under the pillow, the plopping noise echoed louder throughout the apartment as it came closer, causing him to jump to his feet and run towards the kitchen window.

  Roth’s eyes popped out of their sockets when he observed through the spliced screens of his monitor, “Oh no, what should I do?” he said, but he didn’t stir, he couldn’t meddle in this affair…it wasn’t his business.

  There was no peephole on the door. Pencho scurried across the hardwood floor to glance through the corner of a crimped curtain. He made out two bodies―both wearing dark suits and polarized sunglasses. As they approached the door, he waited motionless behind the kitchen counter, but then he dashed with swiftness making his way to the bedroom. The recorded image of his face displayed on the screens as he ran across the living room was terrifying―quite the horror show indeed.

  He must have heard something, perhaps the stifled sound of the silencer penetrating through the doorknob which caused him to run in panic. The first body poked his box-shaped face inside, just catching a glimpse of Pencho sliding into Michael’s bedroom. He signaled the other body with a hand gesture, with pistol in hand―proceed towards the bedroom. The two menacing bodies glided into the apartment like evening shadows in their darkened government suits with solid ties and aimed pistols with silencers.

  Roth felt a sharp rush of anxiety as he recalled previous urban terrorism work he did for the CIA as an anti-Castroist. The bodies crept through the living room, making their way into the bedroom with their pistols drawn where Pencho was hiding along the side of the bed that wasn’t visible from the door. The box-shaped face individual looked underneath the bed, without delay Pencho lifted his body from the opposite end and flung a kitchen knife at the other body striking him in the upper right arm as he blocked his face. Two gun shots were fired from the other body underneath the bed striking Pencho on his feet causing him to collapse. He yelled out.

  Immediately, both bodies hurled themselves across the opposite end of the bed and unloaded their pistols on Pencho’s body as he tried wielding another knife. It was caught on Roth’s monitors, and it happened in a haphazard method. Before the murderers left the apartment, the box-shaped individual pulled out a mobile phone from his coat pocket to make a phone call.

  All Roth heard was, “It’s done.”

  14.