Fueling the Rage Read online

  Fueling the Rage

  By Jim Wilson

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales of persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2012 by Jim Wilson

  Special Acknowledgements

  It was not easy to find an editor that had the ability to edit my first book. Heidi Doerr-Wilson made that difficult job look easy.

  The cover was designed by Susan Moguel. I appreciate her creativity and ability to understand things like formatting.

  Matt Wilson, my son, wrote the clever quatrains for each chapter.

  To

  The Navy Seal that did not come home

  Sharp is the hand that wields the blade

  Thrust and slice the butcher’s blow

  When once is done the death is praised

  And heavenly light upon you glow

  Prologue

  Simon Walar was a private guard. His alarm rang at 7am. He dressed in his freshly ironed uniform, removed his holstered police edition 45 caliber automatic from a small safe, and confirmed that it held a chambered round. He set the safety to on, reinserted it into the holster and positioned it on his right hip. With his index finger, he counted the unused holes on the belt and approved. Carefully examining his image in a full length mirror, he thought, in one week I will have kept Dr. Green and his family safe for twenty three years. He left his fifth floor room, locked the door and walked to the staff quarters kitchen.

  Simon ate breakfast and spent the rest of his free time reading the sports section of the Paris Free Press. At 8am he started his rounds. He varied his route based on the day of the week. Today he walked down the five flights of stairs to the parking garage. He used an old trick he had learned in Iran. During his last round at night he would sprinkle a small amount of sand on the concrete floor surrounding each car. If the sand was disturbed he would call the police and secure the sixth floor family quarters. The sand was undisturbed. He proceeded to carefully examine the five family cars, and thought all is well. He cleaned up the sand and took the guest elevator to the sixth floor.

  “It is 8:45am.” He walked to the main entrance and rang the bell. No one answered. They are all still asleep, he thought. Using his key he opened the door and called out, “Good morning!” as his head entered the apartment. What he saw shocked him. Before him were the bodies of Dr. Green and the small Priest. “Oh my God, please be alive! Please don’t be dead!” He walked to Dr. Green’s body and touched his hand. “My God, you are so cold.” He was standing in a puddle of sticky, red blood. He dialed the police and said aloud, “I must not move.”

  On the third ring they answered, “This is the police, what is your emergency?”

  “I am the private guard for the family of Dr. Paul Green.” He stopped long enough to collect his emotions. “River Arms apartments, sixth floor, someone has killed my family!”

  “Are you safe?”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I am at the main entrance on the sixth floor. Go to the parking garage and take guest elevator six.”

  “Don’t hang up, stay where you are, and don’t touch anything. Help is on the way.” The dispatcher pressed a key on a radio, and in a calm voice said, “Code one, possible multiple murders at the River Arms apartments, sixth floor. Take parking garage elevator six.” She returned to Simon and kept him calm as they waited for officers to arrive.

  *****

  Chief Inspector Rene Gualt lived by himself in a modest second story apartment on the west bank of Paris. When his workday was finished there was always a table waiting for him at a small restaurant next to his apartment building. The restaurant closed at ten and if he did not show up, a waiter would pack a meal and deliver it to his apartment. Each morning at 8:30am the restaurant prepared his table for breakfast.

  At 8:35am Gualt arrived at the restaurant. His waiter handed him the morning paper and greeted him, “Good morning Chief Inspector.”

  “Good morning Sam, I will have the usual.” He took a seat and his waiter returned with breakfast.

  At 9:05am Gualt was reading the crime section of the paper and sipping his third cup of black coffee. His phone rang, “Chief Inspector, there is a murder at the River Arms apartments. Police are waiting for you in the parking garage.”

  Saying aloud, “I must go directly through the city.” He turned on the flashing lights and siren, “This traffic is awful!” As he neared his destination, traffic improved and this gave him time to think. I will never understand murder. It is often the smallest things that bring one person to kill another. The apartment was in view, “This area of Paris is normally void of such unpleasant situations.”

  Riverside Arms was a six-story apartment building on the Seine River. He parked on the street and, as he walked towards the garage entrance, several police officers greeted him. One officer handed Gualt blue paper booties to cover his shoes and white latex gloves. They directed him to the service elevator and raised the yellow tape that blocked entry to the elevator. With a short wave, Gualt fended off two officers that tried to join him.

  “Please no more traffic to the crime scene. Is the coroner here?”

  “He’s waiting for you on the fifth floor.”

  Gualt stepped into the servant elevator, stood in one spot, and surveyed it. There was no obvious evidence. He noticed there were only two available floors. He selected the fifth floor, and soon the door opened. His old friend the coroner was waiting for him.

  “The murder scene is on the sixth floor.”

  “Jacque, what’s the status of the crime scene and when was it secured?”

  “Their private guard always does a walkthrough of the apartment at 8:45am. He knocked on the door and there was no answer, so he unlocked and opened the front door to the apartment. There were two bodies visible from the front door. He checked for life, and then called us. Five minutes later, two police officers entered, searched the apartment, and found a total of five victims. They called headquarters and sealed the apartment. I received a call at 9:10am. I arrived at 9:30am, confirmed the death of the victims, and went to my present location to complete my paperwork. You are the next to enter.”

  Gualt and Jacque rode together to the sixth floor. It opened to a private kitchen. Gualt hit the stop button and viewed the area before he stepped off the elevator. Ten feet in front of him, he saw a woman face down on the floor. Her body was surrounded by a smooth red puddle of blood. “Jacque, the family guard will know the victims. We will have him join us.”

  The guard met them in the garage and they made a second trip directly to the sixth floor. Gualt again hit the stop button before getting off the elevator. “Who’s the woman?”

  “Mrs. Green.”

  “You two follow and stay close behind me.”

  They walked through the kitchen and Gualt opened a door that led into the private dining room where they saw two more bodies. “Who are they?”

  The guard was softly crying, “Her two daughters.”

  They followed him to another door. Gualt opened the door, but stopped prior to entering a very large room. “They were very rich. My apartment would fit three times in this room. If the artwork on the walls is real, it is priceless. “From his position, he studied the next two bodies. “Who are they?”

  “The tall one is Mr. Green and the little man is Father Demur.”

  “Jacque, from what you’ve seen, can you describe the causes of death?”

  “This was a killing with a long bladed knife. All of the victims had throat wounds, but the throat wounds of the men appear to be post mortem. Some of the victims had chest an
d back wounds, but to know more than this I must move the bodies.”

  “Was the entire family murdered?” Gualt asked. The guard slowly shook his head.

  “They have a son, Paul Junior. He’s not here and he is a troubled young man.”

  “Jacque, you can have the crime scene.” The guard followed the Chief Inspector to the elevator and they returned to the garage.

  *****

  Paul Green’s new life in Paris had started twenty-two years earlier. Few people in Paris remembered him as Doctor Mohammad Gresera, Iran’s Secretary of the Treasury under the Shah. No one ever questioned where his wealth came from. For many years he had moved small amounts of money into his secret bank account. Although he considered himself an honest man, and reconciled his theft as protection from a precarious future. During the fifteen years that he was Secretary of the Treasury, he had diverted a total of six million dollars. Much of his work for the Shah was in France and America, but America’s partnership with the Shah was waning.

  The Shah was fighting two battles. After a long struggle, he admitted to himself that he was dying of cancer. His cancer weakened his resolve and he knew that the succession to his son that he had hoped for would never survive the insurrection. There was always some sort of Islamic unrest in Iran, and normally his response would be swift and harsh. He felt that a government run by religious fanatics would soon be unpopular, and that before long the crown would return to his son. The Shah was fighting to protect his wealth and as the end of his reign approached, Doctor Gresera’s main duty had been to remove the Shah’s wealth from Iran.

  Previously, he had worked to diversify and add security to the Shah’s assets, but the time for carefully documented actions had ended. Gresera rapidly converted billions of the Shah’s Iranian rial into stable currency, and deposited them into his secret bank accounts located in countries friendlier to him and his family. He transported tons of pure gold to Switzerland for safe storage, and moved almost all of the Shah’s art collection to a secret site in Germany. The Shah never missed the few paintings that Gresera stole for his small personal collection.

  In the Shah’s treasury building in Tehran, there were two large storage vaults containing one billion US twenty dollar bills. Gresera supervised the crew that loaded them onto three Boeing 707s. The aircraft landed in Bermuda, where they were parked, unloaded and abandoned. Most of the cash was diverted into the Shah’s secret accounts at three Bermuda banks, but Doctor Gresera used the opportunity to transfer a large amount into his own personal account. These were the largest cash deposits in the history of Bermuda. During the two weeks before the fall of the Shah, Doctor Gresera’s six million dollars grew to over two billion US dollars.

  Deep down Doctor Gresera still felt that he was a very honest man. If the revolution required a fight to the death he would have accepted his fate, but the Shah’s departure from danger convinced him that a very nice second life for his family was appropriate. Gresera felt that he alone had insured the Shah’s large family would live very well. The Shah’s son would even have enough to return to Iran someday if the revolutionaries realized the craziness of their ways. One week before the fall, Gresera had moved his wife Sara, their two daughters and three of his faithful servants to Paris, France.

  He had purchased a comfortable apartment that offered both beauty and security. The highest levels of French business and society accepted Gresera and his wealth with open arms. This was the new age of computers and software, and he had a keen eye for opportunity. Just a few million dollars would gain significant ownership in startups and growing European and American businesses. He was a wise investor and initially limited his portfolio to fifty businesses. However, his far-sighted investment talents quickly added impressive gains to his portfolio. His employees managed his day-to-day investments. His experience as the Secretary of the Treasury made him a watchful manager of his personnel and the funds they handled.

  Even in Iran, he was not comfortable in Islamic religious circles. Though his first name was Mohammad, a strong link to the faith, everyone addressed him as Doctor Gresera. His parents were long dead, and Sara, his wife, was the only person that called him Mohammad. He was proud of his western education. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees in accounting from Princeton, and had completed his western education at Oxford, where he received a doctorate in International Law.

  As his wealth increased, he became weary of his old life. In Iran, he often worked with the hypocritical Islamic clerics, and he detested them. When they were away from their adoring masses, they had no proclivities that went untested. Often the Shah used his wealth and power to save them from dalliances that involved alcohol or illicit sex, and now the same clerics were running Iran.

  As Gresera became more comfortable in French society, he became less comfortable with his name and his faith. Six months after moving to Paris, he changed his name to Paul Green, and he exchanged his weak Islamic faith for a more European Catholic faith. He found his new name while reading an English novel, and he loved its musical sound. Changing his name was hard on Sara, but eventually her tears passed.

  His conversion to Catholicism had little effect on his lifestyle, but greatly reduced the hypocritical feelings that came with great wealth. His daughters were happy with the conversion. Their school friends were all Christians. The other Muslim girls that attended the exclusive Paris Academy were there under scholarships, and it was always stressful for the Green girls to be associated with them. He allowed his daughters to wear trendy conventional clothing and, on one occasion prior to his conversion, he received a direct threat from one of the Muslim fathers about his daughter‘s uncovered heads. The next day, the administrator expelled the man’s child and hired three armed guards for the academy.

  There were many Muslims in France, and most were poor. They tended to shy away from the French life style. Most were reluctant to learn French, and if they worked, it was often in the lowest positions at hotels and restaurants. Their children normally went to Muslim schools paid for by Saudi charities. It was not a hard life for them, but it gave them too much time for thinking. The French government was a generous provider of assistance. The government concluded that the next generation of this troublesome group would assimilate. The French are patient to a fault, and they never would understand the very firm hand needed to control the students in Iran.

  *****

  Paul’s new life in Paris grew and his old life in Iran seemed to fade away. Two years later, his only son was born. The Paris Medical Center was an imposing seven-story building. Sara was in a VIP suite surrounded by Paul, their daughters, and their new friend, Father Demur. The room looked more like a suite in a very fine hotel than a hospital room. Recovering from the delivery, Sara was lying in a large four-poster bed. All of the linen was white, and the room seemed to gleam from the white walls and the white tiled floor.

  A nurse placed their baby boy into Sara’s arms. “God is good,” she said, carefully examining her healthy new born. She smiled and bowed to each of the members of her family. Her last smile lingered on the priest and she thought, I am happy my father is dead, so he cannot see this smiling pig, a whore of the Roman Catholic Church, standing beside me.

  “Mohammad, what is your choice of a name for your boy? “ “We’ll call him, Paul Jr.”

  At the age of thirty-four, his wife was an amazing beauty. She was tall, almost six feet, with a thin body that showed off the finest French designer offerings. In their fifteen years of marriage, she had never argued with him. Even when they became Christians, she knew her place.

  Father Demur scanned the elegant furnishings of the hospital room and softly repeated, “God is good.” He did not know that Sara had a different God. He thought. What a wonderful Catholic family. Father Demur also did not know that in twenty years, Paul Junior would slash the throats of everyone in the room. Paul Junior would not stay a Catholic, but he would return to the original name of his father, Mohammad, and become a ve
ry rich terrorist.

  *****

  Two years later, in Tampa, Florida, American Doctor Brian Crane was just completing his long Tuesday schedule. He was a heart surgeon at the University Medical Center. Wednesday was his day off and he was looking forward to taking his four-year-old daughter Mira to the beach. His wife Alice, also a doctor at the University Medical Center, was within days of delivering their second child. She was a level one critical care and trauma specialist. For eight months of her pregnancy, she was able to continue working in the emergency department, but after that point, she decided to go home and wait for the big event.

  Alice was a beauty, tall, strong, and slender. She had an amazing memory and steel will. Brian still remembered the first time he saw her. He was a student at the University of Miami, and his fraternity was having a spring dance. Alice was his best friend’s date. She was wearing high heels and a short white dress. He saw her big black eyes and her pale face, framed by her straight black hair. She towered over him. It took him two weeks to get the nerve to call her, and they were married three months later. He never understood what she saw in him.

  Brian’s parents were Muslims from a small, predominantly Christian village in Pakistan. His father had joined the American Navy early in 1940. Six months after joining, he had converted to Christianity, and his wife soon followed his lead. His Muslim name was Mohammad Krokze, but with his new Navy job, he took a new American name, Mo Crane. After the war, he stayed in the Navy and transferred to Key West, Florida where Brian was born in 1956. Mo Crane’s native tongue was Arabic, but his knack for language was amazing. He spoke several languages, in addition to perfect south Florida English. A few of his oldest friends called him Mo, but as he advanced in the Navy, most addressed him as Chief. He retired in 1962, and with Brian’s mother, purchased a small house in the Florida Keys.

  Alice’s parents were from Lebanon. Her father, Henry Saval, was a vice president for the Bank of England. During WWII, he did dangerous work for his country, but never talked about it. In 1946, he transferred to the British Embassy in Bermuda as Assistant Counsel General. In 1954, he received a promotion to Counsel General and transferred to the British Embassy in Miami, Florida.