The Invisible Man

No connection to any persons or companies by the same, or similar, names is intended. This is totally a work of fiction.

Note: The idea for the invisible man was "borrowed" from Frederick Forsyth's book, "The Day of the Jackal". Only the concept has been borrowed, no direct quotation has been used.

*

The office was quiet. George liked it that way. George was a late middle aged man of slight build and very meek appearance behind his thick glasses. His office was very small and was inhabited, it seemed, by mountains of paper in the forms of reports and books, all sorts of books. George didn't like to socialize much. He was considered "more than a little bit odd" by most of the other employees. None of the regular workers in the company even knew if he was married, in fact most of them couldn't care less about knowing anything about George. He seemed to all but live in the office.

Every now and then, George would be out for up to several weeks at a time. Upper management indicated that George had some health problems, but that he was such a long term and dedicated employee and held such a large amount of stock in the company that special rules applied to him. Since nobody ever bother to think about George, there was never any real risk of someone dropping by his apartment to check on him. George liked it this way.

The firm George worked for, Specialized Services, Corp., supplied private auditing and investigation services for the federal government. Most of the investigations involved checking out accounting irregularities in government agencies. As with anything run by any government there were always accounting irregularities, The agencies that they most often had to check were intelligence agencies like the CIA, DEA, Postal Inspectors, Secret Service or FBI.. Because of that, all of the employees of the firm had at lest top secret clearances and most of the employees at the firm were either lawyers or accountants; and most of the accountants were highly specialized CPAs. George wasn't a CPA. In fact, he was neither a lawyer nor an accountant. His front was that he did some specialized legal work for the firm, the reality was that he just did specialized work that the government couldn't touch. None of his work produced reports. None of his work showed up as line item income. In fact, a careful study of his job description would show that George appeared to be a glorified "editor and proof reader" for everyone else's work.

**********************

Muhammet Al Gazzi was an undersecretary in his country's diplomatic mission to the U.N. Al Gazzi was not a good Muslim in truth. He enjoyed the use of certain "recreational drugs". He also enjoyed the pleasure he got from some of the women in New York after he used GHB to make them more willing to party. He had, after all, diplomatic immunity. Nobody outside his own diplomatic mission could discipline him. Neither the local police nor U.S. Federal agents could touch him.

This Monday, Muhammet was feeling especially good. He had enjoyed a night with three beautiful women who would remember nothing in the morning. In all cases they would have been put into a specific taxi to take them to the address shown on their driver's licenses. The driver would be told that they had consumed way too much alcohol and needed to sleep it off. The driver was given large tips to cover his having to get the women out of the car and into the lobby of their respective buildings. Muhammet had worked out a deal with this driver, Ozzie, an expatriate of the country which Muhammet represented. Ozzie was an illegal immigrant who drove for one of the local cab companies. Muhammet would bring the girls to Ozzie, and Ozzie would take them home. Since the women were never of his race he didn't feel any guilt about what he was doing. Ozzie would be richer by $1,000 per woman for his silent delivery services. If asked by officials he would indicate that he had been called to make a pickup just off fifth avenue, near Central Park. The lighting in the specific area wasn't the best and the man who had called for the cab wore a wide brimmed hat that left much of his face in shadow. It wasn't the normal way cabs worked, but it wasn't impossible to believe the story either. After all, city residents don't always follow the rules when money is to be made.

Ozzie was always paid in crisp new one hundred dollar bills. Ozzie didn't know that the bills were printed in the Middle East as a form of economic warfare against the United States.

The only minor dark cloud to spoil Muhammet's enjoyment was that one of the last three women had obviously had a much stronger reaction to the drug than the other two. She wasn't looking all that good when he had her picked up by the cab. Ah, well, that was not his concern now, was it?

**********************

It was mid afternoon and Under Secretary Bill Hodges was busy in his office at the State Department headquarters, in Washington, when the call came in. His secretary broke into a briefing session with a White House minion to get him on the phone. That was unusual! So was the call!

"Bill Hodges."

"Mr. Hodges, I'm sergeant Richardson of the New York City Police department. I apologize for interrupting you, but there was no way to avoid it. Do you have a sister who lives in New York?"

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"Can you tell me the street address?"

"No, I don't give that type of information over the phone to people I don't know."

"O.K. let me ask it this way then, does she have a tattoo on the inside of her left ankle that reads 'I love Bill'?"

There was silence for a moment. "Yes she does. What is going on? Has there been an accident? Is she all right?"

"No, Mr. Hodges she isn't all right. It is my understanding that your sister and you were the last remaining members of your family. Is that true?"

Bill had a sinking feeling. He had immediately picked up on the past tense of the word "were".

"Yes, we are the last members of our family. What is going on?"

"Mr. Hodges, your sister died last night under very unusual circumstances. Can you come up to the city to help us with some details?"

"I can be there at La Guardia in an hour and a half. Can you have someone meet me?"

"I'll be there, sir."

**********************

Bill went to his boss, the secretary of state and asked a favor. It was granted, and within the half hour Bill was strapped into a Marine helicopter headed for New York. To make it legal, he had to visit the American U.N. ambassador before he flew back.

Two hours later Bill was sitting in a small conference room with New York City police, the City's chief medical examiner, and two men from the FBI.

**********************

The meeting was relatively short. The police indicated that when they figured out who the dead woman was they did a rush job to get the City's medical examiner to do an autopsy, and to get a local university genetics lab do a rush DNA test. That test wasn't going to give extremely accurate results, but it was fast. They sidestepped all the normal rules and did a toxicological scan, using a gas chromatograph, and had identified the presence of one of the more potent date rape drugs. The woman's blood alcohol level was down at 0.015%, well within a reasonable range. No other drugs were present. The coroner then spoke up:

"I'm terribly sorry for your loss Mr. Hodges, but I need to give you some other details. It would appear that your sister was given an extremely heavy dose of GHB. At such levels there is a greatly elevated chance of developing a severe heart arrhythmia. That appears to be the mechanism of death. Your sister was also sexually assaulted. This is the fifth woman to die in the last year and a half as a result of date rape by the same perpetrator. Unfortunately, the killer is outside our ability to provide justice. He has diplomatic immunity! We are 100% sure that we know exactly who this killer is. One of our detectives managed to steal a glass he had used at a bar on 34th street. The DNA on the glass has matched the DNA found in all the dead girls. Our government doesn't have diplomatic relations with his country. Since he is part of the UN staff, and will be backed up by his country as well as the UN bureaucracy, our hands are tied. Do you have any suggestions on how we could provide justice in this case?"

Bill sat there stunned. He knew all about diplomatic immunity. There was no legal way to provide justice in this case. Expelling a man who was officially part of the UN, since American legal enforcement at the UN was all but impossible, was out of the question.

"I don't know of any normal approach to remove this man since his diplomatic credentials are to the UN. Since the new General Secretary at the UN is from Sudan I can see no possible way to have the diplomat in question arrested, or for that matter even have him expelled. Give me all the details that you can and I will talk to some other agencies to see if there is anything we can do."

The meeting adjourned and Bill had the American UN Ambassador send over a car to pick him up. He had to get his mind under control before he could do anything reasonable.

He and the Ambassador spent most of the evening discussing the situation. Just before going back to La Guardia Bill asked the Ambassador to send him one or two photographs of both sides of blank security passes used at the UN as well as a real set of the passes. One of the Ambassador's staff would be told to quietly take a month long vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to be paid for by the Department of State. His documents would be borrowed for that time period.

Bill spent most of the flight back to Washington, DC thinking about what could be done to provide justice.

**********************

The President of the United States was an old school friend of Bills. They had gone through college together and had each been the best man at the other's wedding. When Bill got home he found a phone message waiting for him. The message included a special telephone number that he was to dial on his STU (Secure Telephone Unit) when he got in.

Bill dialed the number. The phone was answered by a crisp male voice, indicating that he had contacted the White House Communications center. Not the normal switchboard, the one in the underground command post.

"This is Undersecretary Bill Clark. I had a message to call this number when I got home."

"Hold on, Sir, I'm transferring you to the President now."

Moments late a somewhat sleepy voice came onto the line. "Hi, Bill, I'm terribly sorry to hear about your sister. Director Gibbs over at the FBI filled me in on the situation. Can I help you in any way?"

"I'm not sure Mr. President."

"Cut the Mr. President Bill, you know that it isn't called for in private discussions."

"O.K. Fred, I have been thinking about the situation and can not think of any legal way to bring this man to justice. Do you have any ideas?"

"Yeah Bill, I do. Be at the White House tomorrow at seven a.m. and we'll unofficially discuss it."

"I'll be there Mr. Pres...oops, Fred."

There was just a hint of a chuckle on the far end of the line. "I'll see you in five hours Bill. Sleep as well as you can."

**********************

It was six forty a.m. when Bill entered the White House. He was surprised to see that the President was already in his office. "Let's go out into the rose garden Bill."

The President led Bill out into a remote part of the rose garden and said, "There aren't any microphones out here. We can talk quietly without fear of being recorded. If we stay exactly where we are nobody can make a video of our mouths to have a lip reader decipher what is being discussed. I know you are familiar with the prohibition against the use of assassination that the Democratic congress enacted and President Johnson signed into law many years ago. It prohibits the U.S government from assassinating very bad people. As you know, and this is very far off the record, we occasionally have had to break that law to save the American people great harm at the hands of madmen. What you don't know, and will not learn the details of, is that the U.S. government has a non-governmental agency to take care of our "wet work". I am going to have some highly unofficial justice applied regarding the murder of your sister. You remember that I dated her for a while. She was a wonderful and kind person. I'm going to ask you for some very unofficial information that I will need. Can you help me?"

"Yes Fred, I can. In fact I have already had our UN Ambassador take photographs of both sides of blank UN security passes and badges. The Ambassador is also loaning me an actual set of the passes for the next three weeks or so. I expect them in my office this afternoon. What else can I provide?"

"You have already anticipated what I was going to ask for. Please get them to me when they come in. I'm going to have some documents experts look them over. Bill, I want no action at all that would let Muhammet's delegation believe that anything was unusual at all; is that understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Again, Bill I am very sorry for your loss, and my loss in this."

"Thank you Mr. President."

**********************

Sergeant Richardson was highly confused by the directive he had just received. No further surveillance of Muhammet was to be done. In fact, if Muhammet was seen in an area, the police were to "look the other way and avoid any and all contact with him". Very strange! After all, he was known to have been behind the deaths of several American women. He thought, "Some bureaucrat must have some burr up his ass and is so uncomfortable that he can't think!". The Sergeant shook his head and got back to the large mountain of cases that he had to handle.

**********************

Muhammet was pleased. There were no comments in the paper about the women he had used the other night. No news is good news. He was an avid reader of the New York Times. As he thought of the papers motto "all the news that's fit to print" he chuckled at the modification that was so much more accurate "all the news that fits, we print". The paper's editorial bias was legendary. The editors, in their own way, were as doctrinaire in their beliefs as the Mullas back home.

Muhammet thought he would wait until the next weekend before going out for fun and games again. There were plenty of girls to play with. No need to gather too many in a short period of time and raise suspicions. Yes, a week from this next Friday night would be a good night. Since Friday was the Jewish Shabbat he was less likely to pick up an attractive Jewish girl. After all, bigotry against anything Jewish was as much a part of his culture as was their stated belief in the accuracy of the Koran. He smiled at that, since he wasn't really a believer at all. Like many other diplomats to the West he was first and foremost a pragmatist. His motto was: "If it works, don't mess with it; if it doesn't work, pay it lip service to it and then do what works."

**********************

On the next Friday night that Muhammet went out girl hunting, he was at one of his favorite eating establishment in lower Manhattan. Muhammet had finished a wonderful dinner and was now at the bar, making small talk with the other patrons. A new arrival came into the room and moved over to the bar near Muhammet. In broken English, with a heavy middle eastern accent, the man asked for a Rusty Nail. Muhammet was intrigued. He didn't know this man, but the man's accent sounded like the accent of his native country. On a hunch, he told the bartender to add the Rusty Nail to his tab. The new arrival turned to him and gave an appreciative bow. He thanked Muhammet in his own language, flawlessly and using the classical style of construction that only the very educated would use.

"Would you join me?", Muhammet asked in his native language; making sure to use the same perfect construction that the newcomer had used. The new man came over. He was a smallish man with a gray beard and steel rimmed glasses. His skin had a walnut hue and appeared to be weathered and sun baked.

"My name is Ishmael, I thank you for your kindness. I hadn't expected to meet another man from my part of the world. Would you tell me your name so that I might better thank you?"

"My name is Muhammet. I work over at the U.N. I come here often but have never seen you before, what brings you here tonight."

"I am a scientist working on developing our country's natural resources. Some new finds have been made about which our delegation must be informed. Since I can answer any of their questions I was sent to do the job."

"I work for that delegation as under-ambassador. I have heard of no special envoys being sent. Is your report so new and secret that it has to be kept very quiet?"

"Yes, it is and it must be kept very, very quiet. Here is my identification." At that, Ishmael took out his identification badge and passes. They were relatively new but obviously had seen some wear and tear. The pass indicated that Ishmael's specialty was in geo-physics.

Muhammet took out his badge and pass to show Ishmael. Having assured each other that they were indeed who they said they were, Muhammet asked if Ishmael would share with him the nature of his report.

"No, I can't do that here. It is too dangerous. I have been assigned a room at the Grand Madison Hotel. It is large and spacious. If you would be willing to join me there I can give you all the information that you wish to have. And, I can provide you with a modest sampling of traditional delicacies to enjoy as we talk."

"How did you get here Ishmael?"

"I took a taxicab from the hotel. Is there a better way?"

"Yes, I'll call my limo driver and we can ride back to your hotel in style."

It was ten minutes later when the large Mercedes Benz limo pulled up in front of the restaurant. Both men got in and the limo smoothly pulled out into the traffic.

********************** The hotel suite was not too large, but was still very nice. Ishmael immediately brought out some tinned food, including a tin of the finest Beluga Caviar. Muhammet loved caviar. As Ishmael brought other "goodies" he asked Muhammet to open the Caviar.

Muhammet was glad to do just that. He was almost overcome with the sight of this rare and exquisite delicacy. Ishmael finished his work and sat down across from Muhammet. He opened a bottle of spirits and poured a drink for each of them.

Ishmael formally said: "To your health! Praise Allah, may his name be blessed."

Muhammet returned the toast and they both drank of the libation. Ishmael offered crackers and a small serving spoon to Muhammet. Ishmael picked up some sweetened fruit and placed it on one of the crackers.

"Aren't you going to have some of this wonderful caviar, Ishmael?"

"I beg your understanding, I can't eat caviar. I am allergic to it and would have to go to the hospital emergency room if I ate any. I brought this in case I had official company. It is here as a sign of respect to our delegation."

Muhammet nodded his head saying, "Praise Allah for His gifts; great and small."

Ishmael nodded his head and echoed the praise.

**********************

As they sat talking Muhammet started to Feel a bit light headed. He looked a bit dazed.

Ishmael spoke up: "Are you all right my friend? You don't look so good. Can I call someone for you?"

Muhammet started to answer and then passed out.

Ishmael smiled, the GHB in the caviar had done its work. Caviar was the perfect thing to hide a slightly salty tasting liquid! He would have to have the contracting agency thank their sources. Having Muhammet open the caviar was critical. Muhammet would have been sure of the purity of the caviar since he was the one who broke the seal on the tin.