When the burn cell finally chimed it startled him. With trembling hands he flipped the cell open to read the text message.
Find a legit business reason to travel to Las Vegas on Tuesday - meet a vendor for dinner. Check into hotel Aria - reservation already made. While at dinner you’ll get a new text with instructions. Hang in there.
...33
...Tuesday, January 18, 10:14AM Local Time (UTC+1:00 hours)
...Prague East - Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav
...Prague, The Czech Republic
Karmal Shah pulled his Audi Q7 into the courtyard. Before parking, he looked around carefully, checking for movement, people, cars, anything out of the ordinary. All was quiet in the backyard of his newly purchased property in East Prague. 12,000,000 Czech Korunas, or almost $575,000, had bought him a 7,500 square foot warehouse with refrigeration capabilities, an office that could accommodate five or six people, and an apartment for his personal use. The building had truck access and a loading dock and could be fitted to house even more industrial-sized refrigerators, if the business were to suddenly pick up. The colors were awful though; the place needed a paintjob badly, but there was no time for that.
This location worked great for Shah. It was just a few miles North-East of a small airport, Letiste Praha-Kbely. A small air base that welcomed civilian aircraft traffic for the right amount of money, Kbely was large enough to accommodate his personal plane, a Piaggio Avanti Evo, custom-fitted to carry cargo with minimal reconfiguration. His aircraft turned people’s heads and got a lot of attention due to its twin engines mounted in push configuration. A small forward wing made the nine-seater plane look like it had whiskers and made its silhouette unmistakable. It was a great aircraft: fast, reliable, and low cost to fly. Seven million dollars very well spent.
Karmal Shah, a Pashtun from Afghanistan and successful entrepreneur in the gourmet and exotic foods market, with rumored yet unconfirmed ties to the Taliban, was very aware that his current commercial flight status could change overnight if the FBI, CIA, or any such organization should decide to add him to the no-fly list. That was probably going to happen anyway, sooner rather than later. Shah was not delusional; he knew that was coming, especially with the new rise in the terrorist activity generated by ISIL and the renewed focus on anti-terrorism that ISIL had generated. Damn fools, ISIL, ISIS, or whatever they wanted to call themselves. They didn’t have the refinement or patience to think through or build complex strategies. They were savages, barbarians who liked to scream threats and decapitate hostages on television, getting people and organizations like Shah’s under the microscope again. Damn fools. Sometimes Shah wondered who ISIL really worked for.
Nevertheless, Shah needed to preserve his air mobility, and he needed a private plane for his current needs anyway. The Piaggio was hardly a cargo hauler, but it could take a decent payload. With some careful planning and a few refueling stops along the way, it could even make it to America. A simple stopover would take his plane to Moscow, Eastern Africa, or the Middle East. Great piece of equipment to have, very helpful in his business. The only thing left to do was to register the plane with the Czech Aviation Administration.
Shah liked the location for many other reasons. The Czechs were happy to grant him all business permits and a tax break in exchange for the twenty-five million dollars he was bringing as investment in their country. Shah was moving his booming online gourmet foods business away from France, where it had operated and grown successfully for years, away from high taxes and overzealous inspectors. All inspectors bothered Shah, whether food safety, tax, or labor safety. He simply didn’t want them snooping around. The Czechs were willing to be flexible in exchange for such a strong injection of capital into the region. The local authorities had become his best friends for minimal amounts of cash. Great place to do business.
Engine idling, he checked the task list stored on his iPad. Almost ready to operate. He needed people hired, warehouse and office furniture bought and delivered, and the bulk of his gourmet delicacies stock moved on a large cargo plane from France to here. Then close down the French location, while the Prague location would already be shipping caviar and smoked oysters to customers all over the world. If he started writing some seriously large checks today maybe he could be operational here within a