Pipeline Killers: Bernadette Callahan. A female detective mystery with international suspense. (Book 2)

by Lyle Nicholson

  7

  Bernadette and Anton arrived back at Police Headquarters, and found Assad Mohammed waiting for them outside the interview room holding Martin Popowich. He looked somewhat tired. His trim suit was wrinkled and small lines forming around his eyes. He visibly brightened when he saw Bernadette, “I hear you found one of our students, dead unfortunately, but this helps to complete our equation.”

  “How do you figure that?” Bernadette asked, walking up to Assad.

  Assad touched the side of his head, “We know where all the suspects are, and living or dead never matters to me, as soon the truth will be found.”

  Bernadette smiled, “I like your optimism. Have you questioned our Martin Popowich about the half million in his bank account?”

  “No, I was just about to, and if you’d like to join me, I‘d be happy to have you in the interview.” Assad gestured towards the interview door.

  Bernadette turned to Anton. “Why don’t I sit in with Assad and you go see if Samantha has come up with anything new.”

  Anton nodded his approval and walked down the hall towards Samantha’s office, “Hey, just remember at the end of this wonderful day, we need to find an Italian restaurant.”

  Bernadette shook her head in his direction. “That Italian is always thinking with his stomach.” She turned to Assad, “What has Popowich given you so far?”

  “Absolutely nothing. He claims he played along with Goodman’s Star Trek fantasy and the idea of inventing a threat to pipelines. He says he was not involved in any with communications with Professor Alistair McAllen.” Assad motioned for Bernadette to proceed into the interview room.

  “Your average bystander, who just happens to have a large amount of cash in an offshore account,” Bernadette said.

  “Yes it would appear that is the case; would you care to take the lead in the interview? I would be happy to observe your techniques,” Assad said

  “Why thank you, Assad, my technique is a little more on the unorthodox side . . . I make it up as I go.” Bernadette smiled and entered the room.

  Martin Popowich slouched and crossed his arms when they entered the room. He was early twenties, fair complexion with sandy brown hair. Adolescent pimples dotted his face. He wore khaki cargo shorts, a sweatshirt and flip-flops. His eyes did a quick inventory of Bernadette and then his gaze returned to the table. The room was tiny. A fluorescent light accentuated the table and three chairs. White on white was the color scheme. Martin was behind the table, his back to the wall.

  Bernadette’s chair screeched as she pulled it back from the table. “Hi, I’m Detective Bernadette Callahan of the RCMP Serious Crimes Division.” She sat across from Martin, their knees almost touching. “I’m working the case of your deceased friend, Nathan Taylor.”

  Martin sat up, unfolded his arms and moved his knees away from Bernadette’s. “Yeah, I heard about that . . . real unfortunate . . . I didn’t really know him that well” His eyes went wide, showing defiance.

  Bernadette moved her chair closer, their knees almost touching again. She leaned forward, “Well here’s some more unfortunate news . . . your pal Paul Goodman . . . we just found him dead. Yep, head caved in by a frying pan in the apartment of his girlfriend . . . what’s her name . . . oh yeah . . . Smirnoff.” Bernadette leaned back to watch the news wash over Martin.

  Martin slapped his leg and screwed up his face, “Ah shit, that really blows . . . Goodman, he was a good guy . . . this really sucks.”

  Bernadette leaned in. “You know what’s worse, and now—here’s where this really sucks—some of us here—yes right here in this room—think you had something to do with Goodman’s death.”

  Martin’s eyes bulged—his breath became erratic. “No way, no god damn way! I never touched him, I never seen him. He was with that Russian bitch the whole time. I had nothing to do with that shit.”

  Bernadette turned to Assad. “Now isn’t it amazing how talkative and explicit they can be when trying to exonerate themselves?”

  Assad took the cue from Bernadette. “Mr. Popowich, here is a problem that we are having with you . . . our investigator found 500,000 American dollars in an offshore bank account in your name.” Assad read from a paper in his hand. “My source states this account with Barclays Bank in the Cayman Islands was set up a week ago.”

  “You know, I’m just a regular detective, who deals with mostly drug dealers and dead bodies,” Bernadette said, looking into Martin’s eyes, “But I have to say, a half million dollars—man—that takes a bunch of explaining—don’t you think Agent Assad?

  Assad nodded, “Yes, a large amount of cash like this has many questions attached to it.”

  Martin looked back and forth between Assad and Bernadette. His eyes squinted as if he was looking to find the truth, or whatever truth they would accept. “Look, this is explainable, easily explained . . .”

  “Why don’t you start with how you set Goodman up with this Smirnoff gal, who by the way is a known terrorist from Europe named Zara Mashhadov? Now, do you know what that get’s you?”

  “Look, I didn’t set anything up . . . I . . .” Martin tried to speak.

  “I said, do you know what that gets you?” Bernadette asked cutting him off.

  “No . . . I have no idea . . .” Martin said. His eyes widened.

  “It gets you to the front of the line in the Canadian Justice system. The most special treatment we can offer. It’s what we offer all suspected terrorists.” Bernadette leaned forward, and winked at Martin.

  Martin sat back, looked at Bernadette and Assad, and paused. A look of defiance came over his face. “You know what, you can get my lawyer, the one I’ve been asking for since I got here, and you know what else?” He slouched and spread his legs while looking at Bernadette. “You can blow me while I wait—bitch.”

  Bernadette turned to Assad “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind giving Mr. Popowich and me a moment together, and if you would turn off the video recording.” She threw a smile back at the suspect.

  Assad rose from his chair, adjusted his jacket and tie, “Certainly, I’ll give you two a moment to yourselves.”

  Martin smiled as Assad closed the door. He looked Bernadette in the eyes and was about to say something when the slap she landed on his face bounced his head off the wall. “Hey, you can’t do that shit—that’s police brutality—I got my rights . . .”

  Bernadette leaned across the table. “No, that wasn’t police brutality. That was me, reminding you, that you’re in the presence of a lady, and you were rude. If you want to see police brutality, I will go outside, borrow a night stick from one of the officers and wale on this knee until it’s the size of a basketball.” She placed her hand under the table and squeezed his knee—he winced with pain. “Now that—would be—police brutality.”

  Assad returned to the room. “Ah, I see you’ve had your time alone, I hope it was successful.” He smiled serenely as he sat down.

  Bernadette turned to Assad. “I think that Mr. Popowich and I are on the same page now.” Turning back to Martin she winked. “How about you? Can we continue, or should my colleague leave the room again?”

  Martin Popowich held his hand to his face, and moved his body closer to the wall, he nodded his head.

  “Now, you wanted to say that you had nothing to do with the murder of Paul Goodman, is that right?” Bernadette asked. This time she looked over at Assad, who was taking notes.

  “Yeah, absolutely, look I haven’t seen Goodman since we made that video. He was hanging tight with the Smirnoff girl, she was always grabbing his ass, and running him back to her place . . . she wouldn’t tell us where she lived . . . wouldn’t let Goodman tell us either,” Popowich said.

  Assad leaned forward, pushing his note pad over on the table for Popowich to see, “This figure here of a half million dollars, how do you explain that?”

  Popowich looked defeated. He sighed deeply, looked up to the ceiling and formed his works carefully. “I . . . okay . . . I sold my fri
ends out . . . okay? I was contacted by some guy from the USA who said if this Pipeline Killer stuff was real, then they’d pay me a shit load of cash for it.”

  “Do you have names of these people?” Assad asked, making notes.

  “Yeah, this guy called the group the Ghost Shirt Eco Warriors, and he kept rattling on about how our invention was going to cause a big stir in the United States. He kept laughing at his own joke about setting America back one hundred years.”

  Assad turned to Bernadette. “You ever heard of such a group?”

  “No, but the Ghost Shirt Warriors refers to a group of Lakota Sioux that believed a shirt with magical powers would protect them from harm in battle. Unfortunately, somebody forgot to tell the white settlers with the guns. The poor bastards were shot off their horses.” Bernadette leaned forward to Martin. “How long ago did you sell some of your ingenious product to these people?”

  “Last week, some little guy came by, they did the wire transfer after I gave them a demonstration of the Bio Bugs capabilities and then I gave them twenty vials out of lab at the university.”

  “You could ID this guy, do a sketch for us?” Bernadette asked.

  “Sure.” Popowich said. His eyes wandered back up to the ceiling. “But, I can do better than that, we met in our lab, and we have our own CCTV camera in there.”

  Assad made a note. “I’ll have the police pick up the camera.”

  “One other thing,” Bernadette said. “Did any of your group know that some of these vials were missing?”

  Martin lowered his eyes, “Yeah, Goodman knew. He did an inventory three days ago. I’d never seen him so mad. He asked me, and I swore to god I didn’t know.” He ran his hands through his hair. “The other two, Hirschman and Campbell, didn’t have access to the lab where we stored the stuff.”

  “Who did Goodman think stole the vials?” Assad asked.

  Martin exhaled deeply. “Smirnoff . . . he’d given her a key . . . she told Goodman she wanted to come to the lab at night and have sex with him when no one was around. She said she’d surprise him wearing some sexy clothes. I guess he bought it, because he gave her a key.”

  “Did you see Goodman confront her with this?” Bernadette asked.

  “Yeah, it was pretty bad . . . they were hollering and screaming in the lab. She pushed him and called him a jerk and a dumb ass. I think she was throwing some stuff because there was a mess when they left.”

  “Do you think Smirnoff ever suspected you, or Hirschman and Campbell—thought that you’d taken the vials and were blaming her?” Bernadette said.

  Martin looked at his fingers and picked at a dirty nail. “You know I saw a look from her . . . it was accusing . . . a long stare. She never said anything, but I think she was hiding something else.”

  “What’s that?” Assad asked as he made his notes.

  “My laptop is missing the formula. The one Goodman used to make the Bio Bugs so viscous. Someone used a USB stick, downloaded it, and then deleted it. I think it was her, and I think after the vials went missing that maybe Goodman found out about it, because our laptops are networked.”

  Bernadette turned to Assad. “You know, maybe Mr. Popowich did get Goodman killed after all. He may have shown our Mashhadov, aka Smirnoff’s hand before she was ready to steal the vials and the formula and beat it out of here.”

  Assad stood and straightened his tie. “I believe we have enough for now. How about you, Detective?”

  “Yeah, I’m good. We have a lot to work on.”

  Martin Popowich looked from Assad to Bernadette. “When can I go? I’ve been cooperative, haven’t I?”

  Bernadette put her hand on his shoulder. “Yes, you’ve been very cooperative. And that will show in the report that Assad will write. But this is far from over and you will be a guest of the Canadian Justice system for some time. Now we don’t have Starbucks or free wireless, but the room and board is free.”

  Bernadette followed Assad out of the interview room. They met with Anton and Samantha in the hallway. “Looks like Martin Popowich was more involved in this than he first let on. But then—we get that a lot.”

  Samantha looked up from a note she was reading on her cell phone. “We found out the whereabouts of Adalina Torres, AKA, Zara Mashhadov.”

  “Let me guess,” Bernadette said. “Somewhere far away from here?”

  “She arrived in Barcelona on an Air Canada flight from Toronto at 0735 hours Barcelona time yesterday. We’ve sent an alert to Interpol, but it’s too late. She’s cleared customs there as Adalina Torres.”

  8

  Zara Mashhadov’s stomach was in a knot as she stood in the line for Passport Control in Barcelona; she kept wiping her hands on her jeans to hide the sweat. The killing of Paul Goodman was a mistake, but necessary. She would have preferred to kill Martin Popowich. Goodman accused her of stealing twenty vials of Bio Bugs. But she hadn’t stolen them—yet.

  Zara was planning to steal all forty vials, and saw twenty were missing from the lab. She was certain that little jerk Popowich had stolen the twenty, but she couldn’t convince Goodman. The argument that started in the lab continued when they got back to her apartment.

  She only intended to shut him up, cool him off, but the weight of the cast iron frying pan was more than she expected. Paul lay there dead and she needed to run. Zara had gone back to the lab, taken the remaining twenty vials of bio bugs, and headed for the airport.

  Barcelona was her final destination, but she had wanted to fly through Frankfurt or Paris. Flying through those places could have covered her tracks. She would have taken Euro Rail from there to hide her final destination. But all the transatlantic flights were full. The height of August travel season decided her route.

  Victoria to Toronto, then the overnight flight to Barcelona had placed her in front of a Spanish Customs officer with her Spanish passport and Castilian name. Adalina Torre’s passport said she had been born in Barcelona, and by rights would speak pure Catalonian with a lisping Spanish dialect.

  Zara spoke Chechen, German, Arabic and a rudimentary Spanish from the two years of living in Barcelona. At Passport Control, she yawned sleepily, flashed her eyes at the slightly unshaven and handsome young man behind the glass, and was relieved when he stamped her passport and welcomed her home to Barcelona.

  The airport was packed with tourists getting bags, meeting cruise ship agents, and milling about looking lost. Zara threaded her way through the masses with her one carry-on bag, and took a taxi into the city.

  The taxi dropped her off at a small hotel on the Ramblas, the busiest street in Barcelona, at 8:30 a.m. The street vendors were open—some of them had been open all night. Small tapas bars were serving breakfast to the North Americans and Europeans who did not understand the Spanish rhythm of late Breakfast, late lunch and even later dinner.

  Zara checked into the hotel as Adalina Torres. She did not have time to get another passport or credit card. She needed this identity for only a few more hours. The knot tightened in her stomach again as she spoke only a few brief words in Spanish to the desk clerk. Would he wonder that her Spanish did not match the name on her passport?

  The desk clerk handed her passport back to her, smiled and wished her a pleasant stay. The desk clerk was Albanian, his Spanish was good, but his ear for dialects would probably not be. The knot in her stomach subsided briefly.

  She entered her small hotel room and made a phone call. It was to the number of a close friend of the Chechen’s. A voice answered the phone, “How may I assist you today?” The voice was English but with a Slavic accent.

  “I need a ticket for La Sagrada Familia, but it must be today, I am leaving tomorrow to see my uncle in Madrid.” Zara gave the coded message.

  “I can’t get something to you that fast; you’ll have to go to my vendor on the Ramblas, go to the tourist stall in front of the Royal Ramblas Hotel, and ask for Antonio, he will have a ticket for you.”

  Zara hung up and walked out into the street;
the stall was only one block away from her hotel. She found Antonio, and told him she’d been sent by the office to pick up a ticket.

  Antonio nodded, “The ticket is 35 Euros, do you need a map?”

  “Yes, but one for all of Barcelona, not just the tourist areas,” Zara said. This was the other part of the code.

  Antonio handed her the ticket and the map, “The map is one Euro, and I think you will find the Ravel of interest . . . so few people go there.”

  Zara took the map and the ticket and headed back to her room. The map and the ticket together provided the direction of her destination. There was no way they could communicate this information by phone or text. The ears of the CIA, NSA, and Interpol were everywhere, listening to every call made. They were using old-fashioned technology of ciphers and codes to avoid the omnipresent electronic surveillance. The map had a slight indent on one street name, almost like Braille, and the ticket had a number in the middle that corresponded to an address.

  Zara ran her hand over the map area of the Ravel, and found the street. She then looked at the ticket and found the street number. She shredded both the map and the ticket and flushed them down the toilet. She was almost home. Now she just needed a disguise.

  Zara waited for the shops to open at ten, made a few purchases at a clothing store, and returned to her hotel. She looked to see if any police cars were outside the hotel, or police lurking down the street. Only tourists arriving off a cruise ship crowded the lobby.

  Zara went to her room, stripped off her clothes, and destroyed her passport and credit cards. This would be the last sighting of Adalina Torres. She put on a long brown abaya and a black hijab, covering her hair to just above her eyes.

  Zara walked past the front desk, eyes down with one small bag under her arm, dressed as an Arabic woman. The tourists, exhausted from flights and cruises, made a path for her as she exited the hotel. She turned right out of the hotel, and headed down the Ramblas toward the docks. Three streets down, and just before the large market, she made another right.