Zara, head down, only noticed briefly the boisterous Swedes downing Heinekens in the outdoor bar. Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians descended on Barcelona in the summer for long weekends of drinking and eating. Cheaper drinking prices drew them from their home countries.
Her journey took her deeper into the narrow streets of the district called Raval. Arabic, Indonesian, and Romanian replaced the sounds of Spanish voices. Shops no longer displayed the ubiquitous Spanish hams, but spices and foods common to Pakistan and East Europe. Zara melted into the sea of other women in similar Arabic dress.
At a small door, she knocked softly. The door opened a crack, just enough to identify her, and she glided inside. A young man, dark hair, dark skin, dressed in stained t-shirt and worn jeans, led her upstairs to a darkened room.
In the corner sat a man hunched over a table. A small crack of light showed his creased face, grey whiskers, and bushy eyebrows. Zara’s heart beat faster; she swallowed hard. She had not seen Adlan Kataev for three months.
“How is it with you, Zara?” Adlan asked, rising from his chair. His smile said it all to her. He was glad she was back.
Zara walked into his embrace, the first one in many months that meant something to her. “It goes well Adlan . . . it goes well . . . I have returned with enough vials to exact our revenge . . . God willing.”
Adlan motioned for the other men to leave the room, “Zara, what did you bring?”
Zara set the small bag on the table and opened it up, producing a smaller pouch with numerous vials. “I put all of the Bio Bugs vials into these small cosmetic and shampoo containers, anything under 100 milliliters they do not check at security,” she said, holding the vials up for Adlan’s inspection.
Adlan took a vial from Zara, and held it up to the dim light in the room, “But how do we manufacture more? I intend to use all of these in the next few weeks. These will only be good enough for the start of my revenge. ”
Zara stood closer to Adlan. “Here, I have the formula I took from their computer . . . this is for the special catalyst Goodman told me makes these organisms aggressive. The vials I stole from the lab have been subjected to the catalyst.” She handed him a USB memory stick.
Adlan took the small black memory stick in his large gnarled hands. “So, this is the formula to make more of these little organisms. Excellent.”
“Yes, they were smug about their formula. They said they had the only copy, and no one else could stop their Bio Bugs once they were linked with the aggressive gene. They even joked the gene was the wrath of god.” Zara rubbed Adlan’s large shoulders, and put her chin against his chest.
Adlan moved away. “This is good, very good; I will distribute this to our fighters immediately.” His eyes closed. When they opened they shone wide, as if a vision had struck him. “We will prepare a special surprise for the world with half of these vials. The other half will be used to destroy pipelines in Russia.”
Zara tried to move toward Adlan again, but he sat down and motioned for her to take the chair across from him. “What will you do with the other half of the vials?”
Adlan reached across the table and took Zara’s hand. “It will be a surprise even for you . . . I do not want to spoil it.” A broad smile spread across his face. He patted her hand, grabbed the bag of vials and walked toward the other room. “Have some tea; I will speak with you later.”
Zara watched him disappear into the other room, the dark curtains waving in the doorway. She was used to watching him leave. He had found her in a burnt-out Chechen village back in 2000. Russians looking for Chechen separatists had pulled all the men out of the houses and shot them. Her mother hid Zara in a cellar.
Adlan’s pockmarked and unshaven face against the harsh daylight was the first thing Zara saw after three days of hiding in the damp, bug infested cellar. The shooting had long stopped, the fires were out, but she dared not come out.
Adlan got her to come out. He coaxed her, told her she would be okay. He said he would take her into the forest, and he did. Zara at twelve years old remained in the forest, hiding and fighting the Russians for the next eight years. Then they had to run from Chechnya as Russian Federal Security Service closed in, and the price on their heads became too high for capture.
Zara fell in love with Adlan, but he returned little affection. The Russians murdered his family in the 90s. Somewhere in the Chechen war for independence they had tortured his wife and sons to give up his location. They never gave him up, and died violent deaths.
At the age of eighteen, Zara seduced Adlan. She crawled into his bed one night, and forced herself on him. He cried during orgasm. The hurt and pain of his suffering poured into her . . . and she held him for hours afterward.
Their lovemaking was intermittent, sometimes there was passion, and mostly there was the release of anger. Adlan hated Russia; he hated the world for not coming to the aide of the Chechens. His hate boiled and simmered. Zara wondered what surprise he had for the world. She poured herself a cup of strong tea, added sugar and let the weariness of her long journey descend on her.
She knew the surprise that Adlan would have for the world would be equal to the hatred he had for the world. She sighed as she drank her tea. The next days and weeks would not be happy ones for those who were the focus of his wrath.
9
Bernadette eyed the sandwich with suspicion. Tuna with mayo on whole wheat was what the label said. She took the hard wrapper off, sniffed it once, then twice, and took an exploratory bite. Just as she expected, the taste was somewhere between sawdust and flavored paste.
She chewed it enough to swallow, then took a swig of her tepid coffee and hoped her stomach would recognize the offer of food. She turned to face the front of the boardroom table where Anton was giving a summary of the day’s events.
Anton looked up from his notes, “So, we have made a positive identification on the man that Martin Popowich claims he gave the Bio Bug vials to.” He looked down at his notes again and adjusted his shirt collar, “We have a Talbert Hensley, who is linked to the Eco Terrorists called the Ghost Shirt Society. He is an American citizen, formerly of Stockton, California.”
Bernadette asked, “Is there any background on this guy?”
Anton gazed down the file. “Looks like some petty criminal. There were a few arrests for auto thefts and B& E, then an arrest at the Occupy Wall Street in San Francisco . . . then, wait a minute . . .” Anton turned a page on the report. “You’ll never guess how this guy got fingered for a robbery.”
Bernadette shrugged, and looked across the table at Samantha and Assad. “Okay, we give up Anton. Tell us how much of a mastermind he was or wasn’t.”
Anton gazed around the table, pausing for effect. “The kid robbed a house, then crapped in a toilet and didn’t flush. They had his DNA on file from some other break-and-enters . . . you could say the kid crapped on himself.”
Bernadette pushed the sandwich aside. Bad food and bad humor where too much to take. “Tell me, if this kid had priors, how did he get across the Canadian border? Does Canada customs have any record of him entering, or where he entered?”
“Yeah they do, he entered through Blaine, Washington, by car,” Anton read further down the sheet. “Looks like we have him on a special watch list, and we were asked to let him through by the FBI.” Anton scratched his chin. “I need to speak to someone about why this guy is being given special clearance. In a case like this, it’s usually because he’s undercover . . . I’ll have to check.”
Assad tapped his pen on his pad of paper. He was listening, not writing. “Did Interpol find Zara Mashhadov in Barcelona?”
Anton glanced at his notes, this time going over to a second page. “I have a note here that Adalina Torres, our suspect aka Zara Mashhadov, checked into a hotel in Barcelona, and when the police arrived she was gone. The Interpol guy said they scared the hell out of a busload of tourists but no Adalina, no Zara.”
Samantha scribbled a note on her pad, and put the pen to
her lips. “Can I just get my head around few of the events?” She looked around the table, assumed consent and continued. “What I see so far are four university students who wanted to do a project to replicate something called nanites . . . that was on a Star Trek episode many years ago . . . am I correct so far?”
Bernadette nodded, “Sounds good so far—go with it.”
“Okay, the students recreate the nanites, which they call a Bio Bug, or super bug that eats metal in pipelines, and somehow they received international attention from European terrorists, and an Eco Terrorist group in the USA—am I missing anything?” Samantha looked up from her notes, her own voice showed her doubt.
Bernadette tapped her own pad of paper. “Yeah, you’re missing an important piece of this puzzle. The chemistry professor that they were doing this little project for, Professor Alistair McAllen was complicit in trying to damage oil production last year in Alaska and the Oil Sands. I think he’s still part of this, maybe pulling some of the strings. I’m not exactly sure how he’s doing it, but I think he’s still in this equation.”
Anton shuffled his papers, and was about to say something. His phone buzzed, “I think I need to take this; it’s my section chief Patterson.” Anton rose and walked out of the conference room and into the hallway.
Bernadette shifted in her chair; Chief Patterson from the CSIS in Edmonton did not like her. She’d made him look bad when they were chasing McAllen the previous year. Her instincts had proven right; his had been so far off he’d looked foolish. She wondered if he’d forgotten that. As she watched Anton on the phone in the hallway outside through the boardroom window, Anton frowned in her direction. Obviously, Chief Patterson’s memory was intact when it came to her.
Alistair McAllen watched a gecko climb the wall of the restaurant. Light green with small patches of brown, the gecko made slow progress up the wall, raised its small head, surveying the waiters and patrons as they walked by.
The evening was still warm, the adobe brick walls emanating heat from the day’s sun. McAllen still wore shorts, sandals and a linen shirt at eleven at night. He pushed the unfinished plate of food away, and picked up his wine glass. Small rivulets of condensation streamed down the glass.
The waiter walked by and filled his water glass. McAllen thanked him in Spanish, and picked up a small package on the table. The package was from Paul Goodman. It didn’t say that. The return address was Emilo Sanchez, from Santa Fe. But that was the place Paul sent mail from. The package was addressed to McAllen’s housekeeper who lived just outside of the center of Merida, Mexico, where McAllen lived.
McAllen already knew that Paul Goodman was dead. Three university students had sent texts and tweets about it in the past few hours. Of the students under arrest, McAllen only knew of Martin Popowich. Martin was a smart ass. He kept his grades just high enough to get by, but there was never any real spark there. He used Goodman to help him get by—everyone knew that—even the professors.
Goodman was McAllen’s star pupil. He was brilliant, intuitive and passionate about chemistry and biological sciences. The original idea for bio super bugs was McAllen’s; Goodman had run with it. He wanted to reproduce the metal destroying super bugs to please McAllen. Goodman told McAllen he wanted to “give him something else for his arsenal, if polywater failed,” and polywater had failed.
McAllen opened the package. A small USB memory stick fell out, with a note. He took the memory stick, rolled it in his hand, and picked up the note.
The note read:
Professor, things are getting a little crazy here. Not sure who to trust anymore. I’m sending you a copy of the formula for the super bugs. The password is the same one we set up.
Paul Goodman
McAllen looked up at the sky; dark clouds were forming. A small tear made its way down his cheek. He brushed it away. He wished he’d told Goodman to stop the project, but secretly he never thought Goodman would do it. He had done it. Now he was dead.
McAllen weighed his options. He had been hiding in Merida, Mexico, for several months. The only one in Canada who knew his hiding place had been Goodman. Goodman was dead. Did Goodman’s killer know about the connection to him?
The gecko started its climb up the wall again, this time at a faster pace. It saw something, a bug perhaps, that would be dinner. It disappeared over the wall. McAllen watched it go, and knew he needed to leave as well, to disappear, but first he had to solve the riddle of what was in this USB stick. He needed his own lab, which was here in Merida. He was now playing a dangerous game. He’d gambled in the past with getting caught and won, but even a gambler knows luck can run out.
Anton came back into the boardroom. “I just received a report about Talbert Hensley. He is not working with the FBI; an undercover FBI agent is accompanying him. They requested that he be allowed through our border. He was coming to Canada to pick up the vials from Popowich.”
“And they couldn’t have arrested him with the vials he bought from Popowich?” Bernadette asked.
“They wanted the people at the top that Hensley works with,” Anton said. “Some FBI chief told Patterson they’ve been trying to crack this group for months. Seems they’re funded by some rich guy who remains anonymous, and keeps putting up cash to fund this Ghost Shirt Eco Warrior Society.”
“So where is this guy headed? For pipelines in Canada or the USA?” Samantha asked.
“Their reports say the USA, somewhere in Montana.” Anton said.
Bernadette sat back in her chair. “Well isn’t this sweet? This thing starts here, and ends up in the USA and Europe. All we have are the dead bodies to sort out.”
Anton looked at Bernadette. “Ah, yeah, I need to speak with you in private for a moment.” He motioned for her to follow him out into the hallway.
The hallway was crowded with City of Victoria Police officers about to change shifts for the evening. Anton motioned for Bernadette to follow him further down the hallway until they found a quiet area. “Look,” he cocked his head to one side, and put his hand on her shoulder, “I didn’t think Chief Patterson would come down so hard on me for having you on this case . . .”
“But he’s being a real hard ass about it, is that what you really want to say,” Bernadette said. She moved slightly closer to Anton as three police officers walked by.
Anton let out a breath, “Yeah, that’s it exactly. This is my case, and I’m supposed to be in charge, but . . .”
“But he’s your boss,” Bernadette said. “Look Anton, I get it, your boss doesn’t like me, and will do anything to get back at me for showing him up.”
“It’s more than that.” Anton looked into Bernadette’s eyes. “He said he found information that your father was a drug dealer here in Victoria before he died. He thinks your judgment in this is compromised . . . now don’t even ask me how he put that together, but he’s using that to get you off this case.” Anton scanned Bernadette for a reaction.
“You know he’s wrong about his information—my father was never smart enough to be a drug dealer. It’s true he died here in Victoria, a wino, crack-head junkie—but no—he was never a drug dealer,” Bernadette said.
Anton touched Bernadette’s arm. “Look, I’m sorry about all this. I brought you into this case, and my boss has ordered me to take you out. How about if I buy you dinner tonight? I booked us all rooms over at the Marriott, and found a nice Italian restaurant. How about if you relax tonight on the tab of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service—think you could handle that?”
Bernadette put her hand on Anton’s arm. “You know if you weren’t so damn cute, and didn’t have such good taste in food and wine I’d turn you down—but what can I say—I can hang out here tonight. You can even fill me in on how you plan on solving this case without me.” She turned and walked back with Anton to the conference room.
10
Sarah watched Talbert Hensley shove another large piece of steak into his mouth, and chew down with the part of his mouth that didn’t
hurt. The left side of Talbert’s jaw was bandaged, and a yellow bruise ran from the gauze up to his eye.
The wound was from an altercation getting off the Car Ferry from Vancouver Island. Three men in a van swerved in front of them, jumped out and claimed Talbert had cut them off. Sarah was stunned as Talbert, ever the cocky little bastard, jumped out and argued with them.
She was the undercover FBI Agent who had made friends with Talbert to find out more about the Eco Terrorists, and now she had to defend him. She was trained in martial arts, and could have taken down all three men in a heartbeat. Instead, she kicked one in the shin, and stomped the other guy’s foot.
One of the men got behind her, and drove his fist into her head, dropping her to the ground, and they commenced laying a beating on Talbert. Somehow, enough other cars stopped or slowed that the men left. Sarah had only a mild headache but Talbert’s jaw had suffered a major contusion with a broken tooth.
She patched him up as well as she could, bought some serious painkillers, and took the wheel of the rental car. They headed east along Interstate 90. Leaving Seattle behind, they passed Ellensburg, Moses Lake and Spokane before Talbert pointed out a truck stop diner and told her to pull over. Talbert gave Sarah directions one day at a time. She knew he still didn’t trust her.
Sarah had been born in Baltimore, Maryland. She’d wanted to be in the FBI ever since she was ten years old. She watched reruns of the TV show, The FBI, with her dad, a sergeant in the Baltimore Police Force. She loved her dad, and every time they watched the FBI show, her dad would say, “Now Sarah, that’s the force that catches the real criminals. We cops catch just the small fry—but those guys—that’s the real thing.”
Her Dad had been killed on the streets of Baltimore in the line of duty. One of the small fry, one with a large gun shot him. Sarah never forgot what her dad had said. She made up her mind she would get into the FBI.
Pipeline Killers: Bernadette Callahan. A female detective mystery with international suspense. (Book 2) Page 6