Chasing Time: Chase Wen Thriller

by Brandt Legg

  “I talked to Jane Ramsey earlier,” he said, referring to a deputy CIA director who was coordinating the agency’s response. “I reviewed the initial reports, but it’s grown since then.”

  “I’d say.”

  “Jane Ramsey is holding now. I’ll let it go to voicemail. I don’t know, Tess . . . this is concerning.”

  “That’s understating it a little, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, but this kind of aggression . . . It seems way off base.”

  “Domestically, is there anything threatening the Russian president?”

  “There’s always something, and I’d say he’s quite a bit more defensive than we’ve seen in recent times, but nothing to warrant this.”

  “We’re missing something.”

  “If the Kremlin wanted a distraction, they’d be looking at Ukraine, Eastern Europe, maybe even Central America. This is far beyond that. If this is accurate, this could be the hottest we’ve been since the Cuban missile crisis.”

  Tess shook her head. “It’s so much worse. That was a show down, and we had the clear advantage. If they have this weapon, they’re about to erase an American city and write a new future for the world, one where Russia is in charge.”

  Forty-Five

  Washington DC – April 3rd – 9:02 am

  Wen kept a small duffle concealing an MP7 submachine gun on her lap as she scanned the patrons in the busy pizzeria just off the National Mall. Although she saw no overly suspicious people, under the circumstances, everyone bothered her for one reason or another.

  They found The Astronaut sitting nervously at a table in the back. Normally, Wen was the only person Nash would let hug him, but as she approached, he shook his head.

  “I’m very happy to see you,” she said, knowing that whenever he was agitated or upset about something he could not take affection, even from her.

  “It’s busy,” The Astronaut said, as if this were a personal attack against him. “I already ordered for us.” The Astronaut was always efficient and, in this case, Chase and Wen were quite hungry, so they didn’t even care what he’d chosen for them.

  Chase placed three items on a napkin in front of Nash.

  The Astronaut studied them one by one—the flash drive from Hayward’s house, Skyenor’s phone, and then the watch. Nash picked up Hayward’s watch and held it lovingly, as if it were a sacred artifact.

  Chase relayed brief details of each item, but Wen watched, and could tell The Astronaut wasn’t really listening. She tapped Chase’s thigh under the table. He met her eyes and understood. Chase stopped talking for a minute. Not all The Astronauts were friends (and they certainly didn’t all get along, or even like each other), yet they shared a bond. An understanding similar to what military veterans found in the camaraderie of others who had survived the same battles they had. However, in this case, Hayward and Nash had been close, and had worked together many times.

  As Nash held his old friend’s watch, they could see him mourning the loss. The waiter approached and placed two pizzas on the table.

  Nash quickly folded the three items into the napkin and pocketed them. Then his face fell as he looked at the pizzas.

  “What’s wrong?” Wen asked.

  “There are forty-nine and a half pepperonis on my pizza,” he replied, rapidly tapping his finger on the table as if working an imaginary calculator.

  Chase and Wen looked at each other. Chase almost asked, ‘What’s the difference?’ but then remembered that these types of things were a big deal to Nash, particularly when he was already distraught about his friend.

  “I was very specific in my instructions,” The Astronaut said, looking at the pizza as if it might be dangerous. “Usually they do it right here. I have been here seventeen times over the last thirty-three months, and it is always right. Why would they do it wrong this time?”

  “Can’t we just take one off?” Chase asked.

  Nash looked at him as if he’d just proposed pouring skunk’s blood on it. “No! A pizza must be a certain way: eight slices, six pieces of pepperoni per slice, for a total of forty-eight pieces of pepperoni. This is not difficult math.”

  “But—”

  “The numbers matter,” The Astronaut continued. “Additionally, Chase Malone, you are incorrect, removing one pepperoni would not rectify the situation. There are forty-nine and a half pepperonis. . . This pizza is ruined.” The Astronaut looked befuddled again, as if discovering the fiasco for the first time. “How did that half a pepperoni get on my pizza?”

  “Perhaps you could just eat the slices that have the correct six pieces of pepperoni on them,” Wen suggested.

  The Astronaut looked at her warm eyes. Her face and her very presence soothed him. He looked back at the pizza. “Those are the two offending slices.” He pointed them out.

  Wen rotated the pizza so they were farthest from him. “Is it okay if I remove them?” she asked.

  “Yes. I don’t need them . . . they do not have the correct number.”

  Chase glanced at the other pizza (artichoke hearts and red onions), happy there were no incorrect numbers on his.

  Even after the offending slices were off and out of sight, Nash still looked hesitantly upon his potential lunch, but after a nod from Wen, he tried one. “It is not as good as usual, but I think it is probably safe to eat.”

  With the ‘crisis’ averted, Wen gave him a smile, and then, ever vigilant, scanned the room and main entrance again.

  The discussions moved to the items they had brought. The Astronaut retrieved them from his pocket, unfolded the napkin, and then took out a small cable which he connected to Skyenor’s phone, plugging the other end into a custom computer tablet that he had made.

  “This will download all the contents of his phone.”

  “Will it get past the heavy encryption?” Chase asked. “Will you be able to get into it?”

  The Astronaut looked at him as if this were the most ludicrous question he’d ever been asked—at least since Chase had asked if he could just take the extra pepperoni off—but answered calmly. “It may take a few hours.” Next, he picked up the flash drive and pushed it into a slot in his tablet. “Since presumably Hayward configured this drive, I should be able to get into it sooner.”

  While the drive and phone were busy, The Astronaut picked up the watch.

  “Finally, the watch.”

  Forty-Six

  Washington, DC – April 3rd – 10:18 am - 18 hours 26 minutes until 4:44AM on 4/4

  Chase and Wen headed back down the Mall towards their car. “So if The Astronaut made the watch for Hayward, how come he couldn’t tell us what the contents were?”

  “I think he wants time,” Wen replied.

  “We don’t have time.”

  “Time alone.”

  “Oh,” Chase said.

  “He promised he’d call us soon.”

  “So where are we going now?”

  “DARPA.”

  “And they’ll just let us in?”

  “If Tess tells them to, and if The Astronaut gets something from the phone, and . . . ” Wen changed her stride. “Those aren’t shadow people.”

  Chase turned his gaze in the direction she’d been looking and saw at least ten operatives heading toward them.

  “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure they work for whoever’s planning operation Blackout.”

  “Then we must be getting close to something. Otherwise they wouldn’t be sending the whole army after us.”

  Wen nodded tightly. “Right.”

  “Either way, we’re sure keeping the DC police department busy today.”

  “At least The Astronaut got away,” she said.

  “At least our Astronaut got away,” he amended. Chase looked back over his shoulder down the mall. He couldn’t see the Lincoln Memorial anymore, but he thought of Hayward dying there.

  They jogged past the Smithsonian Castle, named for James Smithson, a French-born British-rais
ed man who had never even been to Washington. Smithson had left a substantial fortune to his nephew under the condition that if the nephew died without heirs, the money would go “to the United States of America, to start a national museum in Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

  “Got your gun?” Wen asked as they jogged.

  “Always.”

  The nephew did, in fact, die with no heirs, and the money was used to found the Smithsonian in 1846, and to construct its first building, the distinctive Seneca red sandstone castle, completed in 1855. It remained a mystery as to why Smithson left such a large bequest (estimated to be as much as $200 million in today’s money) to start a museum in a place he’d never been, although his body was now entombed inside the Smithsonian castle.

  “They’re trying to hem us in!” Wen yelled.

  “Run!” Chase shouted as more men appeared.

  Today, the Smithsonian’s collections include 154 million items held in the Institution's nineteen museums, twenty-one libraries, nine research centers, and a zoo, which are collectively visited by thirty million people each year, and has an annual budget of $1.2 billion.

  “Where are they all coming from?” Chase yelled as they ran from now more than fifteen pursuers.

  “We can’t fight that many out in the open,” Wen shouted.

  “And we’d risk killing lots of innocent tourists,” Chase answered. Many people were already fleeing in panic at the sight of the armed men.

  Several of the operatives opened fire. “Apparently the people after us don’t care about innocent bystanders.”

  The bullets narrowly missed Chase. “We need cover!”

  Wen searched for anywhere they could avoid being slaughtered.

  “In here!” Chase yelled.

  Wen looked up at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and almost smiled. It was ready-made for a shootout. With endless places to hide and lots of fortified warplanes, it was just the kind of setting she needed to take out one or two dozen soldiers of fortune.

  “I think you’re getting good at this,” Wen said.

  Suddenly, the huge, windowed entrance walls exploded, shattered shards of glass raining all around them.

  “I think our friends back there just paid the entrance fee for us,” Chase yelled as he dove into the building, Wen close behind.

  “Yeah, with RPGs,” Wen said, stunned that their attackers would use rocket propelled grenades in the Nation’s capital in broad daylight. “That’ll get someone’s attention.”

  “It got mine!”

  Chase and Wen were nearly stampeded by the terrified, screaming crowds running for the exits.

  Inside, it was as if they had entered another world. The vast space was filled with full-sized planes suspended from the ceiling, protruding from walls, and parked on the floor. Silver, gleaming, colorful flyers of yesteryear, all gathered for history and posterity. One could easily imagine the beautiful, winged machines having personalities all their own, as if they could tell stories of great adventures, of flights they’d flown.

  However, there was no time to talk of aviation splendor. Chase and Wen had just stumbled into more of a disaster movie than a history class. The museum had an instant feel of plane crashes, death, and destruction as the armed men machine-gunned through the crowd with a complete disregard for innocent life.

  Forty-Seven

  New York City

  Jie Shi took a sip of water and brushed her long, silky black hair from her eyes, looking even prettier in the backdrop of the five-star hotel suite. The room, a perk available when vacant and at no charge to her important lover, had been arranged by a simple phone call.

  The congressman smiled, glancing over at the tussled and unmade bed as if he might want to return for a second round.

  Jie Shi allowed the sparkle in her eye to leave it up to him. He checked his watch, a disappointed look on his face.

  “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “I hope so,” the-twenty-six year old whispered, as if there was nothing she would like more. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Happy he preferred room service, and young Asian women, Jie Shi considered herself lucky. The congressman could have been an overweight, bald, sixty-something pig. And although more than twenty years her senior, he was actually fit and handsome. She marveled that a man so close to fifty could be nearly insatiable in bed.

  “I was wondering if you could do me a favor,” she asked in her sweetest voice.

  “Name it,” the congressman replied, sounding as if he were a generous person, which he was. Happy and content after their encounter, and now finishing a fine lunch, he was ready to give his “little China doll” anything she desired.

  “You are familiar with the company Denny Tech?”

  He raised an eyebrow and set his glass of wine down. “I am.”

  “Then you know that the FBI is investigating them?”

  He looked at her carefully, his facial expression going from confusion to approaching anger.

  “Don’t get so upset. You are chairman of the Intelligence committee. I know you have oversight and connections with the Bureau. All I’m asking is that they don’t raid the offices this week.”

  “How are you involved with Denny Tech?”

  “I’m friends with one of the junior executives. It’s really not that big a deal, I don’t really care what happens to them. But I have all my savings tied up in their stock. He gave me a tip, and so I bought in. I just need to sell it, but there is a funding thing. It means I can’t sell it until the end of this week.”

  “So you bought stock with an insider-trading tip. That isn’t good.” He almost asked her if she was wearing a wire, trying to set him up. However, she had almost no clothes on, and he had chosen the hotel and booked the room, so it had to be safe.

  “It’s hardly insider-trading. It’s not a lot of money, it’s just everything I have. My same friend told me they knew they were being investigated, and that there was some big scandal. I don’t even know what it’s all about, but they said they were expecting to be raided any day. I just need a few days to get out.”

  The Congressman frowned. “I can’t do it.”

  “You can do it. I know you have the authority and the contacts to get the delay.”

  “Well . . . you’re right about that. I probably could.”

  “You’re so important and good at negotiations.” She touched his leg gently. “People do what you ask because you’re so smart.”

  He thought for a few moments longer, then shook his head. “I’m not going to do it,” he said at last. “I’m sorry you’re going to lose your savings, but I refuse to jeopardize my career.”

  She looked hurt.

  He stared at her for a moment, considering whether he should offer her some money, but that was another complicated mess. He wasn’t exactly the wealthiest member of Congress—not yet, anyway. And getting funds out past his wife, or even his small team, from his campaign war chest for the next election, always brought up challenges. There was nothing he could really do to help her financially, so he just made another apology.

  “I’ve never asked you for a favor before,” she tried again. “This isn’t that big a deal.”

  “You’re asking me to interfere with a federal investigation.”

  “I don’t want you to make it stop. It’s not really interfering. What’s a few days? They aren’t going anywhere. The timing doesn’t matter to anybody except me.”

  “I can’t.”

  She looked down. “You don’t really care about me.”

  “I do.”

  “No. All you care about is your career and your family.”

  As skilled a politician as he was, the congressman didn’t know how to agree with her and deny it at the same time, at least not without consulting focus groups, polls, talking to a speechwriter . . . and of course none of that was going to happen. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

&n
bsp; “So am I,” she said, looking back up, steel in her eyes. “It would be a shame if your wife found out about us. And I guess the voters wouldn’t like it much either.”

  Forty-Eight

  Washington, DC – April 3rd – 10:54 am

  As bullets ricocheted inside the Air and Space Museum, Chase and Wen found cover around the many large exhibits.

  “They may not be shadow people,” Chase yelled, “but they seem just as intent on killing us!”

  Wen, climbing on top of a giant gray bomber, didn’t answer. Instead, she returned fire to the gunmen below.

  Chase moved behind the polished silver antique Boeing and quickly found a staircase leading into the old craft. Inside, he found three kids who couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years old. Seeing the two boys and a girl huddled against the plane’s inner wall, Chase quickly abandoned his idea of making a stand there. “Stay down,” he whispered. “Don’t go out there.”

  One of the boys gave him a crazy look, as if they had any intention of leaving.

  Chase jumped from the top of the staircase and got lucky, catching one of the black ops unaware, killing him with one shot.

  Three more fell to the ground not far from him. Wen’s handiwork gave him hope they just might survive this. Then he saw that the main concentration of their enemy was now under the gray bomber. Somehow, Wen had moved, and was now high in the air on a red, blue, and silver vintage Eastern Air Lines Douglas DC-3 that looked as if it had just rolled off the assembly line.

  “Talk about the high ground,” Chase muttered to himself while running to another staircase. Soon he was on a now-deserted elevated walkway heading toward the nose of a giant 747 that hung from the wall like some kind of avionics hunting trophy. From that vantage point, he spotted another group of armed men circling under a gorgeous TWA plane that must have been seventy years old, but still looked sleek and modern.

  Wen wing-walked to the end of the Eastern turbo prop and made a death-defying leap to an ancient American Airlines mail plane that looked like it needed the cables holding it to the glass ceiling in order to fly.