by Tim Tigner
Wisecock’s expression changed to that of a man who’d answered the phone only to find himself talking to a telemarketer. He didn’t ask about the case. He didn’t ask if I was a chemist. He clearly had all the information he wanted. “Bret Dinkins? Did he send you to me?”
“No. I’m working with ASAC Vic Link.”
“Don’t know him. But he sounds like a Dinkins clone.”
As I waited for Wisecock to continue, I kept expecting him to reach for his glasses. I’d have thought they’d require constant adjusting, but they clung to his nose like a one-legged bird.
The professor watched me wait a bit before bowing his head in defeat. “Tell the FBI that you can get a stink bomb from an egg if you leave it out in the sun long enough. And a potato will break a window if you throw it hard enough. But otherwise the country is safe from your produce-packing terrorists.”
“So there’s no special chemical you can derive from them?” I offered.
Wisecock shook his head.
“No connection at all between eggs, potatoes and armaments?”
“Not chemically. Not in any practical sense. Though they are both good for pelting protestors.”
“Thank you for your time, Professor.”
I spent the drive back to Cape Canaveral reflecting on what I’d learned and working out what to do next. Wisecock’s references to throwing eggs and potatoes made me think of hand grenades. Oz had also bought white phosphorus, which was frequently used in those.
Willie Pete, as it was nicknamed, was pyrophoric, meaning self-igniting. That made it great for lighting fires pretty much anywhere. Since that combustion produced lots of dense smoke, white phosphorus grenades were often used to create camouflaging smokescreens that even infrared couldn’t penetrate. Interesting though that was, it didn’t provide a solid, sensible link back to the produce I’d found.
Perhaps Vic had been right. Perhaps someone with a ton of rotting trash had spotted an available dumpster and opted to save a hundred bucks.
I decided to drive by the restaurants within a mile or so of PPS to see what their dumpsters contained. Or rather, behind those restaurants.
The closest major intersection had a shopping center that housed the usual burger and coffee franchises, plus an independent pizza place and a Chinese restaurant. I bypassed the storefronts and hit the alley.
Back home in California, I frequently utilized a similar passage near my house as part of a shortcut. But I had never really studied it. Driving slowly through this one now, I came to understand that there was a lot more going on in alleys than I’d realized.
The dumpsters were corralled in yards. This created a clean and orderly appearance, although now that I thought about it, preventing scrounging was probably job one. The homeless were bad for business.
The emptied cardboard boxes were kept in a separate section. They were flattened and baled, and obviously bound for—
I hit the brake.
What had happened to the egg and potato boxes? And not just the boxes but also the individual cartons and sacks?
I put the car in park, right there in the middle of the alley, and pulled out my phone. I found the dumpster photo and confirmed my mental image. There was nothing but the produce itself in the trash. It was like a big vat of egg and potato soup.
Suppose Oz wasn’t using the eggs and potatoes to make explosives? Suppose he was using the packaging to conceal explosives?
My spine prickled as I pondered the possibilities. I was deep into some pretty horrible imagery when red and blue lights began flashing right behind me.
73
Oh, Brother
Location: Unknown
FREED FROM HER IRON SHACKLE, Katya followed Shakira into the greater hangar. The furniture arrangement had changed during her imprisonment. The tools were all gone, and only two tables remained standing. The rest of the stuff she’d seen was stacked against the far wall.
Shakira walked toward the man Katya hadn’t met. Seated behind one of the tables, he too was now dressed in casual clothes. He too looked familiar. But instead of resembling Sabrina, he took after Oz. An older brother? Katya wondered.
Before him on the table were a stuffed ashtray and a black box roughly the size of a card deck—with a diode that glowed red. Instead of a keyhole, it had a simple red rocker switch.
As she approached his table, Katya saw that the man’s hands and forearms were oddly scarred with round splotches. Looked like he had been splashed with acid many years back. A workplace accident, she guessed, reflecting on the paint fumes.
The sight made her think of Chemical Ali, Saddam Hussein’s intelligence chief. His executed intelligence chief. Executed was just what this one would be, once Achilles got hold of him.
Unaware of his pending fate, the fourth member of Oz’s team remained seated. While she approached, he studied her from the comfort of his folding chair.
Hoping to bond a bit with the man who appeared to literally hold her fate in his hands, Katya said, “You must be Osama’s brother. I’m Katya.”
He tilted his head as if amused and said, “Omar.”
He continued to study her for a few seconds, then turned to Shakira and spoke something in Arabic, exposing nicotine stained teeth.
Shakira lifted Katya’s shirt from behind, showing off her handiwork.
Omar nodded, then rose. He stuck a hand in the right front pocket of his pants. Frowning, he then checked the left. Disappointed again, he said something in Arabic.
Shakira patted her own pockets then answered, “Laa,” which Katya assumed meant “No.”
During the ensuing dialogue, Shakira found a pack of cigarettes over by the teapot. She extracted one, passed the pack to Omar, then took a seat behind the second table.
Katya hadn’t been able to follow the conversation despite the context, although she heard both of her captors say “Osama.” This made her assume that Oz figured in somehow. Whether he was the concern or the solution, she couldn’t tell. Given his apparent position at the top of their limited hierarchy, perhaps he was both.
The two came to agreement.
Omar looked at her and said, “Sit.”
There were no chairs left. Katya considered sitting on a table, but opted for the floor to be further away. Like her cell and the rest of the hangar, it was covered in cushioning corncob chips and chicken crap.
As she adjusted her legs, Katya noted that the mixture didn’t look quite the same as the stuff on her floor. At first she thought it might be the lighting, which was brighter here. But a quick experiment with shadows convinced her that wasn’t it.
She picked up a few kernels as her captors lit cigarettes. They weren’t as uniform in color as those on her floor. These had been misted on several sides with paint. A white enamel and a flat beige, close inspection revealed. There were also globules of black rubber mixed in and partially painted over. The stuff she’d seen coating the card tables. Whatever they’d painted, it had first been rubberized.
The smokers seemed indifferent to her inquisitive activities. They treated her like a familiar dog. Given the “collar” around her waist and her position on the floor, that was almost understandable.
When he finished his cigarette, Omar checked his watch and stood. He came around to her side of the table and leaned his backside against the edge while looking down at her.
Katya considered standing up so they could talk face-to-face, but didn’t think that would go over too well with a man who probably valued women somewhere between cows and sheep. Best to let discretion be the better part of valor.
Still, she met his eye.
Omar reached around and grabbed the black box from the table. He held it up, like a lawyer presenting Exhibit A. Then he surprised her by speaking solid English. Accented, but educated. Refined even. “Do you know what this does?”
Not is, she noted. Does.
She rose to her feet. “Please tell me.”
74
Pretty Face
MY CORTISOL LEVEL always spikes at the unexpected sight of red and blue lights in my rearview mirror. The unpleasant jolt is a side effect of my driving style—and the resultant fear of tickets.
I drive fast because the idea of wasting precious minutes of life getting from point A to point B irritates me at the molecular level. Plus, as an American and an Olympian, I’m inherently competitive. So conditioned to working to get ahead that I’m uncomfortable ever being behind.
But at that moment, I wasn’t speeding. I wasn’t even driving. I was parked. Unfortunately, I was also the subject of a nationwide BOLO alert.
On the hope that the officer was just prompting me to move along, I set down my phone, put the car in drive and hit the gas.
In response, I got nothing. No siren blip. No loudspeaker announcement. Nothing.
I drove away.
If they’re not busy with an active call or headed someplace specific, police officers will leverage opportunities like my alley encounter to run spot checks. Either that officer hadn’t, or my plate was still considered clean. Either way, I’d gotten lucky. Very lucky.
I berated myself for the careless behavior that almost put me in jail. Even though it wasn’t rational, I believed Katya could feel me coming for her. Even though it was egotistical, I felt that gave her hope. Even though I had no concrete lead, I knew I could save her.
If I stayed out of jail.
So where to next? Literally and figuratively.
I needed to do some deep thinking so I drove toward the castle, searching for a beachfront motel. One where an absentee owner paid minimum wage and the included breakfast came from a self-service microwave.
The Seaside Escape fit the profile and my mood. Plus it had free Wi-Fi and a beachfront pool. All for seventy dollars, according to the vacancy sign. Turned out the seventy bucks excluded Florida’s substantial hotel tax and the two hundred dollar deposit required of people paying cash, but I wasn’t complaining. It was still cheap compared to California.
A neighboring shop sold me a twenty dollar swimsuit that was comfortable but ugly. I changed in my seventy dollar room then headed out for a hard run and a deep think.
The beach was beautiful. Sugary sand and warm blue water, topped with sunshine and treated to a cooling breeze. I felt guilty for being in such a pleasant place, knowing that Katya was likely in a cage.
I ran harder.
I put my arms and legs on autopilot as I’d done so often during my Olympic training years. Then, with the blood flowing and the endorphins building, I put my mind to work.
What did I have?
I began throwing fingers as I ran. One: I probably had four Middle Easterners in the US using false passports, one of whom was a chemist.
Two: The four certainly had large quantities of chemicals that could be used to make rocket fuel—or explosives.
Three: They also had jetpack technology.
Four: They were located near NASA headquarters.
Five: They had an unlimited supply of cryptocurrency.
Six: They may have bought large quantities of eggs and potatoes for the packaging.
Seven: They were holding Katya.
What else? I had the feeling my list was missing something important. Whatever it was, it eluded me. I kept running, hoping it would come.
When it didn’t come for several miles, I doubled back. I didn’t want to get too far from my hotel in case something came to me.
With the sun now more to my back than my front, I began to analyze my list. Which of the seven factors were relevant, and which were distractions? It didn’t take much distance to decide that there was no way to know without forming a composite picture.
I began building that picture around Katya, because I needed her to be part of it. What purpose could she serve? She was Russian. Could she be a scapegoat? Wouldn’t that be ironic? Katya and I both scapegoated as part of the same conspiracy for different reasons. That was a possibility, although she was a weak choice, being a prominent and gainfully employed mathematician rather than a chemist.
Could it be her mathematics expertise they were after? Also possible but improbable. Her abilities weren’t so unique that you’d need to commit a complicated crime to acquire them.
A solid answer hit me as I hurdled a sandcastle. Katya looked innocent.
In this day and age, the one thing terrorists needed most was white skin. Throw in blonde hair and good looks and you were golden.
The conclusion resonated with my experience, my spy sense as it were. Oz had taken Katya for her face.
75
Adding Up
Western Nevada
VIC LOOKED at his phone and felt his spirits drop. Some people say the way to know if your marriage is happy is to note how you feel when you arrive home. Are you happier when your spouse’s vehicle is there or when it’s not. Vic didn’t buy the so-called Garage Test. Sometimes you want company, sometimes you want to be alone. But he did subscribe to the Telephone Test, at least as it applied to your job. Were you happy to see the boss’s name or not?
He definitely wasn’t feeling the joy as Brick flashed on his phone. Especially after the disastrous staff meeting Achilles made him late for. “No discernible progress” was how Brick had summarized Vic’s report for the record and in front of his peers.
“Special Agent Link.”
“Do you know who I just got off the phone with?” his boss asked.
“No, sir.”
“Director Brix.”
Brick liked the fact that his name was so similar to the big man’s. Sitting in his boss’s lobby, listening to Melanie answer the phone, “Mr. Brick’s office,” Vic could tell that people often worried they’d been transferred to the wrong extension. He also heard her leveraging the fact when making requests. “Mr. Brick’s instructions are” or “Brick said you should” were frequent refrains.
Vic didn’t relish what was coming, but he played along. “What did the director want?”
“He wants his phone to stop ringing. Governor Rickman is a personal friend of his, you know. Their wives were sorority sisters at Vanderbilt. I know you’re not married, so let me tell you. When your wife has a priority, you have a priority. A persistent, nagging, relentless priority.
“And the bankers. They’ve got their lawyers set up on rotation. Not a single hour goes by without one of them calling to check in and throw a few threats around.
“So he has a question for me, and now I have a question for you. How close are you to solving this thing?”
Vic couldn’t help but smile at the news. Not from a sadistic impulse, but from relief. If Brix was getting hourly calls from high-priced lawyers at work, and his wife was constantly pestering him at home, then scapegoating the Reno ASAC no longer made sense. Firing Vic wouldn’t fix the director’s problems. Neither would jailing Achilles. The only cure for those symptoms was getting the victims’ money back.
Or giving Brix a victory so grand it made him bulletproof.
Vic weighed his words. “Sounds like solving the crime isn’t the issue.”
“What?”
“Jailing the thieves isn’t going to keep the director’s phone from ringing. Only recovering the money will do that.”
Brick took a few seconds to chew and swallow. “What’s your point?”
“If this was a simple robbery, a well-planned, well-executed robbery that began with a brilliant idea and ended with a double-cross, then the odds of our catching the criminals are very low. They have unlimited financial resources and a big head start. We don’t even know what continent they’re on.”
“What do you mean, if?” Brick asked, picking up on the salient detail. “If this was a simple robbery.”
“Suppose the money wasn’t the end goal. Suppose the robbery was a means to achieving another end.”
Brick scoffed. “We already know what their goal was. Kai Basher explained it perfectly. Money plus revenge. Money they felt they would have ear
ned if their product hadn’t failed, and revenge against the people they blame for its failure.”
“That only explains the four AcotocA employees. The dead people.”
“Dead people with no criminal or clandestine experience. Dead people who obviously contracted out for assistance and then got double-crossed.”
Vic had considered and rejected the contractor scenario. “If it really was a team of eight—four executives plus four experts—why have six in the bunker and just two above?”
“Because the plan only required two above.”
Brick was technically right, but the balance made no operational sense. “Why would the four AcotocA executives allow themselves to all be put at the mercy of two contractors?”
“Because they were amateurs.”
This wasn’t going anywhere. Vic had let it get off course. He attempted to put it back on. “I’ve been looking into the activity of the company owned by the pseudo-Maltese.”
“Personal Propulsion Systems? The failed jetpack company?”
“Right. The bulk of their purchases were chemicals. Chemicals used to make rocket fuel.”
“You find that surprising?”
“There wasn’t much in the way of other material purchases. The components used to assemble the jetpacks themselves.”
“Maybe that all came with the company when they acquired it. Maybe the fuel was the toughest nut to crack. Have you asked the former owners?”
“They confirmed that there were a lot of components and prototypes. Extending flight time through fuel optimization and motor construction was one major hurdle, but not the biggest one.”
“No? What was—the fuel?”
“Actually, it was the whole safety-regulatory issue. They concluded that they’d never be able to sell a jetpack in the U.S. regardless of price or performance because they’re inherently too dangerous. They were thrilled to get a buyer.”
“Why are you bringing this up?” Brick asked, his tone curt but tinged with curiosity.