Polaris Operations Complex
Albany, New York
General O’Reilly walked into the briefing room, holding a thermos of coffee. He was dressed casually in a pair of blue jeans, and a warm, gray turtleneck sweater. O’Reilly looked at Mitchell and Jen, dressed in worn jeans and a pair of old army sweat tops, looking like they hadn’t slept in days. Taking a seat, O’Reilly poured them both a piping-hot cup of coffee and then sat back in his seat while they waited for the others to arrive.
Mitchell’s phone call had been to O’Reilly.
After telling Mitchell to stay where he was while he made a few calls, O’Reilly’s had contacted Polaris’ deputy leader, Luis Ortiz, a former Miami police commissioner, who in turn contacted some old friends with the Charlotte police. Mrs. March was taken into police protection, and moved to a safe house in Concord. Once Corrine was safe, a Learjet was hired to safely bring Mitchell back to New York for a debriefing. At her insistence, Jen tagged along to add anything she could to help put whoever it was behind all of this behind bars.
Ortiz sauntered in with a box of fresh donuts and laid them on the table. When no one moved, he opened the box, grabbed the closest one, and took a huge bite. Ortiz had short, black hair that was graying at the temples. He was short and stocky, with a permanent smile on his face. Having met O’Reilly when he was serving on a counter-narcotics operation in Latin America, the two had become close friends. When O’Reilly established Polaris, Ortiz was offered the position as his deputy to oversee all of the police training that occurred in the complex and elsewhere.
Everyone sat in silence as O’Reilly’s two best intelligence experts came in and sat down on the opposite side of the table from Jen and Mitchell.
The first was Mike Donaldson, a tall, lanky Texan, who had been an intelligence officer with the U.S. Air Force. He had a full head of white hair and a few extra pounds on his midsection. Donaldson was the senior analyst at the complex. His junior partner was Fahimah Nazaria, a stunningly beautiful Iraqi-American, dressed from head-to-toe in a conservative, dark blue outfit. Fahimah had graduated from Harvard with honors, and followed that up with a graduate degree in Middle Eastern Studies. Recruited straight out of university, Fahimah was the fastest-rising member of the “Office of Dirty Tricks,” General O’Reilly’s planning and intelligence department.
O’Reilly made the introductions.
“Ryan, I heard what you told me and what the police passed on to Luis,” said O’Reilly as he sipped his coffee, “but why don’t you tell me in your own words what really happened the other night?”
Mitchell went over the events of the evening from the time he arrived at Jen’s home, until he was dragged away by some of Charlotte’s finest. Jen added what she could, but she found that Mitchell seemed quite adept at giving these kinds of briefs. She saw that Mitchell had an eye for detail and appeared to be able to recall the events with far greater clarity than she could. O’Reilly sat there, quietly listening, while Fahimah and Donaldson grilled them over the details of the story, trying to find some meaning to the kidnapping attempt.
“As far as I can tell, the only common denominator in both kidnapping attempts in Charlotte and in the Philippines seems to be you, Miss March,” said Donaldson.
“I have to agree,” added O’Reilly.
“But they also may be looking for something that she had or was working on,” added Fahimah. “The books you won, what were they about?” asked Fahimah, while she typed away on her laptop.
Jen cleared her throat. “They were from an estate sale and once belonged to a Charles Reid. He was a former British subject who was a member of the Board of Inquiry into the loss of the British Airship, the Goliath. The ship was lost on June 10, 1931, somewhere over Mauritania, West Africa.”
Ortiz’s phone rang. He walked out into the hall to take his call.
“These books; were they valuable?” asked Donaldson, looking through his notes.
“No, I don’t believe so,” answered Jen.
“This keeps getting worse by the hour,” said Ortiz as he re-entered the room and took his seat. “That was the Charlotte chief of police on the line. He said that the man Mitchell knocked out at the crash site has been found dead in his hospital room. His throat had been slit from ear to ear, and those books you were just talking about have disappeared right out of the police evidence locker.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Jen.
“For the right price, Miss March, you can get anything, and I do mean anything, done. Even in a police station,” said Ortiz, shaking his head.
“It would appear that we are dealing with someone with very deep pockets,” said Mitchell.
Donaldson looked over at O’Reilly. “Sir, those books may be more valuable to someone than Miss March believes.”
“General, I think I may have found something that may be useful,” added Fahimah, without looking up from her computer. “I believe I have found a living relative of Charles Reid, a Mister Francis Reid.”
“Where does he live?” asked Mitchell, experiencing a spike of energy.
“Alaska. Palmer, Alaska to be exact; it is just north of Anchorage. He is a retired schoolteacher. He wrote a small book on the Goliath’s disappearance some years ago, and if the Web is to be believed, he is considered an expert on the subject. I think I can get my hands on his book electronically,” said Fahimah.
“Great, email it to me when you can,” responded Mitchell. “Have you ever heard of this man before?” he asked Jen.
“I read his book a few years ago. It’s more of a family history than a definitive work on the loss of the Goliath, but he may have additional information on the disappearance that he’s just never found the time to publish,” said Jen.
“Palmer, Alaska. I’ve never been in that neck of the woods before,” Mitchell said, his mind switching into overdrive. “But I bet I could be up there in a matter of hours.”
O’Reilly looked over at Mitchell. “What are you thinking, Ryan?”
“I want to meet this man. I would like to know all I can about the Goliath. It may help me understand what is so important about it and perhaps shed some light on why some people seem hell-bent on getting their hands on Jen.”
“Ryan, don’t forget this has become a police matter, not a company one,” said O’Reilly, gauging Mitchell.
“Sir, I got it one-hundred percent. It is a police matter in Charlotte, North Carolina, not Alaska, and you know that I would never do anything to jeopardize or tarnish the good name of the company, but I need to find out what’s going on. Jen’s in real danger and I want to find out why. You’ve put me on leave for a month, so technically this wouldn’t be on the company’s time. All I would need is access to the staff, should I have a question or two that needs answering,” said Mitchell.
O’Reilly smiled and shook his head at Mitchell. He knew the man would go, even if he told him not to. He could see the concern in Mitchell’s eyes for Jennifer March. “All right then, Ryan. Since you are officially on leave, you can do as you wish, but let me pay for the flight,” he said as he handed Mitchell a gold-colored company credit card. “But at the first sign of trouble up there, you hand the problem over to the local police and get your ass back here pronto.”
Mitchell thanked O’Reilly and, satisfied, took the credit card.
“Now that that’s settled, I can have you flown back to your mother later today,” said O’Reilly to Jen.
“Sorry sir, but it’s my neck on the line here, and I also want to know why this is happening,” said Jen. “If you and the police think that they may try for my mother to get to me, I’m not just going to sit back and wait for it to happen. I’m well and truly pissed now, and I want to help. No offense to Ryan, but he knows almost nothing about the Goliath, whereas I’ve spent years studying the airship. He doesn’t realize it, but I am more valuable to him than he knows right now.”
Mitchell was about to open his mouth when Jen raised her hand, cutting him off.
“I’
m coming and that’s all there is to it, mister,” said Jen, leaving no doubt in her voice.
O’Reilly smiled. “Well, I’ll get Tammy to book the flights and arrange for a rental at the other end. Consider this an early Christmas present.”
Mitchell shook his head at Jen, who smiled back at him. He only hoped that their trip could shed some light on the growing puzzle.
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