Case of the Mouse Trap Legend

by Jean Marie Wiesen

  We walked in different directions while waiting to hear news of some sort, nearly bumping into each other as we retraced our steps. I stopped and watched Annie, microphone in hand, in front of her cameraman gesturing to the rubble behind her, mouthing words which would later be broadcast and rebroadcast on the local news channels describing the explosions, the injuries and the overall disaster. She was a master at fitting together the pieces of the puzzle, the whodunit for the home audience, much like Mike and me in solving cases even though none of us had faced anything like this since 9/11.

  Grady’s radio chattered with transmissions between squad members on scene at the I-95 Bridge. They were approaching from beneath the bridge, on the south side of the Connecticut River using binoculars to view the underside to determine if any explosives were in place. A separate team was inspecting underneath the rail bridge that ran parallel nearby. The Coast Guard had moved their ships out of danger in case the C 4 wasn’t able to be dismantled. All traffic, including the trains had ceased to run, bringing an enormous section of the Northeast Corridor to a virtual standstill.

  “Grady, is there another team at Groton?” I asked.

  “Far as I know they’re on their way,” he responded. “What the hell?” Grady asked of no one in particular.

  The sound of an explosion screeched through everyone’s radio causing all to hit the deck, including the news crews. We all stayed down, waiting for someone to sound an all clear. Finally, a Captain from the Fire Department did. We rose and dusted ourselves off.

  Grady paced, radio in hand trying to raise his buddy Greg. He yelled into the radio, but received no response. With the radio still gripped in his hand, crackling with static, Greg sat down on a beam and held his head in his hands. Mike walked over and sat next to him. I went to the car and let Kai and Koa out. Kai crawled into Grady’s lap and we waited for what felt like an eternity.

  Grady attempted to raise Greg once again. Initially, there was dead silence.

  “Hey, you still at the bank buddy?” Greg asked.

  “Oh, man, it’s so good to hear your voice! Yeah, I’m at the bank. Uh, what’s left of it. I have a puppy in my lap.” Grady leapt to his feet and danced around while holding Kai.

  “You should be up here where the action is. Bring the puppy; he could be a K9 trainee. Part of the tracks blew up—it’s the explosion you heard. Amtrak is gonna be bummed along with Metro North. I guess they can use the other track until this section is repaired. Uh, never mind. The guys say, nope. Hey, the good news is, we saved I-95, so plenty of traffic nightmares for all the commuters,” Greg said.

  Grady grinned and said, “And for all you Troopers.”

  “Thanks for the reminder, pal,” Greg said.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” Grady said.

  “Oh, that’s sweet. You were worried?” Greg asked.

  Grady laughed. “After all we went through, not even a little. Get your ass up to Groton and find the other one, good buddy.”

  “Grady, I have to say, whoever these people are, they’re not experts. Their placements are all wrong—if they’d done it correctly, the entire bridge would’ve come down, something to be thankful for,” Greg said.

  “What are you saying?” Grady asked.

  “They didn’t intend to bring the bridge down, buddy, only damage it to interrupt traffic, I guess. Maybe they have other plans. Who knows, but it’s something to consider,” Greg said. “On that note, I’m off to Groton to see what we can find.”

  My cell phone chimed. I stared at, incredulously. It was another e-mail from Cho with the heading: This only beginning. I handed it to Grady.

  “Again, why you? Besides, we’ve got the map legend,” Grady said.

  Mike interrupted, “He doesn’t know we have it, for openers. As to why he’s e-mailing Laura, who the hell knows. At least he’s communicating. Let him think he’s got the upper hand. Let the bastard—along with the Russian guy, let them both think they’re in control. Okay, we didn’t get to the rail bridge in time, but the bomb squad did dismantle the I-95 Bridge bomb in time, and there wasn’t that much damage to the rail bridge. Can you imagine what a disaster it would have been if both bombs had gone off?”

  “No, I can’t,” Grady answered.

  “Nobody was hurt. They can replace the rails on the bridge,” I said.

  My cell phone chimed again. This time the e-mail was from Viktor and the heading read: False map puppy find.

  It chimed a third time and the e-mail was from Cho and the heading was: Some real. Some not.

  I handed the phone to Grady. He stared at it and handed it to Mike. Grady radioed Greg and relayed the information to him, suggesting on a hunch, Groton could be a trap.

  “Laura, I’ve no idea what’s going on, but these guys either are following you or they had cameras set up on Mouse Trap Trail. We need to go back there and search it before they have a chance to take down whatever surveillance they had set up. They’re using you for their end game, whatever the hell it is. They’re playing cat and mouse with the wrong people for damned sure. We’re going to sweep every inch of your house and car, too for anything. I’m turning off GPS on your phone. I don’t want anyone tracking you unless it’s us. Let one of my guys check your phone just in case there’s some sort of tracking device in there that shouldn’t be. I’m doing the same with mine and Mike’s phone, so don’t feel badly. There’s something wrong here and I intend to find out what it is.”

  “I’m on board, Grady.” I handed him my phone.

  Grady was adjusting my phone when it chimed. He held it up to me. It was yet another encrypted e-mail from Cho and the header read: River Wire.

  Grady radioed Greg with the dire warning he was certain had to do with Groton. Greg assured him the Naval base as well as the surrounding shipyards would all be evacuated and entered by the bomb squad, including the dive team with total and complete caution, the same as on the battlefield. This was a battlefield on the home front.

  Chapter 9

  While I waited for my phone to be debugged, I walked Kai and Koa up the street, winding in and around the crowd of onlookers who had gathered at the bank on the crisp fall morning. Some bent down to pet the puppies, others ignored them. Kai and Koa gave those people an additional sniff making me wonder if they had something to hide, or if they were associated with Cho and Viktor. I wondered if my brain was working overtime, but they do say criminals will sometimes linger at a crime scene. If not Cho or Viktor, perhaps one of their friends lagged behind to check the effectiveness of their bomb.

  We circled back but nothing stood out, other than I didn’t feel completely dressed without my cell phone. I had counted three times I’d put my hand in my back pocket, searching for it. Apparently, I’d contracted cell phone attachment.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Looking for this?” Grady grinned.

  “My phone is back! Is it going to live?”

  Grady rolled his eyes. “Yes, and so are all the puppy photos. Now, will you and Mike get back to Mouse Trap Trail and make yourselves useful.”

  Mike came up behind me, put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Grady, we’re on top of it. Thanks for the debug. I wish you could have found out where these damned e-mails are coming from. If there are any cameras on the trail we’ll find them.”

  Mike got behind the wheel, pulled out and headed back toward Mouse Trap, rubbing his thinning brown hair, something he did when he was frustrated.

  “Alright, that’s it,” he began, “these guys, this Cho and this Viktor guy, they’re playing us like fine instruments. Yeah, they blew up the bank and they blew up part of the tracks, but I’m betting dollars to pizza there’s no way they’re touching Groton. While I’m at it, they’re not touching the reservoir either. But what they’re really good at is getting us to chase our tails.”

  “Okay, based on your theory…”

  Mike put his hand up. “No way are you theorizing. I’m not dealing with two Crosby’s, one is plenty.�
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  “If their end game is to send us in circles, are they testing us, as in testing our homeland security response system?” I asked.

  “You hit the nail on the head, Laura. They may have faked us out making us think those were nukes on the initial map on Wastrel—you remember him? The body you fished out with the map which started all of this. The map legend says they’re nukes, too, but the bomb at the bank wasn’t, it was C 4 and so was the rail bridge bomb. Both maps say the bombs at the reservoir and Groton are nukes. I’m telling you the reservoir is going to come up clean and so is Groton.” Mike was adamant.

  “Then we’re missing something, Mike and it’s something big. What if we’re reading the map incorrectly?” I asked.

  “How could we be doing that?”

  “What if there’s a pattern to it we’re not seeing on first glance?”

  “Such as?” Mike asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I don’t know, the shape of the flag of the Soviet Union.”

  “The hammer and sickle?” Mike rubbed his chin.

  “Right, because North Korea has colors on theirs and the new Russian flag does too, along with a crest of some kind,” I said.

  “Laura, you might be on to something. Maybe they’re using the sickle as a pattern of where the bombs are being placed and they aren’t nukes, and they are testing our security. If you’re right, we’re still back at square one asking: What’s their end game.”

  “It would help to know where on the map the sickle goes,” I said.

  “Don’t forget the hammer, Laura, it could be part of it too,” Mike said. He parked the car at the Mouse Trail lot, closed his eyes and asked, “It couldn’t be so simple, could it?”

  “What Mike, what couldn’t be?”

  “Think about the upper part of the state, and what’s up there. You’ve got Groton and Grady’s pretty sure it’s not the target. Okay, maybe he’s right and maybe he’s not. What about the Air National Guard Armory near Bradley Airport? They’ve got all kinds of munitions there. That would make a fairly big boom.”

  “Okay, so what’s the hammer pointing at?” I asked.

  “The Coast Guard Academy?” Mike’s eyes widened. “You got a map in the glove box?”

  “Sure do.” I opened the glove compartment and took out a map of the state,

  while Mike Googled a photo of the old Russian flag.

  “Put the map over the phone, Laura,” Mike said. “Nope, it’s not working. Let me enlarge the picture more. They either need to make bigger screens or I have to get smaller fingers. Okay, try it again.”

  I placed the map of Connecticut over the photo of the old Russian flag, with the sickle’s rounded edge out over Long Island Sound and there was no question where the head of the hammer was resting. It was squarely on the Coast Guard Academy.

  “Shit,” Mike said.

  “Well said,” I commented.

  “Calling Grady and then we’re going on a camera hunt,” Mike said.

  I exited the Honda Pilot and started up the trail, peering up into the trees, looking for camouflaged cameras. I stepped slowly and quietly and only then did I hear a click coming from my upper right. Even though I knew it was there, it took several minutes to locate. Guess it’s why they’re camouflaged. The continual clicking gave away its location, even though it was a low sound.

  “Mike, I found it!”

  “Good going, Jensen. If I’d been trailing along, with my noisy footfalls, it would have taken forever. Let me give you a boost, see if you can cut the strap and get it down,” Mike said while he interlocked his hands so I could step in and reach up. I held onto the tree with one hand and cut the camera loose with my Swiss Army knife. I held the camera, waiting to drop it down to Mike.

  “Uh, if I catch the camera, I drop you. You want to pick?” Mike asked.

  “Good point. I guess I’ll drop it on the ground and hope Koa doesn’t think it’s a toy. I’ll jump down, and you grab it.”

  “On the count of three—three!” Mike let go of me, and I landed in a pile of leaves. The camera dropped a few feet away and Mike picked it up.

  “I hope it’s the only camera, because you’re climbing up and retrieving the next one,” I said, as I got up and brushed myself off.

  Mike went through the photos the mounted camera had taken, and said, “Hardly anyone comes through here, so it was pretty easy for Cho and Viktor to pick us out. My question is: Do they have remote access to this or do they come in to physically check it? If so, why haven’t they been wiped clean?”

  “Either they don’t care or they are playing with us,” I answered.

  “I guess we have to check out the rest of the trail up to the spot where we found the map legend, since they e-mailed you,” Mike said.

  “They said the puppy was wrong, so the camera has to be right near the tree where Kai found the map,” I said.

  “Right, the last one was from Viktor and he said the map was false. But I don’t think it’s completely false. Greg’s guys dismantled the I-95 bomb. The railroad bomb went off and those were both on the map. The map said the bombs were nukes when they weren’t and Groton’s a target when it isn’t,” Mike said.

  “We need to find the camera and get it out of here and let the guys do their job, Mike. I hope you’re right about the rest of the bomb placements,” I said.

  “Me too, Laura. I really don’t like surprises one little bit especially when they blow up. And look up there. You ready for another climb?” Mike grinned.

  “I used to love to climb trees when I was a kid, but this isn’t the same.” I clenched the Swiss Army Knife in between my teeth and placed my foot on Mike’s interlocked fingers. This time, I cut the strap on the camera, retied it and slung it over my shoulder, closed the knife and put it into my pocket.

  “See, practice makes perfect,” Mike said as he gently helped me to the ground.

  “It certainly does,” I replied as I broke into a run back to the car with the puppies on my heels. “Hurry up, slow poke. Let’s leave Mouse Trap Trail well behind us.”

  I was leaning against the car when Mike finally showed up, panting. “I can’t keep up with you, you do this every day. You’re cheating. You’re trying to kill me. You drive back while I call Grady and try and figure the rest of this out. We need to stop for nutrition, I’m starving,” Mike said, getting into the passenger side as darkness settled over Mouse Trap Trail.

  A gentle snow began to fall as we headed back toward the bank. They were predicting anywhere between four and six inches of snow by midnight and it wasn’t even Halloween.

  Chapter 10

  Mike and I were devouring a pizza while Kai and Koa were curled up together in their crate, in the back of the Pilot with the extra blankets I’d brought. I had taken them for a walk after they’d had their dinner while Mike ordered our pizza. Bringing them along was not turning out to be problematic at all.

  We sat back, waiting for our coffee and stared at the large screen TV. A newscaster chattered on about the near disaster on I-95. He sang the praises of the elite Connecticut State Police Bomb Squad for having discovered the C 4, and having dismantled the bomb within minutes of when the timer had been set for automatic detonation. The restaurant patrons argued with each other about whether or not the bomber was a lone wolf—a new term in our lexicon—or a foreign born terrorist affiliated with ISIS.

  I looked at Mike. “If they only knew.”

  “Best they don’t, we’d have a riot on our hands. The longer this can stay quiet, the better for us and the better for the guys.”

  Our waiter set down our coffee and asked, “Who do you think is gonna win? Those amazin’ Mets, or them Royals? Me, I got my money on the Mets.”

  “Oh geez, I almost forgot Game One of the World Series is tonight.” Mike tapped the table. “You’re turning the game on and turning the news off, aren’t you? My Mets are winning.” Mike grinned.

  The waiter slapped Mike on the back and said, “I knew you
was a fan the second you walked in here. I could tell. No Royals fan in this place. You’re alright. Yeah, you and your lady. The game comes on in a few minutes, unless it’s already started. Can I bring you a dessert? It’s on me.”

  I was fairly sure the smile was permanently etched on his face while he continued to bob his head. He had to be the happiest guy in the restaurant while everyone else kept the argument going over the identity of the bomber.

  “We’re good with lots of coffee, just please get the game on,” Mike asked.

  “You got it.” The waiter grabbed the remote and changed the station. Some of the customers groaned, others cheered, especially when the Mets scored the tying run. As they say— Game on.

  Mike and I sat and watched, oblivious to the fact of how much time had passed until both our phones chimed with incoming texts from Grady, demanding our whereabouts. I responded we’d stopped for dinner and Mike indicated we’d gotten distracted in a local coffee shop with the best cheese cake he’d ever tasted other than in New York City. Grady didn’t believe either of us, so I texted him back and told him we were watching the Mets game. He was royally ticked off until he found out the Mets were ahead, and then he requested our immediate presence at headquarters.

  “Oh dear, Adelaide’s first attempt at texting,” I said with a laugh. “Please don’t tell her I giggled,” I added.

  “I won’t but I have to see it.” Mike reached for my phone and burst into near hysterics. “Laura, I don’t think I’d call: ‘U r try 2 wurre me u du gd jb,’ texting. I’m not sure what I’d call it.”

  “She must have Googled, how to text teenage style,” I said.

  “If you ask her if she did, I’d stand a fair distance away from the cane,” Mike suggested.

  “We have been gone a long time, but it was a well-deserved break. I’ll call her right now. Better idea, why don’t I call her on the way back, while you’re driving. I have to touch base with Annie and let her know where we are and see what she’s been up to. With all that’s going on, it’s a good idea for all of us to stay in touch. Speaking of which, I haven’t heard from my two newest friends,” I said.