by Robert Berke
"Okay," Bayron said and buzzed them through the front door. Moments later there was a knock on his apartment door. He opened it without undoing the chain lock.
"Dr. Bayron?" Cruz asked again.
"May I see some badges?" Bayron demanded.
Cruz took out his shield and showed it to Bayron through the chain locked door.
"And you?" Bayron asked looking at Gonzales.
"I'm field ops, sir. I don't carry a badge." Gonzales replied politely.
Bayron nodded as if that answer made sense and opened the door.
Cruz and Gonzales entered the apartment and immediately realized that there would be no place for all three of them to sit down together. Bayron directed them to the kitchen table and motioned for them to sit as he himself began to prepare to brew some coffee.
"We're going to have to ask Mrs. Smith to leave. What we have to say is strictly need-to-know."
Bayron was surprised that they knew Hermelinda was in the apartment, but then again, he thought, the CIA should know things like that. Bayron did not answer the request, Hermelinda had emerged from the bedroom and answered the two agents directly.
"First of all, gentlemen," she said, displaying some unexpected courage, "if Dr. Bayron's life is in danger then it stands to follow that my life is in danger too since I am here with him. Secondly, Dr. Bayron is presently a ward of the State of New York, who has been legally released to my care and custody. I thus have a higher responsibility than either of you to ensure his safety. Third, Dr. Bayron has been declared temporarily incompetent and delusional and may or may not understand what you are going to tell him so if you want him to stay alive, you will want me to know. Fourth," Hermelinda's speech was cut off by the vibrating of her phone and she was glad because she really didn't have a fourth point. In fact she didn't even have a third point. She had made that one up on the spot. "Excuse me," she said, looking at her phone. "It's Elly," she said looking at Dr. Bayron. She then addressed the two strangers, "I have to take this." Hermelinda walked out of the room.
When she was gone, Cruz began to bring Dr. Bayron up to speed on what had brought them to his doorstep and why they felt he was in danger. They disclosed the fact that they suspected that he had held back some information from his collaborator in Russia when Hermelinda walked back into the room white as a ghost.
"Doug, it's Sharky. His mother's been Kidnaped. The kidnappers want him to turnover a black notebook. Your black notebook for sure. He's on a train right now to bring it to them. They said they are going to kill his mother."
Cruz immediately pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and speed dialed his office. "Geolocate Sarkis Ohangangian stat. I need his 10-20 immediately." A moment later, he turned to the other people in the room, "He's just south of Albany and moving fast."
"How did he know?" Gonzales said with a fire in his eyes that made it clear to everybody in the room, including Cruz that it would not be wise to pussyfoot around the answer.
"He's on the internet. He can access phones and security cameras at will. He can see and decode billions of bits of data at once. Its how he amuses himself. I'm sorry, I …" Bayron blurted out.
"What is in that notebook?" Gonzales interrupted knowing full well that time had just become a valuable and shrinking commodity.
"My personal notes. You were right. I wasn't ready to give up all my secrets. Sharky hid the book for me."
"Who else knew?" Gonzales demanded.
"No one. I swear it. No one."
"Okay, look. I'm not going to mince words here. Dr. Petrovsky is working for some very, very dangerous men who are trying to extract a code which unlocks a huge nuclear arsenal which they will sell to the highest bidder. The only man who knew that launch code is dead and I intend to keep him that way. They are trying to use your technology to make him alive again. If they get that book, will they be able to do it?"
"I've seen their model. I have a copy of it. I used some of it in Smith."
"With that notebook, will they be able to bring that man back to life?" Gonzales asked again, this time gruffly, as he was not satisfied with Bayron's answer.
"Yes." Bayron said.
Gonzales turned his attention back to Cruz. "You get someone on that train right now."
"I've got a guy in Poughkeepsie heading to the station right now." Cruz answered.
"Get a tracker in that book before it leaves the train." Gonzales barked.
"I'm a full step ahead of you," Cruz stated.
Hermelinda still had Smith on the phone and had explained to him what was happening. She chimed in, "he has a recording. Smith got all the calls recorded."
"Put it on speaker," Gonzales commanded.
Hermelinda engaged the speaker and placed the phone down on the table.
"Can you hear me?" Smith's tinny electronic voice asked. Upon hearing enough assents he continued, "I started listening somewhere in the middle of the conversation, but I don't think I missed much." The voice on the speakerphone changed abruptly and the four people in Bayron's kitchen listened intently:
"Where is she!" They heard Sharky yell.
They all winced when the heard the panic in their friend's voice.
"Apparently I haven't made the rules clear and I do not intend to stay on the phone very long. So please take note of the fact that for security reasons I will have to abandon this phone quickly so that it cannot be tracked. After I abandon this phone you will have no way to contact me so this may be the last conversation we ever have. Seeing as how you have no choice but to trust me as a man of my word, you must believe that I will return your mother to you unharmed and well fed provided you do something for me. Otherwise, I will kill her one piece at a time. Do you know what that means Mr. Sharky?"
"That's Vladimir Vakhrusheva," Gonzales said matter-of-factly. "He's here."
They listened to the rest of the recording in disgust. Dr. Bayron felt a nausea rise in his stomach. Hermelinda could not hold back tears.
"Can we get a track on that cellphone?" Gonzales asked Cruz.
Smith had already done so and reported his findings: "its laying in a field off of I-90 near Wolf Road. The number on it matched a record for Sarkis Ohangangian. That's Sharky."
"Confirm that Mr. Cruz." Gonzales said, unwilling to put complete trust in Smith. Cruz made another call.
A moment later he addressed the others in the room, "There are two cell phone numbers associated with a Sarkis Ohangangian," Cruz reported. "One is moving quickly south along the Hudson and the other is laying in a field off of I-90 near the Wolf Road exit."
On a Southbound train headed for Penn Station in New York, a very nervous Sarkis Ohangangian sat with his eyes transfixed on his cell phone's screen watching the bars. On his lap was a little knapsack which had just two items in it, a small, black notebook and a large lantern battery. During the night Sharky had been busy. He had carefully removed the metal spiral binding on the notebook and replaced it with carefully coiled iron-cobalt wire. The battery was connected to the new iron-cobalt binding with copper wires and the iron-cobalt was building up an immense magnetic charge as it sat in the bag on Sharky's lap.
As the train approached the Rhinecliff station, Sharky's phone beeped that it had received a text message. He had been listening for it so intently that the beep was as loud as a gunshot. Get off at Rhinecliff, the message said, and leave your cell phone on the train. As soon as he read the message on his phone the speaker system announced, "Now arriving, Rhinecliff." Sharky had to think fast. He quickly detached the battery from the notebook and took the notebook out of the knapsack. He typed a quick message onto his phone but did not send it. He placed his phone into the knapsack and stowed it under the seat just as the train doors opened.
He dashed out of the train and a few passengers boarded. The train took off behind him and he was left alone on the platform. He looked around and didn't see anyone so he headed down the escalator to the lobby. The lobby was also empty but for the ticket agents. He sat d
own on one of the seats and waited. An hour passed and he started to get very, very nervous. Had something gone wrong? Had he misunderstood an instruction? His stomach hurt and he wanted to cry. Then he started to pray. And then, cutting through the silence he heard a page, "Sarkis Ohangangian to the ticket counter please. Sarkis Ohangangian to the ticket counter please."
He approached the ticket counter and said to the agent, "I'm Sarkis Ohangangian." She handed him her telephone handset. "Hello?" He said.
"Walk out of the station and take a right. You will see a coffee shop."
"Okay," Sarkis replied.
"Good. Sit at the counter and order a cup of coffee and leave the notebook on the chair next to you. Then excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and stay in there until someone knocks on the door. Then you are free to go and if you have followed my instructions, your mother will be returned to you safe and sound tomorrow."
Sharky complied to the letter. He walked to the coffee shop and took a seat at the counter. He left the notebook on the seat and went to the bathroom. He sat there, sweating, in the bathroom waiting for a knock. About half an hour later the knock came. It was the cook. "Hey buddy, you okay in there? Its been like half an hour."
Sharky opened the door and looked around. He saw immediately that the notebook was gone. He returned to the counter and finished his coffee in silence before heading back to the train station.
The 6:22 to Penn Station pulled into the Poughkeepsie station right on time and Special Agent John Hobbes stepped on nonchalantly. He walked down the aisle until the train started to move and then he grabbed the first open seat. As the train began to roll on towards Croton, Special Agent Hobbes walked the length of the train looking for Sharky to no avail. He sent a text message to Cruz to that effect. Cruz told Hobbes to listen for a phone and he dialed Sharky's cell phone number. He heard the ringing and quickly located the pack with the cell phone in it.
Agent Hobbes called Cruz from his own phone and reported, "Josey, the kid's not here. I found his phone in a knapsack under one of the seats. There was nothing else in there except for a lantern battery."
"Anything else?" Cruz asked.
"Well, this could be something. There was an unsent message on his phone, just four letters like this: capital ‘F', small ‘E', dash, capital ‘C', small ‘O' . Could be a code or something." Hughes said.
"Thanks Johnny." Cruz said. "Leave everything as you found it in case someone else is also tracking that phone, okay?"
"Roger that," Hughes responded.
Gonzales' brow had become deeply furrowed. "Vakhrusheva's no dummy." He said. "He's got his tracks covered nine ways to zero. The notebook is gone. The trail is cold. We know he got off somewhere between Rensselaer and Poughkeepsie."
Gonzales paused and turned to Cruz. "We have no choice. Start a dragnet. Cover a triangle two hours in either direction for Rensselaer and one hour in either direction from Poughkeepsie."
"That's over 10,000 square miles. How are you going to do that without using the radio?" Smith, who was still on speaker, asked.
"We can't," Cruz responded.
"If you broadcast it on the radio and these guys are monitoring police bands, that's a death sentence for Sharky's mother, isn't it?" Hermelinda chimed in, being the last to understand the full impact of Gonzales' instruction.
Suddenly Dr. Bayron jumped out of his seat as if he had received a strong electric shock. "Goddammit!" he shouted to everyone's surprise. "Fe-Co is iron-cobalt. Iron-cobalt and a battery! He had a battery to magnetize the iron-cobalt. It's the most magnetic material on earth. We use iron cobalt wire in the lab all of the time and its almost exactly the same gauge as the spiral in my notebook. He replaced the spiral in my notebook with the iron-cobalt and charged it with the battery. The spiral...that's like a goddamn radio coil. Once those atoms go into overdrive from the battery charge they're going to produce a big and unique magnetic field. That notebook is broadcasting a distinct electromagnetic wave wherever it goes. That's a goddamn tracking device."
"20 Kilohertz." Smith chimed in having researched it in a split second.
Cruz was already on the phone.
"Now what?" Hermelinda asked. She did not wait long for an answer.
"We got him." Cruz said. "He's heading north on the Thruway, just outside of Ravena. We're putting a bird on it."
"Good work, boy." Gonzales said, clapping Cruz on the back, surprised by just how quickly they were able to get a bead on Sharky's improvised tracker.
The moment the chopper pilot advised Cruz that the makeshift radio signal had come to rest in the parking lot of the Hampton Inn he and Gonzales were on their way.
Smith told Hermelinda and Bayron to come back to SmithCorp and he sent Myra to pick up Sharky at the train station, having confirmed that Sharky had bought a return ticket by hacking into the Amtrak computer. He also called Takahashi and asked him to come to the office. Then he called Hermelinda's babysitter and asked her to bring the baby to SmithCorp too.
As Hermelinda was driving with Bayron back to SmithCorp she said to him, "they don't care about Sharky's mother. They're going to let her get killed. That poor, poor boy."
"I'm sure they have it all figured out, Hermelinda," He replied. "They are professionals and they know what they're doing."
A silence descended into the car again until Bayron spoke. "I'm more worried about Elly, to be honest."
"Why are you worried about Elly?" She asked.
"The things he demonstrated today. I can't imagine the CIA is comfortable having that kind of power out there. And how do they know that he doesn't now have those codes kicking around in that bionic brain of his. How do I even know? We've only been exposed to a fraction of what he's capable of and those have been parlor tricks: accessing security cameras and spying on the president. What happens when he gets bored of spying? Who knows what else he'll discover he's capable of?"
"You're afraid of him?" She asked as she pulled into her parking spot at SmithCorp.
Bayron thought for a moment before he answered with a question. "How did you feel when he said he'd be watching us?"
"Oh, come on Doug," she said. "It's Elly, he was just being silly."
"You know he's watching us now," Bayron said signaling the security camera in the parking lot.
"Then you'd better not kiss me, Doctor." Hermelinda said looking deep into Doug's eyes.
"I'd like to," Doug said, "but he's my friend and your husband and I've said too much already."
"If he's my husband and your friend then he is still Elijah Smith, and Elijah Smith is the one man that can be trusted with these superpowers. Anyone who knows him, knows that."
"If he's your husband and my friend then he is still human. Humans make mistakes, even the best of us. Its just that most of us don't have superpowers."
"You're just being paranoid, Doctor," Hermelinda replied, giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek as if to prove her point.
In fact, Smith was not watching them from the security camera in the parking lot. Rather, he had his attention focused on the security cameras in and around the Hampton Inn. As Cruz and Gonzales were walking through the front door, Cruz's cell flashed a text message. "Room 714. Smith."
He showed the message to Gonzales and Gonzales shook his head in acknowledgment. They assumed they were going to have to flash their badges to get information from the desk clerk, but instead they were able to walk to the elevators without calling any attention to themselves. As they rode the elevator up, they both knew that soon someone would be dead.
They took positions on either side of the door to room 714 and drew their weapons. Gonzales nodded his head and Cruz's strong shoulder slammed into the door, breaking the frame and causing it to swing violently into the room.
Gonzales turned into the now gaping door frame, quickly identified the figure in the room, pointed his gun and shot.
Alice collapsed instantly as the bullet from Gonzales' gun pierced right through her head.
&
nbsp; "I hate killing women," Gonzales said.
Cruz quickly found the notebook Bayron had described and headed for the door.
"No, no, no." Gonzales said shaking one of his ancient fingers at Cruz. "The longer it takes Vakhrusheva to find out she's dead, the better chance we have to save that kid's mother. Let's clean up this blood and get the body out of here. Make sure you get her purse and her cell phone too."
They wrapped Alice's body in the spare blanket that they found in the closet and cleaned her still-liquid blood off the walls with moist washcloths. Cruz threw her body over his shoulder while Gonzales grabbed the purse, the cellphone and the dirty washcloths. They walked straight to the elevator and straight through the lobby, as nonchalantly as if they were going to take a swim in the pool. Gonzales positioned himself between the desk clerk and Cruz in such a way as to obstruct any view from the desk. It was unnecessary, the desk clerk had put the bell out.
Cruz threw Alice's dead body into the trunk of his car.
A text message appeared on the little screen of Cruz's phone. "That's too bad. I always liked her. E.S." He chuckled to himself when he saw the message. Smith was a playful man, he saw, just as he had been reputed to be.
"Where to boss?" Cruz asked as he started his car.
"SmithCorp. I'm sure I don't have to explain why."
Cruz nodded and pulled out of the parking lot to make the short drive to the SmithCorp Building. He parked in a public park spot on the SmithCorp premises and the two men walked together through the front door and up to the security desk. "We're here to see Mr. Smith." Cruz said taking out his badge wallet to show to the guard.
"Names?" The guard asked.
"My name is Josey Cruz and this is Marco Gonzales," he said pointing his thumb at Gonzales.
"Yes, I see that you're expected. You'll be going to a secure floor so I'll need to get you an escort," the guard said while motioning to an escort who was posted near the elevator. "Steve will take you."