“She’s slipped into a deep chasm, maybe more than 3,000 feet,” Alasdair said to the lieutenant on the rescue boat. “She’s taking on lots of water that could equalize and save her from being completely crushed, but I doubt it. May need to get the navy back out here to try to crane her up, if it’s even worth the trouble. Russian, Whiskey Class, maybe Cold War vintage.”
The lieutenant nodded and gave Alasdair a thumbs up as the dive boat roared away toward shore. A blanket was wrapped around Frank and hot coffee warmed the two men as they rested on seats along the boat’s gunwale. A young woman brought a pair of diver’s neoprene boots over to Frank and winked at Alasdair. A man with a camera grabbed a shot of the group around the two men. Another man gave Frank a pint of bottled water he slugged down in one shot, then reached for more coffee.
“God, I thought I’d never drink another cup of coffee,” Frank said holding his shaking coffee mug with both hands. “Anything from Braewyn Joyce?”
“She’s fine. In the FBI office in North Miami. She called your sheriff and he called me.”
“How’d you get here so fast from Maryland?”
“I was still in Vero with the dive group. Lucky for you.”
“Something about the Irish.”
“They’re going to get you to a hospital,” Alasdair said.
“I don’t need medical attention.”
“You’ve hit a rough patch, lad. You’re shaking like a paint mixer.”
“I’m okay. It’s a little chilly out here in the wind. How would I get to a hospital? We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“On that,” Alasdair said and pointed to the distinctive police helicopter approaching them in the distance.
“The state police?” Frank said.
“Again, Braewyn and your sheriff.”
“Damn. Did they alert the president?”
“He was busy playing golf.”
The boat slowed to a slow drift as the helicopter hovered overhead and descended. A rescue harness was lowered from the helicopter’s side door davit to the deck of the boat. The crew steadied the harness as best they could as the boat rolled and pitched in the choppy sea. One of the dive crew beckoned to Frank.
“Get checked out,” Alasdair said. “I’ll meet you later at the hospital.”
Frank got up and wobbled unsteadily over to the harness on the rolling deck and secured himself in its straps. The crew gave the men above the okay and Frank headed skyward. About halfway up the hundred feet to the aircraft Frank noticed something about the person standing in the helicopter’s open door.
“Good God, is that you Rumbaugh?”
Far below, a pair of Nike cross-training athletic shoes gently floated northward on the Gulf Stream current.
* * * * *
Frank had barely belted himself into his seat on the helicopter when he asked Carl Runbaugh for his cell phone.
Frank dialed a number and yelled above the chopper’s roar.
“When the dive boat puts in at the Vero Beach marina, arrest Alasdair MacGowan,”
Chapter 57
Braewyn was not happy about nearly being pulled from the FBI team chasing Cezar Nicolai, but Ortiz was a stickler for the agency policy which precluded agents from participating in pursuits of criminals who had harmed or threatened them.
She stared out from her window at the Mershon Hotel and knew Jack had made the right call, even though he modified his decision to allow her back in the hunt. It was personal. She wanted to kill Cezar Nicolai for kidnapping her, trying to kill Frank, and for being an incredibly dangerous psychopath. She wanted to watch his beady eyes roll back in his head as he drew his final breath from having 15 nine millimeter slugs pumped into his black heart. Imagining those vicious scenarios was cathartic to her, but totally unprofessional, and profoundly not FBI. She was a professional and she would act like one.
The loud knocks on her door startled her. She gripped her Glock and faced the door.
“Who is it?” she said and moved to the wall next to the door.
“Candygram,” said the familiar voice of Tom Gardner.
Braewyn looked through the peephole, then opened the door.
“Cezar Nicolai is in Washington,” Tom said and stepped inside the room carrying a portfolio case. “We tracked him to Dulles.”
“What tipped his hand?”
“Cell phone use and facial recognition videos at the airports.
“Hapburg’s file?”
“Right here in the case. Copies are with Ortiz, and I made sets for us and Detective Dugan.”
“Give the original file to Frank Dugan,” Braewyn said. “He needs to see any ink colors and graphics exactly the way they came from Hapburg.”
“Next?”
“Let’s get to Stuart. I have a sick puppy to visit.”
* * * * *
Cezar dialed Celine on his cell. The phone rang more than ten times. The face of Cezar Nicolai had frustration written across it as he jammed the phone into the breast pocket of his linen sport jacket. He stared out the side window of the Mercedes, pursed his lips, and buffed a tiny smudge on the glass with a tissue from the car’s dispenser.
“Still not answering?” Vlad Torok said.
“Something’s wrong,” Cezar said. “Very wrong. As soon as we finish here, we need to get to the Viking.”
Vlad drove to the rear of the Enola Gay’s pavilion and parked where Herschel Fleming instructed him to leave their car. Fleming was waiting at the back door of the building and smiled as they approached. The interior was illuminated by only a few of the overhead lights hanging directly over the B-29, which gave it the reverent atmosphere of being on display in a great cathedral. Every footstep clicked and echoed on the buffed tile floor.
The maintenance men had lowered the Enola Gay almost to floor level on her bright yellow scissor jacks so access could be gained into the fuselage. A special stair unit was placed directly under the open rear bomb bay doors.
“Access to the interior of the plane can be tricky for us old folks,” Fleming said. “It’s not like boarding a passenger jet”
“We’ll manage,” Cezar said. He looked at the entry set-up, then glanced at Vlad.
“I’ll go first,” Vlad said under his breath to Cezar. “Give you a hand, if you need it.”
“One of our guides has stayed late to give you a tour of the aircraft,” Fleming said. “He’s an expert on the Enola. I’ll send the maintenance men home and wait for you in my office in the next building. Enjoy your tour.”
The guide went up first and stepped onto the floorboards that ran down the center of the giant. Vlad managed to join him with a determined effort and a little hard breathing. Cezar climbed straight up and in without any hesitation or visible difficulty.
“Us old folks?” Cezar said. “Who was Fleming talking about?”
“Welcome to the most celebrated warplane in the world, gentlemen,” the guide said and gestured to a distant point forward of the bomb bay. “Up there is where the bombardier sat at this specially designed bomb sight installed in the nose. We’ll begin our tour there. When the plane was on its final run to the target, this man took complete control of the plane. We’ve installed special walkways over the open bomb bays to make passage easier. Follow my steps, gentlemen.”
The guard moved forward in the fuselage with Vlad and Cezar close behind. When the three passed beyond the bomb bay, the huge man subtly removed something from his jacket pocket.
It was a maroon clamshell case.
* * * * *
Braewyn pulled into the parking lot of Martin County General Hospital and parked. Carrying the Hapburg file in a portfolio, she went to the registration desk to find Frank’s room number. Tom Gardner stayed with the car.
A few minutes later, Braewyn got off the elevator on the second floor. She peeked into Room 210 and saw Frank putting on his clothes. Two Florida State Troopers sat in chairs on each side of the room.
“Is this where they keep heroes?” sh
e asked.
Frank turned to her voice and smiled.
“Maybe,” Frank said, then glanced at the troopers. “She says you guys are heroes?”
The state cops looked at each other and grinned.
“I’m referring to the man who risked his life to save an extremely troublesome FBI agent.”
“I got you into that mess. Figured I should pull you out.”
“Why in the hell do you do the things you do?”
“Well, there are two things cops hate: change, and whatever stays the same.”
“Amazing,” Braewyn said and stepped closer to Frank. “They letting you loose on the world again?”
“No reason to keep me,” Frank said while buttoning his shirt. “I’m fine.”
“Where’d you get the clean duds?”
“Roland sent them. After he broke into my house.”
“Your sheriff’s a good man.”
“Gets grumpy a lot.”
“I’m available for a thank-you dinner,” Braewyn said. “On me.”
“Where?”
“They tell me Langford’s in Jensen Beach is top drawer.”
“Langford’s it is, then.”
“Here is Simon Hapburg’s file, the original,” Braewyn said and handed Frank the portfolio.
“Make any sense of it?”
“Not much, but you’re the guy who knows about Omega formulas.”
“Couldn’t hurt to look them over.”
“I’m thinking grouper and a nice Liebfraumilch.”
“Ah, grouper. A specialty at Langford’s,” Frank said.
“What about appetizers?”
“What about dessert?” Frank said and raised one eyebrow.
“Let’s see how the entrée goes.”
Frank turned to the two state policemen.
“The hospital is throwing me out. Many thanks, fellas. I’ll be okay from here.”
“I’ll notify your sheriff,” the taller officer said. “By the way, he sent you something. It’s in the closet.”
The two men rose and tipped their campaign hats at Braewyn as they left the room.
“Take care, detective,” the other trooper said from the hallway.
Frank opened the closet and found a neatly-packed box containing a jacket, money, and his gun. He gathered up the items, went into the bathroom, and closed the door. After a few minutes, he emerged, wearing a light windbreaker with his pistol in his belt holster.
“Normally, I wouldn’t pass on confidential FBI information to an individual involved in an ongoing case,” Braewyn said, “but I think the circumstances allow for it in this situation.”
Braewyn stepped to the hall door and closed it.
“We’ve done extensive background work on Mister Cezar Nicolai,” Braewyn said.
“And?”
“We’re up against an extraordinary character.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Okay. But this is the Cliff Notes version: He came from a second generation family who
emigrated to America from Romanian and Russian roots.”
“Was Count Dracula in his ancestry?”
“He dropped out of college for lack of money. Med school. His father got caught
skimming money from his company and lost his job. Family went from low middle class to near destitution. Cezar applied for the Navy’s Officers’ Candidate School. He scored high on their evaluation and, upon completion, they made him an ensign. Assigned to a sub fleet out of Groton, Connecticut. Six years later he was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He dropped off the radar for the next few years.”
Frank sat on the bed.
“He’s good at that,” Frank said.
“We pick him up again in Russia brokering low-tech arms deals. Mostly small stuff with third world countries in Africa and the Middle East.”
“He didn’t get filthy rich hawking AK-47s in Somalia.”
“It gets better. A few years ago he catches the brass ring. Actually, the platinum ring. He
hooks up a squad of ballsy Muslim fanatics with a couple of Saudi Arabia’s richest militants and scores huge. He drops everything else to feed weapons to jihadists… the Al-Qaeda variety. He moves up to heavyweight ordnance: Tanks, ships, trucks, rockets, even low-grade nuclear stuff.”
“Now he’s got money,” Frank said.
“Now he’s on a first name basis with every banker in Zurich.”
“So why’s he chasing me?”
“He has an obsession with world history, especially warfare. He studies men like
Darius, Napoleon,… Hitler.”
“So he wants the Omega weapon because he thinks it can make him like them? Brutus
said ‘Caesar was ambitious.’ The bastard’s well-named.”
“He doesn’t want to be like any of those men,” Braewyn said.
“Why not?”
“They were all losers.”
“Who then?” Frank asked.
“He wants to be Alexander the Great.”
“Who wept when there were no more worlds to conquer?”
“And you want to fight this man?” Braewyn asked. “A man who believes in his invincibility?”
“I’d rather fight a man who believes in hell.”
Braewyn said, “This is only the tip of the iceberg. We have much more to talk about.”
Braewyn‘s cell rang. She checked the incoming display.
“Yes, Tom,” Braewyn said and listened for almost a minute, then ended the call.
“Alasdair MacGowan is being held at the Martin County Detention Center. Roland had him picked up in Vero. We have agents heading there now to take him into custody.”
“I need to talk to him,” Frank said and rushed out the door.
* * * * *
Cezar watched the flight attendant in first class come down the aisle with their drinks. She handed a margarita to Cezar and a Heineken to Vlad. Both were seated in the plane’s center. The Internet news was on one of the video screen consoles in front of them. Cezar tossed a fifty-dollar bill on her tray for which she nodded a deep thank-you, returned to the service galley near the plane’s cockpit, and drew the privacy curtain.
“Why would Dugan send us on this wild goose chase?” Cezar said. “It makes no sense. He has to know if I don’t find what I want, I’ll be back.”
“Maybe he wants us out of the picture for a while,” Vlad said.
“Again, why? Did he think I’d dash up here and leave him loose in Florida?”
“Not very loose, anyway.”
“I wish he hadn’t found the bug in his phone. His conversations with his diver friend were priceless.”
“The good news is, you didn’t have to give Fleming a donation.”
“He should never have allowed us park in the back lot,” Cezar said.
“I’d love to have seen the reaction when that guide woke up and Fleming realized we were long gone.”
Both men surfed for news on their monitors.
“Think the detective is okay?” Vlad asked.
“Dugan? Let’s have a look,” Cezar said and took out his cell phone and flipped his thumb through a menu of apps and stopped at a GPS tracking program. He expanded the view of his screen and located the position of the planted transducer in Frank Dugan’s shoe.
The phone’s GPS still showed Frank’s indicator dot as being in the Atlantic Ocean a few miles due east off the Florida coast. It was a comfort for Cezar to imagine Dugan’s maddening thoughts, knowing he was in a tight spot he couldn’t escape, a situation he knew the cocky detective feared greatly; a tight, dark place in deep water, exactly as he’d blurted out on the phone to Alasdair.
“It’s an ill wind indeed that blows no one any good,” Cezar said.
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“It’s Detective Dugan’s location indicator.”
“Still on the boat?”
“Yes, but wait, …it seems to have moved somehow.”
; “Well, the transponder is in his shoe, isn’t it? He could have moved around on the sub.”
“More than thirty miles north?”
“He’s moving the sub?” Vlad said, his eyes wide.
“Incredible. I was hoping to keep him in place so we could wheedle some genuine Omega data out of him. Especially after what we went through on the Enola Gay. How did he do that?” Cezar said, punching each word.
“Do what, sir?”
“The indicator says he’s managed to move the submarine to near Vero Beach,” Cezar said and showed the phone’s GPS screen to Vlad. “I want him alive and where I put him. Get the news on the monitor,” Cezar said and nodded toward the computer screen in front of Vlad.
Vlad brought up a major browser and clicked on the news link. A list of news items appeared on the right side of the screen. One in particular drew his attention.
Daring rescue in Florida saves
man trapped in Russian submarine
Vlad clicked on the item’s hyperlink and the full story came up, along with a picture. The picture was of the stern of the dive boat, a few crewmembers, and in the center was Alasdair MacGowan sitting next to Frank Dugan wrapped in a blanket.
“I guess that answers that question,” Cezar said. “Looks like he’s very much alive and in good hands. No ordinary man, our uncanny Detective Dugan.”
“Look at the picture, sir. Look at the feet.”
“Dugan is not wearing the athletic shoes we put the transponder in.”
“So who’s driving the sub?” Vlad asked.
“That’s as big a mystery as this Omega formula.”
Cezar and Vlad were so rapt in the news picture on the monitor they never noticed the plane turning in a wide arc.
Chapter 58
The Omega Formula: Power to Die For (Detective Frank Dugan) Page 26