The Dreadful Alchemist: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense Book 1)

by Charles Z David

  In the evening he returned to the mosque and after prayers was introduced to Immad, a tall thin man who would supply him with a passport. The man looked him over, murmured that it would be difficult because of his Scandinavian features. He said that if Ollie grew a French style beard and cut his hair short and dyed it brown he would be able arrange something that would not be easily recognized as a false identity. Immad said that it would take a week to make these changes and arrange a Swedish passport as there were not many Swedish young men that were tourists in Tirana. Ollie felt that he had no alternative but to wait for the fake passport and settled down for a long stay in Tirana, not exactly his first choice for a vacation.

  21st May, morning in Vienna

  The members of the international task force were gathered in the conference room and anxiously followed David's summary of the events that had taken place in Italy. He started by describing the physical evidence that was found in the warehouse – the mock-up model of the core that consisted of natural uranium, the radioactivity detected in several places in the laboratories that were used to produce U-233 and purify it, the "missing" gamma radiation sources and the irradiation chamber with the reactor in its center. He asked the US and Russia to send their best forensics analysts to try and determine the implications on the predicted performance of the improvised nuclear device. They agreed and Thomas proposed to also invite the scientists from the Institute for Trans Uranium (ITU) Elements from Karlsruhe in Germany who were famous for their work tracing the origin of smuggled nuclear materials in Europe.

  David expressed everyone's frustration that although they had gotten very close to finding the device and the perpetrators both had slipped out of their grasp once again. He proposed that they start a continent-wide manhunt for the blond man and alert all national police and intelligence organizations in Europe warning them about the danger that this man posed. In order to minimize the panic that would surely erupt if it were known that an improvised nuclear device had been constructed he suggested that the official reason given would be a strong suspicion that a radiation dispersion device was ready to be detonated. David also repeated his arguments against involving Interpol and the IAEA because both were rife with politics and the latter included several member-states that would even condone such an act if it were carried out in what they considered a "colonialist state". After some further discussion it was agreed that only Interpol should be informed in order to use the large database of convicted and wanted criminals to try to identify, mysterious blond man. The proposals were accepted unanimously.

  Next they discussed the measures that should be taken to locate the nuclear device, assuming that it was indeed concealed inside a standard container. The problem was that at any given moment there were several thousands of containers being moved on Europe's roads to and from the main ports. Searching for a particular one, without details on it color, markings or number, would be a formidable task, not to mention the delays such a project would cause and the cost of these delays to the economy. A more practical solution would be to install radiation detection portals at each and every port from which containers were shipped, and to ascertain that each container be monitored. Several ports already had installed these portals but not all containers were examined, while many others had no such facilities and it would take months, if not years, to install the portals in those ports, even if funds for that were available. While many containers were shipped from ports there were many more that were transported from European manufacturers to clients via surface roads without any serious control and only superficial inspections that focused on documentation alone.

  Finally, they discussed the possible scenarios for use of the device. Most of the participants thought that the device would not be detonated without warning, especially if only a single device was produced. They believed that it was more likely that it will be used for blackmailing for financial or political gain, or both. Another possibility would be using it to create a viable threat, without actually making any demands, in order to install public panic at a level that would disrupt normal life. According to this scenario the panic would not be limited to a single country and the economic and sociological effects would be tremendous, even if not a single life was lost. David said that he was not so sure that the device would not be detonated because the logical analysis presented by the analytically minded members of the ITF would not necessarily appeal to a group of fanatics – racists, religious or self-modeled idealists or even anti-colonialists bent on revenge. He asked them to prepare for worst-case-scenarios according to which the device would be used to precipitate an international conflict. He was particularly worried that the detonation of the device in one country might invoke retaliation in the form of conventional acts of war or even a nuclear response, against historic adversaries or new imaginary enemies.

  As the meeting adjourned the participants left the conference room with a heavy load on their minds. Thomas, the British member of the ITF, was charged with informing the intelligence organs of the Western European countries, Vassilly the Russian said he would make sure the former USSR European republics were informed, and Eugene was asked to enlist the assets of the US and its closest allies. The French member, Nicolas, would serve as the contact with Interpol presenting a legend that the blond man was suspected of being involved in large scale criminal activities without any mention of nuclear or radiation devices. David was to maintain close contact with the Italian police since Italy was the epicenter of the current activity, and with the Spanish police due to the involvement of Professor Modena and possible connections with the Catalan separatists.

  Chapter 10

  21st May, evening in Tel-Aviv

  David was surprised to see that the head of Mossad and all the senior staff were already gathered in Shimony's office where the meeting was to be held. After hearing David's update about the futile operation of Umberto's people in Italy and the decisions of the ITF meeting in Vienna, the Mossad head asked David to speak frankly. Without further prompting David expressed his fears that the device would be used and that there might be far-reaching consequences resulting from its deployment, well beyond the immediate loss of life and damage to property. He also said that if it were simply to be used for blackmail purposes then it would be only a matter of time before it was discovered and possibly rendered safe and neutralized. He added that the perpetrators would also be aware of this and therefore would make sure that it would be detonated one way or the other. Shimony then asked all the participants if this device posed a threat to Israel's security, directly or indirectly. His question was met by a long silence, broken only by the humming of the air conditioner. No one could give a logical evidence-based answer. Gideon, the representative of the Israeli Security Agency who had also been invited to the meeting said that they all had to make an operational assumption that Israel may be targeted, although his gut feeling was that it was mainly an internal European problem. David strongly objected saying that eventually almost everything concerned Israel, one way or the other, so they should increase the security measures in all three ports, Haifa and Ashdod on the Mediterranean coast and even Eilat on the shores of the Red Sea.

  The Mossad chief directed the division heads to concentrate their efforts on finding any of the people that had worked on the Astraea project in Padova and interrogate them, ,starting with the two known scientists, Professor Modena and Dr. Smalley, and therefore the Mossad's assets in Spain and the UK should be enlisted for the task. David decided that he himself would go to Barcelona to try to trace the professor through his contact with Ramona and requested that the local Mossad agents be available to help him. He also proposed to make a stopover in Rome to discuss with Umberto further steps toward locating the container, or at least getting a better description of it that may help in tracking it.

  22nd May, afternoon in Rome

  David landed at Fiumicino-Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome and was escorted by a plain clothes policeman to a private VIP r
oom at the airport. Umberto Scalopini and Piero Adriano welcomed him and offered him some refreshments that he declined saying that he had had his share of airline food. The Italians informed him that there was no trace of the container or the blond man and they were quite sure that both were no longer in Italy. They had had a small breakthrough with the description of the container as the same person who witnessed the truck with the crane leaving the warehouse recalled under hypnosis that the container was painted brown and appeared to be quite rusty. He also remembered that the word "machinery" was written on the container. Despite this helpful information the container had not been found in any of the ports in northern Italia. Umberto excitedly said that the body of the Viking had been identified by the Swedish police as being that of Andreas Harald Nordholm, also known as the "head cracker", who was the leader of a notorious racist Stockholm street gang. David suggested that Umberto contact his colleagues in the Stockholm police and ask them to carry out a full investigation of Andreas and his buddies in order to try to find out the identity of the mysterious blond man who was the key person to the whole operation and probably responsible for the murder of Andreas. He also asked Umberto to make an introduction to the Swedish police in anticipation of his own visit to Stockholm. David forwarded all the new data to the ITF members in Vienna and to Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv.

  22nd May, evening in Barcelona

  David called Ramona and arranged to meet her for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant near the Girona metro station and close to her apartment. The restaurant was quite crowded so they relaxed, had a couple of chilled glasses of Caipirinha as an aperitif and enjoyed the assortment of grilled meats consumed with good wine. Ramona told him that seeing him every two months suited her as she did not want to commit to a long term relationship and was quite satisfied with his undemanding presence. He agreed that this arrangement suited him as well. They returned to her apartment and simply enjoyed each other's body, first with great passion and urgency and then in a more relaxed and patient mode. David gingerly brought up the subject of progress with her doctoral research work and asked her if her advisor, Professor Modena, had returned to the university. She told him that he was officially still on a leave absence so she had switched to another advisor and changed the subject of her thesis so was not too seriously affected by his absence. David asked her if she knew where he had gone and whether he had a taken up a different academic position and Ramona said that she had not seen him since he had left the previous summer. She only heard from him once when he said that he was in Padova to prove to the world that his theory and experimental work could be validated. She had no idea where he intended to do this and if he had succeeded. David asked her if she knew anything about Modena's personal life and she said that he was divorced with no children and was now something of a recluse. Once again she did not admit that she had had an affair with him and refused to share with David any intimate details about her relationship with the professor, but he was quite convinced that their relationship was beyond the regular student-advisor affair.

  23rd May, Vienna

  David flew from Barcelona to the meeting in Vienna for purely business reasons and from Ramona to Orna for a combination of business and pleasure. At the meeting with the ITF members the general feeling was that a pattern was emerging from the connections of the nationalistic racist movements, as personified by Dr. Smalley in Britain and Andreas in Sweden, and the separatist movements represented by Professor Modena and the north Italian separatists' involvement exemplified by the fact that the laboratory was established at the heart of the Veneto separatists stronghold in north Italy. To most ITF members this indicated that the target would be in a major European city. Nicolas speculated that Brussels or Strasburg would be the preferred targets as they were the seat of major institutions of the European Community. Thomas suggested that the City of London or Buckingham Palace could be targets because of the involvement of Dr. Smalley in the production of the device. Eugene and Vassilly believed that their countries were relatively safe but raised their fear that Madrid may have been selected by Professor Modena. David expressed his view that they needed solid evidence before making such assumptions and suggested that they follow the best lead they had – the connection of Andreas with the project. He also emphasized that the manhunt for the mysterious blond man should be intensified and that it was time to appeal to the public for help. The rogue improvised nuclear device was a clear and present threat to normal life not only in Europe as racists may seek to use it in other places, such as Asian and African countries from which the immigrants came to Europe, as a deterrent and punishment. He informed them that he would be leaving for Stockholm in the evening to follow up on any information about Andreas. Orna was disappointed to learn that he wouldn't be spending the night with her but he promised he would be back in Vienna in a week or so. Upon arrival in Stockholm David checked into a hotel in the city center and arranged to meet the chief of police the next morning.

  24th May, Stockholm

  The Swedish Police Service, called Polisen in Swedish, was a relatively small force of less than 30,000 employees, under the Ministry of Justice. The elite unit, Piketen, was set up to be deployed as an emergency response team for crisis management. When David arrived at the headquarters of the Stockholm police the chief was already waiting for him after being alerted by Umberto. He had been given the cover story that a "dirty bomb" may be in the hands of extreme nationalists and that there was a strong involvement of local Swedish street gangs. The chief told David that Andreas was someone that the Polisen had been trying to convict unsuccessfully for some time and had a thick file on him and his street gang. They did not mourn his gruesome death and believed that he had got what he deserved. He said that he had assigned a Piketen squad to help David in this investigation and introduced the squad leader as Jorgen. David and Jorgen hit it off immediately recognizing each other's combat experience and training and together devised an operational plan.

  David and Jorgen left the police headquarters in an unmarked car followed by two other unmarked cars with six of the elite unit fighters. They went straight to Andreas's apartment quickly neutralized the bodyguards who had been busy playing cards and entered the apartment. They found Alva sleeping in the master bedroom and when they woke her up she was completely disorientated probably as a result of too much alcohol still in her system. When they asked her about Andreas she swore that she had not seen him or even heard from him since he left Stockholm a week earlier and was quite upset that he hadn't even called her. She said that he usually was not absent for more than a couple of days but this time was different as he appeared to be very excited before leaving. She said she did not know where he was but suspected that he had gone to Italy once again. She added that he never told her where he went but she figured out it was to Italy as he had returned from his recent trips with Chianti bottles and Parma sausages that they devoured together.

  David showed her the gory photographs of Andreas's body and told her about the way he was slaughtered with a serrated knife. Alva broke into tears and said that Andreas was her true love and she would do anything to help find his murderer. David told her that they suspected a colleague of his and showed her the photo image of the mysterious blond man. Seeing the image of what had to be Ollie's familiar face Alva flew into a rage and between sobs started swearing and cursing and told them everything she knew about Ollie and how he had become Andreas's closest friend. She said that the two of them had travelled together frequently and that Ollie was probably overseeing some big project she knew nothing about except that it involved many people from other countries. She said that her twin sister, Agda, had had an affair with Ollie and perhaps she would know more about him, and offered to call Agda and ask her to come over to the apartment.

  When Agda arrived, Alva went to her and tearfully showed her the photos of Andreas's body and told her that Ollie was the prime suspect of the ruthless murderer. Agda also burst out crying and sniveling through
her tears said she hated the Polisen but would do anything to help bring Ollie to justice. She told them everything she knew about Ollie – that his full name was Olaf Gunther Andersson and that he grew up in Malme where he was assaulted by Muslims which explained his hatred of all foreigners and particularly Muslims. She also told them that they had been lovers and that Ollie had taken her on a trip to Athens in January where he had some meetings with local Greeks at the marina in Piraeus. She said that she thought they were top rank officials in the Golden Dawn movement and described the place where the meeting was held. She also told them about Ollie's unexplained disappearance and then with some hesitation mentioned her affair with Niko during Ollie's absence. David and Jorgen thanked her for her cooperation and as an afterthought David asked her if she had any photographs of Ollie and Niko. She showed them her cellphone and a selfie photo of Niko and herself smiling at the camera. When she handed Jorgen her phone he downloaded this photo and then found a couple of more photos of herself with Ollie and with Niko. These, too, were downloaded.

  When they all returned to the police headquarters Ollie's photo was edited with photoshop and the Polisen database was searched for matching pictures. They got several possible hits but their attention focused on a three-year old photograph of a young man that was suspected of murdering an unconscious patient in a hospital in Uppsala. Apparently the dead patient had driven a motorcycle that slammed into a car killing the suspect's newly wedded wife. The suspect, one Oscar Gunnar Axelsson, had converted to Islam and was on his way to his honeymoon when the accident took place. He had disappeared after the cyclist's body was discovered but the case was never brought to trial and the investigation was not completed so the case was left open as a possible homicide. There was no record of Oscar Gunnar Axelsson ever leaving or entering Sweden or even of his living in the country. The comparison of the three year old photograph with the current photo of Ollie showed some similarities but the confidence level of a match between the two was below 85%.