by Roger Weston
“I want $100,000.”
Twenty minutes later, the Black Cobra enforcer placed a knapsack on the table.
“You have my final offer,” Lazar said. “Fifty thousand.”
Chuck frowned but nodded.
“Fine. Your money is in the bag. Do not touch the head again.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
Lazar said, “There is a phone number in the bag. The next time you have a relic to sell, don’t come back to this office. Call the number and we will arrange for a meeting.”
Chuck frowned, but took the bag. He looked inside to verify that there was real money in there.
“Alright,” Chuck said. “I’ll look forward to doing business with you in the near future.”
“Keep your mouth shut or you’re a dead man. Do not disappoint me. Death comes swiftly to loose lips and careless feet.”
The video ceased.
Chuck frowned. As he was led out, he glanced at every open or closed doorway. Most were open. The offices were full of boxes of supplies. No sign of Lazar or his office on the first floor.
Chuck would have to search the second floor—the hard way.
CHAPTER 13
Forty-eight hours, eleven minutes till WMD attack
Chuck approached Lazar’s building at night. From three blocks, he lifted in his mini binoculars and scoped out the front sidewalk. A lone Black Cobra sentry stood by the door. There had been two earlier, which made Chuck wonder about the other.
Turning down a side alley, Chuck approached from another avenue. Then he turned up a side street and found an alley running behind Lazar’s building. Walking past dumpsters, he found a drain pipe running up the side of the building. It was very solid, so he used this to climb up the side of the building to the roof. He picked the lock to the roof door and entered a stairway, which he followed down to the second floor. He’d already seen the first floor earlier.
With his tactical flashlight leading the way, he walked down a tiled hallway that was lined with military art. A massive painting of the Battle of Arbela showed Alexander’s Thracian javelin men decimating the chariots of Darius in the failed attempt of Persians to outflank the army of the Macedonian. There were other paintings as well, ten feet high and twenty feet wide. One, featuring the Battle of Marathon, showed Greek archers routing Persians.
Then Chuck passed through double doors into a massive hall. His feet tread softly on the tiles of a hall that featured twelve life-size statues of conquerors that stood interspaced between fourteen historic globes. Rising behind the statues and globes were mural walls covered with battle scenes floor to ceiling. The murals ran the entire seventy-foot length of the hall. The murals included intricate paintings of many battles. Chuck recognized the battles of Actium, where the artist had featured Octavian’s Admiral Agrippa drawing Anthony’s fleet out to sea, where Octavian’s smaller, maneuverable ships would seize the advantage over the larger, more cumbersome fleet of Antony. Another painting featured the sun of Austerlitz breaking through the clouds and mist as soldiers of Napoleon’s Grande Army marched half-hidden through the fog and attacked the Austrians and Russians, achieving total surprise on the plateau. Chuck couldn’t help noticing what the painting did not show: the subsequent arrival of the Russian Imperial Guard under Grand Duke Constantine. Nor did it show Napoleon’s crucial reserves that were thrown into the fray, forcing a route.
There were many other familiar battles pictured in the astounding wall murals, but Chuck stayed focused on his purpose. As he left the war hall, he thought he heard voices, but the sounds were brief and faint. Very quietly, he opened many doors, finding empty rooms and furnished offices. On a desk in one office he saw the travel plans of the very banker that he had followed earlier.
He came to a set of decorative double doors and picked the lock. Once inside, he knew instinctively that he had found Lazar’s office. Another battle painting adorned one wall, but the other walls caught his attention more than the battle scene. One wall featured a blown-up photo of the USS Forrestal and a large map of the Southern Ocean.
Again he heard voices, which sounded closer.
He focused on the blown-up photo of the USS Forrestal. Why would Lazar be interested in a US aircraft carrier? It was not a passing thought. With all the battles Chuck had seen on the walls of War Hall, a US carrier was a natural sight given that these ships had given the USA the advantage in many battles. But then his flashlight beam played across dozens of framed articles about the USS Forrestal from American and foreign newspapers. The articles were dated from the 1950’s through the ship’s decommissioning in 1993. No less than fourteen framed articles covered the topic of the decommissioning of the USS Forrestal. But that was not all. Two thirty-foot long walls were covered with framed photos of the same carrier—hundreds of them. Many of the photos were historical, but Chuck’s eyes focused on several photos of the inside of the bridge. These were of particular interest because they featured General Lazar standing in the stripped out bridge of the decommissioned ship, but especially because Chuck saw Black Cobra terrorists in the background. Playing his light over the photos again, he now saw more Black Cobras.
“No,” Chuck said. “That’s not possible.” There was no way that Lazar could have an old aircraft carrier. Yet clearly the Black Cobras were working on the ship. Chuck couldn’t explain that in any other way.
Questions flashed through his mind. How had Lazar gotten access to an American battle ship, regardless of the fact that it was no longer in service? More puzzling was the fact that General Lazar seemed to be obsessed with this carrier. His walls made that clear.
One poster-sized, framed photo in particular caught his attention because it was a ship’s deck, but not the flight deck of the USS Forrestal. It appeared to be the deck of an oil tanker, but numerous of huge and unusual antennas were set up on the deck. Chuck had no idea what to make of the strange scene.
He turned on the computer and was astounded to see that the desktop’s wall paper was of the USS Forrestal. He sifted through various programs, but in Excel, he found numerous files tagged USS Forrestal #1, USS Forrestal #2, USS Forrestal #3, USS Forrestal #4, USS Forrestal #5, and so on. There were thirty-four such files. Opening them, he found that they covered topics such as provisions, personnel, power distribution, security measures, watches, schedules, deleted transportation schedules, weapons, and so on. It appeared that General Lazar was carrying out some mysterious operations on the USS Forrestal. That made little sense; however, because Chuck had heard that the ship had been salvaged and scrapped by a firm in Texas. Lazar even had numerous framed articles on his walls that verified the story. The caption of one photo read, “USS Forrestal on its final voyage to the scrap yard.”
Chuck took a closer look at some of the Excel files. Under security measures, he read brief references to camouflage technology that supposedly hid the ship from both eyes and satellites. Hid it! As if the ship had never been scrapped after all. Lazar had stolen advanced versions of this technology from a brilliant scientist, who had noticed how an octopus could instantaneously blend into its surrounding environment. The scientist had used that inspiration to create something called the optoelectronic camouflage system.
Lazar had then used this technology to hide an aircraft carrier.
But hid where? Or was it all madness? Chuck knew that General Lazar had been confined to an insane asylum in Siberia for three years, but he also knew that Lazar was a military genius with a razor sharp mind. One reference spoke of a headset and special glasses that could see through the electronic camouflage.
What Chuck did not find was any explanation of what this was all about. There was no explanation of how Lazar could have gotten his hands on a mothballed US aircraft carrier.
Chuck found himself staring at a picturesque antique cabinet in the corner. The panels were painted in what looked like a scene of a medieval king. Chuck wasn’t sure which one. The antique was probably from the 1800s. Picking the lock of
one of the cabinet doors, he found more colorful cabinet doors inside, smaller cabinet nooks. It was a cabinet within a cabinet. He opened a couple of these interior cabinets, but they were empty. The third produced a surprise. It was the Capac Yupanqui skull. Chuck put it on the floor. He opened another cabinet and saw something. At first, he thought it was a motorcycle helmet, but the attached goggles had little electronic packs attached at the outer edges. Chuck remembered what he’d just read about goggles that could see through the optoelectronic camouflage system, allegedly hiding the USS Forrestal.
He sifted through more computer files and saw something truly astounding.
Suddenly, the map of the Southern Ocean on the wall, took on new significance. Was the USS Forrestal in the Southern Ocean? Chuck swung his flashlight beam onto the map, but there was no specific location marked. The Southern Ocean was so massive that if you didn’t have a specific area, then spotting even an aircraft carrier would be like finding a particular snowflake in Antarctica. It would be especially hard to find if it was hidden from satellites. Nevertheless, if the decommissioned USS Forrestal was actually being used as part of Lazar’s plot against America, then Chuck had to find its location—and fast.
Chuck was startled when a voice yelled in the hall.
“Salido allí de sus manos detrás de su cabeza.” Come out of there with your hands behind your head.
Chuck froze. It sounded like the Black Cobra guards had found him. He drew his Glock, screwed on the silencer, and fired two shots through the door. If they valued their lives, he figured they would hesitate to approach the door now.
“Stay back,” Chuck yelled. “I’m willing to die!”
At the same time, he pulled off his knapsack and removed his climbing rope. After tying it around Lazar’s desk, he put on his leather gloves and shoved the desk over against the door. The desk’s feet screeched as they scraped across the marble floor. He tied the other end of the rope around his waist without a slipknot. He quickly put the Inca skull inside the helmet he’d found and put that in his knapsack.
“Stay back or I’ll shoot!” Chuck said, putting his pack back on.
He picked up the two foot-high plaster bust of Lazar from the desk and heaved it through the window. Glass rained on the sidewalk below.
Silenced gunfire erupted in the hallway and started to make Swiss-cheese of the door to Lazar’s office. Bullets were flying all over the place. One grazed Chuck’s left thigh. He ran and dove through the broken out window. As he plunged head first for the sidewalk down below, his hands clamped down on the rope. His feet swung downward and hit the side of the building. For a moment he hung suspended on the rope, but then he heard screeching up above as his weight was now pulling the desk across Lazar’s office toward the window. The desk was lowering him, but he loosened his slipknot and began to slide down the descending rope.
When his feet came down on the sidewalk, fragments of plaster crunched under his boots. He broke into a run. Just as he turned the corner, he heard yelling.
“¡Allí él es!” Silenced shots were fired. “¡Allí él es!”
Chuck cut down a side street. Passing a delivery truck by a café, he noticed that the door was ajar, so he hopped into the back. It smelled like racks of fresh bread, and that’s what it was. Chuck heard running steps as the Black Cobra killers ran past. It seemed like a good time to stay off the streets for a little while, so he got out his burner phone and called Lawrence Robertson, back in Washington D.C.
“Hey, Chuck, how’s it going?” his old friend said.
“I’m held up at the moment, but I learned a few things you aren’t going to like.”
“Okay.”
“I know from past experience with Lazar that he is a friend of our ex-president. I think they may have made a secret deal.”
“I’m listening.”
Chuck said, “I skimmed a couple of articles in Lazar’s office. Few years back, the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was acquired by a Texas company when the government actually paid them one cent to scrap the ship. The Texas company stood to make millions in scrap value.”
“What do you mean stood?”
“I mean several years ago, the Navy's Naval Sea Systems Command posted a notice of solicitation for the towing and dismantlement of several aircraft carriers in the United States. These included the USS Forrestal, the USS Constellation, the USS Saratoga, and the USS Independence. These solicitations were awarded to three successful offerors. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the carrier that arrived in Texas was not the USS Forrestal.”
“What happened to the Forrestal?”
“I don’t know, but I think General Lazar might have it.”
“You’re joking me, right?”
“I wish I was.”
Chuck heard yelling down the street. A driver outside laid on his horn.
“Let me ask you something,” Chuck said to Lawrence after the noise died down. “Hypothetically, how is it possible to lose an aircraft carrier?”
“Hmm… You mean after it was sold for scrap? Hmm… In theory they might have lost track of the ship because she was not a priority. She had been stripped down and was headed for salvage. Resources are spread thin. The CIA doesn’t track every ship in the world. Maybe that one fell off the grid. GPS tracking mechanisms could have been disengaged.”
“Could the CIA find it?”
“No idea. And nobody would be looking for the ship because it’s assumed that she was scrapped. And how does General Lazar figure into this?”
“In his computer files, I found out that one of the companies awarded a contract to dismantle a carrier was a shell company based out of the Virgin Islands. I also found out that General Lazar is the man behind it. There was a last-minute switch after the awards were granted. Lazar ended up with the USS Forrestal, probably thanks to the help of his friend the ex-president.”
“Lazar really has an aircraft carrier? You’re sure about this?”
“Not a working aircraft carrier. It was stripped down and gutted. Electronics were removed. It didn’t even have propellers or anchors anymore.”
“What would he do with it?”
“No idea.”
Chuck heard screeching outside as a car pulled over to the curb.
“That’s a very strange story you just told me.”
“It gets stranger,” Chuck said, “a lot stranger.”
“What do you mean?”
“For one thing, Lazar is using some kind of electronic camouflage to hide the ship from satellites or passing boats. I’ve got goggles to see through the enemy’s electric field, but they’re useless unless we know where the ship is.”
“This is not looking good,” Lawrence said.
“There’s more. I mean, the aircraft carrier isn’t the only ship that Lazar’s shell company took possession of?”
“What else?”
“A Liberian-flagged supertanker that had been seized by the US Coast Guard due to narcotics smuggling. The transaction was little known. Once again, Lazar was paid one cent to scrap the ship. He agreed to sail it to a ship graveyard in Bangladesh and sell it there, but nobody followed up to see if he followed through.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Could you check it out?”
For some reason, Chuck was starting to feel a little anxiety.
“And this supertanker?” Lawrence said. “Was it also stripped down?”
“No, she sailed out of port under her own power.”
“And you have no idea why Lazar wanted these two massive ships?”
“No.”
“I don’t like the sound of this. It may be connected to General Lazar’s plot against America.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, too.”
“How could two aging ships be involved in something like that?”
“No idea,” Chuck said. “I need you to dig a little deeper. Can you help me out?”
“Of course.”
“See if th
ere’s any way to find it. It may be in the Southern Ocean.”
Chuck thought about it. A supertanker was used to move oil, and he knew from Costa Brava that Lazar had been involved in a scheme to rob America by enabling the UN to tax American mineral profits. It was an obscene rip off, enabled by Lazar’s turncoat political allies. Chuck had caused enough havoc for Lazar recently that many senators had panicked. The minerals treaty was never ratified. Chuck was sure that General Lazar had other plans now for a WMD attack. Intel had verified this, and he knew from experience that no atrocity was too big for the general if it helped him get what he wanted. The hour was approaching. So many unanswered questions…
Chuck said, “Whatever he’s up to, it’s gotta be bad. Why else would he need an aircraft carrier? Something big is going to happen in the Southern Ocean. I figure that in all likelihood, as soon as you get back to me with some answers, I’ll have to take the tug boat on a mission to the south.”
“That’s a possibility.”
“Right. Once you locate the ship, things are going to happen fast. I’ll rent a car and pick up some supplies. That way I’ll be ready when the call comes.”
“Good idea. Things will happen fast. I can have a car waiting for you at Alamo at the airport under a corporate name, Acme Transport.”
“Fine.” Chuck heard running footsteps again. He said, “Gotta go.”
He waited until the footsteps faded around the corner then got out of the truck and ran the opposite direction.
Next thing he knew, he was being chased again. He took a corner and ducked behind the first parked car. When the two Black Cobra killers barreled around the corner, he caught them by surprise.