The Heisenberg Legacy

by Christopher Cartwright

  Continue to be led around by the nose?

  The terrorist wanted him to know something about the Russians, the German nuclear bomb program, and – what?

  First, he'd been sent to the National Air and Space Museum, to see altered evidence that the Germans had manufactured a bomb, called "Die Koloratursoubrette," at the Haigerloch Research Reactor during World War II, and that somehow Heisenberg and the Russian Andrei Sakharov had been involved.

  Next, he'd been led to the Library of Congress, to see a fake copy of the North-Atlantic Treaty that had included Russia.

  Finally, he was sent to the pizza joint, where he'd seen an old photo of Global One, where a group photo had been doctored in, including his grandfather, Heisenberg, and Andrei Sakharov, and a third person he couldn’t locate.

  Elise was still trying to work out the name of the fourth person in the photo.

  He had no idea what Tom would find in the wreck of the Clarion Call, but the fact that it was on one of his grandfather's ships said something.

  Start with the most obvious thing:

  This all had to do with World War II.

  Another obvious thing:

  The Reilly family was unequivocally tied into this. Sam got the feeling that he was being blamed for the sins of his father, or grandfather, rather. But his impression of the old guy was that he had been harmless.

  He rubbed both hands over his face, trying to think clearly. Sam knew he was confusing his memories of a sweet old grandfather with the real guy. Of course, old man Mike Reilly had treated his grandson with fond interest and care. But he was also a man who had founded a worldwide shipping company worth billions of dollars. "Ruthless" should probably be in Sam's description of him somewhere.

  Important point: if holding Washington D.C. hostage was about World War II, that was before Mike Reilly had started up his shipping company.

  Could this attack be concerned with something his grandfather did during World War II?

  If he ever got the chance, he'd have to ask Elise to research who Mike Reilly had been involved with, and what he was doing during World War II. With luck, Tom might have already asked her to look into it.

  Damn it. The mystery was eating at him. What was so important to the terrorist that he was willing to put a million people in danger? What could his grandfather have done that could possibly justify this to a terrorist’s mind?

  Even if Mike had flown a bombing run that wiped out the terrorist's hometown, it could never have totaled the equivalent of a million people. The Bombing of Dresden was estimated to kill 25,000 people. The bombing of Berlin, perhaps 50,000. Besides, his grandfather wasn’t the only one involved in bombing Germany in WWII.

  His grandfather wasn’t responsible for hundreds of bombing raids.

  Sam shook his head. It didn't make sense. Someone who just wanted the truth to be known from an old injustice didn't threaten innocents. Did a person burning for revenge lead people around on elaborate treasure hunts?

  If this guy was ever found, he'd be one for the psychology books, no doubt.

  Sam blew air out of his puffed cheeks. Either way, he was wasting time. Until he thought of something, the best thing was just to keep playing for time. Give the bomb squad time to criss-cross the city with Geiger counters. Give Tom time to find whatever was in the Clarion Call.

  Sam headed up the stairs of the memorial site.

  Chapter Forty-One

  World War II Memorial, Washington, D.C.

  Sam was running out of time.

  The monument was a pool, or rather a big fountain, with many smaller jets of water ringing the pool in the center, and a pair of larger water jets on either end. Here was something that hadn't been around long enough to have been built when Wilhelm Gutwein had first crashed his plane.

  The memorial hadn't opened until 2004.

  Fifty-six marble pillars and two triumphal arches surrounded the pool on either side. A wall covered by gold stars – each one representing a hundred American dead – ran along the back.

  Sam had been here before, right after the opening. He'd been twenty-three at the time, and the place had been packed.

  It was nearly abandoned now.

  What am I looking for?

  He already knew there weren't any specific mentions of his grandfather here, and none of Wilhelm Gutwein-slash-William Goodson. There simply were too many dead to memorialize individual names.

  He was here. Now what?

  He checked the phone again. He was over the time limit.

  Turning in a slow circle, he waited for gunshots. Explosions.

  Game over, man, game over, he recalled the words the terrorist had said to him.

  But there was nothing.

  Maybe something unforeseen had happened – something the terrorist hadn't planned.

  Not the shooting of Congresswoman Bledes.

  Something else.

  Sam didn’t know what else to do. He was in the middle of the World War II Memorial in D.C., and he was supposed to have found the next clue on this insane treasure hunt, but he hadn’t.

  He was coming up dry and he’d run out of time.

  Any second, his phone would ring, and the terrorist would taunt him about the next clue. Might he even stoop to shooting another innocent?

  Again, it didn’t make sense. Paintball and a bullet? When he considered the Senator’s death, it made him wonder if there might be another player in this game. A hidden figure on the board that no one knew was playing.

  Sam’s feet started leading him around the pool in the center of the memorial. The fountains provided a white noise like static that softened the sounds of the few other people in the area, turning their voices into hushed whispers.

  The more time he had to think, the more he believed that the terrorist wasn’t responsible for Congresswoman Bledes’ death. One, the death occurred before time was up. It took time for news to spread, even on something like this. Two, he still didn’t have a message from the terrorist.

  Conclusion: her death had nothing to do with him.

  Sam pulled out his phone.

  He couldn’t play by the rules anymore. He’d played by the rules – Congresswoman Bledes had died.

  The terrorist wasn’t in control of the situation.

  He powered his phone on, pulled up the photo of Global One, and studied the one face he didn’t recognize.

  He thought about making some calls. His father, for one. The Secretary of Defense, for another.

  But something was tugging at him. But what?

  An old man in a wheelchair was being pushed around the memorial by a middle-aged woman. She fussed over him and said that they should just go back to the nursing home. He snorted and said that this was his afternoon out, and he’d be damned if he was going to let some subversive suicide bombing madman scare him away. Besides, if he was going to get blown off the face of the earth, he was going to say goodbye to some old friends first.

  Sam couldn’t suppress his grin.

  The two of them abruptly turned off the main path toward a maintenance area, then stopped. The old man muttered something, and the woman chuckled, a reaction he took exception to. The man mumbled something else, the woman said something conciliatory. They rolled away to the north, the woman complaining about having to push him all the way past Farragut Park.

  “Quit complaining,” the old man said. “At least you have your damned legs.”

  In a few moments, they’d disappeared.

  Sam stopped at the same place that they had, trying to work out what – aside from the obvious – had grabbed his attention. After a moment he spotted it. A cartoonish picture of a man hanging over the top of a wall, fingers and nose dangling, had been molded into the concrete of the wall.

  Someone had been here. The terrorist?

  On the ground beneath him was a piece of wadded up trash. Around it, some loose leaves were tumbling in the strong breeze.

  Yet the paper didn’t move.

  Sam hopped
over a short fence, walked down the ramp to the picture, and picked up the piece of trash. It had been taped to the ground.

  He opened it. Another address, same handwriting as before.

  122 K Street, NW. Washington, D.C

  He dropped the address into the phone’s GPS. It was within ten miles of Die Koloratursoubrette’s original crash location in Maryland. He started looking up the name of the owner in the public records.

  The other phone, the burner phone, started to ring.

  “You’re still cheating, Sam Reilly,” said the terrorist.

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. Even though the voice was still disguised, there was something subtly different about it. He waited to hear the rest of the terrorist’s rant.

  “I know you sent Tom Bower to the Clarion Call in your place -”

  “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” Sam said. “You wanted me to send Tom out to that ship. You practically dared me.”

  The line went dead for a moment – it didn’t drop out, thankfully. It went silent. Enough to make Sam literally start to sweat. Had he made another serious mistake?

  Then the terrorist said, “You still broke the rules, Sam. You’re going to be punished.”

  “Fine. Whatever you’re about to do, you were going to do it anyway. Blow up all the innocents you want. You’re the one in control here. Everything that happens here, from the death of Congresswoman Bledes to every other innocent who dies, that’s on you.”

  Another long moment of silence.

  Sam heard background noise on the line, and quickly added, “And you haven’t even mentioned the fact that I’ve gone over my time limit without finding the next clue. What are you going to do about that? Or was this dead end planned all along, too?”

  He was taking another terrible risk. But no matter what he chose, it was all a terrible risk.

  Because that address was outside the Beltway. If he did what the terrorist wanted, the terrorist had an excuse to blow the place sky-high.

  Yet if he didn’t do what the terrorist wanted…

  Who knew?

  “But—” the terrorist said.

  Then the line went quiet. Again.

  As soon as the background noise came back on the line, Sam shouted, “What about Congresswoman Bledes? She was shot even before I got here! What about your damned rules now?”

  He had his fingers crossed that the terrorist, operating outside the D.C. area, wouldn’t have heard the news yet…

  “Wait, what?” the terrorist said. “What?”

  Then the line went quiet again, but this time it was suddenly cut off completely.

  This wasn’t just about a terrorist trying to destroy the American government, terrify American citizens, crash the stock market, and lead him around by the nose.

  Sam had guessed correctly. Someone else was at work here, too.

  Sam’s cell phone started to ring again.

  He answered it on the second ring. “Elise. Did you find anything from that photo?”

  “Yeah, it belonged to a retired Senator from Virginia.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Senator Charles Finney.”

  Sam let the name sit for a moment. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it anywhere. “Is he still in politics?”

  “No. He has an exemplary record but retired several years ago after an accident left him in a wheelchair. Since then he’s remained largely out of politics and all public life.”

  A wheelchair?

  Sam shook his head. It couldn’t possibly be the same guy, or could it? The terrorist wasn’t omnipresent. If it was Finney, maybe he comes here every day at this time.

  “Want to know the address of the rather luxurious retirement home he resides in?”

  “Let me guess, 122 K Street, NW. Washington, D.C.”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. All right. That’s within walking distance of here.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “Then I’m going to join Tom, and dive the Clarion Call.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Sam knocked on the entrance door of the Farragut Residences.

  A receptionist greeted him, and let him in. She was an attractive lady in her early forties. Her combination of high heels and a slender dress that accentuated her figure made him think he was talking to a concierge at a fancy hotel more than an employee of a nursing home.

  He explained who he needed to see and was given the room number.

  “I’ll ask if he’s receiving visitors,” she said, picking up her phone.

  Sam nodded. “Okay.”

  She spoke quietly into her phone, hung up, and then said to Sam, “He will see you now.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “No idea.”

  “Take the elevator to the top. He’s the only room on that floor.”

  “Thank you.”

  The receptionist took him all the way to the glass elevator, swiped her electronic keycard and then pressed the uppermost number. The elevator ascended the giant atrium all the way to the penthouse level.

  Sam got out, knocked on a solid mahogany door, and waited. It had no number or name. Presumably, anyone who had access to the penthouse knew precisely who lived here.

  The automated door opened inward.

  An older man in a wheel chair met him. “Can I help you?”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. “Senator Finney?”

  “Retired,” the man replied. “And you are?”

  “Sam Reilly. I’m working on this terrorist attack.”

  Finney ran his eyes across Sam’s disheveled appearance. “CIA or FBI?”

  “Neither.”

  The old man smiled. “What are you doing here, then?”

  “It’s a long story,” Sam said. “I’m following up a lead. If you want, contact the Secretary of Defense – she knows all about it. I’m told you remain in touch with a lot of people from Congress and the Pentagon and are familiar with her?”

  Finney nodded.

  Sam continued. “She’ll vouch for me.”

  “It’s all right, come in.” Finney swung his wheelchair around, heading back into the main living area. “I don’t have many State Secrets to protect and I sure as hell have the time.”

  Retired Senator Finney stopped at a large living room. It had floor to ceiling glass, overlooking a balcony with a view of the Capitol building, leading all the way through to the White House.

  “Have a seat,” Finney said, motioning to a three-seater leather couch. “You want a drink?”

  Sam dropped into the comfortable couch. “No thanks, sir.”

  “All right, what’s this about?”

  Sam handed him the photo found at Old Tony’s Pizzeria. “Do you recognize this photo?”

  Finney took the photograph from Sam and stared at the image. “That’s an old photo of now very old men.”

  “Sure is. Do you recognize any of them?”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “Really?” Sam persisted. “I was told that’s you, there, third on the right.” He helpfully pointed. “It sure looks like you, doesn’t it? I was hoping you might tell me who the other three men were and what you were all doing together?”

  He took out his glasses and examined the photo more thoughtfully. “So it is.”

  “Now that you have your glasses, sir, do you think you could take a look at the other three gentlemen and see if their faces jog your memory?”

  Finney slowly studied each face and frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Nothing?” Sam asked. “But you were there.”

  “So you keep telling me, but I can’t for the life of me remember it. You see, I was a very public figure. I had thousands of photos taken. How would I know?”

  “Do you remember ever having a photo taken in front of the ship, Global One?”

  “That name doesn’t sound familiar, but I migh
t have.”

  “Have you travelled on many large ships?”

  “Hundreds, more’s the pity. I was a Diplomat in the late 1940s. I spent a lot of time in my cabin, suffering seasickness. Terrible malady. Have you ever been seasick?”

  “No,” Sam said shortly. “Please, will you have one more look?”

  Finney ran his eyes across Sam’s concerned face and then dutifully studied the photo once more. This time he let out the softest of audible gasps. “Well. You’re right, that photo indeed looks very similar to me. But it wasn’t me.”

  Sam felt his heart race. “No. Who was it?”

  “That’s my brother.”

  “Your brother?” Sam asked. “I didn’t realize you had a brother. Do you know where I might find him now? It could be vitally important to cracking this case and neutralizing this terrorist threat.”

  Finney shook his head. “I’m afraid he went missing back in the late nineties and hasn’t been seen since.”

  Sam said, “I’m sorry. Did you two have a falling out or something?”

  “No. You misunderstand me Mr. Reilly. In 1996 my brother went out on a local fishing boat off the coast of Sandy Point State Park and never came back. They found his fishing boat capsized, but my brother’s remains were never found.”

  “Again, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me too. My brother was a good man. But, that’s life, isn’t it? No one lives forever. He died doing what he loved.”

  “I suppose that’s something.” Sam stood up. “All right, I should go. I’m sorry to have taken up your time.”

  “Not a problem. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.”

  Sam glanced out the balcony, once more admiring the incredible vista from the Capitol building through to the White House. His smile was genuine. “You know, that’s quite some view.”

  “Yeah, I bought the place so that I could wake up and look out at that view every day. It reminds me why good men – like you and I – work so hard for the betterment of our country.”

  Sam understood his patriotism. “Have you been following the terrorist attack?”

  Finney nodded. “That’s why we pay the price.”

  “What price?”