by Tom Abrahams
“That’s where it gets complicated.”
“Oh,” I say mockingly, “‘cause it’s not already complicated.” I pass a Best Western hotel and turn the SUV to the right, pulling into the emergency parking lot of the Lead-Deadwood Regional Hospital. There are a lot of empty spaces, so I pull up next to the entrance and park.
“There are two hard drives,” says Bella. “One of them is full of false leads. One has the real information.”
“You’ve got a scientist who was so paranoid about the secret work he was doing in an underground lab he took the time to separate this process you keep talking about. Then he sent the pieces all over the world.”
“Yes, but—”
I hold up my hand to interrupt her. “Wait. That’s not all. His paranoia extended so far as to then create two lists of hiding places and the people who would validate them. One of the lists, though, loaded onto a hard drive, is fake.”
“Are you finished?” Bella pinches the bridge of her nose with her forefinger and thumb.
“Not yet. It gets better. Our job, as I now understand it, is to find one of those hard drives and hope it’s the right one. Because our lethal enemy, a Ukrainian named Liho Blogis, already has one of the drives and at least one part of the process.”
“Now are you finished?” Bella narrows her eyes. “May I please speak?”
“Go ahead.”
“You are right that I’ve not been entirely forthcoming with information,” she admits. “That said, look at it from my position. I met you this morning. You were recommended to me by a man I trust barely as far as I could throw him. Am I supposed to divulge everything to you?”
“Well—”
“Ah, Ah!” she stops me. “My turn. You gave me the talking stick. There is more still that I haven’t told you. It’s not mission critical, as Mack would put it. But if that information becomes critical, I’ll share it.”
“Whatever.”
“As I said,” she sighs, “there are two hard drives. Yes, Blogis has one. The killer stole it from the lab right after he killed Dr. Wolf. But we have the other drive.”
“Who has it?”
“I do,” Mack says.
I turn to look at him.
“It was in Wolf’s home,” he said. “For some reason Blogis’ team never searched Wolf’s home. Maybe it was a lapse in intelligence or follow through. But there was a second drive in his house in Custer. I found it under a closet floorboard in a fireproof safe, within hours of his death.”
“Blogis’ people never went there?”
“They may have gone there,” he says, “but they didn’t search it thoroughly enough. If they had, we’d be out of luck.”
“Where is it now?”
“I’ll tell you in a second,” he says. “You never told me what you did with Duke and the other guy.”
“We left them strapped to the tables in the lab,” Bella says.
“You left them there to die?” Mack’s eyes widen at the thought.
“No,” Bella laughs. “We’re not killers.” She looks over at me. “At least, I’m not. I called the head of security and told him they were there. He’s handling it.”
“Like he handled Wolf’s body?” Mack asks.
“Exactly,” she says. “And by the way, Jackson, when you were up on your soapbox there a minute ago, you kept hammering home that Dr. Wolf was paranoid, as if he didn’t have reason to be.”
“You’re pretty stupid for being so smart, Quick,” Mack snorts. “There ain’t a day that goes by where a man shouldn’t be worried, especially if what he’s doing can make people either rich or powerful or both.”
***
“Can you hear me?”
My phone is connected to the Suburban’s speakerphone. It’s after two o’clock in the morning, and Bella and I are parked on the tarmac next to her plane, which is getting refueled. We’re briefing Sir Spencer
“I hear you, Jackson,” Sir Spencer answers. He sounds like he’s in a tunnel. “Is Bella there with you?”
“I’m here,” Bella leans toward the speaker. “I can hear you.”
“Very good,” he says. “I understand you were at sixes and sevens much of yesterday. Am I correct?”
“What does that mean?” I ask. “I don’t speak knight.”
“Sorry, good man,” he chuckles. “I should say you were a bit mixed up, as it were. Am I right?”
“If by mixed up,” Bella answers, “you mean betrayed, kidnapped, and dragged underground...”
“You should know something about that,” I add after Bella doesn’t finish her thought.
“Pardon?” Sir Spencer says, feigning ignorance.
“Nothing,” I wave off Bella’s look of confusion. “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is what you know about our issues in Deadwood.”
“I don’t know much more than you,” he says against the distinct, ambient sound of ice clinking in the background. “I am aware that Bella’s associate Mr. Mahoney is hospitalized and you have the second hard drive.”
“How do you know this?” Bella asks.
“Suffice it to say that I do,” Sir Spencer replies. “Though I suggest you really should pay your head of security a salary more commensurate with the work he performs.”
Bella asks through clenched teeth, “You bought him off?”
“I enabled his willingness to be forthcoming,” Sir Spencer says. “He also told me that Jackson did quite a job rescuing you from those nasty men who...what was it...’dragged you underground’?”
“I did what I’m being paid to do,” I interject. “What else?”
“It may be fortuitous that you’ll be stopping in London on the way to Odessa. There might be some good information for you there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember a man you met there a couple of years ago? You delivered an iPod to him at the Texas Embassy restaurant?”
“I remember.” The man was one of the energy industry contacts the Governor of Texas sent me to meet. I handed him an iPod containing what I later learned was bank transfer information. He was part of an illicit conglomerate bribing the Governor to be friendly to their interests. He stuck me with the tab for a margarita. “His name was Davis.”
“Yes!” Sir Spencer’s a little too excited. “Good memory, Jackson, very good memory!”
“What about him?”
“He can be of some assistance,” he answers. “Call me when you land, and I’ll arrange for a quick meet.”
“But he worked for the governor. Why would he be helping us? The governor and his friends want me dead. This sounds like a set-up or something.”
“It’s no set-up, Jackson,” he sighs. “He was never implicated in the scandal, nor were his compatriots. The governor’s scheme was merely a means to an end for Mr. Davis. And what was on that iPod has as much to do with your mission today as it did to your mission then.”
Bella’s eyes are squeezed shut. She’s clearly lost. “I don’t understand. Someone who was involved in a plot against my father’s work, against Nanergetix, is now willing to help us? Who is this person? And how do solar neutrinos fit into some scheme two years ago?”
“All in good time,” Sir Spencer says. “You asked several questions, Bella. All I can tell you at the moment is that Davis is willing to help you. As for who he is, he is a man who, like me, plays the odds. His friends are those who will benefit him most. He is no longer in the oil business, as it were.”
“How do the solar neutrinos fit in with the iPods?” I ask. “I thought I was delivering bank information to him and to the others.”
“Yes and no,” Sir Spencer says. “To some, as in our good friend in Alaska, it was merely bank transfer instructions. But to Davis, there was more encoded into that little music player than a series of numbers.”
“What else?” I ask.
“Not now,” Sir Spencer says. “I’ve got to run. Busy, busy. We’ll speak when you touch down in my homeland.” The line g
oes silent.
“What exactly have you told him, Bella? How much does he know about this whole thing? None of this smells right to me.”
“Well,” Bella shifts uncomfortably in her seat, “to be honest, now I’m not sure how much he knows. His reach is a lot longer than I assumed it was.”
“Ha!” The chuckle escapes before I can stop it.
“Why is that funny?” “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. I’m surprised that you’re only now figuring out how connected and untrustworthy Sir Spencer really is.”
“I thought, I mean, I think, I can still handle him.” She sounds as though she’s trying to convince herself.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe what?” She leans back against the door, away from me.
“Maybe you’re handling him,” I say. “Maybe he’s playing both of us.”
She considers what I’m suggesting then says, “We have a flight to catch.”
“Aren’t we going to look at the hard drive?” I ask. We do need to know what information it contains and determine whether or not we have the real one or the red herring.
She nods and opens the passenger door then steps out onto the tarmac. “I need some sleep first, though. I’m running on fumes. We’ve got plenty of time once we’re in the air.”
“You’re running on fumes?” I roll my eyes. It’s 2:35 AM, almost twenty-four hours since my odyssey began. I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten anything of substance. Still, there’s no way I can sleep. As Sir Spencer would put it, I’m at six and sevens.
***
Bella’s plane, the Bombardier Global 5000, is maybe the most amazing plane ever. It makes Sir Spencer’s jet look like an Antonov turboprop.
The maple trimmed interior has eight mocha colored, fully reclining leather chairs. Next to my seat, which faces the rear of the cavernous cabin, is a pullout maple work station. There’s in-flight wireless and satellite television. The yellow and black Nanergetix logo, an upper case N surrounded by the interlocking triple oval atomic symbol, is on the carpeted floor and on the lavatory door.
It’ll make the flight to Odessa, Ukraine with a brief stop in London. We’ve got nine hours until we land and, fifteen minutes into the trip, Bella is asleep. Next to her is a laptop bag, in which she’s got a computer and the hard drive.
On the desk in front of me is a porcelain dish with a variety of fruits and cheeses and a tall glass of iced Diet Dr. Pepper. I pop a couple of cheese cubes into my mouth and pull out my cell phone.
I remind myself to toss this phone when we land and pull out one of the burner phones from my pack. I’ll also need to use one of my remaining identities to get through customs. Flying a private jet has its privileges, but I’m told avoiding passport control is not one of them.
With Bella asleep, it’s the first chance I’ve had to look at the second pdf file that George Townsend sent me. I’ve also got a pair of text messages from him that I missed in the midst of our adventures in South Dakota:
jackson--please call. need 2 talk. learning more about buell and neutrinos. Gt
jackson--have u looked at files yet? need to talk asap. have more info. gt
The wireless signal on the plane is strong, and I message him:
george--sorry. can’t talk. looking at files now. send more info when u can. pdf again. with buell! text is best way to exchange info. jq
A couple of finger touches on the screen and the second file George sent me, the one detailing neutrinos, opens in a pdf.
SOLAR NEUTRINOS BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Nicknamed “ghost particles”, solar neutrinos are particles emitted in both nuclear reactions and decay. Neutrinos are believed to be the only particle that escapes from the sun’s core without interaction. They are a product of nuclear fusion and account for missing energy produced during decay. The sun produces >200 trillion, trillion, trillion neutrinos per second.
Neutrinos are low energy with a mass of nearly zero. 60 billion neutrinos pass through a square centimeter of the Earth each second.
Neutrino experiments are ongoing at research facilities in Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, Creighton Mine in Ontario, Canada, Ino Peak Cave in Theni, Tamil Nadu, India, CERN Physics Lab in Switzerland, FERMI laboratory in Chicago, Illinois.
FERMI scientists in 2007 and a CERN conglomerate in 2011 claimed to have measured neutrino speeds in excess of 186,292 miles/second. The greater scientific community doubts this is possible.
Neutrino experiments also indicate a theoretical probability of sub-surface/aquatic communication. First proposed in 2009, then attempted successfully in 2012, neutrino-aided communication would allow for submariners to communicate with one another or with those on the surface.
Neutrino experiments also suggest further applications are theoretically probable in areas of nuclear fission detection. But experts suggest this is folly and not possible for at least three decades.
--MORE INFORMATION AS/IF IT IS ATTAINABLE
George’s notes aren’t much more than what Bella already told me, but at least they confirm her information. I wouldn’t have known whether or not what she was feeding me was legitimate or not. Now, at the very least, I’ve confirmed what she told me about neutrinos. My phone buzzes. It’s a new text from George.
jackson--got ur msg. sorry u can’t talk. will send new info when i can. busy day. might be a little while. if u can talk would be better. gt
no problem, I text him, will call if can. jq
I take a sip of the Diet Dr. Pepper and then pop a red grape in my mouth. They don’t really taste good together.
Bella is still asleep, a white blanket pulled up to her neck, her chair in full recline. She’s a pretty woman, beautiful actually. Even asleep, with her mouth catching flies, it’s hard not to watch her.
What am I doing with her? Why am I on this odyssey, as Sir Spencer called it?
I can’t figure out, for the life of me what it is about this deal that doesn’t seem right. I don’t know which parts are missing or where they’d fit.
Let’s start with what I do know. With my eyes closed, I start piecing it together.
Bella’s father was a mega-rich oil magnate, who supposedly turned on the industry, founded Nanergetix, and went green. He wanted to produce chemically altered oil that would outperform traditional crude. Then he announced he was running for Governor of Texas. It seemed counterintuitive. Who would want to a run a state whose primary industry you were trying to dramatically alter in a way that would hurt profitability? He did, apparently.
When it looked like he was going to lose, he hired people, including my-ex girlfriend, to shoot him and make it look like an assassination attempt. In the meantime, he was keenly aware that my boss, his political rival, was working hard to undercut his new altered oil product.
He knew that my boss was running some sort of scheme to pump the energy companies, for money, with my unwitting help, while at the same time promising them he could “undo” the increased efficacy of the new, better oil product. A lot of people died; a research scientist, my girlfriend, a bunch of ex-spook contractors, my friend Bobby.
Then Buell was killed. I exposed my boss with the help of George Townsend, who got the big story and Peabody Award he wanted. My boss went to prison, along with an energy executive I’d met in Alaska. She didn’t trust me and wanted me dead. That hasn’t changed.
I went into hiding, unsuccessfully attempting to return some sense of safety and normalcy to my life, until Sir Spencer found me and connected me with Buell’s daughter. She’d teamed up with him for some unknown reason, despite his association with my boss prior to her father’s death.
He convinced her that I, for some reason, would be an asset in her search for some secret, world-changing process involving neutrinos. Now here we are, in a private jet, speeding toward Europe.
Once we land, we need to piece together the pieces of the process before some rival killer, Liho Blogis, finds them and gains control of the world-changing process...a
process that lets submarines communicate better?
None of this fits together. There’s more to it. Everyone is holding back from me; Sir Spencer, Bella, even Mack Mahoney.
They all know something that I don’t.
***
Mysteries are nothing new to me. Since my parents’ deaths, I’ve lived a series of chapters without endings; one two-dimensional character after another floating into and out of my narrative without any depth or purpose. With time and distance, my parents devolved into two of those characters, their existence becoming a slideshow of memories I warp for the better each time they play through my mind.
The only constant, the only reality, is a handful of photos and mementos I keep in a blue lockbox. It was my only real possession through the years of foster care I endured, my link to a fairytale long forgotten.
The contents of that blue box are clues to what my life could have been, what my life was supposed to be. I often find myself playing out the scenarios I imagine, almost as though I’m writing a Choose Your Own Adventure book; if jumping to page seventy-three doesn’t work out for me, I can always go back and skip to page eighty-six for a different ending.
More than that, though, the trinkets help me think. They can act as clarifiers, muses cutting through the fog in my mind.
Bella is still asleep. I pop open the box on the desk in front of me and pull out a chess piece, a pawn, my father kept on his desk at home. He told me it was a reminder to him that a good foot soldier is always important. It’s carved from black marble, and feels cold in my hand. I rub the smooth rounded top of the pawn with my thumb and reach into the box for another memento.
My mom’s wedding ring is simple. It’s a thick gold band. On the inside of the band, are the inscribed words “WITH ADORING LOVE”. She never wore a diamond, telling me that dad had wanted to give her one for their engagement, but she’d resisted. She told him a simple band on the day they got married was enough, and that he’d reluctantly agreed. But for their first anniversary, he’d bought her a pair of huge diamond earrings. I keep them in the box too, sealed inside an envelope, which finds its place on the desk next to the ring and pawn.