by Tom Abrahams
I grab Bella’s hand and pull her out into the aisle. She shuffles toward the stairwell, holding onto the seats for stability. I jimmy my knife from the seatback, step over Davis’ hat, and follow Bella to the first deck.
The bus is stopping when I reach the bottom of the stairs and our driver is hustling Bella onto the street. I quickly follow.
“What was that?” I call to the driver, who’s now five yards in front of me. “What happened?”
He ignores me, but Bella turns around and reaches back to me as she keeps walking. I catch up and grasp her fingers. They’re cold but they feel familiar, comfortable.
The driver continues walking at a hurried pace, weaving between umbrellas and newspapers held above people’s heads. It’s raining again and hard to keep track of him as he maneuvers his way through the crowds walking the wide sidewalks.
Behind us, maybe a block or so back at the bus, there’s a woman’s scream followed by men yelling. The temptation to turn around is instinctive, but Bella squeezes my hand. Both of us resist, weaving through commuters who’ve stopped and turned to look.
We’ve walked maybe a quarter mile when a white Range Rover squeals up to the curb ahead of us and to our right. Statham number one doubles back and hops in the front passenger seat while Bella tugs me to the SUV.
“Get in,” the driver, now a passenger, says to us when Bella opens the rear passenger door. She climbs in and slides over so that I can get in and shut the door. My hand is on the handle, pulling it closed when the Range Rover jerks into traffic and merges with the cabs and buses navigating the nasty, wet streets of central London.
“What was that?” I’m out of breath and pushing the rain from my forehead and into my hair.
Neither Jason Statham says anything. The killer Jason pulls out a cell, punches a series of numbers, and then hands the phone to me. It’s ringing when I put it to my ear.
“Jackson?” The voice makes me want to crawl through the phone and strangle it. “Is that you, good man?”
I don’t say anything. A gray BMW, a London police cruiser, speeds by us on the right, siren blaring and blue lights flashing. A green and yellow checkerboard ambulance is close behind.
“I’ll take your silence as a ‘yes’, then,” Sir Spencer chuckles.
Take it as a ‘Screw you!’, you manipulative ass.
“How was the sightseeing tour?” he asks. “I understand one learns something new every time.”
***
“Mr. Davis was a fly in the ointment, Jackson,” says Sir Spencer. “He needed to be dealt with.”
“You used us as bait?”
“That’s such an unfortunate turn of phrase,” Sir Spencer answers. “I prefer to suggest you were an incentive for Mr. Davis to show himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was not a happy fellow,” Sir Spencer explains. “He’d informed me that there might be other arrangements, other deals, he might be willing to divulge to the authorities should I not satisfy his needs.”
“Needs?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jackson,” he huffs, “must I spell it out for you?”
“Yes.”
“Fine, then. This is a secure line, I imagine?”
“Is this line secure?” I ask Jason Statham number one. He nods. “Yes,” I tell the knight, “it’s secure.”
“He wanted you dead, Jackson. He blamed you for the failure of the governor’s plot. You were, after all, the only living person, aside from the governor, involved in the scheme.”
“You were involved,” I correct him.
“True,” he says. “But I don’t count. I’m involved in everything.”
“He never had any information about the neutrino process?”
“You’re not so quick sometimes, Jackson,” the knight belly laughs. “Of course not. I only told you that so that you’d lead me to him. I told him that I’d give you to him for his disposal if he’d forego his incessant threats.”
“We were bait,” I conclude. “And he almost killed us both.”
“Characterize it however you want, Jackson,” he chides, “but he didn’t kill you. You’re alive and well.”
“This little side trip of yours wasted a lot of our time. We need to be looking for pieces of the process, not unwittingly doing your bidding.”
“Who contends those are mutually exclusive propositions, Jackson?” There’s a click and the line goes silent.
“Hello?” I pull the phone from my ear to look at the display. “Hello?” Jason Statham number one reaches for the phone, which I hand to him.
“He set us up?” Bella asks. “He used us to kill that man?”
I nod silently. The rabbit hole is getting deeper and the Mad Hatter seems to be the only one who knows how far it drops.
***
“We’ll be landing in Odessa, Ukraine in approximately thirty minutes,” Bella’s pilot announces, waking me from a dead sleep. “The local time there is 3 AM.”
I’ve spent most of the three and a half hour flight trying to get some rest. My guess is, though, that I’ve gotten an hour’s sleep at best. Through the fog, my eyes focus the digital display on my watch, which has already adjusted to the two hour time change: 3:02 AM.
What is that...like...6PM yesterday back home? Wherever home is...
My knee aches, my lower back hurts, my neck is sore.
Bella is asleep in her recliner. She’s changed clothes, ditching the business top and lavender skirt for a pair of jeans and a long sleeved silk blouse. She’s also kicked the pumps for a pair of Nike running shoes. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, her makeup less obvious. Not that she needs makeup.
My burner phone indicates I have a signal. I move away from Bella and dial. It rings twice.
“News 4 Houston,” the familiar voice answers. “George Townsend.”
“George,” I say in hushed voice, “it’s Jackson.”
“Jackson?” He sounds surprised. “I don’t recognize the number. How many phones do you have?”
“Not enough. So what’s the additional information you have about neutrinos and Bella Buell? I read what you sent.”
“We’re on the air, you know,” he says. “It’s right at six o’clock. I’ve got a live hit in about fifteen minutes.”
“Can you spare five?” I ask. “And skip the makeup?”
“Very funny,” he deadpanned. “I’ve got a minute.”
“What’s the deal?”
“Why are you whispering?” he asks.
“I’m fine right now, though I’m not in a place where I can speak freely. I’d prefer to listen.”
“Okay,” he says. “So here’s the deal. As you know, this neutrino stuff is being studied for subsea communication, right? Well, I mentioned the fission detection stuff too in that brief I sent you. That could be the real key here. The submarine walkie-talkie crap is probably a red herring.”
“I don’t understand.” I look toward Bella to make sure she’s asleep. So far, so good. “Red herring?”
“Maybe that’s a stretch,” he concedes. “They probably are interested in that as a real money maker. The United States Navy alone would pay big bucks for that. You sell it to other countries too, even our allies, and you’re talking billions.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t think that’s the real end game of this neutrino stuff.”
“Why not?”
“This is a stretch here,” he admits.
“Enough with the teases. You’re burying the lead here.”
“There was some research in 2010 that some French researchers published about this. They contended that using what they called a neutrino beam, they could detect hidden nuclear reactors. You know, in countries that don’t like us. They have these nuclear programs that officially don’t exist, but everyone knows they’ve got stuff going on.”
“How does this help?” I ask quickly. Bella is getting restless.
“Think about it, Jackson,” he
says. “If we, or anyone, could detect where a country was hiding its nuclear reactors, that would put us at a great strategic advantage.”
“What you’re saying is if we knew where these hidden reactors were, we’d have a stronger case to stand up and say, ‘Tsk, tsk, tsk. We know you have a nuclear reactor. Our special neutrino beam told us you do!!’. C’mon, George. That can’t be it. Convincing the world a special beam of invisible, nearly massless particles from the sun can tell us where secret nuclear reactors are hidden is about as likely as convincing the O.J. Simpson jury that DNA evidence is real.”
“That was a throwback reference,” he laughs. “It sounds like a stretch, but here’s the interesting part. One of the participants in that 2010 study was the CEA, a French technological research organization. They get most of their funding from the French government, but they have a lot of partners all over the world. One of those being Nanergetix.”
“What do you mean by ‘partner’?” I ask. Bella’s eyes are still closed, she’s pulled the blanket up to her chin.
“They gave them millions of dollars, Jackson. Now I gotta go. If I find out anything else or have an update, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, when you get a chance, Google what’s called a SNIF detector.”
“Thanks, George,” I whisper. “I appreciate it.”
“Yeah,” he says, “I still don’t know what all of this is about, or how you’ve managed to get yourself involved. I expect the exclusive interview, though, when it’s all over.”
“Right, like that’s gonna happen.”
I hang up, grab a Diet Dr. Pepper from the wet bar next to kitchen at the front of the plane, thank the sky waitress, and head back to my seat for landing.
Nuclear detection. Is that what this is really about?
CHAPTER 11
The streets in Odessa are empty except for the thick fog rolling past our car. There’s no sign of the ongoing conflict between Ukrainian loyalists and pro-Russian Separatists who’ve taken over the eastern part of the country.
Having wasted an hour at customs negotiating the appropriate “tariff” for our belongings, it’s after four o’clock in the morning. With the help of a local translator she hired, Bella negotiated the shakedown and paid two thousand hryvnia, the equivalent of about two hundred and fifty dollars.
“You know,” she says as we pass an afterhours nightclub with a few people milling about the entrance, the glow of their cigarettes cutting through the fog, “that jerk at customs could have asked me for any amount of money and I would have paid it. He asked for next to nothing.”
“It was probably a lot to him,” I say. “What’s the average income here?”
“It is not very good,” the translator interjects from the front passenger seat of the car. “I am working security for my job. My payment is one thousand two hundred hryvnia. That is maybe, one hundred fifty U.S. dollars.”
“Is that a day or a week?” Bella asks.
“That is what I am getting paid in a month.” He smiles, yellow streetlights flashing a glow across his round, clean-shaven face. He is bald with thick, black eyebrows. “This is why I am doing the extra work, yes?”
“I understand,” she says. “I’ll pay you better than that. Don’t worry about it.”
“I am knowing that you are paying big cash.” He rubs his fingers together to indicate the riches he expects to make from this job.
“Big cash,” Bella smirks and plops back against her seat.
I lean close to Bella and whisper into ear, “Maybe you shouldn’t have said that you’d ‘pay anything’ in front of this guy. Where did you find him?”
“My father hired him a couple of times. His name was in the rolodex.”
“You still use a rolodex?”
“Figuratively.” She rolls her eyes, her face lit by headlights from an SUV behind us. “It was in the contacts on his computer. You know what I meant.”
“I’m trying to lighten the mood, Bella. It’s four o’clock in the morning and we’re in eastern Europe on a wild goose chase. Thought you might like a laugh.”
The car slows to a stop at an intersection, waiting for another car to pass.
She looks out the window at the rows of three-story high apartment buildings lining the street. “I would, but there’s not much that’s funny about any of this.”
“How much farther to the hotel?” she asks the driver.
“He doesn’t speak English,” says the translator. “I would be telling you we are not far from hotel. Five minutes more, maybe?”
I’m focused on the car in the intersection. The thickening fog makes it difficult to make out, but it looks like the car is stopping right in front us. The lights from the SUV behind us are brighter. It’s right on our tail.
I wrap my right hand around the back of Bella’s neck and push her down out of the light. “Get down!!!” I draw the revolver into my left hand and the world around me downshifts into slow motion.
“Jackson, what the—?!?” Bella protests, surprised by the force of my shove, I’m sure.
The windshield shatters, glass flying into the car along with a hail of bullets. The translator’s body contorts, convulsing in his seat as round after round tears through him. I duck next to Bella on the floorboard behind the front seats.
The rear window shatters and glass sprays onto our backs, into her hair. Another round of semi-automatic fire riddles the car in short bursts. My revolver is no good in this situation and we’ve got only seconds before they work their way around to the side of the car. We’ll be trapped.
Reaching around to the front, I feel up under the driver’s armpit. Fumbling around, my hand grips leather: a holster! A second later, a 9mm is in my right hand and I’m returning fire, perched low between the gap in the two front seats.
“Jackson!” Bella screams. “Jackson!”
“Are you hit?” I’m focused on the man now approaching the car from the front, emerging from the fog with what looks like a compact machine gun. He’s reloading, trying to pop a magazine.
“No!” she whimpers. “What’s happening?”
“Stay down!”
The man approaching the car from the front is squinting now, our headlights blinding him. I slide forward, belly first, onto the armrest between the two front seats, extending my right arm forward, aiming for the gunman’s head.
Elegant.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Two shots to his face, one to his chest, and he is no longer a problem.
“Stay here!” I snap at Bella and roll into the front seat, up against the slouched body of the translator. In one quick series of motions, I lean over to the driver’s side door, open it, and kick out the driver. His body tumbles to the ground in a heap, his right foot still on the floorboard. It draws immediate fire from behind the car, and I turn around, my back against the dashboard aiming for the headlights of the SUV behind us.
Pop! Pop! through the already shattered rear window.
Both lights are out and I’ve got maybe ten to twelve more rounds in the semi-automatic. My revolver is on the rear floorboard of the car.
“Bella! Grab my gun off the floor next to you. It’s behind the driver’s seat. Stay low!”
There’s a figure approaching from the left, near the curb. I crawl out of the car and behind the driver’s body, propping him up as a shield.
“Bella! Do you have the gun?”
“Yes!”
“Then use it! Aim for the curb!”
I roll over on the ground, facing the front of the car, just in time to see a sweatsuit clad man leveling a handgun at me.
He fires twice before I can get off a shot. The first hits the right front tire, popping it and releasing the air with a nasty, loud hiss. The second grazes my hip and settles into the driver’s body right behind me.
He’s approaching quickly, but I manage a burst of shots from the semi-auto in my hand. One hits his knee, dropping him. The other gets his midsection. He’s alive, but crying out in pain on the street.
I scramble to my feet and, crouched low, curl around the front of the car through the headlights, ready to fire. On the ground next to our car is a motionless body.
“Bella!” I can’t focus in the dark.
“I’m okay,” she cries. “I’m okay. Are they gone? Did we get all of them?”
“Yes. You can get out of the car.”
Bella pops open the door, hitting it against the body on the ground, and runs into my arms, still holding the revolver. She’s pressed tight against me, her fingers gripping my back as though she’s about to fall. She buries her face in my chest and sobs.
“What was that?” she says, her voice muffled. “Who were they?”
“I don’t know yet,” I put my hands on her shoulders to release her hold on me. “We’ll find out. Do me a favor, okay?”
“What?”
“Pop the trunk, grab your bag, and get into the car in the intersection. I’ll grab mine after I talk to our friend over here.”
Bella nods and walks around to the driver’s side of the car. Moments later, she walks past me with her bag as I kneel down to start asking questions.
I put the gun on the ground above his head and grab his face by his jaw, pulling his gaze to mine. His face is compressed with pain, but he opens his eyes to look at me.
“Що ви захочете?” I ask him. What do you want?
“Вмріть свиня!” he spits, blood leaking from his lips. Die pig!
“Котрі ви працюєте?” I tighten my grip on his face. Who do you work for?
“Ваша мати,” he coughs. “Але вона мій аматор також.”
“My mother?” I ask. “She’s your lover too?” Still gripping his face with my right hand, I find the wound in his abdomen and stick my left thumb into it, inducing a cry that matches the octave of the siren that’s begun wailing in the distance.
“You’ll see her soon, dead man,” I tell him. “Ви побачите її скоро, мертва людина!”