by Mark Nolan
“This is The Hornblower. Captain Foster speaking. Go ahead Marine One.”
“Captain Foster this is Captain Leeds. Do you happen to have a yellow Labrador dog or a golden retriever on board your vessel at this time?”
Foster hesitated in surprise at the question but he recovered quickly and said, “No sir Captain Leeds. Although we do allow service animals on board, there are currently no dogs on the vessel.”
“Understood. We are now going to board The Hornblower and search your vessel, passengers, and crew. Your full cooperation will be appreciated.”
“Yes sir, understood.”
“Stand by to be boarded.”
Leeds made it his business to know all about the various ships in his Bay. The Alcatraz Ferry boat named The Hornblower was the nation’s first hybrid ferry. The 64-foot eco-friendly vessel was powered mostly by solar panels, wind turbines, and grid electricity. Leeds was impressed by the effort that went into it.
Leeds switched on the loudspeakers and said, “Attention, passengers and crew of the ferry boat Hornblower. Stand by to be boarded by the San Francisco Police. Keep your hands on your heads and sit very still to avoid arrest or possible injury. Your full cooperation is appreciated. We are looking for a specific individual. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
The passengers on the ferry boat had their hands on their heads. Some were frightened while others were thrilled to see the police boats and the officers in action. Marine One came up alongside The Hornblower, and several armed police officers boarded the ferry. Captain Leeds walked into the control area. Captain Foster stood at attention and saluted.
“Captain Foster of The Hornblower,” Foster said. “The vessel is yours to command Captain Leeds.”
Leeds appreciated the man’s professional manner and he said, “You’re a good captain, Foster. Thank you for your cooperation.”
The police boat didn’t have the same high-tech equipment used by Roxanne in the surveillance van, so the officers searched everyone the old fashioned way. They made the passengers empty out their pockets and purses, searched their belongings, and frisked them one by one.
An officer named Maltz found Wolfe’s prepaid phone in a tourist’s camera bag. The phone number of the device matched the one they were looking for.
“I’ve got the phone,” Maltz said, and he put the device into a plastic evidence bag.
Maltz showed the phone to the man who had been carrying it in his camera bag and said, “Where did you get this?”
The nervous man said, “It’s not mine. I swear I’ve never seen it before. You have to believe me.”
“Have you seen or talked to a man who had a golden-haired dog with him?”
“Yes sir, a blind man with a cane and a Labrador retriever guide dog bumped into me when I was in line to board the Ferry.”
Maltz nodded and walked over to Leeds and said, “We’ve finished searching the vessel. The fugitive and his dog are not on board, only his phone. The man who had the phone in his camera bag said a blind man with a guide dog bumped into him as he was boarding the Ferry.”
“Good work, we’re done here, let’s return to Marine One,” Leeds said.
The Police officers began to disembark The Hornblower and return to the police boat.
Leeds turned to Foster and said, “We found what we were looking for Captain. That phone was slipped into someone’s camera bag. The suspect did this same thing on an airport shuttle earlier today.”
Foster looked visibly relieved that no one on his boat was being arrested at gunpoint. He nodded his head politely at Leeds.
Captain Leeds liked to develop a good rapport with local boat captains. He handed Foster his police business card and said, “One of these days us captains should have a beer after work.”
Foster gave Leeds his business card in return and said, “That would be great Captain Leeds. I’ll look forward to it, thank you.”
The men shook hands and then Leeds and the remaining police exited the ferry boat and re-boarded Marine One.
Chapter 78
Dr. Rachel Brook rushed to Katherine Anderson’s hospital room and found her acting frantic. Her husband Daniel Anderson was trying to calm her down. Dr. Brook had a big heart, but she was also strict with patients and staff who had emotional outbursts.
“What is it, Katherine?” Dr. Brook said. “Calm down, I’m right here. Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Rachel, a nurse came in to do another ultrasound on my belly, but she did one on my breasts too,” Katherine said. “Then I heard the nurse whispering to another nurse about a lump in my breast. The nurse that did the ultrasound was afraid. I could see it on her face. I checked my breasts, and I did feel a lump in my left one. Tell me what is happening. Tell me the truth.”
“All right, it’s time to have a talk. Just give me one moment to check something for you.”
Dr. Brook checked a tablet computer and saw that the biopsy was ordered, and she could perform it soon. The biopsy test could only be done with the advised consent of the patient. The moment had come when Dr. Brook had to talk to her friend about the findings. While she was reading the message on her tablet, a female psychiatrist came into the room as required by hospital policy, and introduced herself.
Daniel asked, “Why do we need a psychiatrist here?”
Dr. Brook sat down next to Katherine, held her hand and slowly recited the frightening facts of the situation. “The initial exam found that you have a healthy baby. That’s the good news. No problems from what you went through recently. However, the exam found a worrisome lump in one of your breasts. Most of the time that kind of lump during pregnancy is simply a blocked milk duct, not a tumor. The only way to be sure is to do a biopsy.”
“So that’s why the nurse did an ultrasound of my breasts.”
“Yes and I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you before it happened. There was a miscommunication about the timing.”
“Best and worst case scenario?” Katherine said, and she clenched her fists.
“Best case scenario is that you only have a blocked milk duct. Worst case you might have breast cancer, and then you’d be facing a tough time. The sooner we do a biopsy, the sooner we’ll know the answer.
“If you’ve found a lump and you’ve done an ultrasound, I want the facts. What’s your professional opinion at this point?”
Dr. Brook sighed and looked at the floor. Her tired face said more than words alone could. “I never speculate. That only causes unneeded stress.”
Daniel Anderson took a loud breath and let it out. “How soon can we schedule to have the biopsy done?”
“I already ordered a biopsy for today. We’ll use a needle to gently take a sample of the breast tissue.”
“Why aren’t you doing it right now?”
“Three reasons. First, I had to order it worked up. Second, I had to talk to you two and explain the test. Third, Kat needs to give written consent.”
Katherine sat there with tears in her eyes. Her face reminded Daniel of a fragile antique Ming vase that had been shattered and then patched back together with glue… appearing beautiful and whole on the outside, but broken and barely holding itself together on the inside. Daniel was thinking that Katherine could fall apart at any moment, but he felt helpless to do anything for her. He put his arms around his wife, held her close and whispered soothing words as he ran a hand through her hair.
“Careful treatments for breast cancer can be safe during the third trimesters of pregnancy, according to recent medical studies,” Dr. Brook said. “Pregnant oncology patients are real warriors. They are usually more concerned about their child’s health than their own, and yet they are determined to live on so they can be there as a mother and raise their child.”
The young hospital psychologist counselor tried to be helpful and said, “In some of these cases the difficult decision is faced of whether or not to have the mother’s breasts removed by surgery. It might help stop the cancer
, but then the mother won’t be able to breastfeed. I’ll be here to assist you with these tough choices.”
Katherine started sobbing and said, “We already… picked out… names. If it’s a girl … we’re going to name her… Rachel.”
Dr. Rachel Brook knew the baby was a girl, but she hadn’t told the parents yet. Now she would forever think of her as baby Rachel, named after her. She couldn’t hide her feelings any longer, and she broke down and wept along with her friend.
The young psychiatrist sighed and walked out of the room. She headed toward the front office to report Dr. Brook’s unprofessional behavior to the hospital management.
There were times when Dr. Brook wished that she’d gone into some other career besides medicine. This was definitely one of those times. It could be a heartbreaking job, and it often took a heavy toll on her emotions. She wanted to make everyone well. To heal the sick, to end pain and to help people. But life didn’t always work out that way. People suffered and died every day. She couldn’t save everyone, but she would fight hard to save her friend Katherine and her baby Rachel.
Chapter 79
Brussels, Belgium is home to the European Union's headquarters as well as NATO and over two thousand international companies. On this day, Brussels was also the location of a secret meeting for the elite members of The Global Assets Council.
Belgium is known for having more castles per square mile than any other country. One of the castles was owned by a powerful woman in the pharmaceutical business. She was an actual princess and her 14th-century Brussels palace was surrounded by forty private acres of immaculate grounds, including a rose garden with over ten thousand rose bushes in two hundred different varieties.
The estate was serving as the location of a secret Council meeting, and the host had provided her fellow members with luxurious and elegantly decorated suites. The beds were made up with the finest linens. The food was prepared by top-rated chefs.
Several men with high powered rifles and trained dogs walked the perimeter of the estate. Electronic jamming equipment insured that no one could eavesdrop on the meetings that were being held inside the castle. The business that was being discussed here included billion dollar deals and life-and-death decisions that could affect millions of people around the world. The Council, as its members referred to it, was a secretive private group that rarely accepted new members, and then by invitation only. If anyone declined the invitation, they soon died in an “accident” or from “natural causes.”
The Council’s official address was a small office in a nondescript building, on the second floor above a bank. The bank was on the Isle of Man, off the coast of England. No one ever showed up for work at the office. No one ever answered the phone. All calls went silently to a voicemail system. There were no visitors except for one time when a private investigator had picked the lock. The only things the PI had found in the office were an empty desk, a chair, and a computer monitor. The monitor turned on without him touching it, and a female voice spoke to him. The voice had the sound of an artificial intelligence system much like SIRI.
“You are trespassing. Your face has been recorded on video. Police are now en route. Please sit in the chair and wait. Cooperate peacefully with the arresting officers, to avoid injury to yourself.”
The PI fled the scene. A week later he was walking across a street in London, and he was struck by a car and killed in an unsolved hit and run accident. No one ever visited the office again after that.
The purpose behind The Council’s secret work was to create a private investment group. An association designed to enable its members to buy and sell at a better advantage by avoiding middlemen, government regulations, and taxes.
The members considered their group to be a sovereign entity, above the law. Not liable for taxes or lawsuits, and not loyal to any nation or government. Their only loyalty was to profits and power. Billions of dollars of their ill-gotten gains were secretly stashed away tax-free in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. A numbered account in Switzerland held their substantial accumulation of gold coins.
The international group’s members included dictators and other political leaders, billionaire business tycoons, arms dealers, and heads of organized crime groups. Plus a few high-ranking military officers and intelligence agency operatives from various governments around the world. Each year the members elected one person from their group to act as the leader, and each had their own code name, rarely ever mentioning their real names. The current leader went by the code name “Chairman Banks.” Every member contributed millions of dollars to The Council’s trust fund each year, for use in advancing their cause around the globe.
A deadly secret differentiated this business group and trust fund from others. The members would not hesitate to pay generous sums of money to have someone killed if he or she got in their way. It was only mathematics to them. Why allow a problematic person to cost them fifty million dollars in lost profits when that person could be eliminated for a paltry one million dollars or less?
A recent Council project was designed to profit from a potential ecological disaster. They used sabotage to make it happen, and caused it to be even worse than projected. Next they profited from the millions of dollars spent on clean-up and restoration efforts. In spite of the fact that the chemicals used for clean-up caused additional toxic pollution.
Another project was a potential war conflict they had influenced and caused to escalate between two third-world dictatorships. They profited from the resulting sales of Russian AK-47 assault rifles and ammunition, and sales of armed drones manufactured in China.
A regularly-occurring plan was to manipulate news stories in order to drive stock prices up or down. They would then profit from the moves by selling short or placing bets on stock option “calls and puts.” Insider trading and market manipulation were illegal in the United States, although members of Congress often profited from nonpublic information. However, The Council did these stock trades through a Nigerian bank with a corrupt manager who accepted bribes and looked the other way. The US lawmakers and EU regulators were not aware of the transactions and had no control over them.
The Council’s latest project involved a company that was developing a new medicine that could help save the lives of children all over the world. It promised to be twice as helpful as the drug that a competing company was currently selling, and would only cost half as much. The problem for The Council was that this new corporation was privately held, and The Council was not able to buy stock in it and profit from its success. Their plan was to put a stop to the progress of the new wonder drug and thereby protect their investments in the competing company and continue to earn windfall profits. Meanwhile, a great number of children would die that could have been saved, but the Council members believed that the deaths were just a cost of doing business in their line of work.
The current chairman of the Council was not in attendance at this meeting. Chairman Banks was busy in the United States, dealing with a problem. The other members had grown impatient with his leadership and with the current situation. They were going to hold a meeting without him. This had rarely ever been done before, but unusual circumstances called for unusual actions.
If the group decided that the current chairman was either incompetent to lead or was not being completely loyal to the group and its goals, they would have him killed immediately and without hesitation. That was the sworn agreement they all made when they joined The Council. Once a member, always a member—until the day you died of natural causes, or were murdered due to a vote by the other members.
The Belgian princess called the meeting to order and she said, “The first order of business is a vote regarding our current chairman.”
Chapter 80
In San Francisco, Chairman Banks used his encrypted phone to call Zhukov.
“Are you calling to compliment me on my work?” Zhukov asked.
“I want to know why you failed to carry out our agreem
ent,” Banks said.
“What do you mean, haven’t you seen the news?”
“Yes and frankly I’m disappointed.”
“Explain.”
“You and several other contractors were asked if you would shoot a woman. The others said no, but you said yes. Now you’ve pulled some kind of stunt here that I don’t understand.”
“I said yes I would shoot the woman, but I did not say I would kill the woman. And I did shoot her, so I honored my agreement.”
“But you shot her with a paintball, not a bullet. That wasn’t what The Council had in mind when we paid you a fortune to do this job.”
“You paid me to neutralize the Congressman so he’d be absent from his job in Washington for several days. You have achieved that result. The Congressman is currently at the hospital with his wife. He’s staying close by her side. Your goals have been realized, albeit in a more elegant and artistic fashion than the heavy-handed way you had envisioned.”
Banks was not accustomed to having anyone talk back to him. He was almost ready to verbally abuse the hired help as he usually did, but he stopped when he thought of the man’s earlier threats. He took a calming breath and looked around for any red targeting lasers that might be painting a red dot on his body by remote control. “Very well, as long as the man stays in San Francisco tomorrow and does not fly back to Washington DC, I will consider this mission accomplished. I’ll try to convince the rest of The Council to do the same.”
“Yes it would be wise of them to be as understanding as you are,” Zhukov said.
“You have no idea of the position you have placed me in my friend,” Banks said. “If I should die in a random car accident this week you may want to disappear for a while, for your own health reasons.”
“If you are killed, I will avenge your death in a suitably bloody fashion.”