by Peche, Alec
“Ditto, Jill’s response. We need some help up here.”
“Yes, I know. Our killer is over that ledge yelling the same thing. Let me just check that we had only one shooter.” He radioed his agent at the bottom of the chairlift pole; and the agent had only seen one shooter. Then he called Jake.
“Jake, we got your man and I have several of our group recovering from the paralytic agent. We need help now.”
“Got it, I’m coming up the T-bar path right now. We’ll send ski patrol on snowmobiles your way to get people off the mountain. Where is Jason Brown?”
“Jill assisted him over the ridge beneath the T-bar so he is lying on that slope with a broken or dislocated leg as well as a dislocated shoulder. We have not yet confirmed that there are no other shooters in this area since the smoke hasn’t cleared yet, but once we confirm, I’ll send an agent down to Mr. Brown immediately.”
Jake requested “Can you keep an eye on him or is that dangerous in your current position?”
“Dangerous until the smoke clears. Half the group here is recovering from paralytic agents and would be unable to help the other half if they get hit by a dart or bullet. Like I said Mr. Brown is too injured to go anywhere and even if a friend rode up to him on a snowmobile, the pain of moving him would likely render him unconscious.”
“Okay, I understand your critical situation. Help is on the way.”
Michael ended the call, assessing the situation again. Everyone was breathing on their own and able to move fingers. After updating a barely moving Marie, he walked over to Jill and Nathan, and then Nick and one of his agents. He heard Jake’s snowmobile head over to where the smoke was clearing.
“I should warn you that you’ll be receiving special recognition from the FBI for saving one of our own,” said Michael. “This may be a first as I can’t recall any non-US citizen saving one of our agents. We’ll likely have our ambassador speak to your government to make sure they know what a hero you are in the eyes of the Americans.”
“I’d like to avoid all of that,” replied Nick. “I just did what any decent human being would do.”
“Sorry it is out of your hands. We really do appreciate you saving our agent’s life and we must recognize you in public to express our gratitude. Perhaps it will help your business or your expansion into the US. All wit aside, I really do appreciate from the bottom of my heart your saving my agent’s life.”
Then Michael turned around and admonished, “Folks, the smoke is clearing, so we are all vulnerable again, so stay down until I yell ‘clear’. Jake is over at the site now checking it out.”
The smoke had nearly dissipated and Jake and another agent searched the area and came up with nothing. The group was safe.
“There appears to be just this one shooter so we are clear. I’m heading down the hill to check on our shooter,” said Michael as he soon disappeared over the ridge.
Jill yelled at another agent standing by, “Don’t let him go by himself! The guy could shoot him with a dart. We’re safe here; all capable agents should rush down the slope and assist Agent York in arresting him.”
After a few seconds, they agreed that their boss might need help and they went over the ridge.
Jill paced back and forth checking Marie, Nathan and the agent. All seemed to be recovering, but none had enough muscle control to even lift their heads off the ground. She soon heard snowmobiles coming their way. One able bodied agent was still with them, so she asked him to pass the downed agent’s weapon to her in case she needed to use it. The agent would check for ski patrol identity.
It was soon clear that these were friends. All three recovering victims soon had oxygen going and were placed in baskets to be hauled off the mountain. They all appeared to be slowly recovering but at this altitude a little extra oxygen never hurt.
Jill looked over the ridge as her friends were being loaded. It appeared that Mr. Brown was not moving, and neither Michael, nor any of his agents, was in any danger. She caught a ride on the back of the snowmobile that carried Nathan. She would just bet that when he could talk he would be proud that she had used her martial arts skills to defend the two of them. Nathan had taken her to a martial arts competition after her first dangerous case and from that experience; she had begun learning tae kwon do. Soon all three of them were in first aid being checked out by a doctor. Their control of their muscles was slowly returning and they were able to stay upright in a wheelchair. The doctor made a call to an anesthesiologist friend who gave them a timeline on a full recovery of three more hours. All three victims returned to the hotel suite in wheelchairs to be made a fuss over by Angela and Jo.
“Nathan, how are you feeling?” asked Jo. “I understand you will be able to walk again in an hour or so. I guess that means you won’t be cooking us dinner?”
“Ha ha. Why don’t I supervise Jill cooking dinner?” suggested Nathan.
There was a chorus of “no’s” from her friends and Jill.
“We all know that even with your keen supervision, I’ll still not win Master Chef,” lamented Jill. “I simply don’t care to learn how to be a good cook. If you guys become steady on your feet in about ninety minutes, we’ll go eat out. Otherwise, we will order in pizza. Michael, we should be safe now that Jason Brown is in custody, right?”
“Jake has officially arrested him for the prior murder a decade ago as well as the attempted murder of all of you. Since one of the paralyzed skiers was an FBI agent, he’ll do extra time for attempted murder of a federal agent. Jake may be able to charge him in Joseph Morton’s death eventually. Remember though that Bogachev is not in custody and he may have been behind either the snowplow or snowmobile attacks.”
“I think our chances are better with him than with Jill’s cooking, so let’s go for dinner in town if you guys get steady on your feet,” said Jo.
“I would be hurt by all of your disparaging remarks about my cooking except that I agree with you,” said a smiling Jill. “I’m going to give David a call and check on his progress and invite him to dinner with us. He was working on identifying the dart gun drug source for us, but since we caught Mr. Brown holding the smoking gun, we may be able to link him to Joseph’s murder without additional information.”
Minutes later David arrived in the suite amazed at what had happened during the past hour or so. He was glad to see Nathan, Marie, and the agent taking tentative steps signifying that they were nearly at the end of working the paralytic drug out of their systems. It also pained him to think of how Joseph died when he heard about the rescue operation up on the mountain. They had Joseph’s likely killer in custody. They had a call scheduled in an hour with Jake to get an update on his conversation with their suspect. Jill suspected that the FBI might stay in the area for a little longer in hopes of capturing Bogachev, but she would see what Jake said.
David had found the purchase of the veterinarian darts on the supply ordering computer system of RMCT. The delivery location was Jason Brown’s office. This would add weight to his conviction. They all wanted to ensure that he would be locked away for life.
Jo and Morgan completed the trace of the company’s and Brown’s financial records including some that were off-shore. The man had amassed a fortune he could not spend in his lifetime and yet he was still greedy for more. He should have walked away when Joseph started asking questions; instead he let his greed, ego, and psychopathic killer instinct rule the day. Now he was in custody, hopefully for the rest of his life.
While Nick was out skiing, Angela had been reviewing a series of photos of the hotel lobby and the ski resort to see if she could track Bogachev. She couldn’t locate him in the lobby shots but she had located him up on the mountain. She had found him on beginner rated ski slopes and at two different ski resort lodges. With the interior shots, he was often seen using a computer tablet. She had wondered if that was what he was using to stop the lifts. She went back and looked at the time on the photos and decided that it was likely what he was using. When she had
heard about the trouble up on the mountain, she had requested video feed from the resort for the two ski resort lodges for an hour before the incident. They had willingly sent the footage. She located him in the lodge, but since the resort had closed by the time she looked at the tapes, there was no reason to send any agents to that location. Therefore, they would discuss options for finding him after they spoke with Jake. They were curious as to whether or not Jason Brown had given up any information on Bogachev.
After watching Marie and Nathan each do a light jog around their suite, it eased everyone's mind about their recovery. Then they gathered around a speaker phone for the call with Jake.
“Hey Jake, it’s my team plus David and your agents. What is the news out of Denver?”
“First let me ask - Marie, Nathan, Agent, how are you doing?”
“We just did a light jog around the suite so I think we are fully recovered,” replied Marie looking at the other two and getting nods of agreement.
“Nick, you will be receiving an award from the FBI honoring your actions that saved the life of an FBI agent. I want to thank you for your actions.”
“He would have done the same for me,” said Nick simply.
“Yes he would have, but we don’t expect civilians to save us,” commented Jake. “I’ll move on to my interview with Jason Brown. He is quite a piece of work, and resting uncomfortably at St. Louise Medical Center, thanks to you, Jill. His journey off the ridge caused him to break his tibia and tear nearly every ligament in his knees. He also has a concussion and broken ribs and collarbone. He is presently flying high on narcotics and under heavy guard.”
“Did you have a chance to ask him about Bogachev?” asked Jill.
“No, he was under heavy sedation. David, he did confirm that he killed Joseph. I can’t use his confession because he could easily claim his brain was fuzzy from the drugs and maybe the concussion, but we’ll get it from him eventually.”
Jill put her hand on David’s arm and gave it a squeeze as he said “Thank you, Agent Porter.”
“The hospital believes he’ll be reasonably coherent later tomorrow or the next day and he’ll be ready to be transferred to the infirmary at the jail. I’ll keep you posted on any updates. We have also entered the offices of RMCT and seized their records. We have asked the FDA to appoint a panel to review any patient harm from the falsified trials. It will be slow going but we don’t have the expertise to do anything else but ask for outside assistance.”
“It’s important that someone focus on any harm that is occurring today with patients. From what I learned in looking at the studies, they were not so much harmful drugs as ineffective drugs,” Jill observed. “It will delay treatment for some patients and some may have passed away by now since some of the products go back five years. Broomfield Pharmaceuticals has a need to be briefed on the problems with RMCT's work so that they can begin looking at their records and notifying patients where necessary. Fortunately we noted in our research that this was twenty-five percent of their portfolio in terms of revenues but only ten percent of their portfolio in terms of patients using these drugs. I would think that while this will be a financial blow to Broomfield, they will survive due to successes with other drugs.”
“RMCT has relationships with other pharmaceutical companies so there may be other drugs and other patients at risk at the moment,” noted Jake. ‘We’re looking for our experts to help us with that. Tomorrow a press release will be sent out and a press conference will be held about the deaths of Sundin and Fisher, the capture of Brown, and a ‘be on the lookout bulletin’ for Bogachev. We will be making an announcement of the problems with RMCT during that press conference and will be distributing the press release to all major pharmaceutical companies which will serve to put them on notice if they used RMCT.”
“Do you know where Bogachev is presently located?” asked Angela.
“No I don’t,” replied Jake.
“I saw him on camera at one of the resort lodges at the time the T-bar stopped. That was about two and a half hours ago. He could be in Denver by now boarding a plane to Bimini.”
“Bimini?” questioned Jake as though Angela had said ‘Mars’.
“Doesn’t Bimini sound like a place you should hide if you’re wanted by the FBI?” reasoned Angela.
“Bimini is owned by the Bahamas and we can have you arrested and held for our arrival. If I were Bogachev, I would head home to Russia, stop off in Cuba, or drop in on the Middle East. We don’t have extradition agreements with most of those countries. Do you think he knows that Jason was arrested? What do we know about their relationship?”
“We don’t know much about their relationship other than we saw them together in the one bar and they seem to be working in tandem with one stopping the lift while the other was doing the killing. He had to have perfectly timed the lift stoppage so that we were in close range of the dart gun. Perhaps when we return from dinner, we’ll put our brains to work to solve this question,” suggested Marie. “We don’t even know if he is a very misdirected computer nerd or if he has been an active participant in any of the murders committed by RMCT.”
“If I recall, most of you are leaving tomorrow,” mused Jake. “Is that still the game plan?"
Jill replied, “I think everyone is leaving except me, Angela, and Nathan, and we all leave the following day. I was hired to find Joseph’s killer and we think he is in custody. I would argue Bogachev should be charged as an accessory. I assume, Jake, that you’ll be able to confirm Jason Brown’s role tomorrow?”
“Yes, I should be able to confirm that. Jill, would it be possible to hire your team to find Bogachev? You have greatly aided in the capture of two most wanted criminals and I agree he is an accessory to murder; I would love to get Bogachev as well.”
“I’ll have to talk it over with David and then my team and I’ll let you know later tonight,” replied Jill.
“Thank you, Jill, and again thank you, Nick, for saving an agent’s life today.” And the call ended.
“David, I’d like to chat with you on where we are in this investigation and your level of satisfaction with our performance so far. But let’s do that after dinner. I suspect the restaurants will be full tonight so we should get a move on. Thoughts on where we should eat and if we should drive - David, I assume you have your car here at the hotel and I have my car as well.”
“Is the restaurant far?” asked Jo.
“No matter which restaurant we pick it will be about a seven to ten block walk,” Jill estimated getting a nod of agreement from David. “I'm concerned with Marie and Nathan having the stamina to make it there and back. Taking a quick jog in the suite is one thing, walking that distance is another.”
“I would welcome the opportunity to walk that distance. You have no idea what a privilege it is to be able to do a light jog after those terrifying moments up on the mountain when I couldn’t move my lungs to breathe at all. Walking is sort of a celebration of life for me,” mused Nathan. “Marie, Agent, are you two up to a walk?”
Marie looked at the agent before confirming Nathan’s statement with a nod, “It is a celebration of life! Let’s walk.”
“Ok that is settled. David, you know this town best, why don’t you pick a restaurant and we’ll start walking,” Jill advised.
Shortly thereafter the group set off for the downtown area. David surprised them with a sushi bar. There was enough variety in the menu for everyone to enjoy and be filled up. A couple of bottles of warm Sake disappeared while the group dined. In total there were three agents, David, Jill’s team of four and Nick and Nathan. The group of ten had a large table with their own chef. It was a great night with good food, drink, and conversation.
The bill arrived and most of their credit cards were rejected for insufficient funds. At first it was embarrassing, and then Angela had an idea: “Was this Bogachev hacking into our credit cards?”
Fortunately, they all had enough cash to pay their dinner bills. The agents were abl
e to use their credit cards and everyone speculated it was because their names were not known. They each called their credit card companies to find out that someone was making a run on their credit cards. Jill was most concerned that the hotel they were staying in would get paid and her bank promised to contact the hotel to guarantee those charges.
“Aarrgg, that was a hassle, what other computer surprise does he have in store for us?” said Marie.
Jill decided she would notify Jake only to find her cell phone had quit as had everyone else’s in the group, including the agents. Bogachev must have gotten their names when they paid their bills.
“Wow, this guy is one of the best hackers I have come across,” exclaimed David. “And I should know since I have entered and won several hacking contests.”
“We’re lucky that you have a desire to teach kids rather than using your computer skills illegally,” teased Jo. “I can’t begin to imagine what else he can do but we will need someone to counter attack for us.”
David speculated, “I wonder where he is? Most hackers have to be within a range of so many feet to hack into your stuff. In the case of your cell phones, he likely masked himself as the telephone company and accessed your phone that way. He must have a portable cell tower - it is something you can buy for about a thousand dollars. Then he uses that fake cell tower to make contact with and control your cell phone like a routine refresh that occurs throughout the day.”
“So you’re saying that this guy is such a good hacker that he can get in just about anything that is operated by a computer,” Angela inquired.
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Hmmm, we will have to keep our eyes open for problems,” noted Jo.
“I think I see the first problem. My phone is working again and I received a text from my airline that I am on the FAA’s no-fly list, so they have canceled my travel plans for tomorrow,” announced Marie. “What a pain this is going to be trying to resolve this issue so I can fly again. We may need the FBI’s help on getting this cleared. Granted if I have to get stranded in some random location, this is not a bad choice.”