Mystery: The Sam Prichard Series - Books 1-4

by David Archer

  Sam held onto Indie with one hand, and drew his Glock with the other aiming it at the old fellow's face. Indie tried to push the gun down, but Sam held her back.

  “Indie, I've got this,” he said. “This bastard's been running a game for days, trying to get his hands on a deadly poison, a chemical weapon that could kill a lot of people. Are you hurt? Where's Kenzie?”

  “She's in the car, sleeping, and there wasn't really any gun pointed at her, Sam! He told me to say that because he figured the other guys were tapping your phone, by then, and he had to get you away from them. The whole Herman thing was my idea.”

  Sam looked at the southerner. “Look, I don't know what's going on, but you've got about two minutes before Ingersoll's specialists get here, and they're out to kill you. Wanna start explaining?”

  The old man carefully lifted his right hand and showed Sam a card, which he then held out to Indie. “Show him, please, my dear,” he said, and she reached past Sam and took it, then held it closer for Sam to see. It identified the old man as Special Operative Harold Winslow of the Department of Homeland Security.

  Sam looked at the old fellow askance. “According to your partner, you're an ex-CIA, ex-Navy SEAL who can't be trusted. Why should I believe this is real?”

  “Because if you don't, then all of us are about to die, and that bottle is going to be sold to the highest bidder! I'm trying to prevent that from happening, and I need your help, Mr. Prichard. If you'd let my agents speak with you in Arkansas, we'd be all done with this by now, and my cover would still be intact, but you're an incredibly good investigator. No one else has ever managed to track Eugene down from outside, but you did, and now you've destroyed a fifteen-year-long investigation into channels of entry for terrorist activity! We need to get into a vehicle and out of here, Mr. Prichard, now, before Eugene's team arrives!”

  Sam stared at him for a moment, but he knew he had to make a choice as to which of these men to trust. The thing that swayed him was that this man, Winslow, appeared to be completely alone, while Ingersoll was bringing in a team that he referred to as killers.

  He looked at both of them and nodded toward Winslow's Lincoln. “Get in,” he said, “let's get moving and try to sort this out.”

  Indie slid back into the back seat with Kenzie, and Winslow got behind the wheel as Sam got into the front passenger seat. His gun remained pointed at Winslow as the car got moving, but he glanced into the back where Indie and Kenzie were. The little girl was asleep, but Indie smiled at him happily.

  “I'm so glad you're okay!” she said. “Mr. Winslow has been filling me in, and he asked me to help him find a way to get you away from the ones you've been talking to. The Herman thing was all I could come up with.”

  Sam smiled back. “Well, it worked! I saw you had it tracking your phone, and when I realized the phone wasn't where he was saying it should be, I started to figure something was screwy.”

  “I hate to interrupt the reunion, but do you have any idea where Eugene's men might be coming from?” Winslow asked.

  Sam shook his head as he turned back to face the old guy. “No, only that he said they'd be five minutes behind me. I figure we've got maybe two minutes left. Better move fast, and hope we don't pass them on the way.”

  Winslow grinned. “We won't. Let's make some distance between us, and I'll try to explain as we go.”

  Sam nodded. “You do that!”

  The old man turned south on Washington, then took an immediate right into what should have been the continuation of 112th, but ended suddenly only a hundred yards later. There was, however, a narrow dirt lane that went on through the area, and Winslow followed it. It went all the way to Grant Drive, a thousand feet to the west, and then he turned north onto that street.

  “I'm going to tell you a story, Mr. Prichard, one that starts almost twenty-six years ago. Back then, I was still in the Navy, though no longer on active duty with the SEALs; I was more of a liaison officer, working with the CIA on matters that required the special talents the SEALs had to offer, such as recon, intelligence, things like that. Despite the stories you hear, SEALs don't get involved in assassinations and espionage, not usually. My job was to provide special consultants and contractors when needed by the CIA for special operations in other countries.” He paused and looked at Sam.

  “I'm listening, go on.”

  “In late June of nineteen eighty-eight, I was approached by my CIA contact about something that they had come across in Iran. There was some evidence of a new terrorist group coming together there, and it's entire purpose for existence seemed to be to destroy the United States of America. It was called Al Qaeda, and there were two men whose names were usually attached to it. Osama Bin Laden, and Abdullah Azzam. I'm sure you recognize those names, they've become rather important parts of American history, after all.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, Nine Eleven, The World Trade Center attack, The Pentagon, etc.”

  Winslow nodded as well. “Right. Back then, there was no idea that this group would ever get powerful enough to do such things, but they were getting so much attention that it seemed to warrant someone taking notice. The problem was that nobody wanted to. The CIA had tried to get someone to take on the responsibility of watching these people, but nobody wanted the job, so they finally came to me to see if I could start some fires under someone who might take some sort of action. I was successful in starting that fire, I suppose, because the next thing I knew, I was appointed to be Special Secretary for Intelligence Regarding Al Qaeda, and they became my own personal problem. I reported, at that time, directly to the President of the United States, Bill Clinton.”

  “How'd that work out for you?” Sam asked sarcastically. “Sorry, never cared for Clinton.”

  Winslow smiled. “Nor did I, but none of them were any better than any others. All he asked of me was to let him know of any activity by the group that might pose a threat to the USA, and I made my reports daily. I don't think he paid any attention. When he left office in 2001, George Bush wasn't even really concerned about them at all, until Nine Eleven, of course. That day changed everything. Within hours, I was out and the whole department I'd built was handed over to some young kid who was fresh from the CIA's analysis division. There was talk of bringing me up on charges, saying I'd failed to warn the President about the risk of such an attack; I avoided it by threatening to release the electronic files I had amassed over the past three years, showing every report I'd made. Several of them included rumors of attacks on the World Trade Center and attacks using hijacked airliners, not to mention the reports I made about middle eastern flight students who didn't care about learning to land!”

  9

  Sam smiled. “I heard about that,” he said. “You mean it was really true?”

  “Yes. Four students from Iran went to a flight school for commercial jets in Florida, and said they didn't need to learn to land, only to control the plane in the air to make it go where they wanted. Most of the staff of the school laughed it off, but one employee managed to make enough of a fuss that I heard about it and interviewed him. That report was one that went to Mr. Bush and was summarily discarded.”

  “Okay, then where does all this come in? All this going on right now?”

  “When I was released from my position, I was then recruited by the CIA, who needed someone to start putting together info on terrorist support groups. They had found that there were many organizations that had a singular purpose: to fund Al Qaeda operations within the US and other countries. Suddenly, I was running a division of the CIA that watched these groups, looked for connections between them and other groups, identified splinter groups that split off from them and built new networks. The damn things grew like wildfires, and most of them used drugs as the vehicle that brought in money. They patterned them after the street gangs we were already dealing with here in our country, and didn't even worry about what our police might do. The war on drugs meant nothing to them, because they paid well to their dealers and pu
shers and suppliers, and whenever we eliminated one group, two more sprang up to take its place.”

  “Yeah, the Hydra. Cut off one head, and it grows seven more, or whatever.”

  Winslow nodded vigorously. “Exactly, Mr. Prichard, the Hydra! No matter how many we took down, there were always more of them! We tried every method we could think of, and finally decided that our only hope was to infiltrate as many of them as we could. I volunteered for that duty myself, and built a new identity with bits and pieces of the histories of other men who'd been involved in the drug trade for a long time, and recruited other older men like myself to help out. We were all placed in different cities, given money to use for capital, and began working our ways into these groups. It's taken me almost ten years to build the cover that I'm blowing tonight, but it's important enough that I'm more than willing to do so. If that formula gets away from us, I don't even want to think about the lives that would be lost!”

  Sam's phone rang, but he only looked at it and shook his head. “Okay, look, I'm gonna admit that I'm so confused I don’t know which end is up. According to Ingersoll, you’re the bad guy and he's trying to recover this stuff to make sure it goes to Washington to get analyzed for an antidote. Now I've got you telling me how you're the guy who's been fighting terrorism longer than anyone else, and I don't know who Ingersoll is supposed to be! Can you tell me anything that might help me clear this up?”

  Winslow sighed. “Eugene Ingersoll was one of my recruits, many years ago. He and I have worked together to build this organization from the ground up, and make it a credible front for terrorist operations. By sheer coincidence, we were contacted four months ago by a member group of ISIS, who wanted to find a way to get a chemical weapon into the US undetected. This weapon, he said, would be capable of killing more people in a single hour than were killed in all of Nine Eleven's events. In the space of an hour, he said, merely pouring the liquid out onto the ground would cause everyone within a quarter mile to die in horrible convulsions. There is no antitoxin known for it, and without access to the formula, there is no way to make one. We agreed to carry it into the country, and I made very special arrangements so that we would not be stopped by customs anywhere, because this is the first sample of it that has ever been revealed. If we can deconstruct it, then it's possible we can make a defense against it; at the very least, we'll know just how dangerous it is, and what it can do. It's even possible that analysis can reveal where it's made, and we could destroy the manufacturing facility before more of it can get out.”

  “That doesn't answer my question,” Sam said. “Which one of you bastards am I supposed to trust now? If you were working together, then why are you on opposite sides now? Which one of you is actually trying to save the world, and which one is trying to destroy it?”

  “I'm not trying to save the world, Mr. Prichard, I'm merely trying to save lives. The world, I can promise you, will still be here long after we're gone! Eugene and I are on opposite sides today because he has become disillusioned by the forces in this world that simply don’t care, anymore. There are countries right now that would pay enormous sums of money for that bottle, so that they can toss it out of a helicopter over their own capital, or into a region where their enemies are prevalent. I know of one group who would pay well for it in order to use it against Al Qaeda itself, and don't think that wasn't a temptation!” He let out a long sigh. “Unfortunately, Eugene has been offered enough money that he wants to sell, and he justifies it to himself by saying that he has carefully chosen a buyer who won't use it in the US of A. They want to use it in the UK, instead, and it would probably mean the end of the Royal Court in England.”

  Sam laid the Glock in his lap. “Ingersoll says you're a killer, and that you're the bad guy. He told me he could see to it that this thing gets to DC or wherever, safely, but that if you get it, the girls and I are as good as dead. To be honest, the only reason I haven’t tried to kill you yet is because I'm not sure you couldn't take me out before I got it done, but it seems odd to me that if you're as deadly as he says, you'd be talking so much and trying to swing me to your side of this thing.”

  Indie spoke up from the back seat. “Sam—the thing that made me trust him was that, just before I called you, Mr. Winslow had a gun pointed at my face. When he asked me to get you on the phone, I was about to say no, and suddenly he turned the gun around and handed it to me, butt first, then put my finger on the trigger and pushed the barrel up against his own forehead. He looked at me, and then he whispered 'please,' and I knew I had to help him. Sam, I think we need to trust him.”

  Sam looked back and stared at her, then turned back to Winslow. He said nothing for a long moment, then took a deep breath.

  “Winslow, I'm gonna trust you. I...”

  His phone rang again, and this time he winked at Winslow and answered it. “Yeah,” he growled, and put the call on speakerphone.

  Ingersoll's voice sounded relieved. “Mr. Prichard, you’re alive! I've been trying to reach you—what about the hostages? Are they alright?”

  “They're fine, at the moment. What happened to your boys, who were supposed to save the day?”

  “My men arrived at the intersection and found only your car, Mr. Prichard, and no one else. Can you tell me what happened? How did you escape?”

  Sam shook his head in disgust. “I think you know I didn't escape anything, Ingersoll, because there was nothing to escape. Mr. Winslow and I have been having a very interesting conversation. Would you care to hear about it?”

  There was a low chuckle from the other end of the line. “I doubt I'd find it very enlightening, Mr. Prichard, but I'm sure you have. Very well, let's drop all the pretense and get down to business, shall we? We have found Rice, and we have copied the ingenious little program that is tracking Miss Perkins' phone, so we know where you are at this time. I'll give you one chance to turn this into a win-win situation, and then we'll just get to eliminating all of the problems at once. I know you've got the bottle, and you know that I want it. Hand it over to me now, without a fuss, and I'll give you ten million dollars, tax-free. You have fifteen seconds to agree.”

  Sam laughed. “Fifteen seconds? I don't need fifteen seconds, the answer is NO! You stupid son of a bitch, all I want to do right now is get my hands on you! Why don't we do this the old-fashioned way, you and me, settle this mano e mano? How about it? You kick my ass, the bottle is yours, I kick your ass, you do life in federal prison! Fair enough?”

  Ingersoll laughed again. “Oh, well, I didn't really think you'd go for it. Tell me, Mr. Prichard, do you hear a helicopter overhead? We used your program to piggyback on, and my team is flying up on you right now. I don't think you want to risk the bottle being damaged, so I would suggest you stop the vehicle now, and set it out on the ground. In fact, if you'll do that, I'll tell them not to fire on you, and let you all go on your way.”

  Sam looked around, ducking his head to look into the night sky in all directions. He glanced at Winslow, and saw that he was grinning. He made a motion as if he were tossing something, and Sam remembered the newspaper van that drove past them as the old man came to talk with Sam.

  He'd tossed the phone into the van, knowing that Ingersoll would catch on and start tracing it. That had bought them some extra time, and now Sam had to figure out how to use it.

  “Y'know, it's odd, but there are not helicopters around here at all. Are you sure you sent them in the right direction?”

  The line was quiet for a moment, and then Ingersoll laughed again. “Winslow, you sly old dog, I have really got to stop underestimating you. It appears you've beaten me, then, doesn't it? If we're chasing the wrong rabbit, then you've got the product and won't make the mistake of being where I can find you again, I'm certain. I'm going to concede this game, then, because I can't see a way to win. Mr. Prichard, it has been a real pleasure, sir. You're an excellent player in your own right, and I hope we'll come up against each other again one day. Goodbye, gentlemen, and ladies, of course!�
�

  The line went dead. Sam looked at Winslow.

  “Now what?” he asked, and Winslow laughed loudly.

  “We won, Mr. Prichard. We outsmarted him, and within a matter of minutes, there will be no trace of Eugene Ingersoll anywhere to be found.”

  Sam stared, and in the back seat, he could see Indie staring at Winslow, as well. “You're just gonna let him go? Isn't there any way to catch him? I mean, if I'd known you were just gonna roll over, I'd have called my pals at the PD and they could've picked him up.”

  “Mr. Prichard, Eugene is not as long out of the trenches as I am, and he's a very dangerous man. I don't think there's much hope we could have caught him, but I can assure you that there will be entire units assigned to finding him by noon tomorrow. He won't get away for long, none of them ever do.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Sam said. “Then explain Osama Bin Laden! It took more than ten years for your guys to find him!”

  Winslow burst out laughing. “Mr. Prichard, don't ever believe anything that comes out of the White House; Bin Laden isn't dead, he's been in a special holding cell under the Pentagon since two thousand and six! He comes in handy, now and then, so we hang onto him! The whole 'Bin Laden Is Dead' thing was so he'd give up any hope of ever being rescued.”

  Sam leaned back against the headrest and sighed. “You people are all crazy, you know that?” He took the bottle out of his pocket and handed it over to Winslow. “What about this, now? Why on earth was a doofus like Rice trusted to take this to St. Louis, and why was it going there anyway?”

  “I sent it to St. Louis because that's where the lab is, the one that was going to analyze it. The lady Rice was supposed to deliver it to wasn't part of the drugspot operation; she's with the Department of Scientific Intelligence. The reason Rice got the job was because we needed to make this seem like a low-priority mission, keep anyone within the organization from figuring out that it had any importance at all. Eugene and I were not the only two deep covers here, but only he and I were privy to the reality of the mission. When I learned that he was talking with a buyer, I called Rice and warned him off, but Eugene managed to send a team after me. That's how I lost my phone and couldn't make contact with Rice again.”