by W B Garalt
“Do you think it was any of our people?” Brad asked. “We’re looking for four, not one or two.”
“We don’t have anything else to go on yet, let’s go on over to the lab and see what we can dig up over there,” Chip directed.
“I’m kind of beat,” Danyel said. “I’d rather crash at the guest house and pick it up first thing in the morning.”
“Not a bad idea,” Brad added. “I need a little sack time to get my head around this calamity, plus we have a ‘loaded gun’ parked in the boathouse,” he added, referencing the armed Caravan Amphibian.
“Thanks for the warning!” Danyel exclaimed disingenuously. “I saw the altered console. It’s a good thing I didn’t push any buttons out of curiosity. I remember your briefing about fitting out the floatplanes but I didn’t get a briefing on how to use it.” At that point Chip relented and they drove back to the guest house.
Chapter 20
While the perilous drama and intrigue was taking place in the Canadian Atlantic provinces on Wednesday morning, a nervous Jessica Knowles was on the job early, rather than her customary slight tardiness. She had slept fitfully, and was downing her second cup of coffee in an attempt to clear the cobwebs in her mind. She needed to alleviate the uneasy feeling that was caused by Maggie’s uncharacteristic lack of communication.
During the previous day, when Maggie did not answer her cell phone or reply to the texts that were sent, Jessie rationalized that urgent business assisting Max was the probable cause. There were requests from one of Maggie’s most treasured clients that Jessie knew Maggie would want to respond to, and the texts had hinted at that without naming names.
After she had closed the office for the day Jessie had tried to reach her boss from her personal cell phone. She was relieved to finally get a reply from Maggie’s number around 10:00 PM and was dumbfounded when the caller hung up. Jessie thought she had heard a muffled voice, or voices, followed by a scratchy sound like someone dropping or fumbling the phone…and then nothing. She had called back but Maggie’s phone was on ‘off’.
When she tried to reach Maggie from the office on this morning the cell phone was still dead. The agenda Maggie had set called for her return today by late morning to mid-afternoon, depending on the flying weather. According to the on-line weather service, the northeast US and the Canadian coastal area currently showed fair conditions. Jessie was certain that a call before take-off would have been made, or else a notice of a delay would be sent by now.
“Something must be wrong,” Jessie thought silently. “Who-in-hell can I contact?!” She was beginning to panic and was trying to keep herself calm and composed, just as Maggie would do. Her first instinct was to call Max, although she had a feeling that it may be futile as well, because Maggie would obviously use his cell phone if hers was dead. Sensing that there was nothing to lose, she looked at the emergency contacts list Maggie left and entered Max’s cell phone number. The phone picked up but there was no greeting.
“Hello! Hello! Max, is that you?” Jessie shouted into the mouthpiece. The phone clicked off.
“Somebody answered that cell phone but it wasn’t Max,” Jessie sensed. “He wouldn’t have just hung up,” she theorized. Now Jessie knew now that they were in trouble. The next emergency number on the list was the USAP headquarters. Jessie dialed and received an almost immediate answer. The reception of the call was courteous but it was an almost recording-like, stock answer designed for an unknown caller who could be a salesperson, petitioner for donation, etc. Looking further down the list she saw Eugene Van Dyke, Atty. Jessie was surprised to see the Mayor of East Wayford listed on Maggie’s list but, in desperation, she entered the number. A secretary answered the call and said she would give the Mayor the message. Within three minutes the office phone rang.
Upon answering the Marshall Real Estate Services phone, Jessie recognized the Mayors voice.
“Is this Jessica?” the Mayor asked? Surprised that he would know her name, Jessie answered to the affirmative and apologized for the disturbance but explained very briefly that her boss had left this number for emergency purposes. After listening to Jessie’s recap of the break-down in communication between her and Maggie, Gene Van Dyke suggested that she had done the right thing by calling him and advised her to stay at the office phone during business hours. The Mayor took her personal number with the assurance that he would get back to her with any information that would shed light on the mystery of the communication breakdown.
The next call Gene made was to a friend of Maggie’s, and Max’s, who was an F.B.I. Inspector. While awaiting a return call he contacted a fellow lawyer he had known since they went through law school together. He was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney General’s office in Washington, DC. Mayor Van Dyke was aware of Max’s involvement with USAP and had provided a positive reference in his regard when Max was being considered for a Partnership position there. The conversation between Gene and his longtime friend resulted in an assurance that a long-standing, mutually-cooperative connection was in place between the top levels of US and Canadian government officials. This was especially true with matters pertaining to customs and immigration. He indicated that information on the whereabouts of Max, Maggie and their cohorts should not take long to gather. He expected to have results before the day was over.
At the USAP headquarters in Ithaca, all hands were on deck this day responding to requests from Senior Partner Harold Lee ‘Chip’ Chaplain. All employees, especially those with Canadian contacts in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, were asked to apply all existing USAP resources in order to turn up leads to the missing Partner’s whereabouts.
A massive pool of high-level investigative personnel and their supportive staffs had been assembled and spurred into action within three hours on an otherwise ordinary October Wednesday morning. It stemmed from phone calls from Chip to his crew and Jessie Knowles to the Mayor of East Wayford, CT.
Chapter 21
Maggie was fatigued, hungry and scared. Her purposeful, successful and fulfilling recent lifestyle had been turned up-side-down. Not long ago her mind-set had been that, she had attained a financially secure lifestyle, although lacking in any clear future in terms of a personal involvement. However, having a family of her own with a man that she felt for deeply enough that it could be described as love, was a remote idea. She had a sense of emptiness. The void of sharing her thoughts and ideas with another person, without the possibility of having it turned back on her, made her think she was incapable of trust. Having such an open and enjoyable life was for romantic dreamers, she was convinced. The upside was that all of her energies were channeled toward her career. It was paying off in dollars, but the down side was that she was becoming emotionally bankrupt.
These morose thoughts were jarred loose as the vehicle into which she and Max had been shoved hit a sharp hurdle in the roadway. She was jostled toward Max who had also been jolted by the bump. Snapping back to the present predicament she and Max were in, the good and caring feeling for him returned. Her life had changed dramatically since her relationship with Max had begun. It rapidly grew, from their first meeting, to the dream she had almost given up on, and she had never looked back after that. Her feelings now, as opposed to being mostly about her emptiness, were more about Max and her, knowing that the future was alive with the promise of hope and happiness.
Maggie’s cramped arms, throbbing hand and growling stomach, however was the reality. The immediate future for her and the dearest man in her life was unpredictable, to say the least.
Max had a splitting headache, partly from hunger, partly from the rough physical punishment, but mostly from trying to think of some way of getting free from these treacherous, non-English-speaking captors. Not knowing their motives made it hard to out-think them, especially here in their homeland. The connection between the Native-Canadians who abducted them from the laboratory and the New Brunswick local police was not clear. The patrolwoman that arrested them seemed almost obligated to t
urn them over. It plainly was not correct police procedure. These people were not acting in an official capacity by any stretch of the imagination. They were gang members, seemingly of the same ancestry. Thinking back, Max realized that the policewoman also had the same physical characteristics. He hadn’t given that similarity any thought since things happened so unexpectedly. Their innocence of any possible unlawful acts along with the official trappings, patrol car, the police uniform, and the badge, had triggered his automatic response to authority. He was totally blind-sided by what occurred.
They had been traveling for some time and by the sound and dust seeping into the van, they were on an unpaved road. Max’s thoughts turned to Maggie.
Ever since Maggie un-taped and untied him in the van on the ferry, and he was aware that they were in grave danger, he felt responsible, or more like guilty, for getting her into this situation.
“Mag”, he asked quietly, “how are you doing?”
“Okay, how about you?” she asked in return.
“I feel like shit for getting you into this,” he said in a hushed tone, as Maggie shook her head. “No, it’s my fault,’’ he insisted, for not recognizing that something was wrong with this Nova Scotia purchase-thing after our first trip. What happened then was no accident. It wasn’t a prank. Now that I think back, it was probably the same group that grabbed us this time, and I didn’t pick up on it.”
“Look Max, I laughed it off just like you did,” she whispered. “How could we have predicted this? This is a criminal abduction over something that we have no clue about.” Max sighed and had no follow-up. He was sensing a shade of hopelessness.
“We don’t know where we are, where we’re going, or what they have in mind for us,” he said, trying to hide his desperation. “I’d cross my fingers if they weren’t so numb,” he quipped, not for humor but out of habit. Maggie just uttered “Hmmmf,” in response.
The roadway, or path, was becoming lumpier and the van was slowing to a lower rate of speed. There was animated talk back and forth between the captors in the rear, who were tending their captives, and the driver. The van slowed and then stopped. Maggie sat upright to look through the windshield. The younger captor, the one with the damaged face, turned and elbowed Maggie roughly back down onto the floor of the van.
“Keep your hands off her!!” Max yelled as he tried to get at the young lad. The youngster smacked Max in the face with his fist. Max slipped backwards with a grunt as blood came trickling down his cheek from a cut that opened up on his cheekbone. The youngster was wincing and holding his hand which he obviously had sprained. He was apparently unaccustomed with fighting with his fists and not very strong, but the amateurish punch was enough to make the small abrasion.
“Max, Oh God… Max!” Maggie cried out. Max calmed her down and indicated that he wasn’t really hurt, although the front of his clothing was splattered with blood. The door slid open and the two captors climbed out into what appeared to be a clearing in a wooded area.
The abductors walked their captives along a path through underbrush and boulders to a wide ledge along the side of a mountain. Looking down, a wide, smooth-surfaced river eased its way toward an ocean bay. Maggie and Max were pushed backwards to sit on a flat slab of rock facing the river which was approximately 60 ft. below the ledge. Behind them, brush piles were being moved to reveal a black cave opening, or deep, natural grotto. Looking over her shoulder, Maggie could barely make out what appeared to be an iron gate inside, set back from the opening.
As she turned to tell Max about the ironwork, she could see that he was staring intently across to the opposite bank of the river.
“What the hell is going on over there?” he asked rhetorically. Coming plainly into view at around 200 yards distance, groups of 4 to 5 men and women were climbing into canoe-like boats and paddling across the river toward their location. In all there were six boats. The passengers appeared to be dressed in Native Indian costumes and blankets with straps of seashells around their necks. The paddlers were stroking to the beat of a cadence of voices, which were coming into hearing range.
“My God, it looks like a war party. Look at the painted faces!” Maggie said. One-by-one the canoes neared the river bank below the ledge and disappeared behind the shoreline shrubbery.
“We’re facing east,” Max said, “judging by the angle of the shadows. We must have come along that road from the bay area to the left, and that would be south. Can you see that land on the horizon across the bay?” he asked Maggie. Maggie nodded in the affirmative.
“That has to be Halifax,” Max stated assuredly. “At least we have our bearings, for what good that will do us,” he thought, sitting manacled and helpless on a stone bench on the side of a mountain.
From somewhere higher up on the mountain, a whooshing, moaning sound could be heard. Max looked up to the source of the sound and saw what appeared to be an old shed, or barn-type structure. Almost simultaneously a heavy metallic clanking came from the cave opening. The noises had a mourning tone that made the back of Max’s neck tingle. As he glanced around to the cave opening he realized that it must have been part of a mining entrance constructed many years before. The whooshing and clanking was repeating at 10 to 15 second intervals, sometimes louder than other times. It seemed almost to be sounds from an ocean side port, or harbor, with recurring wave activity of an incoming tide. “But how could that be coming out of a mountain?” he thought, pointlessly.
“Do you hear that moaning sound, Mag?” Max asked, idly.
“Yeah, it’s kind of creepy....but what in hell isn’t, lately?” Maggie responded, in a despondent-sounding monotone. Max realized, now, that Maggie was reaching the limit of her usual positive thinking and resourcefulness. “Who could fault her for that, after what they had been through during the last two days of pure hell,” he thought silently. “Why was this happening? What did he, or Maggie, or both of them do to provoke this brutal abduction? What was this all leading to? Where were the others in their entourage?” Under normal circumstances Max had always been aware of his existence in time and place and was not easily surprised at occurrences within his immediate environment. At this point, however, his mind was becoming clouded and inundated with anguish. Maggie seemed to be resigned to some terrifying fate, and his thoughts were bordering on hopeless resignation as well. It seemed as though the two of them had been transported into a sort of suspended, isolated, drawn-out nightmare. Was this the effect of some type of drug? If so, it certainly was convincing.
Chapter 22
Former Field inspector Don Chace, now the EAD, or Executive Assistant Director of the NSB (National Security Branch) of the F.B.I, and a friend of Max Hargrove and Maggie Marshall, had gotten word from Gene Van Dyke, Mayor of East Wayford, Connecticut, that the couple who assisted him in bringing a serial killer to justice in East Wayford, two years earlier, were missing in Canada under mysterious, international circumstances. Chace had met and spoken with the Quebec Commissioner of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) several times since being promoted to his present office and they enjoyed a mutually-beneficial camaraderie. The Quebec Commissioner had been promoted to his position in gratitude for his service in a situation similar to Don Chace’s. Don had recommended Max for the Partnership position in USAP, a civilian organization which Chace admired for their integrity and professionalism as international private security providers.
When the Canadian Commissioner returned Don Chace’s phone call, Chace detailed his association and friendship with Max and Maggie. The Commissioner told Chace that he would get back to him with any information that he may be able to garner from the Halifax police department. By Wednesday afternoon, Chace had received a confidential e-mailed portfolio of data concerning the death of an Ernest Bickford, owner of the Bickford Marine Laboratory in Halifax. The portfolio initiation date was three years earlier. Recent addendums to the initial inquiry noted that USAP had recently been inquiring as to, and investigating the status of, the Bickford L
abs property and operations. At the time of his death, the deceased owner of record for Bickford Laboratory was Ernest Bickford, who was also a ‘Partner’ of USAP. The real property and intangible property ownership had since been transferred to Ernest Bickford’s widow, Mahlah. Ernest Bickford’s death, which had occurred in Halifax, had been listed by the provincial coroner as accidental, but subject to further investigation. The cause of death was listed as decapitation and dismemberment of the upper right torso, from contact with a revolving airplane propeller. The site of the death was at the Bickford Laboratory-owned guest house in Halifax. A request that the airplane, owned, and registered to Bickford Laboratory Ltd at the time, be confiscated and shipped to the RCMP Central Forensics Facility for testing, had been buried in a diplomatic international query, at which place it remained for a period of time. Additionally, Bickford Laboratory was under monitoring for possible illicit drug trafficking in connection with a South American Drug Cartel.
Assistant Director Chace was surprised at the cloud of suspicion surrounding Bickford’s death and the Bickford Laboratory site. That the matter was being looked at by the top Canadian law enforcement department of illicit international drug trafficking was hard to grasp. More important, in Chace’s puzzlement, was how an astute association such as USAP, known as being above reproach in matters of legalities and law enforcement, could be involved inadvertently.
His curiosity was increasing more and more. Beyond that, he felt compelled to find out what involvement Max Hargrove and Maggie Marshall had in this scenario, and what trouble they might be in as a result. Chace had considered them suspect once before, in a totally different matter, and had come to realize that the couple had been innocently connected and more than competent in proving themselves free of any guilt. On the other hand, his professionally-trained inspector’s mind automatically wondered, could the innocent involvement be an instance of habitual repetition on their part?