She looked up with beet-red, tearing, eyes and asked. “Who are you?”
“He’s my boss, Bart Long…, and the other gentleman is Steve,” Chase told her as he continued to stoke her hair. He remembered to not use last names. “They came from the head office in Chicago to help solve this case.”
“Are you guys the reason I’ve been pulled off the case?” She asked.
“This has become something more than we can discuss here in this building,” Bart said to everyone as he hung up his cell phone.
“What the hell is going on?” Haleigh Taylor beseeched Bart.
“Your captain will be getting a call from the Las Vegas Police Commissioner any second now. He will tell your captain you are still on the case, and you will be coming with us,” Bart explained.
“How is that possible?” She struggled to understand.
“It’s possible because we have a bigger mystery to solve and you’re going to help, Mrs. Sandborn.”
“How did you know we were married?” Chase Sandborn asked as he looked at his boss with shock.
“We knew,” Bart replied confidently. “You don’t think that you were sent here by random choice, did you?”
“I just thought that it was a coincidence,” she said with a clearer voice.
“We try to keep coincidences at a minimum, but I needed to make sure that Colt was released.”
“Why is he so important?” She now inquired out of curiosity.
“Come with us and you will find out,” Bart negotiated.
“Where are we going?”
“I have set up an office at the local branch of Dewey & Beatem, on Sahara. We need to get there ASAP. I have a van outside that will hold all of us,” Bart announced. “You can pick up your own cars later.”
“There is something else going on, isn’t there?” Loni uttered.
“I’ll explain much of it in the van,” Bart replied.
Chapter Sixteen
S
oon they were racing through back streets to the local offices of Dewey & Beatem. Steve was driving and Bart was in the other front seat. Banyon and Loni were right behind him, and Chase and Haleigh sat in the back of the van. Bart had instilled a sense of urgency at the police station, but had not provided any further information.
“So, can we talk now?” Loni asked.
“I’ve already swept the van for bugs,” Bart reported. “We can talk freely.”
“Here’s what I can tell you,” Bart started, but was immediately interrupted by the impatient Loni.
“You said our National Security is threatened. What is going on?”
“The President believes there is a threat to our national security,” Bart agreed with a shake of his head. “I agree with him.”
“How is the fact that inmates are dying a threat to our national security?” Loni quickly responded.
“Because he now believes the murders are an experiment and a new phase will be launched soon.” Bart let that sink in for a second.
“How?” Loni was digging into the problem.
“Maybe you should let me explain, Loni,” he chided her. “When the ACLU contacted him about the murders, he told Marlene Moore, the Secretary of Homeland Security, to look into the situation. They have been monitoring Haleigh’s work since then.”
“I didn’t know anybody was monitoring what I was doing,” Haleigh said in surprise. “It makes me feel kind of creepy.”
“Homeland Security can look into any crime and never tell anyone — you know that,” Bart pointed out. “Anyway, when you came up with the FedEx scenario, they decided to investigate the local ‘choke point’.”
“Choke point?” Loni repeated. “What’s a choke point?”
“The FedEx center in Las Vegas,” Banyon stated matter-of-factly. “All incoming FedEx packages arrive at the center before they are distributed throughout the area.”
“That’s correct,” Bart replied. “They collected sixteen books addressed to inmates on Death Row and sent them by messenger to their forensic lab.”
“That’s why we couldn’t find any more books being delivered,” Haleigh shouted from the back of the van. “Homeland Security already had them.”
“Also correct,” Bart said patiently. “But when they started to analyze the packaging and contents, they found something very scary.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense, for God sakes,” Loni cried out. “What did they find?”
“They found nanobots.”
Chapter Seventeen
“B
ut isn’t that just science fiction?” Loni asked with concern. “I mean, nanobots don’t really exist do they?”
“They are not science fiction anymore,” Bart replied grimly. “The Homeland Security forensic people are sure the devices they found are nanobots. They are still studying them, but I’m told the tiny machines are very advanced. The scientists will let us know if they find anything more.”
“But I don’t know anything about nanobots,” Loni whined, “Except what I’ve read in several novels and those nanobots were very scary.”
“We are going to get up to speed on nanobots very quickly when we get to the office,” Bart told everyone as he turned in his seat and addressed the other riders. “We’ll need that information to solve this case.”
“Oh boy,” Banyon commented sarcastically. “Just what I need is a crash course in advanced scientific technology.”
Bart ignored Banyon. “I’ve instructed Timmy, back in Chicago, to scrounge up all he can about nanobots. He will give us a briefing when we get to the office.”
Timmy was the in-house scientific geek at Dewey & Beatem. He called himself “The World’s Best Hacker” and had proven it on several occasions. He was very good at conducting research on the internet, and if he couldn’t find what he wanted there, he would hack into someone’s secure data to find out what he wanted to know. He also had a small army of helpers to dig out data.
“But doesn’t the President have hundreds of more qualified people at his disposal? Couldn’t they solve this mystery?” Loni now asked.
“That’s the real problem,” Bart shot back. “From what the forensic people have discovered, some of the technology appears to come from government funded experiments,” Bart explained. “The President doesn’t know who he could trust in the scientific community. Some of them may be the killers.”
“Wait, aren’t nanobots supposed to be good, though?” Haleigh questioned from the back seat. “I mean aren’t scientist looking into using them to fight diseases and stuff? How have they suddenly turned into something evil?”
Banyon gave her the quick answer. “Nanobots are microscopic non-thinking machines. They’re programed to do tasks. They can also carry a payload, like a small truck. They follow the program and dump the payload exactly where they are instructed. That makes them a distribution system, and if the payload is something lethal, well, they then become killing machines with no conscious.”
“Well, how did they get from the books into the victims?” Loni wondered. “Is it purely by chance? Does someone have to touch them?”
“I supposed they probably walked.” Banyon’s statement sent a chill down everyone’s spine. They realized that no one was safe. “If they are true nanobots, they would have the ability to move and seek out their target. The target might be a specific organ or a blood vessel. We are not talking about one or two nanobots either,” Banyon continued. “They probably travel in swarms. There could be a million of them in an area the size of a pinhead.”
“But we did autopsies on all the victims. We didn’t find anything unnatural,” Haleigh protested.
“They are microscope and could have been missed by the pathologist,” Bart remarked. “They weren’t looking for little machines.”
“Or they could have self-destructed,” Banyon commented. He had read several books on the subject. “They could also have simply marched out of the bodies and disappeared down a drain or something.”
“I think they are trying out the product. The killings are a trial test to see how effective the nanobots perform,” Banyon explained. “It also explains why a syringe was used to infect the product.”
“Why?” Haleigh asked.
“My guess is that they haven’t yet found a better delivery system for the nanobots. Or maybe they have only a small supply of nanobots right now. But it is just a manner of time until they perfect the delivery system and try again,” Banyon said.
“Then this really is a national security matter,” Haleigh announced from the back seat. “Think of this, what if these terrorists decided to target only left handed people, for example, and had a delivery system capable of identifying who was left handed. They could kill off all left handed people without any risk to themselves. They could just dump a bunch of these machines on the floor and they would walk to their victims. Nobody else would even know what was going on until it was over.”
“That’s right,” Bart replied. “So, in essence, we are chasing terrorists who are experimenting with ways to kill people.” But Bart found out later that he was only half right.
“We’re at the office,” Steve called out.
Part Three
The Information
Chapter Eighteen
A
very old man looked out at the two young people with rheumy eyes. He smiled as they rode by and waved to him. He was seated in the large, covered, back patio of his horse-farm estate in Vernon Hills, Illinois, about thirty miles northwest of Chicago. He had owned the estate since the mid-fifties, when there was nothing but farmland surrounding his ninety-acre kingdom. Horses had been a dominating force in his long life. He delighted in sitting out on the warm late spring day to watch the young people ride his horses.
He was ninety-two years old and rarely left his country estate anymore. He was now confined to a wheelchair, but that had not always been the case. In his earlier life, he had been very active. The old man had once been a spy. He had been a spy for the Nazis and then a spy for the inept Russians during the cold war, all because of horses. His hands were very dirty and his bank accounts were very full.
He had grown up in a small town in Germany. His father taught him to love the academic disciplines, but he loved horses more. As he grew up, he realized that he could work with both. He specialized in horse science, at the university. At that time, horses were still the backbone of German transportation, especially for the defeated military. He began experimenting on horses as soon as he was old enough to buy supplies. He believed that one day he would develop a super-horse and it would lead Germany to new heights.
When Hitler came to power in the early part of the thirties, he quickly joined the Nazi party. They promised him unlimited funds for his experiments. He became a committed Nazi scientist, with the rank of Major in the army.
During the war he spewed out hatred and committed violence just like the rest of the lunatics. He could be as fanatical as any of them. He spent many months in the field, collecting specimens for his experiments. He took what he wanted and gave no apologies. He was sometimes required to work on humans too, but his main focus was breeding and experimenting on the powerful horse.
He was content with his life, but when Germany lost the war to the Allies, he knew that he would be prosecuted. Hence, he slipped into America with the aid of some people who spoke of a new cause that was taking root there. They called themselves the Effort. They wanted to take over America and mold it into a new Third Reich. He was more than happy to help, especially since they promised to fund his experiments. They even provided him with a suitable wife. She unfortunately died of leukemia almost thirty years ago. She had been a spy too, just not a good one.
The catch for the old man was that he was required to do fulltime spying for the organization in America. It had started over seventy years ago and now he was the senior member of the organization called the Effort.
Spying was easy for him. He established himself as a successful horse breeder shortly after reaching America. His clients were the wealthy and powerful. They all loved horse racing and he became a fixture at race tracks all over the country. While watching the long race schedule each day, the wealthy and powerful often chatted. They discussed new technology and products their companies were developing. The spy absorbed the information and passed it on to the Effort. They paid him a lot of money for the information.
In the nineteen-sixties, he was threatened with exposure by the Russians. They had figured out that he was an old Nazi and attempted to blackmail him. He decided to pass them some information too, for much more money. All the while, he was able to continue his experiments and had plenty of money to spend on horses. The Russians went away in nineteen eighty-nine. By then he was very wealthy.
***
He waved to the young boy as he flashed by on a chestnut colored mare. The riding pen was just outside the patio where he sat. The boy had potential as an equestrian and was granted use of the old man’s pens to work out. The boy grinned as he worked his horse over the various jumps situated around the pen.
The old man sat up a little straighter as the girl friend came into view. The girl made his heart race. She was tall for a young woman, with long blond hair that flowed and flapped in the breeze caused by the speed of the horse. Her ample breasts bounced with each gallop of her horse. He watched as she moved higher in the stirrup to make the next jump and he focused on the saddle as it slapped her small bottom. If only I was twenty years younger, he thought. I would rip her off that horse and drag her by her hair into the barn. I’d ride her like a pony in there, just like I did to several women in Poland during the war.
His fantasy was interrupted when one of his many loyal servants appeared at his side. The man was dressed in a white serving jacket, complete with a black tie and black pants. He had worked for the old man for many years.
Bernard Schultz insisted that all his servants dress formally all the time. The maids were required to wear dresses and the men wore serving jackets. He was in many ways very old school and felt that wearing the proper attire reflected respect. He dressed in his signature black and white checkered blazer complete with black tie and white shirt every day, just as he had when spying on people at the race tracks.
“Your daughter has entered the estate,” the man said.
“Very well,” Bernard Schultz replied. “Tell her where I am when she reaches the house. I was expecting her.”
“As you wish, sir,” the servant replied and bowed.
Chapter Nineteen
“H
ello father,” he heard a female voice from behind him say with a drip of sarcasm. The greeting had, once again, brought him out of one of his many fantasies. He craned his neck to look at her.
“Glad to see you, Brenda,” he croaked out, and meant it.
He turned his wheelchair to study his standing daughter. Today she wore a Vera Wang custom tailored green business suit, with green shoes and a colorful scarf gracing her shoulders. The skirt didn’t quite reach her knees. She wore diamond earrings, a diamond broach, and a silver necklace with a diamond pendant riding high on her chest. She looked like a wealthy, successful, business woman. She also looked remarkably like the young woman of her fathers’ current fantasy.
Brenda was actually fifty-five years old and didn’t know about, or care about, her father’s penchant for tall, slim, blond, women. She did, however, realize she was very similar in looks and personality to his now dead wife, and knew he liked that. But Brenda only cared about the things that she could control.
Brenda was not Bernard’s real daughter. He and his wife couldn’t have any children. She was always too sick for birthing. In her last years, his wife begged him for a daughter to help her with chores around the house. He wanted a replacement for his nonfunctioning ailing wife. Bernard had a high libido
. They got both, when they adopted a precocious fifteen year old orphan named Brenda.
Brenda was a product of the street. Her crack-whore mother died on her when she was thirteen. She was then shuffled from foster home to foster home, where she would immediately get into trouble. Brenda didn’t mind doling out sexual favors, as long as someone paid her for them. She had learned the trade from her mother.
The street smart girl soon realized that she could play the dual role of daughter and wife in the Schultz household. The reward was control of the considerable assets of Bernard Schultz. He promised to teach her his business. Also she would inherit his estate when he died. The estate was worth over a billion dollars.
It wasn’t easy; Bernard was a tough old bugger. He was sometimes bitter, aggressively violent, and loved to have frequent sex in the barn. He attempted to dominate her, just as he had his wife. But Brenda was no ordinary girl. By the time that she graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in biology, she had become a cold, hard, calculating, woman with a firm plan for her future. She had learned how to manipulate him.
She had uncovered the truth about her adopted father and mother by listening to their conversations. When they didn’t think she was around, she would eavesdrop in on their discussions about spying. This eventually led to a unique form of dual blackmail. She threatened him with exposure of his past, and he threatened her with talk of cutting her out of the will. For forty years the threats continued with both of them, winning and losing, small concessions. She now had a large bank account and he still was able to visit the barn on occasion.
When Bernard started to slow down, Brenda was just hitting her prime. She began to dominate him. He continued to teach her and she continued to absorb. They did have topics to talk about, though. They actually had several things in common. They both loved horses, they loved to conduct biological experiments, they loved to dominate people, and they both were white racists.
A Dubious Device: The Nanobot Terror (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 10) Page 6