by Martha Carr
The other men, nearly all Scandinavians and most Swedish who like himself were heading to America to disappear, rushed to assist. Within moments the only evidence of the night’s events were a few small brown spots on the bulkhead and a splintered doorway blamed on a drunken passenger.
Wahpeton, North Dakota
April 13th, 1913
Torvald Balch sat on the porch of the timber frame house he’d built with his own hands, with the help of neighbors and hired workers that is. He sipped at the glass of homemade akvaviit he’d distilled from a portion of the wheat that grew in his fields and flavored with anise root from Elisabet’s herb garden near the house. Torvald surveyed his own three hundred and twenty acres of earth. Land that stretched as far as the eye could see, more than enough open space to see the Czar’s men coming if they ever found him again.
His eldest, Mikael, had just returned from medical school in Germany and was beginning a country practice in the border regions of the Dakotas and Minnesota. His youngest daughter Elsa had been born here, a few years after arrival.
Torvald liked America. Still, every morning when he rose from the bed, he kicked a heel back gently to touch the suitcase with the false bottom, making sure it was there, in case they had to run again.
About Basil Sands
Basil Sands is the author of numerous thrillers, novellas, and short stories. He’s also a professional audiobook narrator. Born on a homestead near Fairbanks Alaska, he served in the Marines, was Chef to the Spies (military dining manager at the NSA), computer shop owner, lumberjack, EMT, Scout leader, radio host, and IT guy. He lives in Anchorage Alaska with his Porsche driving Korean wife, and has three grown sons and a Yorkie named ‘Heimdall, The Norse Dog’. His current series, ICE HAMMER, as well as his back list of novels are published/republished by Permuted Press.
Four
Paranoid in Paradise: A Rick Banik Thriller
By Craig Martelle
Attitude can make anywhere a paradise, Rick Banik thought. It didn’t hurt that he was lounging by the resort pool overlooking the ocean. Anyplace can be paradise, indeed.
His wife, Sadie, lounged next to him, sunglasses covering her closed eyes. Too many Mai Tais the previous night. Rick had taken it easy, drinking plenty of water between the endlessly flowing Hawaiian specials.
They left the kids at home. The vacation for Rick Junior and Kate was to have free run of the house while their parents were gone. And they were only a phone call away, just in case.
A man wearing a European style swimsuit, small and hugged the body, sat in the shade by the bar. He was pasty white and looked to have no intention of getting into the sunlight.
Rick had noticed the man because people-watching was Rick’s hobby. He did it both naturally and intentionally. No one else looked out of place, so Rick adjusted his beach chair and slipped on his sunglasses.
The foreigner held the most interest and that ratcheted up by a number of degrees when he was joined by another man, who made no attempt to blend in. He wore belted, loose fitting jeans, a polo shirt, and leather loafers.
Rick got up and strolled to the bar, keeping his sunglasses on, taking a seat not far from the two gentlemen, where Rick waved to the bartender. He listened intently. They were speaking Russian.
Gotcha, you not-so-sneaky bastards, Rick thought, having no idea what he caught them doing.
Evelyn and Kate were surprised to see Rick and his wife. They’d worked together a while back at the Agency. The two women had taken an assignment together after they were married and now lived and worked out of San Francisco, which put them close enough to make Hawai’i a perfect vacation destination, even if they weren’t necessarily on vacation.
They ended up at the Holton Waikoloa, outside Kona, where they spotted Rick at the bar, looking conspicuous in trying to look inconspicuous. They had to laugh.
Same old Rick.
Rick felt the bump as someone hip checked him into the bar. He turned, angry, readying a retort.
All four foot eleven inches of Evelyn Stowe grinned at him. He had to hug her and immediately lost track of the Russians and their conversation.
The only think he’d heard was that the Russians were going to take something and he wasn’t sure what it was. They hadn’t given enough clues for him to break it down. He was torn, looking back at the Russians and then at his old friends.
Kate punched Rick in the chest. She was much taller, almost bone thin. Her bare knuckles wouldn’t leave a bruise. There just wasn’t much to her.
“You two look great!” Rick said defensively.
“Bullshit! I’m still short and Kate is still too skinny!” Evelyn countered. “What brings you here, Rick Banik, master of worlds?”
Rick hung his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Russians pack up their iPad, stand, and walk off.
In a hurry? Rick asked himself . Kate’s boney knuckles bounced off his shoulder, startling him back to the chance meeting with his old acquaintances.
“You are the absolute worst super-spy in the history of island lairs!” Kate exclaimed, far too loud for Rick’s comfort. “Give it up. The Russians are gone. You shouldn’t worry about those two. It’s the French guys you need to pay attention to.”
“What French guys?” Rick asked. Evelyn and Kate laughed at him, pointing. “Very funny. I see you two haven’t changed.”
“I’m sorry, are you working? I thought I saw your wife over there,” Evelyn said, turning serious.
“Well, we’re on vacation, but…” Rick started.
Evelyn held up a pudgy hand. “Then be on vacation. You are such a dumbass. You know your wife is watching right now as you’re chatting up two hot babes at the bar?”
She ran one hand slowly down his chest.
“Nice try. I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you,” Rick offered, before dragging the two women to the other side of the pool, looking back at the empty place where the Russians had been.
After a mini-reunion, the four gathered their belongings and headed back to their rooms. Rick and his wife were staying in the Ocean Tower at one end of the sprawling resort property. Evelyn and Kate were staying in the Lagoon Tower at the other end. The property was so large that it operated its own tram that ran from one hotel tower to the next and the next, then back again throughout the day. There was also a boat service using a canal that paralleled the tram, but the boats only ran in the afternoon.
Rick and his wife, Sadie decided to take the tram while Evelyn and Kate walked. They didn’t have as far to go and the walkway was filled with artifacts and historical tidbits, making it more of a museum stroll.
They had decided to meet up for dinner, which was less than an hour away. “They’re not here on vacation,” Rick told his wife.
“What makes you say that, besides your terminal paranoia?” Sadie asked.
“They were every bit as interested in the Russians as I was. I can’t believe they outed me.” Rick shook his head and pursed his lips as he tried to remember what exactly he’d heard from the two men.
“Outed you? You’re undercover now?” Sadie asked pointedly, stabbing Rick in the chest with a finger. “Do I need to torture you until you have fun? We’re in Hawai’i, if you don’t remember. Look at this!”
She waved an arm to take in the ocean, statues, and even the architecture of the resort.
“Amaze balls,” he replied, kissing her on the cheek. “Let’s go, I feel an interrogation coming on, over dinner with a fine Cabernet.”
Rick and Sadie hurried to their room, cleaned up, changed, and returned to the central lobby where they waited.
And waited. Thirty minutes beyond the agreed-to meeting time, Rick went to the desk and asked to call. The receptionist handed him the phone as it rang. No answer. He tried the cell phone number Evelyn had given him. No answer there, either.
They ran down the walkway to the Lagoon Tower, up the stairs, and to the room. Rick pounded on the door.
Nothing.
Evelyn and Kate were jokers, but they were also serious about eating. They wouldn’t miss dinner just to get a rise out of Rick.
Or would they?
Rick and Sadie ran down the stairs and into the open air. Rick tried to orient himself, but he had nothing to go on. His friends were missing and he knew so little about them and why they were there that he couldn’t fathom a guess as to where they might have gone. He called Evelyn’s cell phone again, this time leaving a voice message to call him back. He left his number, Sadie’s number, and their room number.
Next stop was hotel security.
“My friends are missing, and I need help finding them. Your security video could probably shed light on the situation,” Rick suggested.
“People go missing all the time, missing to the beach, to the pools, to the Lagoon Bar and restaurant. There’s no need to look over security video. Be patient and your friends will show in due time,” the large Hawaiian security guard told them, smiling broadly.
“Not these two! They fall into the category of the most boring people on the planet. There’s no way they are blowing us off!” Rick countered.
“Here, have a couple meals at the KPC, our finest restaurant, compliments of the hotel.” The man continued to smile broadly, not in the least bit swayed by Rick’s arguments.
The security officer’s radio crackled. “Security Chief, Bob here. We found what looks like a pool of blood, a lot of blood. We’ve restricted access to the area. What are your instructions?”
The smile disappeared from the man’s face. He shoved the meal vouchers at Rick and walked off without another word.
Rick tried to follow, but the security chief waved at the concierge to intercept him and Sadie.
Rick didn’t hesitate, even though he’d gotten in trouble and a month suspension for doing it before, he pulled his credentials and waved them in the man’s face. “You will not interfere with me, do you understand?” Rick growled. The concierge saw the words, ‘Central Intelligence Agency’ and put his hands up, stepping back. Rick rushed after the large Hawaiian.
The man had run once he was around the corner and was far ahead when Rick made the turn. Sadie had no intention of running. “Check the video, anything of the walkway from here to the Lagoon Tower. I’ll be back,” Rick called and bolted away.
Sadie shook her head and turned to the concierge, stabbing a finger into his chest. “You heard the man, let’s go check some video.”
Rick changed his angle and ran across the tram’s track, climbing the stairs to gain a vantage point where he could see the security chief. Rick saw the man check behind himself. Satisfied he wasn’t being followed, he disappeared down a walkway where Rick couldn’t see anything.
“Dammit!” Rick ran down the steps, jumped in front of the slow moving tram, then fled in front of it until he could get back on the walkway. He sprinted, his anger driving him faster and faster. He quickly outpaced the tram and when he reached the Lagoon Tower, turned back across the tracks. He ran toward the elevators, where he blew through the caution tape, and rammed directly into the security chief.
They both stumbled and fell. The chief was incensed. Rick rolled over and pulled out his credentials.
“This is an Agency concern. You can be a part of the problem or part of the solution,” Rick told the man.
“I think only one of us here is a part of the problem,” the security chief said acidly. His smile from before was nowhere to be seen.
“Look. We have a mutual problem. Let’s solve it together,” Rick offered, standing up and trying to help the other man. He pushed Rick away and delivered a couple choice F bombs as way of an exclamation point.
A second man appeared. “Sorry, brah, nothing but tomato juice,” the man said.
“I want to see it,” Rick demanded. The security chief gave him the finger. “I WILL see it, and you can take that finger and shove it up your ass.”
The security chief nodded abruptly then stormed off. The second man was cold as he turned and walked casually around the corner from the elevator. There was a small walkway between the Waikoloa Coffee Bar and the walkway leading to the Lagoon Tower’s rooms.
A trash can had been moved out of a puddle.
Rick used the flashlight app on his iPhone to light the wall. Tomato juice was more orange. Behind the orange there was the reddish brown of what looked to be drying blood. He got on his knees and looked over the puddle on the ground. He could smell the tomatoes, but he could see the deliberate splattering.
“There’s blood here,” Rick said, looking up to find himself all alone. The second security guard had left. “Good job, Rick, you alienated the people you need to help you get to the bottom of this,” he told himself.
It was Hawaii, which meant that he was still in America. He looked at his cell phone, then dialed nine-one-one. After a brief conversation, he settled in to wait.
Sadie was in a back room with one of the IT professionals that the hotel maintained on staff. He was only too happy to break up the monotony of his day in telling guests how to use the internet.
He flipped the various video views, of the boarding platforms for the tram.
“What do you have of the walkways?” Sadie asked.
“Nothing. We have very few cameras, you see,” the young man answered helpfully.
He ran one view back to a point when Rick, Sadie, Evelyn, and Kate parted company. She pointed the couple out to the young IT professional, but there was nothing he could do. There was no continuity from one camera to the next. Sadie watched the feed show her and Rick boarding the tram.
One view of the tram platform in front of the Lagoon Tower showed the two women walk past, hand in hand when they were approached by a man.
“I’ll be God damned,” Sadie said.
It was one of the men Rick had been watching at the pool.
The encounter became heated and the shorter Evelyn pushed the man away. The two women ran out of the camera’s view. The Russian gathered himself and jogged after them, following, but not in a hurry.
There were no other videos showing where the man or the two women had gone.
“Let me guess,” Sadie started. “You have enough cameras to get the insurance discount, but not enough to actually see anything.”
“Bingo,” the young man replied.
It was the way of modern business. Sadie was going to have to tell Rick that he was right, but that they had nothing. She marked the time of the altercation on a scrap of paper and then thanked the young man, excusing herself to go find her husband. She didn’t want that kind of information passed over the phone.
Sometimes, Rick’s paranoia was contagious.
Sadie walked briskly along the walkway through the Hawaiian native displays. She continued to the stairs on the left that led to a bridge above the tram and to the upper levels of the tower. To the right, the elevators and the ground floor. She texted Rick to find where he was. As she was waiting, two police walked past her with the security chief in tow.
She followed them to the right, around the elevators, to the spot where Rick was still examining the blood, using his hands to replay the blood splattering and the possible ways someone could have been injured in that spot.
“Not cool, brah,” the security chief told Rick, glaring.
Rick explained what he was looking at, being careful not to mention Evelyn or Kate until he had more information although his gut screamed at him that they were involved.
When the police waved Rick back so they could take a closer look at the puddle, Sadie pulled him aside. “They had a bit of a throw down with the first Russian you saw at the pool,” Sadie whispered into his ear.
Rick nodded. “Where?” he mouthed.
“Platform right over there, I think.” She handed him the scrap of paper. “That’s the time it happened.”
One of the officers waved Rick to him. “What did you say you do?” he asked.
Rick leaned in close and showed his credentials, keepin
g them tightly to his chest so anyone casually passing by couldn’t see.
Rick had blundered through the tape and it was still flopping on the ground as passersby checked the officers out.
“You have no jurisdiction here,” the man stated clearly.
“I don’t need jurisdiction to report a crime,” he replied, holding up one hand to show that he wasn’t going on the offense. “I believe one or both of the victims were our agents and that the perpetrator could have been a foreign national, a Russian specifically.”
The man looked closer at Rick, then he leaned in. “I was a cop in Seattle for a lot of years, and you know what? I think you’re right about the blood. There’s a fair bit of it under that tomato juice. Let’s get some particulars on the two who are missing.”
The man took many notes, but didn’t give the impression that there was much he could do.
“What’s next?” Rick asked, checking his watch, disappointed by how much time had passed since the Russian confronted his friends.
Ninety minutes.
Too much could have happened in that amount of time.
“Can’t we ask people if they saw anything?” Rick asked, losing patience.
The man nodded and put a hand on Rick’s shoulder. “Let’s figure out what happened, but more importantly, what do you say we find your friends?”
Rick smiled broadly, happy to have someone committed to the same goal.
“You can call me Dan,” the policeman told Rick. “Let’s start here.”
The small coffee stand called the Waikoloa Coffee Shop had been closed the entire time Rick had been there, but the roll up window was slightly open. They both leaned down to look through and Rick was surprised to see someone in there, cleaning up.