Foreign Threat

by Mitchell Goldstein

  They sped along parkways and side streets that Steve never knew existed in his hometown of Minneapolis. They were going so fast that everything seemed to be a blur. He knew it was for good reason. If Bill Thomas did get away, not only would they lose their suspect but also that all so important computer chip.

  As they were making record time to the airport, Steve wondered why – or how – anyone could give up vital secrets and put so many people at risk. It was a selfish act of terrorism, conspiracy, and treason. Steve knew times were hard financially and that nothing else seemed to matter to a person after hitting rock bottom. The situation was even worse for Bill Thomas, compounded by his recent divorce and diagnosis of cancer. Steve obviously didn’t know the details about Thomas’s divorce, but if it involved something like infidelity, then Thomas was probably beyond feeling any remorse for his actions. He probably didn’t have enough emotional feeling to perceive how his actions would affect others.

  Steve wanted more answers but decided that this was not the time to inquire about the emotional status of Agent Thomas. They just needed to catch him before he got on a flight. Steve wanted to say so many things to Erica, but he feared that any disruption of her concentration might jeopardize their lives as she drove like a mad woman. He just stared at her instead from the passenger seat.

  “Are you happy now, Dr. Carmichael?” she asked with a smile.

  “Well, this is not what I hoped our second date would be like, but I will take what I can get.” Steve chuckled. “But yes, I wanted to finish this business before we parted ways. Who knows? Maybe this could be the start of a partnership for future international espionage!”

  Erica laughed. “Perhaps, but if I were you, I wouldn’t quit your daytime job. You are a good doctor who loves his patients and work.” She reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Then she added with a warm smile, “I could see us being partners, just not work-related partners.”

  No sooner had she said this than Erica was pulling on to the airport road and racing by a line of cars that had pulled over for her siren. On the squad car radio, Steve heard voices from others who were already in the airport. “He must not have a gun. He just went through security, and nothing went off. I think he is headed down Terminal B. Don’t know which flight he is headed for, though.”

  Erica picked up the intercom microphone and started rattling off orders. “This is Miller. Don’t move in too close. We don’t yet know what his plans are. He might be meeting some fellow enemies, and we don’t want to startle them. This might be our only opportunity to nab more than just Thomas. Just keep a watchful eye on him. I’m just pulling up to curbside at the front entrance.”

  Another voice quickly followed Erica’s. “I’ve got him in view. He hasn’t glanced back once. Not sure if he is meeting anyone, but we will keep back until he is about to board the plane.”

  With the siren still blaring, Erica raced the car right up to the main entrance. She darted out of the vehicle and into the building without any hesitation.

  Steve followed obediently.

  She looked over her shoulder and said, “Please be careful, and promise if there are gunshots that you’ll hit the deck and not be a hero!”

  Steve laughed. “You are worried about me. That is so sweet!”

  “Steve, promise me now! Otherwise, I will have you apprehended before you can get to the gates. I do care about you, and I will not lose you because of some stupid decision. Promise, Steve!”

  “I promise!”

  Chapter 53

  Steve raced through the crowd, doing his best to keep up with Erica. She was dodging people left and right as she ran toward the security to Terminal B. As she approached, she waved her badge in the air and ran through the scanner without any resistance from the airport security agents. Then she quickly pointed back to identify Steve and told the airport security that he was with her, knowing he had neither a ticket nor a badge.

  Steve saw the interaction between Erica and the security agent but slowed down to wait like every other person in line rather than cause a ruckus by butting in line. It actually gave him a minute to collect his thoughts about Erica. He was confident that she had the same feelings toward him, although she was a little conservative when it came to expressing her emotions. Perhaps because of her job or a bad relationship in the past, whatever the reason, Steve was just happy to know she acknowledged some attraction toward him.

  He couldn’t hear any particular commotion or gunshots. He knew they had to be cautious so as not to startle Thomas and scare him or his associates off into the wild, but still Steve expected a small gun battle. However, things seemed very quiet beyond the security checkpoint.

  A few people in front of Steve complained about the lady who just got to pass through, but Steve just smiled to himself. Little did they know, she was out to protect them in the long run.

  It took a surprisingly short time for him to get through the line and security checkpoint. Soon he was a free man inside the airport terminal, racing down the corridor to find Erica and the rest of her gang, though he would have no idea who they were. There was a possibility that Thomas too might not recognize the other agents in the airport, but he certainly would recognize Steve.

  Steve was somebody that Thomas wouldn’t really care to see. More importantly, Steve was still on this man’s hit list. Would Thomas just pull out a gun and blow Steve’s head off if they crossed paths? Odds of this were less likely since the man had already made his way through security without any hitches, but Steve slowed his pace so as not to draw extra attention to himself.

  Steve tried to find Erica or one of her colleagues who may have looked familiar, but no one came into view. He nonchalantly made his way to the first gate and scanned the waiting area without success. Then he walked to the next gate and so on. He slowed his motor even more as he searched, not wanting to give away his identity to Thomas.

  Steve was at Gate 17 when he realized he had inadvertently scanned right past her. He turned his head back to refocus on her, and her eyes met his but not with a romantic gaze. Her eyes looked angry, tough, and concerning. The nonverbal communication was clear to Steve. She briefly looked to her left, and he followed her gesture.

  Sitting as patiently as any other paying customer was Bill Thomas. He seemed completely unaware of the agents around him and oblivious to the fact that he was about to be pounced by almost a dozen CIA agents.

  Steve didn’t need another warning. He slowly backtracked his steps and nonchalantly made an about face. He tried to look as though he were searching for a lost family, scanning the crowd around the neighboring gate. He shuffled away from Thomas’ line of view.

  Steve found a collection of payphones and computer outlets at a table two gates away. He found a comfortable spot to sit and observe from afar. He couldn’t see Erica anymore, but he could see the gate where she and Thomas were.

  Steve heard the loudspeaker announcing the boarding of American Flight 322 to San Diego. All the people around that Gate 18 stood up to inch closer to the gate. Thomas got up, stretched his body, and tried to make his way closer to the gate with everyone. He clearly had no idea what was about to happen. There weren’t any indications that he was meeting anyone there, but Erica’s team was waiting until the last few minutes before boarding just in case he connected with someone.

  Thomas was about twenty people back from the ticket agent. Soon it was ten people. Then Steve noticed Erica and a few robust men creeping closer to Thomas, who was still unaware of his surroundings.

  It happened when he was first in line at the counter. He was handing his boarding pass to the gal and- boom! Just like that, Erica’s team descended on him. Several men began apprehending him while another read him his rights. The handcuffs were on in less than fifteen seconds.

  The element of surprise had worked in the favor of Erica and her team. Thomas had expected his pursuers to be looking for him in transit from up north. He offered little resistance.

  Ste
ve finally approached Erica as Thomas was whisked away. Never once did Thomas lay eyes on him.

  “I guess he wasn’t planning on meeting anyone here,

  huh?” asked Steve.

  “I can’t help but wonder if the deal went totally sour once he couldn’t get rid of you,” Erica replied. “You were the last straw to his completion of the deal. We know they didn’t want to take any chances if there were still potential leaks in this arrangement. I suspect he had made plans with another group that he was going to meet somewhere in California. We are going to send an agent acting as Thomas on the plane to see if he is approached by anyone. He has Thomas’s cell phone as well as identification showing him to be Thomas. We will just have to see how that pans out.”

  “What about the chip?”

  “Good question! We still need to find that little old thing. We will take Thomas in for questioning and examine him. I am heading over to his house now to go through the place and see if he left it there to save for later. I don’t think he would take the risk of going through security at the airport and getting caught, nor do I think he would take it with him to meet someone because then there would be no security for his safe return. They could just kill him once he handed over the chip.”

  Steve argued, “He could have gone through security at the airport just like you did, waving your badge around and then flying through.”

  “Yes, you may be right, but I still think he was too smart to take the jewels with him while making a deal. He would have no collateral, and he would have to trust more strangers – and you learn early on never to trust anyone! Right, Carmichael?”

  Steve knew she was teasing him.

  They left the airport without any more commotion.

  Her car remained parked right next to the door to the ter-

  minal. They climbed in and sped off to Thomas’ apartment without any more conversation.

  Both passengers were in their own little worlds, not really paying attention to the talk on the radio. Erica was talked out for the time being, and Steve was trying to piece everything together.

  Despite no shared verbal communication, their hands found each other halfway between the driver and passenger seats.

  Chapter 54

  As they pulled up to Bill Thomas’s residence, the radio blared. Both passengers remained lost in thought, their hands still clasped together.

  Several other cars parked outside the moderate size apartment building. A few men were walking around the yard between the garage and the apartment itself. Steve understood that these were other agents working with Erica.

  Erica gave one extra squeeze before releasing his hand and pulling herself out of the car. “What have we found so far?”

  One of the men replied, “Not much in the garage. We’re just getting started in the apartment. I don’t know if we are going to find much here, but he could have hidden it anywhere. It’s like looking for a needle in haystack. Seriously, he could have put it anywhere in the building: the walls, mattresses, furniture, electronics, the list goes on.”

  Erica walked by him as if she didn’t want to listen to anything he was saying, but she knew he was absolutely right. “Then let’s start taking down the walls!”

  Steve took his place behind Erica. This was her show, and he didn’t want to get in the way. As she made her way inside to talk to the other agents, Steve went off on his own. He didn’t want to be dead weight, so he made his way slowly through the kitchen and up the stairs. The apartment was relatively empty, but Steve figured it was a result of the recent divorce. The poor guy had probably lost a fair amount of his belongings in court.

  Two bedrooms were upstairs. The master bedroom had one of the bathrooms directly off the left-hand side, and the other was along the hallway that connected the two bedrooms and a den area. Steve didn’t think the rooms were not a big deal. Even the master bedroom was kind of boring. No paintings hung on the wall, no decorations cluttered the bedrooms, and nothing too exciting enhanced either of the bathrooms. Steve quickly explored the complete upstairs but still didn’t want to bother Erica in her investigation.

  He returned to the master bedroom for more careful examination. He noticed a small television at the end of the queen-sized bed. The guy probably didn’t need anything bigger at this point. Steve observed that the bed was made perfectly, as if no one planned to use it for some time.

  A walk-in closet had a number of black suits hanging next to several shirts and sweaters and two trench coats. Steve chuckled to himself about this stereotypical attire of CIA agents. Thomas had never gone undercover with those garments.

  Steve knew better than to touch anything. Anything in the building could be part of circumstantial evidence, and Steve certainly didn’t want his prints anywhere close. He tried to imagine where the chip was stowed. It could be in any of the pockets of the clothes, under drawers, in sink plumbing- the list was endless. Steve knew they were going to have to examine the house room-by-room and foot-by-foot. He walked into the bathroom again, bland and boring. None of the drawers were open, so he walked back into the bedroom.

  The television was on a stand that had two doors on the bottom. He gently kicked the right door to see if it was spring-locked. The door popped open to reveal six or seven DVDs. Steve bent down and noticed that four of them were stacked nicely. Three were comedies, and one was drama. Scattered in front of them were a few X-rated flicks. Oddly, they were still in their wrappers, except for one. Even that torn wrapper was lying in the cabinet. Steve stared at the titles for a minute. How strange that appeared, one open nudy flick with the wrapper still in the cabinet lying next to three other unopened nudy DVDs. It felt especially weird because the rest of the room appeared to have been untouched for a period of time.

  Steve didn’t want to judge a recently divorced man. He gently pushed the door to the TV stand shut with his foot. Then he looked for something else to explore, wondering if he could possibly come across the computer chip and then be the hero in this tale of international espionage.

  The room otherwise appeared to be perfectly normal. Everything was where it should be, tidy with no clothes or socks dangling from the furniture. It looked great if it were Steve’s parents’ room, but for a single guy it just seemed weird to have everything in perfect position and not messed up in the slightest.

  Steve made his way to the other bedroom. It was quite smaller but just as clean.

  He paced idly around the room, pondering what would happen if the chip wound up in the wrong hands. It could change the world forever. It could alter foreign policy with many countries and affect the lives of countless people. Steve didn’t know what was on that chip, but its value was reflected by the number of people who had lost their lives and the many more who were working nonstop to find it.

  As Steve thought, he walked over to a window and gazed outside. A few men were taping off a perimeter so that no one would enter the area until it was carefully scrutinized by the authorities.

  He realized that the window itself could be a hiding spot. As he studied its frame, his imagination wandered. What if Thomas drilled a hole behind one of the few pieces of artwork that was in the house? What about the garage or outside or the yard? The possibilities were endless.

  Steve wondered why Thomas would hide it. Why would

  he not take the chip with him? The chip on the black market would probably be worth millions. If the group he was working with wanted to bail on him, there would be some other slimy group that would pay for the information on that chip.

  What would be the advantage of leaving that chip behind? Thomas could hide it and come back in a few years when the heat on him was gone. He could pick up the pieces of his life and attempt to sell his precious chip. The only problem with that would be that in two or three years, the info on the chip would be history and not be worth nearly as much. In the meantime, the United States would have a chance to make the appropriate changes in their foreign policy to lessen the consequences of the info on
that chip.

  What if Thomas still had the chip? All those people were working through the apartment, but the hunt would prove futile if he had the chip with him.

  Steve knew the CIA would interrogate Thomas harshly to discover the exact location of that chip. He may not have been the most intelligent guy in the world, but he had been hired to be a part of the agency. He must have had a little common sense to get that far. Just a few rounds of bad luck compounded by a rough marriage had led him to make stupid decisions. If that wasn’t enough, he had to go through cancer surgery. Such serious life changing events would cause some serious stress.

  As Steve continued his thought process, he almost felt sorry for the guy. His sympathy didn’t last long as he thought about the four people who lost their lives because of this idiot. Jake, Sue, Karla, and A.J. each lost their life just because of a selfish, lonely man.

  Steve heard a commotion in the master bedroom. He hurried down the hall to find a few of the agents mulling over something at the bedside. At first, Steve thought they found something of value and important. They were jumping around and laughing initially. Then the laughing changed to this horrific moaning of disgust. Steve was almost afraid to walk any closer. He knew he was probably not even supposed to be there. He had arrived with Erica, but she was no longer in sight. What would they say to him, a true civilian wandering alone in the middle of an international espionage dilemma?

  Still Steve had a genuine interest in the commotion and activity at the bedside. His interest was too much, so he inched his way toward the group of men. As he got closer, he picked up pieces of the conversation.

  “That is just wrong for a man!”

  “I think I am going to hurl…Yuck!”

  The agents were standing in front of the left side bed stand. The bottom drawer was open, and inside was a clear plastic wrapper. This guy sure likes to keep his wrappers, Steve thought. One of the men wore a pair of plastic gloves and was dangling an apparatus from his fingertips.