The Scientist (Max Doerr Book 2)

by Jay Deb

Janco was sleeping late, watching the TV from his bed, and doing what he liked most – gazing at the pond, the green terrain, and the cypress trees, something he could never do in jail. One day Gibbs came in and said he wanted to replace the electric clock provided by the hotel.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Janco asked.

  “This one is better.” Gibbs held up a larger clock. He unplugged the old one and put in the new clock.

  Janco knew the clock was replaced for a reason. Two days later, Janco put a piece of cloth over the clock, and within two minutes, Gibbs was in Janco’s room.

  Janco knew he was being watched through some video recorder inside that clock.

  A FEW DAYS later, Janco was bored and wanted some change. So he started doing pushups in the mornings and freehand exercises in the afternoons. The most tiring and sometimes painful times were the nights when darkness fell outside and time refused to move forward.

  A week later, he was desperate; a desire to know what was in his future was growing in his mind like an oak tree, slow but strong. Gibbs wasn’t telling him anything, and Janco wondered if the Iranians changed their mind about taking him in.

  The uncertainty was killing him, anxiety gripping his heart, and Janco started feeling it would be better if the FBI showed up and took him back to prison, back to a hard but stable life. Maybe someday his son Mark would visit him in the big house with his grandkid’s photos.

  Another week passed by without Gibbs telling him anything about the Iranians coming to meet him. He had no money, no passport, and no friends, but Janco started wondering if it was possible for him to run away from Gibbs’s grip and be truly free.

  Chapter 8 New York

  Back in his apartment, standing on the balcony, Doerr was sipping cold water from a bottle, mulling over the next phase in his life. It was three p.m., and the traffic on the road down below was swelling.

  He was thinking of ending his employment with the agency. He’d been hurt too many times, and he wanted to leave the death and deception of the espionage world.

  But then what would his next job be? A school teacher? An unappreciated member of a music band? He wasn’t sure.

  He put the water bottle down on the table and was getting ready to go out for a long walk.

  Then his phone rang.

  “Hello.” He picked it up on the third ring. It was Alison Stonewall, the CIA director.

  “How is your vacation going?” she asked. “Enjoying it?”

  “Yes. I’m enjoying my wretched, lonely life.” Doerr didn’t hide his feelings. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. As for you, why don’t you shake off the dust and hit the dating circle.”

  “I don’t want to hit any circle. I’m just bound to my own sad life.”

  “You really, really loved your wife,” Stonewall said sympathetically, “didn’t you?”

  Doerr said nothing, the silence denoting agreement.

  “Listen,” said Stonewall. “I just got a report from GIP that the investigation into Rafan’s murder in Idris Hotel has been closed. You remember they asked for our help on forensics. I think the Saudis were scared. For some reason, this case was very important to them. Don’t know why. Anyway, we sent some FBI forensic guys to Riyadh. First thing they did was remove your fingerprints and your DNA from that suitcase and its contents. The suitcase you left in the hotel.” Stonewall laughed.

  “Thanks. I was concerned about that.”

  “And the man and woman you injected the tranquilizer into were unable to remember much, certainly not your face because the authorities brought a sketch artist, but they couldn’t remember. It might have been the medicine or the trauma. So now you’re in the clear. You can even go back to Riyadh for your next operation, and there will be no trouble.”

  “I don’t want to go to Riyadh,” said Doerr. “I don’t think I’ll work for the agency again. Would you work for someone if they killed your spouse?”

  “Well, first of all, the agency didn’t kill Gayle. And secondly, the last time you left the CIA you chose to work as a newspaper editor. You hated your job and ended up coming back to the agency. Remember?”

  “I remember. But this time it’s different. And I may not need a job. I have no family, no kid. Maybe I’ll move to Ohio or Iowa and work as a security guard somewhere. The expenses are less there and this time I’ve no one here. Both my wife and son are gone.” Doerr had had a teenaged boy named Billy, who had been murdered in New York.

  Stonewall sighed and said in a somber tone, “Life can be difficult sometimes, Max. Take your time to mourn. Then come back.”

  Doerr said nothing.

  “You know something else happened,” Stonewall said, cheering up.

  “What’s that?”

  “That man you wanted freed from the Saudi jail. Remember?”

  “Yes. Aslam Saleb, Ibrahim’s brother. Ibrahim was the one who told me that Rafan was going to be in Idris Hotel that day. He told me a story that his one brother was killed and another jailed. His story was a bit cockamamie. But I didn’t care. Tell me what happened?”

  “I gave that name, the date of birth and where he was born. The Saudis told me they did not find a match. In fact, they checked out all six Aslam Salebs they have in their custody and beat the hell out of them to see if their date and place of birth was wrongly recorded on their birth certificate. But it looks like Ibrahim’s incarcerated brother is a fictional one. If he exists, for sure he isn’t rotting in a Saudi jail.”

  “Strange,” said Doerr, but he knew that in the international crime scene nothing was odd. He was thankful to Ibrahim for the information he had given at no cost, and he wondered why Ibrahim had made up the story of a jailed brother. “Do you know who the woman was with Rafan that day?”

  “I’ve been told the woman was from a secret escort service. They prosecuted her and sentenced her to ninety lashes. They tracked down the escort company, closed it down, and gave a death penalty to its owner.”

  “Unbelievable!” Doerr knew that the law in that country permitted capital punishment for sex-related crimes, but this was the first time his activity had led to that sort of barbaric judgment.

  After the phone call ended, Doerr started his laptop and logged into his Gmail account. He clicked on the button labeled Compose. In the to-email field, he typed: aslam19760527@ gmail.com, the email address Ibrahim had given him as a contact. In the body of the email, he typed How are you? and then he clicked on the send button.

  Within a minute, he received an email that said ‘Undeliverable message,’ indicating Ibrahim’s email address was nonexistent.

  He called the NSA and was told that email ID had never existed.

  Doerr wondered why Ibrahim had made up such a long story. He must have known that all Doerr needed was a phone call telling him Rafan’s whereabouts; after that, Doerr would have taken care of the ruffian. He thought Ibrahim’s weird behavior was an eerie reminder of the fickle world he lived in.

  Doerr’s mind was filled by the hazel eyes of his late wife, her pink cheeks, and the freckles on her shoulders that he had kissed a million times. He took another sip from his bottle of water. Drops of tears flowed down his cheeks.

  His heart was flooded with melancholy, only a tiny corner of his mind joyful that he’d taken the life out of Gayle’s killer. On his gmail account, he clicked on the sent folder and located an email he’d written to Gayle before she had made that fateful trip to Rome.

  From: Max Doerr

  To: Gayle Doerr

  I want to say a lot of things. But when I think of you, all words get lost. Where they go I do not know. I am thinking of your beautiful eyes, your silky red hair waving down from your head, touching your freckled shoulder where I wish to rest my head – forever.

  My work here is almost over. My source is telling me the target is becoming nervous, more on that later. You’re aware I can’t write much about that. Rest assured I’ll finish the job soon and come back to you. Together, we will go to a f
ertility clinic, again, to a new one, the one on Seventy-Third Street. I heard good things about it. We will have our child soon.

  Don’t work too hard. Stop working during the night.

  Love.

  Max

  Doerr clicked on Inbox and located Gayle’s reply to his email.

  From: Gayle Doerr

  To: Max Doerr

  I think of you all the time. I dream of you standing at the door with a bouquet of roses in one hand and a box of Belgian chocolates in the other like you did so many times. Then you carry me to the bedroom and take care of me…like you always do.

  Actually I was not dreaming. I was thinking of that. Daydreaming. I don’t see dreams anymore. Do you see dreams, Max?

  Come home when you can. Safely.

  By the way, I have stopped going to the park. Too many people and I don’t feel safe anymore. I will go once you are back. I don’t have that much work these days. We are in a freeze period. Just a thought – why don’t I come to Rome and spend a few days with you?

  Is that possible?

  Your love – Gayle

  Doerr read that email eight times. He wiped the tears and then hit the delete button. Gayle had longed for a child desperately, but they had trouble conceiving. A visit to a fertility clinic, artificial insemination and a multitude of hormone injections had been unable to make Gayle pregnant.

  IN THE EVENING, Doerr was headed for Soho in New York, to join his longtime buddy Brian for dinner. On the way to the Metro Station on Sixty-Eighth Street, he saw the coffee shop where he’d been innumerable times with Gayle, chatting, debating, and sometimes even arguing. Attracted by the memories, he stood at the gate for a few seconds, and the coffee smell hit his nostril like a bee sting. He rushed away; the coffee smell only reminded him of Gayle’s dead face.

  He put his hand inside his jean-jacket pocket and felt the Marlboro pack. He smoked occasionally, a habit he’d picked up after Gayle’s death. Now he badly wanted to take a drag from a cigarette, but it wasn’t legal to smoke on New York streets anymore. So he decided to have a smoke on Brian’s balcony later.

  After the train ride, he reached his friend’s place, where eight or nine other guests had already arrived. Once Doerr settled down, Brian introduced him to Ashley, a thirty-something pretty woman. He was sure his buddy was trying to hook him up with her, and this wasn’t the first time Brian had done that. He’d told Brian and his wife to stop doing that, but they never listened.

  Later, Doerr held the balcony rail with one hand and the beer bottle with the other. He was done smoking. The party was over, and the other guests had left. Brian joined him on the balcony, and Doerr stood in front of his longtime buddy.

  Brian turned his face away and peered at some distant object.

  “Nice girl. Huh,” said Brian, still looking away, obviously talking about Ashley.

  “Yes. She is nice,” Doerr said. “I didn’t see anyone with her.”

  “She’s alone.”

  “I hope you’re not trying to set me up with her.”

  “Now come on.” Brian faced Doerr. “She’s a good girl. She’s pretty. She’s successful. She has a great sense of humor. As a matter of fact, she’s a great woman.”

  “I’m sure she is.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Brian fixed his eyes on Doerr’s. “Tell me.”

  “You know what the problem is.” Doerr turned away to avoid Brian’s gaze. “I feel I’m still with Gayle.”

  “C’mon, Max. It’s been more than a year. Accept the fact that she’s dead. She isn’t coming back. Look at me.”

  “She may be dead, but in my mind she will always live. In my heart. And I’ll always be with her.”

  “And you’ll live like this for years and years?”

  A pang hit Doerr’s chest. How would it feel after a few years? he wondered. His gaze fell on a far-off building.

  “Max, I understand your feelings,” Brian said. “I really do. But Gayle will not come back. And you gotta move on and…”

  “No,” Doerr interrupted. “She’ll always live. Right here.” He pointed to his chest.

  “You’ve got to get over the grief and forget the past,” said Brian, sympathy smeared in his eyes.

  “The past defines the present and future. How can I forget the past, Brian? I’ll never forget her, and in my mind she will always live with me.”

  Doerr felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Brian’s wife, who had been a close friend to Gayle.

  “Don’t force it on him, Brian,” she said to her husband.

  “Why don’t you stay here tonight?” she said to Doerr. “It must be hard for you to be in your apartment all alone.”

  “Thanks for everything. I really appreciate it.” Doerr drank the last few drops of his beer. “But I should get going now.”

  IT WAS GAYLE’S birthday. It had been her wish to have her ashes thrown into the Atlantic Ocean, and Doerr had waited for this day to fulfill her wish. He picked up the urn with Gayle’s ashes, closed the lid and put it inside a duffel bag.

  Doerr took a subway train on line L, heading for Brooklyn. It was around noon, not many passengers in the train. He sat down on the Plexiglas seat in the train and put down his duffel at his feet.

  As the train rumbled through the tunnel, Doerr remembered a conversation he had with Gayle.

  “If I die first and you’re still healthy,” she had said once when they had been taking a stroll in Central Park. “Please throw my ashes somewhere in deep, deep water so that I never come back to land.”

  She had said the word healthy because she had thought she’d die in old age and Doerr might not be in good health then.

  The train moved ahead, and Doerr picked up the duffel from the floor and held it tight on his lap. After the thirty-minute ride, he got off at Wilson Ave Station.

  He walked, the duffel with the urn hanging from his right hand. He passed a twelve-story condominium complex and at the next junction he switched the bag to his left hand and turned right. Minutes later, nondescript houses appeared on each side of the road, the spaces between the houses so narrow that a really fat cat couldn’t get through them.

  Doerr stepped ahead and passed two blocks. Three men, with rough countenances, passed by, eyeballing him, throwing him a What’s up dude? What’re ya doing here? look. Doerr avoided eye contact. He was worried about confrontation and injury. If there were an altercation, Doerr could easily hurt the three men in the ensuing fight, no matter how strong they were. He was more worried about injuring others than wounds on his own body.

  Doerr turned left at the next junction; the road became narrower. He paced down the slender walkway, garbage strewn everywhere on the pothole-ridden road. Some house had Rent It signs saying ‘unit available’ or ‘attic available,’ windows protected by thick iron bars.

  After passing four houses, he stopped at the fifth one, a two-level house. The paint was chipped, and the broken gutter pipe stood there like a man abandoned in a desert.

  Doerr stopped at the front door and rang the bell. There was no response and he rang the bell again, and still no one came out. Wondering if the bell even worked, he knocked two more times, and within seconds, a middle-aged black man of huge proportion, wearing nothing above his waistline, appeared at the door.

  “What do ya want?” the man asked, his right hand resting on his waist.

  “Need a boat,” Doerr said, looking straight at the man’s eyes.

  “Who sent you?”

  “That’s not important. You have a boat or not.”

  The man seemed to be mulling it over. “Okay, no prob,” he said, “what kinda boat?”

  “Something that you can take deep into the ocean,” Doerr said.

  “How deep you planning to go?” the man asked, skepticism in his voice. “You plannin’ to go to Mexico or something?”

  “If I wanted to go to Mexico, I’d just drive. No, I’ve got to go out into the ocean ten miles, maybe twenty.”

  “Okay
. I got a boat. But it needs work. It’s not a hundred percent safe.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Got a hole. Five, ten gallons water get in every hour.” The man smiled. “It’s manageable. Engine works. The boat has a nice little shade too.”

  “How safe would you say it is now?” Doerr asked.

  “I’d say it’s about ninety percent safe. If ya give me two days, I’ll have it fixed.”

  “Ninety percent is good enough for me.”

  “Okay, da boat is yours. Now, do you have any ID?”

  “No.”

  “Wait a sec.” The man went inside and came back with a pen and a notebook. “Tell me your name.”

  “Max.”

  The man wrote something on his notebook. “Last name?”

  “You don’t need my last name,” Doerr said.

  The man said nothing, his silence indicating his agreement that the last name wasn’t necessary.

  “How are you going to pay?” the man asked. “Cash or card?”

  “Cash.”

  “It’ll be seven thousand. Two thousand rent and five thousand deposit. You get five thousand back when you return.”

  “Two thousand? It’s a rip-off!”

  “Hard to get a boat around this time,” the man said.

  “What are you talking about? This is October. Schools are open, and it’s getting cold too.”

  The man shrugged. Obviously, he couldn’t invent a good reason for the high price, but he was going to stick to it.

  Doerr didn’t have time to negotiate. “Where do I get the boat?”

  “You have seven thousand bucks cash?”

  “Yes. I got it right here.” Doerr opened his bag, took the money out, and gave it to the man.

  The man counted the cash quickly and then smiled.

  “Where do I get the boat?” Doerr asked.

  “You gotta go to East River Park in Manhattan. Talk to Mike. I’ll give you his number. He’ll give you everything. I’m callin’ him and saying you’re coming.”