The Scientist (Max Doerr Book 2)

by Jay Deb

  “Yes, son.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The truth is I don’t know. They say they’re from Iran, but I doubt that. They said they’ll take me to an island or South America. Never happened. But now I’ve left them.”

  “You’ve left them? They let you go?”

  “No. I’ve fled.”

  “You’re there by yourself now? Where are you? Still in Italy?”

  “Not important. How is your son and how is Sarah?” Sarah was Mark’s wife.

  “They’re good, Dad. We had another baby six months back. Daughter.”

  Janco took a deep breath. A daughter, like he’d always wanted for himself, but it never happened. He wondered if there was any way he could get a picture of his granddaughter. Not possible.

  “Dad, you still there?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “Do the right thing, Dad. Surrender to the Feds. I’ll come visit every month.” Mark immediately corrected himself. “Every two or three months.”

  Janco sighed. He knew that promise wouldn’t be kept. “I don’t wish to die in jail, son.”

  “But what dignity will you have by running around? Surrender!”

  “No. I didn’t deserve a thirty-year sentence. I feel like killing that fed judge.”

  “He tried to make an example out of you. He was wrong. He made a mistake. But don’t you think you’re making a bigger mistake?”

  “No.” Janco looked at his watch; he’d been talking for five minutes – too long, and there were people around, perhaps listening to him. “I gotta go. One last question. How is your mother? Is she still foul-mouthing me to others?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Say love to Sarah and the kids.”

  “I will. But surrender, Dad. Come home. See them yourself.”

  “No.” Janco knew Sarah would never visit him in jail, and there was no way he could see the kids.

  “Dad.”

  Janco knew he had to end the call. Maybe he shouldn’t have called in the first place. The conversation had to stop. He had to lose his family into oblivion. He raised the handset, about to press it into the receiver. It felt like he was cutting the rope that attached him to something very important. It was hard, but he hung up.

  Mentally drained, Janco walked along the platform and then realized it wasn’t a good idea to walk around, so he stood next to a wall, leaning on it, making sure no one was watching him. Soon, he could hear the noise of the approaching train.

  Chapter 11 Milan

  THE THREE-HOUR train journey was uneventful. After reaching Milan Central Train Station, Janco went to the station’s inquiry booth. It was eight p.m., and Janco’s hope of boarding a late train to Zurich tonight was dashed when he was told the next train to Zurich would be at 7:10 the next morning. Zurich was the place where his bank was located, where one and a half million dollars had been parked for years. He’d never told anyone about this money, not even his son or wife. This was the money he had known he’d need someday.

  Janco walked out of the train station and looked around for a cheap motel. Spending the night in the station’s waiting area would be uncomfortable and more importantly unsafe. Janco feared Gibbs’s men or the cops could come by to pick him up. But then the motel had to cost forty euros or less, and he found no such motel.

  He started heading back to the station. This station was considered to be one of the most beautiful in the world, but Janco didn’t have time to savor the sight. Inside the station, he saw a shop selling suitcases. He went inside and purchased the cheapest luggage he saw – a bright red duffel bag selling for seventeen francs. A person going across the country with no luggage would look suspicious. He purchased a cheap bed sheet – eight francs.

  In the station’s waiting room, he used the duffel bag as a pillow and wrapped his entire body with the bed sheet he’d just purchased. As he lay down on the bench, his belly made a noisy protest against the hunger, but this was nothing new.

  As he closed his eyes, he hoped his hunger problem would end one way or the other soon. Either he’d get that money in his Swiss bank or get dragged back to that stinky cell in Nevada.

  THE NEXT DAY, Janco stood at the end of the line that snaked to the immigration officer, who was standing behind a desk, examining every passport tendered by the passengers and stamping each one of them after a careful examination. When his turn came, Janco placed his passport in front of the male official and anxiously waited.

  Will the fake passport go undetected? Janco thought. Or is this the end of the road?

  The official cast a suspicious look at Janco’s passport and then at Janco’s face, and then he did the same again. Satisfied with the photo, the official flipped through the empty pages and stopped at the last one.

  Trouble. Something is wrong.

  The official called someone by waving his hand, and a man appeared as Janco watched with a fluttering heart. The new man came, took Janco’s passport, gestured for Janco to follow him, and walked over to another desk.

  The man glanced at the passport, typed something on a computer keyboard, and intently peered at the monitor. Looking satisfied now, the man stamped Janco’s passport, handed it to him, and made a gesture indicating Janco could proceed to the waiting orange-and-gray-painted high-speed train heading for Zurich.

  Chapter 12 Turin

  As the vehicle carrying Gibbs approached Turin, the video feed from Janco’s room came back on his smartphone. Gibbs felt a shiver when he couldn’t see Janco in the hotel room. But then he calmed down, thinking he might be in the bathroom, the only place Janco was allowed to go.

  Gibbs had spent the last few days with his wife and son in Rome. He’d taken them to St. Moody’s Basilica and Piazza Navona, and he’d promised to show them the Colosseum and other attractions the next time, and then it was time to say goodbye and get back to his shitty job of watching Janco. Sometimes he’d felt like shooting that old bum in the head and be done with him.

  The driver dropped Gibbs at the Turin hotel at eight p.m., almost three hours late due to the heavy traffic. Gibbs went straight to Janco’s room and knocked on the door. No response. He knocked again – again, no response. Tired and spent, he let out a sigh. He dragged his fatigued legs to his room through the carpeted hallway that he’d crossed at least a hundred times in the last month. In his room, he had the actual recording device that recorded the video transmitted from the camera in Janco’s room. As soon as he entered his room, he started playing the video from the device.

  He watched Janco leave the room two days back, the day Gibbs had left Turin.

  Okay, that’s not too bad, the man needed some fresh air, Gibbs thought. Maybe Janco walked out and he’d be back soon. Gibbs fast-forwarded the video and continued to watch.

  He let out a sigh of relief as he watched Janco come back to his room a few hours later and stay in his room the entire time the next day – just like he’d told Janco to do.

  Gibbs fast-forwarded to the next day. Mouth agape, Gibbs watched Janco leave his room around noon and never return. Petrified, Gibbs hit his forehand with his hand; he knew he was in big trouble. Dog-tired from traveling, and sweating, Gibbs sat on his bed. He was afraid of the worst – Janco fled. Gibbs stood up; he couldn’t rest.

  From the safe, he pulled out the key to Janco’s room and rushed out. With his hands shaking, he put the key in and opened the door to Janco’s room. The old man wasn’t there, but his stuff was there intact – the magazines, newspapers, and his clothes. Gibbs saw the pizza box, picked it up and opened it.

  The sauce sticking to the cardboard appeared old, and the box gave no pizza smell. He looked for pizza receipts, but he found none. A chill ran down his spine.

  Why did Janco keep the old pizza box and what did he do with the money I gave him?

  Gibbs went to the lobby and then walked out of the hotel, searching for Janco, like an ill-fated passenger of a sinking ship, hoping for a conjured lifeboat. Janco was nowhere to be found.
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  Gibbs came back to his own room and fatigue returned to his legs.

  He looked at the clock – 10 p.m. Now it was decision time for him – should he call his boss right away or wait until the next morning.

  He knew prisoners breaking out of jail often went right back to the authorities or felt relieved when recaptured. Maybe Janco would come back the next day. Janco didn’t know the local language, didn’t have a passport, and didn’t possess a lot of money.

  But what if Janco didn’t return? Gibbs decided to call his boss right away.

  Chapter 13 Zurich

  After four hours, the train entered the seventeenth track in Zürich Hauptbahnhof railway station. Janco walked out of the train and glanced at the mammoth clock – two p.m.

  Soon, Janco stood outside the station, looking for a cab. He saw people standing in a line. Assuming it was for a cab, he stood at the end of the slow-moving queue. Minutes later, he put his hand in his pants’ pocket, just to make sure his money was still there. He couldn’t feel it. He put his hand in the other pocket – no money. He checked his back pocket, shirt pocket, and the duffel bag, everywhere. He had thirty-five euros left in his pocket, and now it was all gone. How did it happen? Was the money pickpocketed in the railway station? Inside the train? It didn’t matter now.

  He felt the ground slipping away from under his feet. How could he get to the bank with no money left in his pocket?

  He stepped out of the line as he started sweating. He watched the passing yellow cabs. He saw a cop standing near a lamppost. Instinctively, he started walking toward him. After three or four steps, he understood the last thing he should be doing was approaching law enforcement.

  He turned and felt confused. He started crossing the road and heard a honk piercing his ear. Startled, he fell to the ground, must be due to all the stress, travel, and hunger.

  Through the corner of his eyes, Janco saw the cop approaching him, the distance between them – twenty feet.

  Janco wanted to stand up and run away, but he had no energy.

  The cop was now fifteen feet away. He was tall, six feet, maybe taller. His shirt was blue, pants bluer, a holstered gun hanging from his waist. It was a bright day, but Janco’s mind was getting darker.

  He’d certainly be apprehended and eventually sent back to Nevada.

  Ten feet.

  The sun was blazing, and so much effort, so much plotting and hunger, all going down the drain. He heard vehicles pass by, swooshing.

  Five feet.

  Janco gave up hope. It was his fate to be taken back to the jail. There wasn’t much he could do about it now. So be it.

  Two feet.

  The cop’s shadow fell on Janco’s feet, and he closed his eyes.

  One foot.

  Janco opened his eyes, hoping the cop had disappeared, but he saw the policeman looking at him disdainfully.

  Chapter 14 New York

  Max Doerr put on his jogging suit – a pair of black stretch pants and a white T-shirt – and walked out of his studio apartment. After his wife’s death, he’d shifted to this apartment from his old two-bedroom apartment where he’d shared so many moments with Gayle, where the memories were not only painful, they had been slaughtering him from inside.

  It was six p.m., time for jogging to keep his body sharp and mind ready. He paced down Seventy-Second Street, heading east, a contrast in direction from the time he used to jog alongside his deceased wife, when they used to walk west, heading for Central Park. Many times Doerr had run from Terrace Drive in Central Park, took a peek at Guggenheim Museum, circled around Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and then returned to Gayle, who used to wait for him, sitting on a bench, sending emails or texting her friends. Those were painful memories, and Doerr had never stepped inside Central Park since his bereavement.

  Now he suppressed the painful recollections and took a right turn at First Avenue. He saw people returning home from work and tourists peeking here and there. He increased his speed and ran carefully, trying not to knock anyone out. Soon, he reached Fiftieth Street, from where he could see the thirty-nine-story-tall UN building, for him a symbol of connection to all the countries he’d visited. The building was in the UN’s jurisdiction, where American laws did not apply.

  Doerr turned around, and eventually, he returned home, sweating profusely and knees aching. He took out a bottle of water from the refrigerator and drank. After a few minutes of rest, he was about to play his piano, but his phone rang. It was Alison Stonewall, the CIA’s director.

  After exchanging pleasantries, Stonewall said, “A highly talented nuclear scientist escaped from a Nevada prison about a month back. His name is Jon Janco. You might have seen it in the news.”

  “No,” Doerr said. “I don’t follow news nowadays. But go on.”

  “The FBI and the CIA have been working together to nab this guy for the last thirty days. But so far no luck.”

  “The FBI and the CIA working together?” Doerr said jokingly. “I can guess the outcome of that work.”

  “Yes. Exactly. Sometimes, too many people working on one problem makes things worse and doesn’t produce any results. I need someone I can trust to take over this investigation. And that’s why I’m calling. Please take this over, Max. The CIA has been working with the FBI for over a month and all we figured out is that Janco is in Italy. He was last seen boarding a train from Turin, headed for Milan. After that, we don’t know. But I’m quite sure he’s still in Italy.”

  “Back up. You said Janco was in prison. How did he end up in Italy from a Nevada prison?”

  “We don’t have all the details. But it appears the scientist was helped by some agents who came from outside the country. Helped Janco escape the prison. We suspect Iranians had a hand in this.”

  “How did the Iranians get inside the prison, and how did they even get out?”

  “Like I said, I don’t have all the details. But the scientist is gone, and they’re still investigating. I need someone who can quickly bring the fleeing scientist back to America. And only you can do it.”

  “To tell you the truth, there is something loony about the story you just told me. How did two crooks get into a jail and take out an inmate. Then take him all the way to Italy?”

  “Max, things happen. No one thought terrorists could hijack planes and fly them into our two most important buildings and the Pentagon. But it happened.”

  “That may be true,” Doerr said, “but aren’t we investigating where those two came from and more importantly, how did they manage to kidnap this Janco guy?”

  “Yes, we are. But right now locating and bringing this scientist back to the US is a much bigger priority. Later we can look into who did it and how they kidnaped him.”

  “But you said folks are already working on this. Give them some more time and they’ll get you what you need. Don’t rush.”

  “No. They’ve been working on it for a while and I see no progress. That’s why we need you, Max. I don’t believe anyone other than you can tackle this. Do you think we can bring the scientist’s ass back to the US within a couple of weeks?”

  Doerr laughed. “I haven’t even taken the case and you’re asking for the deadline?”

  “You’ve got to take this, Max. I just can’t trust anyone else.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Doerr said and was about to hang up. “Goodbye, Madam Director.”

  “Wait. Wait. Don’t hang up. Please, Max. For my sake. For America’s sake. The president is calling me on this every day. This is very important. If the Iranians get Janco, then they’ll be a step ahead in achieving their goal of making a nuclear bomb. And that’s the last thing we need. You know we’ve done everything to stop ’em. We’ve set up fake companies that provided supplies to Iran that were meant to explode when they tried to test them. We’ve sold bogus uranium that did nothing other than sit in their nuclear furnace and waste their time and money. But despite all that, they’ve made steady progress and now if they get this sc
ientist, they’ll sprint forward in their mission and we can’t let that happen.” Stonewall paused and then continued. “Max, you can retire after this like you always wanted, and I’ll give you everything that’s in my power. I promise.”

  “Promise?” Doerr said. “Promises are made to be broken, aren’t they?” It was an oblique hint at the fact that the CIA had assured him they’d keep Gayle out of harm’s way when she had visited Rome.

  A few seconds passed in awkward silence and then Stonewall spoke. “We had taken all the precautions, Max. We even had the Italian security sweep the streets that day. At the airport, she was given an A-2 level security protection, one level below what a vice president gets on foreign visits. We knew your wife could be a target for terrorists.”

  Doerr said nothing. No words could assuage his mind, and nothing was enough to close the gaping hole in his heart. No matter what Stonewall said, Gayle would never come back to life, and Doerr needed nothing for himself except peace.

  “I’m sure if Gayle was alive today she would have liked you to take this up,” Stonewall said. “Don’t you think?”

  “I know what Gayle would have wanted. I don’t have to hear it from someone else.”

  “I’m sorry, Max,” Stonewall said. “So you’ll take up this project. Correct?”

  “Like I said, I’ll think about it and get back to you. Goodbye.” Doerr hung up without giving Stonewall a chance to ask another question.

  He placed his smartphone on the table and walked into the kitchen and picked up a glass, filled it up with tap water and drank. He took off his sweat-drenched shirt and threw it on the floor in the corner.

  He turned the lights off, stepped to his piano, put it in silent mode and started playing Mozart symphony number forty, referred to as the great G minor symphony, which often placated Doerr’s mind – but not today. He was having a hard time focusing on the notes. His mind veered from Gayle’s face to her freckled shoulder to the possibility of someone dropping a nuclear bomb in America, in New York, which more than nine million people called home.