by Roger Weston
“But you’d have to walk on water to get this through.”
“You mean crawl in the mud with the hogs.”
“Alan Hale has Stanley Patchett calling here screaming at me. He said you’re finished if this falls through.”
“He means it.”
“No kidding. Patchett is nasty. I wouldn’t want to meet him. Why do you deal with people like that?”
“If you want to rise to the top, first you have to dig down into the deepest pit.”
“What if you end up in prison?”
“At least I’ll never miss a meal.”
“Patchett scares me. I wouldn’t deal with a creep like that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Now shut up and call the kitchen. Get Bernard up here. Then get Senator Georges on the phone. Tell him he’s never needed anything more in his life than to talk to Earl Brown.”
Earl downed a glass of prune juice from a crystal mug. He slurped raw oysters out of a silver bowl and swallowed them whole. He loved the way the felt as they slid down his craw.
CHAPTER 23
Seattle, WA
Chuck parked a couple of blocks down and around the corner from the Lake Union dry docks.
He rolled down his window and dialed up Aaron Hansen on the secure phone.
“What have you found out?” Chuck said.
“The word is that Bruce Foley was killed in a D.C. mugging.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“Yeah, but I found out what this guy was really doing.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
Aaron cleared his throat. “It wasn’t easy, kid. Look, you got to understand, I’ve been going stir crazy around the house while my motor home sits there idle in the driveway. I convinced my other half that this was important enough to justify an overnight trip—alone, of course. I caught up with Foley’s son. He’s a blackjack dealer on a game boat in Louisiana.”
“What did he say?”
“At first he directed me to the funeral home web sight where they’d posted his father’s obituary and told me that was all he knew. After I persisted, he gave up more. He said his father was a retired NASA scientist with top secret security clearance. At the time of his death, he was part of a Washington-based think tank called the Corder Institute. For reasons not clear to his son, Bruce visited a remote complex in the Pacific Northwest two weeks before his death. He was deeply disturbed by something he saw there and was ready to bring down all the demons of hell onto some unnamed bastards. One night his son dropped by his father’s home in D.C. He found his old man holed up with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a shotgun. The old man was ranting about a meltdown, but not making a hell of a lot of sense. The kid thought it was a good time to stay away from his father, so he left.”
“Did the son hear any specific details?”
“Like I said, his old man spooked him and he got out of there.”
“Interesting. You got anything else for me?”
“Listen, people aren’t anxious to go into any details because most of Foley’s work was top secret. What I can tell you is that he was working on some kind of spaced-based solar power program.”
“Okay.”
“Hypothetical technology that may have applications in the future but is presently not feasible because of the high cost. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got leads to follow up on. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know more.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Hang in there, kid.”
Chuck set the phone down and watched the cars and pedestrians that were passing by. He scanned the area for any new arrivals that might have parked near him. He saw none of concern.
CHAPTER 24
Turning right at the intersection before driving past his former team member’s truck, Curtis Moore left his vehicle in a metered parking space around the corner and hurried into an old brick office building, the lobby of which had a view of the lot where Chuck was parked. He sat down and peered through the rain-streaked window. Nobody was around, so he lifted his binoculars. He saw Chuck talking on the phone. He could not understand what Chuck was doing in Seattle. If he was coming after Curtis, why was he doing recon near a RUMAN boat? Chuck knew Curtis didn’t work for them anymore. Curtis wondered if Chuck’s actions could really be related to his plans to take him out as Leslie had said. He pondered this for several minutes.
Curtis was patient as always. He would never act hastily, especially when dealing with Chuck. Despite his old enemy’s checkered career, Chuck had proven his extraordinary skills often enough that Curtis had to treat him like any other hard target and then with extra caution. He knew that Chuck rarely followed the field manuals, which made him more resourceful and unpredictable than even the best operators. He had a creative streak that allowed him to improvise his tactics in unpredictable ways. Curtis would follow standard tradecraft and establish a pattern in Chuck’s movements that he could exploit. Patience.
Curtis was there when Chuck drove away. He watched the blinking dot on his GPS monitor as he pressed the key button in his pocket. He was about to speak into the mike in his collar when he saw something that kept him silent. What he noticed was a gray Buick with tinted windows, a fairly innocuous car, but this was the second time he’d seen it in the past hour. And once again, the car was a block behind Chuck, headed in the same direction, which virtually guaranteed that it was surveillance. Curtis wasn’t the only one tracking Chuck.
Curtis sat unmoving for several seconds. He rose slowly and walked deliberately to his car, weaving through pedestrians on the way. He started up his car and checked his side mirror.
Splat. Splat.
The bullet proof glass spider-webbed on the driver’s side window, a few inches from his face. Silenced shots.
Curtis turned and saw a man walking down the sidewalk. His first impulse was to go after the assassin, but it could be a trap, set up hastily on a target of opportunity. Or this whole damn situation could be a trap planned in advance.
Maybe.
As he got out of the car, the hit man broke into a run. Curtis drew his heat and shot the runner in the back, dropping him on the sidewalk. The man landed on his side and rolled onto his back. Curtis walked up to him, looked him in the eye, and shot him in the face.
Raindrops splashed in a dark red puddle spreading around the man’s head.
Back in his car, Curtis calmly drove away. He reached into his pocket and depressed the communications trigger.
“We’re closing up shop,” he said. “Do not respond.”
CHAPTER 25
Chuck drove across the ship canal bridge. He knew RUMAN had heavily-secured offices in a high-rise in downtown Seattle, but Robert was known to spend a lot of time on a RUMAN ship docked on Lake Union. As Chuck drove toward the waterfront, he thought of Lydia. Where was she? Where was Jin Mountain? Only Robert could answer those questions. And Chuck intended for him to do so.
Chuck put on a gray wig with tangled hair that hung twelve inches past his shoulders. Getting out of the car, he felt the material of his new black jeans squeeze his thighs and buttocks. Drops of rain touched his face as he put on a threadbare leather jacket with a Harley Davidson insignia on the back. The motorcycle decal was a twist on his hard rock theme, but it was all he could find at the second-hand store. He slung a guitar case over his shoulder and slipped on his sunglasses. As he walked along the road, rainwater ricocheted off his combat boots. A foghorn lifted above the rumble of the city.
Walking on the edge of Lake Union, only a block from the dry dock, he trudged past the floating boathouse of the Lake Washington Rowing Club. As he continued, he passed a rusty tug and glanced into the wheelhouse for any signs of goons who might be using it for an observation point. He hadn’t spotted anything earlier and didn’t see anything now. Of course, they could have hidden cameras—but probably it was someone else’s vessel. A floatplane buzzed overhead. RUMAN’s ship was moored at the dry dock next to a massive factory trawler.
As Chuck approached the waterfront, he saw cranes, barges, old buildings, lumber and other facilities. Just before the dock, a short flight of stairs led down to a Porta-Potty on a flat spot on a bank that was otherwise covered with ferns and blackberry bushes. A worker stood nearby on the sidewalk.
Chuck strolled up to the man. “How ya doin’?”
The man emptied his lungs of cigarette smoke. “I been worse.”
“Worse?” Chuck said. “Are you kidding me?” He pointed toward the dry dock. “You work over there?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you got it made, brother. Try and make it in music and you’d know what I mean.”
“What kind of music you play?”
“Classic rock, but I’ve been thinking of getting a real job. They hiring down there?”
The man snorted. “It’s going down hill. If I didn’t have three kids, I’d give you my job.”
“What’s the problem?”
The man just shook his head.
“Who would I talk to about work?” Chuck said. “I can weld.”
“Right now everybody’s very uptight. You go down there, it’ll go badly. Come back in three weeks. I know a guy who may be leaving.”
“Thanks, brother.” Chuck headed back the way he came. When he was passing the Lake Washington Rowing Club, he stopped and called out, “Kitty, kitty, kitty.” He went down the railroad tie steps set in the dirt bank and crossed a gangplank onto the deck of the floating boathouse.
“Kitty, kitty, kitty.” Chuck looked through a crack by the houseboat’s door.
“Can I help you?” a voice said.
Chuck turned to face a big guy with tattoos on his neck.
“You with the rowing club?” Chuck said.
“Security for the dry dock. We watch out for our neighbors.”
“Name is Andy Parr,” Chuck said. “You know how I can get a hold of the rowing club? I want to join. Hey, I saw a cat down here. Help me find it, will you?”
The man gave Chuck an insulting look. “When you join the club, you can do what you want. Meantime, clear off the dock and move on.”
“Alright,” Chuck said, crossing the gangplank with a pathetic look on his face. “But that thing may be a stray. If you see it, will you feed it for me?”
“Move along.”
CHAPTER 26
The Sea Dragon, Lake Union dry dock
Books covered the walls in the library on the Sea Dragon, and Tom Jacobs was slapping his leg with a paperback.
“I’m ready to get out of here and get some lunch.” He looked over at Smith, who was paging through the security reports. “What you got there?”
Smith didn’t look up. “A couple of transients were wandering around on the dock. We really should have tighter security.”
“That would attract too much attention.”
“We could …” Smith hesitated. “Oh, maybe not.”
“Lot of vagrants in downtown Seattle,” Jacobs said.
“Yeah, Lamont and the new guy questioned them and determined they were bums with mental problems. They were escorted off the property.”
“Anything else?”
“Another wannabe rower snooping around the rowing club.”
“Let me see that.” Tom grabbed the report. He saw a freeze-frame picture of a long-haired rocker. “Have them scan the security video through the facial recognition software immediately.”
He stared at the partially-obscured face behind the scraggly hair and called Parcher.
CHAPTER 27
Kalorama House, Washington D.C.
Earl Brown hung up the phone and slid it across the dining room table. He now had a dozen more contacts out of the way—most of whom had to be tracked down, from a ski resort in Aspen to a beach house in the Hamptons. All of that and he had no more votes out of the way. He took a few laps around the living room in his scooter to clear his mind. He parked at the dining room table and shook his prescription pain killer bottle. A few left in there. He poured them out onto the table, then washed them down with orange juice. He ate a couple of very dainty pastries and had a few more.
Senator Troutman arrived and took a seat across the table. Earl offered him some of the pastries, but he declined, preferring to spit tobacco into an empty coke can.
“I’ve got appointments stacked up,” Earl said, “so I’d like to get right down to business, Senator. About the stimulus bill—”
Troutman made an expansive gesture with his hands. “Earl, I already told you my position. You said you wanted to talk Medicare. That bill don’t look promising to me, neither, but I’d listen.”
Earl wiped some jelly from his mouth with a linen napkin. “Just give me a few minutes on the defense funding provisions. The bottom line is we have a moral obligation to our grandchildren to protect our country’s interests.”
“Then why enslave them with massive debt?” Troutman shook his head in disgust. “Earl, I ain’t got no place to go with this. My constituents complain about the present, not the future. The polls is clear on that. First of all, if I want to get re-elected, I can’t vote for this—but that’s a minor point. The major one is that this is wrong. We’re giving these yahoos a blank check and they have no accountability.” He spit into his coke can, then hammered his fist onto the table. “I want oversight. I want public scrutiny. I want a budget proposal and congressional approval. It goes against my conscience to vote for this thing, and I won’t never vote against my conscience.”
Earl shook his head. “Senator, this is for secret operations. If we advertise how the CIA spends every cent, it won’t be a secret anymore. That means the bad guys can find out everything we’re doing by turning on the television. That means we lose.”
“Then so be it. Everything got to be out in the open to be sure that there ain’t no abuse a power. I ain’t going on record in support of them hawks. Now, about Medicare.”
Earl dropped five sugar cubes in his tea. They fell like bombs and splashed. “Senator, we’ve been more than generous with you in the past. Now we need to call in the chips. Your support will be remembered when you need to ram something through.”
“Earl, I’ve always been willing to consider your point of view. But this here is one issue where I ain’t going to compromise. Now, if you don’t want to yap about Medicare, I need to go.”
Earl slid another pastry into his mouth and grinned at his guest. “How long have you been after a seat on the appropriations committee?”
Troutman looked at him with glazed eyes, his lips parted. “I want that,” he said.
“How badly?”
“What’re you getting at, Earl?”
“You know that Senator Smagorinsky is in trouble due to his little scandal.”
“An immoral cur. What’s the latest?”
“I happen to know that Smag has decided to resign. That means his seat is going to open up, and I can guarantee that you’ll be on top of the list if you support me on defense funding.”
“Really?”
Earl put his pastry to his nose and inhaled. “That’s the sweetest deal you’ll ever hear of.”
Troutman leaned back in his chair and spat into his can. “Now that’s different, Earl. All right, I’ll tell you what, you guarantee me that seat and you’ve got my vote. I’ll even publicly call opponents of your bill cowards and terrorist sympathizers.”
“I knew I could count on you, Senator.”
CHAPTER 28
Next day, Lake Union Dry Dock, 4 a.m.
Carrying a backpack and a duffel bag, Chuck walked up to the Lake Washington Rowing Club. Using bolt cutters, he cut the chain and swung the door open. The hinges squeaked slightly as the door closed behind him. There was no electricity in the boat house, but Chuck could see the rowing equipment on the wall racks in the red beam of his sea laser dissuader flashlight. Water rippled in the center boat area where there was no floor.
He pulled on his wet suit and flippers. After slipping on a buoyancy control dev
ice and air tanks, he put on his face mask and bit down gently on the mouthpiece attached to the regulator. He hooked a coiled rope ladder to his BCD. Holding a spear gun in one hand, Chuck fell backwards into the grimy port water. He sunk down into the dark broth, and garbage began to appear all over the place—aluminum cans, tires, pipes, corroding drums. He switched off his flashlight and swam through the murky gloom. He didn’t surface until he was underneath the pier by the dry dock, which meant he’d gone a hundred yards. Expelling the air from his BCD, he swam back down and anchored his scuba gear by a pile. Surfacing by the pier, he climbed the service ladder while rain pelted him.
Half way up, he saw security guards, so he went back down. After swimming under the Sea Dragon and coming up on the other side of the ship, he lobbed the hooks of the rope ladder up over the rail. Water dripping off his face, he boarded the ship. Hooking the ladder to a ten pound weight, he lowered it into the water and sank it.
Carrying his spear gun and leaving watery footprints, he casually strolled up the walkway, entering the superstructure by the starboard door amidships. He started down the passageway when he heard the voice of a man talking to another about a generator problem. Chuck climbed a steep flight of metal stairs and arrived at the accommodation deck. He walked down a carpeted hallway that was lined with cabin doors. Although he’d been told that Lydia was being held at Jin Mountain, a faint glow of hope rose in him that she was being kept here.
Chuck quietly opened a door and looked in, his spear gun raised and ready for action. The cabin was empty, but it also surprised him because Chuck had traveled on RUMAN ships on several occasions. They’d usually run on the dingy side. This cabin had marble floors and gold fixtures. The linens appeared to be of the quality found in the most expensive of hotels. The wood carving work in the paneled ceilings featured detailed African village scenes that somebody must have worked on for years. The intricate detail was unmatched by any woodwork Chuck had ever seen. Original artwork, antiques, silver cups—everything was the best. He pulled the door shut and moved on.