The Recruiter

by Roger Weston

  Chuck ran down the alley to where the van was parked. He took off his shirt, wrapped up his hand, and punched out the window. Hotwiring the van when he was in pain was a challenge. His whole hand throbbed. He struggled to get a grip on the wires and when he did, one of them kept slipping from his fingers. Chuck tried again, more slowly. The motor started up.

  He pulled out into traffic, took the first right, and hit the gas. He hoped he wasn’t going to pass out.

  CHAPTER 35

  In the back of his mobile electronic surveillance vehicle, Ron watched the live feed streaming in from the warehouse in Chinatown. He watched the TV screen with fascination as Tree approached Chuck with the butcher’s knife. Under the circumstances, Brandt’s relative calmness amazed him. Personally, Ron would have begged shamelessly and probably pissed his pants. Most fascinating was the close-up of Brandt’s face when Tree chopped off the first notch of his finger. Brandt grit his teeth and winced and pinned his eyes shut, but when his lids came open again, the man looked like he hadn’t felt a thing, and Ron could see something cold and ruthless and calculating in his eyes, something truly frightening—a man who had crossed a line. Ron gasped at the scene on the monitor, but what occurred next amazed him.

  Brandt calculated perfectly, and using the power of his legs, he knocked down four Triads and ripped a gun out of one of their shoulder holsters. For the next few seconds, Brandt reined over the chaos with all the lucidity of a man in total control. His tormentors fled or fell. With blood still squirting out of his finger, Brandt actually attempted a quick interrogation of his own, questioning one of the fallen Triads—and despite what should have been uncontrollable rage, Brandt calmly retrieved his finger from the table. When a Triad ran, any normal man would have gone for the body shot, the big target, the torso—but not Brandt. He calmly shot the man’s legs. Two shots, both perfect knee shots at a running target—incredible. Despite his agonizing pain, Brandt had retained perfect poise and control. Ron had never seen anything like it. He watched the video over and over again in slow motion.

  After the shooting, Brandt had left the warehouse, and Ron had lost his video feed, so he turned his attention to his computer monitor, bringing up the results from the electrocardiograph. What he saw stunned him.

  Ron grabbed the phone and dialed the hotline. One the second ring, Parcher answered.

  “Brandt got away,” Ron said.

  “What? How the hell did that happen?”

  Ron gave him a brief summary of the action.

  Parcher didn’t make a sound for several moments.

  Ron broke the silence. “I haven’t even told you the bad news yet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m talking about the data on Brandt.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He’s gone negative, Parcher! I cross-referenced my visual observations with his ECG printout. His stress quotient has dropped to four. Just be thankful you weren’t there.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Sure, it is. I’ll fax you his ECG graph.”

  “Do that. Do it now.”

  “It’s on the way.”

  Ron hung up and faxed the data.

  A few minutes later he was still sitting there thinking about what he’d seen when a security alert flashed up on the computer screen. Ron opened the live data monitoring program and said, “Ha!”

  He couldn’t believe this. He clicked on the video icon and grinned. He was looking at Brandt’s face on live video. The man had stolen the operations van, which was wired, and he was steering as calmly as if he were on his way to a Sunday picnic.

  Ron made notes on his stress reaction log. He zoomed in with the hidden mini-cam and clicked the icon for iris analysis. The words, “STRESS LEVEL NORMAL” began to flash at the bottom of the screen.

  Lifting his gaze back up to the screen, he clicked on the map icon in the top right corner. A map of Seattle appeared along with a flashing red dot. He dialed Parcher up on the secure line.

  “Brandt stole the operations van that was parked outside the warehouse. We’ve got a bird dog on it. I have his location.”

  “Where is he?” Parcher said his heart beat pounding in his ears.

  “Heading North on Eastlake Avenue.”

  “What about his stress quotient? Any rise yet?”

  “He’s got a normal reading.”

  “That’s not possible.” His heart was pounding mercilessly, “Are you sure there’s no mistake?”

  “I’ve crossed checked the data.”

  Anger flashed through his veins. “Keep me posted,” he said. “Do not report this to Robert. I’ll handle it.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Chuck parked the stolen economy truck under the University Bridge where Jeff was waiting for him. Chuck climbed in his car. Jeff stared at his condition with his mouth half open.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Just get me to the boat.”

  “What happened? Your face is covered with blood.”

  Chuck gave him the short version.

  Twenty minutes later, they parked near Chuck’s fishing boat, which was docked at a marina in Ballard along the edge of the ship canal. Chuck walked casually even though blood dripped from the rag over his severed finger. He staggered on the gangplank, but felt Jeff’s hand steady him.

  “Careful,” Jeff said.

  Chuck entered the galley and went straight for the shelf where the aspirin was kept.

  “I’ll get my sewing kit,” Jeff said.

  “Hurry up. Get me some pain killers while you’re at it, and penicillin. There’s a flask of whiskey in my cabin.”

  Easing into a seat, Chuck closed his eyes and put his head on the galley table. His shoulder hurt and his chest hurt and so did his hand and his scalp.

  A few minutes later, Jeff returned with a bag of ice and other essentials.

  Chuck poured the whisky into the shirt that he had wrapped around his finger. He grit his teeth as the pain in his finger flared up. He splashed some whiskey onto his shoulder wound.

  Jeff handed him the penicillin.

  Chuck washed the pills down his throat.

  When he could, he took several deep breaths. With his good hand, he got his finger tip out of his pocket. “Here. Rinse it off and sew it back on.”

  Chuck watched Jeff to see if his old pal cringed or hesitated, but he did not. He went to work as naturally as if Chuck had asked him to pass the potatoes.

  Chuck looked at the flask of whiskey in his good hand, the one that had all its fingers but was bleeding and missing a large patch of skin from the palm. He stiffened his arm and locked his elbow. “Get this out of my sight.”

  “The stitch work is gonna hurt like hell,” Jeff said. “You may want it.”

  “Throw it away.”

  Jeff dropped the flask into the nearest trash can. He came back and resumed his needle work.

  Chuck winced as he felt Jeff thread the needle through the flesh of his pinkie.

  Jeff stitched. “I hope Chinatown was worth it. What’d you find out?”

  Chuck briefed him on what he’d learned about Lok Jin, the 20th Century miner who’d discovered a new mineral.

  “You lost your finger for that?” Jeff said.

  “For Lydia. Next time I’ll give my hand if it’ll help.”

  After Jeff finished his sewing project, Chuck called Aaron Hansen.

  “Listen up, kid, I’m afraid I’ve stirred up a nest of wasps.”

  “What are you talking about?” Chuck said.

  “I’m saying I made some people very nervous, and they became very interested in my motives.”

  “Who’s nervous?”

  “Look, up till now, we’ve been talking about satellite solar power being used on land to replace hydroelectric and nuclear and other kinds of power. We’ve been talking about nice things like how solar power is environmentally friendly. Watch this: It goes deeper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “
I mean, I don’t know where it came from. I’ve made a lot of contacts over the last few days, and it looks like I’ve stirred up some dangerous people.”

  “You said, ‘Where it came from.’ What are you talking about?”

  “I woke up this morning and I found a file shoved under my door along with a warning to be very careful.”

  “Go on.”

  “The file is top secret. I’ve been telling people I’m writing freelance for the Wall Street Journal. I’ve got the file in my sweaty little fingers.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Kid, they didn’t hand over a complete file. It’s marked classified. What I got was just a few pages, but it has to do with something called the Solar Microwave Weapon, also known as the SMW. The SMW evidently offers the potential of a huge technological advantage over relatively obsolete weapons like unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator or even existing satellite programs.”

  “The SMW makes the unmanned drones obsolete?”

  “Right.”

  “And what is it?”

  “Look, I said the file was incomplete. It didn’t go into that. You can imagine, however, that when they say I upset some dangerous people, they also mean some powerful people.”

  “Yes, and this is what Foley was killed for?”

  “It’s starting to look that way, isn’t it? Watch this. Congress has been very reluctant to fund this Solar Microwave Weapon program.”

  “Why?”

  “It takes a lot of energy for a satellite to transmit radar beams powerful enough to track a moving target on Earth. A hell of a lot of power. To get the power levels needed for an effective SMW system very large solar arrays would be required and that makes it cost prohibitive. Not only that, such large arrays would be easy targets for enemy anti- satellite weapons. They’d also produce too much drag while in low earth orbit, which would shorten their life span.”

  “So this is all theory.”

  “Right. But watch this. I said the high demand for power was the limitation. If they could put a cluster of solar-powered satellites into space, these could serve as space dams collecting abundant power and beaming it via microwave to ground moving target indicator satellites or GMTI as they are known. They could be launched without all the extensive array and equipment, which just might make them financially viable.”

  “Is there any information in the files about where Foley went to meet them to work on this?”

  “Right. Like I said, this ain’t a complete file, kid. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I’ve got to meet one last person. Call me tomorrow, and I’ll let you know what I find out. After that, I won’t be talking to you for a while. If I run into you at a motor home park in Puerta Vallarta, you’re buying the margaritas. For that matter, we’re still on for fishing at Little Mulchatna, right?”

  “I’ll do the cooking and the dishes. I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Friends help each other, and life isn’t supposed to be easy. Let me tell you something, kid. I’ve been trying to dislodge my wife from the couch for two years. A few more years and my motor home’s engine would’ve frozen up on me, and I’d have keeled over and died. You owe me for this, kid, but I want to thank you, too, because my wife won’t be able to hit the road fast enough once I fill her in.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Call me tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 37

  New York City

  The Sikorsky S-76B helicopter rested atop a New York skyscraper. The engines lay silent, and nobody was around except Alan Hale, who owned both the chopper and the building. Alan leaned against his bird and gazed across New York City toward the UN Building. This was his favorite view of the world’s greatest city. He liked to look down on it, and with RUMAN’s research beginning to show results, it was fitting that he gaze down on New York and common humanity. His tentacles of power would soon stretch around the globe.

  As the private contractor behind the space-based solar program, Alan Hale would soon have power to control events and leaders all around the world. To some extent, he would even have control over armies and population centers. He would mold circumstances to his liking. His power would extend from the micro level to the macro. Radical political ideology and religious fanaticism would no longer pose a serious obstacle to his exploitation.

  His players were simultaneously fine-tuning two new breakthroughs that would secure his destiny and that of the Paymasters. At Alan’s request, Vincent Law would step in and control explosive situations around the world by manipulating players that were previously untouchable. The CIA and Vincent Law would be so dependent on his collector grids that they would be at his mercy. He could request they use the SMW to clear the way for his economic ambitions. As a result, Alan could do anything he wanted. He would be able to play God. If he were a Roman, they would deify him. Even now, they still might. He couldn’t call down lightening on his enemies, but he could do far worse.

  He dialed the insider line to CIA director Vincent Law. “How are our plans coming along?”

  “My liaison tells me we are on schedule,” Law said.

  “Perfect.” Alan leaned against his helicopter. “Earl is lining up our ducks in Congress and the Senate. It’s close, but he’ll get the votes.”

  “Still hard to believe that after all these years of preparation, it’s all finally coming together.”

  “You better get the team up to Jin Mountain for observation of the SMW testing.”

  “They’re already setting up to monitor from a stand-off position.”

  “Good. Once that’s done and the SMW’s effectiveness is confirmed, the stimulus money will start flowing. Make sure your Cayman account is open.”

  “Of course.” He chuckled.

  “How is RUMAN’s research going?” Hale asked.

  “Very well according to Robert. He guarantees me that his methods are working.”

  “You’ve seen the data?”

  “He faxed me a sample this morning,” Law said. “It looks very impressive.”

  “Why just a sample? You don’t think he’s manipulating the data, do you?”

  “No way. We’ve got watchers providing oversight of the collection and reporting.”

  “Alright,” Alan said. “Looks like Robert has proven that RUMAN is the stronger agency. Their security issues are cleaned up, and their recruiting approaches are cutting edge.”

  “How soon will Hale Industries be ready to start building the power collection farms?”

  “Immediately. We’ve got two more countries applying. I’ll send you the details tomorrow.”

  “Unbelievable,” Law said. “A multi-billion dollar international monopoly and we’re only days from implementation.

  “I’m concerned about the SMW test,” Hale said. “There cannot be any loose ends. If word ever got out what we’re doing to those immigrants, it would be a disaster.”

  “Don’t worry. There won’t be any survivors.”

  “Good. It’s starting to look like RUMAN gets the contract. Take steps to discontinue EREBUS.”

  “I agree. It looks like RUMAN is the winner of our little contest. I’ll let you know.”

  Alan Hale walked around his helicopter and took in the panoramic view of the Big Apple. “To the blood.”

  “To the blood,” Director Law replied.

  CHAPTER 38

  Kalorama House, Washington D.C.

  Resting in his scooter, which was parked by the white marble fireplace in the dining room, Earl Brown flipped through the pages of his file on Senator Snider. In fast glances he took in pages of notes on the senator’s preferences, his likes and dislikes, his strengths and weaknesses. Earl smiled and glanced down the marble hallway. His fleeting daydream was distracted at Walter’s entrance.

  “Any sign of our guest?” Earl said.

  “No, sir.” Walter hurried over to the fax and shook a handful of papers in the air. “Where would you like these?”

  �
��Just leave them for now. When you hear him come in, turn on the video camera. Then take a nap.”

  “I can’t sleep, but I’ll try.”

  “Remember, don’t make a sound. On occasion, we have to take extraordinary measures to further our interests.”

  “I understand.”

  Earl checked his watch as Bernard entered the dining room.

  Earl said, “Hello, Bernard. I hope it’s good today.”

  The steward grinned and worked fast.

  He cleared off the table and set it all over again and decorated it with two glass pitchers of orange juice and a new silver carafe of coffee and more silver serving plates and clean silver all around. “I had the cook rush it for you, Mr. Brown.”

  “Thank you. I have company arriving any minute.”

  “He’s parking right now.”

  “Thank you, my friend.” Earl slipped his employee a ten dollar bill.

  Earl had started at the bottom in the Senate and worked his way up and he’d always treated the minions with respect and kindness because he had been there and he knew what it felt like and he remembered how much he appreciated the kindness of some of those he served.

  Bernard left, and a minute later Senator Snider came in, a lean white man with the good looks of an actor and perfectly combed hair. His assistant was a gorgeous little brunette who worshipped her master and jumped at his command.

  They exchanged greetings, and then Earl requested that the assistant withdraw so that they could talk in private.

  Snider resisted and asked if it was really necessary. “Fine,” he said at last, “but only because it’s Earl Brown doing the asking.”

  Earl told the assistant to wait by the pool cabana. Snider told her to call his wife and cancel their lunch date due to another crisis, one that he didn’t mention.

  Earl and Senator Snider ate breakfast together, and Snider regaled him about a colleague who drank during the day and addressed the Senate in slurred speech, about the hawks who he represented and who threatened him and hounded him if he even began to consider his conscience when it didn’t represent their interests. He threw names and gossip around like confetti, and Earl filed every bit of it in his prodigious memory bank for future exploitation. Earl listened and became irritated that the senator ate a light meal and had no seconds. Earl helped himself to two heaping plates and another pitcher of orange juice.