by Mike Hartman
From pictures Dan had shown them, this was Gabe’s mother. They were reasonably sure there was no one else on board, but they left the room to take one more look around before waking her.
Sure that they were alone, Rocky wondered what the best way to wake her would be. She would be scared out of her mind at the sight of two strange men standing in front of her wearing black wetsuits. In the end, he decided she was probably scared to death anyway. The two men stood back from the bed and rapped on the door.
Gabe’s mother woke with a start. She grabbed the covers and pulled them up to her neck with a terrified look on her face. “Mrs. Santos,” said Rocky. “Gabe sent us to find you.” A look of relief swarmed across her face as she started to cry.
Rocky continued. “We’ll step out for a minute. Please get dressed and let us know when it’s okay to come back in.” With that he and Red stepped out and pulled the door closed behind them.
In less than 30 seconds Gabe’s mother was dressed and the three of them were gathered together. “Thank God you are here,” she said. “I’ve been terrified.”
Red asked, “Who brought you here?”
“I don’t know. It’s not somebody I know.”
“How many of them are there?”
“I’ve only ever seen one man. I haven’t heard him talk to anyone else.”
“Has he hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine. Just scared to death. He hasn’t touched me and I’ve had plenty of food and water.”
“How long has it been since he’s been here?”
“He was here yesterday. He usually only comes to check on me about every three days.”
Both men relaxed a bit. It seemed unlikely they would be running into any resistance tonight.
“I found a cell phone and managed to call Gabe, but the battery was weak and we got cut off after just a minute.”
“That was brilliant,” said Rocky. “That’s actually what led us to find you. You were very brave.”
The two men conducted a thorough search of the yacht. Since it seemed unlikely they would be receiving company, they took their time and searched it from top to bottom. They found several log books, receipts, correspondence, and the cell phone that Gabe’s mother had used. Everything else seemed to be fairly innocuous.
Gathering up all their evidence, they decided it would be best if Red remained with Gabe’s mother while Rocky swam back to their boat. He would then bring their boat to pick up Red and Mrs. Santos.
Forty-five minutes later the three of them were onboard the rental boat heading back to shore. They phoned Dan to tell him of their success and allowed Mrs. Santos to call Gabe and Tracy. They were elated!
Chapter 52
January, year 5.
“Okay guys,” said Sally when she arrived at the office the next morning. “Everyone in the conference room.”
They had all been gathered around the coffee and donuts talking about the events of the night before. Sally herded them into the conference room and said, “Dan, give us a report on what happened last night.”
“Everything went as planned,” he began. “I enlisted one of my SEAL buddies and his son who just happens to be a SEAL currently on active duty. They used a rental boat to get close and anchored about 200 yards from the yacht. Just a short swim in the dark for a couple of SEALS. They found Gabe’s mother alone on the yacht, locked in a cabin below decks. She said her captor only came to check on her about every three days.
He pulled out a small box and dumped the contents onto the table. “Here is all the intelligence they were able to gather from the yacht. A cell phone with a dead battery, a few log books, and some fuel receipts. The fuel receipts are made out to a Jack Morris.”
The log books contained entries related to the operation of the yacht. Mostly the boat’s location and operating parameters for a given day, fuel purchases, and maintenance records. The most recent entry was about sixty days old.
“That’s not McCoskey’s handwriting,” Sally pointed out right away. Having worked with him for the past fifteen years she would recognize his hand writing.
“I realized that as well,” said Dan. “Notice however that the entries were detailed and entered on a regular basis up until about sixty days ago. Then all of a sudden they just stop. That strikes me as very odd. It’s almost like the captain is no longer in the picture or perhaps the yacht was purchased by a new owner in the past sixty days.”
“Hmm, what about the cell phone?”
Dan held it up. “The battery is dead.”
Monica spoke up. “I have that same phone. Let me grab my charger out of my office.”
She came back a few minutes later and plugged the phone in. Turning it on, she looked through the contact list and recent call list. “There aren’t any numbers programmed into the contacts. The outgoing call log is empty. There are, however, two missed calls. It looks like they came from a restricted number because no number is listed.” She turned the phone over and looked at it from all angles.
“Doesn’t look like that’s going to be much help,” said Jillian.
Jamie jumped in. “Not so fast. I wonder if the missed calls left voicemail messages.”
Monica hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a small icon on the screen indicating there were voicemails waiting. She turned on the speaker and dialed voicemail.
After one ring the speaker sounded. Please enter your password.
“Crap,” cursed Jamie.
Everyone looked around the table at each other. Sally said, “Well, now what?”
After a minute Dan spoke up, “Some people use the last four digits of their phone number as the password. It’s worth a try.”
“Yeah, but what’s the phone number?” asked Monica.
Gabe knew the answer to this one. “Look in the phone settings. You should be able to find the number there.”
After a few seconds of pushing buttons Monica said, “Got it!” Once again she enabled the speaker phone and called voicemail.
Please enter your password.
She entered the last four digits of the phone number.
You have one unheard message.
Then a male voice with a thick foreign accent came on the line. “We are anxiously awaiting the information you promised. Parviz is growing impatient. Our little project has reached the point where your information will become vital to our continued success. We had some unwelcomed visitors to our Bandar Abbas facility recently. It could have been very bad. Fortunately our security forces are top-notch and were able to foil a sloppy attempt to destroy our little project.”
End of messages.
As the phone cut off, everyone sat around the table staring at each other and trying to make some kind of sense out of the message.
“I’m not sure what’s going on here,” said Sally. “I’m starting to get the idea this is much bigger than any of us realize. It might be time to get the authorities involved.”
Dan said, “We need to think long and hard before we do that Sally. I’m starting to realize the potential the tick holds for bad people to do bad things. There is already one tick on the loose and it appears to have generated attention from some foreign interest. I can only imaging how dangerous these would be if they were widely available or perhaps reverse engineered. It sounds to me like McCoskey is working with a foreign country to supply secrets of some kind. Whatever it is, it sounds big.”
Sally responded, “That might be all the more reason to go to the authorities.”
“We can’t let it be known to the world that this technology even exists,” insisted Dan. “If our competitors even conceptualized this technology, they just might be able to develop it. I’m starting to think our best course of action is to end development and destroy the prototypes.”
The group spent the rest of the morning debating the best course of action. It was going to be a very long Friday. Fi
nally, unable to reach a consensus, they agreed to wait until Monday to make any decisions.
Later that afternoon Monica came to Sally’s office in an excited state. “That voicemail has been driving me crazy. I googled Bandar Abbas. It is a major port for the Iranian navy!”
Chapter 53
February, year 5.
Dan awoke at seven o’clock Saturday morning just like he did every morning. Some people slept in on Saturday, but he had disciplined himself a long time ago to keep a steady schedule. His body felt better that way and he tended to be more productive.
He put an exercise video into the DVD player and pushed play. Forty-five minutes later he was sweating and breathing hard as he finished up and headed to the kitchen to make a protein shake. He couldn’t understand why most people just relied on coffee and caffeine. By the time he finished his protein shake each morning, he was ready to tackle the day.
After a quick shower he jumped in the car and headed over to the office to check on the chimps. This was his Saturday routine. He had been tending to the chimps on the weekends since they had become part of the team a year and a half ago. He had actually become quite fond of them and enjoyed his time with them on the weekends when no one else was around.
He used his key to enter the office, entered the code into the keypad to disable the alarm and then headed to the lab. Approaching the lab door, he called out to his buddies and was greeted with screeches from inside.
As Dan opened the door to the lab he stopped dead in his tracks. He hadn’t expected this. In front of him, on the far side of the lab, stood Ed McCoskey.
“Hello Dan,” said Ed as if he had been waiting for him.
“What are you doing here?” Dan asked angrily.
“Oh, I just thought I’d stop by to see how our friends were doing.” He gestured toward the chimpanzees. “I was even hoping I might run into you.”
Dan slowly entered the room and headed in Ed’s direction. Ed kept the lab tables between them and circled the room to maintain his distance. Dan said, “How did you get the code to the alarm? We had it changed after Sally fired you.”
“Oh that?” said Ed nonchalantly. “That was nothing. I know things, you see. I know lots of things.”
Dan continued to circle the room slowly as he spoke. “You are in big trouble, my friend. We are on to your little game.”
Ed countered his advances by continuing his own circling of the room. “Now, now. We both know that I’m not the game player here. I guess I did make a pretty good scapegoat though. I’ve had a lot of time to think in the past few weeks and I’ve come to realize the error of my ways. I was a pompous ass. No doubt. I treated women like toys. You’ve got me there too. I tended to think pretty highly of myself. Guilty! But all that doesn’t mean I’d steal from the company or sell secrets to our enemies. No, only a master game player would do something like that.”
Dan responded, “We’ve got evidence to the contrary. I could kill you right here and as far as Sally and the rest of them are concerned, it would be all in the interest of protecting the company.”
Ed smirked, “You mean like you killed our seven coworkers five years ago? Or do you mean like you put a bullet in Dr. Bowles head?”
Dan was taken aback by these accusations. “What are you talking about? You are crazier than I gave you credit for. Why would I kill any of those people?”
Ed grinned as they began to circle again. “You can play innocent with the rest of them all you want, Danny boy. You might as well save your energy with me though. I already know the truth. It won’t do any good to lie to me.”
A look of anger came over Dan’s face. His movements had taken him all the way around the room and he was now back at the door where he started. He stopped by the door to ensure any escape attempt by McCoskey would be thwarted.
Ed continued, “I’ve had a private investigator looking into everyone in the company for a long time now. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. My buddy in the white sedan? In the beginning it was because I thought Dr. Bowles was considering canning me. He seemed to be purposely leaving me out of the loop and I suspected there was something big going on behind the scenes that I didn’t know about.”
“My private eye came up with some interesting things along the way. Like discovering your connection to the terrorist group, Shabez. How much did they pay you to kill those scientists anyway?”
Dan was having trouble controlling himself now. His jaw was tight and his eyes glared into McCoskey like laser beams. “Who else knows about this?”
“Your secret is safe with me Dan. Who would believe me if I told them? Why did you kill those seven scientists? Well, I know why you killed them. It was for the exorbitant amount of money the Shabez offered you. Our scientists had been making great strides in their counter-terrorism strategies for biological attacks. I guess if you are planning a biological attack on a country it makes sense to get all their scientists out of the way first so there is nobody left with the ability to fight the virus. At first I didn’t understand why you let me live. Eventually I realized it was because you needed someone to pin it on. I was an easy target. People would automatically suspect I was involved.”
“What I’ve been having trouble figuring out, though, is why you killed Dr. Bowles. Help me out with that one Dan.”
By now Dan was seething. This little prick! He was so sure he would never be discovered. His mind raced with different scenarios and thoughts. In the end he decided it didn’t really matter what he said. There was no way McCoskey was leaving this room alive.
“Bowles was an unfortunate necessity,” he began. “I needed to gain more control over the company if I was going to be able to furnish Iran with the secrets they needed to complete their nuclear program. Bowles was much too smart for his own good. I knew there was no way I could outwit him. If I was going to move forward with my espionage, he had to go.”
“I figured Sally would be his logical successor and I knew she would be much easier to influence. She even looked to me for guidance and it was easy to steer her decisions along way. I just didn’t have that kind of influence over Dr. Bowles.”
“You heartless bastard!” said McCoskey. “Have you no respect for life? Have you no moral fiber?”
Dan laughed and began circling again. “That sounds really funny coming from you, Ed. You have fewer morals than anyone I know. That’s why you made such a great scapegoat.”
“Your lack of morals even helped put some finishing touches on the picture when I hired that hooker for you on the yacht. You played right into that one.”
“Why did you come here this morning, Ed? All you had to do was stay away and everything would have been okay. You knew we wouldn’t go to the authorities.” Dan began circling toward him again.
Ed frowned as he resumed his counter-circling. “That was my plan actually. I was going to let you get away with your little scheme. I’ve pretty much hit rock bottom in these past few weeks and I came to realize just what a jerk I’ve become. I’ve searched my soul to the dark depths and I didn’t like what I saw. I’m ashamed of the person I am. I’ve asked God to forgive me. I don’t understand it, but somehow I believe he will. I’ve even been to church a few times.”
Dan laughed. “Now that’s a good one! I never figured you for a man who would fall for that God crap. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“Laugh if you want to,” Ed replied calmly. “I was raised in the church and always knew God was real. Somewhere along the line, I just turned my back on him. I thought I could make it on my own. Life was much more fun living in sin. In the end, though, that kind of life leaves you with nothing. What good is it if a man gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?”
“Like I said, I was planning to let you get away with your little scheme. Then I got a phone call from my son Mickey. He just got back into port. It seems he
acquired a new watch from his dear old dad. He was looking forward to forging ahead with building a new relationship with me.”
“I have to admit, I like the idea of getting back together with him, but I just couldn’t remember sending him that watch…”
A proud look had come upon Dan’s face. “You have to admit, that was pretty clever. What a great way to plant a spy on a trident nuclear submarine! The only problem is getting the tick back so I can harvest the information.”
“How did you plan to get it back, anyway?”
Dan smirked, “Don’t you mean, how do I plan to get it back? That will be easy. I’ll tell Red what you’ve done and convince him of the need to keep the authorities out of it. I’ll have him visit Mickey and retrieve the tick for me.”
“And what’s to keep me from stopping you?” asked Ed.
A calm, serious look came upon Dan’s face. He said, “That won’t be a problem. It’s a good thing you found God, because you are about to meet him.” He climbed up on top of the table in front of him and headed across the middle of the room toward Ed.
The whole room burst into a flurry of activity. Ed scurried to get away, the chimps went wild, Dan stormed across the tops of the lab tables, the door flew open, and men flooded into the room with guns drawn. “Freeze!”
Dan looked confused, but there was no way he was giving up this easy. He charged toward the men. A shot rang out and a 9mm bullet slammed into his shoulder. This only slowed him down for a minute and he continued on toward the men. The next bullet hit him in the knee. Dan collapsed on the table.
The men were on top of him in an instant. There was a fierce struggle, but in the end Dan was handcuffed and his feet were shackled.
Sally walked into the room. “Dan, I couldn’t thank you enough for your confession and clearing up a few things that still didn’t make sense. I’d like you to meet our client. This is Mr. Waters with the CIA. He has been very interested in your activities over the past several weeks. It seems you have been trying to bud in on his purchase. I don’t think he likes that very much.”
