With a mighty heave, Ramón got the man to his feet. Somehow his legs held. With the man leaning on him and breathing a breath so foul that Ramón was sure it could shrivel a Tarantula, they made their way to the hanger.
The young Russian lady held the back door open, and pulled the seat forward. With the help of Viktor they shoved the drunken man into the third row seat. He hovered there for a moment, and then slid to the floor.
“He hates flying!” Viktor said as he got into the truck. He rolled down the window, and gave Ramón a “Thank you,” in Russian, and the truck took off out of the hanger.
Ramón watched the four Russians disappear down the street. He was hoping he’d see them again in 24 hours. He had just been promised 23,000 US dollars for his work. He’d be staying around the hanger to await their return.
Elena plugged the USB stick into her laptop and began running the GPS locator program. She sat in the second row of the truck. Her window rolled down to expel the smell of Lev in the back.
Branislav drove and Viktor sat in the front passenger’s seat. Viktor was furious at Lev for getting drunk, but more at himself—he should have seen it. A private jet with a full liquor cabinet was all a drunk like Lev could ask for. While they slept, Lev finished off two bottles of Cognac. A Camus Vintage, and a Camus Prestige. Viktor shook his head. The guy went through at least 6,000 Euros worth of booze that would be added to their bill. Viktor was surprised Lev hadn’t drunk himself to death.
Viktor looked over his shoulder at Elena, “Do you have anything yet on their location?” He wanted to get this mission back on track.
“Yes,” Elena said, staring down at the laptop. “Looks like their last position was a place called Merida; it’s about a three-hour drive from here.”
“Good, keep tracking their movements. We’ll have them soon,” Viktor said.
“Shit,” Elena said.
“What is it?” Viktor spun his head around to look at Elena.
“This program only downloads once a day. It’s a piece of antiquated shit! The Mexican sold us crap! This is for imbeciles! Elena spat the words out. Her fingers were flying over the keyboard, desperately trying to get more information that the program wasn’t willing to offer.
Viktor turned back to face the front. He gave a sideways glance to Branislav. He could not believe how badly this mission was turning out.
28
Four pelicans skimmed the surface of the waves just off the beach as McAllen watched from the balcony of the rented beach house. Only a few clouds dotted the horizon, and in an hour, there would be a green flash over the ocean. He usually marveled at it, putting everything aside just to watch it. Not tonight.
The laptop on the table in front of him streamed a video of the FBI agents breaking into his house in Merida. Just before he’d left his villa, he’d activated a motion-sensitive camera hooked up to a wireless IP Network.
He couldn’t help the feeling of fear that gripped him as he watched the agents in their black coveralls, bulletproof vests and helmets storming his place. They entered in textbook fashion, guns pointed, squatting low, and hands signaling to one another as they cleared each room. McAllen admired them—they were good. He was thankful he’d left. He could see himself flat on the floor with hands cuffed behind his back—an agent at his side had he stayed 24 hours more.
He felt lucky, but stupid at the same time. The very moment he’d learned about Goodman’s death was the time he should have left Mexico. Every Mexican checkpoint would now have his picture. He’d passed two Mexican military checkpoints just driving from Merida to where he was hiding. He’d been lucky and got through. He didn’t expect to be that lucky again.
He picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. The number rang four times before the familiar voice of Sebastian Germaine answered, “Hey Mac, we knew you’d be calling. Is it time for the cavalry?”
Sebastian and McAllen had served together in Vietnam. Sebastian Germaine was mid-sixties, wiry and short in stature but long in paranoia. He wore his long gray hair in braids, Willy Nelson style, and wore Navaho amulets and beads to ward off evil spirits.
He’d been a crack sniper in McAllen’s unit in Vietnam and later a sound engineer for Janice Joplin and the Grateful Dead. Years of hallucinogenic drugs made him paranoid. If there was ever someone to have at your back, it was Sebastian. He could assess all manner of danger—real or imagined.
Sebastian was with McAllen’s two other lifelong friends, Percy Stronach and Theo Martin. They were all Vietnam vets who had immigrated to Canada to find their own peace after the war in Vietnam ended.
They’d all settled close to McAllen on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. McAllen was a chemistry professor, Sebastian a sound engineer for rock musicians, Percy an oyster farmer, and Theo a boat builder.
If McAllen got in trouble, they all got in trouble. McAllen had developed a formula for something called polywater that made water like plastic. He’d sold the formula to some Wall Street guys who tried to double cross him. Percy, Theo and Sebastian were at his back then. They helped save McAllen, and they’d even gone on the run with him to Mexico.
McAllen chuckled, “Yeah, I guess I do need the cavalry. Where are you guys?”
“We just arrived at the Merida Airport.”
“I thought you guys were on a road trip to Ecuador.” McAllen sat up in his chair, his lanky body unfolding as he clutched the phone tighter.
Sebastian laughed. “Look, as soon as we saw all this news with these Bio Bugs attacking pipelines in Alaska and Russian, and about ships sinking in the Mediterranean, we knew your ass would be in a knot. The boys and I ditched the van in Panama and high-tailed it back here.”
McAllen sighed; he loved hearing Sebastian call his other guys the “boys,” as they were aged 63 to 75. There was a time when they’d been boys together, but that was so many years ago.
“Any ideas on how to get me out of here?” McAllen asked. “My face is all over Mexican media. They say I’m the bandito who’ll destroy their beloved PEMEX Oil, their national oil company, and they have a price on my head.”
“Well, I’d say the roads are out.”
“Affirmative, I think my face is at every Mexican checkpoint. I was lucky to make it here.”
“I suggest we use a boat, then a helicopter.”
“How do you figure?”
“Simple,” Sebastian said. “We hire a boat in Campeche, and pick you up at your dock. There are no checkpoints on the ocean. We’ll be just some guys on a fishing trip, and then we get you back to Campeche where there’s a whole bunch of helicopters flying around for the offshore oil rigs. We’ll hire one to get us the hell out of here. Sound okay?”
McAllen nodded his head as he spoke, “Hey, sounds fine to me.” Campeche was a small port city west of his location. “What’s your ETA?”
“Should be by tomorrow morning, but I’ll let you know when the boat’s in the water. The helicopter will take a good chunk of cash, but we still got lots. We should be able to get to either Guatemala or Belize with a few hours of flying time.”
“The Margaritas are on me when we land,” McAllen said. He heard Sebastian say, “Roger that,” and put down his phone. He watched the sun set, and caught the green flash just before it disappeared below the horizon.
He wondered how close the FBI and the Mexicans were to finding him. He went into the kitchen and pulled a Corona out of the fridge. He sat back on the balcony to watch the waves as he took a long pull out of the bottle. If his friends didn’t arrive in time—this would be one of his last nights of freedom.
29
Bernadette sat at the far end of the boardroom and watched an FBI agent set up a laptop and hook up a data projector while a Hotel staffer pulled down a movie screen in the front of the room. This announced their evening briefing by Senior FBI Agent Lance Cooper.
Cooper was mid-forties, tall, with a rectangular face, brush cut, and heavy eyebrows that gave him a serious look. His gravel style voi
ce made him sound like he stepped out of a 1950s crime drama, and J. Edgar Hoover, the originator of the FBI, was somewhere in the room.
Bernadette glanced at her watch; it was 9:30 p.m. The day of investigation and searching for the professor had led from the villa he was not in to the search of countless other villas he was not in. They turned over one small rental unit after another, and then proceeded to check every hotel in the downtown core.
Someone in the senior FBI force called it quits for the evening. They came back to the hotel, downed a quick dinner, and came to this room for the briefing. Bernadette felt the movement in her stomach of the nightly fare of rice and beans mixed with pork that swam inside of some kind of grease. Her stomach was negotiating the mass, and not really liking the result. She wondered if she would succumb to the dreaded “Montezuma’s Revenge” of Mexico, which resulted in a bout of diarrhea. Her stomach did a small flip; she burped softly and drank some water. “So far so good,” she thought.
Agent Cooper cleared his throat, a signal that he was about to begin. “I want to bring your attention to recent events that have transpired around the globe today to give you some idea of the gravity and the importance of our search for the person named Professor Alistair McAllen.” He cleared his throat again, drank some water and motioned toward what was appearing on the screen.
The thirty-some agents in the room lifted their heads up from their own laptops and cell phones and watched the screen come into view. The first image was a satellite shot. The title underneath the picture showed the latitude and longitude of the position and the time of the shot, which was the day before.
“What you are looking at is an image taken by a US Naval Intelligence satellite over the Aegean Sea. Two days ago, a supertanker from a Russian oil company came apart approximately 100 nautical miles from the island you see to your left. It’s called Mykonos. The tanker had three million barrels of oil on board, and our information is that the entire cargo of oil is in the ocean and floating toward that island.” Cooper pointed with a laser showing the small island that was about to have its beaches coated in oil.
An agent near the front of the room that Bernadette only knew by the first name of Hillary spoke up. “How is the cleanup operation going?”
Cooper expelled a sigh. “That is a good point; here is a view of this morning in the same area.” He hit a button and the satellite image came up. There was not one sign of vessel traffic in the area.
“I don’t get it. Where are the clean-up vessels and salvage ships?” Hillary asked.
“There are none, as any ship that has ventured into this area has been sunk by a wave, comprised of what our analysts believe to be whatever sunk the tanker.” Cooper went back to his laptop, and brought up a series of pictures of ships. “We have reports that this cruise ship was sunk, as was this Coast Guard Cutter, as well as several small freighters. We have no idea on the number of lives lost, but our estimates are in the thousands. The only thing able to survive in this area is a wooden boat.” He brought up a series of pictures of the ships that had been sunk.
“Do the analysts think this is the work of the Bio Bugs released by the Chechen Terrorists?” Hillary asked.
Cooper punched up some more images on the screen. “That is exactly what they think. Just this morning, the Russian Security force identified the names of two men from the crew manifest, brothers named Anzor and Kerim Kadyrov. Both are linked to this man . . .”
“This is Adlan Kateav,” Cooper said, bringing up the picture on screen. “Who the Russians think is their leader, and also responsible for the attack on the pipeline in the Samara region of Russia a few days ago.”
Bernadette nudged Anton who was sitting beside her, and said in a whisper, “That looks like the guy driving the car we saw early this morning.”
Anton whispered back, “Are you sure about that?”
“Oh yeah, I . . .” Bernadette stopped in mid-sentence as Cooper’s glance arched its way in her direction. Agent Winston was across the table, and gave her a frown.
Cooper continued with his briefing. “Now, with the recent events in Europe, the problem of finding this professor has taken on an entirely new scope of international proportions.” He paused for effect, cleared his throat while he took a sip of water. Bernadette could see what he was about to say was bothering him.
“As of tomorrow, this search is being taken over by a combined detail of the CIA and Military Intelligence, with the aid of both the Mexican police and military.” Cooper took another sip of water, as if just saying the words had left a bad taste in his mouth.
An agent named Tony King spoke up first. “We’re being sent home?”
Cooper shook his head, “No, we stay in place, our mission is the same, but the search will be run by a CIA head with several Military Intelligence liaisons. Look, I know none of you like this, but at this point this thing has escalated. As you can see from the picture behind me, if these Bio organisms grow unchecked, all shipping traffic in the Mediterranean Sea is in jeopardy, as well the lives of those on board the ships. At this very minute, the entire US Navy’s Sixth fleet is weighing anchor and setting sail to get out of range of these things.”
Bernadette nudged Anton again, and whispered, “It’s about to get very crowded here very quickly”
Cooper shut off his laptop, and an aide unplugged the data projector. The FBI agents rose up, took their laptops and left the room. Bernadette and Anton followed.
Anton walked behind Bernadette and when they were away from the other agents, he tapped her on the shoulder. “Okay Bernadette, here’s the deal. I brought you along on this search for McAllen not only for your instincts, but also for your ability to share information. If you think this Chechen terrorist is here in Mexico, don’t you think that needs sharing with the FBI, especially Agent Winston, whom you promised you’d be on your best behavior?”
Bernadette shook her head. “You know Anton, I’m sorry if you don’t like my methods, but here it is. If I tell these guys I think this Adlan guy is here, it’s going to put everyone on high alert. They’ll go in with guns out, and shoot the first thing that moves. I don’t want McAllen killed; I want to capture him, and I want his formula to stop this crazy bug that his student invented—does that sound too much off the team for you?”
Anton’s head was down, staring at the floor and measuring her words, “No, now that you put it that way, I see your point. But this puts us both in danger without any back up.”
“Hey, I got your back, and you got mine,” Bernadette said and smiled. “We head out of here at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, do a little recon of this fishing village, and if we find evidence of McAllen we call for backup, if we find nothing . . . well we rejoin the main task force back here in the city. Does that sound fair?”
“Sure, but why do I feel like I’m going to be in big trouble if I go along with you and worse if I don’t?”
Bernadette patted Anton on the shoulder. “Ah, the magic of dealing with a woman. Get some sleep; I’ll meet you down in the lobby at 6 bells.” She turned and headed for the elevator. Once again, she hoped her instincts were right.
30
Bernadette did not fall asleep until midnight. She tossed and turned until then, trying to get the temperature right in her room. The hot, humid air seeped into everything. She had wanted to keep her window open, but finally gave up, turned up the AC and got under the covers.
The first dream she had, she was in a clearing in a forest. The forest looked familiar. The trees were like the ones in northern Canada, where she grew up as a child on the reservation. A stand of dark green Jack pine was interspersed with the soft green of the poplar trees. The poplar leaves waved in the wind, while the Jack pines swayed.
There was nothing unusual about the dream. Nothing fearful or scary as the woods seemed so familiar. A crow flew overhead, and then another. When she looked up, a flock of crows was circling overhead. They cawed a few times as they flew, but the wind in the trees was the mai
n sound she heard.
A dark form appeared at the line of trees. The form moved into the clearing, and became a bear. Bears rarely scared Bernadette. If she didn’t surprise them, she knew they wouldn’t bother her, but just go on their way.
This bear swayed back and forth. It sniffed the air; it stared at her. The crows cawed more loudly then swooped down toward her and flew away. She felt their wings beat past her hair. The bear gave her one long parting glance, then turned and made its way back into the woods. She was all alone in the clearing again . . . just the sky, the trees and the wind.
She woke up. Her clock glowed 4 a.m. Her t-shirt was drenched in sweat. She got out of bed and threw water on her face in the bathroom sink. She stripped off her underwear and t-shirt and got into the shower. The water was a tepid mix between hot and cold. She let it run over her face and down her body.
The dream of crows and a bear would be nothing to anyone, Bernadette thought. Unless you were a native North American like she was, imbued with her grandmother’s storytelling. Crows and Bears were good spirits; the Natives learned from them. But why did they both appear in her dream. Was it a warning?
If Bernadette was back on the reservation, back in her grandmother’s house, she would have curled up beside her and Grandma Moses would have told her about legends of the Bears, and how they helped the Dene people. And the Crows, how their feathers were entwined into lances and hung from teepees. The wisdom of the crow was revered in stories around the campfire during hunting parties. Elders would tell stories long into the night while the children sat in awe of the tall tales.
Now, in this Best Western Hotel room in Mexico, Bernadette was somewhat confused by the two images of these creatures coming into her dreams. She was not superstitious. But the dream had given her an eerie feeling. Was she afraid of what she had put Anton and herself into for the next day? Was she wrong to pursue McAllen with just the two of them? With no back up, as Anton suggested? But she convinced herself it was always best to go hunting on her own—it was her way.
Pipeline Killers: Bernadette Callahan. A female detective mystery with international suspense. (Book 2) Page 21
