Taming the Telomeres, a Thriller

by R. N. Shapiro

  Andy lowers his voice to a mere whisper. “The Chinese killed Ron, Rochelle and all those passengers. That’s what you’re saying. That’s the truth isn’t it?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth, Michaels. I told you before, we didn’t cause it. And we didn’t do anything wrong either.”

  Both of them stare down at the copper bar for a few seconds.

  “Are we good now?”

  “Maybe. It’s a lot to digest, and I can’t believe how valuable this research must be. As long as you have Amanda safe by tomorrow. We can talk more about legalities then.”

  Andy gets up and hovers a moment near Stein’s bar stool, preparing to leave, but somehow can’t bring himself to take the next few steps.

  Stein reaches up and places his hand on Andy’s upper arm in an unusual gesture.

  “Michaels, I’m trusting you here. Not a soul. I promise to explain more when we confirm the mole and have Amanda and David safe.”

  Chapter 108

  Snowmen

  Amanda lies beside David on the bed, watching Clint Eastwood brood. A nervous tension pervades the room, not because of the storyline of the old western, but from the day’s surreal events.

  “I guess I should go and try to get some sleep,” he says, getting up off the bed.

  “Wait. I’m scared.”

  He stands near the open doorway, while she walks over toward the window.

  “We’re safer here than we were last night. Here we have the FBI protecting us, last night we could’ve been killed or--”

  Amanda lifts one of the blinds to check on the snowfall. “David! I saw someone, or something.”

  David quickly walks over and lifts one of the blinds to look.

  “What? Where?”

  “I saw something. I swear I saw someone running in the snow near those trees.”

  “I don’t see anything. Where?”

  “Over by the trees on the right, but—I don’t see anything now.”

  “How sure are you? Should we tell Sienna?”

  Looking through the blind again, she seems uncertain. “Can you just stay in here awhile? I noticed there are some playing cards in the night stand.” She walks over to it. “Here,” she says, sliding it open and pulling out the cards. “Let’s play Hearts again. That was fun when we played on the train, before we got into this big mess. Maybe we shouldn’t have come, like my Uncle Andy said.”

  “Easy to say now. Okay, let’s play.”

  Midway through the first game, chaos erupts. Blinding light is followed by a deafening explosion of some type of grenade. Then another, and another. They both instinctively shut their eyes against the painfully bright light.

  Suddenly a body launches onto Amanda’s, forcing them both off the bed to the floor. Panic stricken, Amanda doesn’t struggle. The woman’s weight rests directly on top of Amanda, and their heads both face the door below the foot of the bed. Amanda finally cracks open one eye to find near blackness and no electricity. She can just make out the silhouette of her captor’s pistol with its long silencer held out in front of them, aimed toward the door. Amanda doesn’t dare move, but can’t help speaking.

  “Sienna? David? Are you mmmfff--” A gloved hand covers her mouth, muffling her words.

  “Shhhh!”

  A second later, Sienna wheels silently into the bedroom with her pistol drawn ahead of her.

  Amanda pulls the gloved hand off her mouth. “Watch--!”

  It’s too late, her captor fires several rounds upwards at close range and Sienna’s body violently shakes and then falls with a terrible thud right into the room near the door.

  “Noooo!!” Amanda tries to yell, but she can barely breathe between the shock and the pressure on her back. The gloved hand presses hard against her mouth again. A few seconds pass. Another person slowly climbs the stairs. She can hear the slight creaking sound in the otherwise deafening silence. As she considers breaking free, she hears more whizzing sounds, followed by the unmistakable loud piercing sound of machine gun fire. Finally, the shooting stops and she hears a person tumbling down the long hardwood staircase. She and David may be next, but something tells her probably not. Couldn’t they have easily been killed already?

  “Three hostiles down,” a man suddenly standing inside the doorway says to someone else, himself slightly out of breath. Amanda’s eyes focus on him in the darkness, his all black outfit, his night vision goggles, the machine gun in his right hand. He stoops down and checks Sienna for a pulse.

  “She’s dead,” he says with no trace of emotion. Suddenly he hears something from behind the louvered closet doors.

  “David. Come out with your hands raised where I can see them,” he says loudly with his machine gun trained at the closet. He knows David’s name!

  “Okay, okay,” David says, sliding open both doors and quickly raising his hands.

  “They were all MSS agents. Ministry of State Security, China’s CIA. We’re FBI, and we’re extricating you,” the guy says.

  “What? How can we believe you? They said they were FBI…” David says.

  “Not a chance. We have to move, we don’t have much time,” the woman atop Amanda says, climbing off of her.

  “Britt? Britt! What the hell are you…” Amanda haltingly says. She feels dizzy trying to absorb it.

  “No way!” David gasps.

  "No time to explain now. We’ve got a plan to get you both out of here alive, but we know this place is wired tight. They didn't kill you; that's a good sign, because they could have. Just follow every direction Jeremy and I give."

  “How’d you get in here?” David asks.

  “Cut in through the roof, then came down the attic staircase.”

  "Sienna was their agent? And they killed Pletcher too?" David asks.

  "There was no real Pletcher, we created him as bait. Why’d you two have to pull this stunt?" Britt says after a slight delay, then listens to something through her earpiece.

  “That makes no sense,” David mutters. “We saw that bomb explode and saw the news too.”

  Britt ignores him, apparently listening to directions.

  “Listen up. We’re going downstairs, then Jeremy will get to the garage to link up with two other agents. We have 45 seconds to hit the back door, dash to the woods, and take off on the snow scooter. Jeremy and his team will create a diversion.”

  “Follow right behind me," Britt instructs, and they caravan down the staircase, with Jeremy leading. Both he and Britt have their machine guns drawn. David recognizes the weapon well, down to the silencer and the under-muzzle M-4 grenade launcher. They reach the bottom of the staircase still in darkness, where Jeremy peels off silently toward the front of the house. Britt, followed by the two of them, moves silently in the other direction toward the kitchen area.

  To persons unseen, Britt whispers, “15 seconds,” and then adds, “Jeremy, at the one count fire your grenade at the snowman in the front yard, I will take out the one in the back.”

  “3, 2, 1!” Britt crashes out the lower right corner of the kitchen window and fires the M-4’s grenade at the snowman in the backyard, reducing it instantly to an uneven clump on the ground. A metal tubular frame, nearly as tall as the snowman was, now stands exposed. Several wires connected to small electronic surveillance devices dangle from the frame.

  “I had a feeling about them.” Brit says to the network of listening agents.

  In the front yard, an explosive device discharges near the highway. Suddenly, the garage door bursts into pieces as a black SUV being driven backwards by Jeremy barrels through it. Gunfire erupts from the woods. The SUV fishtails into a 180-degree turn and continues down the snow covered driveway.

  High above the scene, a U.S. controlled drone pinpoints the location of the gunfire from the wooded area adjacent to the driveway. GPS coordinates are conveyed to two agents in sniper positions, who then hone in their gunfire on the hostile agents. A nasty firefight erupts in the woods.

  Britt, followed by Amanda
and David, burst from the rear door of the home and make a beeline for the thick tree line. Britt has activated a small handheld jamming device in case the MSS has booby-trapped the area with any IEDs. All three jump onto the snow scooter, a snowmobile designed by U.S. intelligence to operate in virtual silence at up to 40 mph. They accelerate through the tree line, guided by Britt, using her night vision goggles. Finally, they break out of the tree line, and Britt steers the scooter onto the snow-covered road. Ahead there is a partially lit panel truck waiting for them with the rear ramp down. Still moving at around 20 miles an hour, Britt runs the scooter right up the ramp and into the rear of the panel truck where she disengages the throttle. A huge airbag deploys in the front of the panel truck and captures them in its midst. A second or two later, the massive airbag retracts, as does the ramp, and the overhead door closes.

  A small half-door opens between the truck cab and the trailer. Britt greets the driver and another agent before pulling a fold-down bench seat from the wall of the trailer and securing the snow scooter in place with two large hooks. Then she climbs into the front seat and a different agent climbs into the back, holding a machine gun in his hand and sporting a set of night vision goggles on his forehead.

  “Put those shoulder harnesses around yourselves,” the agent says. The truck engine starts up moments later and she and David feel the truck pull slowly away.

  “Where’s Britt?” Amanda asks.

  “She’s gone. We’re responsible for getting you to a real safe house now.”

  Chapter 109

  Swimming

  The most logical takedown locations had been analyzed over several days before they settled on a choke point one block from the mole’s home. The FBI SWAT team, along with several of Solarez’ CIA operatives, have taken up positions in the two blocks closest to the mole’s home. Unfortunately their careful planning was all for naught: the mole never came home that evening.

  A man swims the 1.5K Potomac River course from just south of the Lincoln Memorial to the Arlington Memorial Bridge and back. He has been training for the upcoming triathlon both after work and on weekends. Because the Potomac is notoriously polluted, he wears his full-length wetsuit and black skin-tight swimming cap with a small American flag on the side. As he makes his way to the buoy marking his halfway point under the Arlington Memorial Bridge, he's feeling pretty good.

  Even with his swimming goggles on, he never sees the frogman rising slowly behind him. He feels a very slight stinging sensation in the middle of his lower abdomen, from the tiny needle injected there by the specially modified speargun. There is no opportunity for him to feel anything else because he is completely paralyzed.

  * * *

  The frogman then lassoes his leg and tugs him down under the water’s surface. River water fills his mouth, his nasal passages, and rushes into his chest.

  Nearly motionless, the frogman watches his underwater chronograph and counts down the seconds to ensure the swimmer has drowned. When enough time has elapsed, he releases the lasso from the leg of the swimmer and watches him float back up to the surface. The frogman then proceeds to his launching location at the opposite side of the Potomac about a half-mile away.

  Chapter 110

  Unraveled

  At 8:10 a.m. the next morning, Andy’s cellphone rings. It's Stein.

  "Michaels, I have great news. We have Amanda and David."

  "Hallelujah," Andy says with a deep sigh.

  "There's a lot more I'd like to go over with you. Can you come to the State Department?"

  "Why don't you come over here to my office? I think at this point you owe it to me." Andy says, feeling confident that Stein will do it.

  "Okay, I'll grab a taxi. Thirty minutes?"

  "Sure. I'll be waiting." Andy looks at his watch and realizes Myra isn’t even at the front desk yet. He walks out there and leaves her a note, then walks back to his desk to wait.

  About a half an hour later Myra announces that Stein has arrived. Andy greets him in the reception area. Stein leans in slightly and whispers, "We need to take a walk."

  Andy raises his eyebrows, but doesn't argue. Stein says nothing until they are on the street. They walk side by side up to M Street and turn eastbound, avoiding the occasional pedestrians passing them.

  "We have your niece and David in protective custody, and we are taking them to a safe house. It was pretty dicey from what I've been told. They were kidnapped and we had to put together an armed raid to rescue them."

  "You didn't tell me anything about them being held captive."

  "I didn't want to freak you out. Lives were lost in the operation. They lost some and we lost one."

  Andy looks straight ahead, thinking how much this is outside his realm. They continue their slow walk east, apparently with no destination.

  “My niece and David think Ron may have treated her blood with something. What do you know about it?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but I can tell you this, the Chinese think she was. That’s probably why they kidnapped her. They actually drew her blood, most likely under some false pretense. We recovered all of it.”

  Before Andy can ask another question about Amanda’s possible treatments, Stein speaks again.

  "The other big news is we exposed the mole. But he was dead before we could arrest him."

  "Who killed him?"

  "We assume the MSS. They knew that if we arrested him we would surely expose the rest of their U.S. operatives."

  "So does that mean you can or can’t bring Amanda home?" Andy asks.

  "Andy, Alex Erickson drowned last night while swimming in the Potomac."

  Andy stops in his tracks as Stein keeps walking. Andy can’t move. Stein, realizing he is walking alone, turns and takes a few steps back toward Andy and faces him.

  "Stein, that can't be. He wasn't the mole."

  Stein simply looks at Andy, says nothing, and then turns, shaking his head. He begins walking again.

  "Stein. Talk to me. Tell me it wasn't Alex!"

  Stein walks very slowly, refusing to answer. Andy then trots toward him and grabs his left arm.

  "How do you know for sure?"

  With resignation in his voice, Stein answers. "We know, Michaels. We also know all about how close you and Ron were with him, so I decided to tell you in person, but I…you just have to forget we ever talked about this. No one else will ever know the truth. I’m sure the death certificate will read ‘drowning secondary to acute myocardial infarction,’ which means ‘drowning due to heart attack.’”

  Andy feels like a sledgehammer has pummeled his chest. Just breathing seems impossible.

  "We're going to develop a cover story about where your niece and David have been. Probably something about Amanda needing emergency medical treatment of some sort and demanding he be with her.

  “Last, we’re working on a comprehensive deal with the Chinese. If we seal this deal, I believe Amanda and Owlsley will be safe again. We’ve taken steps already."

  "A deal? You're negotiating with the Chinese MSS?" Andy asks him incredulously.

  "Oh yeah. We make deals with foreign intelligence agencies on occasion, when it makes sense to both sides. We have some real bargaining chips. Their agents are human beings with families too, and we have some bodies in bags and some live ones too."

  Did Andy really hear that? Yes, unfortunately. It seems like just another business deal to Stein. This is not his first rodeo, for sure.

  They are near a busy corner, so Stein extends his arm to hail a cab and Andy turns to walk back to his office. He takes a few steps away and stops. Then he pivots back toward Stein.

  “What about Amanda’s friend, Kent Perless?”

  Just then a cab pulls alongside a parked car near the corner, and Stein takes a couple steps toward it.

  “The MSS, Michaels. That’s one of our major bargaining chips.”

  “Wait, what’s that mean? He was just an innocent victim, right?” Andy asks as Stein reaches for the cab
door and opens it.

  “We’ll talk soon.” Stein says and then shuts the door.

  Andy steps back up to the sidewalk, unable to focus even on which direction he wants to walk. The pedestrians stream around him. He’s thinking about Denise Erickson, their kids. Thinking about all the trips they've been on together. Ron, Alex, and himself, skiing, hanging out, partying in college. Then he rehashes their meeting at the Catacombs too, when he never imagined anything could involve Alex. What made Alex cross that line? Was it jealousy of Ron? Maybe financial stress, with all those kids and private schools and whatever?

  He just can’t make himself believe Alex sold out. Sold out himself, Ron, hell, his own country. How much did they pay him? Maybe Alex set in motion the crash of the Hemispheres jet. Especially if controlling the BBS research information was what the Chinese were after. Andy finally starts walking back toward his office. Then he thinks of the funeral. Oh God. Not another funeral, this time where he will hide this horrible, twisted secret. Sadness envelopes him, so much so he feels completely exhausted.

  He suddenly has the presence of mind to call Barbara and tell her the fantastic news about Amanda being safe and sound. She and Steve are absolutely ecstatic.

  After he ends that call and is nearing his law office, Kent Perless, and his dad Kyle slide back into the foreground of his thoughts. It was not an overdose. It was linked to everything else. There’s been no closure for Kyle, none whatsoever.

  As soon as he gets back to his building, he walks into Angie’s office and plops down in a chair.

  “Why was that guy here?”

  “Amanda and David were actually missing, and that guy was letting me know they’re safe and sound now,” he says, proud that none of it was a lie, just a lot omitted.