Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 01 - Flapjack

by Daniel Ganninger

  “So you think that Genesis is doing something with Black Bear?” I inquired.

  “I don’t know if they are but this file name stood out. Every single time I saw these names I knew they were usually associated with something pretty bad, or pretty illegal. I looked up the name Adamathea. She wasn’t a Greek god, but a nymph who helped Zeus and hid him from his father, Cronus, who was going to swallow him or something nutty like that. The numbers following the name are exactly as I remembered them, but this time there was no phonetic alphabet. The god Black Bear chose explained the operation. It helped keep everyone on the same page, but a degree in Greek mythology may have been a prerequisite to figure out what operation you were involved in,” Galveston stopped and caught his breath, already thinking two steps ahead. “You remember the story I told you about when I got let go from them, right?”

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “Well Osiris Echo was one of the things I came across when I did the research about arms dealers related to Black Bear. I never knew what that was then.”

  “Osiris was the lord of the dead in Egyptian culture, I believe,” I piped in. “That’s a morbid one, but it fits.”

  “Right, and all those arms were for rebels in Africa,” Galveston continued.

  “So what, you have an old vendetta to return? I mean, who cares. That was history. I don’t understand. What do you plan to do with this?” I asked again.

  “I don’t know,” he sighed, “it just seemed like a strange coincidence to run across something like this.”

  That would be the understatement of the year.

  -Chapter 18-

  As curious as it was, it had no bearing on our newly minted operation. Galveston seemingly let the matter fade and began to change focus even before we had our payment in hand.

  We basked in the glory of our new potential greenbacks and discussed our next move even before we got the money. Galveston slid back in his chair.

  “You know, we need some new digs, a new place to call home. We can’t continue to do business in this hovel.” Galveston already had his sights set on a new place.

  “I agree,” I added. I was hoping we would start to move towards more legitimacy, maybe not continue with the current reckless behavior we now exhibited. No one in our merry band was licensed in the state as a private investigator. I hoped that we could rectify this and become slightly more legal.

  I broached the subject with Galveston who agreed, but he was aloof about a timeline for such a thing to happen. It might just be something that I would need to do on my own.

  During the next few days we took a little break. There were no new jobs that we knew of so we took advantage of the downtime and looked for a new office. Galveston had found a nice little office in a business park between a medical supply company and a dog grooming business. Two businesses I’m sure we would frequent.

  We immediately put down a payment and moved in a few desks, a file cabinet, and Alex wired it for internet access, allowing us connection to the world. Expenses were kept low, but decided we needed a new member, someone to man our extensive one line phone system and vast financial resources.

  Alex had our perfect subject in mind. Galveston and I had only one stipulation, that it must be a woman, and she must be of an acceptable nature. It was our polite way to say that we had grown tired of looking at each other’s mugs day in and day out and preferred someone with hair longer than to their ears.

  He had an old friend that he insured us would be just right. She was flexible, had another job, since we paid very poorly, and had smarts. Her name was Jane and she was an aspiring actress, a college graduate, and desperately needed a day job. She also had legs up to her ears, which made coming to work that much easier. It was appropriate that she was an actress since most of our business was just an act.

  She agreed to start right away and fit right in quickly. She organized our files, manned the phones, and answered the two calls we would get per day beautifully. Everything was going well. We had two new potential jobs. Easy ones that required more sitting research than legwork, and I began looking in on getting my private investigator license.

  Almost a week had passed since the Genesis job, and unfortunately according to the rubber band theory that just couldn’t last. The rubber band theory is this, things go well in life, everything just clicks along, opportunities rise and problems fall, the rubber band of life is stretched slowly. Unfortunately, just like a rubber band it can only stretch so far and at some point it must return to its original position, or it can break, causing everything to go back to the start. Our rubber band had been stretched to its limit, it didn’t break, but on a Friday morning it returned to its original position, and maybe even spun into a knot.

  -Chapter 19-

  I wearily looked at the clock as my phone rang, it was 7:15 A.M. The caller I.D. revealed the number I knew it was. I silently cursed the device and pushed the talk button.

  “Yeah,” I answered with eyes closed and mouth feeling as if some small rodent had decided to make a home there.

  “Whew. You better get to the bathroom. I can smell your breath from here,” Galveston said, much too cheerily for this ungodly time of the morning.

  “You know I can’t operate before noon. What the hell do you want?” I really couldn’t function very well this early. My brain always felt like it was on a siesta.

  “Hey, get up, get your dress on, and meet me for coffee.” Galveston clearly ignored my plight. He was always too chipper in the morning.

  “Can’t it wait? I’ll bring you some coffee if you just leave me alone. I will spit in it of course.”

  “Oh that’s lovely. Crawl yourself out of bed, spray some water on that bird’s nest you call your hair, and get over here,” he said.

  Clearly the insults helped my motivation. I knew it was pointless to fight and I relented, pulling myself from bed. He would just keep calling until I gave in. He was persistent about such things.

  “Alright, just don’t call again. I’ll see you at eight,” I told him.

  “Oh, and don’t forget to bleach that mouth of yours,” he said as I hung up on him, something he was used to by now.

  I stumbled to the bathroom and examined my faux Mohawk bed head, slowly cleaned up, and got ready for an uneventful day. We met at a small coffee house a block down from our new office. Galveston was nice enough to let me buy.

  We slowly finished up our coffee and decided it was time to get to the office, arriving at our new den of solitude around nine A.M.

  Jane was busily typing on the computer and reading a magazine at the same time. She looked stunning every morning and I always wondered what time she had to wake up to get looking like that. It was a nice thing to see early in the morning, and I had developed a little crush the first time I had laid my eyes on her.

  She greeted us warmly, but more nervously than usual. As I pushed the thought back that she needed a morning hug, she motioned to Galveston.

  “Dan you have visitors. They insisted to meet with you, and one of them said he was an old friend of yours. I told them I didn’t know when you would be here and I would leave you a message, but they insisted they would wait. The one man said you would understand?” Clearly she was troubled and now definitely needed a hug and consoling by me.

  “Hold it cowboy,” Galveston said instinctively, reaching his arm out, straight across my chest, and stopping me in my tracks. “I think she’s doing okay.” He could clearly read my body language and the sad puppy dog face I made. My face burst with embarrassment.

  We stood back and peered through the door. Two men sat with their backs to us, both with black suits on.

  “Do you recognize them?” I asked, continuing to look at Jane.

  “No, I don’t recognize the backs of their heads, and hey, focus,” Galveston snapped his fingers, jolting me from my dream; the ray of light I had created around Jane vanished. I had it worse than I thought.

  I looked at Galveston and he motioned w
ith his hand to follow him. I followed him into the office, fighting the urge to not look back at Jane. Now this was getting ridiculous.

  “Hello gentlemen, what can I do…” Galveston stopped mid-sentence, the smile fell from his face, and the blood poured out of his head turning him a shade of white I hadn’t seen before. He now recognized the man that had stood up and turned toward us as we walked into the room.

  “Dan Galveston. Long time no see.” The man near the door stuck out hand.

  “David, how are you?” Galveston stammered and shook his hand

  “David May, this is Dr. Roger Marshall, my business partner.” Galveston rarely used my full name and credentials. He usually would introduce me under some fake name just to watch me squirm, so this was definitely a different case.

  My memory swirled to place the name. It sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. Obviously he was an acquaintance of Galveston’s, but I couldn’t place if he was a positive or negative one.

  “Nice to meet you Dr. Marshall,” he said.

  “You can call me Roger, I don’t go by that title anymore, and nice to meet you too.” We shook hands and I noticed he was cleanly dressed in a pressed black suit with a noticeable bulge in his suit jacket.

  “I think I’ve mentioned Special Agent May to you Roger. I don’t know if you remember.” It came flooding back from our lunch in the diner. Special Agent David May of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now the blood left my face and I turned a bone white as I felt my heart rate increase. Pop-ins by the FBI, friend or not, was not a good thing, and definitely not after some of the stuff we had been pulling.

  I nervously shook my head that I did remember, but no words of confirmation came out of my mouth. Galveston’s demeanor had returned and he was now in full business mode.

  Agent May introduced his compatriot, a wiry looking fellow that had no smile, wearing a suit that was too small. He offered us a steely gaze.

  “Dan, Roger, this is Walter Ackers, he is with Atwater Security.” We both nodded in unison toward him and offered our hands for a handshake in which he reluctantly agreed. Galveston moved to his desk and sat down.

  “Gentlemen, have a seat.” Galveston motioned to the pair. They sat down and I took up position in a chair next to Galveston’s desk.

  “It’s good to see you David. It’s been a long time. What, two or three years?”

  “Yes, about that long. I see you’ve gotten back off the ground again. You know I always thought you got a raw deal, right?”

  “Yeah, I know. So what brings you here?” Galveston leaned back in his chair putting his hands behind his head, obviously having an idea why. I obviously had no clue, but edged to the end of my seat to find out. I remembered Galveston speaking highly of David May, and recalling that he had been a friend of his in the Bureau. I hoped this was just a social call to catch up on old times.

  “Well Dan, I just came to ask a few questions,” May started while crossing his legs. “I’ll just cut to the chase. I’ve received some credible information that there was a break-in at a local software company, and I was wondering if you would happen to have any knowledge of this. Have you heard about it, or heard anything of some heavy hitters in the area hacking into computer systems?”

  “You’ll have to be more specific. We hear a lot of things. I guess I would need some more information if I was to help you,” Galveston answered coolly and without a hint of guilt.

  “It was about a week ago, pretty simple, but sophisticated. We believe there were some sensitive files hacked from a company call Genesis Software. Mr. Acker here thinks there is a connection with a maintenance man that came in the night before the break in. The night security guards don’t have a record of his work or a reason for him being there, except for what the maintenance worker said.”

  “It seems the security guards need a lot more training, or maybe they were never trained well enough in the first place,” Galveston said again coolly, glancing at Mr. Acker who now shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tightened his lips. May stifled a smile knowing Galveston was goading our new found friend.

  “So did you get a picture of this guy? I mean, the maintenance person.”

  “Not clearly they didn’t. He seemed to know where the cameras were and had a hat pulled down low on his face. He did have a tattoo on his left forearm.”

  “Galveston has a tattoo?” I thought, never remembering that. Galveston leaned forward onto his desk, nonchalantly showing his forearms. Mr. Acker peered over, seeing nothing. The skin on his arm was clear as a bell. Galveston was way ahead of them.

  “So you have security guards letting people in that shouldn’t be there, and a guy with a tattoo but no face. I’m not sure how you want me to help you with this David.”

  “I just let Mr. Acker know that I had a contact that may be able to help him. I heard you were back in business and that Alex was back in town.” Galveston held back a flinch. May knew all about Alex and his technological skills.

  “I have one more bit of information. Actually, Mr. Acker did this work for me. He found out an employee’s username and password was used to get it.”

  “You don’t say.” Galveston kept to the similar line, but knew this was not good information.

  “So why don’t you think this guy could steal these files.”

  Mr. Acker chimed in at this point, itching to get in on the conversation.

  “This particular employee was not in the building when it occurred,” Acker started.

  “He could have accessed it from his home or some remote source. You know that isn’t hard to do,” Galveston answered again.

  “These were highly encrypted files and could only be accessed from inside the building. Plus at the time of the break-in he was engaged in some other, uh, activities.” At this, I edged even further forward in my seat. What had our boy Dart been doing? Even Galveston raised his eyebrows.

  May smiled. “At that time of the break-in he was engaging in an affair with the vice president’s wife.” My mouth opened wide while Galveston’s eyebrows raised and his eyes almost popped from their sockets.

  “He definitely had other things on his mind then,” Galveston said dryly, looking at me.

  “Exactly,” May continued, “he confessed this to me when I interviewed him, and unfortunately, I confirmed this with a very surprised woman. So this guy couldn’t have done those transfers from his computer. He clearly was involved in more pressing affairs.”

  “Pressing affairs? That’s an understatement,” Galveston said, suppressing an ironic smile. “I still don’t have any new leads for you though, but we could look into it. I tell you what, if Mr. Acker could talk to his higher-ups, and we find out some useful information, then maybe we could work out a payment system. You know I don’t do anything for free, right David?”

  “Yeah, I know. I think we could work something out, but only for useful information.”

  Galveston put his finger to his chin as if calculating some new found solution, “I may have some information, but I can’t disclose it in front of you, Mr. Acker, privacy reasons of course. If David finds it credible, he’ll fill you in. How does that sound?”

  May paused. “I think that would be fine. Why don’t you wait outside Walter. We’ll leave after I hear this,” May said, turning to Ackers.

  “Okay,” Ackers answered, getting up to leave. “Nice to meet you Mr. Galveston, Dr. Marshall.” He nodded to us both and headed for the front room, closing the door behind him.

  I moved back in my chair. I felt like leaving too. At least I could join Mr. Acker in the front and stare at Jane for a while, but I was in this as much as Galveston was.

  “I think we’re ready to cut the crap, don’t you David?” Galveston leaned back in his chair.

  “I think so,” May answered seriously.

  “So what information do you have that brought you here, and how the heck did it get to your desk.”

  “Well, I know all about Playcom, and I know they hired
you. Your operation was very similar to the Multan Pharmaceuticals incident, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, you stick with what has worked in the past, right?”

  I sat glued to my seat, listening to these two talk shop and not knowing one thing they were talking about.

  “How in the world did you get involved in this?” Galveston asked again. “I didn’t think anyone would trace it back to Playcom.”

  “One of those files you lifted from Genesis was a file named Adamanthea. I know all about that file.”

  Galveston lowered his head slightly as May continued to explain how he found us. “You see,” May paused, “we hired you.”

  Galveston’s head shot up. “We hired you?” he inquired. “Who’s we?”

  “The Bureau. We hired you to lift that file.”

  I sat stunned at the information and Galveston appeared to have the same reaction.

  “We’ve been tracking this file for a while now and due to some recent events, needed to find out what it was, but unfortunately we didn’t have the legal ability to do so,” May stated slowly. “When I found out you were back in business, it all came together. I figured you would be the right man for the job because there are only a few people in the country that could have lifted that file. It was a lucky break for us that you got Alex involved.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Galveston stammered. “We were working for the FBI. So Playcom is just a shell?”

  “Completely made up,” May said quickly. “Just a ruse.”

  “But why? What is so important about this Adamanthea file? Military? A congressman’s indiscretion?

  May grew more serious. “This information is highly classified, but I’ve gotten permission to disclose it to you. It is only known to myself, the Special Agent in Charge, and the Director of the Bureau. When it came across my desk I knew you would be the right man for the job.”