“That would be it. I figured you would want to know what Black Bear was up to. I’ll give you time to think, but I need to know by the end of the day. The Bureau will be your funding source. I’ve arranged for money to be placed into your bank account to cover your costs. If you’re successful we’ll reward you handsomely. Your first payment could be in your account by day’s end.”
“Well, that’s nice to know the government wants my help so badly,” Galveston said looking at me.
“Just tell me by the end of the day. Only contact me at my personal number, nowhere else.” May slid a number on a piece of paper to Galveston and then got up and started for the door. “You know the importance of this. Please don’t force me to do something I’ll regret.”
With that shattering statement, May left the room, leaving us alone.
“You have no choice, do you?” I asked Galveston from my seat.
“No,” he sighed. “He’ll do whatever it takes to get me involved. He’s sitting on too much information about me, and the stakes are too high for him to let us slide by.”
“It’s either take this deal, or spend time and money hiring a lawyer,” I told him.
We sat for what seemed like hours, contemplating the information, but it had only been a few minutes.
“Well, I’m in if you’re wondering,” I said meekly. “I mean, what else do I have going on. I actually knew what I was getting into.”
“You really don’t have to. This is going to be tough, and it won’t stop,” Galveston warned me. “They’ll want us to keep going.”
“If nothing else, at least I’ll get to meet someone who’s actually fallen for you.”
“Don’t remind me. I think I’ll go ahead and make the call.” Galveston reached for the phone. I stood up, my knees feeling weak, and noticed that I was quietly excited.
“I think we’re going to London,” I said loudly, smacking my hands together. “I think Jane needs to go with us.”
-Chapter 21-
The two black Suburbans bounced across the potholed roads of the metropolis as the city began to fade away and the scenery began to change to a thick, forested jungle. The silver case from Colonel Espinosa sat next to a man in the back seat of the second vehicle.
The group finally arrived at their destination, a nondescript road that led into the jungle. They followed the curvy dirt road until a white gleaming building appeared ahead in the distance. The vehicles screeched to a stop in front of the building where the men got out and dusted themselves off after the long and dirty drive. They were met at the front door by an aging gentleman with a white beard and white hair who stood sweating under the hot summer sun, awaiting their arrival. The man with the silver case walked toward him, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Is everything in place?” The man from the Suburban asked.
“Yes, yes,” the older man stammered in English, with a heavy accent. “We have all the equipment in place. Is that it?” He said pointing to the case.
“Yes,” he answered. “I want to watch how everything is set up Dr. Patelo.”
“Yes Mr. Murray, of course. Please let’s go in,” Patelo said nervously, and motioned for Murray to follow him through the steel door of the building.
Murray turned to his driver, “Secure the area and take up position on the road until you’re called.”
Two men got out, holding Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns, and took up positions outside the front door, methodically checking their weapons.
Patelo looked more nervous and opened the door, gazing back at the man with the silver case.
“They’re just here for a little extra insurance. I hope you’ll keep this between us,” Murray assured him.
Patelo nodded his head as they entered the building, leaving the two armed gunmen outside to bake in the excessive heat.
It was a metal building but air conditioned inside. The cool air fogged up Murray’s sunglasses and he took them off and wiped the moisture from the lenses with his shirt sleeve, revealing dark eyes and a stony face.
The building was open inside and a few workers moved about, oblivious to the arrival of the men.
“Dr. Patelo, we have the clean room ready,” said a squatty, slightly obese, balding man, wearing a white lab coat.
Dr. Patelo nodded his head, motioned for Murray to follow, and proceeded to the back of the building where a large iron door stood. Dr. Patelo punched in a long set of code on a keypad next to the door, and placed his hand on a pad underneath the keypad. A red light over the door turned to green, and after a few audible beeps, the door clicked open and they both walked inside the dimly lit enclosure.
“As you can see, we have met all of your requirements and specifications,” Dr. Patelo said pointing to the door. “Only Dr. Morales and myself have the key entry and finger ID.”
Neither man spoke as they proceeded down stairs to a basement. They stopped at the bottom where it opened up to a large white room, now brightly lit with four people moving about inside. They were fully covered in white coveralls from head to toe, with only their eyes exposed.
“This is our clean room and a sterile environment. I must ask you to be decontaminated if you would like to bring the case in.”
Murray washed his hands and stood in a stall where jets of air blew over him and the case while a vacuum sucked the air out of the stall.
“We can’t take any chances with contamination. A micron of dust or foreign matter can have harmful effects on even the toughest circuits.”
The men entered a small glass enclosure as the door closed behind them. A loud, sucking sound occurred as the pair felt a pressure change in the air.
After a few seconds the glass door opened to the main clean room and the workers inside stopped and watched the pair come in.
“Put the case in that enclosure and we’ll decontaminate,” Dr. Patelo instructed Murray.
A worker positioned himself in front of a wall mounted box. Murray put the case through an opening, punched in a code to the case, and opened the latches. He pushed the case toward the worker who opened the lid and revealed the contents inside.
Everyone crowded around the window to the box, gawking at what was located there; Two black, rectangular boxes, each the size of a deck of playing cards, secured and surrounded by black foam. The worker carefully took each one out and opened the black boxes separately, revealing a small, grey, metal square with a circuit board on top. The other box revealed an even smaller grey square attached to a mess of wires and a small LCD screen. Dr. Patelo strained to see through the glass past the other onlookers.
“Good, good. We are okay to remove them. Carefully take them out and place them on the table,” he said to the worker.
One by one, the worker removed the items from the enclosure, and placed them on a stainless steel table in the middle of the room, which was surrounded by a bank of laptop computers. Dr. Patelo moved to the table and looked at them closely.
“If you are satisfied, I will have the guard accompany you back out. We have a lot of work to do,” Dr. Patelo said, turning to face Murray.
“I’m satisfied. We need these to be up to production capacity. I’ll be back with my men in two days. I expect, and hope, you will be ready,” Murray said, almost threateningly. Dr. Patelo reacted nervously.
“Yes, yes. We will be ready and will report on our results,” the doctor said clearly.
“Good. We don’t like to be disappointed.”
Murray moved back to the airlock and began to remove his coveralls. Turning back to Dr. Patelo he said, “Remember, I’m not to be contacted for any reason. We’ll see you in 48 hours.” Murray disappeared up the stairs, leaving the workers in the room alone. Dr. Patelo sighed stressfully.
“You all know what to do. Let’s get started, we have a long night ahead,” Dr. Patelo instructed the workers.
Like a fire from a starting gun, the workers began a flurry of activity, pouring over the newly acquired objects.
; -Chapter 22-
“Jane should go with us,” I pleaded to Galveston.
“What for? If I don’t know why,” he answered smiling.
“It’s not like that,” I said, squishing my face. “I think we need her around if we need to convince your ex-fiancé to help us,” I said thinking quickly on my feet. “I mean, if she isn’t ready to see you like you’re not ready to see her, then we may need a woman’s touch.”
“You actually may have a point,” he answered, supposedly seeing my point.
“Yeah, I’d hate to get there and not get to talk because she’s still ticked at you. Sometimes a woman can just sense what another woman is going through.” I told him. Galveston thought for a second.
“Okay, go tell her. It doesn’t hurt for her to come,” he said rather smugly, still with a slight smile on his face.
I ran excitedly out of the room to tell Jane the news of our trip, proud in the fact that I had pulled one over on Galveston. I wouldn’t allow myself to admit it, but I really wanted Jane to go, for a variety of reasons, very few of them business related. I had used my skill of negotiation to convince Galveston that Jane was an integral cog in our massive machine. Jane, of course, was ecstatic at the news, and raced home immediately to pack for the trip.
We found ourselves jetting to London from San Diego via New York City the next day, while Alex stayed behind at the office to man the phones and to make sure no one repossessed our new office furniture. We managed to leave within a day of acquiring our new mission, and I was amazed Galveston had agreed to this course of action.
May had deposited the money he promised. I stared at it for a minute and hoped it would be enough to cover our activities. We were $20,000 richer, but I knew that amount doesn’t go far in today’s economy. I would have to watch it closely for us to come out a little bit ahead.
We arrived at Heathrow airport early on a Thursday morning with a severe bout of jetlag. We decided to stay in one of the many extremely overpriced, tiny hotel rooms dotting the city of London. Being the gentlemen we were, we got Jane her own room, adjacent to ours. We began some much needed sleep in order to improve our faculties after the rigorous journey, but minimized the time to just a few hours.
Embarrassingly, Galveston and I had to share a bed that was so small our feet hung off the ends. It was a moment we both agreed to never talk about again.
Alex was working on finding our contact, Galveston’s former love, and her possible whereabouts in the city. Galveston had been quiet the whole flight, while I talked to Jane the entire time, hanging on her every word.
“So what do you want to do with your life? Do you like pets? Do you have a boyfriend?” It was all the standard, small talk stuff.
We awoke after our uncomfortable nap on a lumpy mattress and looked on our laptop to see if any messages about the address of Elizabeth’s office had arrived from Alex.
She was a public figure now and would be easy to find, or so we hoped. The problem was Galveston had no motivation to find her. He began making excuses why he shouldn’t see her and wrangled Jane into agreeing to the first contact. It was up to him to make the big sell to find Dr. Sloan’s daughter. We weren’t even sure Elizabeth would have any pull in finding her or why she would want to. I hoped guilt over dumping Galveston would set in, causing her to help us.
Alex eventually got us the information we had been waiting for. Elizabeth rarely worked from her office, preferring to work from her home. She lived in the Cheswick area of west London, an affluent, upscale enclave of upper class flats, restaurants, and hotels. She now spent most of her time doing research for the SIS instead of the clandestine work she had done in previous years.
We rented a car from our central London hotel, no small task or expense in London, and left around seven that night. Galveston was in charge of negotiating the London streets in our rental car, which proved to be much more difficult than back home, even with his previous knowledge from living and driving in England.
The lovely London scenery passed us by and we enjoyed it as we traveled through this strange land. We left central London through Waterloo, passing over the Thames River, and past St. James Park, Belgravia, and Hammersmith before arriving in Cheswick. We managed to find Elizabeth’s flat without problem. It occurred to me that a courtesy call to her would have been polite, but Galveston scoffed at the idea when I brought it up.
The plan had unfolded on the way to Elizabeth’s place. Jane was going to go to the door, ask to see Elizabeth, and then let her know who was there to see her. On the drive Galveston had sat silent, but now as we sat in front of her flat he must have had a moment of revelation.
“I’ll see her,” he stated. “She’s from my past and I’ll face it. I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”
Jane and I nodded to ourselves and said nothing until we saw he had mustered the courage to open the door.
“Stay strong,” I said half jokingly. He gave me a sigh, slowly got out of the car, and moped his way to the door. I noticed he had on his best pair of fancy slacks and Italian hand-made loafers.
He composed himself and checked his hair in the door window as he pushed the buzzer. Jane and I pushed our noses against the side glass of the car, like rubberneckers looking at the scene of an accident, or in this case, pending disaster.
“This could be a train wreck, or like watching a bad love story,” I said to Jane who agreed, but neither of us could turn away.
Galveston stepped back from the door as it slowly opened and a beautiful brunette, dressed in a short black dress and no shoes appeared. Her face told the initial story, a look of utter surprise. A few quick, unknown words were exchanged between the two as Elizabeth held her look of shock and surprise, her hand now covering her mouth. She then did what none of us would have anticipated. She flung out her arms and wrapped Galveston in a big bear hug, tears rolling from her eyes. Shocked, Jane and I looked at each other with our mouths agape. She released him after a minute and motioned for him to come inside.
Galveston turned to us and raised his arms in an “I don’t know” pose and followed her inside.
“Maybe it’s some random woman who’s just lonely,” I said to Jane.
“I’ve heard the British are nice,” she said back. We sat staring at the door and I tapped the glass.
“I think our friend has found a new lady,” I said to Jane. “Let’s get some fresh air, this might take a while.”
Jane and I got out of the car and waited by the curb on a bench as the cars passed by on the street. I started in on the small talk again with Jane. We discussed the weather, spots we would like to see in London, and the English reputation for substandard dental work.
The night was cool and overcast, with a hint of rain, the seemingly most common of meteorological events in London. I offered my coat in a gentlemanly manner, she accepted, and I sat shivering in the cool breeze. Did we have a connection here? I watched her lips move seductively and I think she was talking about what she wanted to eat later, but I hardly knew. If I leaned over and kissed her would she smack me or accept?
We were sitting under a streetlamp on the streets of London, what better situation could exist for a chance at romance. “Just do it, you wuss,” I thought. Now or never. I began to lean towards her and lightly grabbed her bare elbow under the coat I had laid about her shoulders. She stopped talking and looked at me, her eyes radiated in the light, her face soft and beautiful. She gave a small smile and turned towards me. I leaned in further and closed my eyes, my face close to hers, waiting for the soft touch of her lips.
Wham! The door behind us slammed shut and we were shocked out of our romantic stupor.
“Hey!” A voice boomed behind us. Jane looked back as I put my face in my hands.
“Hey, we’re all set,” Galveston yelled, loud enough to wake the dead, and came bounding down the steps toward us. “What are you two doing sitting there? Why aren’t you in the car?” He continued on loudly.
“We weren’t sur
e how long you would be,” Jane answered.
“We thought you’d be a little longer,” I said disgustedly. “You jerk,” I thought and sat staring straight ahead.
“What happened?” Jane asked. “And why did she look so glad to see you?” I think we were expecting a little more shock, but Galveston looked guilty.
“I kind of left out something about Elizabeth. You see, she kind of thought I was missing and presumed dead,” he said this flatly and with apathy.
“She thought you were dead?” I exclaimed turning to face him.
“Well, yeah. I was upset after she left and I regret it, but you know, I didn’t think I would see her again. I had a friend of mine send her a letter that I was missing and presumed dead during a diplomatic mission to South America.” He said this dismissively. “She was happy to see me alive. I did it when I was angry.”
“How could you do that to someone?” I waved my arms at him.
“Take it easy. I smoothed it out. I told her I lived with a tribe of native Indians in the Amazon who rescued me before I was able to make it back to the U.S.”
“Yes, that sounds realistic. That is really low. You didn’t happen to tell her you lied to her, did you?”
“It never came up, I mean, come on, I got us another meeting with her to talk about our situation. She’ll help us now.”
I was shocked at Galveston’s complete lack of caring about another person’s feelings. I got up from the bench and pulled Jane up.
“Come on Jane. Let’s go back to the hotel.” She rose with me and we began walking back to the car.
“Wait, what’s the problem?” Galveston said holding up his hands, standing on the sidewalk.
“You can find your own way back, but not with us,” I yelled at him. “We’ll see you when you figure out what you did wasn’t right. Now give me the keys.” I held Jane by her arm and led her back to the rental car.
Galveston stood with a look of disbelief and slowly handed me the keys. He plopped down on the bench we had been sitting on and watched us drive away, into the darkness. He sat underneath the streetlamp quietly, his elbows on his knees, and after sitting there for ten minutes, got up and made his way back up the steps, rang the bell, and waited for Elizabeth to arrive at the door.
Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 01 - Flapjack Page 9
