Midnight Sun

by Basil Sands

  Once recovered, he joined the FBI, and after only six years in the Bureau, he was nearly killed by a single bullet. That incident had occured twenty-four months ago when a former Soviet spy working with the Sons of the Sword Muslim terrorist group had blasted him in the chest. While he survived and the enemy agent died, the bastard's shot had taken one of Hogan's lungs. A subsequent staph infection took his spleen and half of his liver and had caused serious damage to his already arthritic joints by the time the doctors had gotten it under control. No one had ever been able to verify whether he had gotten the infection from the dirt that entered his bloodstream where he landed by that remote Ohio rail bed or from the ten-month hospital stay he had endured. He was pretty sure he had gotten it in the hospital, but there was no proof. Regardless of who was at fault, he was alive, which he figured was better than the alternative.

  No matter his ailments and the constant pain and discomfort he endured from all his broken bits, he would be damned if he was going to let the terrorists rob him of his retirement twice. Now he was in charge of the teams that did what he physically could no longer do.

  The phone on his desk sounded with a special ringtone reserved for only a couple of people. He knew it was important, either from one of his units in the field or from Andy Fleiss, information technology specialist.

  “Hogan.”

  “Paul, this is Andy.”

  “Yeah? What’s my favorite nerd up to?”

  “Weird stuff. sir, really weird. Can I come up?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Four minutes later, Andy Fleiss entered Hogan’s office without knocking. Andy Fleiss was in his mid-thirties and looked every bit the part of a serious nerd with unruly locks of wavy brown hair, dark eyebrows, and a long, narrow face comically accentuated by soda-bottle black horn-rimmed glasses and a plastic pocket protector stuffed with writing and calculating tools. He could recite from memory the entire code of the base Linux Kernel, could count to infinity in binary, and spoke fluent Tolkein Elvish, in addition to half a dozen real-world languages used by both humans and computers.

  That being said, outside of work, women actually fawned over the man, something Paul Hogan had never really believed until he went out to dinner with him at a ritzy DC restaurant shortly after arriving in the capital when they both were promoted. Fleiss, outside of work, shed his nerd-by-day look, popping in contacts in place of the glasses and donning tasteful shirts and sport jackets that rendered him a quite remarkable likeness of the famous British actor Hugh Grant when he was at his heart-throb pinnacle in the nineties.

  Today, though, Fleiss was all nerd as he stormed to the desk and quickly spread several sheets of paper across it without regard for any work Hogan may have been doing.

  “Okay, Andy, what am I looking at?”

  “I printed out these emails that I thought seemed significant,” Andy said. The energy in his voice seemed to indicate that whatever he saw should be obvious to anyone.

  “Andy,” Hogan said, “this looks like the crap that clutters my inbox every morning.”

  “Exactly,” Andy replied. “These are printed copies of spam emails sent from generic user accounts. The kind of thing you probably routinely delete from your email account without looking twice.”

  “Why are these any different?”

  “It's a puzzle,” Andy said. “First, take a look at these documents.” He pointed at the top pages. “The font at the top of the page is black and talks about some kind of spam advertisement for fake Viagra. But if you follow the text further, what do you see?”

  “What do you mean, follow the text? It ends.”

  “Look closer. It doesn’t end.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Andy lifted the page and held it higher in the light. Hogan could make out a very faint, bright yellow glare against the white of the paper.

  “You see that? There’s a whole paragraph at the bottom of the page in a pale yellow font on a white background. Nearly invisible on the screen, but…” He picked up the other sheets of paper. “I was going to delete it myself, but I accidentally clicked the print icon and sent it to my black-and-white laser printer. And this is what I got.”

  The page he handed Hogan contained two additional paragraphs of text in a light gray font. It was faint, but readable. Andy handed him another page with the same text in dark black font.

  “When I noticed the extra text, I changed the font to all black and reprinted it again. Read what it says.”

  Hogan read the text.

  So for your arrogance I am broken at last, I who had lived unconscious, who was almost forgot; if you had let me wait I had grown from listlessness into peace, if you had let me rest with the dead, I had forgot you and the past. My hell is no worse than yours though you pass among the flowers and speak with the spirits above earth. before I am lost, hell must open like a red rose for the dead to pass.

  “What the hell is that talking about?” Hogan grunted, his face twisting in consternation.

  “That, sir, is the million-dollar question,” Andy replied. “I did some research and found the whole poem, as well as a bio of the author and what she was originally writing about. What we see is a short portion, or rather, two short portions combined, of a long poem written by a lady known only as H.D., back about 1915 or so. It’s a pretty depressing poem. According to her biography, the author was struggling with bisexuality and couldn’t decide if she loved her girlfriend or her boyfriend more when she was surprised to discover those two were having an affair with each other behind her back. Screwed-up stuff, if you ask me.”

  “Okay,” Hogan said, “why is this important to the Undersecretary for Terrorism Interdiction, Andy?”

  “Ah, yeah,” Andy said. “The point is that it has nothing to do with the original intent of the poem. These were siphoned from an account used by someone on our watch list, one Steven Farrah.”

  “The guy Hilde called about from Alaska.”

  “The one and only,” Andy replied.

  Hogan looked back at the pages and reread them more seriously. Rubbing the late-afternoon stubble on his chin, he muttered, “And you think it’s a coded message.”

  “That’s where my brain is taking me.”

  Hogan pressed into the wrinkles that creased the middle of his forehead with the tips of his fingers, smoothing out deep furrows that bounced back as soon as he moved his hand. He was only forty-six, but he felt old.

  Fleiss continued, “They came from another person and were sent to him. That person is anonymous—we can’t figure out who they are.”

  “What do you mean, anonymous? We’re the FBI—supposedly we can find out anything we damn well want.”

  “Not in this case,” Andy replied. “Whoever created the sending account BallyHoo94423@gmail.com did a really good job covering their tracks. I even tried getting Google’s help, but they got me no further than I did on my own.”

  “How about location? Do we know if it came in from Alaska, or was it sent there from somewhere else?”

  “The message pinged off a server in Anchorage, but some of the links in the trace route indicate it may have been proxied from an rdp session that could be hosted from a client just about anywhere on the interwebs.”

  Paul gave Andy a stern look. “English, Dr. Geek.”

  Andy shrugged. “Sorry. Short answer is, I don’t think so. I think it came from somewhere else, but they tried to make it look like it came from Alaska.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Probably an attack being set up,” Andy said. “I’ve been thinking about that, and my first impression is revenge. It might also be a person who didn’t want to do it, but feels forced into a corner.”

  Paul rose from behind his desk and paced toward the wall.

  “Hilde said Kharzai was there.”

  “You think this could be from him?”

  “He sent me an email once before, during the Ohio bomb scare. It's what t
ipped us off to the bad guy's plans. Maybe this is another attempt at a warning from him.”

  “To be honest, sir,” Andy said, his voice lowering with uncertainty, “it sounds more like a threat to me. I recently heard some scuttlebutt about a CIA operative who fits his description whose wife was killed in a botched drone attack.”

  “Damn,” Hogan muttered, leaning back in his chair, the springs underneath gave out a long squeak. “It will not be good for us if he is on the rampage.”

  Andy's eyes went wide as his imagination ran back to the bloody scene from Ohio. “He seemed pretty crazy the one time I saw him.”

  “Yeah.” Paul nodded. “He always has been. Work on it. I’ll contact Hilde and let her know what you've shown me.”

  Chapter 24

  Captain Cook Hotel

  8:37 a.m. Alaska Time

  Marcus's phone vibrated with a loud rumble against the wood of the nightstand. He rose from the hotel room bed and slid it out of the leather holster, pressing the answer button and lifting it to his ear.

  “Yeah,” He said, sleep still in his voice.

  “Marcus,” Hilde’s voice said, “we just got a warrant for Farrah’s place.”

  “Excellent.” He glanced at Lonnie and gave a nod. “Where are you?”

  “FBI office right now, but we’re headed out immediately.”

  “I’m at the hotel with Lonnie. I’ll meet you at the house.”

  “I’ll let the agents know you’re coming.”

  Marcus disconnected the phone call. Lonnie sat up on the edge of the hotel room bed. Her swollen joints felt as though they had rusted overnight. In the twenty-some hours since Brassert’s attack, her bruised muscles and joints had grown increasingly achy, as if she had done a heavy workout after taking a long break. That discomfort was, of course, heaped on top of her stiff back and round belly. And there was no relief in sight, the pain the doctor had said she could not take any kind of pain medication or anti-inflammatory as it would be likely to endanger the child.

  “I am so sick of being pregnant,” she declared.

  “It’ll all be over soon honey.” Marcus said. “And you’ll be holding the little one on the outside instead of the inside.”

  Her face reddened with the strain as she rose from the bed. She let out a puff of breath once she was upright. She scratched at the wound across the front of her throat. The ER doctor had sprayed it with Liquid Stitches, a hypoallergenic adhesive that bound the skin together for healing. With a little makeup it was almost invisible, a lot better than real stitches.

  “God, I wish the delivery was today.”

  “Well, let’s make sure the loaf is fully cooked before we take it out of the oven.”

  “Huh?” She looked at him quizzically. “Are you comparing our baby to bread? What are you, some kind of closet goblin?”

  Marcus grinned at her.

  “I will admit,” he said, “I like the taste of your flesh.”

  Lonnie put her hands on her back and stretched. Then she crossed the room with an exaggerated waddle and called out in a tired-old-woman voice. “Here I am, your sex slave.”

  “If we didn’t need to go…”

  “Yeah, right,” Lonnie said. “I am afraid the other night was the last time for a while.”

  They moved toward the door, and Marcus gave her a serious look.

  “Maybe you should stay here instead of coming to Farrah’s house.”

  “Why?”

  “For your safety,” he said. “I don’t want you getting hurt again.”

  “I don’t think anything is going to happen,” she replied. “Besides, Brassert found me here in the first place. I’d feel a lot safer being with you as my backup.”

  She used police talk and a strong voice to sound brave, but Lonnie really was afraid of being alone. The incident with Brassert had shaken her. Before her pregnancy, it was different—she ran into danger as part of her daily workload. She was never afraid. But now, with the baby in her belly, her instincts had shifted. Self-preservation became the sole driving factor—not her own preservation, but that of the new life in her womb. Since seeing the images on the ultrasound, the child had become even more real. The baby’s movement. Its limbs and fingers and toes. The shape of its face, the tiny nub of a nose, the thumb stuck in its mouth. The child was alive, truly and completely alive.

  “All right then,” Marcus said. “Let’s get going. But don’t try to get involved if anything happens.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  Thirty minutes later, they pulled up to a large collection Buick Roadmasters and a dozen State Trooper and Anchorage Police Department cruisers. Marcus searched for a place to park the F250. “Looks like a car lot for a police surplus auction.”

  A large utility truck marked SERT in big white letters on the side was parked among them. One of the Special Emergency Reaction Team members stood at the rear door of the van. Lonnie quickly recognized the unmistakable body shape of Trooper Corporal Harland, who had recently been transferred from her detachment in Fairbanks to the headquarters detachment in Anchorage.

  At five feet, four inches tall, the fifteen-year veteran weighed over two hundred and ten pounds, but was by no means fat. Harland had been a competitive power lifter in college and was built like a battleship. Unlike the modern sleek and fast models who were mostly untested in combat he was more like one of the old-school iron ships, the kind that were built thick and scary and could take a dozen hits and still make it back to port to get resupplied and back out to the fight. Harland also had a troll-like face that could frighten a Rottweiler. In spite of his intimidating appearance, Lonnie knew him as a really nice guy with a wife and twin teenaged daughters.

  “Hey, Harland,” Lonnie said. “How's big-city life treating you?”

  “Fine, Lieutenant.” He gave her a slight nod and glanced over at Marcus with a similar greeting. His heavy voice sounded like he ate gravel for breakfast every morning. “To be honest, though, I'd rather be back in Fairbanks, ma'am,” he said. “Being around this big city just ain't my cup of tea. Lots more SERT action down here with all the meth labs and pot grows out toward the valley so duty time is okay, but I think I'm becoming more of a homebody as I get older. My daughters didn't take this move so well—sucks to be thirteen and have to move to a new school.”

  “I imagine so,” she said.

  “You'll be learning that kind of stuff a bit more yourself in a few years now,” he replied, gesturing at her belly. “Unless, of course, you retire when you hit your twenty. Then the kid might be spared a lot of it.”

  “I'm not as close as you are, but that's the plan,” Lonnie said as she and Marcus moved toward the house. An APD officer stopped Marcus and Lonnie and checked credentials before allowing them to enter the yard which was cordoned off with police tape and several officers guarding the approaches. As they drew near several of the SERT team came out of the house, faces obscured by black masks, helmets, and goggles. They wore MP-5 sub-machine guns slung over their shoulders in a tactical posture. Marcus thought they looked more like commandos than cops, and wasn't sure if he liked the idea of that role for police officers. Mike crossed the lawn toward them, his face twisted with a pensive look.

  “They’re gone,” he said. “Packed up and split.”

  “Anything left behind?” Lonnie asked.

  “It’s pretty clean so far.”

  Hilde poked her head out from the front door of the house and signaled for them to come in. The trio stepped onto the porch, Marcus helping Lonnie as she struggled up the steps. They entered the house and found Caufield and several other agents standing in the large formal dining room looking at a piece of paper on the table. The SAC glanced up as they came in.

  “Any of you read Arabic?”

  “I do,” Marcus replied. “I was a linguist in the Marines.”

  “Take a look at this and tell me what it says.”

  Marcus came into the room and glanced down at the paper. Across its surface in ne
at lines flowed the waves and curls of handwritten script.

  “This isn’t Arabic.”

  “It’s not?” said Caufield. “What is it, then?”

  Hilde’s cell phone rang. She walked away from the group as Marcus explained his statement.

  “It's Farsi script.”

  “Farsi?”

  “The language of the Persians,” Marcus said. “Iran.”

  “Huh,” Caufield grunted. “What does it say?”

  “I’m not fluent in Farsi itself,” Marcus replied. “But this is actually English.”

  Everyone looked at Marcus as if he had just popped out of a rabbit hole wearing the Mad Hatter’s top hat.

  Caufield crunched his eyebrows and simply said, “Explain.”

  “It is Farsi script, like I said, but the words are English. He just wrote phonetically in the Persian alphabet, but it is definitely English.” He scanned over the sheet slowly, eyebrows furrowing as he studied it.

  “What does it say?” Tomer asked.

  Caufield and the others looked back at the paper, squinting as if they thought that by looking at it with enough concentration, they might see the pattern emerge before their eyes.

  “It’s an excerpt from The Cremation of Sam McGee, the old Robert Service poem from a hundred years ago. Except it has been significantly changed.”

  Marcus read the poem with the pace and rhythm of the original on which it was based.

  “There are strange things done in the midnight sun

  By the men who moil for gold;

  The Arctic trails have their secret tales

  That would make your blood run cold;

  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

  But the queerest they ever did see