by Karl, Victor
Hearing enough from Miguel, Matt and his agents entered the room and arrested him. Agent Morgan turned him over to his team and returned to his office. Some good old investigative work had finally allowed them to get a handle on Pinnacle’s client, and they were putting the final details together to make some arrests.
Bill and Charlene had been stressing with what to do about the situation with Mike since he had heard from Fiona. Fiona had spent two hours talking to him over the secure link and had brought him up to speed on the situation. In his mind, the company needed leadership, and those that had embraced Electricus needed to know the company would still be moving forward. It all came clear to him what needed to done, and even though Charlene was worried about him, she knew it was something he had to do. Asking Father Jovinni to set up a meeting with the Archbishop, he formulated his plan.
The Archbishop had been supportive of his plan and had set up a press conference to talk about important developments impacting the Stewardship Foundation regarding the recent kidnapping of Michael Carter. A large courtyard provided the space to hold the press conference and worked well for security reasons. As Bill looked out on the courtyard, he had a queasy tingle to his stomach. It appeared that hundreds of people now gathered in the courtyard. At exactly 10 AM in the morning, Bill approached the temporary stage and walked the three steps to the top, then headed to the podium at center stage. With purpose, Bill strode up to the podium and faced the noisy audience. Almost on cue, the audience dropped into complete silence as Bill prepared to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen” he said in English, I wish to tell you an amazing story and accomplish a few key objectives at the same time. At the end of what I have to say, I hope that everyone understands Electricus will go forward and that those responsible for kidnapping Michael Carter will understand that releasing him immediately is the right course of action. Hello, my name is William Bates, and my death has been greatly exaggerated. Bill paused for effect while scanning the audience before continuing. Many of you may not be familiar with my name, since I have been out of the public eye for quite some time. I am the co-founder of Efficio with my good friend Michael Carter. After I was injured and a second attack on my life attempted, I was spirited away to this location, where I received excellent care until my injuries had healed. Michael and I realized from the time of our initial discovery how important this gift was to humankind and have attempted to leverage Electricus to generate funding and interest in helping our less fortunate global citizens. I want to ensure you here and now that I, and God willing, Michael Carter, will ensure that, our vision, and the vision of all those now part of The Stewardship Foundation is absolute.
To ensure our vision, the secret of Electricus is now part of a trust that if anything happened to Michael or me, others would be able to gain access to continue the process.” As Bill tried to continue, the crowd broke into spontaneous applause that rippled and rose in volume for over five minutes. While waiting for the applause to subside, Bill felt he did the right thing by committing the secret of Electricus to an encrypted file, which he provided to the Archbishop. The actual encryption key required deciphering, and relied upon the knowledge of their friends and management at Efficio.
To continue on, Bill had to raise his arms to silence the crowd and slowly the noise subsided. “I mentioned that there were multiple objectives today and we have discussed the first. The second item is to implore those that have taken Michael Carter to release him unharmed.” Even though Bill knew about the Chinese, he did not want to paint them into a corner by naming them in public even though he wanted badly to do it. “There is very little benefit to understanding the secret of Electricus, because it will be shared with the world, so please reconsider your motives and release him. Are there any questions at this time?”
The local CNN station had streamed the speech back to the US and even though it was the middle of the night on the east coast, Agent Morgan received a call seconds after the speech concluded. “Agent Morgan” the voice said, “I think you pulled a fast one on me. That was a slick move with Bill Bates. You may want to get up and check a replay of his speech in Rome from just a few minutes ago. Let me know if you run into any trouble with your boss and need help to smooth it over, because I don’t think he would ever have had the balls to try anything like this himself.” Leaving Agent Morgan dazed, Carl hung up the phone and immediately called his boss. After a short conversation, they agreed that the latest events with Bill Bates gave their plan to negotiate the release of Mr. Carter a greater chance of success. With the establishment of the Chinese connection, Carl suggested a way to leverage Mike’s release and kill two birds with one stone.
Chapter 29: The Ultimatum
CIA Director Varner with the President’s approval was calling the Chinese ambassador in Washington, DC. He had to wait for 10 minutes as the ambassador, roused from his sleep, eventually came on the line and with a raspy voice said, “Director Varner, how may I be of assistance to you and the CIA?” “Thank you for taking this call at such an hour, but I wanted to have this discussion at the earliest possible time. Please hear me out Mr. Ambassador, because I will only be making this offer one time per the instructions of the President of the United States. We have indisputable information that the Chinese government has been operating on US soil to steal the secret of the Electricus organism. In an effort to steal this information, Chinese operatives kidnapped Michael Carter on US soil and sent him to Beijing. We know his plane will arrive there in a matter of hours.”
Without waiting for the ambassador to comment he forcibly continued, “To demonstrate that we have indisputable proof, I will provide you with a list of documents detailing the actions of General Hu to steal this information and kidnap Michael Carter as well as proof of China’s espionage on governments around the globe including the US. There is even a larger list of industrial espionage against many of the world’s largest corporations. Because our two great countries depend on each other economically, the President has offered to suppress this information for two concessions: The first concession is to return Michael Carter to the US on the next plane back without harm or interrogation. The second is the immediate halt to all government sponsored industrial espionage activities. Mr. Ambassador, the ball is in you court…”
General Hu Jiabao was feeling good about himself again. He felt the end was near on his quest to master Electricus with the anticipated arrival of the American. His men would escort him to the interrogation facility as soon as he arrived, however would not start the drug induced questioning until he fully recovered from the drugs used to render him unconscious during his capture.
His chief interrogator had said the drugs would work against each other, however by tomorrow morning there should be no remaining obstacles. That left his evening free and his lovely twins were willing and waiting. He was wrapping up from the day when his priority phone line rang. Answering the phone, he listened for a few seconds and then responded “Yes, yes of course, I will be there in 15 minutes.” Leaning back into his plush chair he was very concerned about the unexpected summoning by the ruling council to appear before them immediately. This was a rare event and he did not know how to interpret it.
Upon his arrival armed guards escorted General Hu to a special chamber area where the ruling council met when needed. There were nine members of the council however when General Hu arrived only six were present. After sitting down where directed, council member Xi addressed the General directly. “General Hu, you have been a dedicated employee of the state and your contributions have been significant. However, we face a serious situation that you have placed our country in. In our hands are internally verified documents from governments and corporations that we have infiltrated over the course of years. The problem is that the US government has provided these to us. As of now, we do not have any idea how they were able to get these sensitive documents, which include our own internal communications, but they have. They have also tracked your efforts to ob
tain Electricus and the kidnapping of the American, Carter.
They have placed two embarrassing requirements on us as a condition for not releasing these details to the world, which includes the immediate release of Mister Michael Carter, uninjured and not interrogated. In addition, they are demanding the immediate halt to our industrial espionage efforts at all levels. Unfortunately, we feel if we do not comply, there will be such public outcry around the globe that countries will stop doing business with us thereby depriving us of a large amount of revenue that we need to build our armed forces to a world class level.
In light of this damaging situation, you will return Michael Carter back to the US immediately and shut down all industrial espionage operations. For the time being, consider yourself under house arrest until notified otherwise.
After the excoriation by council member Xi, General Hu bowed without argument or showing any type of emotion, but internally, he was seething at those week pompous council members. Thinking he would still like to keep on breathing, he turned and headed for the door. Recognizing the absurdity of his next thought, he wondered if the twins would still be able to visit while he was under house arrest…
Chapter 30: The Noose Tightens
Back on home soil, things were beginning to fall into place. A couple of days previously, agents Rae and Tomas had tailed the mystery man to the Hertz rental car drop at Dulles airport, from the meeting the driver had with the Pinnacle lawyer. As soon as the rental car pulled up and the suspect entered the counter area, agent Tomas had casually pulled the attendant aside, showed her his badge, and asked that the car stay the way it was. Although the attendant got nervous regarding the request, she complied and moved onto the next car. Agent Rae had taken the same shuttle to the airport terminal as the suspect, but had lost him at security and did not want to draw attention by getting the TSA involved.
Presently while sitting in their office, they had just received confirmation from the finger prints pulled from the rental car. At first, the prints came up empty, but when they searched the military database, they hit pay dirt. They already knew that the identification documents used to rent the car and airline tickets were excellent forgeries. A quick check of Jasper Millens identity showed the current employer to be Peak Oil based out of Houston Texas, which just happened to be the final destination for their mystery man. Jasper, it appeared was 50 years old, honorably discharged from the Marines after 20 years of service and in charge of security for Peak Oil whose primary shareholder was Tyree Grant. This corresponded with the case file in regards to the Pinnacle connection to unidentified oil companies. Now a direct link existed between Pinnacle and Peak. After typing up their analysis, Agent Rae phoned the lead agent on the case, Matt Morgan, with the information.
By 5 PM, the following day, the agents staking out Jasper’s expensive townhome in an exclusive area of Houston, approached him as he was exiting his car and brought him in for questioning without resistance. The agents were thankful for this since Mr. Millens was a formidable physical presence at six foot two and heavily muscled with arms that looked like thick, corded cables. They were holding him on the use of false identification and waited for Agent Morgan to perform the interrogation.
Within an hour of landing in Houston’s airport from Newark, Matt was sitting across from Mr. Millens. At first Millens refused to answer any questions, but when Matt started to lay out surveillance photos of him meeting with the Pinnacle lawyer and pictures of him using false credentials for the car rental and airline ticket, he started to sit up straighter and pay more attention. Seeing he had caught his attention, Matt started to link actions from Pinnacle with Peak Oil. Throwing pictures of the dead assailants from the Fish Island attack and Efficio headquarters attack, he then added the pictures of the dead Efficio employee and Clavis guards, explaining who they were at each level. To shock him, he threw the picture of the dead Pinnacle employee Jason on the table and said, “Now this guy couldn’t get the job done for Pinnacle. He became injured and attracted attention to himself. Look at what happened to him after that? The last picture thrown on the pile was Titus Aaron, the helicopter pilot in the Fish Island attack. Mr. Millens, I am sure you are aware that the first person that talks usually gets the best deal. Do you want to take advantage of that?”
An hour and half later, Agent Morgan read back Mr. Millens statements to him. Even agent Morgan was stunned to know that these things still occurred in the big business and big money world of oil. It turned out that Jasper was going to have to pay for his part in everything, but he was not as hardcore as he came across. Initially blackmailed into organizing these things for his boss Tyree Grant, he could never escape Tyree’s hold on him.
After Electricus became a reality and determined to be legitimate, individuals representing an organization called Crossed Swords, contacted Mr. Grant while on a business trip to Bahrain. He had agreed to help support activities by an OPEC splinter group to take out Efficio executives and facilities in an effort to eliminate them from being competition to the current world energy market. Jasper’s role was to be the intermediary between Pinnacle and Peak oil and make sure the transportation and weapons ended up in their hands.
Tyree Grant had found out through his previous head of security that Jasper, who was working as a supervisor, had gotten himself into deep shit due to not being able to pay back loan sharks 250 thousand dollars. Jasper’s wife had gotten sick and he needed a ton of money to get her the treatments she needed and take care of their little girl. To try to make money Jasper had looked to sell pot and cocaine. He got caught with stuff in his work locker by his own security group.
When informed of the incident with Jasper, Tyree, instead of firing him, paid off the loan sharks, held their notes instead, and kept an internal report documented by his security team to hold over Jasper’s head. From that point on Jasper had been his pawn even after Jasper’s wife died since he still had to support his daughter, his pride and joy, at 15 years old. Now that the truth was out, Jasper dumped everything he had on Tyree Grant and agreed to testify however needed.
Twenty-two thousand feet in the air, Mike felt like a huge weight was lying across his body and his eyelids felt like they were a hundred pounds each. He sensed sunlight and felt the vibration of an engine. It seemed to take forever, but he got stronger with every passing minute and forced his eyelids partway open. He realized that the engine noise was from a prop plane and that he was sitting in a front passenger seat of it. Moving his arms, he realized that he was tie wrapped to the armrest of the chair. There were two Asian looking soldiers in the passenger area of the plane and no one else. One of them noticed that my eyes were open and that I was trying to move around, he stood above me for a brief moment, and sat back down.
Mike felt himself drift in and out of consciousness for a while without ever becoming fully conscious. Each time he opened his eyes he was more aware, and realized drugs were involved in his condition and the effects were wearing off. He felt the plane start a descent and ten minutes later a soft landing. The cabin door opened and a Caucasian man and woman entered the plane and approached Mike. “Mr. Carter, we are here to escort you back to the United States.” Mike, not knowing what happened, tried to ask questions, but his words just came out garbled.
The taller of the two men nodded his head towards the flexi cuffs Mike was wearing and one of the guards produced a small knife and quickly sliced through the plastic straps freeing Mike’s arms. As the Americans lifted Mike up, he tried to get his legs under him, but failed miserably as his legs felt as if they lacked bones. “Careful Mr. Carter, we will support you.” They eased Mike out of the plane and down to the tarmac and literally carried him about 50 feet to a sleek passenger jet. Just before entering the plane, Mike caught sight of a large sign on the terminal building and was shocked to realize he was in Taiwan.
FBI agents Rae and Titus had dealt with all types of people, but the steadfastness and calmness that Michael Carter asked his questions and processe
d the answers with was amazing. His main concern was for his team in Gulfport and was ecstatic to learn that there were no serious injuries involved. Rae wondered to himself, how could this kid be in charge of one of the most important discoveries in human history, be attacked over-and-over and yet remain calm and in control?
Mike had no memory of the kidnapping and back tracked the timeline to realize that he had been drugged for 32 hours. No wonder he was dehydrated and starving. He ate prepared sandwiches and drank three bottles of water in the first hour of flight to Hawaii where they would refuel and then head to Los Angeles. From there they would switch planes and fly to Newark airport. Tomas informed him that more details would be forthcoming from agent Morgan when we land at Newark airport.
During the half hour wait in Hawaii, Agent Tomas dialed Fiona’s number for Mike and handed it to him and both agents then moved out of earshot. Mike was a macho guy and Fiona was as tough as they come, but there were a lot of tears on both sides of the phone and ‘love you’s’ going back and forth. They did have one humorous moment when Fiona told him that Bill had ‘come out’ and when Mike deadpanned “but isn’t he married to Charlene”, they both laughed at the pitiful joke. Hanging up with Fiona, Mike was beginning to feel like himself and could not wait to get back to New Jersey and with Bill back in the game things would be a lot easier to deal with.
