The Time Portal 4: The Inquisition

by Joe Corso

  “What would I ever do without you? The damn security cameras! Okay, you guys are all going on the saucer, so call the professor and get going. Let’s put things in motion. Meanwhile, Mickey and I are going to pay the security monitoring team a visit.”

  “Wanna drive, Lucky?”

  “No, Mickey. We’re using a portal. It’s faster.”

  Lucky concentrated until a portal appeared before him. He and Mickey entered and landed right where they needed to be, the CIA compound in Ossining, New York.

  Lucky knew every inch of The Compound, so once there, he created another portal to take him to the spot where the security cameras were being monitored. Instantly, he and Mickey were standing inside the room. The man sitting had his back turned to them and was watching the security monitors. He felt something and saw movement out of the corner of his left eye. Startled, he turned toward the left where he saw Mickey standing. At that moment, he felt the presence of someone behind him. It was Lucky.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked. “That door is locked. Who are you?”

  Lucky didn’t answer right away. He circled around in front of the man, positioned himself right in front of him, glared right into his eyes and swept his hand in a semi circle pointing out the bank of monitors.

  “Are you the one who monitors the security cameras?”

  “For now, I am. I’m not the regular guy. I’m just fillin’ in for him.”

  “What’s his name and where does he live?” Lucky asked.

  “Why do you want to know this? Wait a minute. Are you on the security team here ‘cause if you are, I haven’t met you.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Lucky said, “I just need his name and where he lives.”

  “Now why should I give you his name? Show me some ID.”

  At this point, Mickey walked toward the man, grabbed him by the collar, pulled him from his seat, and stared in his face. “Give us what we need or that door will remain locked for a very long time. It’ll be a while before they find your body. Understand?” Mickey said as he released the man and used his right hand to sweep back his jacket revealing his gun.

  “Sam Irwin is his name,” the guard said, “and he lives in one of the condos at the edge of town.”

  “Get me his address,” Lucky insisted. “It’s important.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that sir. I’ll need authorization. There will be a trail on the computer. I cannot lose my job.”

  “Then pick up the phone and get Jack Kinsey on the line. Tell him Lucky Campo wants the address of the man who works in this room. Do it now and put the phone on speaker.”

  The man hesitated for a moment, not really anxious to disturb the director of The Compound, but after looking at Mickey’s crazed eyes and then back at Lucky, he picked up the phone and dialed Kinsey’s extension. When Jack clicked on, Lucky told him that the young man in the electronic security area needed authorization to give him the address of Sam Irvin, the man who regularly monitors the security cameras. Kinsey didn’t question Lucky.

  “Do it,” Kinsey answered almost immediately. “Give him what he needs.”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard replied. “Sorry to bother you, but I will do it now.”

  “Lucky, call me later,” Jack said and clicked off the phone.

  That was it. That was all he said.

  The guard quickly searched the employee database and wrote down Irwin’s contact information. He handed it to Lucky. Mickey walked over behind the man’s desk where Lucky joined him, clearly out of sight as the man sat glued to his computer and chair.

  The young man, too terrified to move, kept asking, “What are you doing? I gave you what you wanted. Please don’t shoot me.” Minutes passed before the guard summoned the courage to turn around. When he did, no one was there. Funny, he never saw or heard the door open.

  Lucky was comfortable with his newfound ability to create travel portals to take him wherever he wanted to go. The old way meant he had to discover any existing portals, explore them, and then search for other portals to connect the dots. Amazing how this gift came to light as he was being held prisoner in The Compound jail by Dirk Sommerville, the ex-Director of The Compound – the man who tried to kill him. The portal, inside The Compound prison that day, allowed him to escape and now a portal, on this day, would take him right to the address written on the paper he was holding.

  The apartment was empty. It was a small, one room condo. The bed was unmade and candy wrappers were strewn about. Whoever lived there left in a hurry. Lucky, with Mickey’s assistance, took his time looking through drawers, opening cabinet doors, searching for anything that would give him a clue as to where Sam Irwin might be. He examined a computer desk near the front window, but he must have taken a laptop with him. Next to the desk was a small trash container. Lucky picked it up and emptied it onto the living room floor. He then sorted through what were mostly papers, notes and more candy wrappers. He wasn’t having much luck with the papers until he came to a crumpled up note. He opened it, straightened it out as best he could and immediately recognized the format of the numbers, D 2311. They were flight numbers along with a another number – seat 23A. A crook always forgets something, Lucky thought. In this case, he forgot to throw out the trash.

  Lucky called Delta Airlines immediately and asked about a flight number 2311 and its destination. The answer: the Cayman Islands.

  “Mickey, wanna come with me?” Lucky asked.

  “Sure, you can’t be doing all this alone, even with your ability. What if someone has already figured out that they can knock you out or something for a while and then, I dunno, give you a drug and interfere with this travel thing? Gotta think ahead.”

  “That’s pretty good,” Lucky responded. “You know for such a goof at times, you really do have it going on. Come on. Let’s go. We have to get to the airport and see if we’ve missed him or not. On second thought, wait here a second. I’ll come back for you.”

  Lucky concentrated on the airline, Delta, and then directed his attention to the flight number. He had never attempted to create a portal to a moving object. He had no idea whether it would work or not.

  “Within seconds, he was standing onboard an aircraft, looking down its aisle, right at the person in seat 23A eating a candy bar. It had to be Sam Irwin who had boarded early. The seat next to him was empty. Lucky plopped down as though he was supposed to be there and introduced himself to Irwin. He had to hurry. He knew it might be seconds before a passenger might occupy it. Irwin looked at Lucky, tilted his head and did a double take.

  “Do I know you?” Irwin asked squinting his eyes a little.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact you do. I’m the guy on the video you sent to your Chinese friend. What I want to know is how much did you get paid for selling my life to him?”

  Irwin face paled. “How did you find me? How did you get on this plane?”

  Lucky grabbed his arm, grabbed his carryon from underneath the seat, pulled him to his feet, and walked him to the rear of the plane. There, he opened a lavatory door, pushed Irwin inside and stepped in behind him. A flight attendant watched as Lucky manhandled Irwin and rushed toward the lavatory, attempting to open it. It was locked. Immediately, she grabbed the galley intercom and called for the captain, telling him it was an emergency. Just minutes later, the captain arrived and using a special tool, repreatedly tried to pry open the lock, until he succeeded. The lav was empty. The captain and fellow flight attendants looked at the other flight attendant and with full skepticism began to question what she had seen, minute by minute. The flight attendant held steadfast to her story. Immediately, she ran to seat 23A. It, too, was empty. Thinking quickly, she grabbed the flight manifest, got on the intercom system, and called for a Mr. Sam Irwin to return to his seat as soon as possible. No one responded. She and her flightmates searched the plane, aisle by aisle, asking each boarded passenger if they were Mr. Irwin. He was nowhere to be found – almost as if he had disappeared into thin air.
/>
  Sam Irwin was now standing before a group of very rough looking men. Fear gripped his entire body as he tried to decipher reality from hallucination or dream. Lucky shook him.

  “Look at me.”

  Irwin turned to him, his entire body trembling. He had never been much of a fighter and he was scared. He started to sob.

  “Please don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you everything you want to know but don’t hurt me.” And he burst into tears.

  Lucky stared at the pathetic, chubby, little man standing before him and began his round of questioning. “What was the Chinese man’s name who contacted you or were you the one who contacted him?”

  “No, he contacted me. I was contacted by a Mr. Lee. Wait. I have his card somewhere.”

  Well this was gonna be easy, Lucky thought.

  “And who did you sell the video to?”

  Irwin searched his pockets. “Here it is,” he said, handing it off quickly.

  Lucky read the card. “Taiwan Imports, James Lee, President.” Lucky took the card and handed it to Mickey. “Call Jack at The Compound and ask him to find any information he can on Mr. Lee.”

  Lucky turned back towards Irwin and asked, “How much were you paid?”

  “One million dollars. You gotta admit,” he said almost pleadingly, “that’s a lot of money. I didn’t really believe it until I saw it in my account. I . . . .”

  “How do you know Mr. Lee?” Lucky asked, cutting him off.

  “He called me, right out of the blue one day, about three years ago, and invited me to dinner. Said he had something important to discuss, that could be financially advantageous to me. So I went. I had dinner with him. At dinner, he told me he wanted a favor and it wouldn’t require me betraying my country in any way.”

  Irwin continued his story for the better part of twenty minutes. Lucky interrupted a few times to clarify a point here or there or to ask a question, but let Irwin finish. That was it. He told Lucky most everything. Now, to only find out who exactly was or is this mysterious Mr. Lee. The address on the card was probably bogus, if Lee was smart, and Lucky knew that.

  “Mr. Irwin, where exactly did you send the FedEx envelope? Do you still have the address?”

  Irwin fished into his pockets. “I might still have the FedEx receipt, but if I don’t have it, I’m sure you can get it from The Compound’s mail room.”

  “You mean you mailed it from The Compound?” Lucky asked, thinking that no one could be that stupid.

  “Yes. I mailed it from The Compound. Wait a minute, here it is.”

  He handed the slip to Lucky who glanced over it. He then handed the address to Mickey.

  “Put this somewhere safe,” Lucky whispered to Mickey. “I’m gonna wait for Jack to call back then we’re gonna pay this guy a visit.”

  Truth be told, Lucky couldn’t blame the guy for wanting to make a few bucks and he really hadn’t given away any top level government secrets. He had just found a million ways to make his life a little easier. So now Lucky had a dilemma: Irwin’s actions didn’t warrant dumping him somewhere in the past, but Lucky didn’t want him to return to The Compound as there was no telling who or what Irwin, would give up next. The man couldn’t be trusted so, no, he could never return to work at The Compound. Lucky had the boys pat him down. They took his passport and his wallet.

  There was a briefcase that the men were about to search when Lucky asked, “Do you have your checkbook on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s the money? What bank?”

  “Centrale Island Cayman.”

  “Good,” Lucky answered. “Now, take out your little checkbook and write a check to Timeless Securities, Inc. for nine hundred and seventy–five thousand dollars.”

  Sam Irwin looked at Lucky, looked around the room and noticed Mickey inching closer. He reached into the attaché, grabbed a pen and began writing. He handed the check to Lucky. Lucky glanced at it and handed it to Mickey.

  “Take this and deposit it in our TCI account.”

  As he waited for Mickey to return to confirm that the check had been deposited, Lucky talked with his men. A while later, Mickey returned and showed him the deposit slip. Irwin was visibly shaken by it all.

  “I should take all of your money, Irwin,” Lucky said, “every last penny outside of your hefty payday for throwing me to the Chinese dragons. You’re a dumbshit, Irwin. You knew about my ability and it never occurred to you that I might just walk through enough walls to get me right where I needed to be, which was in your face? What a dumbshit!” Lucky said as he bent down and looked him straight in the eyes.

  Irwin said nothing. He was too petrified to move. The men all around him were street guys and he knew it. You couldn’t define street; you just knew it when you saw it and he was looking at it right now.

  Lucky continued, “But I gotta tell ya, Irwin, you don’t matter that much to me. Now the man on the receiving end of that video, where you sent it – he matters. You’re not important enough to kill, even though I have to say that any one of my friends here would be happy to have that assignment . . . just as a favor to me. I have a dumping ground for people like you, people who wrong me – sorta like Jimmy Hoffa had – a place where people go and oddly, are never, ever found or heard from again. Somehow, they end up in a new career in a new place. It could be as a slave building the great pyramid. It could be as a prisoner on Devil’s Island or one of a hundred other unpleasant places. But I’m not going to do that to you, no, not at all, so consider yourself a very lucky man, Mr. Sam Irwin. Make yourself comfortable cause we have to wait a little while for that big bonus to clear, the one that you so kindly just gave us, probably a couple of weeks. You’ll be fine here. There’s plenty of food. You just can’t go outside. I know that little room is rather, ‘quaint’, I should say, but you’ll be fine and safe until we get the bad guys. Oh, and this room, well, it’s soundproof so screaming and hollering won’t do the trick. The boys have called over some friends who will be watching over you, right outside this door, for a while. After that, when the funds clear, you’ll leave with twenty-five thousand dollars, enough to start over until you can find yourself a new job somewhere. Don’t ever betray me again. You might not see me, but I will forever have my eyes on you.”

  Irwin turned to check out the walls of the room. When he turned back around, Lucky and Mickey had vanished from the tiny, insulated safe room, the “inner room” they called it. He tried the door. It was locked solid, bolted from the outside. There were no sounds, no window, no light. There was no TV, no music, no vibration. He was alone, in solitary confinement, with nothing but his own voice to keep him company.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the main room of the Astoria safehouse, Lucky’s phone rang. It must be Jack Kinsey with news about Mr. Lee, he thought. Instead, it was Leonard Flackstein. Lucky wasn’t much in the mood to speak to him, but he relented and asked for a quick update on how things were progressing with the new business. Flackstein seemed upbeat. He stated that he had rented an entire floor in Rockefeller Plaza, had hired a law firm and an accounting firm. Said he had spent the whole week interviewing men and woman for the dozen or so high level managerial and supervisory positions. Next week he planned on interviewing for other positions. He said he had positive thoughts on how he wanted the company structured with a clear direction and path for its success. Said he was already isolating a few primary companies in need of seed money, re-structuring or capitalization.

  “Okay,” Lucky said, “it all sounds like it’s coming together. I’ll be out of town for a little while, but any of the other members of the board can help should you need them.”

  When he hung up the phone he turned to his men. “I want to discuss some items of importance,” Lucky began. He pointed to Duce and Casey. “I want all of you to be outfitted for some nice corporate suits just like Mickey and I have. I’m talking thousand dollar or more suits. Get the best shirts and ties and shoes that money can buy. I want this board of direc
tors to look like something special when you visit Flackstein. Remember, he has never met you guys, so I want you to look your very best. Understand?”

  Lucky looked around the room and got nods from everyone at the table.

  “Sure Lucky,” the men echoed.

  He pointed to Duce and Casey.

  “You guys will stay here to keep an eye on our new corporation, but do as I told you and go out and buy the suits. Remember – Flackstein is a valuable asset. He knows exactly what he’s doing. If he needs something, make sure you’re available. Don’t interfere with his way of doing business. This guy has been with Paine Webber for a long time – has a track record. Let him spend as much money as he needs to and I promise you, the man will build a corporate empire equivalent to Microsoft, IBM or Apple. Just think of our money kinda’ the same as monopoly money; whenever we need more, we can just go out and get it. But our goal here is to have a self sustaining entity that will increase our investment to astronomical levels. And we’ll probably lose money in the beginning; expenditures will outweigh profits, but don’t worry about that, it will come. In due time, the profits will come and when they do, it will be an avalanche of cash, no end in sight. Patience is key. You men are quite well off now but this will just take your financial levels of comfort to an entirely different level. Mickey has credit cards for you. Use them for everything – meals, hotels, gas, gifts. You will each get a new car. Go ahead and start thinking about that. Tell Mickey what you want and he’ll order it for you. The company will pay for many things, within reason, within all legal tax parameters, and they’ll be write-offs, expenses. Our accountant will worry about the books. When I get back, we’ll work out a compensation package which will include your salaries.”

  Lucky anxiously awaited the call from Jack Kinsey. He needed to know just who this James Lee was, is. He was pouring his third cup of coffee when his cell phone rang. He put the pot back on the stove and answered the phone.

  “Jack, it’s Lucky,” he answered, “what do you have for me?”