Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening

by John Wayne Falbey

  Whelan turned to Morris, who was curled in a fetal position.

  In a quavering, high-pitched voice he just kept repeating, “Oh my God, oh my God.”

  “Give it a rest, Senator. It’s not your time…yet. Without Laski funneling money to you and the organizations that support you, you and others like you will suffer a major setback. You won’t win reelection to the Senate, so don’t bother to run.” Whelan paused, then said, “What you’ve experienced here will haunt you for the rest of your life. You’ll never stop looking over your shoulder, and you’ll never be the same cocky little bastard again.”

  Through the broken out glass panes, they could hear the quiet hum of the stealth chopper approaching for the extraction.

  “Time to move.” Whelan said. “The train is pulling in to the station.”

  71 Guam

  The island of Guam rises out of the western Pacific south of Japan and east of the Philippines. At two hundred twelve square miles, it is the largest and oldest island in the Mariana island chain as well as all of Micronesia. The first European to discover the islands was Ferdinand Magellan on March 6, 1521, during the course of his historic circumnavigation of the planet.

  The islands are part of an arc-shaped archipelago consisting of the tops of fifteen volcanic mountains, which formed the boundary between two tectonic plates. As the edge of the oceanic Pacific Plate, the largest of all the tectonic plates, continued its relentless journey west it collided with the eastern edge of the continental Mariana Plate. The heavier oceanic crust was pushed to the bottom and the lighter continental crust was pushed upward.

  Among other things, this resulted in two geological developments: the upward thrust of one plate created the volcanic mountain range whose tips formed the islands, while the subduction of the second crust created the Mariana Trench just east of the island chain. This is the deepest part of the Earth's oceans and lowest part of its crust. Despite its depth, the trench is relatively narrow at forty-three miles, but overall is one hundred twenty times the size of the Grand Canyon. At thirty-six thousand feet, the deepest point in the Mariana Trench is Challenger Deep. It’s approximately two hundred and fifteen miles southwest of Guam and was named after the HMS Challenger II, which discovered it in 1948.

  The United State’s Andersen Air Force Base occupies much of the northern portion of Guam. The central portion of the island is the most developed with Hagåtña, the capitol of Guam, and the tourist areas around Tumon Bay. It is the southerly part that many people believe is the most scenic territory on the island, a rural kaleidoscope of small, ancient settlements, breathtaking waterfalls and unspoiled beaches.

  Whelan and his five colleagues had arrived on Guam three days after the events on Labor Day. The stealth chopper had whisked them to a private airfield near Morgantown, West Virginia. From there, a civilian cargo plane had flown them to San Francisco. While aboard the flight, each man had been carefully disguised by a team of experts. They also had been provided with assumed identities as members of a delegation representing an electronics manufacturer. From San Francisco, they had flown commercial to Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport on Guam. Because the connecting flight originated in Honolulu, they easily passed through customs.

  A battered, plain vanilla motor coach had taken them from the airport to a tired and cramped bungalow in the village of Santa Rita. The men didn’t care. The lengthy nonstop travel, combined with their activities over the past few days, had left all of them exhausted. They each had experienced far worse hardships, but were glad just to have a place where they could pause briefly for R and R. Santa Rita, a peaceful, quiet area on the southwest coast of the island with hills overlooking Apra Harbor, was the perfect place.

  They spent their time relaxing and taking turns protecting the native Chamorro women from Almeida’s predatory intentions. He tried to convince Whelan and the others that sex would help his leg wound heal faster. And they ate. A local Chamorro woman came by three times a day and prepared meals for them. For the most part, they found the native cuisine very much to their liking, especially the chicken kelaguen, shredded chicken marinated in a sauce of lemon juice, fresh coconut, green onions, salt and hot red chilies. It was served at room temperature and eaten over red rice or wrapped in a warm tortilla or titiyas. It typically was served with finadene, a salty, spicy, sour condiment made of soy sauce, vinegar or lemon juice, chopped white onion, and fresh chilies.

  The food and the presence of women and the chance to relax caused Whelan to think about Caitlin and his sons in Ireland. It was early September and he had been home only a few weeks earlier, but it seemed like years.

  On the morning of their third day in Santa Rita, the battered motor coach returned. This time it carried scuba gear, as well as highly sophisticated communications devices and even more exotic equipment. The six men boarded the coach, leaving behind just about everything they had brought with them, which wasn’t much.

  The coach rattled and bumped over the spine of the mountainous interior, then south along the coast road through Inarajan, the best preserved of the Spanish era villages. The scenery was stunningly beautiful. The mountains formed magnificent verdant backdrops for the little coastal towns interspersed between long stretches of pristine beaches.

  Ultimately, they reached their objective: Merizo, a modest village located on the coast beneath ancient volcanic hills. It was the southernmost village in Guam. The coach stopped at the Merizo Pier. It was a spot from which tourists could catch ferries to Cocos Island. Moored at the end of the pier, an old commercial fishing boat rocked gently in the warm Pacific waters. It looked as if it had seen far better days. The reality was that it had a new and powerful engine and was capable of cruising at more than twenty knots.

  The men loaded the diving and communications gear aboard the sixty-foot ship. Larsen took the wheel and powered the vessel up. Stensen and Thomas cast off the bow and stern lines, and they headed out to sea on a southwesterly bearing. The sea was calm as they cruised through the long, full Pacific rollers, but ahead of them the sky was darkening. Whelan wondered if it was an omen of things to come.

  Sixty minutes later, he picked up a secure satcom. “We’re under way, about an hour out.”

  “Roger that,” Levell said. “Maintain your course as planned.”

  “Is the rancher after the wolves?” This was a coded reference to any entity that might be pursuing them.

  “Yes. If our timing is right, the intercept should occur as planned.”

  “What’s this ‘if’ shit? The timing had better be right. We won’t get a second chance.”

  “Relax. Everything is right on schedule.” There was a pause at Levell’s end, then he said, “Regarding our friend Maksym, something’s come up that you should know.”

  “Does this involve the DNA tests you ordered?”

  “You do connect dots quickly.”

  “It wasn’t so difficult. I knew you wanted us to take him alive. So what is it you think I need to know, that he’s genetically advanced like we are?”

  “Yes. But it’s more complicated than that.”

  “How complicated?”

  Again there was a long pause before Levell responded. “Do you remember what motivated your family to emigrate to America from Ireland.”

  “Yeah. I was less than a year old. My parents lost their only other child, my older brother.”

  “And your mother was having a great deal of difficulty dealing with it.”

  “Yes, they both had relatives who’d immigrated to the States. My father thought they could be a positive influence, and that a complete change of environment also might help the healing process.”

  “Have you ever thought about what might have happened to that brother?”

  “There had been a tribe of Welsh Kale…what you call Gypsies…in the area about the time he disappeared. The authorities suspected they might have taken him. My family never bought into that. We’ve always assumed the worst, that he most likely was
abducted by a pedophile, sexually abused and murdered. Why are you asking?”

  Another pause at Levell’s end then he said, “Because he wasn’t killed. Maksym is your brother.”

  The statement so stunned Whelan that it took several moments for him to respond. Finally, he said, “What!” He spit the word out like it was burning a hole through his tongue.

  “The DNA report is preliminary, but the evidence doesn’t lie. He’s your long missing brother.”

  Whelan was too shocked and confused to respond.

  “Look,” Levell said, “I’ve been worrying on this like a dog on a bone, debating whether I should tell you or not.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me sooner?” There was anger in Whelan’s voice.

  “I didn’t want to risk compromising your effectiveness during the mission at Laski’s. I was concerned that it might affect your judgment, your reaction time in a face-to-face confrontation. It could even have adversely affected the mission overall.”

  Whelan was quiet for a few moments. “What do you plan to do with him?”

  Now it was Levell who didn’t respond immediately. “We had planned to interrogate him, then terminate him.”

  “What do you mean ‘had planned’?”

  Levell cleared his throat. “It seems the man has escaped once again.”

  “Great,” Whelan said with sarcasm. “Now I find out I’ve got a brother who is more like an evil twin. Then to top it off, I learn that he’s on the loose again.”

  “We’re using all resources available to try to locate him. I don’t want him out there anymore than you do.”

  “Yeah? Well there is a small difference. He’s not your brother.”

  “What’s your point? You think he’ll come after you?”

  “If he truly is like me, he’ll want nothing more than to kill the person who managed to defeat him. Or try to…and my family.”

  Levell’s voice sounded sincere and calm. “But he’s not you. I don’t know anyone else who is. Sometimes you scare the shit out of me, and I’ve seen just about everything.”

  “He and I have the same genes, the same blood. Think about it.”

  72 J Edgar Hoover Building

  Mitch Christie stared out the sliver of window in his office. It was partially fogged over from the battle between the moisture saturated air outside and the dry, cool, conditioned air inside. It was still early, but the dog days of summer had embraced Foggy Bottom in a mean grip. The combination of heat and humidity had pushed the heat index above the one hundred mark for each of the past several days. Christie couldn’t even walk across the street without his shirt sticking to him like a second layer of skin.

  Beyond the window, the light of a new day was softly filling the landscape. The building was starting to come awake with people arriving for work, phones beginning to ring, and the hum of activity filling its corridors. It was almost eight o’clock in the morning and he had spent another restless, lonely night. He and his wife were seeing a marriage counselor now, but they weren’t living in the same house. The kids seemed to be adjusting to the situation, and Debbie had yet to indicate that things were improving between the two of them. He, on the other hand, was a physical and emotional wreck. He had switched from the over-the-counter antacid to a powerful drug, lansoprazole. It had been prescribed for him by his physician along with an antibiotic regimen and an anti-anxiety drug. It seemed to be helping his stomach, but he felt that he was losing his ability to focus. Was that a side effect of the drugs, or was it something much more sinister? Christie feared that on top of everything else he could lose his job based on inability to adequately perform his duties.

  Where to begin? he thought, turning back to his desk. He idly moved some papers around, stared at them for a few moments, and then, dissatisfied, readjusted them. Thoughts were tumbling through his head. It all began less than a year ago. The Harold Case shooting and the arrival of Brendan Whelan. That damn Whelan.

  He slumped in his chair and tilted his head back against the headrest. Staring at the ceiling of his office, he tried to focus on the recent events that may have involved Whelan.

  Forensics was positive that the two dead men in Room 333 of the Hotel L’Orange had not fired the sniper weapon found there. Despite an almost immediate shut down of the area, no suspects had been apprehended. Hell, the Bureau, working with the Metropolitan PD and the Secret Service, hadn’t even been able to identify possible suspects. In Christie’s mind, Whelan and his colleagues certainly had the training and experience for something like this. But that was twenty years ago. Would they still have the same level of skills? Apparently that didn’t occur to Howard Morris. Immediately after the attempt on the president, he had issued a statement blaming the it on Whelan’s group.

  And, speaking of Morris, there was the matter of the slaughter and destruction at Chaim Laski’s estate in Potomac. He had been found in the wreckage suffering from acute psychogenic shock. There were rumors that he was going to resign his senate seat and leave the country. The assault certainly had the look of an operation Whelan and the others could have pulled off. And was there a connection between the security force at Laski’s and the two dead men at the Hotel L’Orange? They all were undocumented Ukrainian aliens. All had lengthy Interpol records.

  As for Whelan, it appeared the Bureau had gotten lucky for a change. Anonymous tips from several sources had been received over the past twenty-four hours. It appeared that the Irishman and his colleagues had managed to escape the country. Their elusiveness didn’t surprise Christie. But tips were continuing to come in. Hopefully they were reliable and would lead to disclosure of the fugitives’ location.

  The joint Bureau, Secret Service and Metropolitan Police Task Force investigating the assassination attempt had issued a standing order to terminate them on sight with extreme prejudice. Internally, the task force members realized that they might never find or prove who really was behind the attempt on the president. But they needed to pin the deed on someone, and they needed to do it quickly. Whelan and the others were ideal targets. They had been under a similar shoot on sight edict two decades earlier and had escaped, and that order was still in effect. It didn’t appear that they had any political or economic standing that would mitigate their situation. They were ideal candidates for framing.

  Christie hadn’t been included as a member of the task force. He interpreted this as a sign that his superiors had lost confidence in him. Even though he was the Bureau’s foremost expert on Whelan and the others. He had chased the man for almost a year and never gotten close to catching him. There was a price to be paid for failure.

  His musings were abruptly interrupted as Aaron Rickover burst into his office. He was excited almost to the point of breathlessness.

  “Mitch, Mitch,” Rickover said. His face was aglow with excitement.

  “What has you so damn excited, kid? You and the wife expecting your first child?”

  Rickover puzzled over that one for a second, then stammered. “No, no. He…he’s dead! We got ‘em.”

  Christie’s eyes narrowed and he leaned slightly forward in his chair. “Slow down. Who’s dead?”

  “That Whelan guy…and all his buddies.”

  Rickover’s words momentarily stunned Christie. “What the hell are you talking about? How? Where? When?”

  Grinning broadly, the younger man said, “In Guam, they were in Guam.”

  “Guam? How did we find them in Guam?”

  “The Joint Task Force received an anonymous tip. It wasn’t traceable, but the caller said they were leaving Guam on an old fishing trawler.”

  “When was this?”

  “Not more than an hour ago.”

  Christie’s father had been an Air Force officer. Guam had been one of his duty posts when Christie was a youth. He knew there was a fourteen-hour time differential between the Eastern Daylight time zone in Washington and the Chamorro Standard time on Guam. He glanced at his watch. It was exactly eight o’clock. He did a
fast mental calculation and realized it was ten o’clock in the evening on the island. That meant that the event that had Rickover so excited must have occurred at about nine o’clock at night on Guam.

  “Give me the details,” he said. “Was there a gunfight? Do they have bodies?”

  Rickover’s grin broadened. “It’s even better than that. They blew ‘em up.”

  Christie frowned. “Blew them up where? How did they blow them up? And who in the hell is ‘they’?”

  “It was the Air Force. The Joint Task Force had the base on Guam scramble a couple of fighters. They found the boat about two hundred and twenty-five miles southwest of the island.”

  “And they just blew it up?”

  “Yeah, something like that. The people on the boat fired a SAM. It was defective and flew off target. Then the jets returned ordnance and blew the boat to hell and back. Isn’t that great!”

  “Bodies? Any fucking bodies?” Christie’s voice was almost at the level of a shout.

  The grin faded from Rickover’s face. “Well…not yet. It’s nighttime there. The boat sank very quickly.” He brightened again. “But they’ll find some.”

  Christie sighed and leaned slowly back in his chair.

  “What’s wrong, Mitch?” Rickover said. “I thought you’d be excited about this. You’ve been after those bastards for a long time. And, and…they kidnapped your wife and kids.”

  Christie stared at the ceiling for a few moments, then looked at Rickover. “You’re a well educated guy, Aaron. Do you know what’s approximately two hundred and twenty-five miles southwest of Guam?”

  Rickover shook his head. “A lot of ocean?”

  “You have no idea. It’s the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Marianas Trench. That just happens to be the deepest part of any ocean anywhere on earth. Thirty-six thousand feet deep. You could stick Mount Everest in that hole and its peak would still be seven thousand feet below the surface of the Pacific.”