The Eldridge Conspiracy

by Stephen Ames Berry

  “So,” she said as they sat in her small parlor with its rough pine floor and well-used furniture. “I told Mr. Azarian you could come over because he had all the right words—Eldridge, long-term effects, Lieutenant Commander Todd Tinker.”

  “Your grandfather was the skipper?”

  “Sort of,” she said.

  He guessed that Dee was about Kaeko’s age, with a freckled face and pale blue eyes that seemed to look right through him.

  “Eldridge didn’t have a real skipper during the experiment,” she said. “She was a precomm, with no official crew yet assigned. Gramps wasn’t read aboard and all that stuff. He was there because they needed someone to drive the ship and that’s what he was, a ship driver. By war’s end he was commanding a destroyer squadron in the North Atlantic. So, what’s so urgent?”

  He started at the beginning. Having briefed O’Malley only that morning, Jim’s delivery was practiced, if not especially polished.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after about five minutes. “You look absolutely beat. You want some coffee?”

  “Lots, please.”

  From then on Jim spoke mostly without interruption for over an hour. He kept waiting for his cellphone to ring, but it never did.

  “And so here I am,” he said, setting down his third mug of strong black coffee.

  “So, a bunch of Russians are going to come through my door at any second...”

  “Burst,” he corrected. “Those guys burst.”

  “Okay. Burst through my door at any second, to bear me off to an astoundingly long-lived Nazi doctor to use in some sort of secret government parapsychology experiment. I’m being favored with this attention because my grandfather was on the Eldridge. Is that the gist of it?”

  “Yup,” he nodded. “So, what do you do?”

  “Do? I do pottery.”

  “No, I mean special abilities. Angie Milano moves things, Tim O’Malley is a precog, I guess you’d call it. All you Eldridge folks seem to have a least one distinct ability.”

  Jim felt those sharp blue eyes appraising him. “Basically,” said Dee, “I read minds. Want some apple pie? Yes, you do. And yes, I have some vanilla ice cream I can put on it. No, not that low-fat crap that makes you fart. You can see why I’ve no significant other in my life. Be right back.”

  “That wasn’t very nice of you,” he said when she returned with his apple pie a la mode.

  “What, to make you do all that talking?” she said, putting the pie in front of him on the coffee table. “Didn’t want to scare you.”

  “No. To read my mind.”

  “I rarely do that,” she said, taking the chair across from him. “First of all, it’s not ethical. Secondly, to acquire details, not just surface noise, requires lots of energy and concentration. It just wipes me out. By letting you talk I was free to judge the truth of what you were saying and gauge your emotions.”

  “Are you reading my mind now?” he asked, eating. The pie was delicious, the apples sweet and juicy, baked in cinnamon.

  “No. And I won’t again without your permission.”

  “They used to burn folks like you at the stake.”

  “They still would.”

  “We need to leave. Soon.”

  “Better call her again,” said Dee. “I’ll pack a bag.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to read my mind.”

  “Anymore. I picked up the waves of concern when you first came in. Be back in a minute.”

  Jim dialed the Windermere.

  O’Malley came out of his bathroom just as Angie stepped through the connecting door, one of the hotel’s big white towels wrapped around him, drying his hair with another. His face lit with pleasure when he saw her. “Cute gun,” he said, nodding toward the Beretta in her hand.

  “Like me, and also Italian,” she said, tucking the pistol into her belt. “We have to leave right now.”

  His smile vanished. “We just got here!” he protested. “They’ve got a spa fit for Nero!”

  “Remember your premonition, the one you had with dinner? Congratulations. Some of the world’s deadliest mercenaries are probably headed here—ex-Russian special forces.”

  “You two do bring out everyone’s talents. What is this, Whitsun’s A Team?”

  “Yes. He just permanently retired the last of his B Team.”

  “I’m packing.”

  “You’ve got three minutes,” she said.

  Henry was in his office checking the next day’s reservations. Over half of his guests now reserved via the Internet. Though he’d originally been reticent about spending so much money for a very splashy, dynamic Web presence, he’d made it all back in additional bookings the first two months. Still, efficient as it was the place just wasn’t the same without old Mrs. Ives’ astringent Yankee charm. Formerly reservations central, she’d weathered three wars, two husbands, fourteen presidents and the Great Depression, but when confronted by the need to learn a computerized, Web-based reservation system, she’d retired the same week, first telling everyone what a damned-fool idea it was. Still, she dropped by every Sunday after church for her free retired employees’ dinner.

  Henry looked up as the door opened. A trim man in his forties stood in the doorway, his face marred by an old scar running down his left cheek. “Mr. Watts?”

  “Yes, sir?” said Henry.

  “The young lady on the desk suggested that I speak with you,” said Anton Lokransky, shutting the door behind him. “I need to know to where you’ve moved Mr. O’Malley and Ms. Milano, please. They’re no longer in the rooms they were first given.”

  European, thought Henry. Probably Russian. Then he got a good look at the man’s dead eyes. Ah, shit, Jimbo, he thought. What’ve you gotten me into? He pressed the silent alarm on the side of his desk well. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know Mr. O’Malley,” he said. “We have over two hundred guests tonight. If Jane at the desk couldn’t help you, I’m afraid I can’t either.”

  Jane had been instructed to give out the old room numbers if anyone asked.

  Lokransky shot home the dead bolt and set to work on Henry with his favorite tool, a long-bladed stiletto. It only took a few minutes to extract Tim and Angie’s room numbers.

  The hotelier had held out after the first shock of the knife slicing across his cheeks. Hard-won experience had taught Lokransky that if they didn’t tell all after that first disfiguring cut, they’d hold out for a long time unless you immediately moved to the next stage.

  Carefully placing the tip of the blade against Henry’s closed right eye, Lokransky pushed, just a little. Then a little more. “Room numbers, please,” he said, ignoring the guttural sounds issuing from deep within Henry as he thrashed against his bonds—sounds not fully muffled by the tape across his mouth.

  Placing the knife point just in front of Henry’s remaining eye, he repeated, “Room numbers, please.” Henry carefully jerked his head up and down. His arm freed, he wrote them with shaking hand on a piece of paper.

  “Thank you,” said Lokransky, memorizing the numbers. “Ah. You’ve soiled yourself,” he observed. “Let me help you.” Pulling Henry’s head up by the hair, he deftly cut his throat, taking care that none of spurting blood touched him.

  Lokransky washed his hands in Henry’s lavatory then left, using Henry’s key to lock the door. He’d been in the office for six minutes.

  “We’ll stop in the lobby and beg a car from Henry,” said Angie as she and O’Malley entered the elevator, bags in hand. The doors closed in front of them and the elevator began its slow descent.

  They hadn’t been gone for more than a few seconds when the elevator chime sounded again and Lokransky and two of his men stepped into the corridor from the other elevator.

  “Henry in?” asked Angie of the woman on the front desk.” “Jane” read her name plate. It was after eight, with only a few people in the lobby.

  “Yes,” said the pert blonde, glancing toward the door marked Manager. Picking up the phone, she di
aled Henry’s extension. “Funny,” she said after a moment. “He was in there. Wait here, please.” Walking over to the office door, she knocked several times. “Henry?” she called. Frowning, she took out her master key and opened the door. Things then happened very fast.

  Jane screamed, loud and high. Lokransky and his men stepped out of the elevator. The two men he’d left in the lobby nodded as he gestured toward Angie and O’Malley, standing by the front desk. Angie started toward Jane, now screaming hysterically. Staff and guests came running.

  Seeing the Russians converging on her, Angie shouted “Behind the desk Tim!” She sent two quick rounds from her Beretta toward Lokransky as O’Malley dived across the top of the registration desk.

  Lokransky ducked behind an ornate walnut armoire as Angie’s bullets snapped past him, tearing into the wainscoting. Turning, she leaped over the registration desk as Lokransky drew his pistol. The Russian nearest the hotel entrance swung a machine pistol from under his coat, spraying the area above and behind the registration desk, the bullets smashing through the rows of old oak mailboxes.

  Screaming was no longer confined to Jane, as those who’d rushed to help her fled. Jane, deciding it was better to be confined with a corpse than to become one, stepped back into Henry’s office and locked the door behind her.

  “We want you alive!” called Lokransky. “But we will kill you if we can’t take you. Throw out your pistol. Now!” He waited a few seconds, then nodded to the man with the machine pistol. This time the bullets were lower, just above the top of the desk, an entire forty round magazine. A thin haze of gun smoke drifted toward the ceiling, the acrid stench of cordite permeating the lobby.

  Angie poked her head around the bottom corner of the desk as the machine gunner reloaded, only to pull back in as four pistols fired, the rounds plowing into the wood behind her. She knew they easily could have hit her.

  “Thought you could move things?” said O’Malley. Pale and sweating, he hunched with his back to the desk, forehead on his knees, hands over his head. “How about moving them out of here?”

  Reloading, the gunman with the machine pistol started walking slowly toward the registration desk, firing short bursts. The rest of the Russians followed, a line of skirmishers with just the one man firing.

  Enough, thought Angie.

  Holding her pistol high and two-handed, she rose quickly from behind the desk, hoping that their leader—surely he must be Lokransky—would still be to her right.

  The entire Town of Dorset police department—two men and a woman—came through the Windermere’s main door, Kevlar vests zipped, shotguns leveled. “Police!” shouted the guy wearing the sergeant’s stripes. He was fat and bald, an American flag patch on his shoulder. “Drop your weapons!”

  A blur of motion, the Russians turned and fired. As Olympic contenders the Spesnatz would’ve each rated a 10, their flawless shooting sending the cops down with neat little holes in the center of their foreheads.

  Turning back around, the machine gunner caught a brief glimpse of Angie as she sent three rounds into him, then nothing.

  Angie switched her aim to Lokransky, pulling the trigger as the colonel turned back toward her. There was no shot, no recoil. Lokransky snapped a command, staying a return volley. Running, he reached Angie as she tried to work her pistol’s jammed action. “The Beretta is notorious for that,” he said, ripping the weapon from her and slapping her hard across the face.

  Angie spat into his eyes.

  Furious, the Russian pistol-whipped her to floor, unconscious and bleeding from the deep gash across her forehead. “Cunt,” he said, kicking her in stomach.

  Wiping his face, he then carefully searched her, finding only the usual wallet contents and spare ammunition clips. “Too bad,” he said rising. “No list. We’ll have to take her with us.”

  Only then did he looked down to where O’Malley lay, propped against the back of the registration desk, staring sightlessly at the ceiling, a bullet hole through his right temple.

  “The other one’s dead,” he called.

  “Are we taking her all the way?” asked Nikolev, his old sergeant. The short thickset Muscovite had been with him through all of Chechenitza. There they’d sometimes taken the Chechen women and girls up in a helicopter for interrogation, gang raping them when finished. The first few times, after everyone had had a few turns, they’d shoved their victims out the door, laughing as they spun toward the distant ground. But after that, observing that most of the women went stoically to their deaths, Lokransky made sure that they were returned safely to their villages, their appearance mute testimony to their defilement. His superiors, thinking it a neat piece of psychological warfare, hadn’t objected when the practice spread.

  “Yes, she rides all the way with us, Nikolev,” said Lokransky. “No fun and games. Get her out of here,” he ordered. “We’ll take the hotel van.”

  Planning on a quick and stealthy extraction, the Russians had left their helicopter eight miles away at the county airfield, a move Lokransky now regretted. He hadn’t anticipated a firefight.

  “Who fired low and from the side?” demanded Lokransky, looking at O’Malley’s head with its side entry wound.

  His men exchanged puzzled glances. “No one, Colonel,” said Nikolev. “Your orders were clear.”

  “Then she killed him,” marveled Lokransky. He watched as two of his men picked up Angie, slung her between them and carried her out the door and into the night. “She killed Chekotov and then, when saw he’d be taken, she killed O’Malley.” He laughed, startling Nikolev. “What a woman, Sergeant! If there’s any fun and games, she’s mine.

  “Let’s go. We’ve got one more stop to make. We don’t want our clients to be too disappointed in tonight’s catch.” They started toward the door. “Oh, wait,” said the colonel. “Sergeant, cut off O’Malley’s head.” He jerked his thumb back toward where the engineer’s body lay. “Wrap it up and bring it with us. Be quick about it. We can expect their State Police anytime now.”

  “Yes, Colonel,” said Nikolev. The order didn’t faze him. He was an old hand at removing human appendages, though mostly from the living. Drawing a long thick-bladed knife from his boot, the Spesnatz walked back to the reception desk as Lokransky and the others moved briskly toward the entrance. The hotel van pulled up to the entrance, a Russian at the wheel.

  “Wait!” called a new voice.

  The Russians turned, pistols raised, then froze, joining Nikolev in staring at Tim O’Malley as he stood behind the reception desk, hands raised, not a mark on him. “Why not take all of me?” he said.

  In the amazement and haste that followed, only Lokransky thought beyond the illusion, wondering if O’Malley spoke Russian. And if not, how had he known that Nikolev had been told to cut off his head?

  “Oh, no,” said Jim, stopping the car.

  “This isn’t good, is it?” said Dee.

  Up ahead beyond the New Hampshire State Police cars blocking the road, they could see the Windermere, more police cars and ambulances clustered around its entrance, cops coming and going from the building or huddling outside. Flashing blue lights reflected off the hotel’s windows. As they watched, a police helicopter flew overhead, landing in the side parking lot, which held even more police cars with flashing blue lights.

  Jim swung the car around, making a U-turn. “Whatever happened is all over,” he said. “If we go up there now and I tell them I’m a guest, we won’t get out of there for a week.” Driving with his left hand, he took out his cellphone, punching out a number with his thumb. “Anthos here,” he said when the voice mail message tone beeped. “You were right. Our foreign visitors were at the inn where I left Angie and O’Malley. The place is chaos. Call the New Hampshire State Police and find out what happened tonight at the Windermere Hotel in Dorset. Especially to two guests, Angie Milano and Tim O’Malley.” Giving his cellphone number, he added, “I owe you big time, guy. Bye.”

  “Now what?” asked Dee.
r />   “We’re for sure not going back to Portsmouth,” he said. “And unless you’re driving, I’d like to pull up for the night at the first decent motel we see.” As he drove, he tried to convince himself he’d see Angie again.

  Chapter 20

  On Smalls Island, Dr. Richard Schmidla and Admiral, USN (ret.) Terrence Whitsun, sat in the dimly-lit parlor of Hull House, alone with each other and their insecurities.

  “Let’s pray this went off without a hitch,” said Whitsun. It’d been almost an hour since Lokransky had called to say he was pulling up to the Windermere and would report back shortly. Whitsun glanced at the phone, then back at Schmidla, stoking the dying fire with a poker. “The worst part of war is the waiting.”

  “No,” said Schmidla, racking the poker and resuming his seat in front of the hearth. “The worst part of war is the dying.” He glanced at the old Westminster clock on the mantelpiece. “Is it possible, Terry, that we’re being bested by this Children’s Crusade, led by some ex-CIA agent? What’s his name, Munroe?

  “Of course not,” said Whitsun. “We have Lokransky and the cooperation of the CIA.”

  “So? Munroe has the full list. Recall what all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t do for a certain shattered egg.”

  “His real name’s not Munroe—perhaps I didn’t tell you. It’s Beauchamp.”

  “Beauchamp? Not James Beauchamp, surely?” he said, rising, suddenly agitated.

  “Yes,” said Whitsun, frowning. “What’s wrong?” he asked as Schmidla walked to the window and stood staring out into the darkness.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, turning back to Whitsun. “Or had you forgotten, Terry?”

  “Forgotten what?” asked Whitsun, puzzled.

  “The name of Maria’s birth family!”

  “Was it Beauchamp?” said the Admiral. “So?” he shrugged. “What of it? And why should I remember? Or you? Maria was acquired through intermediaries—neither you nor I were directly involved. And so long ago. Your fire keeps dying,” he said, busying himself with the tongs and poker. “Why are you worried about Beauchamp, Richard? So what if Maria’s father knows you have her? It was years ago. Certainly you long since made her your own. Beauchamp poses no threat. I’ve seen his file. He’s a has-been. The Agency all but cashiered him.”