The Mikalov Case

 

     

 ~ 1 ~

It was 1998. Late spring. It was night. The streets of Istanbul were dark and quiet, but it’s Istanbul and anything can happen. Honest citizens scurried from place to place, keeping their heads down and their business to themselves, trying hard to remain small and unnoticed.

Inside a small cafe on Ayranci Street, the atmosphere was dark and thick with hashish smoke. A lone musician sat on a small stage playing a flute-like horn. 

In the back, out of the din of all the Turkish men, sat two others.  One man was a well-dressed Russian; Anton Volkoff of the KGB. The second man, blonde and blue-eyed, was Alex Peterson. He was a German and dressed in safari clothes that had seen a lot of use. 

“At dawn, this Friday, a freighter, the Leoniv, will arrive here. The American, Hogan, will pick up Konstantin. You follow them to their safe house. Then you will kill Konstantin and bring me everything he has with him.” Volkoff said in a matter-of-fact voice that most people would find quite disturbing.

“What about the American?” Peterson asked.

“No. The American will be taken care of in another way. Killing defectors is one thing. Killing an agent… that's a much different matter.”

“But what if he sees me?”

“Herr Peterson.  Perhaps I fail to make myself clear.  I’m paying you a great deal of money for this errand, am I not?”

“Yes, of course.”

“For that I expect you to follow my orders precisely.” 

Volkoff looked at Peterson like he just climbed up out of the sewer. “Perhaps I have hired the wrong man for this job. Perhaps all his protesting is a sign of fear or weakness.”

“Perhaps you did, comrade. Perhaps you could handle it better yourself. Although I sincerely doubt it.”

The two men sat glaring at each other in a strange kind of Mexican standoff. It was obvious that both men were severely deranged personalities. Finally, Volkoff broke the standoff with a gruff laugh. “Perhaps I have chosen the right man after all.”

Without another word, Volkoff pushed away from the table and walked out of the cabaret, leaving a steel-eyed Peterson staring angrily after him.

~ 2 ~

Twenty years later, an Air France jet touched down on the tarmac in Miami and taxied to the terminal.

The passengers passed through customs, including Alex Peterson. He was older but still sported a similar khaki wardrobe, angry scowl and mad glint in his bright blue eyes. After moving through customs, he walked to the taxi stand and got into a cab.  Ten minutes later, he got out of the cab in front of a small motel, one of the dozens that line the strip in North Miami. He entered the office and registered for two nights. He paid cash and threw in an extra hundred for the clerk to promise that he had never seen him. Finally, he walked down to a cluster of beachfront bungalows and entered #7.

After he unpacked, Peterson took a cab to a local Mercedes dealership. He drove out in a new 450 SL sedan, which he had ordered online from the dealership two weeks before he left Berlin. He then drove to a local restaurant and had his dinner. All pretty mundane, even for him. On the way out he used the payphone to make a call. He had a cell phone, but in his business, you never knew who else was listening. And if nothing else, Peterson was a cautious man.

The next day Peterson was sitting on the small deck in the rear of his cottage, reading a newspaper when he heard a knock on the front door. A small man in a wrinkled suit and wearing dark glasses stood on the small deck in front of the cottage. There was a large suitcase on rollers on the deck beside him.

“Mr. Armstrong, I presume?” Peterson asked.

“That’s right pal, Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy.”

 The quip was lost on Peterson, who opened the door further. “Please come in.”

Armstrong grabbed the suitcase and shuffled in. It was obvious that the bag he was pulling weighed quite a bit.

“Can I offer you a drink?”

“No thanks, I’m driving. Mr. Cirillo tells me you’re in the market for some personal protection.”

“Correct. I understand the crime problem in American cities is out of control, especially in the north.” Peterson said.

Armstrong hoisted the bag up onto the couch. “Yeah...lot of violence up there. Lot of redneck trailer trash along the way too. Man can never carry too much protection. It’s a land of opportunity for the bad guys, don’t ya know.”

Armstrong opened the suitcase. There, individually bagged, was an assortment of weaponry.  From twelve-inch Bowie knives to 9 mm submachine pistols.

“These are all untraceable?” Peterson asked.

“You could drop any one of these babies off at FBI headquarters and I guarantee they couldn’t tell you where they came from. This is the cleanest merchandise in all of the Americas.”

Peterson picked up a 9mm Browning and released the safety. “That’s a comforting thought, Mr. Armstrong.”

~ 3 ~

A WEEK LATER

Somewhere in Queens, just after midnight, there was a lot of police activity in front of a run-down boarding house. A couple of unmarked cars also pulled up and spewed out short-haired men in Brooks Brothers suits in slightly different shades of grey.  

Out of one of the unmarked cars slid State Department Special Agent Dale Hogan, the very picture of a young hotshot State Department investigator. He was accompanied by a black man ten years his senior, Agent Harley Adams. Together they walked into the boarding house.

They entered a room on the first floor, close to the rear door of the building. A slow look around the room revealed very little outside of a few drops of blood on the floor. In the centre of the room, bound and sitting in a cane-back rocking chair was the body of a man about Dale’s age. His face was covered in blood. There was a thick black line across his forehead which extended right around the perimeter of his skull. His hair was shaved in a one-inch band on either side of the black ring.  An older man in a white lab coat was examining the dead man’s head. As Dale looked at the body, he shook his head in a combination of despair and remorse.  Harley walked over to the older man in the lab coat.

“What’s the story, Kevin?”

“Hard to say exactly till I get him opened up. My guess is he wasn’t operated on here,

“Operated on?  What are you talking about?”

“His brain has been surgically removed.” Kevin then pointed to a small puncture mark on the man’s neck. I suspect he was drugged then taken somewhere and brought back here.  There’s not enough blood here for that kind of surgery.” 

As Dale heard this, he turned and walked out of the room. He wandered down the hallway until he found a window. He pulled it open and stuck his head out into the evening air. He took a deep breath. Harley came up behind Dale as he pulled his head back in. Harley lit a cigarette and leaned back against the wall.

“Well, there it is, man. You got no more Russian and the Russian’s got no more brain.”

Dale lit a cigarette of his own.  He took a deep drag and stared out into the noisy night. “Now why do you suppose anybody would want to relieve the man of his brain? What’s that supposed to be? Some kind of sign?  Some kind of distraction…what?”

Harley said nothing. Dale rubbed his eyes. He seemed overburdened for a man so young. “My dad always used to tell me,” he said,  “No matter how strange things in this life might get, they can always get stranger.”

“Sounds like your dad.” Harley said.

“Always helped me keep things in perspective.”

“Yeah, it did wonders for your old man too.”

Dale shot Harley a contemptuous glare.  Harley glared right back.  It was a momentary Mexican standoff.  Harley broke it. “You better get some sleep tonight.  We’re gonna be up to our ass in alligators come sunrise.”

Dale crushed his cigarette on the floor as he and Harley headed for the stairs.

~ 4 ~

Earlier that night, Alex Peterson’s Mercedes sedan sped along the Sunrise Highway in Long Island. The driver was a very muscular German-American named Günter Frank. He handled the car like a true professional. Alex Peterson sat next to him, quietly watching the road, glancing periodically into the back seat, at a third man, Doctor Robert Fleming. In sharp contrast to the two men in the front seat, Fleming was nervous, tense, and sweating. On his lap, he was holding a metal container, a cube about eighteen inches in each dimension. On the top of the cube was a small dial indicating the temperature inside the cube.

“In approximately nine more minutes, Alex, we will lose everything.” Fleming said. The anxiety in his voice was palpable.

Peterson looked at his watch. “We’ll be there in plenty of time, Isn’t that right Günter?”

Günter grunted and slowed down as the car took a sharp turn. A few minutes later the Mercedes slipped through the gates and down the long drive into Fleming’s estate. Just before reaching the main house, the car veered sharply to the right and down into a shallow glen. It pulled up in front of what appeared to be a large carriage house.  The door opened and the car slipped in. 

Fleming was the first one out of the car with the steel cube. He dashed for the rear stairway and descended as rapidly as his awkward load would allow. Peterson and Günter followed at a less frenzied pace. They approached the stairs just in time to see Fleming nearly trip and lose the cube.

“Haste makes waste, Robert.” Peterson said.   

As Peterson and Günter entered the lower level, they were suddenly bathed in a soft white glow. Part of the basement was an immaculate and fully equipped scientific laboratory. The central part of the lab was sealed by an airlock from the hallway which extended right around it. Off the hallway opposite the air-locked lab were other rooms, lounges, equipment storage rooms and sleeping quarters.

Fleming entered the airlock, placed the box in a portal and closed it. A laser swept over the box, sterilizing it. On the other side of the portal, one of the lab techs took the box, after it had moved through  Everybody in the lab was wearing sterile suits and masks. 

Delicately, the brain was removed from the box and placed into a huge flask of electrolyte fluid. The power to the electrolyte chamber was turned on. An electroencephalogram probe needle was skillfully inserted into the left hemisphere of the brain. A similar probe was inserted into the right hemisphere. The power generated by the electrolyte chamber was slowly turned up. The two monitors to which the probes were attached were reading flat lines. Slowly and relative to the increase in electrolyte power, small but regular brain wave patterns began to show on the screen.  One of the men in the lab turned and gave the high sign to Fleming. 

Fleming collapsed in a chair and looked at his watch. “Gentlemen,” Fleming said, taking a deep breath and getting to his feet. “I think this calls for a little celebration.”

~ 5 ~

In Manhattan, Dale and Harley pulled up in front of Dale’s building. Dale got out of the car and shut the door unceremoniously. The doorman let him into the building. As Dale entered his apartment, he saw his girlfriend, Laura Lester, sitting on the sofa in a nightgown. Laura was brown-haired and quite good looking. She was wearing glasses that suited her face perfectly. Dale believed  they made her look quite sexy. He walked over to her and kissed her. Then he went to the kitchen and poured himself a scotch. He came back and flopped down in a chair. 

“What are you watching?”  Dale asked.

“Just more news about your Frankenstein case.” 

“Is that what they’re calling it?”

“Yeah. I wonder how the story got out there so fast.”

“Law enforcement in this city is like a spaghetti strainer.”

Dale finished off his scotch in a single gulp. He got to his feet and headed to the bedroom. “If I don’t wake up in three or four days, just call the State Department. They’ll come and haul me away.”

Laura shut off the TV and put the remote down. She then headed to the bedroom right behind Dale. “I think somebody needs a little TLC.”

~ 6 ~

Fleming, Peterson and Günter were sitting in a comfortable area of the main lounge, with a bottle of expensive bourbon on the table in front of them. Fleming raised his glass. “Gentleman, he said, here’s to the successful completion of phase one.”

“What’s next on the agenda, Doctor?” Peterson asked.

“We don’t know how long it will take us to cull the necessary information from Mikalov’s brain. It may take several weeks, we may hit it tomorrow.  Regardless of how long it takes, I need you to, how shall I put it, prevent any investigation that may start to point itself in our direction.”

“Well, there are the boys over at NYIT.” Peterson said.

“Yes.” Fleming said with a bit of disappointment in his voice and a heavy sigh. “I guess if we’re covering our tracks, we’ll have to deal with them. Can they be bought?” 

“I can ask them, but if they eventually put two and two together, they may just end up being too greedy.” Peterson said.

Very well. I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

Peterson and Günter got up to leave, shaking hands with Fleming. As Fleming was showing them out, he handed Peterson a thick envelope which he slipped into his jacket.

“Aren’t you going to count it?” Fleming asked

“Why? Isn’t it all there?”

“Of course.”

“I trust you, Doctor. I hope the feeling is mutual.” But Peterson didn’t trust anyone and as Günter drove them away from the Fleming estate, he sat in the front seat beside him counting the money. 

“The way I see it, besides the boys at NYIT, we’ve only got one thing to worry about on this job.” Peterson said. 

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Young Hogan. He’ll be wanting to know what happened to that brain and if he is anything like his father, he could be a problem.”

“Should we take him out?” Günter asked with a casualness that was frightening.

“That will depend on them, my friend.” Peterson said. But he knew from almost thirty years of doing this sort of thing that scorched earth was the only way to be certain of anything.

7 ~

Late the next morning, Dale woke up and wandered into the living room. He then went to the kitchen and poured himself a coffee. He looked out onto the terrace and saw the distinguished-looking, silver-haired man named Aaron Klein sitting on the terrace with Laura. Klein was Dale’s section head at the State Department and a principal mover and shaker there. 

He turned to look at Dale, who was dressed only in a pair of jeans and an open shirt as he stepped out onto the terrace to join them. Dale walked over to the railing.  He leaned over and looked out at the city, then took a sip of his coffee.

Laura got up from her chair. “Nice to see you again, Aaron. I have some work to catch up on.”

Aaron Klein got to his feet and walked over to the railing. Neither man said a word as Laura entered the apartment and disappeared. She walked into her office and quietly opened the window to the terrace.

“Have you got my walking papers with you by any chance?” Dale says.

“Walking papers? I don’t understand. You mean termination papers?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh no. I mean really, Dale, it’s just another dead Russian.”

“Anton Mikalov wasn’t just any old Russian and you know it, Aaron.”

“No! I don’t know that at all. People try to defect from that country every week.  All of them claim to have something of value to use for collateral. Mikalov hadn’t been debriefed, so we have no way of knowing what he knew. Just as we have no way of knowing who removed his brain and for what reason. For all we know, he could have just fallen victim to some psychotic.”

“Come on, Aaron, that’s the biggest crock I’ve heard out of your mouth, maybe ever. We all know what he had.”

“You know nothing, Dale,” Klein said, in a very even tone. “He hadn’t been debriefed. None of us knows anything for certain. That’s the story you will be sticking to.”

 “It might have been wise to have posted an agent to keep an eye on him,” Dale said. “But at the time it didn't seem necessary. We did what we did with any other defector. But….”

“What?”

“I can’t help but wonder what the hell they would want with his brain.”

“Well, that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it? Stay on it with Harley and keep me posted.” Klein said. He had finished his coffee and his business. He patted Dale on the back. At the doorway, he turned back to Dale. “You know, I worked with your father in Istanbul. He was very good. And he was very good because he knew how to use the rules to his advantage. Just a little advice going forward.” Klein left Dale staring out at the city. A few seconds later, Laura came out and joined him. 

“Well?  Is it early retirement or what?” she asked.

“I should be so lucky.” Dale looked down at the street. He saw Klein leave the building. A limo pulled up and Klein got in. Immediately thereafter, two other men who had been hanging around climbed into a dark sedan and took off.

Laura walked over to Dale and put her arms around him. 

“I think the best thing for you to do right now is to stop feeling guilty and just show Klein just how fast you can get to the bottom of things.”

“Pretty tall order.”

“Not for a Hogan.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and left him on the terrace. 

+~ 8 ~

Later that day, Dale and Harley pulled up to the building next door to the safe house where Mikalov’s body was found. It was an old brownstone with a nondescript front. Two uniformed police officers were waiting for them. They chatted briefly with the cops, then the cops left. Dale knocked on the front door.  An older man, Doctor Wolf Arlburg, answered the door and showed them in. 

Doctor Arlburg, Dale and Harley descended the stairs and walked along the hallway. The rooms were small and windowless but immaculate in their appearance. Doctor Arlburg explained to them that this was a private medical clinic, then showed them to a room at the end of the hall. Before he opened the door, Dale walked over to the rear door of the building. He looked closely at the latch. “This door has been jimmied, he said. Could be that’s how they got in.”  

“There’s no alarm or cameras. Anything worth stealing is locked up in my safe at the end of every day. We have a security company that patrols hourly all through the night.” Arlburg said.

As they entered the treatment room, Dale and Harley sensed that it was definitely a crime scene. There was a substantial amount of blood on the floor and the operating table. 

“They were pretty sloppy about cleaning up. Almost like they didn’t care.” said Ellburg.

“We’ll get a team down here to go over the room for prints and DNA.” Dale said. “If you don’t mind, Agent Adams and I would like to have a look around here on our own.”

“No trouble at all.  Take all the time you need.” With that, Doctor Arlburg left the room. 

“So what do you think, Harley? Psycho grabs a Russian defector and takes him to an abortion clinic, where he removes his brain, then takes him back to where they found him. That sure takes the edge off any insanity plea when we nail them.” Dale said, shaking his head.

“It would also eliminate any one-man operation theories. The big question is how they managed all this without any witnesses. Cops told me they’ve been interviewing the locals all morning and nobody saw anything unusual. Or so they said.” Harley replied.

“Let’s face it Harley. Mostly of the people around here wouldn’t have even bothered to pay attention. And if they were, they sure as hell wouldn’t want to be talking to us about it” 

“Radical groups?”

“Only a few people knew he was even here. And they took his brain, for Christ’s sake. Why his brain? Why not his whole head? Why not his heart or anything else for that matter? There’s a market for that shit.”

“Well, maybe they’ve got some way of getting stuff out of his brain. You know, with some laser gizmo. Some shit like that.” Harley said, half-jokingly.

But Harley’s comment got Dale thinking. He became intensely pensive. 

“You know, Harley, you might not be as dumb as you look. Call in forensics. And you hang out here in case they dig up anything else. I’ll meet you back at the office.”

“Where you headed?” 

“Back to school. You just gave me a very good idea. While you’re waiting for the techs, take a walk around outside and see if you spot any cameras that are operating. Maybe we can get a look at these clowns.”

“If it was the laser shit, come on Dale. That was just a joke.” Harley said.

“We’ll see about that.”

Dale and Harley walked to the front steps of the brownstone. Harley lit a smoke and called in for a forensics team to come and process the operating room. Dale got into the car and headed off in the direction of Columbia University. He drove past the black Mercedes sedan, where Günter and Peterson sat inside, sipping coffee.

“Tail him, Alex?” Günter asked. 

“For a while. We need to get out to Long Island before those boys leave their lab.”

The Mercedes pulled into traffic behind Dale’s car. They followed him for a few blocks until he turned south. Several blocks later he turned west on Central Park North. 

“Let him go, Günter. Let’s get out to Long Island.” 

Günter turned east and headed to the mid-town tunnel which connected them to the Long Island Expressway.

At the Columbia University campus, Dale parked in front of the Arts Centre building and put his state department sign  in the front window. He entered the building. It was late afternoon, so the student traffic was light. He headed up to the second-floor offices and walked down a long hall. This was his undergrad school, so he knew his way around. 

After a few turns, he came to the door with a large graphic of a lunar landscape painted on it. “A. A. Wright--Science Fiction Author In Residence” engraved on it. Dale knocked on the door lightly, but there was no response. He knocked again, only louder.  Still no response.  He tried the knob and found the door was open, so he pushed it and poked his head in.

The room was about 25 by 25 feet.  Every available inch of wall space was filled with books.  In the middle of the room was a round table with several chairs. Adjacent to the main room was another smaller space, a slightly larger than a walk-in closet, with an elevated bed and a workspace beneath it.  On the workspace sat a laptop and printer. The bed was rocking rhythmically and the sounds of the couple making love emanated from it. The bed rocked harder and the couple made louder noises until a climax was reached and the rocking and the noise subsided.

Dale waited patiently by the door. When the lovemaking was finally done, he slammed it loudly.  A startled and dishevelled Arnie Wright raised his head over the side of the bed and looked down.  It took him a minute to figure out who was down below.

“Hogan! Is that you?” Arnie said.

“You got that right, Professor.”

Arnie scrambled into his chinos and hopped down from the bed.  He bounded over to Dale and embraced him in a jocular fashion. 

Arnie Wright was thin as a rake with long light brown hair and a tattoo of a strange looking reptile that ran the length of his arm He was possessed a nervous energy that gave him the air of a speed freak. But there was a devilish glint in his eye.

“Hope I’m not disturbing anything.” Dale said.

“No. No. Just a little one-on-one tutorial.” Then he turned and grabbed his shirt from the chair beside the desk. “It’s alright, Libby,” he said to the girl in the bed. “It’s only some asshole I used to room with back in the day.” Then he turned to Dale. “Grad student.” he said. “Apparently it’s OK to bang them if they have a BA.”

 Arnie then slipped into a pair of beat-up old loafers and grabbed his shoulder bag off the hat rack beside the door.

“Come on...you can buy me some nosh.”

“What about your friend?”

“She’s a little anorexic. Only eats one meal a week.” 

The two men left the room and closed the door gently behind them. As they walked along across the campus, several young coeds said hello to Arnie. Arnie just shrugged. “Every job has its perks, man.”

They wandered into a pub just off the campus, There were several students and their beers were sitting at tables arguing with each other. Dale and Arnie found a table by the window. They ordered sandwiches and beers from the waiter.

“Goddamit Arnie, has it really been ten years since we sat here drinkin’ beer together.” Dale said.

“Just about.”

“It’s a strange feeling, coming back here. It only takes a few minutes and then you feel like you never left.”

“Come on, you G-Men aren’t supposed to wax nostalgic.  It’s not in the interest of national security.”

“No, I guess not.”

“Speaking of which, not that I’m not tickled pink to see you and all, but what brings you up this way, my friend? You haven’t been sent to revoke my science fiction writer’s licence or anything have you?”

“No no...as a matter of fact, I’ve come to pick your science fiction writer’s brain.”

“Slim pickins. But you’re more than welcome to what little I have to give.”

The waiter brought the drinks. Neither man bothered to pour his beer out of the bottle.  They clanked the bottles noisily and chugged large chugs. 

“I’ve got a hypothetical question for you, Arnie.”

“My favorite kind.”

“Well…” Dale hesitates a bit, trying to find the right way to phrase what he wants to say. “Let me put it to you this way...Suppose, and use as much science fact as fiction to answer this...Suppose someone with a photographic memory, someone quite brilliant, had invented something truly amazing and was carrying the formula for it around in his head…”

“You mean like someone who was maybe a defecting scientist and who couldn’t bring his amazing invention with him when he defected?”

“Something like that.”

“Understood. Go on.”

“Would it be possible to get this information out of his brain?”

“Well, you could always ask the dude.”

“Suppose he was dead, but his brain was…you know, still alive.”

“You mean, like, surgically removed from his body and kept alive in stasis?”

“Yeah.”

The sandwiches arrived and both men dug in.

Arnie was thinking hard as he chewed.  But he was also looking at Dale like he may not be playing with a full deck.

“Is this some kind of State Department exam question, or something that’s really happening?”

“Let’s just say it’s something I need to know.”

“Well...officially, conventionally, I’d have to say that physical science is very close to being able to figure out the logic of brain wave patterns. And certain types of neurological research have been able to determine bits of single stroke data in the brain cells of rats, but nothing more complex than yes/no, black/white, that sort of thing.”

“So the answer is no.”

“Well, officially, the answer is no. But I know a couple of freaks in the physics lab at NYIT out on Long Island that are using state-of-the-art fibre optic laser probes to read all kinds of information from some kinds of cells. I haven’t seen these dudes in a while, so I don’t know how esoteric their tech has become.”

“So they could have the capability?”

“Anything’s possible, my friend. Science moves in both small steps and quantum leaps. These guys are your serious quantum leapers.”

“The guys who are doing the laser research, how do they read the data?”

“They’ve programmed an Apple computer to translate the light and dark areas of the cells...now that was a couple of years ago.  For all I know they could be working with neurowave translators, and reading material right off an EEG laser scan.”

“They can do that?”

Arnie shrugged. “I don’t really know for sure. But if anybody’s doin’ it, it’s those dudes. They are at the bleeding edge in laser electronic interface application tech.”

“Can you give me these guys’ names?  I’d really like to talk with them.”

“Sure”…Arnie pulled his phone out of his bag and tapped it a couple of times.  “Lemme see…yeah…Tommy Hooks and Robert Lathan. They’re real eggheads, so cut them some slack. If you want I’ll come with you.”

“No that’s okay.  Don’t want to keep you from your uh…work.

~ 9 ~

At Dale and Laura’s apartment, Laura was sitting in the second bedroom, which doubled as her office.  She was typing away on her computer when the phone rang.  She finished her thought and then picked it up on the third ring.

“Hello. Oh yes, Robert, how are you?”

As Laura was talking on the phone, Dale entered the apartment. He saw that her door was closed and there was a ‘do not disturb sign’ on it.  He quietly moved to the door. When he got right outside the door, he could hear her talking on the phone. He heard the sullenness in her voice as he stopped and listened. 

“Look, Robert, I think I’ve helped you all I can…Yes, I agree with your cause...but there is a limit to what I will do and I’ve reached that limit...No, I’m not going to take any more advantage of Dale.  He’s in enough trouble already and I just can’t risk it anymore...Robert, he’s the man I love dammit. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’m telling you, that’s the end of it. I don’t want to be involved with you or hear from you again, is that clear?” 

Laura slammed down the phone.

Outside the room, Dale was thunderstruck but decided not to confront Laura. He walked quietly back to the front door and opened it again.  This time, he closed it loudly.

“Laura, you here?”

Laura came out of her office.  She had a curious look on her face.

“Dale, what are you doing home so early?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just thought I’d check up on you.” He hugged her and kissed her cheek. “See if you were getting it on with a Fuller Brush man or one of those mad scientists you write about.”

“Very funny.”

“Speaking of madmen,” Dale said, “I had a beer with Arnold Wright today.”

Dale walked over to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Oh my, that’s a blast from the past. How is he?” Laura asked.

“Same old, same old. Still skinny as a marathoner. Still makin’ it with every grad student he can.”

“What prompted that meeting?”

“Just catching up. I also picked his brain a bit about the case.”

“Oh yeah. And what was his take on it?”

“He didn’t have one. So it was kind of a lost cause from that point of view. We just drank a few beers and talked about the old days.  There isn’t a lot of connection between Arnie’s science fiction and genuine science these days.”

“That’s too bad, I was hoping for a new clue in the mystery of the missing brain.”

“I was too.”

Dale flopped down in an easy chair.  He put his feet up on a coffee table and sipped his coffee thoughtfully. Laura came over and sat on the coffee table facing Dale.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I still have a couple of leads to follow. But I just want to do a rethink and maybe have a nap.

Laura leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“That’s nice. Meanwhile, I’ve got to go to the magazine for an editorial meeting, then I’ll pick up dinner. Would you like some Chinese?”

“Sure, that’d be great.”

Laura grabbed her bag and left the apartment.  Dale walked out to the deck and watched her get into a cab. When he was sure she was gone, he went into her study. He sat down at her desk and opened her computer. He found her calendar and scanned through it. He noticed that the letters RF appear with regularity. Every other name that appeared was written as a first name or in full.  He flipped her Rolodex to the Fs.  There were several names listed. The last name he saw was ‘Doctor Robert Fleming’. 

Dale drove down to 44th Street and Broadway, found a parking place and walked along 44th to a nondescript 10-storey building, which he entered. In the building, he got off the elevator and walked to an office with no name. He showed the receptionist his State Department ID. She pushed a button which allowed him access to the interior of the office. He walked down a long corridor and stopped at a door marked with the Roman numeral IV.  He slapped his credentials card against a keypad screen. The door popped open and he passed through.

The room was buzzing with information machinery. It was a large room ringed by small cubicles. Inside these cubicles were computer terminals and operators busy doing the work of the state. At the far side of the floor was a large glassed-in office. On the door of a corner office was a nameplate which read, ‘Thomas O’Riley - Information’.  A short middle-aged man behind the desk in the office waved Dale in.

“Hi Tommy, how’s it goin’?”

“Better for me than you,” O’Riley said. “I understand you got a strange case.”

“Lot of reports flying around?”

“You bet your fur.  You’re a regular info celeb these days.”

Dale pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket and laid it on the desk in front of Tommy. “Well, I need a little info of my own, Tommy.  I need this man checked out.”

Tommy picked up the slip of paper. “How thorough?”

“All the gory details.”

“Alright...we can have it by tomorrow AM. Okay with you?”

“Yeah...that’s fine.” Dale got up to leave the office.

“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?” Tommy asked. “About the memos I mean?”

“No, I have a feeling it’s just a lot of stuff that would ruin my dinner.”

Tommy laughed as Dale left his office, thinking that the case was too new for any of the real shit to hit the fan. But he knew it would be coming.

~ 10 ~

It was just after sunset. The Mercedes, with Günter at the wheel and Peterson in the passenger seat, pulled onto the NYIT campus. It parked in the shadows behind the Physical Sciences building. Peterson got out and entered the building by a side door. The halls were empty. The air inside was very still. The echo of Peterson’s shoes on the granite tile floors was the only noise that was heard.

Peterson walked along a long fluorescent-lit corridor. At the end of the hall, he came to a door with the words ‘Hooks/Lathan Laser Research Fellowes’ on a small card, haphazardly glued to the door.  He quietly entered and locked the door behind him.  

The lab was filled with all kinds of computer and diagnostic equipment. It looked like a chaotic version of Fleming’s lab, Peterson thought. 

Tommy Hooks and Robert Latham were in the cold room, huddling over something on a counter in the corner.  Peterson walked around the lab. He pulled out the silenced Browning pistol. After a moment, the two men in the cold room noticed Peterson walking around. They both came out of the room and approached him. Peterson quickly turned the raised the Browning. He fired a series of shots, cutting the two men down in their tracks.

Slowly and methodically, Peterson started rifling the drawers, taking anything that looked even slightly important and throwing it into the centre of the room.  When he was satisfied that the important papers were all in a large pile he set the pile on fire with his lighter.  As he left, he took the laptops that were sitting atop the two facing desks. 

Outside, Peterson placed the computers onto the backseat. of the Mercedes. Then he climbed into the front seat and took a CD from the glove box and slipped it into the player. A Mozart concerto starts to play.

“Where to, Alex?” Günter said.

“First a little late supper, then back to that cozy little motel we saw about five miles back. What was it...the Long Islander, I believe.”

Günter nodded absently and dropped the car into gear. They took off past the building. As they drove away from the building, Peterson turned to look out the rear window at the flames growing at the end of the first floor.

~ 11 ~

The next morning, Dale and Harley drove onto the NYIT campus. They pulled up in front of the Physical Sciences building and saw that the rear end of it had been gutted by fire. There were several police cruisers parked nearby.  

Close to the rear of the building, a fire truck was just pulling away. Dale stopped the car and got out. Harley got out of the other side and lit a cigarette. He just leaned on the door staring at the damage.

Dale walked up to a police detective standing with two uniformed officers and showed him his State Department ID.

“Agent Hogan...Ron Sherman, Nassau County Homicide.”

“What the hell happened here?” Dale asked.

“I’m getting bits and pieces from the forensics crew. Near as they’ve been able to piece together, one Thomas Hooks and one Robert Lathan, couple of Associate Profs, were working late last night in their lab. Someone walked, in pumped them full of bullets then cremated them along with a lot of their research and left with their laptops.

“Any witnesses?”

“Nobody’s come forward yet...If you don’t mind me asking, sir, what’s your interest in Hooks and Lathan?”

“They were a potential information source. A classified case, Detective.”

“You’ll excuse me, sir, but if you have information that would be useful to this investigation, we’d appreciate any help.”

“I understand your dilemma, and if I discover anything I can share, I’ll be sure to inform you.” 

“Same here, Agent. Take a few days though. It’s a real mess in there.”

The two men exchanged cards and Dale walked back to the car and climbed in. Harley did the same. “The plot thickens, Harley.” Dale said as they drove off.

 “This has all the earmarks of a pro job.” Dale said. “Somebody knew how to get to the Russian. Then they knew how to get to the science guys who are working on ways to read brainwave patterns. The bigger it gets the weirder it gets.” 

What Dale didn’t mention to Harley was the conversation he overheard between Laura and, he assumed, Robert Fleming. It might be nothing so he didn’t want to rock the boat at this point. He was in enough deep shit already.

“I don’t understand it, Harley. Not yet, anyway.”

“I do,” Harley said. “We’re somewhere up the creek without a paddle.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, maybe we’re not.”

Dale turned the car around and headed back to the campus. He jumped out and approached Detective Sherman again. 

“Excuse me, Detective.”

“Yes sir?”

“Were Hooks and Lathan working on some sort of grant or endowment?”

“As a matter of fact, they were.”

“Would you happen to know the source of that grant?”

Sherman fumbled around in his notebook for a few seconds. “Yeah, it’s a group called Scientists For A Free World.”

“Scientists For A Free World? Sounds like some kind of far-left thing.”

“Could be...we haven’t checked it out yet.”

“Thanks.” Dale said. He walked back to the car and slipped in behind the wheel. He took out his phone and typed in the words, Scientists For A Free World on his browser. A web page came up he hit the ‘about’ button and a picture of Robert Fleming appeared. Beneath the picture, the caption read Robert S. Fleming, PHD, Founder and Chairman. 

“Who the hell is that?” Harley asked.

“Maybe a new lead. Maybe nothing.”

Dale dropped the car into gear and took off. The Black Mercedes was parked on the far side of the campus. Günter sat behind the wheel. Peterson lounged in the backseat, reading the New York Times. They both watched Dale and Harley drive by.

“Follow them, discreetly, until we’re sure they’re going back to the city.”

“You got it, Alex.”

The Mercedes slowly pulled out onto the campus road, behind Dale and Harley.

~ 12 ~

Peterson and Günter drove to Fleming’s estate. Günter stayed by the car while Peterson entered the large library off the porch. He saw Fleming sitting in one of the two wing chairs in front of the fireplace. Peterson poured a glass of brandy from a bottle sitting on a side table.  He sat down in the wing chair beside Fleming.

“You didn’t have to kill the boys, Alex.”

“Don’t be silly Doctor. Of course I did and you know it.”

“It’s just starting to feel so dirty.”

“It’s a dirty business, Doctor. Some of it’s bound to get to you at some point.”

“Yes, I suppose I should be more realistic about it.”

“That would help. And speaking of dirty business. I could use an update from our Hogan connection.”

“Ahh yes, Miss Lester. Well, it seems Miss Lester is not cooperating with us anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. She won’t inform us of Hogan’s activities. Either he’s not telling her anything or she’s had a severe attack of righteousness.”

Peterson got up out of his chair and walked over to the fire for a moment. Then he turned and walked directly to Fleming.

“I find it impossible to believe that you’re planning to blackmail the United States government and you cannot even keep a journalist in line.”

Fleming was unfazed. “Are you finished with the posturing Mr. Peterson? I hired you because you came highly recommended as a resourceful and efficient soul. I am not about to strong-arm the girlfriend of a Federal agent for the sake of keeping you informed about his comings and goings. So far this operation has run smoothly, albeit not to my liking. Let’s just keep it that way and avoid any obvious pitfalls.”

Peterson sat back down in the chair next to Fleming. “You’re right of course. I do tend to get a little overzealous from time to time. It’s the nature of the beast that rules me.” 

“I would strongly suggest that you keep that beast in a cage. This operation requires finesse. Not brute force.”

“Speaking of finesse, How is the extraction going?”

“Painfully slow, but surprisingly detailed. If Hooks and Lathan were still around they could have spun this into a multi-billion-dollar idea. Too bad it all went up in smoke.”

Peterson chuckled. “Ahh yes…I neglected to tell you that I have both of their laptops.” 

Fleming turned and stared “You do? Have you looked at what’s on them?” 

“Not as of yet. But I assume you have people who can understand what’s there.” 

“I have people who would love to have a look.” 

“Good, then I suggest a partnership. If we find there’s enough on their computers to create a workable process, then there is no limit to the number of parties who would be interested in it.

~ 13 ~

In the lab, earlier that day, Mikalov’s brain was raised out of stasis. One of the techs placed a net of electrodes over it. Another tech activated a computer program and the electrodes started firing in a slow sequence that followed a circular pattern. Tiny lights indicated that the contact point was active. Slowly the lights, flashing in sequence, started to speed up until several seconds later they were moving so fast that the entire brain seemed to glow. 

When the electrode flashes hit their top speed, the computer started to display coded data in a massive stream. The computer was hooked up to twelve external hard drives, connected in sequence to house the raw data on the sixteen-terabyte drives. As the data filled one drive, another was instantly engaged. This process went on for the better part of the day. When the tenth of the twelve drives in the array was nearly full the electrodes suddenly went dark. The computer operator turned to the other four people in the lab. 

“Holy shit. That’s almost one hundred and sixty terabytes. Can you imagine?”

The head tech picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Dr Fleming. Everything that was in his brain is in our machines. This is fucking historic. Hold on…” The tech turned back to the computer and activated the reading program that Hooks and Lathan had designed. “It’s compressing the raw data now. We’ve got it all, I think. According to the readout, it will take about twenty-nine hours for the program to decode it all… Yes sir, thank you. I will let everybody know. We can keep the brain in stasis but it will only be viable for another twelve hours or so. OK, we’ll dispose of it then. Thank you, sir.”

The technicians all exited the cold room. When they got out into the common area there were hugs and high-fives all around.

In the main house, Fleming was in the kitchen with Peterson and Günter. He was making himself an omelette. He had just disconnected from his cell call. “That was the lab.” he said. “The first phase of the upload is complete. It will take some time to get through phase two including a day or so to find what we’re looking for. Once we have it we can begin phase three.”

Fleming reached into a drawer, pulled out another thick envelope and handed it to Peterson. “Let’s hope all the dead bodies are behind us now, Alex.”

“We live in hope Doctor.”

“I’ll call when we have what we’re looking for, and we can arrange to contact Senator Wells.” 

“Just let us know and we’ll be there to make sure it all goes smoothly.”

Peterson and Günter walked to the front door. “How do you feel about some linguini tonight, Günter? I’ve been thinking about linguini all day.”

“Linguini works for me, Alex.”

~ 14 ~

Early the next morning, Dale and Harley were sitting in Tommy O’Riley’s office.  They were both drinking coffee. O’Riley entered the office with a small slip of paper in his hand. He nodded to the two men and sat down at his desk. He punched some numbers into his computer console and then looked up at them.

“I’m not authorized to give you any information on Robert Fleming. He’s classified Level 6.” O’Riley said. “However I have just called up his file on a routine update pretext, and I see that my coffee cup is empty and my bladder is full, if you know what I mean.”

O’Riley got up from his desk taking his coffee cup with him. “Now, no peeking, boys.”

He chuckled as he left the room. Dale and Harley got up and walked around the desk. They saw Robert Fleming’s file displayed.

“Wow, he holds patents on seven laser devices including a micro-scanner used in the production of medical microscopes.” Dale said. 

“Jesus Christ, the guy must be loaded.”

Harley scrolled the file. “Look, here’s the good stuff. Guidance System Star Wars Defence Program. High-efficiency solar panels. Laser cell scanner.  Hell, this guy’s a walking science fiction novel.”

“And a national treasure, I would guess.” Harley said.

Harley scrolled some more. The words "SCIENTISTS FOR A FREE WORLD" appear along with a short arrest record. “Aha, the guy’s also a peacenik.”

“Yeah but it doesn’t connect him to our missing brain now does it?” Dale said.

Harley printed a copy of Fleming’s file. It was about a dozen pages. Dale grabbed the pages, folded them up and tucked them into his jacket. “We can make a few inquiries about these inventions.” he said.

Dale and Harley started to leave the office. As they walked down the hall, they waved goodbye to O’Riley, who was chatting with a couple of his people. They got to the elevator and Harley pushed the button. 

“You know,” Harley said, “You always make a low murmuring sound when you’re thinkin’ hard. What are you thinkin’?”

“It’s gonna sound a little crazy, but this Fleming’s a one-man laser brain trust. But he’s also head of a left-wing scientific organization. Suppose, and I know this sounds nuts, but suppose, one of these inventions, or maybe the stuff Hooks and Lathan were working on, was capable of actually culling hard information from real brain cells.”

“You’re right. It does sound a little nuts.” Harley said.

“But it jibes with a lot of things Arnie Wright told me and with what happened to Hooks and Lathan. I got a feeling we’re solving this goddamn case and we don’t know it, ‘cause we just don’t believe it.”

Just before they got on the elevator, O’Riley shouted after Dale.

“Hey, Dale, hold on a minute.” O’Riley said.

“I’ll meet you downstairs.” Dale said to Harley.

Harley got in the elevator. O’Riley and Dale walked back to his office. Tommy closed the door.

“Was that any help?” Tommy asked

“Yeah, I think so, Tom. Thanks.”

“Look. There’s something else you should know about your case.”

“Yeah?”

“The Russians are raising hell. Demanding Mikalov’s extradition. The boys in Washington are covering the best they can, but the fact of the matter is, at least from the memos that are flying through here, that they’re prepared to make a full disclosure.”

“That’s procedure.”

“You’re not getting the message, Dale. Full disclosure just means a new set of lies. Because you never tell the Russians the truth. And the scenario that’s most in favor right now is the one that hangs you out to dry.”

“Well, I did screw it up. I’ve already felt some of the heat from that.”

“It’s worse than that, Dale. They want to try you for kidnapping the Russian. You know, corruption in the State Department nipped in the bud. You’re lookin’ at ten to twenty in maximum strength incarceration, and you know how long a Federal agent will last in that environment.”

The news hit Dale like a ton of bricks.

“You’re the perfect patsy.” O’Riley said. “They set your dad up the same way, but he beat them at their own slimy game.”

“Jesus Christ, Tommy. Does this look like a real scenario?”

“It’s about eighty percent certain, Dale.  If it hits a hundred, I can lose your file for a couple of days, but they’ll be comin’ after you like fuckin’ bloodhounds.”

Dale got up. He was badly stunned. “Thanks for the info, Tommy.”

“Goddammit Dale, sometimes I hate this job.  Other times…other times I just dislike it intensely.”

Dale walked out of O’Riley’s office and down the hall to the washroom. He turned on the tap at one of the sinks and splashed some water on his face and took a good hard look at himself in the mirror. But instead of breaking down or crumbling, he took a deep breath and straightened himself up. “Well, it’s a whole new ballgame now, Hogan.”

He slam-dunked the crumpled paper towel into the trash bucket and left the washroom.

~ 15 ~

The Brooklyn docks were dark and quiet. Peterson’s Mercedes pulled up to the edge of the water and stopped there. Günter got out, sporting a 9 mm Uzi. There was no one on the dock, but Günter walked up and down the edge of the water just in case. 

Down at the far end of the dock, a black limousine pulled up and cruised slowly toward the Mercedes.  It came to a stop about fifty feet away. Two Neanderthals got out of the car and had a look around. One of them opened the back door and a thin slightly Mongolian-looking man got out. He was a real dandy, wearing a dinner jacket with a red vest. Totally retro. He looked like something out of a Bogart movie.  

His name was Serge Volkoff, and he was now the  Intelligence Chief attached to the Soviet Delegation to the United Nations. Peterson climbed out of the Mercedes. The two men began to walk toward each other. They met in the middle between the two cars.  They shook hands politely and slowly started to walk.

“You needn’t have dressed so formally for our meeting Comrade Volkoff.”

“Very droll, Herr Peterson. I’m quite fatigued from a full evening of diplomatic ass-kissing and would appreciate it if you would come directly to the point.”

“Very well, Anton Mikalov.”

“You have my attention, Herr Peterson.” Volkoff said in a flat voice.

“He is dead. I know this for certain because I killed him.”

“Then we have nothing to talk about.”

“Oh? What about the data he smuggled out when he defected to young Hogan?”

“Dead men, as the saying goes, transmit no data. And smart men, like Mikalov, volunteer no data until they have been debriefed and a deal has been made.” Volkoff said.

“That’s true, comrade, as a general rule.  But let’s just say, I have the data, never mind how it was acquired. Would you be an interested party, bearing in mind, of course, that the US State Department would be extremely interested.”

“I would, providing I was certain this was the correct data.”

“Of course, you will be able to verify it.”

“What figure did you have mind, Herr Peterson?”

“It’s a nice round one, comrade, easy to remember…Five hundred million.

Without betraying any emotion Volkoff said, “Well…never let it be said that you weren’t the bold one.”

Volkoff started to walk away. Then he stopped and turned around. “You know that my country is a little, how do the Americans say, strapped for cash these days. But nonetheless, I will make enquiries. Perhaps little Putin will dip into one of his reserve Zurich accounts.”

“The incentive to do as well as you can, of course, is that if you can’t afford it, we’re standing in the world’s richest country. Balance of power is worth quite a bit to these people. We’ll be in touch, I trust.”

“You can count on it, mien herr.”

Volkoff walked back to his car and climbed into the backseat. Peterson stood on the pier and watched him leave. Günter sidled up to Peterson, “The guy looks like a fairy.” he said.

“That fairy, Günter, could kill you instantly in about two hundred different ways.

Peterson and Günter walked back to the Mercedes. “I think he’s interested.” Peterson said as he climbed into the car.

“Keep an eye on our rear end tonight, Günter. We’re in the hot water, so to speak. Let us not get boiled.”

~ 16 ~

At Dale’s apartment, Dale slipped out of bed and cracked the curtains slightly.  It was close to 6 am. He pulled a soft-sided bag out of the closet and started throwing some things in it.  Laura rolled over and propped herself up.

“Where are you going?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Will you be gone long?”

“Hard to say.”

Laura pulled herself up to a sitting position. “What’s going on, Dale?”

“I found out yesterday that I’m being betrayed?”

“What do you mean, betrayed?”

“They’re gonna feed me to the Russians for Mikalov’s death. They’re gonna set me up as a black marketeer, corrupt official, bad seed, you know the story. Like father like son.   I’m the perfect patsy.”  

“How did you find this out?”

“From the same person who gave me Robert Fleming’s file.”

Laura let out an involuntary gasp.

“Yeah, I heard you breaking it off with him yesterday. But the damage has been done, Laura. I lost my Russian defector, my big chance to redeem the Hogan name, and the love of my life all in a single event. Well, I’ll tell you something, I’m not gonna lose my ass too.”

“Dale, I can explain.” She made a move toward him, but he simply raised his hand and froze her with it.

“I’m sure you can. Everybody’s good at explaining things to everybody else. But the fact is that I’ve been shafted by all the people closest to me. I feel like I’m swimming in an ocean of slime.”

Dale went into the bathroom and grabbed his kit bag. He came back and threw it into the larger bag. Then he put his badge, phone and his gun in the drawer of one of the bedside tables.

 “I’d suggest you make yourself scarce for a while too. They’re gonna come lookin’ for me with their sadistic interrogators. If you’re here, they’ll sweat whatever they can out of you, which is why I’m not telling you where I’m going. I’ll get Harley to help you find a place to hide till this is over.”

Dale left the bedroom and Laura, sitting on the bed, stunned, terrified and confused.

Twenty minutes later, Dale got out of a cab on a one-way street in Brooklyn. He walked to the closest building and entered. He waited until the cab was out of sight, then came back out and took off up the street and down an alley. On the next street over, he walked up to a nondescript older Ford sedan parked in a small lot behind an auto repair shop.  He opened the trunk and put his bag in.  

Dale took off, driving up through Queens, across the Whitestone Bridge to the Hudson River Parkway, eventually to Interstate 9 and north to Peekskill. From there he picked up Highway 6 and zig-zagged his way to Brewster, where he stopped for breakfast. All the while. he was checking his rearview to see if anyone was following. So far, it felt like a clean getaway. 

After his meal, he drove to a storage facility in the industrial section of town. There was no one else dealing with storage. He backed the car up to the pickup area of a low building. He then walked down the hall to a small storage locker. There were several items in the locker, mostly well-used exercise equipment and three cardboard boxes on a wooden shelf. He took down one of the boxes and popped it open. Inside was a gym bag. He opened it up and checked the contents: a couple of different fake passports and identity kits, a wad of cash, two Beretta 9 mm pistols and several full clips There were also four burner phones in their sealed packages. 

He put the box back on the shelf and left with the gym bag. In the car, he swapped out his driver’s licence, insurance and credit cards for one of the sets in his bag. He then tossed the bag into the backseat and took off.

Every agent dealing with international affairs learned that it was smart to have, at the very least, one complete alternative identity and at least one unregistered weapon. The reason was simple. In the greater scheme of things, there was always the possibility that you would be offered up as a sacrificial lamb, either for the sake of political expediency or appeasement. It came with the territory. So the need to disappear at any given time was an ever-present possibility. There were dozens of ways it could happen, and Dale was now living through one of them.

Dale wasn’t all that worried about the outcome of the political machinations that made him the victim here. Because from everything he had seen and heard and figured out, he knew he could blow this case wide open. But under some sort of house arrest or custody, he would be powerless. The only way to take the pressure off himself was to be able to stay out in the cold with room to move.

 A little help from someone who knew the ropes wouldn’t hurt either. And that’s just where he was going.

It was early evening when he got to New Bedford. He was tired from a long day of roundabout driving to get there, so he picked up some Vietnamese takeout and checked into a motel.

In the room, he used one of the four burner phones in his go-bag to call Harley. 

“Hey, It’s me.”

“I won’t ask you where you are, because I don’t want to know. I heard that they’re looking to hang you out to dry.”

“Yeah, well shit happens. If we crack this, it’ll probably all go away. I just need some room to move freely.”

“Speakin’ of shit happening,” Harley said, “I got a couple of interesting shots from my little stakeout of Fleming’s estate. Also, saw the guys  who were driving a black Mercedes and when I saw them I had a flash of the old deja vu.” 

“You mean like at the abortion clinic? Yeah, I had them following me for a while after we split up there. Text me the shots at this number. I’ll look into it from my end. Keeping your eye on Fleming might be a good bet.” 

“Anything else I can do?” 

“Yeah. Go get Laura and stash her in one of our safe houses. I don’t want them comin’ after her.”

“You got it, pal. Keep me posted. I’ll text you those shots.”

Dale disconnected and a few minutes later his text beep sounded. He opened the message and saw an image of both Günter and Peterson on the porch of Fleming’s house. He texted Harley back: ‘Run these guys through Facial Rec in every Dbase you can use. I’ll be in touch.’ He stared at the images of Günter and Peterson for a long time. 

~ 17 ~

The next morning Dale drove to Wood’s Hole and caught the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. The sea was smooth and the ride only took about twenty minutes from end to end. He drove off the ferry and over to Edgartown, where he parked down by the beach and walked along the shoreline. He punched a number on his burner phone.

“Hi dad, it’s Dale...yeah, I’m on the island. Sure. Just wanted to make sure you were home….Right… I need to talk to you…No, but I can find it. Yeah, yeah...I’m good.”

Around noon, at a restaurant called The Seafood Shanty, Dale sat with a beer, staring out at the water.  Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder.  He looked up and saw his dad. He got to his feet and gave him a hug, which was returned emphatically. 

Jim Hogan was only sixty-three years old, but he had the leathered look of someone a few years older. He was dressed in a golf shirt and chinos.

“You’re lookin’ healthy, Dale. Life in the fast lane agrees with you.”

“You’re lookin’ like you spend a lot of time on the golf course.” Dale said.

“It’s only a little nine-hole course. But yeah, I spend a lot of time there. Mostly shootin’ the shit with all the retired titans of industry.”

Jim slipped into a chair opposite Dale. The waitress came and took his order for a beer. They exchanged small talk until the waitress brought Jim’s beer.  He poured it into a glass and raised it. “Here’s to you, son.”

“Cheers.”

Dale told Jim the first part of the story. “So there wasn’t a whole lot left for me to do except get out of town before they tied me up and lit the fire under me.”

“Well, I’ve been there, and it ain’t the world’s most comfortable place to be, Goddamn”… Jim said with a laugh. “Nothing ever changes in that world. It was a whole lot better when all we worried about was the impropriety of getting blowjobs in the Oval Office.”

“I just thought you might have some words of wisdom for me.”

“Permit me a little speculation...You got your Russian defector...and he was working in laser physics. And you got your Russians who’re scared skinny about the war-mongering US of A. And from the sounds of it, this guy was sitting on some sort of idea that would give whoever owned it a big leg up.”

“That’s what I’m thinkin’,” Dale said. “Trouble is somebody got to him before we could debrief him and find out exactly what he had.” 

“And you say they cut out his brain and took it with them? That’s pretty specialized stuff. So what about this Fleming character? You saw a couple of bad actors with him at his house.”

Dale got out his burner phone and showed Jim the pictures of Günter and Peterson. He stared at it for a while then slowly shook his head. “Alexander Peterson. That fucker hasn’t changed a bit. Still thinks he’s Jungle Jim with the designer safari clothes.” He turned the phone and indicated Peterson. “I don’t know the other guy. But Peterson and I go way back.” 

“How do you know him?” 

“Long story short…Istanbul. About twenty years ago now. A situation not all that different from yours. Defecting nuclear scientist with all the big, bad Moscow secrets in his head. But the Russians had this figured from the get-go. They hired Peterson to take this guy out. And he did a pretty good job of trying to frame me for the hit. Later, I found out he was working for a Russian spook named Serge Volkoff. Peterson is your world-class international hitman for hire. It’s a sure bet he killed Mikalov. Don’t know what they would want with his brain though.”

“I have this pie-in-the-sky notion that they have some way of reading information from brain cells.” Dale said. “A couple of guys working on that kind of tech were killed two days later and their lab was torched. And these guys were working under a grant from Fleming’s organization.”

“And now they’re looking to hang you out to dry to keep the Russians happy. So your only play at this point is to solve this, and nail Peterson and this Fleming guy.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Well, my boy, you have come to the right place. That fucker owes me. So I will be honoured to help you fry his Nazi ass.”

“What do you mean? Like actually work this with me? From here on Martha’s Vineyard”  

“We don’t live in the stone age here. They got these things called satellites and even out-of-the-way places like this are completely wired. Titans of industry live here, Dale, considerably larger than I do, I might add, but nonetheless, this island is hooked up.”

Twenty minutes later, Jim and Dale drove into the wide driveway of a modestly sized but beautiful cottage, very old and very charming, ringed with flower beds and shaded by old pine trees. Inside the house, a nice-looking woman was moving around in the kitchen. 

“Alvira Drysdale, this is my son, Dale.” Jim said, after they entered the kitchen.

Alvira shook Dale’s hand. “So pleased to meet you Dale. Your dad got very excited when you called.”

“Pleased to meet you too, Alvira.”

“Alvira’s the proud owner of this house. She is the proverbial rich widow that the spy falls in love with at the end of the movie.”

Alvira smiled. “Jim tells me you’re a spook just like he was.” 

“Yeah, it kinda runs in the family.” 

“Dale’s gonna stay with us a couple of days,” Jim said. “I’m gonna help him with his homework.”

“That’s wonderful. Please make yourself right at home, Dale.” And with that and a peck on Jim’s cheek, Alvira was off out the side door.

“Come on into the study, I got a few things to show you.” Jim said.

Dale tossed his bag into the guest bedroom and he and Jim headed to the study at the front of the house. Dale was astounded to find that Jim had a highly sophisticated communications complex. A state-of-the-art PC with a large flat screen monitor, several black box devices and a sizeable political science library.

“I use this stuff mostly for researching my memoirs,” Jim said. “But I’ve got access to virtually every database and communications network on the planet. I didn’t exactly leave government service empty-handed. Why don’t you go get comfortable. We can start on this in the AM. Hope you like salmon, because Alvira tells me that’s what’s for dinner.”

Over dinner, Dale got to know a bit about Alvira. She was born in Boston, got her law degree at Harvard and worked in one of the older law firms in the city. She specialized in international law and she and Jim met on one of her last extradition cases. At that point, she was a full partner in her firm. 

A few years later, she took an early retirement and left the firm. She had been married for thirty years to a very wealthy investment banker named Jarrett Drysdale, whose death from a heart attack got Alvira thinking about life and work.

Within three months, her partners had bought her out. She sold her condo and moved herself to their summer house on Nantucket, which is where Jim tracked her down. A little romance, a little time and pretty soon they were roomies with benefits.

As they were cleaning up the dinner dishes, Dale said, “Dad, I gotta tell you I feel awful about coming here. But I’m really out in the cold.”

“Look son, I knew there’d come a day like this. There’s no such thing as a quiet life for people in our line of work. To tell you the truth it’s got the old adrenalin flowing like it hasn’t flowed in a long time.”

“You know, you’re a legend around the office. You were the guy who bent all the rules to just this side of breakin’ and always came up smellin’ like a rose.”

“Almost always. But, almost only counts in horseshoes. It’s a game of precision...you screw up once and you’re screwed for good.  But you know it goin’ in and you go in with your eyes wide open. Anything goes wrong, well you got nothing to be pissed off about other than your own shortcomings.”

“I don’t think there’s any justice in that.”

“You’re right, the only justice there’s ever been in America is when the bad guys get it up the keester. Which is why we’re gonna nail these bastards and get you out of the soup.”

“What do you mean, we?”

“In case you haven’t figured it out, your old man’s just been prayin’ for an excuse to get his butt back out there in the game. This is custom-made for us. The perfect operation.”

“Hold on a minute.” Dale said. “I appreciate the information you’re gonna help me gather, but there’s no way you and I are gonna head back there together. Dad, look around. This is a good life you got here. Why blow it for some old vendetta.”

“Sure it is. It’s a good life watching the grass grow and schlepping around on a golf course. You think I chose this? No way. The options were none and none at the time and this was the least favoured. Not that it hasn’t worked out beautifully in several ways.”

“Glad you said that.” Alvira shouted from the dining room..

“I can’t let you risk your life for my mistake.” Dale said.

“Risk my life? Is that all you’re worried about?  Hell. This is about as risky as a hot game of chess. These guys are on our turf and as far as I can tell they don’t think you know anything. You sleep on it, Dale. And while you’re doing that, think about this...it’s not a one-man operation.”

Jim got up from the table and wandered into his office. Dale headed outside for a cigarette. After a few moments, Alvira joined him on the back deck looking out over the ocean.

“My dad seems to be very happy here, Alvira.” Dale said.

“He is. We both are. But he has a restless spirit, you know. Your showing up with a problem to solve is the best thing that could have happened. And like he said, it’s not a one-man operation. You need someone to have your six.”

Dale laughed. “You might be right about that.”

Late that night, Jim was his study with a cup of coffee.  He turned on his computer, punched in a passcode and opened a link to INTERPOL INFORMATION SERVICES. He entered the name PETERSON, ALEX. The database displayed Peterson’s file. It’s a long one. Lots of suspicion. No arrests or convictions. Jim scrolled down to the bottom. It simply read LAST SN MIAMI INTL AIRPT, APR 22/23. NO CURRENT WARRANTS. Jim printed out the Peterson file, then disconnected from the INTERPOL database. Again, lots of suspicion, but no actual charges. ‘This guy is definitely being protected.’ he thought.

The next morning, Jim and Dale were walking along the beach together. It was a windy day but warm. The two men were in their shirt sleeves.

“I did a little investigating late last night. It’s pretty likely that your doctor Fleming has hired Alex Peterson to handle the wet work of getting Mikalov’s brain.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s a low-profile guy.  But he’s a real psycho. Bred from Neo-nazi stock. He’s extremely intelligent, which makes him very lethal.”

“Will he be loyal to his employer?”

“Loyalty’s not a concept that computes in his brain.  Narcissism computes. Vanity. Macho. Evil. They all compute. The man is a very bad seed, Dale. He will do whatever he has to do to get what he wants.”

“You seem to know a lot about him.” Dale said.

“After the Istanbul thing, I made it my business to find out about him. The more I learned about him the more I understood why he’s never been taken down.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s protected. At least that’s my educated guess. Works mostly for politicians and high-level pencil necks who would have a lot to lose if he ever got taken down. I’m surprised he’s over here and working what looks like a private sector job.”

“Hmmm. Maybe it’s not. Maybe Fleming is just one piece in the puzzle.” Dale said.

“Could be. I mean if it’s at all possible that the technology for information extraction from brain tissue works, there could be a couple of ways to use it.” 

“From what I learned about Fleming,” Dale said, “He’s a peacenik and would likely use the info to force the government into some sort of stand-down mode by threatening to give it to the Russians. “Dale said. “But if Peterson runs true to your description, he’s more likely to take that info and sell it back to the Russians. They can pay him a lot more for it than Fleming could.” 

“Yeah, well a lot of this theory depends on whether the technology actually works and if, in fact, it even exists. But let’s suppose it does and Fleming has the goodies. A better nuke. Or some space gizmo. Peterson will just take it from him. Then he would get in touch with the highest-ranking Russian in the US and arrange for a little exchange. And you know the rule of thumb with that.”

“Follow the money.” Dale said.

“Follow the goddamn money.” 

~ 18 ~ 

In New York, Harley Adams pulled up in front of Laura and Dale’s apartment and got out of his car.  It was late in the afternoon. He looked around and then entered the building. Laura was sitting at the dining room table drinking coffee and looking out the window when she heard a knock on the door.  She nearly jumped out of her skin. She walked to the door and looked out the peephole. She saw that it was Harley and breathed a sigh of relief. She opened the door. Harley took one look at Laura and saw how terrified she was.

“Dale wanted me to come and get you. Take you out of circulation for a while. Did he tell you anything before he left?” 

“He told me he was in a lot of trouble and that his own people would come looking for him.” 

“Well, you’re right about one thing. He’s in a shitload of trouble.”

Harley walked around the apartment. He went to the window and looked out. “Tell me exactly what he said, Laura, exactly, word for word.”

“He said, ‘They’re gonna feed me to the Russians for Mikalov’s death.’ That’s about it. I got the feeling he didn’t want me to know too much.”

“What else?”

“He told me to disappear too. That your people would come looking for me. I guess that would be you.”

“Is that it?”

“That’s all Harley.  That’s all he said.”

Harley took out his phone. “He fucked up. He let someone kill the person he was in charge of. And now it’s a big deal.”

Harley sat down on the sofa. “Go pack a bag, Laura.”

After Laura left the living room, Harley got out his phone.

 “Dale it’s me.” Harley said. “I’m gonna take Laura to a safe house. She’s just getting her stuff together. Dale, I have to ask you, if you’re sure this is the right way to go about things?”

“Sorry, Harley. I thought it through and there’s really no other way to do this. If I come back, they’ll lock me down and nothing will happen. Then they’ll take you off the case. Then they’ll bury it.”

“You know that the longer you stay out there the deeper the hole you’re digging for yourself.”

“Just take care of Laura.” Dale said, and then he disconnected.

“Dale? Dale!….Fuck.”

A few minutes later Laura came out with her computer case and her gym bag slung over her shoulder.

“Is this necessary, Harley?”

Yeah, it is because if the good guys are comin’ after you, you can bet the bad guys will be too. If Dale gets close to whoever is doing all this shit, they could very well try and use you as leverage to get him to back off.”

Laura paced around the living room a bit. Her trepidation had turned into outright fear. “You really believe that?”

“Meaning do I believe it’s possibility…oh yeah. So let’s go.”

The black van was parked down the street out of Harley’s view. Günter sat in it looking bored. He perked up almost to the point of excitement when he saw Harley and Laura come out and get into Harley’s car. He started the van and followed them at a safe distance.

~ 19 ~

Out on Highway One heading to Connecticut, Dale and Jim Hogan were driving in Dale’s car. Jim was fiddling with the radio, looking for some weather. Dale glanced over at him from time to time.  There was a curious look on his face.

“Tell me something, dad?” Dale said.

“If I can.”

“Why are you doing this?  You don’t owe the agency anything.”

Jim took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “There are a couple of reasons, son. And yes it’s true I don’t owe them anything. But I do owe Alex Peterson something.”

“What’s that?”

“Ahh, it’s a long story.”

“We have some time, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Jim took another deep breath and scratched his head absently.

“When your mother called it quits and she took you away back in oh five, I felt...well, I felt like I’d failed you both somehow. 

“I don’t blame her for what she did. It was hard livin’ underground like I had to. I was spending most of my time in foreign countries, dealin’ with the scum of the earth out there on the fringe between two ideologies.

“After a while, you start forgetting that there’s any real difference in ideologies, there are only bad guys and worse than bad guys and your only hope is to get through each day alive. I started spending more time in Istanbul. There wasn’t much reason to come home, so I threw myself into my work, and my superiors, greedy vermin that they were, started dropping me deeper and deeper undercover. 

“By 2011, I was the man who could get you anything you wanted in a thousand-mile radius around Istanbul. Needless to say, I took a little for myself and not just money.  

“Her name was Kayla and she was a goddess. One of the most desirable women in all of Istanbul, and all she desired was me. Of course, I had power back then, status in a hierarchy of thieves and murderers, even though I wasn’t really one of them. But this power was what she sought in me. It wasn’t love, but under those circumstances, it was as close as you could allow yourself to get.”

“The assignment I had on the day I met Peterson was a simple escort job. A defecting scientist…they were a dime a dozen back then. Take him off the boat. Stash him for a day then get him on a plane to Germany where he could be de-briefed and either sent on to the States or cut loose in Europe to fend for himself. Mostly they were shipped stateside and melted into the military-industrial complex.

“I got up early on the day of, and left Kayla sleeping in the apartment I had near the waterfront. I made my way down to the pier. It was just barely light out. I waited in the shadow of the customs building until I saw the boat, the Gemini, pull up to the pier and tie off.  It was all pretty routine as the scientist, his name was Nicolai Yaguden, stepped onto the pier, with a large leather bag slung over his shoulder. 

“When we got back to my flat, Kayla was nowhere to be seen. Evidently, one of Peterson’s minions had taken her and had her stashed somewhere. But Peterson was there, sitting on the sofa sipping a cup of my best espresso. There was an Uzi on his lap, which he picked up and pointed it at me. I surrendered my Smith & Wesson. Then he ordered both of us to sit down on the rug. He set the Uzi down on the couch, then with my gun in his gloved hand, he fired three shots into Yaguden. He dropped like a sack of potatoes. Once that was done, he put my gun on the cushion beside him. No emotion. Cool as a cucumber. 

“He told me that he had been ordered to spare my life by his associate. He also told me that if I ever wanted to see Kayla again, I would have to lie about ever having seen him. I asked him how he could be sure I would comply with his request, and he simply smiled and said…’I know where you live.’ That was good enough for me. At that point, it was all about living to fight another day. Then he got up, grabbed Yaguden’s bag and left.” 

“Sounded like a fair trade.” Dale said.

“Well, it would have been except for the fact that I never got Kayla back. I waited twenty-four hours with the dead Russian on my floor but they never returned her. So I called it in. Almost immediately, I was back in the States, debriefed up the wazoo and riding a desk at Langley. Finally, after about two years of that, I’d had enough and with twenty years of service under my belt, put in my papers. They gave me my pension, but only grudgingly.”

“So I guess you do owe Peterson a big one.”

“I’d be lying if I said otherwise, Dale. But I’m also doing this because Peterson is as bad as he is smart and he’s a whole lot to handle. Maybe between me and you, we can finally put him down like the mad dog he is.”

Dale looked over at his dad. Jim was lost in the reverie of the memories that the telling had dredged up in his mind.

“There’s one thing that puzzles me, though.” Dale said. “If you told the agency the whole story, how the hell did Peterson get into the country?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Friends in high places, I assume. Guys like Peterson are connected in ways nobody knows about or would even want to risk their careers trying to find out.”

~ 20 ~

Fleming’s lab was empty, except for him. The process was complete. The computer was busy crunching the raw data into English and Calculus. The brain had been incinerated. It was close to midnight, but Fleming was energized by his fascination with the level of detail the process had produced. He was alone at a computer terminal. The information cascaded down the screen. He was openly perspiring, but there was a huge smile on his face. 

Behind him, Alex Peterson appeared from out of the shadows.  Fleming turned and glanced up at him, but it was obvious that the scientist was totally absorbed by his work. Peterson sipped cognac from a snifter.  He put another one down beside Fleming, who barely acknowledged it.

Finally, Fleming verified a set of complex computations.  He sat back and scooped up the brandy snifter.  He took a long sip and turned to Peterson.  He looked totally exhausted.

“I’m certain a man of your intellectual prowess can appreciate that we are making history here.” Fleming said. “I have taken every single speck of information we could glean from Anton Mikalov’s formidable scientific brain, and put it onto this hard drive, all using heretofore untested technologies.”

“So now you hold the future of the world in your hands.” Peterson said.

“In a manner of speaking. Yes.”

“My God man, that must fill you with an incredible sense of power.”

“On the contrary, Herr Peterson. It fills me with sadness that man has come to place so much stock in the killing advantage.”

After a moment, the cascading data stopped flowing. There were about ten thousand-odd pages of raw data.

“Are the formulae you’re looking for on here anywhere.” 

“I won’t know that until the kids figure out the logic. Another day or so, I’d say. But It’s safe to assume that it’s in there somewhere.”

Fleming disconnected the remote drive that the compressed data was stored on and walked over to a wall safe. He opened the door and put the drive inside.

“I’m confident we will be able to achieve our objective, Herr Peterson.” Fleming said.

“I very much look forward to it.” 

Fleming turned to see that he was staring down the barrel of Peterson’s 9 mm Browning.

“Move away from the safe,” Peterson said. Fleming was petrified. The look of bloodlust in Peterson’s eyes didn’t help any. “Do it, Doctor!”

Fleming moved away from the safe, leaving it wide open.  He backed along the wall. When he was several feet away, he stopped.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to do the sensible thing, Doctor. I’m going to sell this information back to the Russians. After all, it does belong to them. And they are willing to pay a virtual king’s ransom for it.”

“The plan I have could finally bring the superpowers to their senses, Peterson. Don’t you care about that?”

“Sorry, Doctor. But I happen to believe that only the most naive of the human species believe that man was meant to live in harmony.” He raised the Browning. “But don’t worry, Doctor, you have led a noble life, I’m sure you will find peace…” He fired three shots into Fleming’s chest. “Somewhere.”

Fleming, his chest ripped apart by the force of the bullets, slid to the floor, quite dead. Peterson walked across the room and took the hard drive from the open safe.  He then sat down at the computer and deleted the raw data from all the external hard drives. Finally, he left the lab and headed out to the waiting Mercedes. 

“Everything OK, Alex?” Günter asked.

“It took a little longer than I expected, but couldn’t be better, my friend.”

Günter dropped the car into gear and they left the estate.

“What would you do with twenty-five million dollars, Günter?”

Günter whistled involuntarily. “Well.… I guess  I’d do whatever I wanted.”

“Good answer.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. That nigger Fed...the one who works with Hogan, he picked up the girl this morning. She looked pretty rough.”

“I trust you followed them.”

“Sure thing, Alex. She’s our insurance policy against the Hogan kid, right?”

Peterson grunted and smiled and popped a Chopin CD into the player. The car pulled out of the driveway and rolled along the long wooded entrance road. Parked off to the side and hidden from view, Jim and Dale sat in Dale’s car. Dale was holding a digital camera with a long lens. As the Mercedes rolled by he fired off several shots. And he managed to get a clear shot of the licence plate.

Dale and Jim waited a few minutes to make sure that the Mercedes wasn’t coming back, then drove to the main house. They quickly moved across the grounds to the carriage house. They were surprised to find the door open.  

They let themselves in and cautiously made their way down the stairs and into the lab. The lights were out but, from the deadly silence of the place, they knew that no one was there. They moved through the lab carefully, methodically checking out everything they saw.

Finally, Dale turned a corner into the computer room. He saw the body of Fleming slumped down on the floor, close to the open safe. Dale walked over to Fleming and hunkered down to feel his pulse. Jim grabbed his arm before he could touch Fleming.

“The man’s heart is hamburger, son. Let’s get out of here.”

Dale and Jim left the building and headed out to the highway toward the city.

“Well,” Jim said, “It’s pretty obvious to me what’s going on here.”

“By all means enlighten me.”

“OK. Well, the working theory is that this Fleming character hired Peterson to get him Mikalov’s brain, which he did. Then Fleming used whatever technology he got from those two nerds out at NYIT to extract information from the brain. Then after they got the information, Peterson decided it would be more profitable to sell it as opposed to using it as a political football.” 

“Follow the Benjamins.”

“Correct. Peterson has no loyalty to either the left or right wing in this country. If anything, he’d be more loyal to a guy like Volkoff than anyone. And Volkoff would figure out some way to make it all worth Peterson’s while.”

“Wait a minute. Who the hell is Volkoff?”

“FSB. He’s in the States right now attached to the Soviet delegation to the United Nations. Sorry, I forgot to tell you that part of the story. If Peterson was going to sell this shit to the Russians, Volkoff is the guy he would contact.”

“So we go wait for Volkoff to make a move.” Dale said. 

“We can assume they’ve probably already had one meeting to set things up. The second meeting will be for verification and the third will be for the payoff because Volkoff would have to get money transferred and it won’t be chump change either, which means it will take some time.”

“So if we can take them while the exchange is going down, that won’t just get you out of the soup, it will put a lot of extra points on your dance card. But first things first. Nothing’s gonna happen till after dark tomorrow.”

“So how do we play this?” Dale asked.

“Oh, I’ve got a plan, son.”

~ 21 ~

In Brooklyn, late in the afternoon, Günter and Peterson drove up to a small building in the warehouse district. Günter got out and opened the entrance door, then jumped back into the car and drove it inside. He parked between a black panel van and the stairway leading to a second floor. Peterson carried his briefcase. They walked up the stairs to a sparsely furnished loft. There were two futons on the floor for sleeping, a couch, a table and chairs and several bottles of vodka on the kitchen counter. There was also a long folding table with several boxes of computer hardware on the floor beside it.

Peterson walked over to the table and set down his bag, taking out the hard drive. Günter poured two glasses of vodka. He brought one over to Peterson. They clinked their glasses and drank.

“Get some rest, Günter. I’ll want you to go and get the girl tonight.”

“Okay, Alex. You sure you don’t need any help?”

“I’ll be fine, Günter. You go lay down.”

Günter walked over and flopped down onto one of the futons while Peterson started assembling the equipment. An hour later had everything up and running. 

He then video contacted, via a VPN he had set up, a German hacker/programmer, and his life partner, Hans Schmidt.

“Hello Hans, everything is set up according to the instructions you gave me.” 

“Good, good.” Hans said. He then fiddled around with his keyboard and got control of Peterson’s computer. 

“It is the remote labelled  G7409.” Peterson said.

“Yah”. I see it. It’s quite a big file, no?”

“It’s massive.”

“OK. I will examine it, and see what would be the best way to translate the data. Then we see what we can see.”

“Good. Call me once you have started the decryption. Everything in English.”

“English it is, Alex.”

“Good man.”

“Will you be coming home soon? It’s very lonely here.”

“Once we have what we’re looking for it should only be a few days.” 

“OK…take care and remember those Russians are never to be trusted.”

Peterson disconnected from the VPN. He watched the monitor for a few moments while the information was scrolling. Then he got up and walked to the other futon and flopped down on it. 

After dark, the Günter left the Brooklyn building in the Mercedes and headed into Queens. He drove past the safe house where Harley and Laura were located. There were no lights on the first floor and only a single light that he could see on the second. Günter found a place to park close to the house. He lit a cigarette and waited.

A few hours later he turned up an alley behind the house and backed into an open space next to the garage behind the safe house. The alley was very dark. Günter slipped out of the car.  He was a different creature at night. He moved with confidence and self-assurance. He opened the trunk of the Mercedes and pulled a 9 mm Browning and silencer from a suitcase there.  He also grabbed a nine-inch stiletto in a leather sheath.  He tucked the stiletto into his boot, and carried the Browning  As he walked by the garage, he peeked in and noticed a large sedan parked there. He moved along the fence to the gate. He peered into the backyard, then quietly unlatched the gate and entered the yard.

In a second-floor bedroom, Laura was sitting on a large brass bed.  She was wearing her headphones watching a news program on her computer and eating some cheese and crackers. The bedroom door was open. Down the hall, in the larger bedroom, sat Harley Adams. He was dozed out in an easy chair in front of a baseball game on TV.

 Outside the house, Günter climbed up onto the back porch. He quietly tried the back door. He found it locked.  He pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and examined the lock. Then tucking the gun into his belt, he took out a small leather pouch and extracted a thin steel pick from it. He inserted it into the lock and skillfully picked it. The door popped open.

Günter found himself in a kitchen, or at least the hollow shell of one.  He slithered through and into the empty dining room, then into the empty living room and over to the stairs.  He stood at the stairs for a moment. He heard the sound of a television. He slowly began to climb the stairs.

A few seconds later, Günter popped his head up over the level of the second floor.  He saw a light in the second bedroom on his left and another light down in the front room. He also saw Harley’s outstretched legs and the television screen. Günter climbed to the second floor.  He sat back against the wall facing directly down the hall. He pulled the stiletto from his boot.  He took careful aim and let it fly straight down the hall, in a high arc.

The knife blade dug into the floor, several inches from Harley’s feet, waking him with a start. He looked down at the knife, still vibrating. In a moment of total stupidity, from being awakened so quickly, he leaned forward to retrieve the knife. Just as he touched it, he realized what he had done. His eyes darted out the door and quickly down the hall.  For a brief instant, he saw Günter sitting on the floor, arms straight out ahead of him, squinting.  Then he saw nothing. 

The first bullet sailed through Harley’s throat. The second, through the side of his head.  Both spent bullets embedded themselves in the wall beside the front window. Harley slumped forward, as the knife in his hand slid across the floor. The blade dug into the bottom of a closet door.

In the other bedroom, Laura heard the sounds but didn’t know quite what to make of them. She slipped off her headphones and stepped out into the hallway. She looked down toward Harley’s room and saw him slumped on the floor. She let out a gasp and immediately looked the other way. Günter pulled himself up to his feet, the Browning dangled loosely from his hand. Laura stared at him in wide-eyed terror as he moved closer to her.

“The world won’t miss that nigger, don’t you think, Miss?”

“Who are you?”

“Don’t ask questions, Miss. Just be kind enough to get your things together.”

“Where are you taking me?”

Günter looked at her like she was a naughty six-year-old.

“I told you, no questions. Pack up your things…now!” Günter said putting a little more emphasis into his demand.

Laura went to work. Günter walked down the hall and entered the front bedroom. He gave Harley a swift kick to make sure he was dead. He picked up the stiletto and slipped it back into the sheath in his boot. He shut off the television and the lights, then walked back down the hall to Laura’s room. She appeared to be ready to go.

“Just remember, Miss, you’re in no man’s land now. So you’d best just do what you’re told and you will walk away from this, I promise.”

“I understand.”

“Let’s go then.”

Laura led the way down the stairs. She had never been more frightened in her life than she was right at that moment. 

~ 22 ~

Later in the afternoon Jim and Dale were sitting in a greasy spoon in Brooklyn, eating steak and eggs.

“I’ve always wondered about something, Dale. Maybe you can set me straight on it.”

“What’s that, dad?”

“What exactly was it that got you into this line of work? I mean, you were an honour student in college, you could have done anything you wanted.”

“Let me ask you what got you into this line of work?” Dale asked.

“John LeCarre. When I read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I was hooked.”

“That simple?”

“Nothing’s ever that simple. I was just never able to see myself as some kind of white-collar worker. Four years in the Marines will disabuse you of that notion.”

Dale chuckled. “You just answered your own question.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I could never see myself that way either. Maybe there’s a spook gene that you passed onto me.” 

“Maybe I did. Doesn’t matter I suppose. I’ve always been a big believer in the notion the person doesn’t choose the job, but the job chooses them. Sadly, most people never figure that out.”

“You were my biggest hero, dad. You always seemed to be off on some adventure somewhere. You had all kinds of stuff you couldn’t talk about. You used to call me from those faraway places. Your voice would come crackling through some third-world telephone system. I dreamed about living that kind of life ever since I can remember.  But mostly, I got into it to avoid the other options. The  prospect of an ordinary life has always terrified me.”

“Well, maybe it is hereditary after all.”

“Could be. Anyway, I’ve managed to avoid the ordinary life, but not the terror.”

“That’ll pass, Dale. Besides, it’s the little things like terror that add spice to living.”

Dale stared up at the ceiling and laughed out loud. 

In the Brooklyn loft, Peterson was sitting at the computer. He was transfixed, staring at the screen. Behind him, there were footsteps on the stairs. Instinctually, his hand went to the Browning sitting on the table beside him. He turned in his chair to see Laura, blindfolded, being led into the loft by Günter. Günter removed her blindfold. She looked around the loft, then directly at Peterson.

“Miss Lester I presume?”

“Who are you?” Laura asked, trying to sound defiant and pissed off.

“That’s unimportant. Just think of me as your host for the next few days. Can I offer you a drink? I’m afraid all we have is Vodka, orange juice and Gatorade.”

Peterson looked over at Günter. “Make Miss Lester a drink, if you would be so kind.”

Günter walked over to the counter and poured some vodka into a glass. He threw in a couple of ice cubes. He then popped open a small vial of a powdery substance and added it to the drink.  He then poured some orange juice into the glass and mixed it and handed it to Laura.

 “That looks good, would you mind making me one too?” Peterson said.

“Sure thing.” Günter replied and wandered back to the bar.

Peterson got to his feet and led Laura to the couch.  He sat her down. Then, he sat down beside her.

“In anywhere from three days to a week, our business here will be concluded, and we will have no further use for you. I do not have any wish to kill you. But I must be honest in saying that whether you live or die makes no difference to me. I am a mercenary, I’m used to seeing and causing death. So, it’s up to you to be both totally cooperative and obedient, if you wish to stay alive.”

“I don’t understand. Why me?”

“Miss Lester, if I were to tell you that, I would have to kill you. Now enjoy your drink, and please, for your own sake, be a good girl.”

Peterson got up and walked over to the computer table. Günter brought him his drink.

“Well, here it is.” Peterson said, showing Günter a page full of the code. “It won’t be ours for long, so savour this moment and remember it as the time when we held the world tightly by the testicles.”

“You’re a funny guy, you know.”

“I want you to keep your eye on the girl at all times.”  Peterson said quietly. “If you have to leave her, even for a moment, I want her secured.  She is an essential failsafe.”

Peterson returned to the computer. Günter walked over and flopped down on one of the futons and watched as Laura started to fade from the drug in her drink.

~ 23 ~

Dale and Jim sat in Dale’s sedan, down the street from the Venezuelan embassy, where the Russians were stationed. They were sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups and eating donuts.  Dale had the radio on.  An insipid song was playing at a low volume.

“The thing to remember about Russians,” Jim said. “Is that they always think they’re a lot cooler than they really are. But the fact is, they’re basically primates so there is a simple logic to everything they do.”

“Which means if it looks like a bluff, it probably is.”

“You got it.”

Suddenly the gates to the compound opened and a long black limousine pulled out onto the street. It started to head downtown. Dale turned on the engine. Just then, a second limo pulled out and headed the other way.

“Which limo should I follow?” Dale asked,

“Neither one. Let them both go. Drive past the compound and turn up the side street.”

Dale eased the car out into traffic. The limos had disappeared.  Dale drove by the compound and turned the nearest corner. Then he turned the car around and pulled up to the corner where they could see the compound entrance. 

Jim said. “Now watch carefully and you’ll learn something about Soviet spooks.”

After a moment, a smaller gate opened and two men came out of the compound on foot.  One of the men was Serge Volkoff.  The other was a younger man with glasses and a grey tweedy suit.  They walked up the street. Dale dropped the sedan into gear.

“Hold off a minute.” Jim said.

Dale put the car back into park. The two men continued to walk away from them. Suddenly, a third car, a nondescript blue sedan pulled up. Volkoff and the other man got in.

“Now we follow them.” Jim said.

Dale dropped the car into gear and took off after the blue sedan. The sedan headed uptown to Harlem. It pulled over in front of a low-rise tenement building and let Volkoff and the other man out. They stood on the corner for quite some time.  

Finally, a black van pulled up and the two men got in. As they did Günter handed them black bags which they pulled over their heads.

Jim snapped a picture as Günter opened the side door of the van to let the two men in.

Dale and Jim followed the van as it crossed the Tri-Borough Bridge into Queens and zigzagged its way down to Brooklyn, finally making its way to the warehouse. As the van entered the warehouse garage, Dale and Jim pulled up behind an adjacent building.

Jim reached into the back seat and pulled his haversack over into the front seat with him.  He took out a black case about the size of a hardcover book and opened it up.  Inside there was a small radio receiver, headphones, miniature cassettes, a cassette recorder and four miniature transmitters each about the size of a quarter.

“Wow, I haven’t seen stuff like this for a long time.” Dale said.

“You make do with the tools at hand when you’re out in the big chill, sonny.”

“Right. What’s the range of this space-age technology?”

“Thousand yards for full audio.  And a beeper pulse that’s strong for about two miles.”

“Well, it’ll have to do.” Dale said.

“That’s all we ever needed in the good old days.”

Dale took the transmitters. He grabbed one of his pistols and got out of the car. He quietly moved along the back wall of the warehouse. Before he turned the corner, he talked into the mike.

“Dad, blink the headlights once if you’re reading me.”

Jim blinked the car headlights. Dale moved along the wall and turned the corner where he came to a row of windows. He looked in one of the windows and saw the Mercedes and the black van.  He moved down the row of windows until he came to a door. Quietly he opened the door and let himself in.

~ 24 ~

Upstairs in the loft, Peterson was sitting with the other man, a tech named Misha, at the computer. Behind them, Volkoff and Günter were sitting on stools, next to the counter. Peterson ran the computer, stopping periodically to allow Misha to verify calculations. Finally, Peterson stopped the computer. Misha took another moment with his calculations then turned to Volkoff and nodded. Volkoff asked him a couple of questions in Russian. Misha continued to nod as he answered.

While this was going on, Günter became distracted. He cocked his head to one side, listening intently. He got up and moved toward the door, taking out his Browning while he moved. He left the loft.

“Well, Herr Peterson, it appears that this is indeed the data you say it is.” Volkoff said.

“Good. Then all we must talk about now is price and then we can conclude our little meeting. But first, a drink to celebrate your incredible good fortune, Comrade Volkoff.” Peterson got up and walked toward the counter.

Outside the loft, Günter walked over to the top of the stairs. Below him Dale pressed himself close to the wall. Günter started to walk down the stairs. He bent over to look into the garage but saw nothing. He then turned around to go back up.

Dale let out the breath he was holding. He moved across the warehouse to the cars.  He stuck a transmitter under the rear bumper of the van. He moved to the Mercedes and did the same. As he was doing this, he heard a mumbling. He drew his Browning and moved around the car.  He heard the sound again.  It was coming from the trunk. He popped the trunk lock, Then he slowly opened the trunk and was amazed at what he found. It was Laura, bound and gagged.  She started to mumble loudly. Dale put a finger to his lips.  She stopped. He slipped her gag down.

“Oh, Dale, am I glad to see you,” she whispered. “Get me out of here.”

Dale was thinking fast and furiously. He spoke into his mike. “Dad, I’ve just found Laura in the trunk of one of these cars.”

“Dale...please untie me and get me out of here.”

“I can’t do that, Laura.”

“My life is more important than some goddamn operation.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Laura. Your life doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot to me right now.”

“I guess I had that coming. I did something terrible to you, but I don’t deserve to die for it.”

“You’re not gonna die. I’ll bring you out before anything happens. But you’re in this mess with us and you’re gonna have to earn your freedom.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He pinned a mike under her shirt.

“This mike will allow us to hear everything you say and everything Peterson says too.  All you have to do is stay cool.”

“I don’t have a lot of control over that, as you can see.”

“Just stay cool and you’ll stay alive.”

Dale took the gag and started to replace it. 

“Wait….wait. If it’s any consolation to you, I am really sorry.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

Dale put the gag back on.  He quietly closed the trunk and left the building the same way he entered.

Upstairs, Volkoff and Peterson were sitting by the window sill drinking. Günter poured a vodka for Misha.

“I’ll be honest with you, Herr Peterson.” Volkoff said.

“By all means.”

“My country is not prepared to pay the amount which you have requested for this data.”

“Oh, really.”

“They have given me the challenge of renegotiating a new figure.”

“Somewhere around the four hundred million dollar mark, I should hope.”

“Somewhere around the two hundred million dollar mark.”

Peterson laughed. “Comrade Volkoff, I am most distressed at the apparent limits of your persuasive power, which was once so formidable.”

“My power is directly proportional to the amount of cash available, for extortion of this nature, Herr Peterson. And two hundred million is the amount.”

Peterson walked over to the counter and poured himself another glass of vodka.

“This is a wonderful paradox, is it not, Comrade Volkoff?  For here we finally have the German holding the Russian by the balls. Ahh, this is surely a moment to savour, to tell the grandchildren about. What do you think, Günter?  The Russians are three hundred million short.”

“That’s pretty grim, Alex.  Especially when there are people at the Pentagon who’d easily be willing to pay twice that.”

“Yes, that’s very true.  And perhaps it will serve as an incentive for you to re-think your offer, comrade.”

Volkoff sat and watched helplessly as Peterson had his fun at his expense. But he wasn’t worrying. “I will obviously re-think my offer. Volkoff said. “But you and I both know that you would never sell anything of strategic value to the Americans. For while you may hate Russia, you hate the Americans even more, Herr Peterson.”

Peterson walked over and stared Volkoff straight in the eye. “Do not make the mistake of underestimating the depth of my hatred for you both, comrade. Günter, drive these men back to Manhattan.”

Volkoff pushed past Peterson and let just the slightest hint of a sly smile paint his face.

“Tick tock, comrade.” Peterson said.

Günter showed Volkoff and Misha out the door. At the bottom of the stairs, he slipped the bags over their heads and guided them into the backseat of the Mercedes. Jim and Dale sat watching the warehouse. Jim fiddled with the receiver. They heard Günter’s voice crackle through the speaker.

“Those sacks aren’t too tight are they, Mr. Volkoff?”

“Just go.”

“We’ll be leaving shortly.” Günter opened the trunk and took Laura out. He led her up the stairs and guided her inside. then Peterson took off her gag and cut the bindings on her wrists.

Jim and Dale watched the van pull out of the warehouse and onto the street. “Well, as they say on Monday Night Football, there’s a break in the action. Jim says. We’d better go and pick up some supplies.”

A few hours later, Jim and Dale were sitting in Dale’s car, munching on various kinds of junk food and listening to Peterson’s ravings.  He raved to Günter. He raved at Laura, but she smartly said nothing. Günter worked hard trying to keep him calm. 

“I guess we can assume the Russians lowballed him.” Jim said.

“Dark money’s hard to come by these days, I guess, especially when you have an insane war to fund and the whole world hates your guts.”

“I think they’re finding out the hard way that the world can get along without them.”

Inside the loft. Peterson said, “It would have been a wonderful thing to extort those Russian bastards for a half a billion. It would have been the ultimate achievement of my life.”

“We don’t have to sell to the Russians. We could unload it here.”

“No, I think not. I don’t trust the Americans. The less they know about this the better.”

Jim turned down the volume. “He was a lunatic in Istanbul and I see nothing’s changed.” 

“You know, dad, we’ve got enough go in and take him down right now.”

“I know,” Jim said. “But we gotta get Volkoff too, or it just won’t feel like Christmas.”

“Wasn’t it you who told me to always keep it objective?” Dale asked.

“Yeah, that was me. But I’m doin’ this on my own time. Nothing’s gonna happen till later tomorrow anyway. We should find a motel and get some sleep.” Jim said.

“Sounds like a plan. I’m a little worried about Laura though.”

“He won’t hurt her. She’s way more important alive.”

The car pulled out onto the main street and headed back the way it had come.

They camped out at a Motel Six. The next afternoon, they resumed their position. They had only been sitting for a hour when they hit the jackpot.

“Yes, Colonel Serge Volkoff, please...Yes, I’ll hold…Colonel. I trust you have been in touch with your superiors… Yes. Fine.”

“Bingo.” Jim said.

~ 25 ~

A few hours later, Peterson slipped a small external hard drive and the larger one he took from Fleming into his briefcase. He turned to Günter. “I will call you when this deal is done. Wait half an hour then take the girl to the last motel we stayed at, just on the chance that anyone was able to discover our location. I will call you with a new meeting place. You can do what you please with girl anytime after that.” 

“OK. Good luck.” said Günter.

Peterson left the loft and headed down the stairs. He opened the door and took the black van out of the building. After closing the doors he then pulled out onto the street and headed towards Manhattan

Jim unplugged the receiver and handed the kit to Dale. “I’m gonna stay with Peterson. It’s time for you to get Laura out, and take care of Quasimodo. And make a mess up there, like the the Russians would.”

Dale grabbed a couple of ammo clips and his Browning. “Right.”

“Remember one thing,” Jim said. “The guy’s working for Peterson so he’s no slouch.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Take Laura in the Mercedes. I’ll let you know where Peterson is heading.”  

Dale slipped out of the car. Jim slid over into the driver’s seat and dropped it into gear. Jim drove away, following the van, leaving Dale standing with a haversack and his pistol. He moved across the vacant lot between the buildings and entered the warehouse. Inside, he edged along the wall to the stairs. He listened for a moment but heard nothing. In a swift, silent move, he darted up the stairs, with his gun cocked.  He slowly opened the loft door.

Inside the loft, Günter was caught completely off guard, with his back to the door.  Dale froze for a moment, taking in the entire room in a single glance.

Dale looked at Laura. He silently directed her to hit the floor.  Günter turned around quickly but he was off balance. He made an awkward move for his Browning, but Dale pumped three shots into him before he could get the gun aimed. The Browning went skidding across the floor and hit one of the futons. The force of Dale’s bullets caused Günter to tumble sideways into the counter. Several of the bottles of vodka toppled over, spilling down on top of him. Dale walked over to Günter. He leaned down and placed his thumb on the pulse point above the collarbone. Günter was gone. 

While Dale was doing that, Laura picked up Günter’s gun and slipped it into her bag and then got to her feet.

“Get your stuff, then go down and wait by the Mercedes.” Dale said.

Laura said nothing but gathered her things and left the loft quickly glancing at Günter’s body as she left. She slipped past Dale and out the door. Dale got back up and went to the computer table, he looked closely at the laptop screen. He hit a couple of buttons, but the machine was clean. 

He then proceeded to trash the entire space. Tossing the computers to the floor and tipping over everything that could be tipped. He then grabbed the set of keys at the far end of the counter. Just as he was getting ready to leave, he noticed two laptops sitting stacked on one another at the end of the counter. He stared at them for a moment then grabbed them both and left the loft.

Out on the streets, Jim followed Peterson through mid-town Manhattan. Peterson parked the van in a parking garage and took the briefcase with him. Jim parked outside and waited. 

After a few minutes, Peterson came out and Jim discreetly followed him. Peterson walked the streets for a while, in a seemingly aimless pattern, eventually ending up at Grand Central Station. He dropped the briefcase into a locker and left the station by the southern door. Jim stayed with him.

Peterson walked down the street and entered a Turkish bath. Jim decided to leave him there and called Dale.

“Hi, it’s Jim. You all right? Good. Listen. I have my eyes on the prize. And Peterson’s just gone in for a Turkish bath.” 

Jim headed back to his car and drove across town to the Venezuelan embassy, 

He parked across the street. He rummaged around with his phone book and found the number he was looking for.

“I’m trying to get in touch with General Serge Volkoff… yes… this is agent Jim Hogan, US State Department.. Yes…Well, it’s classified. Yes, I understand...but this is a very urgent matter...yes, thank you very much.”

~ 26 ~

A few minutes later, Jim saw a small black sedan pull out of the Venezuelan compound. He followed it to a Greek restaurant on 44th Street The sedan double parked on the street in front of the restaurant and a young man with long dark hair and wearing a dark suit, ran inside. Jim parked the car and walked to the restaurant.

He passed the young man coming back out. He entered the dining room and looked around. Off in the corner, he saw Volkoff with a beautiful young woman. They looked like they were having an intimate little tete-a-tete.  The Maitre d’ approached Jim. Jim handed him a ten. “Thanks...I think I see my party.” Jim said.

Jim walked right over to Volkoff’s table, grabbed an empty chair, pulled it up and sat down.

“General Volkoff.”

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, sir.” Volkoff said, not sounding at all happy.

Jim chuckled. “That’s the understatement of the year.”

“Serge, who is this man?” the woman asked. She was definitely not Russian, more like a hooker from Yonkers.

“I have no idea.”

“Jim Hogan, ma’am. State Department, retired.”  Then he turned to Volkoff. “Is she cleared to talk about the Mikalov case?”

“What do you mean walking in here and interrupting my dinner like this?” Volkoff demanded.

“You really don’t remember me at all do you?”

“No, I don’t. But if you have any information regarding Comrade Mikalov, I suggest that this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it.”

“Well, let’s just say I’m making it the time and the place, General.”

Jim took out his camera and handed it to Volkoff.  Volkoff took a long look at the shots of him and Misha getting into Peterson’s Van. He looked up at Jim. If looks could kill, Jim would have been hamburger.

Volkoff handed the camera back to Jim, then turned to the girl. “This gentleman and I have to talk for a few moments.  Please, have another drink, I’ll be right back. Come, Mr. Hogan.”

Jim and Volkoff walked out of the restaurant. They strolled casually through a parkette across the street. Volkoff was nervous.  He smoked while the conversation went on.

“Let me lay it out for you, Volkoff. I’ve got you connected to Alex Peterson. I’ve got Alex Peterson connected to a Doctor Robert Fleming, a laser physicist, who reconstructed Mikalov’s formula for whatever the hell it is that you guys want back. Now, in simple law and order terms that makes you accessory after the fact to kidnapping and murder on account of Fleming being dead as a doornail, not to mention your relationship with Comrade Mikalov. In your special set of circumstances that’s as high as high treason against the state ever gets. The only thing you get to decide in that case is maybe which gulag they send you to. If you make it that far. And now, I’ve got you getting ready to pay Peterson his ransom. I can also assume that you are skimming a few million rubles for your trouble. This all makin’ sense to you?”

“Perfect sense. The only thing that doesn’t make any sense is you.” Volkoff said, coolly.

“I’ve got a couple of reasons for being involved.  One of them is real simple.”

“And that is?”

“I want to make sure the exchange is made.”

“Why? Are you planning to relieve him of the money?”

“That’s as good a guess as any.”

“It couldn’t be something as noble as your desire to see the balance of power maintained?”

“Balance of power, my ass. You people are up to your eyeballs in debt from all your bullshit imperialism.” Jim said. “Don’t talk to me about the balance of power. You don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning a major war against the US and you know it.”

“So, it’s personal. I can understand that. I’d very much like to see Peterson dead myself.”

“I’m glad about that, because we’ve already taken some steps to assure that Peterson feels the same way about you.”

 “What do you mean? Volkoff said, his anger flaring.”

“Well, we’ve eliminated his trusty sidekick...guess we kind of made it look a little bull-in-the-china-shoppish, like an FSV operation.”

“What do you really want, Mr. Hogan?”

“I just want to be your friend, General.” 

The two men continued to walk and talk, mostly about the good old days and how things in the new days pretty much suck.

~ 27 ~ 

In Grand Central Station, Peterson stood at one of the phone booths.  He was making a long-distance call.“Yes, could you put me through to Mr. Günter Frank. I believe might have checked in a few hours ago...yes...I see...You’re certain about that?...No, no message...thank you.”

Peterson hung up the phone. His brain was clicking away, as he walked to the lockers and retrieved his briefcase. As he was closing the locker, it dawned on him...hit him like a ton of bricks. He started to run, but then caught himself and slowed down. He walked quickly out of the station.

Thirty minutes later, the van came to a stop at the Brooklyn loft. Peterson slipped out and quietly entered the loft. He noticed that Mercedes was gone. He ascended up the stairs, his Browning in his hand.  He stopped at the door and slowly opened it. The room was dark as he entered. He switched on the light and stood inside the doorway and took in the mess, along with the body of Günter over by the counter. He was working hard to contain his rage. Finally, he took a deep breath, then turned and left the loft, shutting the light behind him.

~ 28 ~

At Dale and Laura’s apartment, Dale sat watching television, Laura was lying in the bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. Dale got up and walked over to the bedroom door. Laura looked up at him.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright. Just a little tired.”

“You’ve been through a hell of a lot. Don’t be surprised if the weird feelings stay with you for a while.”

“Don’t they stay with you? The weird feelings. I mean you do this kind of stuff all the time, how do you deal with it…inside?”

Dale came in and sat down on the bed beside her. He leaned against one of the posts. “I have no idea. You just push it aside and after a while, it kind of just fades. The spook term for it is compartmentalization.”

“I don’t think I could ever live like that.” Laura said.

“Now you tell me something. Why did you get involved in this thing with Fleming?”

Laura sat up. “I was doing a profile on Fleming for Omni. It was my big break. Did you get to meet him?”

“Not while he was alive.”

“He was an incredible man. A real genius. And dedicated to his cause. I spent the better part of a week with him and well, he was very persuasive. And I guess I needed a hero pretty badly at the time.”

“Did he really believe he could change things with a stunt like the one he planned?”

“Yes, he did, Dale. He believed it and he had the money to finance it. He always talked in terms of peace and harmony. Somehow it didn’t seem all that subversive.”

Dale thought about that for a moment. “I just want you to know that…well, that I understand how passionate people can get involved in causes like that and do things they wouldn’t normally do.”

“Does this mean you still love me?”

“I never stopped loving you, Laura.  Things were just happening too fast for comfort.”

Laura leaned over and put her arms around Dale. They kissed each other with passion. Just then, the buzzer at the front door sounded.

Dale opened the apartment door. Jim stood there with a sack full of Chinese food and Serge Volkoff. The two men entered the apartment. Jim went into the kitchen and started unpacking the Chinese food. Volkoff and Dale followed.

“This is General Serge Volkoff of the FSB. General, my son, Dale Hogan, currently of the State Department, and his lady Laura Lester. Hi Laura.”

“Don’t you mean the CIA?” Volkoff said.

“You’re splitting semantic hairs, Volkoff.  It doesn’t look good on you.” Jim said.

“Can I get you a drink, General?” Dale asked.

“Any Russian vodka?”

Dale opened the freezer. He pulled out a bottle of Stolichnaya. “Is there any other kind?”

The three men and Laura sat around the dining room table. Jim was munching away happily on his Chinese food.

“I’ve cut a deal with Colonel Volkoff here." Jim said. “It seems that he wants Peterson out of the picture as badly as we do.”

“You don’t say?” Dale said.

“I do say, indeed.” Jim said. “At around nine, a couple minutes from now. Peterson will call the good General on his cell. He will confirm their midnight meeting down on the waterfront in Brooklyn. The General will show up alone in his car, with access to the two hundred and fifty million in his laptop. Peterson will show up with the hard drive in his van. There will be a final verification… the money goes to Peterson. The hard drive to the General here.”

“That sounds too easy. Will Peterson go for it?” Dale asked.

“He should...it was his suggestion.” said Volkoff.

“When do we take him?”

“When he’s verifying the transfer, of course.”

“And what happens to the technology?”

“Volkoff leaned back in his chair. “You can have it. I’ll take the money and, how do you say, bullshit a story that will keep me out of prison.”

“Well, it sounds like a piece of cake.” Jim said,

Just then the Volkoff’s cell phone rang.

Jim turned to Volkoff. “Be good, General.”

Volkoff glared back at Jim, then picked up the phone.

~ 29 ~

A thick mist hovered over the docks, tranquil in the late night darkness. The dark blue Mercedes, which Dale had taken from Peterson's garage, glided quietly through the fog. Jim and Dale got out and disappeared down a set of steps leading to the water. The sedan drove for a few yards and parked parallel to the waterline. Serge Volkoff got out. He set his laptop down on the trunk of the Mercedes. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. Then he took an automatic pistol from under his coat, released the safety and cocked it and stuck it in the pocket of his coat. He leaned on the car, under the faint glow of a single overhead lamp and waited.

The mist started to thin as the black van came down the dock from the opposite direction. Peterson held a quartz halogen fog light and drove past Volkoff, flashing the light in his face, then into the car.  He drove to the top of the dock, flashing the light into the crevasses and recesses in the warehouses.  As he was turning around, Jim and Dale came up from the waterline to the far side of the car and crouched down out of sight.

Peterson turned the black van around and came back, parking at a right angle to the rear end of the Mercedes, facing the edge of the pier. Peterson got out of the van carrying a laptop and the small remote drive.  He also had an UZI machine pistol slung over his shoulder. He nodded to Volkoff as he opened the laptop and attached the hard drive. 

The screen lit up, amber on dark green, displaying Mikalov’s formula. Volkoff withdrew a small notebook from his jacket pocket  He compared something written on a page he unfolded to that which was on the screen. He nodded silently to Peterson who closed the file and disengaged the hard disk from its drive. He put the drive in his pocket.

“All that’s left now is the transfer.” Peterson said. 

Peterson opened a Cayman Islands account on his laptop. and sent the account number to Volkoff’s laptop. Volkoff started to make the transfer. Peterson watched the computer screen as the transfer began.

“Don’t breathe, Peterson.” Dale was holding his pistol at the base of Peterson’s skull.

“Drop the UZI.”

Peterson calmly complied. He heard the sound of a second pistol being cocked.

“Now turn around, slowly.” Dale said

Peterson complied again. As he did, he saw the face of Jim Hogan standing firmly behind a pistol pointed directly at his head. He turned fully to face Dale.

“Like father, like son.  It’s nice to know that family traditions are still alive in America.” Peterson said.

“I’ve waited a long time to see you go down, Peterson. A long, long time.” Jim said. “You’re going by the numbers. You’ll be pleased to know that there’s no extradition pact in existence that can save your Nazi ass. Looks like 98 and a year in maximum security with all the redneck queers you can handle.”

“You finally get your revenge Mr. Hogan.  But I assure you, it will not be as sweet as you might have thought.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Because it’s misdirected.”

“What are you talking about?”

Peterson turned to Volkoff. “Tell them, Comrade. Tell them about Comrade Yaguden, and the plan you laid to discredit American agents in Istanbul. Tell them about the promotion you received for driving James Hogan underground in disgrace, and driving his woman to madness.”

“Volkoff, with no hesitation pulled his pistol and fired three shots into Peterson’s body  The force of the bullets threw him back into Jim, causing him to fall on his back. Volkoff, then moved in on Dale, disarming him with a well-placed kick to the wrist. Dale stood helplessly, beside his father, who pulled himself out from under the body of Peterson.

“Both of you, on your knees.” Volkoff commanded. He moved over and kicked their weapons away.” 

Volkoff took the computer, careful not to close the transaction file and put it in the trunk of the Mercedes.

“Now, if you would be so kind, empty Herr Peterson’s pockets and toss everything in the trunk. 

Dale did that. There was a wallet, a small notebook and an iPhone.

 Now please put Herr Peterson in the driver’s seat of the van.” Volkoff said.

Jim and Dale got up and dragged Peterson’s body into the front seat of the van.

“Now one last thing. Please climb into the back of the van”

“I understand why you really can’t let us live, Colonel,” Jim said, “Because you know I would come after you and I’d keep on coming until eating a bullet would be the sane alternative to the hell I would make of your life.”

“Oh, I don’t know. The contest might have been a very interesting one.  But two hundred and fifty million can make up for a lot of guilt and hide me quite effectively. You were a formidable opponent, Mr. Hogan, as I’m sure your son would have grown to be.” He heaved a fake sigh. “But I really cannot afford to have you on my trail. Especially now that I am retiring a hero. As a matter of professional courtesy, I will try to make this as painless as possible.” 

Jim and Dale climbed into the back of the van. 

“I just have one question, Volkoff,” Jim said.

“I suppose I owe you that much.” 

“The girl, Kayla?”

“The gypsy girl? Oh yes. Well, she was nothing more than an object lesson. I just wanted to make sure you knew what we would do when you try and steal something from us. If it’s haunted you all these years, then I suppose it was a successful tactic.”

Volkoff raised his gun.

Suddenly, a series of silenced pings were heard and Volkoff fell forward onto the cement. Laura Lester stood, about twenty-five feet away, Günter’s silenced Browning in her hands. Smoke trickled out of the barrel. Her arms formed a rigid “V” behind the gun. She stood there for about ten seconds, making sure that Volkoff was not moving. His body was riddled with bullet holes. Finally, she relaxed her arms and took a deep breath.

Laura walked up to the car and looked at Dale. “Hopefully this makes us even.”

“Glad you could make it.” Jim said. “Just in the nick of time too.”

~ 30 ~

It was a beautiful sunny day on Nantucket. Jim, Dale and Laura sat out in the backyard of Alvira's house, enjoying the sun and drinking beers.

“Well here’s to the Hogan name, resurrected from the bog once again.”

“So tell me about the de-brief,” Jim said.

“Run of the mill. The logic of the story we concocted worked like a charm. And of course, with the documentation we had, there were no questions asked about me. But, all the same, I resigned later that day. I felt bad about Harley. He was just trying to help but he was in between a rock and a hard place. But overall, they were happy to have the Mikalov laser intercept data.”

Dale took a slug of his beer. “One thing I didn’t tell you, dad, was that before I trashed Peterson’s loft, I noticed a couple of laptops that didn’t look like they were part of Peterson’s gear. When I got them home, I opened them up and noticed that they both had copies of the plans for the brainwave translator. Apparently, its main application is scanning for cancer cells in all the major organs of the body. I’m assuming they belonged to the guys at NYIT. From some of the emails I looked at, it appeared they were planning to auction it off. Looked like they were asking about ten billion in the private sector.”

Then Laura said, “So I guess that only leaves the one issue.” 

“Oh, you mean the the Russian money?” Jim said. “That’s already been taken care of. Did I ever tell you about my old friend Fritz Kesting at Deutchebank? Very enterprising chap. Financial manager extraordinaire. He will set us all up with annuities and stipends, that should last, well forever.”

“It’s amazing the people you meet in this line of work.” Dale said. 

FIN