Allegiance Burned: A Jackson Quick Adventure Read online

  “What if there’s not enough time to signal?”

  “I have a Tec-9 machine pistol. Cool?”

  “Not cool,” she says. “But I agree with you that this is the safest option.” Bella, stands, touches my chest and moves past me toward the bathroom. “Is that thing even accurate? Your Tec-9 machine pistol?”

  “It’ll do the job. I’ve got some Heckler & Koch sights on it and I’m using steel cased bullets. It shouldn’t jam, which is the big complaint with these things.”

  “That’s not encouraging.”

  “You can do this.” I grab her hand. “Remember I’ll be up here watching over you.”

  She smiles weakly. “I know you will.”

  “We’ve got twenty-five minutes.” My watch reads five minutes after seven, local time. “Then you head down there.”

  “I’ve got to finish getting ready. Give me ten minutes.” She shuts the bathroom door behind her, locks it, and a hairdryer cranks to life.

  Ten minutes. That’s enough time.

  Sitting at the desk, I flip open the laptop, which wasn’t completely shut, and hit the spacebar. The monitor glows with a full screen photograph of Bella with her father. Both of them are smiling, his arm around her. They’re dressed in ski jackets and framed against a snow-capped mountain range. Bella’s amber goggles are on her head, covering the canary yellow wrap protecting her ears from the cold. Her nose and cheeks are adorably wind burned.

  Her father’s wearing a knit cap with a yarn ball at the top. His crow’s feet are pressed deep at his temples from the sun reflecting off the snow. Their teeth are ridiculously white and I get the sense they’re both laughing. They look happy, content maybe, like a normal family. Don Carlos and Bella, a father and his daughter on a ski trip somewhere. Black diamond runs in the morning, a fireside meal and drinks in the five star lodge at night.

  Thankfully the screen lock hasn’t kicked in yet and I thumb the mousepad to the internet icon and click it. Bella’s face dissolves into the homepage for Nanergetix and a prompt box for secure login.

  Google is bookmarked on the navigation bar. I click the link and the familiar search engine home page appears.

  I type SNIF Detector. The screen populates with results and I pick one, an article from the MIT Technology Review. It’s an old article, from 2010, about some French scientists who thought they could plant what they called “antineutrino” detectors off the coasts of so-called rogue nations that might have secret nuclear programs.

  The author revealed that fission reactors release nearly countless numbers of “antineutrinos” every second. That gives them a definable signature which, theoretically, is easy to spot with the right technology.

  The French idea was to place what they call a Secret Neutrino Interactions Finder – a SNIF— into a supertanker, sail the tanker to the coastline of a rogue nation, and then temporarily sink the tanker two and a half miles under the surface. The hidden tanker could, from a great distance, detect nuclear activity without the rogue nation knowing about it.

  I click a link to what was probably a PowerPoint presentation and scroll past the pages of scientific gobbledygook until I find the executive summary at the end. It’s in plain English and concludes the best option is hiding the detector in an oil supertanker. It also concludes that it would take a detector up to six months to confirm a large fission reactor and a lot longer to find a smaller one. What stands out to me is that it calls the SNIF detector a futuristic option, declaring it’s not realistic within three decades.

  Three decades?

  I go back to the results page and find a few more links, and all of them are dated in 2010 or 2011. There’s nothing after that.

  Maybe George is on to something. There’s all this hype about neutrinos, scientists around the world talking about their magical possibilities; subsurface communications, nuclear fission detectors. And then...nothing. Radio silence. Aside from a random reference about neutrino astronomy or a post-doctoral thesis posted online by some geeky genius, all mentions of practical neutrino applications stop.

  Is this what it’s really all about? Nuclear detection?

  That would explain the violent extremes to which Blogis would go to find the pieces of the process and why Bella would work with a ne’er-do-well like Sir Spencer.

  I’m beginning to think “the process” is more of an instruction manual than a process. That would make a lot of sense. After years of theory, dear Dr. Wolf was finally able to figure out how to build a neutrino beam generator that would not only be powerful enough to detect nuclear fission reactors, he also figured out how to slip it into an oil tanker. Something like that would be priceless, or at least really, really expensive. Whoever controlled that technology would have an incredible geopolitical advantage.

  The blow dryer shuts off and Bella calls out to me, “Be ready in a minute!”

  I close out the page, clear the history, and return her browser to the home page. “You’ve got a minute or two. Time for bronzer if you need it.” A couple of clicks and I carefully close the laptop, repositioning it on the desk before moving to my bed.

  “Very funny,” she says. “I don’t use bronzer.”

  “Natural glow, then?” I sit on the edge of the bed, trying to find a casual position.

  The door clicks open and Bella emerges. “Must be.” She fakes a smile. I can tell she’s nervous. She’s wearing her hair down, over her shoulders, which gives me an idea.

  “I’ve got an idea that’ll make communicating a little easier. It’ll be better than a call to alert you.”

  “What?”

  “Assuming he doesn’t frisk you—”

  “He’s not frisking me, Jackson,” she interrupts.

  “Okay,” I continue, “then given that he’s not frisking you, this’ll work.”

  “What’ll work?”

  I roll off the bed and reach into my pack, pulling out an earbud and a pair of burner phones. “These are my backups.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Here’s how it’ll work.” I push the button on the side of the earpiece and the power button on one of the cells. “You’ll have your phone on speaker so that I can hear you on one of my phones. Then, since you’re wearing your hair down, you can put this earpiece in one of your ears. I’ll pair it with this phone,” I hold up one of the burner phones, “which will be connected to this extra phone.”

  “We’re using four phones?”

  “Yes. Your phone will allow me to hear everything that’s going on down there on my primary phone. If there’s a problem, I can communicate with you using that earpiece and the pair of backup phones. Got it? It’s a very rudimentary hidden walkie-talkie system. It’ll make it easier for me to get you out of there if something goes down.”

  “Okay, I get it. It’s a good plan.”

  Scrolling through the options on the smart phone, I pair it with the Bluetooth earpiece. She pulls her hair behind her right ear and inserts the earbud.

  I dial the numbers for the phones and make sure everything is connected before handing her back her phone and one of the burner cells. She slips one into each of her pockets. Neither are visible with her blouse untucked.

  “I’m ready,” she says, moving toward the door.

  I stop her with my hand on her shoulder. “Let me get this.” I gently pull her hair over her right ear to disguise the earbud. “There you go. You’re ready.” I can feel her looking at me as I focus my attention on her hair.

  “Thanks, Jackson,” she says. “For everything.”

  “I haven’t done anything except keep us alive.”

  “That’s enough so far.” Bella slips out the hotel room door and into the hall. The door swings shut behind her and I pull the security bar closed.

  It’s time.

  CHAPTER 12

  The man approaching from the east is tall and thin. He’s wearing a long sleeved blue and white striped shirt and dark blue denim pants. There’s no jacket and no bulge anywhere that
would indicate a weapon. He steps towards Bella on the park bench almost directly across from my vantage point inside the hotel room, his arm extended.

  On the windowsill in front of me are two phones. One of them is the burner phone through which I can talk to Bella. The other is on speaker, so I can hear their conversation. I’ve moved Bella’s computer to a chair next to me and have the internet pulled up on the screen.

  “It’s so good to be seeing you!” Though his accent is thick, his English is intelligible.

  “Good to see you, Dr. Gamow,” Bella shakes his hand. “It is Dr. Gamow, right?”

  “Yes,” he says, planting quick kisses on each of her cheeks before sitting next to her on the bench. “Of course, of course. I was so pleased to get your messages.”

  He doesn’t seem nervous.

  “So,” Bella exhales, “please tell me what you can about our mutual friend.”

  “You are one who goes straight to the point, Bella,” he laughs. “Not a person for what you Americans call ‘small talk’?”

  “I guess not, Dr. Gamow,” she says. “I...well, I really don’t have much time.”

  “I am understanding you,” he says. “And I am sorry for the loss of our friend. He was a brilliant man. His work was so many years past others. I miss him already.”

  “Yes, he was brilliant,” Bella exhales again. “I miss him too, Dr. Gamow.”

  I whisper into the burner phone, “Bella, he’s not nervous. You’ll be okay. Take a breath. Calm down. I’m here watching you.”

  Bella takes another breath. “He was working on some very important technology for us, for my company. He was worried about its implications and so he separated his research into several parts.”

  “This I know,” Dr. Gamow interjects. He’s leaning toward Bella, his left arm draped across the back of the park bench. His legs are crossed. He’s unbelievably relaxed. Too relaxed. “He told me about basics of work. He was always talking about neutrinos. Neutrinos here. Neutrinos there. Always neutrinos.”

  I hurriedly type Ukraine Research Gamow into the browser and turn my attention back to the conversation.

  “I always tell him,” Gamow wags a finger in the air, “you are only one who is married to neutrinos. She is not a good wife! She does not cook or clean for you! But she takes your time and your life.”

  Bella smiles and nods.

  “But he always tells me that he’s so close to something,” Gamow goes on. “Always so close.”

  “Did he share with you the location of a piece of that research?” Bella is direct. Gamow is right, she’s not one for small talk.

  “Yes,” he slides closer to Bella. His arm is now behind her on the back of the bench. “He tells me that he finally solved this neutrino problem of his. He says he finally figured out what nobody else could figure out. He tamed his wife!” He laughs.

  I hit the IMAGES tab on screen before looking back through the binoculars at Bella and her contact. The Tec-9, with an aftermarket suppressor attached, is in my lap.

  “He did give me a clue about where he put two pieces of the process,” Gamow confides.

  “Two pieces?” Bella asks in surprise. “He told you where he hid two pieces?”

  “Yes,” Gamow lowers his voice. “But you will never find them.” A smile worms its way across his face.

  On the screen in front of me are dozens of photographs of Dr. Rudolf Gamow. None of them look like the man sitting on the bench next to Bella.

  I grab the burner phone with one hand and look through the scope. “Bella, that’s not Gamow!”

  At the instant she hears the words, her eyes bug. She looks instinctively toward the hotel and slides away from the man next to her on the bench. He grabs her hand and pulls her closer to him.

  “Bella, stay there. Don’t scream!!!” I warn her. “I’ve got this!”

  “Your Dr. Gamow,” the man growls without any accent, “was quite a help to me. However, I’m afraid he won’t be much—”

  With two pulls of the trigger, a pair of dark red spots bloom against the man’s blue and white striped shirt. He slumps next to Bella and she shoves him away from her on the bench. Through the binoculars, I can see her shaking, her hands pressed to her face, covering her mouth.

  “Bella, check his pockets, grab what you can, and then quickly walk away.”

  She sits there, hands over her face. Through the earpiece and the speakerphone I can hear her struggling to breathe.

  “Bella!” I shout into the phone, snapping her to attention. “Check his pockets and get out of there.”

  She nods, almost unconsciously, and rummages through the man’s pockets, pulling something from the front right of his pants. Twenty yards to her right, through the canopy of the park’s trees, I spot two men, both dressed in light colored suits, speed walking toward her. One of them has his hand inside his jacket.

  “Get out of there now!” I swing the Tec-9 to the right, leveling the suppressor on the window sill. I know I’d be better off with a rifle from this distance, but I’ve got what I’ve got. “Run!”

  Thump! Thump!

  The man with his hand in his jacket spins to his right from the first hit and falls, his head contorting unnaturally as the second bullet hits his temple. Lucky shot.

  Thump!

  The second man stumbles and falls, grabbing his left thigh. I can hear the echo of his wail as a chorus of screams fills the park from the bystanders enjoying their morning. The Tec-9 is outperforming itself.

  Thump!

  The second man stops grappling with his injury and doesn’t wail anymore. He’s dead on the crushed granite three feet from his partner.

  I start disassembling the Tec-9, slap Bella’s computer shut and stuff everything I can, including her duffle, into my bag. My pack is heavier than it’s been and is bursting at its seams, but I sling it onto my back. One last check around the room and I bolt.

  “Bella, can you hear me?” All I can hear is her breath, interrupted by intermittent whimpering. I approach the stairwell next to the elevator. “Bella, I need you to focus. Ahead of you, maybe a couple of hundred yards, is a large statue. To the right of that statue is a wide set of steps. Go to those steps, go halfway down, and wait for me. I’m on my way.”

  “Bella!” I call again when she doesn’t respond. I turn the first flight of stairs, running as quickly as I can with the heavy pack bouncing against my lower back. “Can you hear me?”

  Another flight of stairs and the pack is rubbing my shoulders raw. It’s too heavy and I almost slip, but I catch myself on the handrail. Still nothing from Bella.

  “Bella, I got both of them, uh, all three of them. You’re okay. I’m coming to you.” I grab the handrail and turn down another flight. “Go to the steps. Do you understand?” I stop on a landing to adjust the pack on my shoulders. I hear Bella’s breathing, the crunch of her feet pounding against the crushed granite. Then the line goes silent. She’s gone.

  ***

  A baby carriage rolls to the edge of the marble steps in slow motion, the child’s mother mouthing the words, “My baby!” underneath the strain of a violin-heavy soundtrack. The pounding of its wooden wheels alternate with the blasts of pistols and pump action shotguns, the baby inside seemingly unaware as a bullet rips through the canvas of his carriage and a pair of sailors in dress whites are shot and killed.

  Kevin Costner’s weapon fires a blank and Andy Garcia tosses him a six shooter and slides to catch the carriage with his legs at the bottom of the steps. The baby is saved.

  “You know this scene is an homage to a famous silent film,” my dad said between mouthfuls of popcorn. He presses pause on the remote. “It’s based on what some might call the greatest propaganda film of all time, The Battleship Potemkin.”

  “What’s propaganda? Is it politics?”

  “Yes.” My dad tousled my hair. I was ten or eleven years old and had the perpetually unkempt mop of hair typical of pre-teen boys. “It’s politics.”

  �
�How is The Untouchables an homage to The Battleship Potemkin?” I took another sip of soda.

  “Ease up on the Dr. Pepper, Jackson,” he laughed. “It’s too close to bedtime and your mom will kill me.” Friday night movies were a tradition, as was a can of caffeine and a bowl of popcorn. Usually my mom watched with us, but that night she was at a book club meeting so it was just Dad and me. He picked the movie, telling me it was a classic that I had to see. He let me have two cans of soda.

  “It’s almost gone,” I smiled.

  “Figures,” he said. “Do you know what an homage is?”

  “Is it like a copy?”

  “Yes.” He shoveled another handful of popcorn into his mouth. He loved popcorn and was greedy about it. “It’s like a tribute.”

  “How is this movie a tribute to that movie?”

  “Well,” he shifted his weight and turned toward me on the sofa, “the 1925 movie was about the revolution in early twentieth century Russia. In real life, there was a revolt against the country’s leader, the Czar. It started aboard a battleship called the Potemkin. Sailors fought against their superiors and it’s said to have been the start of their civil war.”

  “What’s that have to do with the stairs?”

  “In a place called Odessa, the port where the battleship returned home, there are these huge stairs. They look like they go on forever,” he said, pulling his hand from the popcorn bowl to demonstrate how far the steps extended. “They’re now called the Potemkin Stairs, and in the movie, the director, a man named Eisenstein, created this really violent scene on those steps.”

  “How was it violent?”

  “The scene is maybe three times as long as the one in The Untouchables and there are a bunch of soldiers who open fire into crowds of innocent people. They kill men, women, and children. Toward the end of the scene, which is bloodier than the one we just watched, a mother is standing at the edge of the steps with her baby in a carriage.”

  “Like we just saw?”

  “Yes,” he said, “except the mother is shot and killed, and when she falls back, her body knocks the stroller down the steps into the chaos.”