The Ghost Pattern (5 page)

...12

...Thursday, April 28, 1:14PM PDT (UTC-7:00 hours)

...Oggi E. Domani Italian Restaurant

...La Jolla, California

...One Day Missing

Alex took her seat on the restaurant’s patio, enjoying the warm April sun, the happy chirping of the birds, and the fresh green of the palm trees. Although almost irrelevant to talk about spring in southern California, Alex still enjoyed the tiny differences between seasons, bringing new flavors and new sounds to the landscape with each season.

She’d arrived a little early for her lunch with Claire Isaac, Tom’s wife and her best friend. She and Claire had become close after Alex had joined The Agency. She found in Tom and his wife a new family, support, encouragement, and warm friendship.

There she was, walking with a spring and looking happy and full of life. Alex admired Claire’s looks, from her fit body, to her hairstyle, her choice of elegant yet casual clothing, and her overall demeanor. She hoped she’d look that good at Claire’s age.

“Hello, darling,” Claire greeted her, and then gave her a warm hug and a kiss on her cheek.

“Good to see you,” Alex replied cheerfully. “I’ve got some stories to tell.”

They both chuckled as they took their seats at the table. A waiter appeared and took their drink orders.

“So, how did it go?” Claire asked. “Your team self-defense training.”

“It was hilarious. You should have seen them all protesting. It was fun to watch. Steve and Brian said they never get in fights, which, for the most part, is actually true. But Tom was the best. He didn’t want to be there at all, but he had no way out. Lou wouldn’t let him off the hook!”

They both laughed, then Claire said, “It was about time you all did this, you know. As Tom’s wife and den mother for this crew, I have spent many hours worrying for your safety. Things could go wrong in so many ways, I can’t even—”

“Excuse me just a second, Claire, look!” Alex pointed in the direction of the restaurant’s TV, displaying Stephanie Wainwright’s familiar face under the headline, “Disappeared over the Pacific,” while the “Breaking News Alert” sign was rolling at the bottom of the screen. “Let me see what that’s about.”

She waved at a waiter and asked him to turn up the volume on the TV.

Stephanie’s voice came to life. “Disappeared while in flight above the Pacific. The aircraft, a Boeing 747-400 operated by Universal Air, presumably crashed into the ocean with 423 passengers and 18 crew onboard. Search teams have been dispatched from Tokyo and Sapporo, Japan, to search for the missing aircraft. The flight’s transponder was last recorded at these coordinates, putting XA233 at least four hundred miles out to sea.”

Alex turned her attention back to Claire.

“I’m sorry, Claire, I interrupted you,” she said, a little absentminded, a deep frown lingering on her forehead.

“It’s all right, my dear,” Claire replied. “Such a tragedy…Did you know anyone aboard that flight?”

“No, I didn’t. I don’t think so.”

“Then what’s on your mind?” Claire probed.

Alex frowned and fidgeted a little before answering.

“Umm…I was just thinking. How is it possible that these aircraft don’t even have the GPS and remote-tracking system that an OnStar has, for example? If we can have it in our cars, how come we don’t have it on our planes? They should be able to know precisely where it crashed, and what went wrong.” She stopped talking for a few seconds, deep in thought, then added quietly, “Probably no one will find that wreckage for years to come, no matter how hard they’ll look. What a waste, in the age of technology.”

...13

...Saturday, April 30, 5:34AM PDT (UTC-7:00 hours)

...American Shooting Center

...San Diego, California

...Three Days Missing

Alex loaded her Walther PPK and put her earmuffs on. Then she took a big gulp of coffee and rubbed her eyes. Shooting exercise at night…only Lou could come up with shit like that. Yeah, yeah, she understood that bad guys don’t make appointments during business hours, but this was hard. Her eyes were screaming to stay shut, and the targets danced in front of her. She was doing little else than wasting bullets and making noise.

“Yo, Alex, wake up,” Lou said, snapping her out of her reverie. “I’ve started the clock already!”

In a mock-up of a house, built on one of the club’s ranges, targets on springs were popping left and right from behind doors or corners, and, if they would have had real weapons, she’d been dead and buried by now. She touched the red button that stopped the simulation and took her earmuffs off.

“Lou…”

“What, if anything, could get you to focus tonight?” Lou asked, ignoring her plea.

“Never mind that,” she deflected masterfully, “tell me where the others are, and why I am the only one taking this abuse from you right now.”

“You were the most advanced in your training. They have a lot more to endure before they can even attempt to pass this certification.”

“Free translation of what you just said is that I’m the only one who got suckered into being here tonight, right?”

“No, I meant it when I said—”

“Lou? Don’t lie to me,” she said, waving her index finger at him and noticing he couldn’t control a chuckle. Busted!

“OK, now that we know where we stand,” Alex continued, “let’s just go home and sleep. Morning is when sleep is the sweetest, and we’re wasting that, and lots of ammo.”

“Nope, we’re staying and finishing this,” Lou replied, turned all serious.

“Really?” Alex protested in a childish voice. “I mean, really?”

“Yeah, really, ’cause otherwise you’ll have to start this all over again some other night, and it will be just as painful. Finish this exercise and I’ll stay off your back for a year!” Lou said, offering her a bone. “Well,” he immediately corrected himself, “except for the monthly gun proficiency, and the weekly self-defense training exercises that are mandatory.”

“Argh…” Alex replied, her face taking an exaggerated expression of frustration. She reloaded her weapon with a new clip.

“How can I get you to focus?” Lou asked again.

She thought for a little while, then turned to the range master who waited patiently behind the yellow line, and asked, “Do you have a red marker?”

“Yeah, sure, here you go.”

She took the marker and went inside the range, where she drew the letter V on all the targets.

Then she came back and grabbed her gun, assuming position at the start of the simulation. “There! That will get me focused.”

“Your mystery Russian?” Lou asked. “You really think he’s still out there?”

“I’d bet my life on it,” she said, frowning.

Her mystery Russian had been on her mind for more than a year, yet she’d made no real progress in finding out who he was. He was the one she couldn’t catch, not yet, anyway. He was a genius mastermind of terrorist plots, creating strategies that sent everyone else hunting shadows and looking in all the wrong places. He was bold, he was majestic, he was grandiose. His plans were spectacular in size and scope.

She’d come close one time; so close that she almost found out who he was. But no, he was gone again, disappeared, and even Mossad had failed to find out more about him. All it knew was that he was Russian, despite his association with Islamic terrorist factions, that his name started with the letter V, and that he was brilliant.

He never used his credit cards for anything; he rotated through his staff, team, or people to pay for things, or however else he could manage to exist in places without leaving a shred of financial evidence. She had tried to identify him like she’d caught others, by running financial tracking software against known locations of terrorist activities, and seeing which names showed at more than just a few. But no, he was too smart for that. All she could find was that at every location of such an attack or conspiracy, there was always one or more Russians traveling, but never the same ones. She tried to find out what, if anything, all these Russians had in common, and came up empty. Nothing. Coincidence? No. The bastard was
that
good.

And he was
that
dangerous…In one case, she had definite proof of V’s anti-American interests. That’s the closest she’d ever come to catching him. Then, in her latest case, she couldn’t prove anything, but it felt like him. The terrorists she did catch wouldn’t talk, but their plans had that greatness. Their strategies had that exceptional quality, an uncanny brilliance she’d since learned to associate with him, with the mystery Russian whose name started with the letter V.

She wanted nothing more than to catch him, and her mind could barely focus on anything else. At her house, she had a timeline wall with notes, dates, and entries of all related incidents and bits of information she could gather. She spent countless hours staring at the crazy wall covered in pictures, paper clippings, and sticky notes, all tied up with colorful yarn showing the correlations among them. She stared at that wall for hours, making zero progress. In the meantime, she felt she somehow managed to disappoint everyone, let everyone down. Her team, her Agency family, they all thought she was becoming obsessed with him, with her Russian ghost, and they were losing confidence in her. Because of her obsession with V, she’d broken up with Steve, and her heart still ached. V was ruining her life. He was real, dangerous, and, for sure, keeping busy. And she couldn’t goddamn catch him. Fuck!

She felt a wave of anger rushing adrenaline through her veins, switching her brain into high gear, rendering her wide-awake. She checked her clip with a couple of quick moves and said, “Ready.” Lou started the simulation, and she went in, taking down target after target. She moved fast, left no survivors, and wasted no ammo.

“Cease fire, cease fire,” she heard the range master’s voice, followed by the familiar alert horn.

“Oh, God…what now?” She just wanted the exercise to be over with. Two more minutes and she would have been done.

She approached the range master. “What’s up?”

“It’s your phone, miss. It’s been ringing nonstop. I thought it would go to voicemail, but it keeps on ringing. Must be an emergency, at this time of night.”

She unzipped her duffel bag and took out her phone. Seventeen missed calls! Before getting to see whom they were from, the phone rang again, and Blake Bernard’s name and picture displayed on the screen. She picked up.

“Blake!”

“Alex, thank God!”

“What happened? What’s up?”

“No time now,” he said, his voice sounding desperate. “I need you badly. I’m flying in; I should be landing in 45 minutes or so at San Diego International. Come meet me, please.”

“Sure thing, on my way.” She hung up and stared at the phone’s screen, concerned.

“Who was that?” Lou asked.

“Blake Bernard, our former client, the financier. I’m sure you remember him; you two share a name. He’s in some kind of trouble. We’re leaving now.”

...14

...Saturday, April 30, 11:48PM Local Time (UTC+10:00 hours)

...Undisclosed Location

...Russia

...Three Days Missing

Dr. Gary Davis shifted his weight from one foot to the other, tensing his muscles to restore blood flow. He trotted gently in place, then stretched on his toes and extended his arms above his head, as if reaching for something hanging high from the ceiling. Then he relaxed his arms and shook them gently, welcoming the refreshed blood flow in his veins.

He didn’t dare to move; he couldn’t see anything in the pitch-black darkness of the hole they’d been thrown into. He didn’t want to step on any of his cellmates. The other two were lying somewhere on the cold, concrete floor. In the time that had passed since they left the aircraft, they had learned to sense each other’s presence in the nightly blackness of their confinement.

During the daytime, faint slivers of light made their way through two tiny vents at the joint of the back wall with the stained ceiling, making their lives a little more endurable. Those vents were the only source of fresh air and light they had. At nighttime though, no shred of light made it in.

Their cell was about ten by ten feet, and the ceiling was quite high; he could sense an echo when they spoke. The two vents cut in the concrete wall were the only openings; there were no windows, and the massive, green, bolted metal door was always closed. It had stayed closed since they were brought there, despite sustained, repeated banging and yelling, in their attempts to get someone’s attention. Anyone.

Daylight, fading into darkness, and back into light again had helped them keep track of the days going by. Growling, aching stomachs and parchment-dry throats kept track of time with equal accuracy. They’d been in that hellhole for three days, living off moldy, musty bread and stale water from a rusty pot, now empty.

“You know what I appreciate about this place?” A woman’s voice, with a strong French accent, and a husky, guttural pitch asked, resonating strangely in the thick darkness.

That was Marie-Elise Chevalier, Dr. Chevalier to be precise, professor, researcher, and thought leader in the field of molecular neuroscience and neuroanatomy. Since they’d been sharing a cell, they all had time to become properly acquainted. Although in the past their paths had crossed, at medical conferences and scientific events, they had never spoken to one another before their detention.

“You actually
like
something about this place?” The British accent of Dr. Declan Mallory spiced up the dialogue. “I know a good therapist, he might be able to help you,” he added, a trace of cynical humor in his voice.

Dr. Mallory specialized in ADHD and neurodevelopmental disorders. A great guy: calm, focused, supportive, yet sometimes moody.
Great scientist and partner to be abducted and incarcerated with
, Gary Davis couldn’t help thinking, a grim sense of amusement tinting his otherwise clinically dry judgment.

“
Oui, absolument
,” Dr. Chevalier replied. “But can you guess what?”

Gary chuckled quietly. This exercise of theirs had kept them sane for a while, and it was probably bound to continue to keep them sane for a little while longer, but not more. They had played word games, engaged whatever remnant of their sense of humor they could muster, and counseled one another. Cried on other’s shoulders, and told stories of their families. Shared hope and hopelessness, both equally volatile in the hell they’d been confined to.

“I give up,” an almost morose Dr. Mallory said. “I cannot fathom what you could possibly like about this place. You win.”

“Bugs,” an almost cheerful Dr. Chevalier said. “There are no bugs here.
Oui
?”

“Right,” Gary agreed. “Roaches could have made this
sejour
much worse.”

“Or rats,” Dr. Mallory added.

A moment of silence followed, interrupted immediately by Chevalier.

“
Oh-la-la
…rats are worse,” she said, thoughtfully. Then she changed her mind. “
Mais non,
bugs are worse!”

“Let’s put this to a vote,” Mallory quipped.

“Shh…” Gary whispered, “I hear something. Footsteps.”

They all fell silent, holding their breaths. They could hear footsteps approaching; two, maybe three men, closer, louder.

The sound of the door latch being pulled startled them, and the light that burst inside blinded them, making them squint as their eyes tried to adjust to the brutal invasion of powerful fluorescent light.

“
Yebat,
move it!” One of the men, a six-foot tall, heavily tattooed goon, dressed in mismatching uniform parts, stepped inside their cell and prodded him with the barrel of an AK47. The sleeves of his uniform were rolled up, showing muscle fibers knotted under his grimy skin, and making the inked king cobra curled on his right forearm seem alive.

“All right, all right,” Gary replied, holding up his arms in a pacifying gesture, and stepping out of the cell. Drs. Chevalier and Mallory followed closely, still squinting badly from the intense light.

They walked behind King Cobra on an endless, slightly curved corridor, while the two other armed men ended their procession. After a few hundred feet, they came to a stop in front of another green, massive metallic door. King Cobra unlatched that one, and immediately prodded the occupants to step outside.

Four more squinting, wobbly prisoners stepped out of that cell. Dr. Gary Davis recognized two of the speakers from the conference they had all attended what seemed like years ago. Dr. Theodore Adenauer, a top-notch researcher from Germany, had presented his thesis on molecular psychopharmacology in his typical arrogant manner. Yet not even his irritating arrogance was able to diminish the value of the work presented. Arrogant or not, the man was scintillating, and his work had been recognized as foundational research for recent advances in drug research, leading to significant progress in antidepressants, SSRIs, and the overall understanding of synapse chemistry.

Dr. Howard Bukowsky, a kind and easy-going Canadian, had shown no trace of arrogance when he’d spoken to a jaw-dropped audience about the results of a newly introduced therapy regimen, a combination of sensory-motor therapy and minimal drug support, engaged together in the treatment of PTSD. Dr. Bukowsky was the only clinician on the speakers’ list, and the only practitioner Gary would have chosen as his personal therapist.

Right behind Howard Bukowsky followed a young woman, her face stained and smudged from tears and makeup. She blinked repeatedly, trying to adjust to the blinding light, while straightening her clothing. She’d obviously been sleeping on the concrete floor, like the rest of them, curled up in the dirty blankets their captors had thrown in their cells before slamming the doors shut. She seemed familiar, although she was too young to have been in medical research. Then she put on her jacket, bearing the Universal Air logo, the “X” with a curvy, extended left arm, and Gary immediately remembered her. She was one of the flight attendants, most likely the one servicing first class, if he remembered correctly.

The fourth to come out of the cell was a woman in her mid-fifties, needing some assistance to walk, which Dr. Bukowsky immediately offered, calling her “Dr. Crawford.” She looked pale and sick, too weak to walk.

One of the goons prodded her to move faster, and she groaned in pain.

“Hey,” Dr. Bukowsky said, holding her and helping her walk. “Take it easy, will ya’? She can’t move any faster, can’t you see?”

King Cobra resumed walking farther on the endless corridor, while the two Russians at the end of their procession talked angrily among themselves, gesturing toward the prisoners. Gary Davis didn’t understand a word they were saying. For the first time in his life, he regretted not studying Russian as an elective in school. He’d chosen French; not very useful under the circumstances.

“Where are you taking us?” Dr. Adenauer’s strong German accent echoed in the hallway. “I demand to know.”

The two Russians looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“
Vy yebat!
You fuck! You demand to know? This is all you need to know,” the Russian continued, slamming the stock of his weapon in Adenauer’s back, making him keel over with a loud groan. Mallory picked him up quickly, in the roars of laughter sprinkled with expletives coming from the two Russians.

A few more yards, and another green massive door unlatched, its four detainees pushed outside in the blinding light.

Dr. Teng, from Taiwan, emerged with tears that streaked his face, and with hollow, expressionless eyes. His achievements in psychosomatic medicine and his latest research in brain imaging had made the thin, fragile man well-known in their circles. He was barely recognizable now.

Dr. Alastair Faulkner, a British national and the world’s foremost authority in regional and seasonal affective disorders, was grayish pale and a little unstable on his feet. He touched the walls a number of times to gain stability. Definitely not a good sign, and, by the sad, accepting look in his eyes, he was well aware of it.

Dr. Fortuin, Klaas Fortuin, if Gary remembered correctly the Dutch man’s first name, professor of biochemistry and neuropharmacology, held his spine upright, in typical Dutch manner. Gary remembered he’d read somewhere that the Dutch are tough, almost harsh in their parenting, being focused on building character and resilience in their offspring. Dr. Fortuin definitely displayed character and resilience in the face of adversity, walking tall and almost proud, calm, unfazed, as if not noticing he walked between two loaded machine guns, not reacting to the barrel of the AK47 bruising his left ribs.

The last to vacate the cell was their pilot, his uniform wrinkled and stained; most likely he’d slept in it despite how warm it was. As usual, Gary noticed the most unusual details for the respective moment, and that time he noticed the wear and tear on the man’s uniform. The sleeves shined at the elbows, and the cuffs were almost fringed with wear. That level of wear couldn’t have been from just three days of incarceration; that was months’ worth of daily use. There used to be glamour about a pilot’s job; apparently, not anymore.

Gary found himself counting the members of their group, as King Cobra had resumed his walk down the endless corridor. They were nine scientists and two flight crew. So far.

King Cobra opened a massive door, but this time gestured his followers to walk in. Gary entered a large room, organized as a makeshift lab. As soon as he stepped through the door, he found himself at the top of a five-step flight of descending stairs, leading to the main floor.

He hesitated a second, taking in everything in the huge lab. More than two hundred feet wide by maybe one hundred and fifty feet deep, the space had tall, dark gray, concrete walls, one of them curved, matching the curvature of the hallway they’d just walked through. The opposite wall had windows, placed at least ten feet high above the ground, with rusty frames holding dirty, almost completely opaque glass. The room seemed to be a part of a larger, round structure.

Rows of tile-covered tables lined up almost wall-to-wall, covered with equipment and chemicals. Autoclaves, incubators, Bunsen burners, and refrigerators took the first row of lab tables. Microscopes, scanners, centrifuges, a liquid chromatograph and a mass spectrograph lined another row of tables. Against the wall, there was a surprising collection of modern lab equipment: a Hitachi 917 automatic analyzer, a microscale, a recent model Belson biochemistry machine, Chinese but decent, state-of-the-art pharmacology analysis equipment, and a digital amalgamator. Some of the equipment was antiquated, but most of it was modern, the latest the industry had to offer.

Supplies were neatly organized and stored against the right wall, labeled in English. Almost forty feet of refrigerators filled with drugs, chemicals, reactives, and serums covered the wall. Past the refrigeration area, several tens of feet more continued with room-temperature shelving, holding thousands of drug formulations and chemical compounds. It was, by all appearances, a well-equipped lab. Where the hell were they? What was this place?

Some sleeping cots stood against the back wall, leading Gary to assume they wouldn’t be leaving the lab anytime soon. Simple, folding military cots, with dirty blankets on each one. In the far corner, an improvised separation for personal use, probably the Russian version of a port-a-potty. And everywhere, the same insufferable, inescapable, musty smell of moldy concrete.

“What is this place?” Dr. Chevalier whispered, her French accent stronger than usual.

“It’s a nuclear missile silo by the looks of it,” the pilot replied. “This facility is half-buried underground.”

“Nuclear?” Dr. Adenauer jumped in the conversation. “Does that mean there’s radiation here?”

“Oh, my God…” the flight attendant whispered, tears running freely from her red eyes.

“Quiet,” King Cobra shouted, punctuating his words by pounding his weapon into the ground. “No talking.”

A middle-aged man wearing a lab coat walked through the door and closed it. The noise of the massive door latching got everyone’s attention. They turned toward him.

“I am Dr. Bogdanov,” he said in harsh, heavily accented English. “This is your lab. You all work for me now.”