Black Hawk Day Rewind: An action packed spy thriller (Mark Savannah Espionage Series Book 1) (2 page)

4

The Rio de la Plata, seen from above, seemed like a huge dirty funnel filled with pasta and beans, and Buenos Aires looked like a hermit crab leaning against it, with its messy, fast-growing barrios, accustomed to the chaos and dynamic melting pot that is South America.

Barnett carefully watched the extension of the wing flaps, anticipating the typical sound of the landing gear descending; soon he would be on the ground.

‘What a fucking stupid idea…to develop a project on neuronal cells in Argentina. It had forced researchers to move to a country that is still struggling to get out of an economic crisis; but why?’ he thought angrily.

Then he remembered the sensuality of the tango and imagined an Argentine woman dancing with a red rose between their teeth, and a shiver ran momentarily through his cavernous body.

Suddenly he realized that the plane had landed and the pilot had fully opened the spoilers, so he opened the air vent, forgetting the lips clinched around a red rose.

Barnett shared a room on the university campus with Antonio, an Argentine of Italian origin who was specializing in hematology and an enthusiastic rugby player. He was about six foot four inches tall, liked fist fights, pints of beer and his passion for women often led him to sleep away from their room at night.

Antonio liked mature women, usually ten years older than himself. He preferred them to be married because, according to his theory, a married woman who had a crush on a single guy ten years younger than herself was not challenging. Such women were also proud of their independence, so he was not always obliged to pay the bill.

Barnett spent his free time with Antonio on weekends. He often went home with Antonio to the South of the country to visit his parents, or Barnett took him flying. Antonio usually wanted to get his feet on the ground immediately after take-off and they’d take just a short flight around the field before landing, because Antonio’s pulse sky-rocketed from the anxiety it induced in him.

They seldom got drunk. Like good doctors, they preferred cigarette addiction to getting drunk, disregarding lung cancer as if it were a hoax invented by a Martian whose goal was to destroy the tobacco corporations.

Barnett did not particularly like Buenos Aires, but its troubled history, its messed up barrios teeming with noisy and multi-colored life, pierced the walls around his heart that had been in icy hibernation since his father’s death several years earlier; the momentary warmth he received from the city calmed him.

Campus life was marked by lectures and working in the laboratory, where Barnett often spent his nights in the hope of anticipating results, of making a breakthrough and a significant contribution to the study.

His most interesting class was with Professor Zimmermann, a neuro-psychiatrist who, along with three other well-recognized researchers, was responsible for the project on neuronal cells. They were working on a new approach to the regrowth of brain neurons, combining the transplantation of new cells with the use of a trabecular structure containing neural stimulating growth factors to support and guide the cells during regrowth.

This therapy and strategy would enable them to overcome the problem of dead neuronal cells which limited the effectiveness of regenerated and transplanted cells.

He was halfway through the course, and soon he would have to take an examination before a scientific committee, which would also judge his laboratory work. That would be followed by a meeting and discussion with his teacher, whose evaluation would have a large influence on the final exams.

5

Jane had a perfect body. She was a natural blonde and Barnett liked to take her against the wall of the room without undressing, just pulling down his trousers, no foreplay or unnecessary fuss.

This would be the third time in two days.

He liked to sink his fingers into the moist heat of her sex to quickly open a passage, wasting no time. He hardly ever kissed her; his interest was concentrated between both of their thighs in a rhythm that left neither any choice in the matter; without a word, and without letting out a sigh.

Jane didn’t even notice when he came, she was just taken off the wall and put back on her feet; then Barnett handed her panties after picking them up from the floor.

“Do you want to come flying with me in an ultralight tomorrow, Jane?”

While he said this, he looked at the door. He wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible. He still smelled of sex, but now he just wanted to have a cold shower and be alone.

“Fuck you, Barnett! You slam me against the wall like I am a doormat with your head elsewhere, you come, then you turn around and ask me if I want to go flying with you. This sucks...you make me feel like a whore, except you don’t pay me. Shit!”

Jane went away crying, slamming the door of the room without even putting on her panties under the skirt that she had never taken off, and without looking at him.

“Fuck, fuck!” Barnett said loudly and, with a towel around his waist, went to the bathroom to shower.

He turned on the cold water. The tip of his dick hurt; he had exaggerated. He took it in his hand; it showed no sign of life. He was exhausted and slightly disgusted by the mechanical and empty sex.

He dressed in a foul mood and spent the whole night in the lab wondering how he could treat Jane like that and, especially, why he could not enjoy making love the way he wanted. The problem was not merely the absence of emotion.

‘If I keep going like this, I’ll have to switch to inflatable dolls and interminable analysis,’ he thought wryly before falling asleep in the chair at his workplace.

6

Professor Zimmermann was taciturn and withdrawn. He had lived alone with his Weimaraner hound in an on-campus house for the past fifteen years and had very few friends.

Zimmermann had an unusual accent. He didn’t look it, but he was almost certainly a second-generation German. He was a formidable scientist and a doctor who still practiced medicine. He took loving care of his patients, which isn’t common practice.

“Hey, Cooper!” he said to Barnett, entering the lab. He approached Barnett quietly; his student was sleeping with his head on the desk in front of him. “You have been up until the wee hours with your favorite neuroblasts, eh?”

Barnett slowly lifted up his head and looked round at the professor. His right cheek was literally sculpted with letters from the computer keyboard.

“Good…good morning professor...I'm going to get a cup of coffee, I'll be right back,” Barnett mumbled, standing up.

“Remember, tomorrow you have the exam at 9:00 am! And then the interview with me from 5:00 to 6:00 pm. I’m expecting a lot from you.”

Zimmermann left immediately for the classrooms with his notes under his arm.

Barnett spent all day in the lab, and after dinner he went to the gym without reviewing anything for the next day.

7

The written examination lasted three hours, and for Barnett it seemed interminable. He was intent on getting the highest grades. He still had three months to go in Argentina and he wanted to return to Harvard with the highest score in order to get another scholarship for his PhD.

The commission would evaluate all the written exams and publish the results in the early afternoon of the following day.

At the last moment, Zimmermann had told the students that he would receive the candidates in another office located next to one of the research laboratories, rather than use his own office on the ground floor of the Department of Medicine.

When Barnett came in, he saw Zimmermann studying his file intently. Four other students had already been examined by Zimmermann before it was Barnett’s turn.

“Sit down, Cooper,” the professor urged him. “We have only an hour left and it's really not enough time, so no pleasantries.”

Barnett sat down immediately. He felt agitated. Alarm bells were going off full blast in his head, but he did not ask for an explanation because he had never seen Zimmermann look at him this way. He expected, though he did not know why, to be rejected.

“You had the best score of all my students on the course and in the lab exam. Your work on the project has given us some interesting results for the moment.

“The researchers in charge of the project wanted you as a junior member of the team, but I said I was against it because I don’t believe that you can work on a team and, because you're too self-centered. You are going to leave Buenos Aires in two days. You will complete the remaining three months of your work at King's College in London. We’re, in fact, doing the same study simultaneously but using different approaches...they are waiting for you with open arms.”

“But, Professor,” exclaimed Barnett, “it's not true that I can’t work on a team. I would like to complete my studies and training with you, and I know I can do it. If you send me to London to complete my studies, I doubt I will be able to qualify for a PhD. at Harvard.”

Barnett felt like he was on board a STOL (Short Take-Off and Landing) flight in the middle of a tropical storm, having to quickly perform an emergency landing in the jungle.

“If you succeed there, they will give you a scholarship at King's College; it’s all set. Now, stop worrying and trust me. Let me speak and answer my questions, there’s no time.”

Barnett felt like he was in a nightmare. He didn’t understand; his demons were laughing at him behind his back. If he also lost his ability to think, the situation would be completely out of his control.

“I have been studying your behavior and your profile ever since you joined my course. You’ve got a monster on your back but your will-power and your intelligence have allowed you to keep it under control. You have a problem relating to women. You don’t let go; you don’t want to let yourself go, but it's up to you - it's your choice. It's your mind, not your body.”

“Professor, what has this got to do with my university results?” said Barnett, raising his voice suddenly, “It's none of your business; you are not my psychiatrist, nor my analyst!”

Barnett felt mortally wounded. The mere fact that a stranger had studied him, had discovered his faults, and now wanted to return him to sender disregarding his brilliant academic record…made him furious.

“Lower your voice,” replied Zimmermann, patiently. “I am not enjoying bulldozing into your dark areas against all rules and ethics, and I am not sending you away for the official reason that I just told you. But listen, if I don’t explain the reasons to you, you will give up sooner or later. You must know, you arrived here unexpectedly and you put both of us in danger without even imagining the black hole that you brought with you. I know you can make it; no matter how much you hate him, you're very much like your father, Cooper.”

Barnett’s brain reeled furiously but he managed to sit still on his chair despite the unpleasant feeling of nausea taking over his stomach and throat, preventing him from responding.

“My real name is Andrew Davis. I was in charge of the A squadron of the Delta Force in 1993 during the fighting in Mogadishu. I was your father’s…Turner’s most trusted friend.”

Barnett was in a cold sweat. He felt dizzy, his nausea mounting. Seeing a pack of chewing gum on the professor's desk, without asking permission, he stuffed two in his mouth to release the tension in his stomach and avoid throwing up.

“Turner was part of Intelligence, Barnett. He was not military, that was his cover. He specialized in counter-terrorism missions and he was a skilled negotiator. He probably got burned by an internal member of the agency who warned General Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s men.

“The militiamen had nothing to do with this. Your father told me that something smelled rotten about some of the links of the CIA officers whose military training camps in Afghanistan in 1989 churned out budding terrorists who later flowed into Somalia.

“That's all I know, but it was too much. When the anti-tank rocket hit the Humvee I was with him, somehow I survived. None of the others made it. They organized my “official” death, changed my name, and made me disappear to this country of fugitives and start a new life. I was lucky. Then you arrived here by chance. I discovered who you are, so others will have as well. Suddenly twenty years have been undone.

“We’re both in danger if you stay here. I know they are watching me, and you should not think that you are completely immune either, but I want to help you. I owe you the explanation that your father was never able to give you before his death because, after tonight, you must never look for me again.”

Barnett listened with the images printing in rapid sequence on his eyelids, like a movie shot by an unknown person. He could not even speak. The nausea had dissolved and his mind was crunching information at the speed of a latest generation microprocessor.

This explained why the clinical study was in Argentina. Barnett was distracted for a moment, thinking about how fate continued to break over him in cyclical waves.

“Your father, admittedly clumsily, tried to protect you from your mother. That's the reason he wanted you to go to West Point: so you would be independent. A military career is not necessarily tied to military service; it could have opened up new horizons for scientific studies, highly secretive and exciting. He was an upright man with strong ideals, which is why he fought to the end. He did not see you as weak, but he was afraid that your mother would make you so.”

“What does my mother have to do with all this? She always suffered from my father’s harassment and bad behavior,” replied Barnett, hurt.

“With your background and studies Barnett, it amazes me that you still believe in the Tooth Fairy, but sometimes we don’t want to look at the reality of things, and reality is often very different from appearances.”

Barnett jumped up and began to pace nervously around the perimeter of the room.

“Your father was an uncommon man,” continued Davis, “but to give his life a solid base and fit into patterns of social behavior, he decided to marry a woman who would allow him a "normal" life. It’s too bad that he was a champion and that his love for your mother, an attractive, though objectively a predictable and average woman, was over when you were only two years old.”

“Your mother loved money and the easy life. She never worked a day in her life and, since your father’s job guaranteed her the money but not the good life, she started looking for it elsewhere as soon as she could. She was not at the hairdresser’s that day in 1993. She was in the club house bathroom of the Wolferts Roost Country Club in Albany, screwing the owner of a lawn mower factory.”

The sickness was back again, and while the demons laughed behind his back, the house of cards that Barnett had built and glued together through hard work over the years, collapsed miserably to the ground in tiny pieces without a sound.

“But that was only one episode. Your mother had no interests; she got bored of being a parent and this pushed her to seek new adventures, wealthy partners to play with, and all of this just to escape the everyday life that she found very bleak during your father’s long periods of absence. Whenever you were sent to the scout troop or on sports vacations, it was because she didn’t want you in the way. It was not your father. Secretly, he always put a coach next to you who could teach you something useful, give you support and keep you entertained.”

“But she has done a lot for me…” Barnett said in a faint voice.

“Your father felt himself to be in danger and so he left her a letter with instructions for your education, as well as the money that she should dispense to you, threatening to reveal everything to the juvenile court if she didn’t. Otherwise they would have placed you in foster care with her sister, and she would have been denied any kind of financial support.”

Professor Zimmermann-Davis paused just long enough to let Barnett absorb the blow.

“She acted only in her own personal interests, Barnett. Although this, of course, does not mean that she did not and does not love you in some way.”

Barnett's eyes were bloodshot, he felt the knot in his stomach tightening, but now the contours of his cursed demons were well defined; now he understood in part what was haunting him, and he caught a glimpse of how it had affected his adolescence, his life now.

Davis began to speak slowly again. He knew very well the weight of the trauma that he was giving to the best of his students, the child of the only true friend he had ever had, and this deeply disturbed him. But if Barnett was to have a chance of getting out of this mess so that he could freely choose how to live his life, Davis had to force his hand. Barnett had a strong character and was not easily manipulated; he could make it on his own.

“Your father, as I told you, was a champion and an active man, he was curious about the world and he had a soul that knew how to read and express feelings and emotions. Unlike you, he was not at all cynical and he was perfect as a negotiator in very tense political situations.”

“But if he knew about my mother,” asked Barnett, “why didn’t he create an alternative life? How is it that he only had loose women?”

He remembered the scene at the front door, his father drunk and the girl with her hands down his pants.

“Her name was Ludmila. She was thirty years old, and came from Croatia; she was a former agent of the UDBA who had defected and was able to flee to the United States with the help of the CIA to become their operative agent.

She specialized in non-conventional weapons and knew the Balkans by heart; she met your father on a mission in Bosnia during the civil war in Yugoslavia. They fell in love. Your father literally adored her. He met her everywhere whenever it was possible. They couldn’t stand being apart for long. How can I say this…with her your father was a different person. It was pure love, without compromise.”

“And what was she like?” Barnett asked curiously.

“Simply charming...cheerful…with eyes that seemed to be on fire when she looked at you; she spoke six languages and had a degree in archeology, but worked as a spy.”

“She really loved Turner and showed it all the time; tragically, she stepped on a landmine in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 while trying to reach her headquarters on a mission headed by your father. It was a terrible blow to him and he never recovered. After her death, he was placed on leave for a month because he had lost his mind, completely lost it.”

“I spent the entire leave with him in Mexico where he underwent therapy, and after that I was with him until the day of his death. We faced that final mission together: I was with Delta, while your father was an operative agent.”

Davis spoke quietly, his eyes watering. As Barnett looked into those two liquid reflections, he formed a deeper understanding of his own story.

“Time’s up, Barnett! I’ve said enough,” announced Davis. “No one must become suspicious. Now go and fight your demons with awareness, take control of your life and live it.”

Davis-Zimmermann got up and left the office, leaving Barnett in a state of total confusion.

Two hours later he was dining with Antonio in a churrascaria steakhouse.

“Antonio, I was deemed unsuitable for the Argentine project. I was rejected despite my grades because they don’t believe I can work on a team. So I'm leaving tomorrow evening…first to New York for a couple of days. I’ll visit my mother and then I’m going to London to complete my studies. I need to get drunk tonight. But no sex! I don’t even want to hear about your women.”

That night, Barnett and Antonio barely managed to get back to their room, it took them at least ten minutes to open the door and they went to bed fully clothed after carefully placing a bowl in the center of the room in case they had to vomit again.