Chasing Ghosts (17 page)

The silence dragged on. Only the sound of the
scalpel against metal could be heard.

“
Twenty-five years?” Sara finally
whispered. “You would have been five years old.”

“
Damn. Big Brother has been busy for
longer than I thought,” Skizzy added. “Holy sheee-it.”

Dagger could feel his pulse pounding in his
ears. Twenty- five years? What the hell?

“
Got the cover off but it didn’t open
anything. It’s a cover on top of another cover. Everything is
entwined,” Doc said. “I wouldn’t try to disconnect anything if I
wanted to.” He cleaned off the slender metal lid and handed it to
Dagger. “It has some type of serial number on it. I’d like to take
it to my researcher friend in California. I wouldn’t chance
shipping it to him. I’d rather fly out there and meet with him
personally.”

Dagger wrote down the numbers off the metal.
“Get on the first flight you can, Doc. I’ll pay for it. Let me know
immediately what your friend says.”

“
Will do. Let me stitch this back up.
The stitches should melt but keep the area covered with gauze for
at least ten days. Change the bandage every day.”

Dagger stared at the two lines of numbers:
41-30-31 and below that 100-47-30. It didn’t sound like a serial
number. Not one letter in the bunch but for some reason he thought
he should know what they meant.

“
Skizzy said they weren’t anything
alike.” Sara’s attempts to ease Dagger’s mind were proving
fruitless. They were seated at a back booth at The Joint, a
restaurant owned by a former Joliet prison warden. You had to have
a sense of humor just to order. The Sizzle was the best filet in
town and on the menu it was suggested that you not order the High
Voltage steak.

“
At least he fixed your necklace.” Sara
was having a hard time coaxing words out of Dagger. He said very
little since leaving Skizzy’s and just kept pulling out the piece
of paper and studying the numbers he had written down. “Now that he
soldered it on you won’t ever lose it.”

Dagger instinctively reached behind his neck.
He was beginning to get feeling back where Doc had made the
incision. Rather than take pain pills, Dagger was on his second VO
and water.

A waitress in a short orange jumpsuit
deposited their plates on the table. The top three buttons on her
jumpsuit were unbuttoned, revealing an abundance of skin. Dagger
barely noticed her.

“
Anything else I can get you,
handsome?”

Dagger shook his head but winced at the
movement. He shoved the piece of paper into his shirt pocket, not
even glancing at the blonde babe leaning over his table.

“
The name is Roxy if you need
anything.”

“
Thanks,” Sara replied although Roxy
never paid Sara one ounce of attention.

Metal bars separated the booths. Waitresses
sported orange jumpsuits. Waiters and bartenders wore black and
white striped prison garb. Beer on tap was dispensed from huge
hypodermic needles. Inebriated customers didn’t dare argue with the
bartenders when they cut off their drinks because Warden Cleaves
Jones didn’t hesitate to call the cops rather than a cab to drive
the drunk home. Jones wasn’t about to lose his license much less
his business due to a lawsuit. Warden Jones was inconspicuous.
Slight build, a bald spot ringed with gray, banker’s bifocals
resting on his nose. He sat at the end of the bar nursing a glass
of fresh squeezed lemonade. He could see the entire restaurant
through the reflection in the mirror in back of the bar. Most
patrons thought the picture on the wall of a burly guy with tattoos
and sporting a scar above one eye was Warden Jones. Few people knew
Jones was the mousy guy who looked more like the dreaded tax
man.

Dagger picked at his steak. “They are just
watching and waiting, Sara.”

“
You don’t know that. Now eat or drink
or do something other than agonize over something you can’t
prove.”

Dagger dropped a large dollop of sour cream
into his baked potato. He cut into the steak although he could
probably have used his fork it was so tender. “It explains why
Demko snapped. Maybe his neurons recognized my neurons or
whatever.”

Sara laughed. “I’m sorry. That sounds so
sci-fi, Dagger.”

“
My whole life is one science fiction
novel. I’m beginning to question everything I ever knew about
myself.”

“
Thought you made it all up anyway.
Were you really in the Marines and attended the Police Academy as
your resume states?” Sara watched as his gaze lifted from his steak
to her face. “It isn’t real?” She gasped.

“
How do I know if this damn thing in my
neck has created an entire past for me? I’m probably one minute
from being incinerated like that car BettaTec destroyed which, not
much to my disappointment, included Mitch Arnosky.”

Mitch Arnosky had been a thief who almost
succeeded in ruining Padre’s career. It was during this case that
Sara and Skizzy learned about BettaTec, a company that had
something to do with Dagger’s past, a dangerous company with laser
defense satellites capable of being directed at anything and anyone
that proved a threat to them. When Skizzy had tried to hack into
their system, it tried unsuccessfully to locate who was doing the
hacking. Skizzy cut off communication but not before the BettaTec
satellite had destroyed one ranger station in Norway and a lab in
New Zealand. Skizzy had masked his IP address so he couldn’t be
traced but when the secondary servers started to explode, he knew
someone was trying to trace his signal. To the locals, it looked as
though lightning had destroyed the affected areas.

“
Demko was only looking for a P.I. to
probably steal the flash drive. When he didn’t succeed, they sent
his twin,” Sara surmised. “Demko has nothing to do with you,
Dagger.”

Dagger set the knife and fork down and
grabbed his drink. “Wish it were that simple.”

“
Of course it is. What proof do you
have otherwise?”

Dagger’s grip around the glass tightened.
Sara thought for sure the glass would shatter any moment. He
quickly set the glass down and reached for the gun at his waist
with lightning speed as a shadow appeared at their table.

“
Mind if I join you?” Padre set his
beer down and slid into the booth next to Dagger. “I do hope that
isn’t a gun you are reaching for.”

Dagger relaxed and reached for his glass.
“Sorry. Little jumpy these days.”

“
Understandable.” Padre looked around
the restaurant, taking in the décor and dress of the wait staff.
“The theme of this place is sick. But I love it.”

Sara asked, “How did you know we were
here?”

“
Who else drives a Lincoln Navigator
with a license plate of BITE ME?”

Dagger’s lips curled in the first resemblance
of a smile Sara had seen all day. “Guess I’ll have to be less
conspicuous next time. What brings you out on a night made for
crime and passion?”

“
Following the crime, dreaming of the
passion.”

Roxy sidled up to the table. “Did you need a
menu?” she asked Padre.

“
Just another beer, sweetheart.” He
cocked his head as he watched her walk away. “Did you know Roxy
served three years for check fraud?”

“
Really?” Sara wondered if the owner
knew that.

“
The owner hires a lot of ex-cons. Pays
for bartender school to give them a skill. Some start at the
bottom, work their way up. He’s got a pretty good thing going on.
Very low repeat offenders.”

Roxy returned with a beer. Padre hooked a
thumb in Dagger’s direction. “Put it on his tab.”

“
Sure you don’t want a steak, too?”
Dagger said with sarcasm.

“
Nah. Wife has ravioli in the oven.” He
cocked his head to look at Dagger’s neck. “Cut yourself
shaving?”

Dagger’s hand instinctively went to the gauze
bandage. “I had a growth removed.”

“
Pity. Thought maybe they added a few
brain cells.”

Sara watched Dagger’s reaction. His mind was
in overdrive. She could imagine him contemplating all modes of
action. But who does he target? If it were BettaTec, did Dagger
know where they were located? Did he know who was responsible? How
did he get the map on the wall in the vault which had obviously
belonged to BettaTec?

“
What’s up?” Dagger asked as he pushed
the plate away.

Padre pulled a brown envelope from his inside
jacket pocket. “Luther found this clenched in the hand of the
jumper who landed on your truck.” He pulled out what looked like a
charred pen from the envelope and opened it. “My geek squad
determined it’s a flash drive but if I’m jumping, the last thing I
would think of clenching would be a pen so there’s gotta be
something here worth dying for.”

“
Your people pull anything off of it?”
Dagger asked.

“
No. I don’t think our techs are as
good as that squirrely friend of yours,” Padre admitted. “Can you
have him take a look at it?”

“
Sure. Now I have a question for
you.”

“
Shoot.”

“
Did Cardinal Esrey determine if
anything was taken from his hotel suite?”

“
Not a thing.”

“
He isn’t missing the flash
drive?”

“
Surprisingly, no.”

CHAPTER 21

“
Can’t you sit your butt down for a few
minutes?” Skizzy growled. “You’re driving me crazy.”

Dagger paced a short path in back of Skizzy’s
chair. He had dropped off the flash drive last night and told
Skizzy to make it a priority. Skizzy looked like he hadn’t slept
all night. There was a blanket and pillow on the couch against the
far wall. A half-eaten bowl of popcorn was sitting on a table.

“
For starters you can tell me why a
cardinal needs to encrypt his correspondence.”

Dagger shrugged. “We’re still not sure it was
the cardinal’s flash drive.”

“
It’s going to take some time to
recover what little I can off of a char-broiled stick. Go for
breakfast or something.”

A loud buzz radiated through the building.
“Jeez Louise,” Skizzy barked. “Who the hell is that? Sign says I
don’t open ’til ten o’clock.” The buzzing was insistent. It stopped
abruptly then a pounding rattled through the store. Skizzy punched
a button on the surveillance monitor. Sara was outside the door.
“Hope girlie has some coffee.”

Dagger pounded up the stairs. He unlocked the
bank of security bolts and jerked the swollen door open. “Sara,
what is so….?”

“
What flight was Doc on?” Sara’s words
spewed out in a rush as she headed to the back room.

“
Why?”

“
Haven’t you been listening to the
news?” Sara hurried down the stairs with Dagger in pursuit. “A
plane headed for LAX blew up in the sky over Black Rock
Desert.”

“
What?”

Skizzy half turned from the monitor. “I’m on
it.” He punched several keys and hacked into the passenger manifest
for the airline Doc Akins had taken. It only took several seconds
for him to find Doc listed and several seconds more to bring up the
news bulletin on the airplane. It had taken off at seven this
morning from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and disappeared off the radar
over the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. It was estimated that the
plane went down in Pyramid Lake.

“
Do they think there was a bomb
onboard?” Sara asked, tears welling. “I can’t believe just when Doc
was taking that metal cover to his friend that…”

“
Skizzy,” Dagger said.

“
I’m on it.”

Dagger and Sara stood behind Skizzy as he
accessed satellite footage from the exact time the plane
disappeared off radar. To the unsuspecting eye, nothing seemed out
of place. But Skizzy knew how far to slow down the film in order to
catch the laser beam. They had to watch closely. It was a brief
flash of light from a satellite. An explosion lit up the sky four
miles above the Earth.

Dagger’s skin felt cold and clammy. No one
spoke. Skizzy blinked several times. It was Sara who finally broke
the silence.

“
Don’t you think government satellites
would pick up the same thing? Or NASA, the FAA? Or the space
shuttle?” Sara asked. “They will know that airplanes just don’t
disappear.”

“
Not if they don’t know what to look
for,” Skizzy said in a quiet voice. “They would suspect a bomb
onboard first. When the officials don’t see what we just saw, then
they rely on pilots from nearby airplanes that might have seen an
explosion.” Skizzy cocked his head over his shoulder and asked,
“Want me to send these videos to the press anonymously?”

“
No. We can’t let BettaTec know we are
on to them.” Dagger took a step back. Doc Akins was dead because of
him. But why? “This makes no sense. Why now? They had every
opportunity since the two satellites have been up and
running.”

A monitor on the table beeped prompting the
printer to start spitting out pages. Skizzy stared for a few
seconds and shook his head. “Lotta stuff on Italy, Rome. Hmmm.”
Skizzy’s eyes seemed to dance in opposite directions. “He’s got
blueprints of the Vatican. Dates, appearances. All kinda jumbled
stuff. Too much destroyed to make sense out of it. Who the hell is
Joseph Ratzinger?”

“
I’ve heard that name,” Sara said.
“He’s Pope Benedict.”

Skizzy looked over his shoulder at Sara, then
Dagger. “Damn. They must have some big plans for the Pope. And I
bet it ain’t good.”