Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 03 - Snow Cone (12 page)

-Chapter 23-

Alex was not excited to pose as a federal agent, as predicted.  Alex wasn’t even excited about getting on an airplane.  But Jane had a way of convincing anyone to do what she wanted.  After some hand wringing, Alex told her he would find the man named Tony.  They agreed to meet wherever Tony was at. 

It took Alex less than thirty minutes to discover Tony was at his home in Hartford, Connecticut.  He did his work for Terrain Scape there even though they were based in New York City. 

Alex contacted Jane and decided they could meet in
Hartford by the next morning.  It was going to be a tiring journey.

Jane intentionally neglected to tell Alex they would be carrying guns.  She didn’t feel like arguing with him about it.  She packed her personal Sig Saur 9 mm in a gun box and placed it in a small suitcase that she would check in as baggage.  Next to the gun box she placed a cloth bag that held a replica of a Colt 45 made entirely of metal.  She had picked it up at an Army surplus store.  It had been used for training and was perfect for Alex.  There would be no way he could harm himself unless he got his finger caught in the fake trigger.  But for Alex, anything was possible.

Alex took the red-eye flight from Los Angeles to New York.  He rented a car from there and drove the rest of the way to Hartford in the early hours of the morning.  Jane managed to get an earlier flight to Washington D.C. with a connection to Bradley International, just north of Hartford.  She spent the night at a hotel near the airport.

Alex met Jane at her hotel around 9:00 A.M.  He was red-eyed, just like his flight, and was trying to gather his senses by using a gigantic cup of coffee.  Jane was well rested and had on a navy sportcoat and slacks. 

“You look terrible?” Jane asked as soon as she saw Alex’s puffy, red eyes.

“Good to see you, too,” he remarked.

“Sorry.  I know you must have had a tough trip.”  She gave him a hug.  “Did you bring the sportcoat?”

“Yes, but I had to buy one.  You know I don’t even own a tie, right?  The thing is horrible.  When I put it on I felt like I was going into an office or something,” he replied bitingly.

“That would be terrible, wouldn’t it,” Jane said dryly.

“And this thing is supposed to make us look like federal agents?” 

“And these.”  Jane produced a pair of shoulder gun holsters.

“I have to wear a gun?  You know I hate guns,” Alex responded.

“I know, but you hate a lot of things.  I have a gun for you, and it’s harmless if you just keep it in the holster.”  Alex let out a grunt of displeasure, and Jane knew she was in for a bumpy ride.

Alex already had the location of Tony’s house on his GPS, and it would only take them a half-hour to get there.  As they got underway, Jane explained the plan, or “act”, as she referred to it.

They drove south until reaching the Bloomfield area north of Hartford.  Tony lived in a development of new homes that were modest in size.  They parked two houses down from Tony’s address and saw there was a car parked in his driveway. 

“When I did some checking on Tony a week ago, I found out that he is divorced and lives alone.  One of his co-workers told me he has a girlfriend that lives in
Hartford,” Alex informed Jane.

It was important information to know.  Alex and Jane needed for this to be a two against one situation.  Another person with Tony would have only complicated the plan.  They couldn’t afford to be answering too many questions about their identity.

“Did you bring our credentials?” Jane asked.

“Of course.  I think you’ll like yours.”  Alex handed Jane a leather bifold I.D. holder.

She flipped it open.  On one side was her picture on an FBI identification card and on the other was the badge of the FBI.  “Sonja Henning.  Really?”

“I thought it was kind of funny at the time.”  Alex had made Jane’s fake name a play on the famous skater, Sonja Henie.

“I do like the picture you have of me, though.  Let me see yours,” she ordered.  She took one look and let out a laugh.  “Mick Dundee?  Do you not think he’s going to get that?”

“Nah, not unless he loved that movie as a kid as much as I did.  I wanted to be that guy,” Alex responded.  He had given himself the name of the lead character from the 80’s movie, “Crocodile Dundee”.

“Okay, enough playing around.  Are you ready?”

“I just need my disgusting gun,” Alex said with a sneer.

Jane handed him the fake Colt 45.  “Put it in your holster and don’t touch it, understand?”

“Yes, Mom.  You will have no worries that I will touch that thing.  I just hope it doesn’t go off.”

Jane fought back another laugh.  “Stick to the plan and no excessive talking.  In fact, let me do the talking.  I played an FBI Special Agent in a murder mystery once.”

“That makes me feel good that I’m going in there with such a pro.”

Jane ignored the statement and got out of the car.  She had to be convincing and had worked out her character in her head.  This was just another acting gig for Jane.

The pair walked to Tony’s door and rang the bell.

“Stop fiddling,” Jane scolded Alex.  He hated the jacket he was wearing and continued to tug at the collar.

“How do people wear this?  It’s like a straitjacket,” he whispered.

The door opened and a man appeared before them.  He was wearing a white t-shirt and khaki pants and his hair hadn’t been combed.  “Can I help you?” he asked politely.

“Tony Salono?” Jane asked in a serious tone.

“Yes, I’m Tony Salono,” he replied nervously.

“Mr. Salono, My name is Sonja Henning and this is Mr. Dundee.”  Jane couldn’t bring herself to say Alex’s full fake name.  “We are with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  I need to ask you a few questions please, sir.”  Jane sounded just like someone on one of those crime shows and showed Tony her fake badge and I.D.

“What is this about?” Tony responded.

“We need to ask you a few questions about your company and their latest clients, sir.  You are not in any trouble.  May we come in?”

“Yes, I guess.  This is all a little confusing.”

“We’ll clear it up, sir.”

Tony stood back and allowed Jane and Alex to enter his home.

“Is there anyone else in the house, sir?  Just for our safety,” she reassured him.

“No, I’m alone.  So what is this all about?  Is the company in some sort of trouble?” 

Jane immediately went into her line of questioning that she had rehearsed back in
Nashville.  “Did your company do some work for an organization that is operating in Greenland?”

Tony was visibly shaken from being questioned by the fake FBI agents.  “Um, yes.  A few months ago we did some survey operations for a company that was going to do some mining in
Greenland.  They wanted to be ready if and when the country allowed it.  I think they’re located somewhere in Europe, but I’m not sure where.”

Jane pulled out a notepad from her coat pocket.  It was only a prop and had nothing but blank pages.  She flipped through it as if she were looking for something.  “Do you know a Joseph Stanwick, sir?”

“Uh, yes.  He’s a geologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville,” Tony answered correctly.

“Did he regularly go to
Greenland?”

“Yes, for his research.”

Jane figured it was time to go in for the kill on what Tony knew about Greenland and the operation there.  “Mr. Salono, did Mr. Stanwick ever reveal information to you that he had discovered radioactive material during his research in Greenland?”

“No, not that I recall,” Tony answered quickly.

Jane paused for dramatic effect, just as she would in a play.  “I have a statement from Mr. Stanwick that says he did inform you of what he had found.”

“I really don’t remember him ever telling me such a thing,” Tony replied.  A bead of sweat was beginning to form over his upper lip.

“This is better than a play could ever be,” she thought to herself.  She softened her voice to almost a whisper.  “I’ll be straight with you.  The military has exposed an operation in Greenland looking for nuclear material in the same location that Mr. Stanwick took his sample.  Your company has done business in that area, and I know you were in charge of the project to survey that land.  We can either do this the easy way or the hard way, your choice.  Isn’t that right, Mr. Dundee?”  Alex looked startled to be involved in the conversation and merely nodded his head in agreement.  At this point he was just trying to enjoy the show.

Tony stammered to speak.  “I, I, I want a lawyer before I answer anymore questions,” he blurted.

Jane had prepared for the statement.  “You’re not under arrest, Mr. Salono.  But you’re bordering on hindering a federal investigation.  That’s all I need.”  She once heard the sentence on a crime show, and she had no idea if it was true or not.

Tony seemed to be breaking but wasn’t quite ready to give Jane all his information.  Jane had one last ploy to use—the good ‘ole “get out of jail free” card.

Jane made her voice soft once more.  “Mr. Salono, if you give me the information I need now—and I mean right now—then I will make sure you have amnesty from prosecution.  This is a one shot deal.  It’s either that, or go to jail with me.”  She had no idea what she would do with him if he chose jail.

Tony wiped his forehead with the bottom of his shirt.  “Okay, I’ll tell you what I know.  We have a deal then?”

“Guaranteed,” Jane lied, and for the first time realized she was playing with someone’s very real human emotions.  That kind of took the fun out it.  “Remember, you need to give me everything you know,” she ordered.

“Okay.  Here goes,” Tony said with trepidation.  “Six months ago Joe, uh, Mr. Stanwick, wrote an article about finding radioactive material in
Greenland.  He published it in a small scientific journal.  My boss asked me to meet with him since I’m a geologist too—actually he told me to find him.”

“So you didn’t know Mr. Stanwick before the article was written?” Jane inquired.

“No.  I met him on my own.  I found out where he worked and asked to meet with him,” Tony said, as if he had done something wrong.

“Then what?” Jane asked while scribbling fake notes on her pad of paper.

“Well, we became friends,” he emphasized.  “He told me he gave a sample of dirt to a biologist at the university.  It was that man who discovered it had significant amounts of alpha particle radiation.  Like I said, we became friends over the following weeks, and Mr. Stanwick asked my opinion on how it could have gotten there.  I didn’t know.”

“And what did you do with the information?” Jane pressed.

“I told my boss about it like I had been ordered.  About two days later he told me that a mining company had contacted him, and they believed the soil sat on a uranium deposit.  He wouldn’t tell me the company’s name, but they thought the higher levels of radiation were the result of the uranium decaying into radium.  The problem was Greenland didn’t give permits for this type of operation.  There have been some changes recently, and Greenland has approved certain mining operations.  This mining company hired us to map around the area where the soil sample had been taken so they could be prepared when the permits became legal.  That is it.  I swear that is all I know.”  Tony shrugged his shoulders and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief after telling his story.

“What was your job, exactly?” Jane wondered aloud.

“I set up the survey operation, and I sent a team to map the area.  That was all.”

“And why did you tell Mr. Stanwick not to return?”

Tony wasn’t prepared for the question and grew nervous again.  “Mr. Stanwick told me he had been stopped by gunmen around his research site.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we had surveyed the area.  He had become my friend, and I felt bad using him like that, but my boss really wanted the information.  I knew this mining company had taken over and was exploring the area.  I was shocked to hear that they had security like that.  I figured they were just protecting their interests, and when I heard he was planning to go again I decided to convince him not to.”

“Did he listen to you?”  Jane asked to see if Tony would continue to give a correct response. 

“Yes.  He was going to go with a couple of private investigators.  I convinced the two private eyes that it was unsafe, and they in turn convinced Joe, uh, Mr. Stanwick.”

Jane was beginning to feel sorry for Tony.  He seemed like he was telling the truth about what he knew, and he seemed to feel general remorse in lying to his new friend.  She decided not to bring up the whole thing about the possibility of a nuclear bomb being involved. 

“Do you mind if I get a drink of water.  Maybe that will help me calm my nerves,” Tony asked politely.

“Sure, go ahead,” Jane replied.  “I only have a few more general questions, and I think we’ll be done.  Thank you for your cooperation, and don’t worry, nothing is going to happen to you.”  Jane assured him.

Tony walked into the open kitchen and got a glass out of the cupboard.  “I’m relieved.  I’m actually glad you guys are on this case, because there’s something that just isn’t right about what’s going on over there.  I’ve even began to question my own company.  Maybe you can shed some light on the situation.”  Tony turned on the faucet and filled his glass.