Dark moon rising, p.16
Dark Moon Rising, page 16
She paid her fee and then left the office, holding up her hand for a cab. Now she had to decide if it was safe to go back to work or whether she should try to go underground and disappear. Damn, she thought, that was close.
As the cab took her toward the place where she’d parked her car, she reasoned that she had no reason to stay away from work. After all, if they knew her identity, they would’ve just picked her up at work and not had to stake out the Internet café and round up a whole bunch of women.
One thing she was sure of, they had a pipeline into the senator’s office, otherwise how would they know the exact moment when she contacted his e-mail?
* * *
Jim was sitting up in bed just finishing his lunch of two large T-bone steaks and French fries smothered in ketchup when Stern walked into his room. Actually, Jim was slightly amazed to find he knew Stern was approaching long before he entered the room because he could smell his distinctive aroma coming from the hallway even with the door to his room shut.
With every minute that passed since his surgery, Jim felt his senses becoming more and more acute. If he concentrated, he could not only hear the nurses talking at their station down the hall, he could also hear the people they were talking to on the phone. In fact, he could also hear the high-pitched whining of the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling lights and the clicking of the sensors in the thermostats on the walls as they cut the heating on and off. He was beginning to feel a little bit like Superman. Now if only he had X-ray vision....
He decided not to tell Stern anything of this just yet, figuring it might just be his body’s way of getting used to the new cells or tissues or whatever was in the magic potion that Stern had used to replace the brain cells he’d lost. He was sure once whatever the doctor had used was assimilated into his brain, his senses would go back to normal.
Stern gave Jim a brief smile when he walked into the room and he picked up his chart off the hook on the foot of the bed. He quickly scanned Jim’s vital signs, read the nurses’ reports on his appetite and bowel movements and all of the arcane things nurses put in medical charts, and then moved to stand next to the bed.
“I see from the chart that you’ve got an excellent appetite,” Stern said, his lips forming a smile that did not reach his eyes as he stared down at the twin bones picked clean on Jim’s plate.
Jim nodded. “Yes, and it seems that I’ve suddenly developed a craving for meat. I just can’t get enough of the stuff, and the rarer the better.”
“How about your senses, Jim? Are you able to see and smell and taste and hear all right?”
Again Jim nodded, repressing the urge to tell the doc just how much better all of his senses were. He didn’t really know why he was reluctant to share his experiences with Stern, but some instinct deep within him seemed to be saying, keep it to yourself. “No problems as far as I can tell,” he said.
Stern was a bit disappointed, but he kept his face a mask of neutrality. “How about the other hormones?”
Jim laughed. “Well, the nurses still look pretty good to me, but I’ll have to confess I haven’t had a chance to try out my testosterone since surgery, and I haven’t had any hot or cold flashes, so my thyroid hormone is probably doing okay.”
Finally, Stern’s smile seemed genuine. “Well, I certainly hope you haven’t been cavorting with my nurses, Jim, since your fiancée’s been on the phone threatening to call the police on me if I don’t hand you over forthwith.”
Jim looked puzzled for a moment. “What do you mean, my fiancée?”
“The lady doctor, Dr. Coleman,” Stern answered. “She’s been bugging the hell out of my secretary, threatening to have my license taken away if I don’t have you call her and tell her you’re all right.”
“But why didn’t she just call me here at the hospital instead of bothering you?”
Stern suddenly realized that Jim didn’t know he’d been moved to a different hospital and he realized that he had some explaining to do. “Well,” Stern said, “you know how I told you that the procedure I was going to do on you was top secret and that no one could be allowed to find out about it?”
Jim nodded, unsure just what Stern was getting at.
“In order to be able to use my new special surgical technique and my new research procedures and still keep them a secret, I had you transferred to my research hospital where I keep all of my specialized equipment to do the surgery.” He spread his hands. “It just couldn’t have been done in the regular hospital without the secret method becoming known.”
Jim shrugged. The surgery had obviously gone all right and he’d come out much better than he’d dared hope, so he guessed he didn’t have any gripe coming, though he did wish Stern would have told him of his plans.
“That’s all right, Dr. Stern,” Jim said. “As far as I’m concerned, all’s well that ends well and I have had a very nice result from the surgery.”
Stern looked relieved. “I’m glad you feel that way, Jim, but I’m afraid your fiancée is a little put out with me for not notifying her of the change in plans in advance.”
“You mean Dr. Coleman?”
“Why, yes. Dr. Coleman has been quite insistent upon hearing from you so that you can assure her you’re all right.”
Jim smiled. So that was it. Syd had pulled the old “fiancée” ploy in order to get information out of the hospital and Dr. Stern’s office. Damn, he hadn’t thought of that when he’d filled out his paperwork or he would’ve put her as next of kin to get around some of the privacy concerns so she could be kept apprised of his condition.
“Yes, well, since I’m doing fine, how about if I call her and tell her everything’s hunky-dory?” Jim asked.
Stern handed Jim his cell phone that he’d gotten out of his suitcase. “I also have some other good news for you to tell her. I’m going to release you from the hospital today, if you promise to stay in the area and stay relatively quiescent for the next week until it’s time for your next follow-up visit.”
Jim’s eyes widened. He routinely kept his neurosurgical patients in the hospital for at least a week after surgery. “So soon?”
Stern nodded. “With this new technique of freezing tumor cells instead of cutting them out, the risk of postsurgical hemorrhage and infection is almost nil, and since the surgery is so minimally invasive, the recovery time is kept to a bare minimum. As long as you don’t overdo it—and that means exercise or sex—you should do fine.”
Jim grinned as he took the phone. “Great. Can I tell her where to pick me up?”
Stern frowned. “Uh, no, not exactly. I’ll have an ambulance take you back to the Maine Medical Center and she can pick you up there in”—he glanced at his watch—“three hours.”
Jim wondered briefly what the big secret was about Stern’s research facility, but forgot it when he heard Syd’s voice on her cell phone.
“Jim!” she exclaimed, obviously very happy to hear his voice.
“No time to talk now, Syd,” he said. “The short version is the surgery went fine, so good in fact that Stern has agreed to release me into your custody, so I’ll see you in about three hours at the Maine Medical Center.”
“But—”
“Now listen,” Jim said, happier than he’d been in quite a while to have the burden of a potentially fatal disease no longer hanging over his head. “Go get a good lunch, then go pick up enough groceries for a couple of weeks at my cabin, oh, and pick up a lot of steak and hamburger meat. I’ll be at the hospital in three hours and we can go directly to my place in Waterford.”
She hesitated, and then in a Spanish accent she said, “Hokay, but jou got a lotta ’splainin’ to do, Lucy.”
Jim laughed, and then in a lower voice, “I can’t wait to see you, babe.”
“Me too, you!” Syd said, her voice husky. “I’m gonna rip all your clothes off and violate you before you can say squat.”
“Uh-uh,” Jim said, “the doc says no strenuous exercise or sex.”
“So? That just means I’ll have to do all the work.”
“Hey, that sounds like a winner to me.”
“Yeah, just like life. We women do all the heavy lifting and you men get all the credit.”
“What do you mean ‘heavy lifting’? You think I’m fat?”
“No, dear,” Syd replied in a sarcastic tone, “not at all.”
Jim laughed. “See you in a bit, sweetheart.”
Syd’s voice became more serious. “I can’t wait, darling.”
Chapter 22
Thomas Oliphant walked into Senator Jerry O’Donnel’s office with a puzzled look on his face and a flat FedEx envelope in his hand.
O’Donnel looked up from a speech he was writing. “What is it, Bull?”
Oliphant shrugged. “Looks like a letter from our friend,” he said, handing the envelope to O’Donnel.
O’Donnel read the label and sure enough the return address was marked simply Janus. He raised his eyebrows and ripped open the seam of the envelope. “I wonder if something happened to her Internet connection,” he said as he pulled out the sheet of paper. “Maybe that’s why her e-mail stopped in the middle of a sentence yesterday.”
Oliphant started to reply when suddenly O’Donnel frowned and held up his hand with his index finger over his lips telling Oliphant to shut up.
After O’Donnel finished reading the letter he folded it and put it in his jacket pocket and got up from behind his desk. “Let’s go get a bagel or something at the Senate coffee shop,” he said. “Suddenly I’m hungry.”
Oliphant raised his eyebrows but kept his mouth shut as he followed O’Donnel out of the office. They didn’t speak until they were sitting in the middle of the crowded Senate snack bar and coffee shop.
“Okay, boss man, what’s the big secret?” Oliphant asked. “You never snack in the middle of the day.”
O’Donnel looked around to make sure no one was within earshot and then he leaned forward and almost whispered, “Janus says our office security has been breached.”
“What?”
O’Donnel nodded. “She says Blackwood’s men were waiting for her when she e-mailed us yesterday and that she was lucky to escape with her life. She says he’s probably bugged our office, our phones, and even our computer connections, ’cause he knew the minute she logged on.”
Oliphant’s face burned red and he began to bluster. “That son of a bitch! I’ll get the Senate Security Detail to sweep our phones and our office immediately.”
O’Donnel glanced over Oliphant’s shoulders out the window and his eyes took on a slightly glazed look as he thought about it. “No,” he finally said. “I agree with Janus on this. She suggested we leave the bugs in place and use them to feed Blackwood and his men erroneous information. She even suggested that after we don’t hear from her for a few days we start talking about stopping the investigation entirely to throw them off her trail. That way they won’t know exactly how much information she’s already passed us.”
“But how will we keep in contract with her?”
O’Donnel grinned. “This is one smart lady we’re dealing with here, pal. She gave me an e-mail address at Yahoo that we can use once we find a secure Internet connection away from the office lines.”
“Isn’t she afraid that either we or Blackwood will trace her identity with her e-mail address?”
“No, she explained that on Yahoo it is pretty easy to set up an account without giving out your real name and address as long as you pay by money order in advance.”
“Okay, but where will we get a secure Internet connection? We can’t use our home computers ’cause they may be bugged just like the office ones are.”
O’Donnel thought for a moment and then he looked up and grinned. “Let’s do the same thing Janus does. We’ll buy a laptop with a wireless modem setup and then we’ll open an account at Yahoo under some fictitious name and get back in touch with her that way.”
“But aren’t the wireless connections pretty easy to tap into?” Oliphant asked.
O’Donnel nodded. “They are if someone knows you’re using one and if they’re close by, so we’ll have to keep the laptop out of the office and away from any possible bugs. Get some cash out of the office petty cash fund and pay for everything that way, using a fake name and making sure no one is following you. Once you get the computer, log onto Yahoo and find out how to set up an e-mail account using a money order and do that too. When you’re done, contact Janus and tell her to carry on.” He handed him the note she’d sent with the information on it on how to contact her once they were ready.
“Damn!” Oliphant exclaimed. “I feel like I’m in a damned spy movie.”
“Yeah,” O’Donnel agreed wryly, “only the stakes are real and so is the risk. If Blackwood thinks we’re getting close to him, there is no telling how far the man will go to protect himself.”
Oliphant looked down at his bagel and cream cheese. “Thanks, pal, now you’ve gone and ruined my appetite. I may end up wasting away to nothing before all this is over.”
O’Donnel laughed, looking at Oliphant’s significant girth. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Bull. You can live off the fat of the land for some time yet.”
“Yeah, but it’s the fat of the land that my wife finds so fascinating,” he said with a grin.
* * *
At that very moment, Jack Stone had his hand wrapped around Theodore Jefferson’s throat and the poor man was up against a wall with his feet dangling six inches off the floor. It was a measure of just how strong Stone was that Jefferson weighed over two hundred and twenty pounds and Stone wasn’t even straining to hold him off the ground and against the wall.
“What do you mean you let one of the women in the café go?” he asked.
The other two men who’d been with Jefferson hung their heads and avoided Stone’s gaze, hoping to be spared any such questioning.
“But, Sarge,” Jefferson croaked through his constricted throat, “she wasn’t on the Internet when we came in. The machine at her table didn’t work—she showed me.”
“You fucking idiot!” Stone growled and with a flick of his massive biceps he hurled Jefferson across the room where the big man landed on a table, crushing it to matchsticks under his weight.
“You sure it wasn’t one of the others we brought in?” one of Jefferson’s assistants asked.
Stone looked over his shoulder at the man, his expression making him cringe. “Yes, I’m sure. The other six women were questioned under sodium Pentothal injections and all of them came up clean. In addition, I ran background checks on them and none of them work for or even know anyone who could give them any information about our project, so it must have been the one female you jerks let out of the trap.”
Jefferson got up on his feet and dusted himself off, his expression carefully neutral. “Well, we’ve still got our bugs in the senator’s office and we can trap her next time she contacts him.”
Stone looked at the man as if he were retarded. “Jesus, Jefferson. What’ve you got in your head instead of brains? Oatmeal?”
When Jefferson just shut his mouth, his eyes blazing with hatred, Stone explained. “Our spy now knows that we’re onto her. With any luck she won’t figure out that we’ve got O’Donnel’s office bugged, but you can bet she’ll change her method of contacting them and never use the same way twice.”
He shook his head. “Nope, we had one chance and you rocket scientists blew it. Our only hope now is to bug our own computers and landlines and maybe catch her that way, but it’s a long shot. She may just go underground for a while and let the heat die down.”
“Couldn’t we just use chemical interrogation on all of the females who work on the project and might have access to the information that is being given to the senator?” Jefferson asked.
Stone shrugged. “It might actually come to that, Jefferson, but there must be dozens of females working on the project, maybe even more if you count all the lab techs and nurses in the hospital facility, so that’s got to be a last resort. Besides, we don’t know exactly how much information or how detailed it is that the senator has. It was only the sheerest luck that one of our moles overheard him talking about the investigation in the Senate building elevator.”
“What do you want us to do?” Jefferson asked.
Stone sighed, knowing that anything they did was now a long shot. “Just keep monitoring the senator’s bugs. Maybe someone will fuck up and give us another shot at her.”
As Jefferson was leaving, Stone had an idea. The spy bitch was stealing files from either Blackwood’s office or Dr. Stern’s. He knew there was no way Blackwood would allow his office to be bugged, and neither for that matter would Dr. Stern—at least not if he knew about it.
He chuckled deep in his throat as he pulled his black-ops back out of his bottom desk drawer. Time for another midnight skulk, he thought. He’d start with Stern’s office since that was easier to break into than the general’s, and if he had no results in a week, he’d do what he could to put a surveillance camera in Blackwood’s office.
* * *
Jim was a little surprised when a nurse came into his room after he was dressed and told him Dr. Stern had ordered an injection for him before he was to be transported back to the Maine Medical Center.
“What kind of injection?” he asked as he rolled up his sleeve.
“Just a mild sedative,” the nurse said as she wrapped a rubber tourniquet around his arm. When his antecubital vein popped up, she deftly slipped a needle into it and injected some colorless fluid. “Dr. Stern doesn’t want you to have any stress on the trip that might cause a complication.”
It didn’t make much sense to Jim, but he was beginning to get a headache and so he figured a little sedation might make the trip a little more comfortable.
Five minutes later he was unconscious and lying on his back on his hospital bed.
Two large men dressed as ambulance attendants came into his room and picked him up and put him on a gurney and took him to the same ambulance that had brought him to the Brunswick base in the first place.
