Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 03 - Snow Cone (19 page)

Galveston
clenched his teeth and his body welled up with anger, but he didn’t speak.  I could tell he wanted to kill.  “Did you see him move?” he whispered to me.

“No.  I didn’t.”

Galveston shook his head and then looked up at the sky.  Life had become real.

“We need to get back to the hotel.  Somebody’s going down, and it’s not going to be us,” he said with disdain.

-Chapter 30-

Alex and Jane arrived outside the offices of Terrain Scape in New York a little before nine o’clock in the morning.  It had been easy to get an interview with James Sartine, the President and CEO of the company.  Alex told him over the phone he was doing an expose about companies doing business in Greenland and their environmental impact on the country.  It was enough to get any executive’s hair to stand on end.  It didn’t hurt that Alex told the man he was from
The New Yorker
either.  Alex informed Sartine that he was on a tight deadline, and if he didn’t want unfavorable things said about his company, than he should agree to meet soon.  Sartine had agreed immediately.

The pair reviewed the plan before going inside.  Jane was Alex’s assistant.  It was her job to record the conversation, but it was just a ruse.  Alex was the writer of
The New Yorker
piece and the interviewer.  He planned to pepper the man with questions on his company’s involvement in Greenland. 

They walked in the building and were escorted to the twelfth floor of the modern office building.

“Mr. Sartine will see you in a few minutes.  Can I get you something to drink,” the receptionist asked.

“No, thank you.  We’re fine,” Alex answered.

“I’m kind of thirsty,” Jane said.

“You’re fine,” he replied nervously and began to fiddle with his coat jacket; the same jacket he loathed to wear.

“You can come back now.  Mr. Sartine is ready,” the receptionist said politely.

Alex let out a deep breath before he got up.  “I should have made you be the writer,” he said to Jane.  But it was too late.  Alex would have to get the information from the man.

A wiry looking gentleman wearing glasses greeted them at the door to a palatial office that overlooked the skyline of Manhattan.  “Hello, Mr. Strand.”

Alex smiled and thrust out his hand.  Mr. Strand was the name of the proprietor of Alex’s favorite wine shop.  “Mr. Sartine, thank you for meeting me on such short notice.  This is
Ms. Penny Lane.”

Jane smiled at the man and shook his hand.

“Like the Beatles song.  How lovely,” Sartine realized.

“My parents were huge Beatles fans.  It’s very nice to meet you,” Jane replied with a glint in her eye.

“Well, let’s get down to business, shall we?  Please, sit down.”  Sartine was very formal, the obvious result of a privileged upbringing, as Alex had read from an art magazine.

“Yes, Mr. Sartine, let’s,” Alex attempted to say in a high-class manner.  Jane was horrified at Alex’s atrocious acting ability.  “Sir, I’m writing a piece for the next edition that investigates the influx of foreign companies into
Greenland.  What are your thoughts?”

It was an absolutely terrible question, but Alex was not used to clandestine work that involved talking to people.  Jane decided to step in.

“Yes, Mr. Sartine.  We have learned your company has been engaged in work to survey certain areas of Greenland for mining operations.  Possibly for lands that are not permitted by the governments of Greenland or the Netherlands,” Jane interjected.

Sartine leaned back in his high, leather back chair.  “We have done survey operations for a number of companies planning to operate legal mining operations in
Greenland.  I can assure you they are complying with all aspects of the permitting process in the country.”  It was an excellent answer, and a public relations person would have been proud. 

Alex realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as he had hoped.  “Sir, we have learned that one particular operation has not been acting within the law.  I don’t have to tell you of the environmental impact a mining operation could have on such a pristine environment.”  He had no clue what he was talking about.

“I know of no such company.  We are exceedingly careful with whom we work. We are unable to control the actions of a company after our work has been accomplished.  Our company only provides surveying services.”

Alex was ready to hit him with a big punch.  “We have credible information from one of your employees that your company worked closely with a mining group that was operating illegally, and that organization began said mining operations without a permit.”

Jane was about to fall out of her chair.  If Alex wasn’t going to quit talking this way, she decided she might have to slap him.

“I can say we have no knowledge of that,” he answered dismissively.

“Your employee is Tony Salono.  He worked directly on the project.  How do you answer to that?”  Alex felt bad using Tony’s name after what had happened, but Sartine had to know he meant business.  Alex figured Tony would have wanted answers too.

Sartine moved uneasily in his seat, and Jane picked up on his increasing level of discomfort over the questioning.  “Mr. Salono was mistaken, and unfortunately he is no longer with the company.”  Sartine conveniently left out the news of Tony’s murder. 

Alex decided he could press a little further.  “What company did he do the survey operation for then?”

Sartine didn’t answer as he tried to find a suitable response.  “I’m not at liberty to say.  It’s confidential information.”

“Your company’s involvement could be left out of our article if we have the name of the company that hired you.”

Sartine’s face went flat, and he looked down at the table.  “I’m sorry,” he said slowly.  “I can’t divulge that information.”

Galveston had taught Jane the signs of distress, and Sartine was demonstrating all of them.  He was never going to tell them the name of the company.  She reached for her bag beside her and pulled out a watch.  “We’re nearing the deadline time,” she announced.

That was the cue for Alex to stop the interview and begin Plan B.  Plan A had gotten them nowhere.

Alex fumbled a notepad out of his coat pocket and began the illusion that he was looking for additional questions to ask.  “I think I covered everything I wanted to ask, Mr. Sartine.  I’m afraid I need to publish my story.  Are you sure you can’t tell me the name of the company that hired you?”

Sartine had beads of perspiration forming on his forehead.  He looked around nervously, and Jane followed the movements of his eyes.  He shook his head slowly and gave them a weak smile.  “I would like to,” he said with dejection in his voice, “but I just can’t.  I just can’t.”

This was the point where Alex needed to put the executive at ease.  “Well, Mr. Sartine, I understand your dilemma.  How about for this story I won’t mention your company.” 

Sartine’s relief was evident in his body language.  “I would greatly appreciate it.  Thank you for understanding.”

“I would like to ask a small favor, though,” Alex began.  “I’m up against a tight deadline.  We need to file this story now.  Would you allow my colleague to do that from here?  I’ve heard you are a lover of the arts, as am I.  I would love to see the collection you have here in the office.  I’ve heard interesting things about it.”

Sartine’s distress completely faded.  “You are?  Fantastic.  I would love to show you.  I feel I’ve collected more than a few noteworthy pieces.”

“Excellent, I would be honored.” Alex turned to Jane.  “Oh, Penny?  Go ahead and file the story—as is.”

Jane tried not to roll her eyes, but she couldn’t help herself.  “Yes, sir,” she replied with a sarcastic tone.

Alex got up and left the office with Sartine.  When Jane saw they had disappeared, she got to work.

Plan B was simple enough—get Sartine out of the office and look for clues to the name of the company he had done business with.  Luckily the man had a Type A personality so everything was arranged neatly and in order.  She pulled the blinds over the glass windows that showed into the hall and immediately went to Sartine’s desk.  Jane carefully opened each drawer of the large mahogany desk and scanned the file folders inside.  Each folder was neatly arranged with a color coded tab.  They were mainly financial statements for the company.  She moved to the next desk drawer.  It too was neatly arranged, but there was nothing of real value.

Jane pulled open a wooden file cabinet next to the wall and began to rummage through the files.  She was beginning to get nervous that all she was finding dealt with the internal workings of the company and nothing more.  Alex was supposed to alert her with a text message, but she really feared another employee coming in the room. 

She finally got to the bottom drawer and opened it.  She saw that the tabs on the folders read “invoices” and were arranged by date.  She pulled one out quickly and put it on the floor.  She was grateful that Sartine was so careful in his record keeping.  She had gotten through three months of invoices and nothing appeared out of the ordinary.  Most of the jobs were located in the
United States with a few in Canada.  She was ready to give up when she saw what she had been working toward. 

It was an invoice dated three months ago, and had a three hundred thousand dollar price attached to it.  The location said Nuuk,
Greenland.  She smiled to herself and pulled out her phone to snap a picture.  But right as she was about to take it, her phone began to vibrate.  Alex was alerting her that they were returning to the office.  She fumbled with the buttons to get back to her camera, but of course it didn’t go where she wanted.  Her email popped up on the screen, and she cursed the device. 

She could hear Alex talking loudly from down the hall, asking Sartine additional questions about his art.  Jane knew she was out of time and pulled the page from the file folder and stuffed it in her pocket.  She put the files back in their original position and closed the drawer to the file cabinet.  She leapt up and rushed back to her chair just as the door opened.  Jane managed to get her computer back on her lap when Sartine entered the room.

Sartine peered at the closed blinds with a look of confusion.

“I hope that was alright.  I was having trouble seeing my screen,” she said, trying to keep her adrenaline in check.

“That’s fine,” Sartine answered, seemingly without suspicion.

“Did you get the story filed, Penny?” Alex asked hopefully.

“Just barely, but we’re all set.  Time to get back to the office?” she inquired.

“Quite,” Alex responded.

Jane was glad they were leaving, not so much because they were stealing the invoice, but because Alex’s high-brow speech was making her sick.

The pair exchanged pleasantries before leaving the office, and Sartine escorted them to the receptionist’s desk.

They were barely in the elevator before Alex had to ask, “You got it, right?”

“Yup.  Right here,” Jane said, patting her pants pocket.

“Let’s see the picture,” Alex urged.

“Well, there was a slight problem with that.  I had to take the piece of paper it was on.”

“You what?” Alex asked with more than a bit of surprise.

“Your text came through right as I was about to take the picture.  I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m not sure your choice was best,” he admonished.  “What if he searches through those files and can’t find it.”

“Oh, don’t worry.  We’ll be fine,” she said dismissively.  “You can be so high-strung sometimes.”  They were bantering like an old married couple; the result of working too closely together the last few harrowing days.

Alex nervously stepped from the elevator.  Now he knew why he liked sitting behind a computer so much.  Clandestine work was not for him. 

Jane and Alex hailed a taxi, and when they were safely inside, Jane pulled the folded piece of paper out of her pocket.  They huddled over it and read through the document.  Jane became concerned when they couldn’t find a payer on the invoice and that she may have pulled the wrong document.  She neglected to tell Alex that she hadn’t seen a name of a company   Most of what she had seen were place names for
Greenland. But there at the bottom of the page was the company name they had been waiting to find.

-Chapter 31-

“The
U.S. government?  Alex, slow down.  I can’t understand you.  It can’t be the government,” Galveston exclaimed into the phone.

“No foolin’.  It says the
U.S. government.  That’s who ordered the survey, and I’ve traced it back to a government account,” Alex said excitedly.

Galveston
was in no mood to be trifled with.  We had been nursing our wounds for over four hours and our emotions were razor thin.  Galveston hadn’t even told Alex what had happened to us.  He was equally surprised Alex or Jane hadn’t heard it on the news. 

The T.V. in the room was tuned to local news coverage about the explosion.  The initial report was that a gas main exploded in the older building.  We knew that not to be the case.  A new story was being announced by the reporter just as
Galveston was starting to figure out what Alex was talking about. 

“They have breaking news,” I informed
Galveston.

“Alex, give me a second.” He put the phone down and watched the screen.

“We have a new video from a bystander at the scene just minutes after the incident.  It shows there was indeed something else going on at the London home,” the female reporter stated.  A grainy video shot from a camera phone began to play.  It was from minutes after we had left the scene.  “It is obvious from the video that there were police at the scene, and the injured were immediately loaded into awaiting ambulances,” the reporter continued.

I watched the video intently as ambulance crews moved bodies onto stretchers, and the firemen attempted to put out the blaze.

“Do you see that,” I said loudly, pointing at the screen.

Galveston
did.  “Oh, thank God,” he replied.  “Go wake up Sally,” he ordered, and I gladly followed the instruction.

Sally had fallen asleep in the next room.  She was still in a state of shock about Joe, just as we were.

I raced from our room to hers and attempted to wake her.  “Sally,” I said loudly, “wake up.  We think Joe’s okay.”

Her eyes opened.  “What, what?” she asked groggily.

“It’s Joe, Sally.  We saw him move on a video from the news.  He was loaded onto a stretcher.  He was moving his arms,” I said joyfully.

“Uncle Joe?” she replied, still trying to wake from her stupor.

“Yes.  I think he’s alive. Come on, take a look.”

I grabbed her by the arm and led her from the room.  She sat down in a chair near the T.V. and waited for the video to be replayed.  “It is him.  He’s okay!” she exclaimed before tears began to stream down her face.

It was obviously Joe on the gurney.  We could tell by the horrible coat we had dressed him in as a disguise.  We watched as he reached his hand up to one of the men pushing the gurney.  His eyes were open, and he had said something to the men before being loaded into the back of an ambulance.

Galveston
hugged Sally from behind before realizing he had other business to attend to.  “Oh, crap, I forgot about Alex,” he announced as he went back to his call.

Sally and I continued to watch the news, unaffected by the carnage on the screen and only thinking about Joe.

“Alright, Alex.  Are you there?” Galveston wasn’t hearing anything on the other end.

“Yes, I’m here.  I have important information, and I can’t believe…”

Galveston cut him off.  “Alex, turn on the news station.”

“We don’t have time for that.”

“Turn it on,” Galveston repeated, knowing he would shut Alex up in a second.

“Oh,” Alex said sheepishly and deduced that we had somehow been involved in the incident.  “What the hell happened?”

Galveston didn’t feel like reliving the moment, so he reverted back to Alex’s previous subject.  “We’re okay, just a little hiccup.  Now explain what you’re talking about, slowly this time.”

“Alright.  The survey operation in Greenland was paid for by the
U.S. government.  Is that slow enough for you?” Alex asked mockingly.

Galveston
ignored the retort.  “You’re sure?”

“Good lord, yes.  That’s what it said.  Do I have to paint you a picture?”

“Don’t be so testy.  It’s a little hard to fathom, don’t you think?”

“Of course it is, but I’m not the detective, you are.  So do some detecting.  Why would the government have ordered this survey?”

“I have no idea.  Do you think this Sartine guy is involved?”  Galveston asked.

“Jane thinks so.  He was real nervous when we questioned him, and he wasn’t about to divulge the information.  Jane rifled through his office to get the answer.”

“Ah, my little grasshopper.  I’ve taught her well,” Galveston responded smugly.

“Yeah, you’re great.  Now give me something to work with.”

Galveston wasn’t as shocked as Alex by the news.  The entire case seemed like an illusion.  None of it seemed real.  The thought triggered an idea in Galveston’s mind.  Maybe it was meant to be an illusion.  Maybe the U.S. government had nothing to do with the operation in Greenland, but it was meant to look that way.

“Roger, come here.” 
Galveston waved me toward him.  “Alex, I’ll call you back.”  Galveston hung up the phone before Alex could even respond.

I tore myself from the coverage on the television.  “What is it?”

Galveston informed me of the company that hired Terrain Scape to do the survey in Greenland. 

I struggled to comprehend what he was telling me.  “I can’t believe it.  They’re no company,” I said emphatically.  “Why would they hire them?  Do you think Sartine is involved?”

“I’ve thought about that.  It sounds like he was scared to say anything, even with his company’s reputation on the line.  I would be scared to say something too, knowing that I had been hired by a U.S. agency.  I’m going to have to rule him out as a suspect for the time being.”

“Which agency hired Terrain Scape then?”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here.  I don’t think it was the U.S. government.  I think it was someone trying to make it look like it was the U.S. government,” Galveston answered.

“Come again?”  I figured
Galveston would immediately go with one of his beloved conspiracy theories, but he surprised and confused me with the answer.

“It looks like an illusion; a very smart way to cover the tracks,” he paused as if I understood his response.  “If this had been a CIA operation, or military operation, we would have never been able to infiltrate it so easily.  When the CIA runs a covert op on this scale, they make damn sure it stays secret.  We shouldn’t have made into the base camp.  If it was the military running it, we wouldn’t have made it out of the airport.  No, I think there is an operative running it, but from another organization outside the government.”

“What if Terrain Scape was lied to?” I asked, playing devil’s advocate.

“Nope.  Alex confirmed the payment came directly from a government account,”
Galveston answered quickly.  “We know it has to be someone who works for our government, but I don’t think it’s an approved operation.  Whoever it is; they’re working for someone else.”

My thoughts raced over the idea.  I couldn’t believe I was buying in to this particular theory.  I thought through the steps.  We had an operation looking for nuclear remnants from three decades ago.  We had been accosted by CIA agents.  A curious explosion happened before we were supposed to make it to safety.  Tony had been assassinated at his home for supposedly knowing too much about the operation in
Greenland, and we were being set up as the assassins.  What was the link?  I then remembered Joe laying on the ground outside the building.

“Mayfield,” I announced to
Galveston.  “Mayfield has to be the link.  He was at the explosion and examined Joe, remember?  I bet he was looking for the rest of us.  He wanted us out of Greenland, and he wanted us on that plane to New York, probably so we could be arrested.  Mayfield had the ability to use funds from the CIA to set up a covert operation in Greenland.”

“And he could do it without the CIA finding out.  He would only have to move the money around, let’s say for a different operation,”
Galveston added. 

“The payment comes from a government account while he’s working for somebody else.  Don’t forget about the stories I found off the internet.  I’m beginning to think they were credible,” I concluded.

“I believe you may be on to something.”  Galveston had an unusual glint in his eye—the belief he would get to take down Mayfield.

“First things first, though.  We need to know Joe is really safe and what went on at the door to that house.  Second, we need to know who the man was that he talked to.  I’m afraid he was the casualty they’re talking about on the news,”
Galveston said.

“Don’t forget about our pesky murder accusation.  Oh, and the nuclear material that is floating around,” I added.

“Whoa, cowboy.  One thing at a time.  Let’s make sure Joe is okay and then we’ll get on to those other things.”

Galveston
dialed his phone again.

“What are you doing?” I inquired.

“Alex and Jane don’t know it yet, but they’re flying to London tonight.  We need as many feet on the ground as possible on this one.”