Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 03 - Snow Cone (25 page)

I looked over at
Galveston and shrugged my shoulders in shock—this was not part of our plan.

I checked my watch again.  In five minutes, the chaos was going to increase.

Franco didn’t know how to respond and nervously walked toward the case where the useless uranium sat.  “I wasn’t told,” he pleaded, almost acting as if he was fearful of his life. 

“Who did this?” one member at the table demanded.

Franco shook his head but then pointed at Jane.  “It was Christopoulos.  He was in charge of delivering the material,” he said angrily.

The entire room turned and stared at Jane.  This was not in her script, and she was going to have to ad lib her way through it.  The timer on my watch counted down to two minutes.

Jane stared back at the men with wide eyes, and noticed they were waiting for a response.  We were in a dire situation. 

Alex was hearing the entire meeting through the cell phone in
Galveston’s pocket.  He was in shock and was just about to dial the number for the Swiss authorities when Galveston stopped him.

“Alex, just wait.  Not yet,” he said discretely into the pocket of his coat.

I moved behind Jane, ready to pull her back from the table and make a run for the exit.  But she had momentarily gained her composure, and surprised me with what she said next.

Jane clenched her teeth.  “Nikos delivered you the product, as promised, even after what you have done.  You have been used, gentlemen.  Someone in this room has stolen it for themselves.  We don’t tolerate that in this organization,” she said fiercely with fire in her eyes.  “Who is responsible?”

The men looked at each other with confusion as the timer counted down to thirty seconds.  There were faint murmurs from the members at the table.  They were all well aware of Nikos’s assassination.  It was not a secret.

The timer ticked to zero, and I hoped Alex’s machine worked.  Jane pushed herself up from the table and moved behind her chair next to me. 

“Who has done this?” she screamed, causing the men to flinch in their seats.

Her rant was perfectly timed.  The case that
Galveston had pushed underneath the window, out of sight, was going through its stages of detonation.  It wasn’t a bomb, but a huge smoke grenade and noisemaker.  The case began to sizzle, and thick, white smoke began to pour around the edges of the case as the reaction from the block of potassium nitrate, sugar, and baking soda began to react with the fire from a fuse.  A secondary stage caused the case to begin to catch fire.  Alex had soaked the inside of the case with some type of flammable substance, and the fire ignited it, causing a small, harmless explosion. 

The sound was enough to shake every member in the room.  They began to yell and scream as they pointed behind us at the curtains engulfed in flames.

The smoke began to billow from the case and quickly filled the room, making it difficult to see the other members at the table, and each other.  Alex had gone a little overboard with his use of the potassium nitrate. 

At this point, we were supposed to move to steal the uranium, but since it was useless, we moved to our next phase—escape.

I pulled Jane with me, and Galveston came up on our side.  The smoke had grown so thick that the exit was hard to find.  We got to our hands and knees and went in the general direction of where we thought it should be. 

Someone had pulled the flaming curtain from the wall before it could ignite the entire room in flames, but the chaos continued as the criminals of the Red Hand tried to comprehend the situation.

We found the exit back into the main foyer.  The smoke began to move from the meeting room and rose toward the high ceilings of the foyer.  We got to our feet quickly and ran to the door.  Two new security guards met us at the front door.

“There has been a bomb released.  Hurry, make sure no one is in danger,”
Galveston told them gruffly, thinking quickly on his feet.

The guards didn’t hesitate to listen when they saw the smoke pouring from the smaller room.  They pushed past us and rushed inside.

I pushed Jane ahead of me out the front door as Galveston followed.  We had only minutes to spare before the participants of the meeting knew we were gone.  I prayed Sally had made it up the mountain in time.

As we ran outside, we immediately began to shiver in the cold.  We raced to our sedan parked at the far end of the driveway, and pulled our coats from the trunk of the car where we had left them.  I felt bad for the company we had rented the car from for the operation.  It was not going to be returned. 

“Where’s Sally?” I said nervously to Galveston as I helped Jane into her coat.

“She’ll be here,”
Galveston assured me. 

I wanted to believe him, but it was an incredibly difficult journey up the side of the mountain. 

We opened the trunk and pulled out our hiking boots and long pants.  I could hear yelling coming from the chalet.  It would be mere moments before they realized we were gone.

Galveston
pulled on his boots and signaled us to follow.  He had placed our first case filled with money in the snow for a reason.  If anything had gone wrong, Sally would have been able to retrieve it.  It was also Sally’s reference point of where we would meet.  She was carrying a night vision scope that allowed her to see the dark object against the white snow in the darkness. 

Jane and I followed
Galveston down to where he had left the case, but Sally was not there.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“We can only give her a minute; then we have to go,” Galveston replied.

I was hearing nothing coming from above us, and I knew we had run out of time.

I tapped Galveston on the shoulder.  “We have to go.  We can’t…”

Galveston
held up his hand.  “Shh, be quiet,” he ordered.

I didn’t speak again and listened.  Off in the distance, we heard what sounded like a bird calling.  It didn’t seem far away.

Galveston strained to see through the dark.  “This way,” he said quietly.

I picked up our black case of money, and we walked down the steep, snow covered mountainside toward the continuing sound.  It was unlike any bird I had ever heard, and I knew it had to be Sally.

“There she is!” Galveston exclaimed.

She was only thirty yards away standing in knee deep snow with the night scope perched on her head.  She waved wildly when she realized we were coming in her direction.  We pushed our way through the deep snow to get to her.

“Sally,” Galveston said with relief.  “I’m so glad you’re okay.”  He wrapped her in a hug.

“I couldn’t find the case.  I’m sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly, looking like a strange one-eyed creature because of the night scope still over her eyes.

Jane and I each gave her a hug.  She was a welcome sight because she was our guide away from the mansion.

We turned to start back down the mountain when a brilliant flash of light appeared above us.  The Red Hand had discovered we were missing and that we were the culprits for the confusion.

“Get down,” Galveston said hurriedly.  “Bury your face in the snow and don’t look up.”

We did as we were told and laid flat on the ground.  The light crossed over the slope above us, and we stayed still.  The light continued to pass over us, and I could hear voices where our car was parked.  Luckily we were behind a small snow drift that shielded us from the light, and when it passed over, it illuminated the snow farther down the mountain.

The men above scanned the area a few more minutes before moving on to another portion of the slope.  We breathed a collective sigh of relief that they hadn’t spotted us.

We didn’t waste time patting ourselves on the back. 
Galveston motioned for us to continue, and Sally started the long hike back down the mountainside.  She skillfully negotiated the terrain and weaved a path for us to follow.  The night vision scope allowed her to retrace her steps, allowing us a safe route down.  I was grateful she had thought of it.

We continued for over two hours and came out at a spot a
few miles away from the spot where we had dropped her off.  Alex was waiting anxiously at our pick-up point, and we loaded ourselves into the car.  We were cold and tired, but more importantly, we were safe.

“Did you get it,” he asked before we had even sat down.

“Funny story,” Galveston began.  “It was a fake.”

“Huh?” Alex responded.

“It was natural uranium, not highly enriched uranium.  Someone pulled a fast one,” I clarified as I began to pull off my fake eyebrows.

“Isn’t uranium, just uranium?” Alex questioned as he drove back to our hotel.

I had researched the difference and was glad to clear it up for everyone.  “Natural uranium has a higher percentage of uranium-238 isotopes and a very small amount of uranium-235 isotopes.  To make it into highly enriched uranium, the amount of uranium-235 isotopes increases and very little uranium-238 remains.  This is considered “weapons grade”.  This is the stuff in nuclear bombs or the catalyst in a hydrogen bomb.  Natural uranium has to go through isotope separation to be used in reactors, or in this case, bombs.”

Everyone stared at me with their mouths agape.

“Thanks, Mr. Science,” Galveston said sarcastically.

“Hey, he asked,” I replied.  “It wouldn’t kill you to open a book once in a while.”

“What’s a book?” he retorted.

I could only roll my eyes.  “I’m not sure why I try.”

“I’m proud of you, honey,” Jane praised.

“Thanks, Roger.  I won’t be asking you any more questions again,” Alex said from the driver’s seat, managing to get one more dig in at me.

They were all jerks, but they were my jerks.

Alex pulled up to the hotel, and we went to our respective rooms and packed our bags.  We had to get out of
St. Moritz. 

We began
to drive to Geneva instead of Zurich, and we didn’t even wait for the sun to come up.  The operation at the auction had almost gone according to plan.  But now we had a sticky situation.  We had promised Mayfield the documents and the location of the nuclear material.  At the time of the deal we thought we would have it, but this was no longer the case.  I would have to negotiate with the man, with the documents being our only bargaining chip.

We traded off driving duties on the way to
Geneva.  It was a long drive, and gave us enough time to think about the case.  Some interesting questions were beginning to pop up.  Who had the enriched uranium, and where was Browning?  I was even skeptical about Mayfield.  Could he really clear us of Tony’s murder?  We had to plan our next moves wisely.     

-Chapter 41-

We were on the outskirts of
Geneva after a five hour journey from St. Moritz when Galveston decided he wanted to talk. 

“What are you thinking about?” he started as if he was my wife.

“Nothing,” I replied, grumpy from the lack of sleep.

“Well, I think we better start planning.  Mayfield may not take what we’ve got,” he told me.

“Why not?” I asked, regretting the question as soon as it came out of my mouth.

“He wants the location of the nuclear material—the enriched uranium.  We don’t have it.”

“Thanks for the clarification, Captain Obvious,” I replied sarcastically.  My fatigue and frayed nerves were doing the talking.  “I’m sorry,” I said.  “I just want some sleep.”

“No problem, Captain Sensitivity,”
Galveston fired back with a smile.

“What are you thinking?” I asked, attempting to be a bit more agreeable to talk to.

“We need to cover our butts.  I still don’t trust Mayfield.  What’s if he just runs away with our information and never clears us of Tony’s murder.”

“What do you suggest?” I inquired.

“We need to think this over cautiously.  How can we make sure we’re cleared of Tony’s murder?  What else do we need to do?”

I didn’t know what to tell him.  I hadn’t been thinking about the case; I was just too tired.  I looked at
Galveston and noticed that there was a clear indication of fear on his face.  It wasn’t an expression I had seen before.

“Are you worried?” I asked with concern.

“Yeah, Roger, I am.  We have these documents, but they really don’t help us.  Mayfield wants the uranium.  That’s his job.  He doesn’t care about us, or what the Red Hand might do.  He just wants the uranium.”

I was beginning to see his point.  Mayfield was a CIA officer.  We had essentially become his agents.  CIA agents are not people who work for the CIA.  It’s a misnomer.  Agents are usually foreign nationals recruited to work with the CIA to obtain information.  It’s the officer’s job to recruit these agents.  I realized we were expendable.  Mayfield needed to get his information and move on.  At this point it didn’t matter if we were
U.S. citizens or not.

“What should we do?” I asked as my fatigue was replaced by adrenaline.

“We need to outsmart the spy.  We tell him we have the highly enriched uranium.  He provides us proof that we’ve been cleared of Tony’s murder, and we give him the documents and the uranium,” Galveston said simply.

“But we don’t have the uranium,” I replied.

“We don’t need it.  He doesn’t know it’s gone.  We imply we found it.”

“We lie, right?” I clarified.

“Of course,” Galveston responded nonchalantly.

“I bet you know how we’re going to do this.”

“Yeah, I do, and you’re going to be a big part of it,” he said with a wide smile. 

I cringed wondering what his strategy was.  “What do you suggest?”

Galveston laid out his plan during the last thirty minutes of our drive into Geneva.  He proposed a bold move, but it was something that had to be done to ensure our freedom when we finally got back home.

We arrived to yet another over-priced hotel in
Geneva, and we didn’t have long to formulate our final plan. 

We were no longer concerned about Browning.  Mayfield could catch him when he wanted.  Now we needed to pore our resources into clearing our names, so we could find a way out of the country to go back home.  I didn’t even care that the Red Hand was looking for us.

We had only a few hours to develop our strategy.  It was going to be a two pronged approach.  We were going to clear our names, and we would have the Swiss authorities on hand as a backup. 

Galveston
spent an entire hour speaking with an officer of the newly formed Swiss Federal Intelligence Service, or FIS.  This Swiss governmental branch was only a few years old.  He spent another hour convincing the Federal Office of Police of Switzerland that enriched uranium had been auctioned off in the country.  Galveston gave them key pieces of information about the Red Hand to convince them of his story.  After they believed he wasn’t a crazy man, they agreed to help, but under certain conditions.  They wanted the documents about the Red Hand, and they wanted the nuclear material in their possession.  We were going to disappoint another government agency.

Sally and Jane wouldn’t be involved in this one.  They had done their duties.  It was up to
Galveston and me to finish the job. 

  We had put this plan together so hastily that I feared there was no way it could work, but
Galveston assured me it would succeed.  His confidence really didn’t make me feel much better.

I started the operation by calling Mayfield.  I was sure he was eager to hear our news.

“Murphy?” Mayfield asked with surprise.

“Yes, Mayfield.  We’re here.”

“Do you have the documents?” he inquired eagerly.

“Yes, and the nuclear material,” I replied quickly.

There was a strange pause on the other end of the line.  “What do you mean?  You have the uranium?”

I was surprised by his statement.  I figured he would be elated to hear we had it in our possession.  “Of course we have it.  That was part of the deal.”

“How is that…I mean, how did you get it?”

I could tell the man was shocked.  Did he think we were that incompetent? 

“We stole it.  I’m looking at it right here in its case.  It’s a gray, flat disk about the size of my hand—highly enriched uranium-235,” I said confidently.

“Murphy, why are you lying to me?”  I could tell his voice was growing angry.  I didn’t know what to do.

“Keep convincing him.  Tell him we found the location from Nikos’s documents,” Galveston instructed.

“We located the uranium from an entry in Niko
s’s documents.  It was being stored in a warehouse in Geneva.”

Mayfield grew quiet.  “I need that uranium,” he said with more composure.

I breathed a sigh of relief.  Mayfield was ready to play ball.  “Not until we get proof that we’ve been cleared of all murder accusations.  That includes Joe too,” I demanded.

“Okay, okay.  The documents and the uranium, and I will clear you.”

“No, you get us proof and then we’ll meet.  You have one hour,” I said forcefully and ended the call before Mayfield could respond.  “How was that?” I asked Galveston.

“Really good, Roger.  Let’s see how bad he wants this stuff.”

But Mayfield wasn’t dumb, and he didn’t trust us.  He called back within a few minutes.  “We meet first, and then I’ll make sure you’re cleared,” he said with disgust, most likely because I hung up on him.

“Square du Mont-Blanc, one hour.  I’ll come alone, and you do the same.  When we have proof of being cleared of Tony’s murder, I’ll give you the items,” I ordered.  Our hotel was just up the street from the square, and it offered an excellent place in public for the exchange to happen.

“I’ll be there.  Bring the items,” Mayfield responded.

I hung up the line again and smiled.  “Alright.  It’s a go,” I announced proudly, right before my stomach began to churn, realizing I was going to the meeting.

“Excellent.  Now we need a pewter disk to act as our uranium.  Jane, Sally, can you gals do that?” Galveston asked politely.  “You have about forty-five minutes.”

Both woman nodded their heads.  “Yes, sir,” Jane answered, giving him a salute.

Jane and Sally left the room to find a fraudulent piece of uranium. 

The rest of us had one excruciating hour to kill. 
Galveston set to work contacting the Swiss authorities and informing them of our meeting.  Alex was busy scanning Nikos’s documents into his computer.  I sat alone with only my thoughts. 

I wondered where the uranium really was, and who had it?  Mayfield wasn’t going to be happy when he found out we were giving him pewter instead of uranium.  And another question nagged me about Mayfield’s reaction.  If I were in his shoes, I would have been relieved that the material to make a simple nuclear bomb had been found.  He almost acted as if he was angry we had found it, which of course we hadn’t.

Galveston finished his calls to the Swiss authorities and was elated.  “They’re bringing in Task Force TIGRIS.”

I didn’t understand why that was big news.  I had no idea what he was talking about.

“What is that,” I asked.

“Task Force
TIGRIS is a small tactical unit that belongs to the Swiss Federal Office of Police,” he explained.

“Why do we need them?”

Galveston looked at me as if it was a dumb question.  “It’s simply for our safety,” he announced.

I noticed a strange glint in his eye.  “
Galveston, what have you done?” I asked accusingly.

He didn’t answer, and it appeared that he was choosing the right words to say. 

“Galveston, spill it.  What did you do?” I demanded.

“I may have called Browning,” he replied.

“You what?”

“I called Browning.  I figured we would help Mayfield out.  Just call it another bargaining chip.  We deliver Browning to Mayfield, and we have that much more of his trust.”

“You’re bringing the entire Red Hand syndicate to our doorstep!” I exclaimed.  I then realized what he had done.  “You’re bringing the Red Hand here,” I said more calmly.  “When?”

“He’s scheduled for thirty minutes after you meet with Mayfield.  All Mayfield has to do is wait for the Swiss authorities to pick up Browning, and he can take him home.  He’ll be tried for treason of course.” 
Galveston was clearly beside himself over his coup.

“But Mayfield doesn’t have proof Browning was involved?” I countered.

“Not to worry.  Alex?”  Galveston yelled.  “You ready?”

“You bet.  I have everything set up.  Do you want me to read this verbatim, or can I improvise,” he said holding up a sheet of paper.

“Verbatim.  I don’t trust you that much,” Galveston retorted.

I sat down on the only bed in the room and watched in awe as Alex put on a headset and dialed a number from his computer.  I heard the sound of a dial tone coming from the speakers of Alex’s computer.

“Browning here,” he answered.

“We have located the men who stole the item before the auction,” Alex said into his headset microphone.  His words sounded deeper than normal because of a computer program that lowered the pitch of his voice.  Alex was also speaking with a bad British accent.

“Who is this?” Browning demanded.

“Mr. Browning, this is Reginald from
England.  The people you’ve been tracking were at the auction last night.  We have learned where they are going to sell it,” Alex told him.

“I know.  They called me.  What do you need me to do?” Browning inquired.

“Retrieve the nuclear material at any cost.  Will you kill them if necessary?” Alex asked, causing us to cringe at his question.

“Of course,” Browning answered without a care.

“One last thing, Browning.  Have you removed everyone from our operation in Greenland?” Alex asked, reading from the script.

“Yes, the men are with me now.”

“Good.  We expect to have the uranium by day’s end,” Alex ordered.

“Yes, sir.  We will,” Browning said quietly.  “Is there anything else
?”

Alex looked over at
Galveston and covered the headset microphone.  “Should I ask this last one?” he whispered.

“Go for it.  Let’s clean them all out,” he responded.

Alex spoke into the microphone again.  “After your meeting, inform Sartine that he needs to destroy his files about the Greenland operation.”

Browning paused and
Galveston feared they had pushed the questions too far.  He wanted a link to Sartine, the CEO of Terrain Scape, but Browning didn’t act like he wanted to answer the question.  “Uh, Uh” he stammered.  “Yes, sir.  I’ll ask him to destroy the records.” 

Galveston
smiled and smacked Alex on the back.

“Good, Browning.”  Alex ended the call and stopped the recording on his computer.

“We’re just throwing out the bait and reeling them in,” Galveston said, using his favorite fishing analogy.

“I must say, I’m impressed.” I praised
Galveston’s quick thinking.  We had moved Browning right into Mayfield’s lap.  He was our extra piece of security, and a prize for the CIA.

Jane and Sally returned just as we finished slapping each other on the back for a job well done.

“Little early to be celebrating, isn’t it guys?” Jane asked.

Galveston
conveniently ignored her comment, and instead asked, “did you get it?”

Jane opened up a box to reveal a small, gray disk.  It was a pewter tea cup plate.  It had a ridge on one side but was flat and smooth on the other.  It had a perfect likeness to the uranium disk we had seen at the auction.