HomeThe Human Experiment - First Chapter
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The Human Experiment - First Chapter
Admin Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:02 pm
Andrew Jordan sat in a dark-grey Ford Taurus with a pair of night-vision binoculars pressed up against his eyes. He had been trying to find his current suspect for a week, waiting to catch a break so he could go in and make an arrest. This case was different than what he was used to investigating. Rarely had he ever had to run a stakeout for a suspect in the past, but the FBI did it regularly and that was where this case came from.
Jordan yawned. He had been sitting in the same spot for five hours waiting for the suspect to show. Over the past month twelve prostitutes had been abducted from Washington D.C. streets. That in itself wasn’t extremely unusual, but four days after the girls were taken, they were found tied naked to trees in D.C. and surrounding area parks. They were always alive but they were unable to communicate; almost like their brains had been scrambled. The abductor never left any evidence. Jordan believed that the abductor cleaned the girls before he let them go.
Physical examinations showed that the girls had brutal trauma to their mouths and sexual organs, but the blood work never showed anything irregular. Jordan couldn’t imagine the depraved acts the abductor was forcing the girls to perform. All of the doctors that examined them couldn’t determine why the girls were practically comatose. Two of the girls were still missing, and if the abductor held to his pattern, he was going to take another tonight. From interviewing friends of the abducted girls, Jordan and the rest of his team had developed a psychological profile of the abductor. He was a white male, short, overweight, mid-thirties, and was highly educated. The abductor most likely held at least a PhD. Most helpful, however, was the fact that the abductor always drove a rental SUV registered under a fake name. The DC area provided a large number of small privately owned car rental vendors that allowed the suspect to pay with cash and use a fake ID so he was untraceable. The suspect also had very specific taste in girls; the Paris Hilton look; tall, blonde, and very thin. So far all of the victims were over 5’10”, and under 120 pounds. Jordan thought that the killer had pent up rage against tall women, almost certainly because he was short. He had most likely been insulted or intimidated by at least one tall woman and liked to receive sexual gratification from them and then hurt them.
He stared drearily through his foggy windshield hoping that his suspect would show soon so he could go home and get some much needed sleep. Jordan was the head of a small section of the Department of Defense called the Unusual Phenomenon Division. Funding for the U.P. was hard for Jordan to come by. The division itself only had the budget to investigate a couple major incidents a year. The primary way Jordan acquired funds for extra investigations was when other agencies didn’t have the resources to spend their time on a project, but the DoD wanted it investigated, so the burden and a little money fell to U.P.
Many people at the DoD thought of U.P. as a laughingstock because of a small number high profile cases Jordan had investigated that dealt with UFO activity. He hated being the butt of so many jokes, but the work that U.P. performed spoke for itself. His superiors knew that giving a case to U.P. equaled results.
Jordan looked down to grab the six-hour-old hamburger that he had picked up in case this turned into a long night. He was a tall man at a few inches over six feet. Jordan had been one of the taller pilots while he was in the Air Force. Most pilots were less than six feet tall because their smaller frames could better handle the G-forces of flying jet fighters. Back in the Air Force Jordan had kept his hair short, but he had let it grow out after leaving the military. He now kept his hair in the shaggy messed-up look that was popular among many younger men. Jordan just found it to be the easiest hair style that looked good on him.
Ever since he started playing football in junior high, Jordan loved to workout. He never tried to develop huge muscles, but he liked to keep himself well-toned. In high school, Jordan had been an all-city strong safety at his school in Pittsburgh. After he decided to become a pilot, he had needed to keep his body mass low because of his height. Jordan didn’t work out as much since he left the Air Force, but tried to make it to the gym a few times a week. His stomach was no longer as defined as it had been several years earlier, but he could still see his abs near the surface. Getting old was a bitch.
He hoped that he was on the right street. Only three areas of Washington D.C. had enough prostitutes for the abductor to find one that met his specific tastes. Other U.P. team members were watching the other two areas of the city in case the abductor showed there.
For some reason the police knew that prostitution was rampant, but they seemed to look the other way as long the prostitutes stayed in low visibility areas. Jordan figured enough of the politicians used the services that these women provided that the police had decided to stay clear of the whole mess. In actuality Washington D.C. has the third highest sex-for-hire business of all U.S. cities behind Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Powerful men seemed to have voracious sexual appetites. Usually the politicians would use one of the many exclusive high-priced escort services that operated in the area, but Jordan had heard several stories about Congressmen sending a trusted aide out to find a girl off of the street to help play out their most deviant sexual fantasies. There were no ‘Pretty Woman’ stories here. If a disgruntled prostitute was seen as a threat she would disappear and never be seen again.
Jordan looked at his watch, which said it was shortly after two in the morning. He was shocked when he looked up. A dark blue Ford Expedition was slowly driving down the row of girls while the driver studied the women from behind tinted windows. Jordan typed the license plate number into his laptop. A few seconds later, the vehicle information came up on his screen. It was a rental from the Baltimore Airport. Jordan watched as the girls tried to catch the eye of the man in the SUV. Then Jordan saw a girl that fit the target perfectly. She was over six feet tall, blonde, and her body looked like a skeleton covered with pale white skin. The man saw her shortly after Jordan and immediately stopped. Within 30 seconds the vehicle drove off with the girl inside. Jordan started his car and followed about 100 yards behind the SUV.
After driving for 20, minutes the SUV stopped in front of a worn-down brownstone in Georgetown. Jordan turned off his lights and pulled over to the side of the road while the man and his companion entered the house. Jordan grabbed his cell phone, tool bag, and gun before jogging stealthily over to the side of the house. He peaked in the first floor window to see the man sitting next to the girl on a couch. The girl seemed nervous as they talked. She was wringing her hands together as she kept her long bare legs tightly crossed. Jordan guessed that she hadn’t been working the street for long because she didn’t seem comfortable in the situation. Jordan felt bad that such a cute girl had to be put in a situation like this. She had an awkward smile on her face as the man talked to her.
The man gently stroked his fingers up the boney leg of the girl and she flinched slightly. She didn’t like the intimacy of the situation. The man was abnormally short; right around five feet tall, but he must have weighed around 200 pounds. He reached up and kissed the girls neck. Being so short he almost had to stand up to reach. What an odd looking couple. The man was well dressed and well groomed. Not surprisingly, he fit the profile perfectly. Jordan would have to commend Frank for doing such a good job on the profile.
Suddenly the man got up and walked over to the window Jordan was standing under. Jordan ducked and ran around the corner of the house so the man wouldn’t see him. When he looked back at the window the man had closed the drapes. Quietly, Jordan ran around to the back of the house, but stopped when he saw a basement window that was boarded over. He pulled a fiber-optic snake camera out of his bag and fished it down in between the house and the board where rain had warped the wood in the middle. The camera showed that all that was behind the board was glass from the window and a dark cement room. Jordan pulled out his screwdriver and took out the screws that held the board to the house. Within a minute he had the board off and had cut the lock off the window. Jordan opened the window and slid down into the basement. Once inside, he replaced the board to make it look as though nothing had happened.
The basement was divided into several rooms with poorly constructed cement block walls; it looked almost like a medieval dungeon. Jordan pulled his gun out as he walked to a door on the other side of the room. The air in the basement was cold and musty with a slight hint of perfume in the air. He slowly peered around the corner to see two naked women unconscious and bound to the wall with rubber coated shackles. This made the room look even more like a dungeon. This guy must have some type of fetish about dungeons.
Jordan felt to see if the girls had a pulse; both of them did, but they were weak. The girls’ bodies were extremely cold. He tried to wake them but they seemed to be heavily drugged. On the other side of the room was a stainless steel bathtub, stocked with many types of industrial cleaners, which Jordan believed the man used to clean the girls before he let them go. A few feet away from the tub, a white cabinet sat on top of an old mini-fridge. Jordan looked in the cabinet to find several boxes of syringes and IV equipment. The refrigerator was loaded with at least ten bags of IV fluid and several small bottles of different types of drugs. He figured the abductor must be a doctor in order to have such a large supply of drugs and medical equipment. Frank’s profile was right on.
Jordan continued into the next room of the basement and was surprised to find that it was actually finished very nicely even though if felt like he had just walked onto a porno set. The walls were painted dry wall, the floor was carpeted, and there was a Japanese paper screen hiding the door to the rest of the basement. On the far side of the room were stairs up to the ground floor and next to Jordan was a king size waterbed. Beside the bed was a nightstand stocked with sex toys and oils. The room even came complete with a mirrored ceiling. This guy was a freak. It was smart for the man to perform these acts in the basement where there were no windows and thick walls to hold in the sound. The man could do anything he wanted and it would be almost impossible for neighbors to see or hear anything.
Jordan pulled out his Blackberry and dialed the U.P. office phone line. His IT specialist, Jim Webb, answered the call, but before Jordan could speak the door at the top of the stairs opened. He heard laughing as the man and the prostitute came down the stairs. Jordan quickly dashed back into the room with the two women chained to the wall. He cursed at himself for not calling for backup before he entered the house. He tried to whisper into the phone so the two in the next room wouldn’t hear him. Jim couldn’t understand what Jordan was trying to tell him. Jordan cursed at himself again, but quickly typed out a text to Jim, “Send help”. Jordan decided that he had to stop the man before he had a chance to harm the girl.
With Jim still on the line Jordan dropped his phone in his jacket pocket, and burst into the bedroom with his gun drawn. The man was sitting on the edge of the bed with the naked prostitute’s head buried in his lap.
Both were shocked when Jordan ripped the paper divider out of the way and yelled, “Freeze put your hands in the air!”
Jordan grabbed the girl by the shoulder and pulled her over behind him.
He yelled at the man, “You are under arrest for kidnapping and sexual assault. Put your hands against the-“.
Suddenly his head exploded in pain and he collapsed on the ground. He saw a broken lamp fall to the ground next to him. The girl must have thought that Jordan was after her rather than trying to protect her. When he looked up the man had taken off up the stairs. Jordan got up and tried to chase the man up the stairs but the prostitute jumped on his back and started beating him on the back of the head with her fist. Jordan shrugged her off and took off up the stairs after the man.
When he reached the top of the stairs he saw the man disappear out the front door. Jordan sprinted as fast as he could out the front door then down the street after the man. He kept himself in good shape so he figured he would be able to catch the man quickly, but the man was faster than Jordan had anticipated considering his portly stature. Jordan had run a block down the street and was still trailed by 40 yards. The man disappeared to the left down an alley between a music store and a pawn shop. Jordan chased and hoped the man was getting more tired than he was.
When Jordan reached the alley he was surprised to see the man was gone. The alley was cluttered with trash and other debris. The man wasn’t far enough ahead to make it to the other end before Jordan got there so he must still be in the alley. Jordan pulled out his flashlight and started looking on both sides of the alley to see if he could find the man. Jordan aimed his flashlight to the right side of the alley to inspect a dumpster. Behind him he heard the crack of glass breaking. He turned to look but only caught a glimpse of the man swinging a wood plank at him. He tried to duck, but it was too late. The board hit his shoulder and knocked his gun out of his hand. The gun rolled end over end down the alley and came to rest about ten feet away. The man swung again but Jordan was able to get out of the way this time. The weight of the board pulled the man off balance when he failed to make contact. Jordan drove his shoulder into the man’s gut and tackled him up against the side of the pawn shop. They exchanged punches and the man caught Jordan with a knee to the stomach that dazed him. The man got out from under Jordan and tried to get to his feet, but Jordan grabbed his legs and tackled him back to the ground. He looked up to see the man reaching for the gun, which was lying on the ground just out of reach. Jordan pulled on the man’s stocky legs to try to get him away from the gun, but the man kicked Jordan in the chest, knocking him back. The man rolled forward and picked up the gun. Jordan cringed as the man rose to his feet and aimed the gun at him. He heard two gunshots and held his breath expecting to feel the bullets tear through him. Surprisingly he didn’t feel any pain. He looked up to see the man collapse to the ground in front of him. From behind him a voice asked if he was all right. He turned to see flashing lights and a tall man in a police uniform.
Remembering the phone in his pocket Jordan collapsed on his back in the filth of the alley and pulled the phone out. “Jim, are you there?”
“Holy shit! Never fucking do that again! I thought you were dead. You’re lucky that I was tapped into the cell phone network and was able to access your GPS location,” Webb replied.
“I knew I hired you for a reason. Thanks for the help. I was a split second from being your former boss.”
Sounding a little more relaxed, “I have to go change my underwear now,” Webb kidded. “I’ll talk to you at work in the morning.”
The phone clicked before Jordan could say anything else. Still in shock Jordan continued to lay motionless in the alley. His chest throbbed with the remnants of the adrenaline rush from the fight. His life flashed before his eyes and all he could think about was Jen.
**********
A tiny green dot flashed across the black monitor. Lieutenant Garrett Jones stared through thick glasses as the dot on his radar screen stopped and froze motionless. After a moment Jones turned and yelled, “Commander, we’ve got a live one here.”
“What?” The Commander replied while rushing over from the far side of the room.
“I’ve got a large unknown, approximately 100 yards in diameter, right over Mt. Kanchenjunga. It looks the same as the other three UFOs we’ve monitored during the past two weeks.”
“Damn, are you sure?”
Jones tightened as Benson leaned over him to get a better view of the monitor. When Benson wasn’t happy he made everyone else’s life hell. “Yes sir, exactly 8:00 pm every three days in the same place every time.”
Commander Albert Benson stared drearily into the monitor at the U.N. radar station outside Kathmandu, Nepal. Benson was a tall man with a muscular build. Twelve years in the Army had turned him from a boy into a formidable man who was respected and feared by everyone under his command.
For the past nine days this object had flown into the southern part of the Himalayan Mountain range and hovered over Mt. Kanchenjunga. The object traveled at an estimated speed of 4000 miles per hour for the short time it was in the radar’s range. As far as Benson knew, nothing on Earth was capable of the speed and maneuverability that this object possessed. He knew of American attempts at such vehicles, but those were still more than 10 years away from testing. In the past, the Soviet Union could possibly have been responsible, but in its current condition Russia had a hard enough time feeding its people so developing cutting-edge aerospace technology wasn’t currently possible. Besides, all of the best Russian scientists had defected to the west as soon as they could get out.
China seemed to be another logical perpetrator, but even with the technology they had pirated from the U.S. they were at least 30 years away from a breakthrough like this. Benson had also seen reports that Chinese Air Force planes had been scrambled to try to rendezvous with the object, possibly even attempt to shoot it down. Satellite surveillance showed that the Chinese jets were never even able to get close enough for a visual of the object.
Benson’s radar station was used to track air travel over the Himalayan Mountains and was one of the most powerful in the world. Despite its incredible range of 500 miles, the radar was often regarded as a waste of money because of the many blind spots that existed due to the mountains that towered over most of the region. If someone wanted to, they could easily fly a plane undetected through the radar’s view.
The U.S. government paid for the radar during the eighties when Communism was still a threat. It was feared that Russian or Chinese planes would fly through that area if they were to attack India or southern Europe. In the mid-nineties, when the Communist threat was practically gone, the U.S. Government turned the radar over to the U.N. At nearly 30 years of age, the radar was still in good condition and performed its current job of monitoring commercial air traffic over the Himalayas well.
Benson had no idea why a radar contact like this would appear in the middle of the world’s largest mountain range. He could think of several explanations for what was happening. However, most of them sounded more like science fiction than fact. The thing that he couldn’t understand was how the radar could pick up the object given the advanced technology it seemed to possess. What scared Benson most about the object was that it looked to be purposefully staying out of the many blind spots as if it wanted to be seen.
Benson rubbed his temples as he watched the screen. This was going to give him a figurative headache to go along with the massive migraine that he already had. It seemed like ever since he had been assigned to the Kathmandu base his head throbbed relentlessly. He had gone to the doctor when the pain first started but was told that it was due to the high elevation and the pain would go away once his body adjusted. It was now six months later and his head still wasn’t any better.
He cursed himself for accepting the assignment to run this station for the U.N. After serving a tour in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq with the Army the opportunity came for Benson to take a desk job. He wasn’t fond of working in an office, but his wife thought differently. She worried about him every day that he was in the field. After four months of his Abby begging him he relented and accepted the assignment in Kathmandu. Now he was stuck at the top of the world for the next year and a half with only an occasional trip back to the States to see his wife. When this assignment was up he was home for good, which is what got him through every day.
The object began to move again awakening Benson from his daydream. It moved out of the radar’s view exactly opposite of its original flight path. He cursed under his breath as he walked to his office to start filing a report for the event. The previous three times it had taken him the better part of the evening to fill out all of the paperwork. As he walked away he yelled to his lieutenant, “Get me the Pentagon on the phone!”
**********
Jordan picked up his mail from his receptionist, Cheryl, when he arrived at the office around 9:00 in the morning. Cheryl had red hair and had been attractive when Jordan had first met her, but now she spent too much time sitting at her desk rather than moving around. She had definitely packed on a few pounds since Jordan had started working at U.P. Even though she was a little overweight Cheryl didn’t seem to have any problem dating. She had a reputation around the office for being easy. Jordan thought about asking her out when he first started at U.P., but after he realized how she operated he decided against it.
U.P. was located in The Parker Building, which was an office building near the Pentagon that the DoD leased. A majority of the divisions in the building were small and not highly thought of by the DoD higher-ups. Most of the offices seem to be a revolving door to whatever agency was the flavor of the month for the current administration. Jordan guessed than 90 percent of the Parker Building’s occupants had turned over since he first started at U.P. The majority of the people that were still around were support staff like Cheryl. This turnover gave her a near endless supply of men to date.
Jordan looked through the mail as he walked to his office. It consisted mostly of junk but there was one large manila envelope addressed from the Committee for National Defense. That was a post 9/11 Senate antiterrorism committee so Jordan was very surprised to see something from them.
As Jordan neared his office Cheryl yelled to him, “You have a call from a Commander Benson from the U.N. air base in Kathmandu holding for you on line three. He called about ten minutes ago and insisted on holding for you.”
Jordan gave her a nod and continued to his office. He had been speaking to Benson for the past two weeks about an unknown radar contact that his base was picking up every three days. This would make the fourth time it had happened so Jordan was expecting this call. The DoD had no idea which agency to pawn Benson off on so they eventually directed him to U.P. to get him out of their hair.
Jordan sat down at his desk, and picked up his phone. “What can I do for you Commander Benson?”
Benson answered in a deep raspy voice, “Do you know how much paperwork I have to do every time this happens? I want whatever this thing is to stop flying in my God damn airspace!”
In his most understanding voice Jordan said, “I’ve done everything that I can, but I don’t have the funds to take my team to the Himalayas to investigate this.” Jordan had to hold his tongue after saying this because he badly wanted to look into this case. In fact it was because of cases like this that he originally agreed to take the reins at U.P.
“Are you sure about that?” Benson asked. “I just got off the phone with the Pentagon and they said that you had been assigned investigate this case.
Jordan was surprised to hear this because the DoD rarely gave him big cases, especially a case as bizarre as this one. Suddenly he remembered the large envelope he had received from the Committee for National Defense. He asked Benson to hold while he quickly tore open the envelope. The enclosed file detailed a mission for the U.P. team to travel to Nepal to investigate the strange occurrences over Mt. Kanchenjunga. On March 17th the team would leave for Benson’s base in Kathmandu. On the 19th they would leave Benson’s base by helicopter and be dropped in a valley on the outskirts of the Kanchenjunga range, which was around 20 miles from the location of the suspected UFO activity. They would have to climb over 6,000 feet in their two day journey up the mountain. The goal was to observe the occurrence three times before they had to return to an area where they could be picked up by the helicopter. Unfortunately cargo helicopters only create enough lift to reach an altitude of around 14,000 feet, which would require them to travel the rest of the way once they got on the ground.
The Committee’s main objectives for the mission was to find out what was flying over the Himalayas, and ascertain if it affected the security of the United States in any way.
The team would leave Washington with five experimental 90 Degrees South snowmobiles powered by plutonium 238 batteries. The batteries supplied enough power to run the snowmobile for at least six years before the battery needed to be replaced. The battery technology was primarily used for deep space probes that couldn’t use solar power.
Jordan remembered reading a recent DoD report about Pu-238. The U.S. Government had recently restarted facilities to process Pu-238 which was a byproduct of the more common Pu-239 that was used in nuclear weapons. Officially the U.S. Government hadn’t produced any Pu-238 since the end of the Cold War, but Jordan had heard rumors of at least a couple small government labs that had continued to produce Pu-238 in secret. Pu-238 was much too valuable for the espionage operations of the CIA, and NASA not to have it. The CIA was able to bury the labs on the black budget so that only a few select people knew the details of its development. Any other news was unreliable information from conspiracy theorists. Rarely had Jordan heard a rumor about secret government activity unless there was at least a little truth to it.
Pu-238 batteries work by converting the radioactive decay of the Plutonium into electricity. A battery powerful enough to run a vehicle costs several million dollars and the production created massive amounts of radioactive waste, which limited Pu-238 to select government programs. The DoD owned several different types of battery powered vehicles for covert missions to isolated locations such as the arctic, deep space, and the oceans. Pu-238 batteries were much safer and smaller than building tiny nuclear reactors to go in the vehicles.
The snowmobiles would be loaded with supplies for the team to withstand a month of freezing temperatures up on the mountain. Even though the mission was only supposed to take a maximum of two weeks, the weather conditions in March could make extraction difficult so extra supplies would be taken. Most of the climbing base camps were abandoned at least until late April so once the helicopter dropped them off they would be cut off from the rest of the world until they came back down the mountain. A severe snow storm could strand them on the mountain for weeks so it would be helpful to be ready for the worst case scenario.
Jordan apologized to Benson for the misunderstanding and told him some of the details of the mission. After assuring Benson that he would get to the bottom of what was happening, he closed by saying he would talk to him in person in a few days. Jordan quickly read the rest of the mission profile after hanging up the phone.
Two of the five mission members were filled with people skilled in specialized fields. Jordan didn’t like the idea of having two unknown people on his team but the report gave a detailed description of the pair. First was Jacob Young; labeled as the guide for the expedition. The name was one, which Jordan recognized from an article he had read in an issue of ‘Newsweek’ around a year earlier. Reportedly, Young had lead a group of photographers to the top of the Maca Lonè peak in Ecuador to study some recently uncovered Incan ruins. The group got snowed in up at the ruins and Young climbed down by himself in a blizzard to get help for the others. Jordan was surprised to see such a famous name on the team.
The other team member was a computer expert from the FBI. Agent Michael Allen was infamous in every branch of the DoD. Allen was the man who got the FBI’s version of U.P. dismissed by making a large number of outrageous reports about alien activity. The most famous story about Allen was that he was arrested for trespassing on a military base in Montana. He claimed that aliens had kidnapped his partner just before he was captured. The FBI searched for Allen’s partner for two years before they found his body. Allen disputed that his partner was ever found claiming it was all an elaborate cover up to hide the truth.
If the FBI actually had a division like in the television show ‘The X-Files’ Allen would have been the head of it. Allen’s legitimate work lead the way for divisions like U.P., but his tendency to make grandiose and unbelievable explanations in his reports was also the reason the FBI stopped investigating unusual events. Because of this Jordan held a special contempt for Allen. Allen was also known for his inability to work with a team productively. Jordan was very reluctant about taking Allen, but an opportunity like this didn’t come very often so if the government wanted someone to baby sit its loose cannon Jordan wasn’t going to complain.
The U.P. consisted of five members, which wasn’t nearly enough for the amount of work that Jordan was supposed to do each year. Only three U.P. division members existed when Jordan was appointed division head at the age of 27, but under his leadership U.P. had grown by two members and obviously earned some attention from Congress. The division was now filled with four people whom Jordan had personally recruited.
The first member that Jordan hired after he assumed the reins of U.P. four years earlier was Jen Sommers. Jen was the only woman in U.P. After hiring Jen out of Stanford, Jordan wondered if anyone would criticize him about hiring someone that was so attractive, but after four years in U.P. Jen had proven to be the most proficient member of the team. Jen looked more like a model than an astrophysicist. She was tall with big blue eyes and long dark hair. Although Jordan would never admit it to anyone, he was madly in love with her.
Two years earlier he and Jen were on a mission to explore UFO activity in the Andes Mountains. The roof of a cave crumbled when Jordan walked over it and he plummeted 30 feet to the cold rocky floor below. The large pack he was wearing softened the landing from the waist up but unfortunately his lower body wasn’t as lucky. His right leg was shattered in three places. Jen quickly called for a rescue team and set up a large target so they could be found. She then repelled down into the cave to help Jordan. It took 24 hours for the rescue helicopter to reach their location. During that time Jen put a splint on his leg and stitched up the cut from where the bone had broken through his skin. Jordan first started to think of her as more than a friend during the night. The temperature dropped into the low teens and he couldn’t be moved into one of the insulated tents. The entire night Jen stayed with him using all of their blankets to cover them and keep him alive. That night when Jordan was able to sleep through the incredible pain of his leg all his thoughts focused on Jen.
After they were airlifted to safety and Jordan was transported back to a hospital in Washington Jen visited him every day. She talked to him for hours, sometimes even falling asleep on the couch in his room. Now he was very much in love with her, she occupied many of his dreams, asleep as well as awake.
The second team member Jordan brought in was an old friend of his, Frank Smith. Frank was two years younger than Jordan but they had both been Kappa Alpha’s at Kent State University where they had become good friends. Jordan had graduated five years before Frank had finished his PhD and was already two years into U.P. when he found out Frank had applied for and been turned down by the FBI. Jordan was in serious need of a clinical psychologist at the time, so he called Frank and offered him a job.
Like Jordan, Frank’s parents had died when he was young, but Frank and his sister grew very close in their absence, unlike Jordan and his brother. After Jordan graduated from college Frank continued his education to receive a Masters and Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Over the years Jordan had found Frank’s friendship and counseling to be very helpful. Frank was the only other person in the world that knew about Jordan’s feeling for Jen which Jordan often regretted. Frank would frequently find ways to needle Jordan about Jen with the ultimate goal of getting them together.
The third member Jordan recruited was Jim Webb, a 37-year-old computer and communications expert. Webb had no formal education, but he could hack into almost any computer network. Jim’s only problem was his total lack of soft skills. If a person could live their life completely online Jim would be extremely popular. Sometimes Jordan would come into the office and Jim would be sitting at his desk playing ‘World of Warcraft’ wearing the same clothes that he had worn the previous day. All of Jim’s spare time was spent in the office or at home working on the computer, which could be seen just by looking at him. Jordan guessed Jim weighed around 300 pounds, which was even more astonishing since he was only 5’9”. Over the two years Webb had been with U.P., Jordan had never seen him get exercise of any kind. Due to lack of sun exposure Webb’s skin was extremely pale; so much so that many of the other people in the building jokingly referred to him as Casper. Due to Webb’s physical condition, and lack of people skills Jordan believed Jim would most likely spend the rest of his time with U.P. behind a desk.
The final member of the U.P. team was Al Schmidt, who in his early days was perhaps the most reputable newspaper reporter in Washington D.C. In his day Al uncovered scandals and cover-ups where many other reporters thought nothing was wrong. His reporting career ended when a young secretary charged him with sexual assault. When Al destroyed the validity of the girl’s charges the ‘Washington Post’ bribed him to stay quiet and find a job somewhere else. Jordan hoped he looked as good at 50 as Al did. If not for his silver hair and a few wrinkles around his eyes, Al looked and acted like he was in his early thirties. So far at U.P. Al’s skill for detective work had proven invaluable in many of the cases. Jordan was amazed at the way Al could work the system in D.C. Al would be the ultimate car salesman. He could read people like nothing Jordan had ever seen and had an uncanny ability to get them to do what he wanted. He always seemed to take home all the money from the monthly office poker game. If Al ever decided to run for office, Jordan believed that he would make an excellent politician.
**********
The rest of the U.P. team came into the office around 10:00 in the morning. Jordan was still overwhelmed by the excitement of finally getting a real mission. It was times like this he remembered why he had taken the U.P. job in the first place. Five years ago he had been one of the best young fighter pilots in the Air Force. He had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander in only four years.
One dark night he was flying his F-22 at around 38,000 feet over the New Mexico desert. As he flew the plane he had an experience that changed his life. He looked out to the left of his plane and saw a greenish light that looked as though it was moving parallel to him at the same speed. Suddenly the object moved toward him so quickly that he couldn’t even react. As he tried to veer the plane away from the light it moved directly in front of him. The plane seemed to stop, then in an instant the light was gone and Jordan was flying again. When he looked at his watch it read that 30 minutes had passed since he had last checked the time, but he had just checked it a minute before he saw the light.
Not knowing what happened Jordan refused to report anything to his superiors. He tried to continue his career as a pilot, but found himself distracted when he was in the cockpit. His performance evaluations progressively got worse and eventually he was asked to take a desk job. Jordan contemplated resigning and taking a civilian job, but almost by mistake he came across the posting for the head of the U.P. He set up an interview and got the job. The previous head had quit because she thought the job was a joke. The other two members didn’t last two years with Jordan, claiming he was insane. Jordan didn’t care because he had found his calling.
In a division like U.P. Jordan had to be very careful how far he went with his explanations for events in his reports. Too little and he would be seen as incompetent; too much and he would be completely delusional. One of his gifts was knowing what buttons could be pushed and which ones should be left alone.
Jordan sat in his office until the final member came into the meeting room at five after ten. He didn’t mind that everyone was a little late seeing that they all had a pretty long night, even though his was longer than the others. Jordan’s shoulder was stiff where the man had hit him with the board, and his face was bruised in a few places where he had been punched. In the meeting room the four U.P. members sat talking over a box of donuts that Frank had brought in. Jordan was surprised that the entire team worked so well together with the large amount of expertise in different areas, but they were a good team and all good friends as well. In the meeting room Frank and Al were arguing about sports, as they did most mornings. Sometimes Jordan would join in on the discussions, but not today.
Jen gasped as Jordan walked into the meeting room. Running over to look at his face she scolded him for not telling her how badly he was hurt the night before. Knowing that Jen would overreact he purposely had not told her about the severity of his injuries hoping that he would be able to clean himself up a little before she saw him. Ever since Chile, Jen had taken care of him every time the slightest thing happened to him. If he had told her about his injuries Jen would have been waiting for him at his house when he got home. Jordan assured her that he was fine and tried to continue the meeting with Jen still examining the abrasions on his face.
“I have some great news. We’ve been given a mission by the Senate Committee for National Defense for three of us along with two other specialists to go to Nepal and investigate a UFO occurrence,” said Jordan. “Jen and Frank will accompany me to Nepal, while Jim and Al will handle mission support here in Washington.”
Jordan felt bad that Jen and Frank always got to go on the missions, but Jim and Al were much better suited for support work in Washington. They were used to staying home on the missions, usually sitting by a computer in the office or performing research for the people on the mission.
Jordan passed out copies of the mission details and ran through the highlights keeping all four team members completely intrigued with what he was saying. After he finished Jordan gave the team the rest of the day to get ready for the trip because they had to be ready to leave in less than three days.
After everyone left, Jordan went back to his office. Unlike the rest of the team, he had a large amount of work to do before they left. As he was getting ready to get to work he heard a knock at his door. He said, “It’s unlocked,” and Jen walked into his office.
“I just wanted to thank you for putting me on the mission,” she said as she walked in and sat down in a chair across from Jordan’s desk. Jen knew that she didn’t have to thank him, but it was just her way of starting a conversation.
Jordan was used to this because ever since his accident he and Jen talked regularly. Just about little things, he enjoyed spending time with her. Every now and then he would ask her to dinner just to talk. She was the closest thing he’d had to a relationship since college.
“Who else am I going to take? I know Al is handsome but I don’t think his mere presence can manipulate men into doing whatever he says, like you can.”
She gave a short laugh, he was good at making her laugh, “With lines like that no wonder you’re so popular with the ladies, but you know what I mean. I was wondering if you would want to come over for dinner tonight, kind of a bon voyage meal. It’s the least I can do since it looks like you’re going to be busy the rest of the day.”
Jordan was thrilled; Jen was one of the best cooks he knew. “Sure, what time?”
“Around seven.”
“I’ll be sure to skip lunch today.” Jen backed out of the door smiling, and walked away. Jordan was happy; he hardly knew Jen outside of the office before the accident in Chile, but during that time they had spent hours talking to keep his mind off of the pain. He continued the mission preparation with a new found zeal.
**********
From the roof of the Cathedral of St. Maria in Rio de Janeiro, Alexander Stanislov gazed through the scope of his Russian SV-98 sniper rifle. Stanislov was a short wiry man, but that build served him well in his occupation. His size allowed him to move around without drawing attention to himself much easier than a tall man. He could disappear into a crowd with ease. If there was one thing that he had learned from being an assassin it was to blend in with his surroundings.
Through his earpiece a voice with an Irish accent said, “Stas, the target will be in range in 30 seconds. Take aim on the phone booth and await further instructions.”
Stas shifted his aim slightly and refocused the scope on the nearby phone booth. The hair on his hand started to tingle slightly. The wind had picked up. Stas adjusted the scope to counter the wind. Every little variable had to be accounted for. He was only going to have one shot so it had to be perfect. His team had spent a month planning this hit down to the letter. Three million dollars was riding on everything going as planned.
Stas didn’t know exactly who had hired him for this job, but he did know that his target was the leader of the Green Wave Foundation. Green Wave’s goal was to clean up the environment and the oceans of the world. The target, Jerome Waterman, was the head of the organization. The Waterman family had made a fortune in the oil business during the 20th century. Waterman Oil was the largest privately owned oil producer in the world when Jerome had taken over for his deceased father in 2002. Jerome had always detested the family business and shut down all of the company’s oil wells as soon as he took control. He devoted all of the Waterman assets to developing clean burning fuel sources. In 2006 the scientists at Waterman Oil developed a device that could separate water into hydrogen and oxygen more economically than anyone thought was possible. Shortly after Jerome turned the day to day operations of Waterman Oil over to one of his friends and started Green Wave. He was now traveling all over the world trying to get governments to pass legislation to call for the end of burning fossil fuels.
Needless to say the discoveries of Waterman Oil had all of the other players in the oil industry running scared. They had not planned on having to deal with a technological leap like Waterman had come up with for many years. The Waterman device could produce clean burning hydrogen for cars at significantly less cost per mile driven than gasoline. In response OPEC had slashed the price of a barrel of oil in half hoping to stave off anti-oil legislation for a few years while the industry tried to catch up with Waterman. Several countries had already passed legislation to start building and selling cars that ran on hydrogen fuel cells and fuel stations that carried liquid hydrogen for fuel.
Stas believed this was all the reason most of the oil companies would need to put a contract on Jerome Waterman’s life.
In his earpiece the voice said, “Target is in the black limo pulling up. Fire at will.”
Stas took aim on the back door of the Limo. There were hundreds of Green Wave supporters gathered in front of the Rio Convocation Center waiting to see Jerome Waterman so Stas would have to make his one shot count. Chances are that if he missed or had to take more than one shot someone in the crowd would see where the shot came from and make his escape much more difficult.
Two security guards were the first out of the car, followed by an attractive looking woman and finally Waterman. Stas zeroed in on Waterman’s head, but right when he was getting ready to pull the trigger another security guard got out of the limo behind Waterman. Stas cursed in Russian. He had no shot. The guard was enormous and totally blocked out Waterman. Suddenly Waterman changed his direction and headed for the crowd. Seeing this opportunity Stas didn’t hesitate. He squeezed the trigger and saw blood explode from Waterman’s head. Stas held the gun in position for two more seconds just to make sure that the shot had been fatal. When he was sure that Waterman was indeed dead Stas crouched down behind the wall and quickly disassembled the gun.
A minute later Stas was on his way out of the back of the church dressed in priest’s robes. He boarded a bus as soon as he reached the street and headed toward the other side of town. Around two blocks down the street Stas felt a vibration coming from his coat pocket. It was his cell phone. Thankful that it hadn’t started vibrating a few minutes earlier Stas pulled the phone out of his robe and answered. “How may I help you?”
The gruff mechanical voice on the other end replied, “This is Drako I have a job for you. How soon can you be in Washington D.C.?”
Stas replied, “Tomorrow morning, usual place, 10 am”. Stas closed his phone.
He didn’t know anything about Drako, but he had worked for him several times in the past and knew that the man paid very generously. Of course anyone who hired Stas had to pay generously, but Stas knew it was worth it for his clients.
Four police cars passed the bus in the opposite direction with their sirens blaring. Stas marveled at his own brilliance. No one would ever suspect a priest had just assassinated someone.
A young boy stared at Stas from across the bus. As Stas got up to exit the bus he patted the boy on the head. “Bless you my son.”
A silver SUV was waiting for Stas at the stop. He quickly got in and the SUV sped away. Looking to the man next to him Stas asked, “Did we receive payment?”
Michael O’Grady looked back at him and said, “The money was transferred into our Cayman account 3 minutes ago. Our client called and said they were very pleased.”
“That’s great. I have some good news of my own. I just received a call from our friend Drako. He has some work for us.”
Vladislov Petrovic turned around quickly from the front passenger seat. “We just finished a job. You can’t possibly be suggesting that we start another one right away.”
“Vlad it won’t hurt to at least meet with him to see what the job is. Drako is our best client. I would hate to lose his business to another outfit.”
Vlad looked away angrily. Stas knew Vlad would come around, but he was always the cautious one. It was Vlad’s careful nature that kept Stas from taking unnecessary risks. Vlad was like a brother to him. They had been friends since they were schoolboys in the Ukraine. They joined the KGB together and were Russia’s best assassin team until the communist regime fell in the early 90’s. After that they went off to work on their own.
They had picked up O’Grady in 1996 after he left the IRA looking for more profitable work. Grady as they called him had done a little bit of everything for the IRA. He could build a bomb, help with an armed raid, but he specialized in computer work. He was an adept hacker and with Stas’ knowledge of the Russian satellite network could take over a Russian spy satellite when the need arose.
The newest member of their group was Terence Williams who everyone referred to as Te. Te had been a car thief in Miami until Stas needed some help with a job there two years back. Stas needed a driver and after asking around found out Te was the best in town. The job had gone so well that Stas had asked Te to become a member of his team. The money was too much to turn down so Te accepted. Over the past two years Te had soaked up every piece of information that Stas had taught him about the assassin business. He was now capable of much more than just driving. Te was a tall muscular black man who stuck out like a sore thumb around the other three. Despite their cultural differences everyone got along well and were well known in the nefarious world of assassins. Clients knew that if you needed someone dead Stas was the best man for the job.
**********
Jordan was starving as he drove to Jen’s house in Coral Hills, just outside of the city. She lived in a cozy two bedroom townhouse that made for an easy 20 minute commute. Jordan had a busy day trying to get everything ready to go for the trip. It seemed like all of the equipment that he was supposed to have was in faraway places and was going to take a couple days to transport to him. He almost felt like someone was trying to slow him down.
Jordan pulled into Jen’s driveway when he arrived at her house. He remembered the first time that he had come over for dinner like it was yesterday. The first mistake he had made was knocking on the door. After Jen let him in she gave him a five minute lecture about how friends don’t knock on each other’s door. You aren’t truly friends with someone until you can just walk in. That is a mistake that Jordan had never made again.
As he walked in the door the aroma of garlic hit him in the nose like a heavyweight boxer. Jen was making Italian, his favorite. “Looks like you had a productive day”, Jordan said to announce that he was there.
“You’re early, I’m not done yet. Come here and have a glass of wine and tell me how your day went.”
At that point it hit Jordan. It was like they were married and had never been on a date. He strolled into the kitchen and poured them both a glass of Shiraz from the bottle of that Jen had set out.
“It was actually a pretty rough day. Most of the supplies for our mission are delayed. It will be all I can do to get them ready to leave by Monday.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage. You always do.”
“Enough about my day, what delicacy have you fixed for us tonight?”
“In honor of this being a big day for you I made your favorite, chicken parmesan.”
She was absolutely right. Jordan loved chicken parmesan, especially the way Jen prepared it. Jen’s was better than any restaurant he had been to even when he was in Italy.
“It will be done in a few minutes. Why don’t you wash up and help me set the table?”
Jordan didn’t argue because he couldn’t wait to get his hands on dinner. He quickly washed his hands and set the table while Jen served the plates of food. Jordan wasted no time cutting off a piece of chicken and placing it in his mouth. He let out a soft moan as he savored the flavor.
**********
After dinner Jordan helped Jen clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. She reached around him to grab a plate and brushed his back a little too hard where he had been hit with the board the night before causing him to flinch from the pain. Jordan hoped that Jen hadn’t noticed, but it took a whole second for the red flag to go up.
“What was that?” Jen said very concerned.
“Nothing, just a little bruise from the fight last night, I guess.” He tried to play it off like it was nothing, but she knew him too well. He had a very high threshold for pain and anything that would make him cringe like he just did must be very painful.
“Let me see it.” Jen said in her strict motherly voice.
She didn’t wait for him to acknowledge her request. She grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head.
“Oh my god! Did you know it was this bad? You have a four inch purple bruise across your back. Heck there are colors in there that I didn’t know skin could turn. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Go lay on the bed, I’ll make you a bag of ice to put on it.”
Jordan couldn’t even get in a word until she started making the ice bag. “You know it really isn’t as bad as it looks.”
She stared at him for a second and said two words. “Bed, now!”
Jordan relented and went to lie down on her bed. Jen followed him in and placed the bag of ice on his back. She sat down on the bed next to him with a look of anger on her face that Jordan hoped he would never see again.
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Jordan yawned. He had been sitting in the same spot for five hours waiting for the suspect to show. Over the past month twelve prostitutes had been abducted from Washington D.C. streets. That in itself wasn’t extremely unusual, but four days after the girls were taken, they were found tied naked to trees in D.C. and surrounding area parks. They were always alive but they were unable to communicate; almost like their brains had been scrambled. The abductor never left any evidence. Jordan believed that the abductor cleaned the girls before he let them go.
Physical examinations showed that the girls had brutal trauma to their mouths and sexual organs, but the blood work never showed anything irregular. Jordan couldn’t imagine the depraved acts the abductor was forcing the girls to perform. All of the doctors that examined them couldn’t determine why the girls were practically comatose. Two of the girls were still missing, and if the abductor held to his pattern, he was going to take another tonight. From interviewing friends of the abducted girls, Jordan and the rest of his team had developed a psychological profile of the abductor. He was a white male, short, overweight, mid-thirties, and was highly educated. The abductor most likely held at least a PhD. Most helpful, however, was the fact that the abductor always drove a rental SUV registered under a fake name. The DC area provided a large number of small privately owned car rental vendors that allowed the suspect to pay with cash and use a fake ID so he was untraceable. The suspect also had very specific taste in girls; the Paris Hilton look; tall, blonde, and very thin. So far all of the victims were over 5’10”, and under 120 pounds. Jordan thought that the killer had pent up rage against tall women, almost certainly because he was short. He had most likely been insulted or intimidated by at least one tall woman and liked to receive sexual gratification from them and then hurt them.
He stared drearily through his foggy windshield hoping that his suspect would show soon so he could go home and get some much needed sleep. Jordan was the head of a small section of the Department of Defense called the Unusual Phenomenon Division. Funding for the U.P. was hard for Jordan to come by. The division itself only had the budget to investigate a couple major incidents a year. The primary way Jordan acquired funds for extra investigations was when other agencies didn’t have the resources to spend their time on a project, but the DoD wanted it investigated, so the burden and a little money fell to U.P.
Many people at the DoD thought of U.P. as a laughingstock because of a small number high profile cases Jordan had investigated that dealt with UFO activity. He hated being the butt of so many jokes, but the work that U.P. performed spoke for itself. His superiors knew that giving a case to U.P. equaled results.
Jordan looked down to grab the six-hour-old hamburger that he had picked up in case this turned into a long night. He was a tall man at a few inches over six feet. Jordan had been one of the taller pilots while he was in the Air Force. Most pilots were less than six feet tall because their smaller frames could better handle the G-forces of flying jet fighters. Back in the Air Force Jordan had kept his hair short, but he had let it grow out after leaving the military. He now kept his hair in the shaggy messed-up look that was popular among many younger men. Jordan just found it to be the easiest hair style that looked good on him.
Ever since he started playing football in junior high, Jordan loved to workout. He never tried to develop huge muscles, but he liked to keep himself well-toned. In high school, Jordan had been an all-city strong safety at his school in Pittsburgh. After he decided to become a pilot, he had needed to keep his body mass low because of his height. Jordan didn’t work out as much since he left the Air Force, but tried to make it to the gym a few times a week. His stomach was no longer as defined as it had been several years earlier, but he could still see his abs near the surface. Getting old was a bitch.
He hoped that he was on the right street. Only three areas of Washington D.C. had enough prostitutes for the abductor to find one that met his specific tastes. Other U.P. team members were watching the other two areas of the city in case the abductor showed there.
For some reason the police knew that prostitution was rampant, but they seemed to look the other way as long the prostitutes stayed in low visibility areas. Jordan figured enough of the politicians used the services that these women provided that the police had decided to stay clear of the whole mess. In actuality Washington D.C. has the third highest sex-for-hire business of all U.S. cities behind Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Powerful men seemed to have voracious sexual appetites. Usually the politicians would use one of the many exclusive high-priced escort services that operated in the area, but Jordan had heard several stories about Congressmen sending a trusted aide out to find a girl off of the street to help play out their most deviant sexual fantasies. There were no ‘Pretty Woman’ stories here. If a disgruntled prostitute was seen as a threat she would disappear and never be seen again.
Jordan looked at his watch, which said it was shortly after two in the morning. He was shocked when he looked up. A dark blue Ford Expedition was slowly driving down the row of girls while the driver studied the women from behind tinted windows. Jordan typed the license plate number into his laptop. A few seconds later, the vehicle information came up on his screen. It was a rental from the Baltimore Airport. Jordan watched as the girls tried to catch the eye of the man in the SUV. Then Jordan saw a girl that fit the target perfectly. She was over six feet tall, blonde, and her body looked like a skeleton covered with pale white skin. The man saw her shortly after Jordan and immediately stopped. Within 30 seconds the vehicle drove off with the girl inside. Jordan started his car and followed about 100 yards behind the SUV.
After driving for 20, minutes the SUV stopped in front of a worn-down brownstone in Georgetown. Jordan turned off his lights and pulled over to the side of the road while the man and his companion entered the house. Jordan grabbed his cell phone, tool bag, and gun before jogging stealthily over to the side of the house. He peaked in the first floor window to see the man sitting next to the girl on a couch. The girl seemed nervous as they talked. She was wringing her hands together as she kept her long bare legs tightly crossed. Jordan guessed that she hadn’t been working the street for long because she didn’t seem comfortable in the situation. Jordan felt bad that such a cute girl had to be put in a situation like this. She had an awkward smile on her face as the man talked to her.
The man gently stroked his fingers up the boney leg of the girl and she flinched slightly. She didn’t like the intimacy of the situation. The man was abnormally short; right around five feet tall, but he must have weighed around 200 pounds. He reached up and kissed the girls neck. Being so short he almost had to stand up to reach. What an odd looking couple. The man was well dressed and well groomed. Not surprisingly, he fit the profile perfectly. Jordan would have to commend Frank for doing such a good job on the profile.
Suddenly the man got up and walked over to the window Jordan was standing under. Jordan ducked and ran around the corner of the house so the man wouldn’t see him. When he looked back at the window the man had closed the drapes. Quietly, Jordan ran around to the back of the house, but stopped when he saw a basement window that was boarded over. He pulled a fiber-optic snake camera out of his bag and fished it down in between the house and the board where rain had warped the wood in the middle. The camera showed that all that was behind the board was glass from the window and a dark cement room. Jordan pulled out his screwdriver and took out the screws that held the board to the house. Within a minute he had the board off and had cut the lock off the window. Jordan opened the window and slid down into the basement. Once inside, he replaced the board to make it look as though nothing had happened.
The basement was divided into several rooms with poorly constructed cement block walls; it looked almost like a medieval dungeon. Jordan pulled his gun out as he walked to a door on the other side of the room. The air in the basement was cold and musty with a slight hint of perfume in the air. He slowly peered around the corner to see two naked women unconscious and bound to the wall with rubber coated shackles. This made the room look even more like a dungeon. This guy must have some type of fetish about dungeons.
Jordan felt to see if the girls had a pulse; both of them did, but they were weak. The girls’ bodies were extremely cold. He tried to wake them but they seemed to be heavily drugged. On the other side of the room was a stainless steel bathtub, stocked with many types of industrial cleaners, which Jordan believed the man used to clean the girls before he let them go. A few feet away from the tub, a white cabinet sat on top of an old mini-fridge. Jordan looked in the cabinet to find several boxes of syringes and IV equipment. The refrigerator was loaded with at least ten bags of IV fluid and several small bottles of different types of drugs. He figured the abductor must be a doctor in order to have such a large supply of drugs and medical equipment. Frank’s profile was right on.
Jordan continued into the next room of the basement and was surprised to find that it was actually finished very nicely even though if felt like he had just walked onto a porno set. The walls were painted dry wall, the floor was carpeted, and there was a Japanese paper screen hiding the door to the rest of the basement. On the far side of the room were stairs up to the ground floor and next to Jordan was a king size waterbed. Beside the bed was a nightstand stocked with sex toys and oils. The room even came complete with a mirrored ceiling. This guy was a freak. It was smart for the man to perform these acts in the basement where there were no windows and thick walls to hold in the sound. The man could do anything he wanted and it would be almost impossible for neighbors to see or hear anything.
Jordan pulled out his Blackberry and dialed the U.P. office phone line. His IT specialist, Jim Webb, answered the call, but before Jordan could speak the door at the top of the stairs opened. He heard laughing as the man and the prostitute came down the stairs. Jordan quickly dashed back into the room with the two women chained to the wall. He cursed at himself for not calling for backup before he entered the house. He tried to whisper into the phone so the two in the next room wouldn’t hear him. Jim couldn’t understand what Jordan was trying to tell him. Jordan cursed at himself again, but quickly typed out a text to Jim, “Send help”. Jordan decided that he had to stop the man before he had a chance to harm the girl.
With Jim still on the line Jordan dropped his phone in his jacket pocket, and burst into the bedroom with his gun drawn. The man was sitting on the edge of the bed with the naked prostitute’s head buried in his lap.
Both were shocked when Jordan ripped the paper divider out of the way and yelled, “Freeze put your hands in the air!”
Jordan grabbed the girl by the shoulder and pulled her over behind him.
He yelled at the man, “You are under arrest for kidnapping and sexual assault. Put your hands against the-“.
Suddenly his head exploded in pain and he collapsed on the ground. He saw a broken lamp fall to the ground next to him. The girl must have thought that Jordan was after her rather than trying to protect her. When he looked up the man had taken off up the stairs. Jordan got up and tried to chase the man up the stairs but the prostitute jumped on his back and started beating him on the back of the head with her fist. Jordan shrugged her off and took off up the stairs after the man.
When he reached the top of the stairs he saw the man disappear out the front door. Jordan sprinted as fast as he could out the front door then down the street after the man. He kept himself in good shape so he figured he would be able to catch the man quickly, but the man was faster than Jordan had anticipated considering his portly stature. Jordan had run a block down the street and was still trailed by 40 yards. The man disappeared to the left down an alley between a music store and a pawn shop. Jordan chased and hoped the man was getting more tired than he was.
When Jordan reached the alley he was surprised to see the man was gone. The alley was cluttered with trash and other debris. The man wasn’t far enough ahead to make it to the other end before Jordan got there so he must still be in the alley. Jordan pulled out his flashlight and started looking on both sides of the alley to see if he could find the man. Jordan aimed his flashlight to the right side of the alley to inspect a dumpster. Behind him he heard the crack of glass breaking. He turned to look but only caught a glimpse of the man swinging a wood plank at him. He tried to duck, but it was too late. The board hit his shoulder and knocked his gun out of his hand. The gun rolled end over end down the alley and came to rest about ten feet away. The man swung again but Jordan was able to get out of the way this time. The weight of the board pulled the man off balance when he failed to make contact. Jordan drove his shoulder into the man’s gut and tackled him up against the side of the pawn shop. They exchanged punches and the man caught Jordan with a knee to the stomach that dazed him. The man got out from under Jordan and tried to get to his feet, but Jordan grabbed his legs and tackled him back to the ground. He looked up to see the man reaching for the gun, which was lying on the ground just out of reach. Jordan pulled on the man’s stocky legs to try to get him away from the gun, but the man kicked Jordan in the chest, knocking him back. The man rolled forward and picked up the gun. Jordan cringed as the man rose to his feet and aimed the gun at him. He heard two gunshots and held his breath expecting to feel the bullets tear through him. Surprisingly he didn’t feel any pain. He looked up to see the man collapse to the ground in front of him. From behind him a voice asked if he was all right. He turned to see flashing lights and a tall man in a police uniform.
Remembering the phone in his pocket Jordan collapsed on his back in the filth of the alley and pulled the phone out. “Jim, are you there?”
“Holy shit! Never fucking do that again! I thought you were dead. You’re lucky that I was tapped into the cell phone network and was able to access your GPS location,” Webb replied.
“I knew I hired you for a reason. Thanks for the help. I was a split second from being your former boss.”
Sounding a little more relaxed, “I have to go change my underwear now,” Webb kidded. “I’ll talk to you at work in the morning.”
The phone clicked before Jordan could say anything else. Still in shock Jordan continued to lay motionless in the alley. His chest throbbed with the remnants of the adrenaline rush from the fight. His life flashed before his eyes and all he could think about was Jen.
**********
A tiny green dot flashed across the black monitor. Lieutenant Garrett Jones stared through thick glasses as the dot on his radar screen stopped and froze motionless. After a moment Jones turned and yelled, “Commander, we’ve got a live one here.”
“What?” The Commander replied while rushing over from the far side of the room.
“I’ve got a large unknown, approximately 100 yards in diameter, right over Mt. Kanchenjunga. It looks the same as the other three UFOs we’ve monitored during the past two weeks.”
“Damn, are you sure?”
Jones tightened as Benson leaned over him to get a better view of the monitor. When Benson wasn’t happy he made everyone else’s life hell. “Yes sir, exactly 8:00 pm every three days in the same place every time.”
Commander Albert Benson stared drearily into the monitor at the U.N. radar station outside Kathmandu, Nepal. Benson was a tall man with a muscular build. Twelve years in the Army had turned him from a boy into a formidable man who was respected and feared by everyone under his command.
For the past nine days this object had flown into the southern part of the Himalayan Mountain range and hovered over Mt. Kanchenjunga. The object traveled at an estimated speed of 4000 miles per hour for the short time it was in the radar’s range. As far as Benson knew, nothing on Earth was capable of the speed and maneuverability that this object possessed. He knew of American attempts at such vehicles, but those were still more than 10 years away from testing. In the past, the Soviet Union could possibly have been responsible, but in its current condition Russia had a hard enough time feeding its people so developing cutting-edge aerospace technology wasn’t currently possible. Besides, all of the best Russian scientists had defected to the west as soon as they could get out.
China seemed to be another logical perpetrator, but even with the technology they had pirated from the U.S. they were at least 30 years away from a breakthrough like this. Benson had also seen reports that Chinese Air Force planes had been scrambled to try to rendezvous with the object, possibly even attempt to shoot it down. Satellite surveillance showed that the Chinese jets were never even able to get close enough for a visual of the object.
Benson’s radar station was used to track air travel over the Himalayan Mountains and was one of the most powerful in the world. Despite its incredible range of 500 miles, the radar was often regarded as a waste of money because of the many blind spots that existed due to the mountains that towered over most of the region. If someone wanted to, they could easily fly a plane undetected through the radar’s view.
The U.S. government paid for the radar during the eighties when Communism was still a threat. It was feared that Russian or Chinese planes would fly through that area if they were to attack India or southern Europe. In the mid-nineties, when the Communist threat was practically gone, the U.S. Government turned the radar over to the U.N. At nearly 30 years of age, the radar was still in good condition and performed its current job of monitoring commercial air traffic over the Himalayas well.
Benson had no idea why a radar contact like this would appear in the middle of the world’s largest mountain range. He could think of several explanations for what was happening. However, most of them sounded more like science fiction than fact. The thing that he couldn’t understand was how the radar could pick up the object given the advanced technology it seemed to possess. What scared Benson most about the object was that it looked to be purposefully staying out of the many blind spots as if it wanted to be seen.
Benson rubbed his temples as he watched the screen. This was going to give him a figurative headache to go along with the massive migraine that he already had. It seemed like ever since he had been assigned to the Kathmandu base his head throbbed relentlessly. He had gone to the doctor when the pain first started but was told that it was due to the high elevation and the pain would go away once his body adjusted. It was now six months later and his head still wasn’t any better.
He cursed himself for accepting the assignment to run this station for the U.N. After serving a tour in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq with the Army the opportunity came for Benson to take a desk job. He wasn’t fond of working in an office, but his wife thought differently. She worried about him every day that he was in the field. After four months of his Abby begging him he relented and accepted the assignment in Kathmandu. Now he was stuck at the top of the world for the next year and a half with only an occasional trip back to the States to see his wife. When this assignment was up he was home for good, which is what got him through every day.
The object began to move again awakening Benson from his daydream. It moved out of the radar’s view exactly opposite of its original flight path. He cursed under his breath as he walked to his office to start filing a report for the event. The previous three times it had taken him the better part of the evening to fill out all of the paperwork. As he walked away he yelled to his lieutenant, “Get me the Pentagon on the phone!”
**********
Jordan picked up his mail from his receptionist, Cheryl, when he arrived at the office around 9:00 in the morning. Cheryl had red hair and had been attractive when Jordan had first met her, but now she spent too much time sitting at her desk rather than moving around. She had definitely packed on a few pounds since Jordan had started working at U.P. Even though she was a little overweight Cheryl didn’t seem to have any problem dating. She had a reputation around the office for being easy. Jordan thought about asking her out when he first started at U.P., but after he realized how she operated he decided against it.
U.P. was located in The Parker Building, which was an office building near the Pentagon that the DoD leased. A majority of the divisions in the building were small and not highly thought of by the DoD higher-ups. Most of the offices seem to be a revolving door to whatever agency was the flavor of the month for the current administration. Jordan guessed than 90 percent of the Parker Building’s occupants had turned over since he first started at U.P. The majority of the people that were still around were support staff like Cheryl. This turnover gave her a near endless supply of men to date.
Jordan looked through the mail as he walked to his office. It consisted mostly of junk but there was one large manila envelope addressed from the Committee for National Defense. That was a post 9/11 Senate antiterrorism committee so Jordan was very surprised to see something from them.
As Jordan neared his office Cheryl yelled to him, “You have a call from a Commander Benson from the U.N. air base in Kathmandu holding for you on line three. He called about ten minutes ago and insisted on holding for you.”
Jordan gave her a nod and continued to his office. He had been speaking to Benson for the past two weeks about an unknown radar contact that his base was picking up every three days. This would make the fourth time it had happened so Jordan was expecting this call. The DoD had no idea which agency to pawn Benson off on so they eventually directed him to U.P. to get him out of their hair.
Jordan sat down at his desk, and picked up his phone. “What can I do for you Commander Benson?”
Benson answered in a deep raspy voice, “Do you know how much paperwork I have to do every time this happens? I want whatever this thing is to stop flying in my God damn airspace!”
In his most understanding voice Jordan said, “I’ve done everything that I can, but I don’t have the funds to take my team to the Himalayas to investigate this.” Jordan had to hold his tongue after saying this because he badly wanted to look into this case. In fact it was because of cases like this that he originally agreed to take the reins at U.P.
“Are you sure about that?” Benson asked. “I just got off the phone with the Pentagon and they said that you had been assigned investigate this case.
Jordan was surprised to hear this because the DoD rarely gave him big cases, especially a case as bizarre as this one. Suddenly he remembered the large envelope he had received from the Committee for National Defense. He asked Benson to hold while he quickly tore open the envelope. The enclosed file detailed a mission for the U.P. team to travel to Nepal to investigate the strange occurrences over Mt. Kanchenjunga. On March 17th the team would leave for Benson’s base in Kathmandu. On the 19th they would leave Benson’s base by helicopter and be dropped in a valley on the outskirts of the Kanchenjunga range, which was around 20 miles from the location of the suspected UFO activity. They would have to climb over 6,000 feet in their two day journey up the mountain. The goal was to observe the occurrence three times before they had to return to an area where they could be picked up by the helicopter. Unfortunately cargo helicopters only create enough lift to reach an altitude of around 14,000 feet, which would require them to travel the rest of the way once they got on the ground.
The Committee’s main objectives for the mission was to find out what was flying over the Himalayas, and ascertain if it affected the security of the United States in any way.
The team would leave Washington with five experimental 90 Degrees South snowmobiles powered by plutonium 238 batteries. The batteries supplied enough power to run the snowmobile for at least six years before the battery needed to be replaced. The battery technology was primarily used for deep space probes that couldn’t use solar power.
Jordan remembered reading a recent DoD report about Pu-238. The U.S. Government had recently restarted facilities to process Pu-238 which was a byproduct of the more common Pu-239 that was used in nuclear weapons. Officially the U.S. Government hadn’t produced any Pu-238 since the end of the Cold War, but Jordan had heard rumors of at least a couple small government labs that had continued to produce Pu-238 in secret. Pu-238 was much too valuable for the espionage operations of the CIA, and NASA not to have it. The CIA was able to bury the labs on the black budget so that only a few select people knew the details of its development. Any other news was unreliable information from conspiracy theorists. Rarely had Jordan heard a rumor about secret government activity unless there was at least a little truth to it.
Pu-238 batteries work by converting the radioactive decay of the Plutonium into electricity. A battery powerful enough to run a vehicle costs several million dollars and the production created massive amounts of radioactive waste, which limited Pu-238 to select government programs. The DoD owned several different types of battery powered vehicles for covert missions to isolated locations such as the arctic, deep space, and the oceans. Pu-238 batteries were much safer and smaller than building tiny nuclear reactors to go in the vehicles.
The snowmobiles would be loaded with supplies for the team to withstand a month of freezing temperatures up on the mountain. Even though the mission was only supposed to take a maximum of two weeks, the weather conditions in March could make extraction difficult so extra supplies would be taken. Most of the climbing base camps were abandoned at least until late April so once the helicopter dropped them off they would be cut off from the rest of the world until they came back down the mountain. A severe snow storm could strand them on the mountain for weeks so it would be helpful to be ready for the worst case scenario.
Jordan apologized to Benson for the misunderstanding and told him some of the details of the mission. After assuring Benson that he would get to the bottom of what was happening, he closed by saying he would talk to him in person in a few days. Jordan quickly read the rest of the mission profile after hanging up the phone.
Two of the five mission members were filled with people skilled in specialized fields. Jordan didn’t like the idea of having two unknown people on his team but the report gave a detailed description of the pair. First was Jacob Young; labeled as the guide for the expedition. The name was one, which Jordan recognized from an article he had read in an issue of ‘Newsweek’ around a year earlier. Reportedly, Young had lead a group of photographers to the top of the Maca Lonè peak in Ecuador to study some recently uncovered Incan ruins. The group got snowed in up at the ruins and Young climbed down by himself in a blizzard to get help for the others. Jordan was surprised to see such a famous name on the team.
The other team member was a computer expert from the FBI. Agent Michael Allen was infamous in every branch of the DoD. Allen was the man who got the FBI’s version of U.P. dismissed by making a large number of outrageous reports about alien activity. The most famous story about Allen was that he was arrested for trespassing on a military base in Montana. He claimed that aliens had kidnapped his partner just before he was captured. The FBI searched for Allen’s partner for two years before they found his body. Allen disputed that his partner was ever found claiming it was all an elaborate cover up to hide the truth.
If the FBI actually had a division like in the television show ‘The X-Files’ Allen would have been the head of it. Allen’s legitimate work lead the way for divisions like U.P., but his tendency to make grandiose and unbelievable explanations in his reports was also the reason the FBI stopped investigating unusual events. Because of this Jordan held a special contempt for Allen. Allen was also known for his inability to work with a team productively. Jordan was very reluctant about taking Allen, but an opportunity like this didn’t come very often so if the government wanted someone to baby sit its loose cannon Jordan wasn’t going to complain.
The U.P. consisted of five members, which wasn’t nearly enough for the amount of work that Jordan was supposed to do each year. Only three U.P. division members existed when Jordan was appointed division head at the age of 27, but under his leadership U.P. had grown by two members and obviously earned some attention from Congress. The division was now filled with four people whom Jordan had personally recruited.
The first member that Jordan hired after he assumed the reins of U.P. four years earlier was Jen Sommers. Jen was the only woman in U.P. After hiring Jen out of Stanford, Jordan wondered if anyone would criticize him about hiring someone that was so attractive, but after four years in U.P. Jen had proven to be the most proficient member of the team. Jen looked more like a model than an astrophysicist. She was tall with big blue eyes and long dark hair. Although Jordan would never admit it to anyone, he was madly in love with her.
Two years earlier he and Jen were on a mission to explore UFO activity in the Andes Mountains. The roof of a cave crumbled when Jordan walked over it and he plummeted 30 feet to the cold rocky floor below. The large pack he was wearing softened the landing from the waist up but unfortunately his lower body wasn’t as lucky. His right leg was shattered in three places. Jen quickly called for a rescue team and set up a large target so they could be found. She then repelled down into the cave to help Jordan. It took 24 hours for the rescue helicopter to reach their location. During that time Jen put a splint on his leg and stitched up the cut from where the bone had broken through his skin. Jordan first started to think of her as more than a friend during the night. The temperature dropped into the low teens and he couldn’t be moved into one of the insulated tents. The entire night Jen stayed with him using all of their blankets to cover them and keep him alive. That night when Jordan was able to sleep through the incredible pain of his leg all his thoughts focused on Jen.
After they were airlifted to safety and Jordan was transported back to a hospital in Washington Jen visited him every day. She talked to him for hours, sometimes even falling asleep on the couch in his room. Now he was very much in love with her, she occupied many of his dreams, asleep as well as awake.
The second team member Jordan brought in was an old friend of his, Frank Smith. Frank was two years younger than Jordan but they had both been Kappa Alpha’s at Kent State University where they had become good friends. Jordan had graduated five years before Frank had finished his PhD and was already two years into U.P. when he found out Frank had applied for and been turned down by the FBI. Jordan was in serious need of a clinical psychologist at the time, so he called Frank and offered him a job.
Like Jordan, Frank’s parents had died when he was young, but Frank and his sister grew very close in their absence, unlike Jordan and his brother. After Jordan graduated from college Frank continued his education to receive a Masters and Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Over the years Jordan had found Frank’s friendship and counseling to be very helpful. Frank was the only other person in the world that knew about Jordan’s feeling for Jen which Jordan often regretted. Frank would frequently find ways to needle Jordan about Jen with the ultimate goal of getting them together.
The third member Jordan recruited was Jim Webb, a 37-year-old computer and communications expert. Webb had no formal education, but he could hack into almost any computer network. Jim’s only problem was his total lack of soft skills. If a person could live their life completely online Jim would be extremely popular. Sometimes Jordan would come into the office and Jim would be sitting at his desk playing ‘World of Warcraft’ wearing the same clothes that he had worn the previous day. All of Jim’s spare time was spent in the office or at home working on the computer, which could be seen just by looking at him. Jordan guessed Jim weighed around 300 pounds, which was even more astonishing since he was only 5’9”. Over the two years Webb had been with U.P., Jordan had never seen him get exercise of any kind. Due to lack of sun exposure Webb’s skin was extremely pale; so much so that many of the other people in the building jokingly referred to him as Casper. Due to Webb’s physical condition, and lack of people skills Jordan believed Jim would most likely spend the rest of his time with U.P. behind a desk.
The final member of the U.P. team was Al Schmidt, who in his early days was perhaps the most reputable newspaper reporter in Washington D.C. In his day Al uncovered scandals and cover-ups where many other reporters thought nothing was wrong. His reporting career ended when a young secretary charged him with sexual assault. When Al destroyed the validity of the girl’s charges the ‘Washington Post’ bribed him to stay quiet and find a job somewhere else. Jordan hoped he looked as good at 50 as Al did. If not for his silver hair and a few wrinkles around his eyes, Al looked and acted like he was in his early thirties. So far at U.P. Al’s skill for detective work had proven invaluable in many of the cases. Jordan was amazed at the way Al could work the system in D.C. Al would be the ultimate car salesman. He could read people like nothing Jordan had ever seen and had an uncanny ability to get them to do what he wanted. He always seemed to take home all the money from the monthly office poker game. If Al ever decided to run for office, Jordan believed that he would make an excellent politician.
**********
The rest of the U.P. team came into the office around 10:00 in the morning. Jordan was still overwhelmed by the excitement of finally getting a real mission. It was times like this he remembered why he had taken the U.P. job in the first place. Five years ago he had been one of the best young fighter pilots in the Air Force. He had been promoted to Lieutenant Commander in only four years.
One dark night he was flying his F-22 at around 38,000 feet over the New Mexico desert. As he flew the plane he had an experience that changed his life. He looked out to the left of his plane and saw a greenish light that looked as though it was moving parallel to him at the same speed. Suddenly the object moved toward him so quickly that he couldn’t even react. As he tried to veer the plane away from the light it moved directly in front of him. The plane seemed to stop, then in an instant the light was gone and Jordan was flying again. When he looked at his watch it read that 30 minutes had passed since he had last checked the time, but he had just checked it a minute before he saw the light.
Not knowing what happened Jordan refused to report anything to his superiors. He tried to continue his career as a pilot, but found himself distracted when he was in the cockpit. His performance evaluations progressively got worse and eventually he was asked to take a desk job. Jordan contemplated resigning and taking a civilian job, but almost by mistake he came across the posting for the head of the U.P. He set up an interview and got the job. The previous head had quit because she thought the job was a joke. The other two members didn’t last two years with Jordan, claiming he was insane. Jordan didn’t care because he had found his calling.
In a division like U.P. Jordan had to be very careful how far he went with his explanations for events in his reports. Too little and he would be seen as incompetent; too much and he would be completely delusional. One of his gifts was knowing what buttons could be pushed and which ones should be left alone.
Jordan sat in his office until the final member came into the meeting room at five after ten. He didn’t mind that everyone was a little late seeing that they all had a pretty long night, even though his was longer than the others. Jordan’s shoulder was stiff where the man had hit him with the board, and his face was bruised in a few places where he had been punched. In the meeting room the four U.P. members sat talking over a box of donuts that Frank had brought in. Jordan was surprised that the entire team worked so well together with the large amount of expertise in different areas, but they were a good team and all good friends as well. In the meeting room Frank and Al were arguing about sports, as they did most mornings. Sometimes Jordan would join in on the discussions, but not today.
Jen gasped as Jordan walked into the meeting room. Running over to look at his face she scolded him for not telling her how badly he was hurt the night before. Knowing that Jen would overreact he purposely had not told her about the severity of his injuries hoping that he would be able to clean himself up a little before she saw him. Ever since Chile, Jen had taken care of him every time the slightest thing happened to him. If he had told her about his injuries Jen would have been waiting for him at his house when he got home. Jordan assured her that he was fine and tried to continue the meeting with Jen still examining the abrasions on his face.
“I have some great news. We’ve been given a mission by the Senate Committee for National Defense for three of us along with two other specialists to go to Nepal and investigate a UFO occurrence,” said Jordan. “Jen and Frank will accompany me to Nepal, while Jim and Al will handle mission support here in Washington.”
Jordan felt bad that Jen and Frank always got to go on the missions, but Jim and Al were much better suited for support work in Washington. They were used to staying home on the missions, usually sitting by a computer in the office or performing research for the people on the mission.
Jordan passed out copies of the mission details and ran through the highlights keeping all four team members completely intrigued with what he was saying. After he finished Jordan gave the team the rest of the day to get ready for the trip because they had to be ready to leave in less than three days.
After everyone left, Jordan went back to his office. Unlike the rest of the team, he had a large amount of work to do before they left. As he was getting ready to get to work he heard a knock at his door. He said, “It’s unlocked,” and Jen walked into his office.
“I just wanted to thank you for putting me on the mission,” she said as she walked in and sat down in a chair across from Jordan’s desk. Jen knew that she didn’t have to thank him, but it was just her way of starting a conversation.
Jordan was used to this because ever since his accident he and Jen talked regularly. Just about little things, he enjoyed spending time with her. Every now and then he would ask her to dinner just to talk. She was the closest thing he’d had to a relationship since college.
“Who else am I going to take? I know Al is handsome but I don’t think his mere presence can manipulate men into doing whatever he says, like you can.”
She gave a short laugh, he was good at making her laugh, “With lines like that no wonder you’re so popular with the ladies, but you know what I mean. I was wondering if you would want to come over for dinner tonight, kind of a bon voyage meal. It’s the least I can do since it looks like you’re going to be busy the rest of the day.”
Jordan was thrilled; Jen was one of the best cooks he knew. “Sure, what time?”
“Around seven.”
“I’ll be sure to skip lunch today.” Jen backed out of the door smiling, and walked away. Jordan was happy; he hardly knew Jen outside of the office before the accident in Chile, but during that time they had spent hours talking to keep his mind off of the pain. He continued the mission preparation with a new found zeal.
**********
From the roof of the Cathedral of St. Maria in Rio de Janeiro, Alexander Stanislov gazed through the scope of his Russian SV-98 sniper rifle. Stanislov was a short wiry man, but that build served him well in his occupation. His size allowed him to move around without drawing attention to himself much easier than a tall man. He could disappear into a crowd with ease. If there was one thing that he had learned from being an assassin it was to blend in with his surroundings.
Through his earpiece a voice with an Irish accent said, “Stas, the target will be in range in 30 seconds. Take aim on the phone booth and await further instructions.”
Stas shifted his aim slightly and refocused the scope on the nearby phone booth. The hair on his hand started to tingle slightly. The wind had picked up. Stas adjusted the scope to counter the wind. Every little variable had to be accounted for. He was only going to have one shot so it had to be perfect. His team had spent a month planning this hit down to the letter. Three million dollars was riding on everything going as planned.
Stas didn’t know exactly who had hired him for this job, but he did know that his target was the leader of the Green Wave Foundation. Green Wave’s goal was to clean up the environment and the oceans of the world. The target, Jerome Waterman, was the head of the organization. The Waterman family had made a fortune in the oil business during the 20th century. Waterman Oil was the largest privately owned oil producer in the world when Jerome had taken over for his deceased father in 2002. Jerome had always detested the family business and shut down all of the company’s oil wells as soon as he took control. He devoted all of the Waterman assets to developing clean burning fuel sources. In 2006 the scientists at Waterman Oil developed a device that could separate water into hydrogen and oxygen more economically than anyone thought was possible. Shortly after Jerome turned the day to day operations of Waterman Oil over to one of his friends and started Green Wave. He was now traveling all over the world trying to get governments to pass legislation to call for the end of burning fossil fuels.
Needless to say the discoveries of Waterman Oil had all of the other players in the oil industry running scared. They had not planned on having to deal with a technological leap like Waterman had come up with for many years. The Waterman device could produce clean burning hydrogen for cars at significantly less cost per mile driven than gasoline. In response OPEC had slashed the price of a barrel of oil in half hoping to stave off anti-oil legislation for a few years while the industry tried to catch up with Waterman. Several countries had already passed legislation to start building and selling cars that ran on hydrogen fuel cells and fuel stations that carried liquid hydrogen for fuel.
Stas believed this was all the reason most of the oil companies would need to put a contract on Jerome Waterman’s life.
In his earpiece the voice said, “Target is in the black limo pulling up. Fire at will.”
Stas took aim on the back door of the Limo. There were hundreds of Green Wave supporters gathered in front of the Rio Convocation Center waiting to see Jerome Waterman so Stas would have to make his one shot count. Chances are that if he missed or had to take more than one shot someone in the crowd would see where the shot came from and make his escape much more difficult.
Two security guards were the first out of the car, followed by an attractive looking woman and finally Waterman. Stas zeroed in on Waterman’s head, but right when he was getting ready to pull the trigger another security guard got out of the limo behind Waterman. Stas cursed in Russian. He had no shot. The guard was enormous and totally blocked out Waterman. Suddenly Waterman changed his direction and headed for the crowd. Seeing this opportunity Stas didn’t hesitate. He squeezed the trigger and saw blood explode from Waterman’s head. Stas held the gun in position for two more seconds just to make sure that the shot had been fatal. When he was sure that Waterman was indeed dead Stas crouched down behind the wall and quickly disassembled the gun.
A minute later Stas was on his way out of the back of the church dressed in priest’s robes. He boarded a bus as soon as he reached the street and headed toward the other side of town. Around two blocks down the street Stas felt a vibration coming from his coat pocket. It was his cell phone. Thankful that it hadn’t started vibrating a few minutes earlier Stas pulled the phone out of his robe and answered. “How may I help you?”
The gruff mechanical voice on the other end replied, “This is Drako I have a job for you. How soon can you be in Washington D.C.?”
Stas replied, “Tomorrow morning, usual place, 10 am”. Stas closed his phone.
He didn’t know anything about Drako, but he had worked for him several times in the past and knew that the man paid very generously. Of course anyone who hired Stas had to pay generously, but Stas knew it was worth it for his clients.
Four police cars passed the bus in the opposite direction with their sirens blaring. Stas marveled at his own brilliance. No one would ever suspect a priest had just assassinated someone.
A young boy stared at Stas from across the bus. As Stas got up to exit the bus he patted the boy on the head. “Bless you my son.”
A silver SUV was waiting for Stas at the stop. He quickly got in and the SUV sped away. Looking to the man next to him Stas asked, “Did we receive payment?”
Michael O’Grady looked back at him and said, “The money was transferred into our Cayman account 3 minutes ago. Our client called and said they were very pleased.”
“That’s great. I have some good news of my own. I just received a call from our friend Drako. He has some work for us.”
Vladislov Petrovic turned around quickly from the front passenger seat. “We just finished a job. You can’t possibly be suggesting that we start another one right away.”
“Vlad it won’t hurt to at least meet with him to see what the job is. Drako is our best client. I would hate to lose his business to another outfit.”
Vlad looked away angrily. Stas knew Vlad would come around, but he was always the cautious one. It was Vlad’s careful nature that kept Stas from taking unnecessary risks. Vlad was like a brother to him. They had been friends since they were schoolboys in the Ukraine. They joined the KGB together and were Russia’s best assassin team until the communist regime fell in the early 90’s. After that they went off to work on their own.
They had picked up O’Grady in 1996 after he left the IRA looking for more profitable work. Grady as they called him had done a little bit of everything for the IRA. He could build a bomb, help with an armed raid, but he specialized in computer work. He was an adept hacker and with Stas’ knowledge of the Russian satellite network could take over a Russian spy satellite when the need arose.
The newest member of their group was Terence Williams who everyone referred to as Te. Te had been a car thief in Miami until Stas needed some help with a job there two years back. Stas needed a driver and after asking around found out Te was the best in town. The job had gone so well that Stas had asked Te to become a member of his team. The money was too much to turn down so Te accepted. Over the past two years Te had soaked up every piece of information that Stas had taught him about the assassin business. He was now capable of much more than just driving. Te was a tall muscular black man who stuck out like a sore thumb around the other three. Despite their cultural differences everyone got along well and were well known in the nefarious world of assassins. Clients knew that if you needed someone dead Stas was the best man for the job.
**********
Jordan was starving as he drove to Jen’s house in Coral Hills, just outside of the city. She lived in a cozy two bedroom townhouse that made for an easy 20 minute commute. Jordan had a busy day trying to get everything ready to go for the trip. It seemed like all of the equipment that he was supposed to have was in faraway places and was going to take a couple days to transport to him. He almost felt like someone was trying to slow him down.
Jordan pulled into Jen’s driveway when he arrived at her house. He remembered the first time that he had come over for dinner like it was yesterday. The first mistake he had made was knocking on the door. After Jen let him in she gave him a five minute lecture about how friends don’t knock on each other’s door. You aren’t truly friends with someone until you can just walk in. That is a mistake that Jordan had never made again.
As he walked in the door the aroma of garlic hit him in the nose like a heavyweight boxer. Jen was making Italian, his favorite. “Looks like you had a productive day”, Jordan said to announce that he was there.
“You’re early, I’m not done yet. Come here and have a glass of wine and tell me how your day went.”
At that point it hit Jordan. It was like they were married and had never been on a date. He strolled into the kitchen and poured them both a glass of Shiraz from the bottle of that Jen had set out.
“It was actually a pretty rough day. Most of the supplies for our mission are delayed. It will be all I can do to get them ready to leave by Monday.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage. You always do.”
“Enough about my day, what delicacy have you fixed for us tonight?”
“In honor of this being a big day for you I made your favorite, chicken parmesan.”
She was absolutely right. Jordan loved chicken parmesan, especially the way Jen prepared it. Jen’s was better than any restaurant he had been to even when he was in Italy.
“It will be done in a few minutes. Why don’t you wash up and help me set the table?”
Jordan didn’t argue because he couldn’t wait to get his hands on dinner. He quickly washed his hands and set the table while Jen served the plates of food. Jordan wasted no time cutting off a piece of chicken and placing it in his mouth. He let out a soft moan as he savored the flavor.
**********
After dinner Jordan helped Jen clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. She reached around him to grab a plate and brushed his back a little too hard where he had been hit with the board the night before causing him to flinch from the pain. Jordan hoped that Jen hadn’t noticed, but it took a whole second for the red flag to go up.
“What was that?” Jen said very concerned.
“Nothing, just a little bruise from the fight last night, I guess.” He tried to play it off like it was nothing, but she knew him too well. He had a very high threshold for pain and anything that would make him cringe like he just did must be very painful.
“Let me see it.” Jen said in her strict motherly voice.
She didn’t wait for him to acknowledge her request. She grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head.
“Oh my god! Did you know it was this bad? You have a four inch purple bruise across your back. Heck there are colors in there that I didn’t know skin could turn. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Go lay on the bed, I’ll make you a bag of ice to put on it.”
Jordan couldn’t even get in a word until she started making the ice bag. “You know it really isn’t as bad as it looks.”
She stared at him for a second and said two words. “Bed, now!”
Jordan relented and went to lie down on her bed. Jen followed him in and placed the bag of ice on his back. She sat down on the bed next to him with a look of anger on her face that Jordan hoped he would never see again.
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