The Hermetrius Conspiracy Read online

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  When Lynn saw him coming down the stairs she said “Well, you finally came out of your cave. I held off making dinner so it wouldn’t get cold. I have a chicken and noodle casserole in the oven. I have a plate of crackers and cheese if you want to munch on something now.”

  “That sounds good. How about a vodka martini?”

  “That’s stronger than I usually drink, but if that’s what you’re having fix me one too.”

  Three martinis later , Lynn said with a smile “I’ll get the casserole out for dinner. Any more of these and I’ll lose my inhibitions.”

  Jack wondered if there was a not-so-hidden meaning in that comment. “Great. I’m starving.”

  They talked some more during dinner. Jack related how he and Helen came together in high school and stuck it out until they married after college. Jack had gone through Air Force ROTC in college, so he served four years an officer in the Air Force, where he was assigned to a research and development laboratory in Albuquerque. That work got the attention of a Government agency, and when his time with the Air Force was up, they offered him a job in their research department.

  “What part of the Government did you work for?” Lynn asked.

  He gave her the standard humorous answer designed to cut off further questions: “If I told you I’d have to shoot you.” He laughed along with her.

  After dinner they took hot coffee out to the swing on the deck and covered up with a blanket against the cold. The stars were out and, at this altitude, it seemed like every star in the Milky Way was an individual spot of light. Jack pointed out some of the constellations and the legends behind them.

  Lynn thought about her next statement. Was it out of line? Too bold? She plunged ahead anyway. “Jack, we’ve been together a few days now and I think we’ve grown pretty close. How come you haven’t made a move on me? Most guys would have tried something already.”

  Jack paused before he answered. “I don’t make moves, Lynn. I never have. Helen and I dated for six years in high school and college before we got married. We had a very romantic relationship, even slept together a few times, but always with our clothes on. We both felt strongly that premarital sex was wrong and we never crossed that line until our honeymoon night. We didn’t want to screw up what we had.”

  “There aren’t many couples around today who would take that approach, Jack. Couples want to take a few test drives first. And for most, it isn’t their first test drive. You and Helen must have had something special.”

  “We did. If young people could only understand how absolutely wonderful that first time can be if it’s done as man and wife. For us it was a spectacular, soul-moving experience.”

  “My ex and I weren’t that strong. We held out until our senior year of college, when marriage seemed a sure thing. The we got drunk one night and made love. In the morning neither of us could remember anything except that we did it. No memory of joy or ecstasy. It turns out the marriage got postponed when he decided to go to law school. Of course we kept doing it until the wedding. By that time there was nothing special at all about our wedding night. I didn’t drink much that evening hoping it might be something special, but he got plastered. It was over in a couple of minutes and he rolled over and started snoring. That set the pattern for the rest of our marriage.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes until Lynn said “I’m going to clean up the kitchen and go to bed. I’ll see you for breakfast?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be down early.”

  Chapter 16

  “Stop, Harriet, don’t kill him! We’ll get stuck in an investigation for weeks. He’s unconscious now. I’ll drag him into a linen closet and tie and gag him. That should give us time to get you out of here. She released her grip on the cable and the attacker slid to the floor unconscious.

  Rick stepped out in the hall and tried a couple of doors; both were dead bolted. Farther down the hall he found a locked door labeled MEDICAL SUPPLIES. Falling back on skills learned as a teenager, he pulled out a credit card, worked it between the latch and the door frame, and had it open in 15 seconds. He left the door ajar and went back for the attacker.

  By the time Rick had him in the closet, the man was starting to wake up. He looked around for something to knock him out with, and found a bottle of ether on the shelf. It wasn’t used as a surgical anesthetic anymore, but he could remember the doctor using it when he had his tonsils out at the age of five. He soaked some gauze with the strong-smelling liquid and held it over the man’s mouth and nose. In 30 seconds he was out cold again. Rick put a pillow case over his head and closed the door. Back in Harriet’s room he called downstairs for an orderly to help him get Harriet and the bed into the van, and asked to have her transfer paperwork ready at the patient exit.

  A few minutes later Rick pulled out onto the street and headed for the vacant house they would hide out in. Harriet called from the back of he van, “You know this isn’t the end of it, don’t you? They will keep after us unless we can do something to expose the conspiracy.”

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “I’m hoping Jack Preston has some ideas about that. I won’t be back on my feet for another three weeks at the earliest, so you will have to do the travelling. I’ll call Jack tomorrow and see what he knows.”

  An hour later Rick was pulling up to the vacant house. He went up to the front door, unlocked the realtor box on the doorknob, and let himself in. As soon as he had the garage door open, he drove the van in. When he opened the back doors and saw Harriet in the hospital bed, he saw where he screwed up. The hospital had a loading ramp to roll the bed into the van. Here in this residential garage, he had nothing.

  He looked around the garage for something to improvise a ramp from. The previous owners hadn’t left much behind. He went through the house for some furniture he could use, but there was nothing he could envision as a ramp, even if he dismantled it. ‘What am I going to do. She can’t stay in the unheated garage until the medical help gets here in the morning. Maybe there’s something in the back yard.’

  All he saw was a half-finished swing set. He looked at a stack of boards waiting to be assembled and found what he needed – some twelve-foot long, 2 x 10 boards. He went back to the garage, and taped the 2x10 boards to the bumper with a roll of duct tape he found hanging on the wall.

  “This is going to be risky, Harriet. If I can’t hold the bed back it’s going to roll out into the street . Are you up for it.?”

  “Have you ever known me to pass up a thrill? Go for it.”

  Ten minutes later Rick had Harriet installed in the master bedroom and flopped onto the bed to catch his breath. “I knew you could do it, sweetheart.. Now bring me my sedative medication so I can slow my heart rate down.”

  Chapter 17

  Jack woke up thinking about James Foreman. There must be some way to find his phone number. How do private detectives search for someone they’re after? Then he remembered Dave Cramer, old friend who left the FBI to go into the private detective business in Philadelphia. Maybe he could help. Jack found the name of Dave’s firm online and gave him a call.

  “Hi Dave, this is a voice from the past, Jack Preston.”

  “Hi Jack. It’s great to hear from you! I heard you retired from the Agency recently. How are you doing?”

  “I found a cabin on a lake in West Virginia with nothing but peace and quiet.”

  “You’re a little young to just quit working. Ever thought about getting into the private business? I would love to have you on my staff.”

  Jack hadn’t really given his future much thought. If he survived the threat he was hiding from, maybe working for Dave part time would keep him from becoming a vegetable.

  “I haven’t really given it much thought, Dave. I might be interested in working part-time in the future. But right now I’m working on something more interesting. I’m trying to locate a fellow who works for the Agency, or at least he did back in 2013, but I can’t find an addr
ess or phone number for him. He may just use a cell phone because he doesn’t show up on whitepages.com. Is there any way I can search cell phone numbers for him?”

  “I can help you out with that. In the detective business we can get access to information like that, but it’s not always legal. Law enforcement looks the other way on it, though, because sometimes they have to come to us for information they can’t get at through official channels. We help them out at no charge because then they owe us a favor we can cash in sometime.”

  “Can you tell me how to get to this information?”

  “No, we consider it a trade secret and keep it all to ourselves. Now, if you’ll come and work for me, you will have access to most of our trade secrets. But for now, give me his name and whatever else you know about him and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “It’s James Kenneth Foreman. He was working as a field agent for the FRA in March of 2013, so he probably lives in the D.C. area, but that’s all I know.”

  “Is he in some kind of legal trouble, Jack?”

  “No, I just want to ask him about an old case.”

  “O.K. I should have an answer for you by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll call you as soon as I find something. Then you can tell me if you’ll accept my offer.”

  “Great, Dave. But don’t push me for a decision on the job. I have some things I have to clear up first.”

  “Roger that, Jack. Bye.”

  #

  Jack was out on the deck with his second cup of breakfast coffee when Lynn came out of her room. Jack noticed even with bed hair, she was still attractive. Jack was bundled up in his winter coat because the temperature had dropped 10 degrees in the past hour. Lynn opened the sliding door and stuck her head out.

  “Brrr, it’s cold out this morning. I’ll go put some clothes on and join you in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee. I’ve almost finished the first one.”

  Lynn joined him shortly in a heavy sweater, jeans, and a sheepskin vest. “How long have you been up?”

  “About an hour. I wanted to watch the sun come up over the mountain, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “It will be past 10 o’clock before the sun hits the town on the valley floor. In a couple of months Telluride will only have five hours of direct sunlight a day. Doesn’t give things much time to warm up. Sometimes the thermometer reads 30 below first thing in the morning.”

  “Well, at least the skiers will be happy. The diehard ones, anyway. Do you still ski?”

  “My husband and I skied for over 10 years, both cross-country and downhill. The powder around here is perfect for cross-country skiing. I still go out in the morning sometimes if there’s fresh snow and the weather isn’t too cold. I ski the hiking trails.”

  “I have never tried cross country. Is it hard?”

  “No it’s just like going for a jog with sticks on your feet. If you’ve learned to keep your skis from crossing on downhill trails, cross-country is a piece of cake.”

  They watched the snow flakes falling for awhile. “It’s getting colder. Have you seen the weather forecast for today, Lynn?”

  “Looks like we’re in for some heavy snow later today. Why don’t you put your car in the garage so it doesn’t get buried in snow..”

  It was already snowing when Jack went outside and pulled his Sport Trac into the two-car garage. He took his sniper rifle and AR-15 assault rifle inside to protect them from the cold, and hid them under his bed where Lynn wouldn’t see them.

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  Back at his computer Jack checked the news in the D.C area to see if there was anything about the murder victim at the Hyatt, but found nothing. He was clear of any criminal charges there and wouldn’t have to worry about the police looking for him. Whoever was after him wanted to keep everything under wraps.

  Before he could start on the new account number his phone rang.

  “Jack, this is Harriet Goodman. I need to tell you what has happened here.”

  After she filled him in and Jack brought her up to date she asked “What can we do about this, Jack. We have to find some way to break this up.”

  “I’m still trying to find information on some of the other files, Harriet. Give me a few days and I’ll call you back.”

  “Well, whatever you decide to do, I’m in on it. I’ll be laid up for awhile but I can go anywhere I want on my computer and phone. My husband, Rick can take care of any leg work you want from our end.”

  “I’m glad you survived the attack, Harriet. Put a gun under your pillow in case they try again. I’ll keep in touch.”

  #

  It was time to find the name on the account number he had hijacked from UAV Drone Products. He went through the procedure he had used for the other two account numbers and got back out of the Bank’s computer system without any problems. The account number belonged to Edward Ford, Secretary of State – another democrat running for president!

  ‘Three democratic candidates were being targeted with fake money transfers to overseas banks. What’s going on here?’ Jack thought through a couple of scenarios before he came up with a possibility. What if, at some point in the presidential campaign, word of the payoffs would be leaked to the press. Government investigators would go into the files of the companies involved and find the evidence. The candidates would not only be discredited, but they would be arrested and charged with taking kickbacks. It would destroy their careers and probably ruin their lives unless the source of the phony files could be identified.

  So why would someone want to get some presidential candidates off the democratic ticket? … To give other candidates a better chance of winning. Or even better, to get a particular candidate nominated! If they can discredit all the candidates but one, their man is guaranteed to get the democratic nomination.

  As Jack thought about it, he realized something was missing in his reasoning. If all the candidates but one are forced to drop out, it will be obvious to everyone that it’s rigged. The only way they could pull this off is to discredit them one at a time and have another candidate step into the race to take their place. And the replacement candidates would have to be people that no one would vote for – buffoons, with no charisma, that couldn’t debate their way out of a paper bag.

  At this point it was only a theory, but it scared him. If he was right, there were six candidates who could be ruined. But even with no-win candidates taking their places it would still look suspicious. What was he missing?

  That’s it! If they waited until most of the state primary elections were over, there will only be one or two at the top of the list along with their chosen candidate. They only need to discredit the leading candidate or two. The rest will be eliminated in the primaries. And they can time the release of the fake bribery news to make close rivals lose a key primary or two just before the nominating convention, so their boy would be the only choice.

  A memory flashed through his mind. Where had he seen this kind of plot before? A movie? The Manchurian Candidate! The nominee is about to announce his acceptance at the convention when a sniper in the projection booth gets him in the crosshairs of his rifle scope. The plan was for the second-place nominee, a man hand-picked by the Chinese communists, to step up to the podium and give a brilliant speech that would give him the nomination. But the shooter breaks free from his hypnotic programming just in time to shoot that guy instead of the nominee. This is the same story except with political assassination replacing the sniper.

  ‘O.K., how can I prove my theory? Get more evidence. Find out who is targeted in the remaining files. Let’s see if I can get into Caspian Industries contract files as easily as I got into UAV Drone’s computer system.’

  Jack tried the same approach he had used for UAV Drone. He made a fake corporate sign-in screen and looked online for someone to sucker into giving him the passwords. He found that they kept their employee list under wraps, and found none of their publicity releases included individual’s names. He did a web search
on the company name and found the same results – no mention of corporate officers or employees names. This was the kind of thing that companies doing top secret government work do routinely – put up a wall to minimize contact with the outside world. If Caspian was closed up that tight, their computer system would be impenetrable, especially to a personal computer hacking attack. He would have to give up on getting the account number planted in the Caspian files.

  He thought about what he could do while waiting for Dave Cramer to call back with information on Foreman. ‘What if I listed all the prospective democratic presidential candidates and tried to find a link between them and the companies that had their files raided? That might be useful, even for the missions of the dead agents.’

  He went to Fox News online and found a list that gave the three candidates he had already found – Snead, Forsythe, and Ford – among the top five choices to win the primaries. The other two candidates in the top five were a senator and a congressman.

  Jack started with the senator, entering his name and Caspian Industries as the search terms. No link between the two showed up, so he widened the search to include all news stories for the past ten years. Still nothing. He got the same results for the congressman.

  ‘So much for that idea,’ he thought. ‘What next?’ Just for something to do while he was thinking Jack got a list of the top Republican candidates and did searches for links between each of their names and Caspian. On the third candidate down the list he found something. Eldridge Franklin, a billionaire corporate tycoon, had close ties with Caspian Industries. Their connection went back 15 years when Franklin married the Caspian CEO’s daughter. Shortly after that, Eldridge arranged to have a large Government contract awarded to Caspian Industries. So if the pattern he found with the three democratic candidates held true, somewhere in Caspian’s contract files there was probably a sheet showing the transfer of large sums to an offshore bank account in Eldridge Franklin’s name. Wait a minute! Eldridge was a Republican candidate! That didn’t match his theory about forcing democrats out of the primary race. Back to the drawing board to find another theory about what’s going on.

  Chapter 18