The Traveler Page 22
Before, the Russian leader, who was still standing and watching his men scramble after the two escapees, didn’t realize anything amiss. The cell phones they had taken from the two Americans that he had placed in his coat pocket became a reason for major concern as both cell phones simultaneously, and on orders from Europa 1,700 miles away, issued a destruct order to the phones after she had received alternate DNA prints on the Event Group–issued cell phone marvels. The internal charge was not enough to cause an explosion, but plenty large enough to burn through the memory card and the processor. Both phones immediately started to melt inside the man’s pocket. He hurriedly ripped the two phones free and tossed them onto the roof of the building. He hissed as melted plastic stuck to his hand. The brute in charge of the surveillance detail angrily looked at the man who had the camera around his neck.
“Get that to Mr. Jones,” he said in angered Russian. Then he jabbed a finger into the chest of one of the larger killers. “Get the ground team and bring them back!” the leader called out.
The cell phones had melted to an unrecognizable glob of black plastic and the man angrily kicked at their smoldering remains.
* * *
Will smashed through the front doors with a limping Jason close behind. They both felt naked without their pistols as they frantically looked around for an easy escape route back to the main drive of the shipyard.
“Look, that van!” Jason said as he and Will broke for the white-panel van sitting in the small drive beside building 111.
They were fifteen feet from the van when its sliding door opened and three more men spilled out of the interior and each had a large handgun.
“Jesus, what is this, the Kremlin parking lot?” Will said as he skidded to a stop.
“Through the fence,” Ryan yelled when his eyes fell on a break in the chain-link. He pushed Will forward toward the bushes that covered most of the fence. Both men vanished just as four of the eight Russians broke through the front and back doors of the building and gave chase.
Jason was almost struck by a passing car that honked and swerved out of the way at the last second as they crashed through the fence and bushes. Will let go of Jason’s collar and they both saw that backtracking to the safety of where their people were was impossible from this side of the fence.
“In there, we have to get to a phone,” Jason yelled as he started running, favoring his bruised ass. Will saw the sign above the doorway of the small and nondescript building.
“Brooklyn Social Club,” Will read as he ran after Jason.
The three men and the bearded brute from the roof broke through the bushes and the fence in time to see the two men scramble into the small establishment on a smaller side street off of Flushing Avenue. The four men split up with two going to the front and the other two to the back of the small, nondescript white building.
Jason and Will had trouble adjusting their eyes to the darkness of the room. They saw several round tables with older men sitting at them. Some were playing cards, others just sitting and speaking in low tones. Jason, out of breath, turned and saw the bartender standing and staring at the two harried men. The bartender concentrated his glare on the smaller man with the sickening tattoo on the right side of his face.
“This is a private club, gentlemen.” The emphasis had been placed on the last word.
“We need your phone.”
The eyes went to the larger black man. “You don’t hear so good?” the bartender asked in his Brooklyn accent.
Several men at a nearby table were younger than the older ones they had first seen inside. The older men in the darkness in the back of the room continued to play cards without much notice to the visitors. The younger men in running suits and others in nice sport coats took another view entirely of the interruption to their day.
Will swallowed when he realized just what sort of club they had stepped into.
“Boy, you just have a sixth sense for getting us into this stuff, don’t you?” he said to Jason out of the side of his mouth just as the front and rear doors opened and their pursuers joined them.
The younger men at the farthest tables tensed but remained seated when the four dark-haired men came in. Some of these young Turks looked to the back and the others at the front of the club. All eyes watched the confrontation without comment, with the exception of the burly little bartender.
“As I told these two, this is a private club.”
The man leading the well-dressed charge into the club turned at the front door and smiled at the bartender. He was also out of breath.
“We have no wish to intrude,” he said as he dismissed the bartender and approached Mendenhall and Ryan, who stood their ground defiantly. “We just came in to help you with your vermin situation. We shall remove them and be on our way.”
All the men, twenty plus of them, with the exception of the nine old men who continued to smoke cigars and play cards, along with another two who sat in the far corner playing checkers, exchanged looks at the funny accent of the bearded man in the black silk suit and shiny shirt. The gold chains around his neck were fully exposed to show off their glory.
“You do that outside,” the bartender said as his right hand vanished beneath the counter.
“Gentlemen, I am Captain William Mendenhall, United States Army; this is Commander Jason Ryan, U.S. Navy. We really need to use that phone,” Mendenhall said as he looked from the men sitting at the tables and then back to the bartender.
“Now, now, does this man look as if he’s in the U.S. Navy? Has the navy’s standards fallen so low as to recruit men such as this?” the Russian said in perfect English as he slowly advanced on the two men in the middle of the room. The men at the tables remained silent as they took in the situation. “We will not bother you further,” the man said, slightly turning his head toward the beefy bartender as he gestured for his three men to take the two outside. “Come, we have much to discuss.” He tried to take Mendenhall’s arm and the captain pulled away.
“Don’t touch me, Russian.”
This caught the attention of the men in the room. Even the older men stopped playing cards and looked up at what was happening. Several of their eyes went to the older men playing checkers. Even they had stopped and were watching the scene unfold.
“Come, come, let’s not make a scene. We have a few questions and then you can return to your commander, whoever he is.”
“Thought you said these men wasn’t in the army or the navy?” the bartender asked.
“Friend, please mind your own affairs, before something bad happens to you,” the Russian said as his three men encircled Ryan and Mendenhall.
“Something bad?” the bartender asked with a wry smile etching his face.
“Do you have a hard time understanding English, my friend, or do you only understand that lost tongue of Mama Mia Italiano?” The man laughed and looked at his men as they joined him.
Before the Russians knew what was happening every younger man had risen and had produced handguns before the Eastern Bloc mob could even blink and drop their silly grins. The bartender charged the sawed-off twelve-gauge pump shotgun and leveled it at the bearded leader. The bartender looked to his right at the table where the old men sat playing cards, and then finally to the two gentlemen who sat and watched from their interrupted checker playing. All sets of eyes were on the Russians, who had suddenly started to deflate. An old man in a green sweater and old fedora placed his checkers down on the board and then slowly nodded at the bartender.
“As you can see, Russian, we speak both languages rather well. And while we have no love for some of our more aggressive federal authorities, never think that relates to boys in uniform, ever.” The bartender pointed the barrel of the shotgun directly at the Russian’s head. Will and Jason had to admire the fact that the bearded man never blinked; instead he looked bemused. “You two better make for the door before these boys and us have a serious disagreement.” The bartender nodded toward the front of the building.
“You don’t know what you’re involving yourselves in,” the leader said as his men wondered if they stood a chance if they resisted the Italian’s orders.
“We know exactly what it is we’re involved in, Russian,” the bartender said as if the word was a bad-tasting cheese. “For years we’ve noticed. You boys go about things in a not very professional manner.” The shotgun became the main focus of the Russian’s attention. “Now you two get to runnin’, these boys are going to sit and have a drink while we explain a few rules we have in this particular area of town.”
Will and Jason exchanged looks and with a nod at the men in running suits and sport coats, they ran through the front door and vanished.
“Now, what will you gentlemen have—vodka?” he asked as the young bucks of the Gambino crime family gathered the handguns of the arrogant new kids on the block, who were finding out that old grudges never really vanished with certain families.
The bearded man looked at the men disarming them and smiled—if only briefly.
“Yes, vodka will do.” He gestured for his men to sit.
The bartender’s eyes flicked to the old men at the table who had resumed playing cards. One of then looked up and raised his gray-colored brows. The man took a dusty bottle from the bar and came around with glasses and approached the angered Russians. He placed the glasses down with the bottle of vodka.
“On the house.”
The bearded man looked up as a small shot glass of clear liquid was placed in front of him. He raised his glass in toast and turned to the old men at the card table and then finally at the two men playing checkers in the far corner. The oldest man was recognizable as Paul Gazza, the head of the Gambino crime family. The man posed no threat to the power of the Russians, at least according to Russian sources.
“To old times,” he said with a sad smile, and then drank and slammed the glass down.
The men looked up and their silence made the Russians feel uncomfortable. The old man in the hat nodded his head as if in agreement as he smiled at his friend across the table and jumped several red checkers over black ones.
“Ah, checkmate!” he said with a laugh.
“You’re playing checkers, old man, not chess. There is no checkmate in checkers,” the Russian said with a bemused smile.
The old man in the moth-eaten fedora looked up and his smile vanished as his eyes narrowed. “There is always a checkmate, no matter what game you play.”
The Russian mobsters never knew what hit them as several silenced weapons thudded in the darkness of the social club on a small side street just off of Flushing Avenue.
The card game, among other more dangerous games in New York, continued within the Brooklyn underworld as if nothing extraordinary had just happened.
11
BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
As Virginia’s nuclear sciences team and Jenks’s newly aquired engineering department examined the doorway like ants crawling on a hill, Anya sat next to the Traveler, Moira Mendelsohn. The old woman looked at the sad countenance of the young raven-haired woman. Her eyes would wander back to the activity below in the newly discovered PIT where a machine she never knew existed sat in its sparkling glory as the Group went over it with all the advanced science at their disposal—equipment Moira had never seen before. Soon the old woman’s eyes were back on Anya, who felt her gaze. She faced the smiling Traveler.
“You keep looking at me as if you have something to say,” Anya said not unkindly.
Moira smiled wider and then fixed her with her brown eyes.
“You were the young lady who stole my debrief file from the Mossad?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Dangerous games. Very dangerous.”
“Yes, I hurt someone very close to me to get that file.” Anya smiled as she looked away and watched the technicians below. She felt Moira studying her once again. “For a deed that I will eventually pay heavily for.” She gave the Traveler the briefest of sad smiles. “Deals with the devil and so forth.”
“But then again you would still go about hurting anyone to get back what was lost, yes?”
Anya looked at the Traveler and she could see the woman was speaking from a past fraught with the same sort of decisions.
“Yes, a million times over.” Anya turned away and looked at her watch. “If you’ll excuse me I have a meeting I’m late for.” She started to rise as Moira placed a hand on her wrist.
“You are a Gypsy?”
Anya stopped and looked down at the withered but elegant hand and then into the Traveler’s eyes. “Yes.”
“I knew many Gypsies in the old days,” she said as she looked away momentarily, and that was when Anya saw the tattooed number on her forearm as she absentmindedly adjusted the blanket around her legs. Moira looked back at Anya as she released her wrist. “I hope your quest turns out far better than my own.” Moira used the wheelchair’s motor and turned away to concentrate on answering Dr. Pollock’s technical concerns.
Anya watched her a moment and wondered what quest the Traveler had referred to. She thought a moment and asked herself just what secrets did this brilliant woman possess that she wasn’t mentioning.
Anya Korvesky knew she had to dig a little bit more into the Traveler’s past before men and women risked their lives for her and Carl.
EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
Xavier took a long swallow of Mountain Dew and then looked at the sandwich the mess steward had delivered to the computer center where he and his newly acquired staff were looking for any avenue that would allow the Wellsian Doorway to lock onto the correct time frame. Thus far there was nothing that could duplicate the signal from the second doorway. They had hit a definite dead end. He pushed the plate with the sandwich on it away from him in frustration. He placed the plastic bottle of soft drink down and then spun his chair to look down onto the floor where most of his techs were working with Europa to find a solution. They looked almost as frustrated as himself. His eyes scanned the monitors below and his sight caught something that made him think.
“Uh, Mr. Styles, is it?” he said into his microphone at his personal station, which overlooked the extensive computing floor below.
The tech was leaning over a station where another worked. The tall, thin technician looked up and back at his new boss. “Uh, yes, sir,” he said.
“What is that on your monitor?”
The technician looked up and saw what the youngest and newest department head in Department 5656 history was seeing.
“Oh, we were just going over the supply situation Mr. Everett would have had in the escape pod. We have come to the conclusion that he would have run out of supplies a month after crashing. If that long. His ammunition supply was—”
On the monitor below there was a schematic that showed the small escape pod that was used on the battleship HMS Garrison Lee.
For no apparent reason Xavier smiled and then slapped his hand down hard on his leg, not feeling the impact due to his paralysis.
“Transfer those specs to my station immediately, please. Join me up here, we have some work to do. Europa, I need everything that you have on escape pod design number 22167.”
Energy started to fill the computer center as an avenue for science had just been opened and they now had a chance at answering the question for how they would lock on to the correct time frame for Everett’s rescue. The Event Group came alive with a small thread of hope.
BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
Collins, Mendenhall, and Ryan were the last to be seated in the overcrowded upstairs office. The space had been cleared of the window-dressing mess that had camouflaged the true intent of building 114. The main addition to the room was the large eighty-eight-inch monitor against the far wall. Xavier Morales was on the screen and all but Mendelsohn knew Europa was there also.
Niles Compton sat at the table’s head and Alice Hamilton was on his right as was customary with Virginia next to Alice. Jack was directly across fr
om Sarah, Charlie Ellenshaw, and Anya. The rest of the various departments that had something to add to the meeting were present. Jenks was in a hurry to get back to the newly discovered PIT to reverse-engineer as much as he could as he still wasn’t that trusting of Madam Mendelsohn. Jack looked at Sarah and let her know with his eyes that he didn’t like the fact that she and Anya, with Alice Hamilton’s help, had tried to sidestep his mission parameters and insert themselves into the field team. Sarah knew Jack wasn’t happy.
“Okay, Colonel, are our two adventurers unharmed?” Niles asked as he looked over the wire-rimmed glasses that covered not only his good, but also his patched eye.
“Aside from needing a refresher course on covert egress of an enclosed facility, they’re fine. Although two DNA-coded cell phones will be coming out of their pay,” Collins joked without a smile at Ryan and Mendenhall.
They would both thank Collins later for the public shout-out.
“Commander, you reported that the men who accosted you and Captain Mendenhall were Russian speaking?” Niles asked as he continued to look at the two men at the end of the table. His good eye kept wandering to Ryan’s facial anomaly that was unavoidable, thus it was hard not to smile at the young naval officer’s discomfort.
“Well, I wouldn’t say we were accosted exactly,” Jason started to protest.
Niles waited patiently even though time was short—but even the director couldn’t waste an opportunity jabbing a teasing blow at Jason and Will.
“Yes, sir, definitely Russian. From the sounds of it, maybe organized crime, not sure.”