Salena became increasingly annoyed and an angry expression crossed her face, knowing Jaimon was too weak to resist Monette’s advances, especially stirred by his player messing with his head.
“What do you mean, showdown?” Jaimon’s glare was both frightened and curious at the same time, and a change in the depth of his voice warned Salena if she didn’t make her escape, the player was about to silence her.
Salena began to back away from Jaimon, but as she did, she threw a final warning at him. “Monette’s party will change things forever, dude!”
Jaimon felt his eyes turning hot, staring at Salena. He tried to redirect the explosive venom aimed at his friend, but he was a passenger in a runaway train, watching the scene unfold but powerless to stop it.
He saw the fallen tree rise to eye level and then fly through the air to where Salena had stood and crash to the ground, splintering into broken branches.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 53
Katu and Nikkulaat’s expedition had developed into a frustrating journey. Two hours after leaving Aanasi and the outpost store, Katu’s snowmobile began to falter, plagued by mechanical problems; and the sun had set by midafternoon, forcing them to make camp for the night and use the incapacitated machine as a windbreak for their survival tent. The previous night, parked unprotected in the snow at Nikkulaat’s home, had taken a severe toll on the mechanical workhorse, freezing vital oil seals in the bitter cold, tearing them like brittle liquorice and spilling life sustaining oil onto the snow until the hard working machine eventually seized and died.
After a sleepless night, Katu dug the newly fallen powder away from the crippled machine while the lazy, mid-morning light divulged the extent of the damage, causing them to finally, but reluctantly, abandon the device and the sled it was towing and set off on foot, shouldering all the necessary survival equipment. Sydkap and Bjarni Kleist’s small hut was now a few days hike on foot, instead of a couple more hours by snowmobile if the weather remained cooperative. The possibility of finding Bruun alive and hunting down the monster tracking him, just took a serious turn for the worst and put both Katu and Nikkulaat in the same predicament as Bruun.
The two men discussed at length the possibility of turning around and hiking back to the outpost, but a persistent, gnawing uneasiness engulfed their decision like a prominent third person and convinced them time was against them and that Bruun’s survival could be dependent on them carrying on the search. Both men felt uneasy about turning back.
Whatever was out there, was not friendly and it was determined.
Nikkulaat trudged through the barren white wilderness, bent over under the weight of his load while Katu followed closely behind his friend, shouldering his own wearisome pack and with a high powered rifle clasped tightly in his hand.
Katu, lost in his thoughts and trying to divert his mind from the numbing load on his back, nearly walked into Nikkulaat as he suddenly stopped and peered around the silent landscape, surveying the white horizon with the eye of an experienced hunter. It wasn’t long before Katu also silently sensed his friend’s caution and began looking for anomalies in the tundra surrounds.
On foot, they were susceptible to any threat and hungry nanuq were returning to the area to hunt for a meal.
Seeing nothing to threaten their journey, Nikkulaat continued on but both men couldn’t shake the imposing feeling that they were being watched.
*~*~*~*
Dysart fumbled in her shoulder bag for her apartment keys, finally placing the precious briefcase down on the carpeted corridor floor in front of her door to make an unencumbered search with both hands. Soon the ungainly bunch of keys appeared, tangled around the latest fashion in cosmetics and her purse. Near to tears and frustrated at the uncooperative mess, she tore the keys from her bag in a fit of rage, spilling her cosmetics onto the floor at her feet, assured that nothing else could go wrong today.
She sighed loudly and then forcefully unlocked her apartment door before stooping to clean up her personal belongings from the carpet and hastily deposited them back into her shoulder bag with an indignant huff and closed the door with a determined, echoing bang.
The day had not gone according to plan and the inner circle United Nations power brokers had been tight-lipped about her information and only proffered they would be in touch, literally forcing her from their presence by armed security guards.
After a heated confrontation with the U.N. hostess at her treatment and a laundry list of threats about going to the media and exposing the secretive search for the Greenland Gateway Emerald, Dysart reluctantly managed to get her briefcase back from the power brokers. But now, after she’d had time to reflect on her conduct and the people she had been negotiating with, she wondered whether the prudent action would have been to leave the U.N. building and wait for them to respond to her.
A highly stressed Annette Dysart made a bee-line for her Manhattan view and pushed open the glass door separating her sanctuary from her apartment and pondered the scene from her seventeenth floor balcony, wondering whether she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.
The polluted city air seldom gathered in any concentration at this height above the street but tonight, the smog was stinging her eyes and causing an unpleasant outlook, adding to her depressed and aggressive mood. Many thoughts cascaded through her worried mind but the threat of expulsion from her country and her career was foremost in her convoluted concerns, knowing the people she had tried to negotiate with were far more adept in the game of extortion than she could ever be.
A disturbing thought flashed across her mind and she hurried back inside the air conditioned apartment, sliding the glass door closed and shutting the irritating smog outside. Her anger began to boil again as she grabbed for the briefcase sitting unassumingly against the wall, suspecting that the contents had been removed and replaced with a decoy. She placed the case flat onto a nearby table and thumbed at the combination, working the lock until the case security gave way under the correct number sequence and allowed Dysart access to the contents inside.
She sifted the familiar documents with a shuffling motion, accounting for each piece of information until her eyes rested on an unfamiliar, plain faced file. She gasped as she held the file in her hands, realising a mistake of gargantuan proportions had been made by someone at the U.N. and she now held in her possession a detailed, official account of the most probable location of the Greenland Gateway Emerald.
This one catastrophic error just made completing her mission so much easier.
Dysart’s hands trembled as she flicked through the official U.N. top secret document, wondering how she could use this to her best advantage, but a lot of the information didn’t make sense to her. If she was to locate the emerald everyone was searching for and make the events contour into the shape of her bank account, she needed the help of someone equally skilled in treachery as she.
Either way, she was determined to come out of this situation at the front and smelling like roses.
*~*~*~*
The bellhop had already collected the baggage from the hotel foyer and placed it into a collection area, ready to be loaded aboard the first available limousine destined for John F. Kennedy International Airport. Even though the circumstances of Parlo’s return home didn’t bring him comfort, at least he would be rid of the confounded Queens’ flea bag hotel.
He hadn’t slept at all last night, taxing his diplomatic brain searching for an angle that would lessen the expected backlash of his failure to locate the information the council required. Dysart’s file was his last attempt to redeem himself in the eyes of the Supreme Leader and now, the information he had so easily extracted from her was useless.
Somewhere deep inside, he wondered whether Dysart had planned the whole scheme but then he erased the thought, convincing himself she didn’t have the mental capacity to figure out such an elaborate deception.
Parlo glanced around the room for the last time, holdin
g the door handle in his hand as he searched and wondered where he would be this time tomorrow night. Just as he was about to close the room door, the bedside phone rang, causing him to hesitate for a moment and contemplate whether he should answer it or just let it be. He stared at the device for a long moment, coming to a decision and then curiosity got the better of him and he strode for the jangling machine, silencing it with a swipe of his hand.
“Yes, Parlo speaking.”
“Mr Parlo, I have an Annette Dysart on the line for you,” a nasally receptionist twanged in his ear.
Parlo hesitated for a moment, wondering whether Dysart’s intentions were amorous, looking for another precarious interlude. He began to instruct the receptionist to cancel the call when he reconsidered; after all, she had given him what he wanted without reserve and maybe she didn’t know that the military file had been tampered with and vital information had been removed.
“Put her through, please,” Parlo’s voice had switched to charming, charismatic diplomat.
The phone line clicked and soon Dysart’s breathless voice filled his ear, like some polluted wave running up a tormented beach after a disastrous oil spill.
“Parlo, we need to talk. I have some information you will be very interested in, but you need to get me safely out of the country... now!”
*~*~*~*
The council embassy staff in New York worked feverishly to rearrange Parlo’s flight and add a companion to Parlo’s travel itinerary. Parlo’s companion also had diplomatic immunity, protected by the spidery reaches of the council and able to circumvent any bureaucratic interference in any country.
Later that same night, Dysart’s assumed name–Lanila Borsch–underscored her photograph on a false, diplomatic passport while an embassy logo and council crest authenticated her citizenship, allowing a safe passage through the myriad of immigration checks at J.F.K. airport and onto a waiting, transatlantic flight.
Close by, a dark figure watched the diplomatic couple board the passenger jet and then reached for his mobile phone and began to dial a well used number. Any inquisitive ear passing by the stranger would have been curious to understand the cryptic message so carelessly spilled into the public domain.
“The trap has been sprung successfully.”
*~*~*~*
Chapter 54
Miles Cleaver’s morning had been busy and laced with angry people. Being the county sheriff’s dispatcher, he often found himself as the meat in the sandwich and the vent people used to resolve their own fractured spleen while having to remain detached and calm himself. The sheriff was the major contributor to Cleaver’s workload, often demanding his immediate response at the worst possible time and bellowing like a wounded bull when Cleaver was slow in responding.
Deputy Jackson had entered the scene, hassling for Cleaver’s attention during one such storm, while Cleaver reacted with unusual annoyance and intolerance when Jackson tried unknowingly, to interrupt.
Jackson quite often observed the calm and detached figure, amazed at his ability to sooth highly volatile situations and bring sense into the work day, even to the point of gently rearranging the sheriff when his aspirations boiled over into chaos. But today, Cleaver had been pushed to the wall, accused of being the media leak by the sheriff and then followed by a string of abusive public phone enquiries. Cleaver was also blamed for dispatching Jackson to Bairnsworth on a false alarm, when the workload at the station was already in backlog due to Bayer’s untimely disappearance and subsequent investigation. The sheriff was often heard bellowing at Bayer, as if she was standing in front of him, for bringing unwanted attention to the county office from bureaucratic, city crime investigators.
The phone call finally ended and Cleaver’s haunted expression turned to face Jackson, his eyes slightly moist in the corners and his usually bright countenance, fallen and dark.
“What is it, Jackson?” Cleaver sighed, his voice flat.
“Things getting you down today, Miles?” Jackson replied, trying to jolly Cleaver into a more congenial frame of mind, but Cleaver just stared back at him, waiting for the next round of abuse.
Jackson held Cleaver’s unflinching gaze for a few seconds, waiting for him to speak. When it was obvious Cleaver was in no frame of mind for protocol, Jackson continued on with his enquiry.
“What was the description given of the running track offender?” Jackson gently asked. Cleaver’s terse disposition had worn down Jackson’s enthusiastic desire to add the suspect to the persons of interest file.
Cleaver sighed again and disappeared under the counter separating Jackson from the back office, and then reappeared moments later, handing Jackson an official suspect description mandate. Cleaver continued on with his work while Jackson took the official paper and then turned it 180 degrees, beginning to read the document from the top line.
The description was vague: male; big arms; jacket with the sleeves removed; and wielding a knife.
“Is this all we have?” Jackson turned the document over, inspecting the blank underside, at the same time calling across to Cleaver.
Cleaver just nodded from his desk in a disinterested sulk, not even bothering to face Jackson.
After reading the document again, Jackson wondered whether his information was just a red herring, adding unnecessarily to Cleaver’s already burgeoning workload. It soon became evident that Cleaver was waiting for Jackson to return to patrol work, allowing the already stressed dispatcher a little breathing space.
Cleaver’s unimpressed voice drifted over the counter from his position sitting at his desk. “Anything else, Jackson?”
Jackson almost stuttered, watching the dispatcher’s body language before requesting the P.O.I. file, knowing his hunch would add to Cleaver’s workload. “I may have a very basic lead on a P.O.I. fitting the description in the running track attacker case,” Jackson stated, waiting for another depressive sigh from Cleaver.
Cleaver’s features suddenly brightened. “Why didn’t you say so, Jackson?”
Cleaver grasped for the P.O.I. file and dropped it in front of Deputy Jackson, then began to question him about his suspect. “So who is your P.O.I.?”
Cleaver was now back to himself and full of curiosity.
“It’s a suspect I questioned this morning. I couldn’t place the description until I passed the running track on my way back from Bairnsworth. This P.O.I. fits what we have: he’s a biker masquerading as a minister of religion, wearing a cut off jacket with big arms and I could just see him wielding a knife. In fact, his nickname is Cutter, with ugly tattoos of a knife running down his arms.”
Jackson reached for his pocket notebook and flipped open the last page. “His name is... Sylvester Castelano.”
Cleaver was incredulous. “Why didn’t you arrest him then?”
Jackson became defensive. “On what charge, Cleaver?”
“I don’t know, there must have been something,” Cleaver protested.
“Like I said, it’s only a hunch and I may be way off beam,” Jackson admitted.
“This is going to make the sheriff’s day; in fact, I’m going to call him and tell him right now.” Cleaver was anxious to be the one to break the news to the sheriff and regain his good standing with his explosive boss after being accused of blabbing to the media about Bayer’s case.
“He’ll be out of phone range; isn’t he at the Morrison farm this morning visiting Maggie Morrison?” Jackson smiled knowingly.
Cleaver huffed, remembering the sheriff’s amorous morning tea visits with the wealthy widow. “Yeah... that’s right!” Cleaver glanced up at the wall clock and noted it was fast approaching noon. “He should have just started on his way back in now; I’ll try the radio,” Cleaver suggested.
“Is that wise, Cleaver? You never know who is listening in on the police frequency,” Jackson warned.
Cleaver stared at Jackson, mulling over his warning, then contemplated someone else taking the credit for such a game changing lead. “I’
ll use police code.”
The statement was intended to convince himself as well as Jackson.
*~*~*~*
The sheriff’s patrol car sped along the dirt road leading from the Morrison farm and back onto the Sue’s Bridge arterial. He was in an exceptionally good mood: Maggie Morrison had finally accepted his proposal after a long and intricate courtship and now, he could retire from the force a wealthy man anytime he chose. He was lost in an excited world of rearranging his fiancée’s life and riches to best suit himself, when Cleaver’s voice broke into his thoughts across the police communications.
“SBCSO-1, Police Communications Base SBCSO, do you copy?”
The sheriff reached for the receiver and pushed the talk button. “SBCSO-1, receiving.”
Cleaver excitedly continued, “Sheriff, because of a one-zero-one and the urgent nature of a lead on our latest one-eight-seven, I believe one of our officers has stumbled across a P.O.I. fitting the description of the four-one-seven-kilo while dispatched to Bairnsworth this morning.”
Cleaver beamed at Jackson, making sure the sheriff understood the part about the P.O.I. while dispatched to Bairnsworth and waited for the sheriff to respond with an expected, glowing approval.
There was a long pause before the sheriff responded. “WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, CLEAVER?!”
The sheriff’s agitated voice deflated Cleaver’s resolve and he struggled to respond to the explosion. “I..I was using police radio code just in case someone was listening in,” Cleaver managed to relay.
An angry, audible sigh filled the air waves and Cleaver recognised the volcanic explosion about to erupt.
“JUST GIVE ME THE MESSAGE IN PLAIN ENGLISH!”
*~*~*~*
Kirt Ballard broke into a loud guffaw in the news room office, listening intently and writing furiously at the comical conversation taking place across the police communications network. Miles Cleaver had stuck to police radio protocol, causing Ballard some angst in understanding his message, but the sheriff’s impatience with police protocol had handed the story to Ballard on a platter.