Black Hawk Day Rewind: An action packed spy thriller (Mark Savannah Espionage Series Book 1) (10 page)

40

It took just two hours for Reed to deliver Jenkins to Detective Scott Martin as a witness ready to incriminate Savannah, and forced his director Wood to contact the British secret intelligence service.

Jenkins testified that Savannah and Reed knew each other and that at one point they had had a sudden altercation in the cafeteria: Savannah accused Reed of encouraging several drug dealers and letting them work undisturbed; and Reed accused Savannah, saying that he had seen Savannah at the Pakistani border negotiating with the guards to let a heavy vehicle through.

Jenkins was then asked to leave, so that Reed and Martin could carry on the discussion undisturbed.

Walton I. Reed knew that the situation was delicate given the diplomatic relations between the two countries and the close cooperation of the two organizations on the anti-terrorist front.

Therefore, the only reasonable thing that Martin would be able to do was warn the British secret intelligence service that Savannah was under investigation and the evidence they had against him; and that the CIA would take care of the case directly, not only because of the murder in question, but also to ensure that there was no treason or double dealing involved. This would leave Reed free to start his manhunt without any interference.

41

It was almost midnight when Mark answered the phone. F.Shaw the Director told him bluntly:

"Savannah, you are under investigation in the U.S. for the death of Richard Reed. Jenkins has testified against you, the Pashtun informant has accused you of drug trafficking and paying off border guards when you were on the Pakistan border. From this moment, until the investigation is finished, you're suspended from your position and from any task, and you cannot have any contact with the organization...ah, I almost forgot...for the moment you are no longer welcome in the UK."

Then he heard Shaw’s tone change into astonishment, "What the hell have you done to turn the whole CIA against you and put us in this mess?"

Shaw abruptly ended the conversation.

Mark had to leave his hotel immediately, and had to create a new disaster recovery plan as quickly as possible.

Listening to his demon, letting it push him into acting on impulse, had led him to overlook the risk of leaving traces and to underestimate the capabilities of the CIA and his enemies.

Walton I. Reed was now ahead of the game, and any evidence he might have brought against his son wouldn’t be credible.

“I'm a fucking idiot!” Savannah said aloud to himself.

"Digitrevenant69. I'm burned, act accordingly and clean up. I need a new smartphone, change the clone that I left you. I'll call you. Payment as soon as possible MK."

"Digitrevenant69, QSL. Get your ass out of there. Leave it to me. I'll be listening. Try not to get screwed completely."

Savannah quickly put his belongings into a bag and, while he was preparing to destroy the smartphone, a message suddenly arrived from an unknown line:

“County Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. David Marshall needs your advice. The enemy of the Blue Fairy."

"Zimmermann/Davis? What the fuck!!"

Mark Savannah destroyed the device, and immediately left the hotel. He headed towards the Penn subway station on foot; in a few minutes he would have to decide whether to go to Dallas or not.

‘Zimmermann, fuck you, you're using me again...just who do you work for?’ he wondered angrily.

42

At 8:00 am Pavel Doko was in his secret bunker in Sofia working on some new apps and on a new protected line that he wanted to install on the clone of Mark Savannah’s smartphone. He had not heard from him for two days and was now beginning to worry about Mark’s silence.

While he was working on cleaning and changing the access to the British Secret Intelligence Service line, so that no one would be able to trace the signal of the new device to Mark, the phone rang.

"Hello Pavel, what a mess! Svetla and Nikolay have a 102 degree fever, and I can’t stay home from work...I need help! They don’t have stomach problems, just sore throats and a cold...do you have a lesson to teach this morning?"

"Anna! Hi! I have a class in the late afternoon. Can you get back by then? I can come right away...do you need anything?"

"I wonder if you could buy something to give them for lunch." Anna asked with a pleading and at the same time chirpy tone.

"You know I can only make spaghetti with tomato sauce, apart from that I devour pre-cooked meals."

"Spaghetti will be fine Pavel, the children will be happy..."

“...to torture me with blowguns, runny noses...blaring cartoons..."

"What if you and I go out to dinner, just us… when they’re OK again?"

"That's what I'm counting on! I'm on my way."

Anna knew exactly how to get what she wanted from Pavel.

Anna was thirty years old and had known Pavel for at least twenty years; they had been classmates in college, then Anna had left school and started working at an insurance agency, where she still worked.

Pavel had been in love with her since the beginning and for many years had told her openly, but Anna had always given him the usual refrain about how she considered him her best friend and how she couldn’t do without him, but that she didn’t love him at all.

Pavel was at the wedding when she married, suffering silently with his broken heart. Four years later, when she divorced her husband, he had accompanied her to the lawyer and let her and the children stay in his room at the university for a whole week. He was still waiting on a virtual river bank for his princess’s boat to stop for him; he hadn’t given up. He would cast himself into the fire for her, and there was no other woman he wanted so much, though he knew full well that as soon as she needed something, she would take advantage of him without mercy.

Pavel was a generous man and like all the generous people he was also generous with his feelings. He gave without expecting anything in return, and when loneliness got the best of him and he recognized what a romantic idiot and a dreamer he was, he simply shut himself in his laboratory to work on his projects. He didn’t look for an alternative to Anna, because she was the fulcrum of his life and he was an acrobat who refused a safety net.

43

"Here I am! Where are the monsters?" Pavel called on entering Anna’s house.

Anna ran up to him and kissed him on the mouth.

"And what is this?" Pavel asked pleasantly surprised.

"Good morning Pavel! I see that you have been stuffing yourself with bytes, female bytes I hope...even if they are only virtual! Ha! Ha! I'm late, goodbye kids! I'll see you this afternoon, Pavel. Good luck!"

"I’ll try not to strangle them, Anna... Have a good day!"

The professor closed the door and walked into the children’s room. Svetla and Nikolay were watching a cartoon on the television, around them an atomic bomb had exploded; there wasn’t even a free inch on the floor: games, used tissue paper, bread crumbs and two empty bottles of coke formed a dense and confused carpet.

"Hello, here I am... My God, Anna! How can you live in this mess?!!" he said loudly, not caring at all if the kids were listening.

Pavel took a chair and positioned it in front of the table that was cluttered with candy wrappers, toothpaste, broken and sticky cookies. He turned on his laptop and connected to the university network. Then he put a hand into his jacket pocket to get his glasses and realized that he had brought Mark’s smartphone with him.

44

The laboratories of Biosketch Technologies Inc., built in the middle of nowhere in the desert of New Mexico, were constructed geometrically so as to appear from above as part of a large mandala, the design symbolized a swastika in a square. The architect who had designed it, a close friend of Colonel Reed, was very fond of esotericism and in this case had opted, with the approval of his friend Reed, for the form of a swastika, which in Sanskrit means ‘lucky’: they believed that luck was that extra pinch of salt that could make the difference on a research and development project.

This eccentric architectural form had provided a 10% savings in construction costs and greater energy efficiency than a traditional construction project, as well as creating optimal connections between the different laboratories.

There were still a lot of questions about whether this was a favorable reference to Nazism, but for the top brass of the CIA and the Defense Department cost savings, along with efficiency and practicality, were a priority, therefore no one had raised the slightest objection to the design, and the Biosketch Technologies Inc. facilities had been inaugurated in 2005 right on schedule.

The hooks of the building contained accommodation for researchers and for all employees, as well as a canteen. The staff spent three months in the desert and then took paid leave for a one month rest period, then returned again for another three months, and so on.

Biosketch Technologies Inc.’s business focused on tissue engineering: its laboratories studied and developed innovative procedures for the regeneration of tissues in the human body through the use of autologous stem cells; the company focused its R&D activity on the use of mesenchymal stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood.

Walton I. Reed ran the company under the supervision of the Department of Defense, managing two separate and specific projects: the first, called "Transtem 1.1" was of public relevance, and in its early stages was followed closely by the media. It concerned the transplant of new tissue created in the laboratory to patients who had suffered even severe traumatic events in accidents that had caused damage to the cartilage tissue, bone tissue or nerve tissue.

The second was simply called "Brainexe" and was protected under military secrecy and the strict supervision of the Department of Defense; its first phase focused exclusively on the development of innovative techniques of tissue engineering for the generation of new neurons in the brain in order to completely heal soldiers who had suffered irreversible injury to brain tissue in military operations.

A second phase was also planned and already in development, which involved direct manipulation of the new tissue in order to be able to program the transplant patient: Reed wanted to create the perfect soldier, the ultimate biological weapon, highly skilled, trained, heedless of danger, rational and violent.

It was not a new idea at all, but until two years ago it had only been science fiction and now they would be able to create a newly conceived and expert army with exceptional abilities: the Colonel and the Department of Defense knew very well that machines would never be able to completely replace man in war or guerrilla warfare.

The "Transtem 1.1" project offered several personalized medical services focusing on young persons who had suffered major injuries, recruited throughout the entire territory of the United States.

The surgical procedures were carried out at the Biosketch Technologies Inc. hospital; the patients were discharged after a few weeks, so that they could be followed, in clinical studies, through specialized satellite centers distributed throughout the territory.

The research program was carried out using the individual patients’ insurance coverage, as well as several grants provided by the National Institute of Health and the Traumatic Injuries Fund. This allowed Biosketch Technologies Inc. to provide assistance to those in the target age group who did not have sufficient health insurance coverage and in addition to ensure partial coverage of the costs of hospitalization, surgery and rehabilitation.

Once discharged, the patients received assistance from the satellite centers that followed the standard operating procedures and the therapeutic protocols, which were distributed by the research center in the desert of New Mexico.

Data was collected by the satellite centers using an electronic data capture system, then sent and aggregated into a clinical data management system, which was located in the basement of the Biosketch Technologies Inc. web farm.

The "Brainexe" project was based on the search for new molecules involving the scaffold so that, once integrated with the new tissue, they would be biocompatible with the brain cells and would not deteriorate and could work as a transmitter.

The researchers had in fact developed a particular diode nanometer, formed of two stable hexagonal carbon nanotubes that they inserted into the scaffold. The nanometric diode only allowed electric current to flow in one direction and therefore the electrical impulses could not go back or be rejected.

The programming of the neuronal cells consisted of sequential training initially focused on the rehabilitation of the functions, and afterwards on the actual programming of biological weapons, by acting directly on the limbic system and the neocortex.

The scaffold developed by "Brainexe" was also used for the "Transtem 1.1" project in order to optimize the cost and production chain.

The laboratories and their products were controlled by the central unit, which managed the information system and the entire supply chain from development to tissue production under the responsibility of Jago C. Green, the IT & Operations Director.