The Arcturus Man (55 page)

“I wish I could, but I can’t. It doesn’t work like that. I sensed a lake, but that’s no
help. There are hundreds of small lakes in that region. Jenny has no idea where she is. I
can’t get an images of the area they are in,” said Jared.
“If we found a map of the Fort Kent area, could you pin point their location. I
think that is called distant viewing,” said John.
“That doesn’t work, John,” said Jared.
“I am going to have to depend on you
finding Jenny.”
John looked shaken and didn’t follow up with another question even though he
wanted to.
“Can I use your phone? I need to get the Bureau going on this. As a kidnapping
and with Canada possibly involved, it’s the FBI’s jurisdiction,” said John.
“You can use your cell. I have a tower on the island,” said Jared.
“Brett, if you’re willing, I would like you to accompany me to Boston in the
morning.
I want you in the restaurant when Sami calls.
After I’m killed, I want you to
immediately contact the news media in Boston to make certain I get coverage. That is
vital.”
“What do you mean, after you’re killed?” asked Brett.
“Just trust me on this, Brett. Will you?”
“Sure.”
A boat horn blast stopped the conversation.
“That must be Sam Bentley,” said Brett. “I’m going to spend the night here.”
“That’s good. I’ll take it back to the mainland.
I don’t have much time,” said
John. He started punching numbers into his cell phone as he left the house.
“So what are you going to do?” asked Brett.
“I’m going to die,” said Jared.

The drive to Boston seemed to take longer than normal. The sound proofing in
Jared’s Lexus added to the grave mood.
The sounds of the world around them couldn’t
be heard inside the car. The silence was toxic. There were no horns, barely any rumbling
trucks, and certainly no voices—not even their own. Brett and Jared barely spoke the entire way. The light rain and overcast skies amplified the gloom of the day. They phoned
John on his cell several times.
He didn’t have any new information. They arrived in
Cambridge twenty minutes before noon. The Dolphin Restaurant opened at 11:30. They
parked a block from Harvard and walked back to the restaurant.
They asked for a table
near the window looking on to Mass Avenue. They didn’t order anything alcoholic; they
had sweet iced tea instead. Clear heads were important. They did, however, order a grand
lunch as suggested by Sami. Why not? It killed the time. They both had a dozen Malpaque oysters with seafood sauce and red wine vinaigrette. Brett ordered broiled bluefish
with mustard sauce. Jared had fish and chips. They ate in silence. The service was fast.
They didn’t know when Sami would phone, so they had coffee.
Sami phoned during
their second cups. Ginger was on the money. Sami called at 13:30.

Jared flipped open his phone. There were people sitting too close. He didn’t turn
on the speaker phone.
“Listen!
No question.
Take taxi. Go Boston Common.
Enter park at Tremont,
between West and Temple streets.
Go fountain.
Do there.
My associates watching,”
said Sami.
“Hold on. The traffic is terrible.”
Sami had already disconnected.
“Let’s go,” said Jared.
They decided to leave the car. The walked briskly up Mass Avenue to the Inn at
Harvard. They were in luck and found a waiting taxi waiting a block from the Inn. Taxis
were usually hovering near the Inn.
They arrived at Tremont in 18 minutes.
The traffic
wasn’t terrible.
They climbed out of the cab.
Brett paid the driver and left a generous
tip. He wanted the cabbie to remember them. They walked into the park.
Jared unbuttoned his London Fog Balmacaa trench coat. He nodded to Brett who dropped back several paces and then walked away, not looking back. Jared scanned the area. There were
no uniforms visible but he quickly spotted the Massachusetts State Police in plain clothes.
Their shoes and haircuts gave them away. A few might be with the Boston PD, at least
the scruffy ones.
He focused. Yes, the Boston PD was there too.
They all blended into
the late lunch crowds walking through the Common.
The FBI guys didn’t blend at all
and were the easiest to spot.
Their clothes and grooming were like uniforms. John had
done his part well. They all were leaving him alone.
Jared stood at the fountain. He still had a few minutes to think. Death was seductive. It was calling to him. Sami said 30 minutes. There were eight minutes to go. There
was no fear. His only felt regret about Jenny. She was so young. The possibility that she
might be saved was dimming.
He did love her.
He regretted how he acted the last time
they talked. He couldn’t hold the monster in him at bay. He didn’t deserve to live.
He casually looked around one last time.
No one was going to rush over to stop
him. He never thought they would. Then again, no one thought he would actually do it.
He sensed several of them.
He sensed a lot of anxiety but also a surprising amount of
indifference. He felt for the suicide note in his side pocket. It was there. He reached into
his trench coat and grasped the handle of the Colt Woodsman.
From then on it was
quick. He withdrew the gun from his belt, carefully positioned it to his temple, and fired.
He dropped instantly.
The crack of a pistol was unmistakable. A woman screamed as he fell. A crowd
quickly gathered, staring at the body.
Warm blood was streaming down Jared’s face.
It
quickly saturated his white shirt and turned it crimson. Brett was about a hundred yards
away. He was shaken, but determined to do his duty. He pulled out his cell phone and
began dialing the Boston Globe. He then called several of the local TV stations. He gave
them descriptions of the kidnapped girl and told them that photographs were concurrently
being e-mailed by his secretary as well as a summary of events. He told them that police
statements would be coming directly from the various agencies.
They all had the same
question. Had the police really stood by and watched a man kill himself to save the girl.
It was a great story for them. Brett had no comment.
Brett looked back at Jared’s body.
A woman was attending to him.
She was
holding an umbrella over Jared, blocking Brett’s view. She was wearing white sneakers,
the kind that nurses wear. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
An ambulance arrived. The police must have stationed one very close. Boston PD
blue and whites jammed every intersection. The woman in the while sneakers was shaking her head to the EMTs piling out of the ambulance.
Brett still couldn’t come to terms with the reality of the situation.
Law enforcement agencies had allowed a man to commit suicide that they knew about ahead of time.
It was unconscionable, but such was his friend’s wish—that no one interfere. No one did.
Brett was being a friend and an attorney, but it was tough.
Brett walked closer to the scene and photographed the crowds at the scene with
his digital camera at full zoom.
This was for the unlikely contingency that Sami really
did have associates witness the suicide.
It might aid in identification later.
Brett stayed
calm the entire time. He promised that he would. He always kept his promises. As he
walked yet closer he could see the paramedics working on Jared.
A compression bandage was held tightly against the head wound.
One medic felt the carotid artery for a
pulse.
He quickly pulled open Jared’s shirt and used a stethoscope to listen for a heart
beat.
“The guy’s dead. Get his wallet out for an ID,” said the medic.
A uniformed policeman appeared…Boston PD…who carefully picked up the
handgun by trying to run her ball point pen into the barrel. The bore was too small. She
pulled a handkerchief and used that to lift the gun.
She thought about waiting for the
crime scene guys to show up but was concerned that someone might take the gun. The
plain clothes officers stayed away.
The FBI people were already gone.
One man was
taking photographs of the scene and of the people in the crowd with a very expensive,
high quality digital camera.
A crime scene investigation van pulled up.
A police line was established around
the body. Photographs were taken. The cop was relieved of the weapon. The woman in
white shoes turned a note over to the CSI team.
The efficiency of the Boston PD was
impressive.
They put Jared on a stretcher and rolled it into the ambulance. Brett could see that
they were zipping up a body bag as the doors closed. They were going to Mass General
Hospital.
Various news media crews were finally arriving as the ambulance pulled into
traffic.
There was no rush now.
The ambulance didn’t turn its sirens on.
Clusters of
news people were forming at the scene.
Video was being taken.
Witnesses were being
interviewed. Brett was amazed how quickly everything was happening.
The woman in
the white sneakers was a nurse. She was being interviewed by one TV crew after another. She said that the man was dead at the scene. He had no pulse. He was dead.

Sami had been playing with the dish antenna for an hour. He had to move the RV
several times before he found a decent view of the southern horizon. He came back into
the cabin and turned on a small television set on the diminutive kitchen counter.

Jenny was naked, shackled to a small bed at her ankles with rusty dog chains and
padlocks.
She kept her knees together and her arms folded over her chest.
It was July
but she was cold and she was shivering. Every part of her body hurt. Her parents never
used corporeal punishment on their children. Jenny had never been beaten before so she
couldn’t judge how brutal Sami had been.
She never cried, at least not while he was
watching her. She wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

Sami used his knife to cut open a can. He was pulling things out of a plastic grocery shopping bag. The text on the bag was mostly in French. He set out two paper plates
and two plastic spoons. He dug out what looked to Jenny to be sardines from the jagged
opening of the can and divided them between the two paper plates. Sami took out a green
plastic food storage tub and spooned out pieces of calamari onto the plates, keeping them
completely separate from the little fish.
He brought one of the plates to Jenny and
dropped it on the bed.

“Eat. This smoked sprats.
They excellent. Difficult to find in America but easy
Canada. I like sprats. Squid good too. Very fresh,” said Sami.
The squid looked black.
It was soaked in ink.
And the fish that looked like sardines still had heads and fins. Jenny hadn’t eaten since she was kidnapped, but she didn’t
know if she could get this down. She decided that she would at least try it. She pinched
off the head and fins with her spoon.
The little fish weren’t really that bad.
She put a
piece of squid in her mouth. It felt like rubber. It was horrible. It didn’t matter what you
called them, calamari or any other name, it was indigestible. She ate all of the sprats and
would have liked more, but she was afraid to ask.
Sami picked up a loaf of French bread and broke it in two. From the sound of the
bread breaking, as well as the sound of the bread hitting the kitchen counter, it was evident that it was as hard as a brick. He turned on the faucet. Sami soaked each half of the
loaf under the running water. He handed one half to Jenny. She thought it was some kind
of punishment until, to her absolute astonishment, Sami sat down and began to gnaw at
his half of the bread. She looked at her piece.
It was rock hard in the center and mushy
on the outside. He actually liked it this way. He kept spooning the sprats and squid into
his mouth.
His eating was noisy.
He was done in a few minutes.
He walked into the
bathroom and came out holding a plastic tumbler. It was filthy. He put it on the counter
and half filled it with vodka. He topped it off with tap water.
“Here drink.”
Jenny shook her head.
“Good. More for me,” said Sami.
He walked away with the tumbler.
He drank it in one gulp and then filled it up
with tap water. He brought the glass back to Jenny. She took it. She was so thirsty. She
drank it without stopping.
He fished into the bag again and brought out two white pieces. Jenny wasn’t sure
what they were.
“This walrus bone earrings for my beautiful daughter.
Hand carved by Inuit.
Very beautiful. Yes?”

Having eaten, Sami settled back in his chair. He found a news channel originating
from Boston. The picture was terrible but the audio was good.
She didn’t know exactly
where she was but she knew that she was far upstate somewhere on the Canadian border.
She tried not to attract Sami’s attention.

Sami picked up a large phone. It looked a lot like the SAT phone that Jared had
on the boat.
He dialed a number.
He spoke in Russian.
Jenny couldn’t understand any
of the conversation but she heard a name, Tatyana.
She recognized it as a woman’s
name. Sami smile broadly and hung up the phone. He turned and looked at Jenny.

She felt bile filling up in her throat. Sami turned up the volume on the TV. The
news station was covering a man who had committed suicide earlier today in the Boston
Common.

“…may be gadget guru and millionaire, Jared Siemels, according to a suicide note found at the scene by an off-duty nurse. The contents of the note are being withheld by the authorities. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. An anonymous source confirmed that the note was unsigned. An attorney familiar with Siemels
contacted the Boston Police Department and will be arriving at the
morgue at Mass General this evening to make a positive identification.”

Jenny bolted up, straining at her chain to get closer to the small TV. Tears welled
up in her eyes. She couldn’t speak. She could believe what she was hearing.
The newscast continued.
“…Tatyana Lipova.
My name is Tatyana Lipova. I am a nurse at Tufts Medical
Center. I was walking home through the Common and I saw this man pull a gun from his
coat.
I was about to run for cover when he immediately put it to his head and fired.
I
have never seen such a thing.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Such a young man.
Why
would he do such a horrid thing?”
“What kind of gun did he have.”
“It was a big gun. Mostly black I think.”
“You found a suicide note.”
“Yes, my goodness. I was looking for a handkerchief or something I could use to
stop the bleeding. He had a terrible head wound. The note was in his pocket.”
“What did the note say, Ms. Lipova.”
“My goodness, the police said that I wasn’t allowed to say.”
“We understand. And can you…”
Sami turned down the volume. Jenny was curled up again, sobbing.
“YOU MONSTER. You made him do this.”
Sami walked over to the bed and slapped her. Her lip was bleeding again.
Sami
was upset. The suicide note was troubling. He had to consider the possibility there would
be some kind of trick but Tatyana assured him that there was no question that he was
dead. He had no pulse. Jared was finally dead.