Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 01 - Flapjack (8 page)

-Chapter 16-

“Citation four-three-echo cleared to land two-eight right,” the pilot of the Cessna Citation X business jet repeated to air traffic control as they bounced in the clear air.

He pulled the power back slightly and lined up the plane perfectly with the runway centerline, gently caressing the plane to
the ground. 

The pilots maneuvered the plane to the opposite end of the field
and to the front of a large grey hangar.  Two black Suburban’s were parked near the hanger door, surrounded by neatly dressed men wearing sport coats.  The cabin door of the plane swung open as the engines revved down, and the stairs lowered to the ground.  Colonel Espinosa bounded down the stairs carrying the silver case.  He was met by one of the men who had been standing in front of the waiting Suburban. 

“
Everything in place?” the man asked.

“
Yes, and no problems.  Everything was on schedule.  I did what I was instructed,” the Colonel answered and handed the man the case.  He looked it over carefully.  A small green LED was lit on the case near the latch.

“
It all looks good.  No tampering and everything is clean.  After verification of the contents we’ll transfer payment to you,” the man told the Colonel.

“
Yes, of course.  I’m looking forward to it.”

“
Here is your ticket.  You’re on the 10:15 to Mexico City.  It will be up to you to make it back home from there.  Please use anonymity.  This isn’t something we want going around,” the man instructed the Colonel.

The man pulled out a small matchbook sized device and stuck it in an opening next to
the green light.  The small light changed to red as it was inserted.

“
Good,” the man announced dryly, and without a smile.  He motioned with his hand to another man at the Suburban who opened up a laptop on the hood of the SUV.  After a few seconds the man waved back.

“
Your funds have been transferred and we’re having your bonus being delivered to your home as we speak.”

“
Good, good,” the Colonel said while holding the airline ticket.  “I won’t ask you how you got it.”

“
That probably wouldn’t be a smart idea,” the man snapped back.  “Make sure you’re on that plane, and remember, speak of this to no one.”

“
Of course, of course.  I shut my lips.  Pleasure to do business with you,” the Colonel said, but not before the man had already turned and walked away.

The Colonel watched as the man carried the case to the black
Suburban, got in, and almost immediately, sped away.  Colonel Espinosa flashed a smile on his face, thought of his good luck, and made his way to the airline terminal for his journey home.

-Chapter 17-

Galveston called me at home the next morning, waking me from my wonderful slumber.

“
Hey sleepy head, get over here, will ya?”  I peered at the time.

“
What?”  I said groggily rubbing my eyes.  “How about after twelve.  I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck.”

“
That’s understandable.  Get over here within the hour then.  Alex is already on his way.”

“
Well thanks for taking my needs into account,” I replied sarcastically.

“
I did.  I was going to tell you to get here immediately, so I figure I’m throwing you a bone,” Galveston replied insensitively.

“
You have a heart of gold you know.”

“
I know.  See you in an hour and bring some food.  Bye.”

“
Bye,” I said grumpily.

I struggled up fro
m my bed, ironing the kinks out of my body, and prepared myself in the bathroom.  I was becoming excited as I readied myself.  What was the story going to be, and what damage had we done?

I couldn’t eat, but I obliged my partners and stopped off for donuts and coffee.  I arrived at our
so called office a little after 9:30 A.M.  I was never one for being punctual.

Alex and
Galveston were bright eyed and bushy tailed.  They were also, clearly, as excited as me, but Galveston exhibited a bit of trepidation for all of us.

“
So what’s the story?”  I asked hurriedly before I was even in the door.

“
What did you bring us?  I hope it’s some pigs in a blanket.  I love those things,”

Galveston
said grabbing the box from me, beginning to open it.

“
Donuts?  You just got donuts?  Mindless calories,” he mumbled, already with half a jelly-filled protruding from his mouth.

“
I didn’t know you were so concerned about your health before,” I told him.

“
I am now.”

“
Okay, you got your food.  Now what’s the story?”  I pressed.

“
First things first, what are we going to get paid?”  Galveston inquired to me with glee.  I reached for a piece of scrap paper and leaned forward in my seat.

“
Well, if all is successful, based on my estimates we may get paid this amount.”  I wrote on the piece of paper, folded it and slid it to Galveston on top of the coffee table in front of him.  He slowly unfolded it and nervously looked at the figure.

“
Here, let me reattach your retinas,” I said to him noticing his surprise.

“
Wow.  That’s a lot of zeros.”  The paper read $30,000.  “Are you serious?”  He asked me holding the paper.

“
Yep, that’s about right.  Of course the breakdown will be different based on the distribution,” I told him.  We previously had agreed together that 40% would go directly back in the business, and 60% would be split evenly three ways, between each of us.  The business got $12,000 and we each received $6,000, all for essentially one week of work.

I had managed to work some contractual magic.  I had to apply stipulation after stipulation while forcing myself to be confident in our success.  We came in under time, under budget, stayed concealed, and potentially saved Playcom millions of dollars.  I leaned back in my chair.

“Not bad, is it?”  I said with an air of contention.

“
Not bad?  If you weren’t a disgusting man, and it wouldn’t give me the feeling of expelling my half digested donut, I’d kiss you,” Galveston retorted.

“
Oh, that’s lovely to hear.  What do you think Alex?  Do you plan to stick around and see what other high jinks we can get ourselves into?”

“
Why not?  I think I’m going to kiss you no matter what,” Alex responded with a scary glint in his eye.

I felt a new sense of purpose, one of the great financier.  I couldn’t do the jobs of Alex and
Galveston nearly as well as they could, but they couldn’t pull off my job.  That’s why I was here.

Playcom was willing to pay.  The potential losses superseded the measly amount they would pay us.  I played on this fact and it succeeded, along with stipulations of increased payment for coming under time.

We all glowed over our new found bounty.  Maybe we glowed too much.  I propped my feet up on the coffee table.

“
Did you figure out what that code was?  Not that it matters now, since we’re going to get paid,” I asked Galveston.

“
Alright, alright,” Galveston said exhaustively.  “You better sit down.”

I grabbed a donut and sat on the couch. 
Galveston smiled, revealing bits of jelly goo around his mouth.

“That file caught my attention,” Galveston began.

“
What do you mean?”

“
Well, as Alex was pointing at it, I noticed the name and numbers and something just clicked.  Where had I seen that before?  And then, I remembered.”  He held up his finger as he took a sip of coffee.

“
You know I worked for Black Bear security right?”  He asked us, as if we didn’t know that information.

“
Yes,” I answered.

“
Well, that file name was so peculiar.  I learned during an investigation that Black Bear would name their black ops after Greek, Roman, or Egyptian mythological figures.  Sometimes they would use team names corresponding to letters of the phonetic alphabet.  Team alpha, bravo, Charlie.  They would use these in conjunction with the names of these gods.  You know, like, Jupiter Bravo.  After this it would be followed by a large group of numbers.  I never knew what those numbers meant, but most likely they were some sort of code, I bet.  It made it easy for them to list their operations that were secretive in nature.”  I twisted in my seat again, my ears perked up, and I scooted forward, anxious to hear more.

“
So you think that Genesis is doing something with Black Bear?”  I inquired.

“
I don’t know if they are but this file name stood out.  Every single time I saw these names I knew they were usually associated with something pretty bad, or pretty illegal.  I looked up the name
Adamathea
.  She wasn’t a Greek god, but a nymph who helped Zeus and hid him from his father, Cronus, who was going to swallow him or something nutty like that.  The numbers following the name are exactly as I remembered them, but this time there was no phonetic alphabet.  The god Black Bear chose explained the operation.  It helped keep everyone on the same page, but a degree in Greek mythology may have been a prerequisite to figure out what operation you were involved in,” Galveston stopped and caught his breath, already thinking two steps ahead.  “You remember the story I told you about when I got let go from them, right?”

“
Yeah,” I answered.

“
Well Osiris Echo was one of the things I came across when I did the research about arms dealers related to Black Bear.  I never knew what that was then.” 

“
Osiris was the lord of the dead in Egyptian culture, I believe,” I piped in.  “That’s a morbid one, but it fits.”

“
Right, and all those arms were for rebels in Africa,” Galveston continued.

“
So what, you have an old vendetta to return?  I mean, who cares.  That was history.  I don’t understand.  What do you plan to do with this?”  I asked again.

“
I don’t know,” he sighed, “it just seemed like a strange coincidence to run across something like this.”

That would be the understatement of the year.

-Chapter 18-

As curious as it was, it had no bearing on our newly minted operation.  Galveston seemingly let the matter fade and began to change focus even before we had our payment in hand.

We basked in the glory of our new potential greenbacks and discussed our next move
even before we got the money.  Galveston slid back in his chair.

“
You know, we need some new digs, a new place to call home.  We can’t continue to do business in this hovel.”  Galveston already had his sights set on a new place.

“
I agree,” I added.  I was hoping we would start to move towards more legitimacy, maybe not continue with the current reckless behavior we now exhibited.  No one in our merry band was licensed in the state as a private investigator.  I hoped that we could rectify this and become slightly more legal.

I broached the subject with
Galveston who agreed, but he was aloof about a timeline for such a thing to happen.  It might just be something that I would need to do on my own.

During the next few days
we took a little break.  There were no new jobs that we knew of so we took advantage of the downtime and looked for a new office.  Galveston had found a nice little office in a business park between a medical supply company and a dog grooming business.  Two businesses I’m sure we would frequent.

We immediately put down a payment and
moved in a few desks, a file cabinet, and Alex wired it for internet access, allowing us connection to the world.  Expenses were kept low, but decided we needed a new member, someone to man our extensive one line phone system and vast financial resources.

Alex had our perfect subject in mind. 
Galveston and I had only one stipulation, that it must be a woman, and she must be of an acceptable nature.  It was our polite way to say that we had grown tired of looking at each other’s mugs day in and day out and preferred someone with hair longer than to their ears.

He had an old friend that he insured us would be just right.  She was flexible, had another job
, since we paid very poorly, and had smarts.  Her name was Jane and she was an aspiring actress, a college graduate, and desperately needed a day job.  She also had legs up to her ears, which made coming to work that much easier.  It was appropriate that she was an actress since most of our business was just an act. 

She
agreed to start right away and fit right in quickly.  She organized our files, manned the phones, and answered the two calls we would get per day beautifully.  Everything was going well.  We had two new potential jobs.  Easy ones that required more sitting research than legwork, and I began looking in on getting my private investigator license.

Almost
a week had passed since the Genesis job, and unfortunately according to the rubber band theory that just couldn’t last.  The rubber band theory is this, things go well in life, everything just clicks along, opportunities rise and problems fall, the rubber band of life is stretched slowly.  Unfortunately, just like a rubber band it can only stretch so far and at some point it must return to its original position, or it can break, causing everything to go back to the start.  Our rubber band had been stretched to its limit, it didn’t break, but on a Friday morning it returned to its original position, and maybe even spun into a knot.