The Missile Game (The Dr. Scott James Thriller Series Book 1) (4 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

10:30 am

NICOLE BANZAR SAT IN a class in the Marshall Taylor School of Drama. She had an interest in one of the students, Harold Simpkins. She had met him in Texas two months earlier and had encouraged him to enroll in drama school. She even paid his tuition. His instructor told her that after a full six weeks of acting school, Simpkin
s could still use more classes. That didn’t matter to Nicole. It was time.

Nicole looked Simpkins over. About thirty years old, he was very thin, had sparse, sandy-colored hair, a soft chin, and a serious overbite. His unattractive appearance probably accounted for his failure to gain parts at the local community theaters.

When the class finally ended, Nicole told Simpkins she had something to talk to him about. She took him to a bar owned by a friend from Turkey and told him she was working for the government, and had acting job for him. “There may be a terrorist cell operating on the eastern seaboard, with plans to bomb cities in America. We need you to help make their identity known.”

He flatly refused, saying he wanted nothing to do with her employer, the CIA.

“Here, this is an advance payment,” she said, laying $1,000 in front of him. “Take it, Harold. You need this.”

He shook his head as she offered him the money.

“Nope. I need the money, but I ain’t working for the CIA against no terrorists.”

“But I haven’t finished my offer. The CIA will give you ten thousand for helping this country. Your name will be in every newspaper in the country.”

He looked at her, still shaking his head.

“And I’m attracted to strong heroic men like you. You’re just the kind of guy I’d like to be my boyfriend.”

That did it. Simpkins accepted the assignment and the money.

Jackson City Police Station

3:00 pm

None of the police departments were receptive. Harris simply looked wide-eyed at Simpkins, as if he wanted to laugh at him. “Appreciate ya comin’ in, Agent Simpkins,” Harris said to the man, putting emphasis on “
Agent
.”

“It’s imperative that we get full cooperation from the local police on this case,” Simpkins said, “We’re on the same team here, Detective. Any suspicious activities or evidence of foreign subversives, you call me immediately,” he said, handing Harris a business card.
Foreign subversives? Agent? CIA?
The guy looked official enough, but his words seemed rehearsed. He was clearly nervous, too, and didn’t have the cocky attitude Harris had come to expect from agents at the Federal level. Even the way he put out his hand to steady himself on the desk did not seem right.

Captain Mathew O’Brian, the police chief in Williamston, the municipality neighboring Jackson City, took Simpkins’ card as he walked from the building. Simpkins started his rehearsed speech, but before he could say ten words, O’Brian emphatically stated, “There are no foreign nationals operating terrorist cells in the area, sir.”

Simpkins further angered the police chief by placing his hand on O’Brian’s shoulder while they walked. The police chief wiped the hand away and said, “Good day, sir.”

The Swan Motel

Jackson City

7:06 pm

Simpkins returned after a day’s work to a room at the Swan Motel, on the outskirts of Jackson City. In the room were five Pakistani men, all fluent in English. They wore T-shirts, wrinkled black trousers, and sandals. They smoked a heavy, dark tobacco, rolled in thick-veined, black tobacco leaves, ones that generated enough smoke to engulf the entire motel room in a thick cloud.

Simpkins tried not to think about who these men were. They didn’t seem like CIA. But he had to admit it: The “acting” experience had been interesting. It put money in his pocket,
and
… got him a date with Nicole tonight.

Simpkins told his Pakistani minders of his successful day. He was proud of the fact that not one of the people he had talked to during the day had noticed his primary objective—planting miniature microphones in the offices he visited. He’d managed to photograph most of the places he’d been to, as well. Simpkins had a hidden camera in his neck tie that was activated simply by touching the tie. Posing, vaguely, as a diligent Federal officer, he’d successfully photographed and bugged most of Jackson City’s important buildings.

Three of the Pakistani men lay stretched out on the double bed and listened to Simpkins’ tale. At the end, one commented to Simpkins that he’d done a good job and that he was free to go meet Nicole for his date now.

The Pakistani agents said nothing to Simpkins about it, but they were especially thrilled with the bug Simpkins positioned in one of the embroidered gold stars on the shoulder of Captain O’Brian’s coat. If someone alerted the police to their presence, they’d probably know.

If they were lucky, it all might lead to Alpha Charlie.

Simpkins traded the suit they had lent him for his own dungarees, Justin boots, and Hawaiian sport shirt. In the parking lot, he switched from the rented Chevy to his Honda motorcycle and drove away.

There was little traffic on the rural road that was a shortcut back to Chapel Hill, so Simpkins was aware of a dark SUV that followed at a distance. Suddenly, he saw the lights of the vehicle approaching rapidly. He accelerated the motorcycle to seventy miles an hour. The SUV was doing ninety.

Simpkins moved to the far right of his lane to allow it to go by. The SUV slowed as it started to pass the bike. A man in the back seat stuck his head and shoulders out of the truck window and slammed the back of Harold Simpkins’ neck with a baseball bat, just as a second, smaller man in the front seat leaned out his window and grabbed the motorcycle’s handle bars. Simpkins went flying through the air, his body smashing against a tree.

The SUV braked. Simpkins was retrieved and wrapped in a tarp. The body and the motorcycle were thrown in the back of the SUV.

It was a professional job.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jackson City Jail

Jackson City, North Carolina

11:00 am

AT MY ARRAIGNMENT, I was charged with first degree murder of Wilson and Dr. Carey, and the attempted murder of Elizabeth Keyes. My wh
ole body shook. Harris stated, at the proceeding, “There’s no proof that anyone other than Dr. James had been in the office at the time of the two deaths, and he was in the recovery room when the attempt to kill Keyes was made.”

Bail was set at two million dollars. There was no way I could come up with that much money, especially after Alicia confiscated all of our bank accounts and then took the maximum cash possible out of all our credit cards and then canceled them. Alicia was a survivor and she was always good at taking care of herself.

Innocent or guilty, it looked like I was going away for a long time.

I was led to a row of twelve jail cells. Each was designed to hold two inmates. All the men in this area were violent criminals, incarcerated for drug-related killings, rape, and armed robbery. It was a rough-looking group of men. We all wore the same blue prison suits. I was placed with a Hispanic male, Hector Mendez. He was an inch shorter than me, but must have been a hundred pounds heavier, although it was mostly fat. “Morning,” I said, as I tried to sit down on my bed.

Mendez stood in my way and grunted, “Fuck you, white boy.”

“And I was thinking we could be friends.” I shrugged and tried to move around him. The other inmates sensed something was up and looked at us.

Mendez pulled out a homemade shiv. “Now, what the fuck you gonna do?”

I tried to ignore him and stay calm. “I was hoping to catch up on my sleep.”

Mendez went berserk. He raised the knife and jumped toward me. I kept my eyes on the knife and as Mendez stabbed at my chest, I grabbed his wrist, twisted it, and threw him against the wall. Mendez dropped the knife and swung his fist wildly.

I stepped aside and pounded his face with a left and then hit him in the stomach with a right. Mendez turned to face me but his body was swaying, and his eyes did not focus.

“Racial profiling is not politically correct,” I said.

With that, Mendez threw a hay maker punch, which missed me by a foot.

The other inmates were cheering, “Kill him! Kill him!”

I lifted my fist to finish him off, but saw no need. I led the defenseless Mendez to his bed and pushed him down.

Two guards were watching. Neither filed an incident report. And after that, nobody bothered me.

Soon, a black cloud of depression fell on me.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Drone Control Center, “Alpha Charlie”

Jackson City, North Carolina

12:05 pm

CHARLIE SAT IN THE dark room and monitored the computer screens attached to the BAMS/UAS workstation. He wore special glasses that compensated for the low light conditions and which provided magnification, allowing him to view the text messages on the lower part of the screens. The BAMS/UAS portable control module used twenty hard drives, stacked one on top of the other and conveniently bolted
to the left side of a flimsy-looking desk. The three monitors were each twenty inches wide and positioned at eye level to the operator. Active monitors came on when images were presented to them; blank monitors had no incoming videos.

Currently, the active screen pictured aerial views of a mountainous landscape. An hour earlier, Colonel Edwards had launched a Global Hawk RQ-4B, the newest and largest of the drone aircraft, from Kandahar, Afghanistan, and had placed a test target in an empty field a few miles from the base.

Edwards came on Charlie’s headset and suggested a trial of the new chair. He told Charlie to be on the lookout for a fake truck, sitting on the test-firing range.

Charlie did as Edwards instructed, manipulating his new system to visualize the test area. He was pleased that he could move the aircraft easily. He could see the objective at five miles and elected to shoot at that distance. Each of his index fingers activated an X that moved and centered on the image. Pressing his right thumb on the red firing button, a Hellfire missile shot from the drone. After a delay of a few seconds, it struck the bull’s eye painted on a cardboard replica of a truck and exploded on impact.

“Bra—
vo
,” Edwards said.

REUTERS

Canberra, AUSTRALIA

The American Ambassador to Australia, Mr. David Martin, has been summoned back to Washington amid growing anger in the capital, Canberra, over allegations that the target of last week’s foiled terrorist attack was a CIA-sponsored “black site” for the control of military drones in the Middle East. U.S. Officials, citing national security interests, have declined to comment on rumors that the three men and one woman apprehended last week in Sydney were actively searching for a drone control station rumored to be located somewhere in the vicinity of Byron Bay, a small resort town on the east coast of Australia. Members of the Australian Parliament on both the right and the left are calling for a full investigation of all civilian defense contractors doing business with the United States.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

7:00 pm

FOUR YEARS AGO, BILLY WATSON inherited the family peanut farm and a modest bank account. His low crop yield reflected his hatred of farming, and within two years, he was on the verge of bankruptcy. His friends and farm hands left him to a life of solitude. Each evening he went to the Varsity Bar, drank, and hit
on women. All of Chapel Hill knew he was a drunkard and a drug addict, so none of the girls showed any interest in him. But he didn’t care.

Tonight, things were different. A new girl from out of town seemed interested. She was young and pretty. Her eyes were brown and her long blonde hair curled up as it touched her shoulders. Her face was smooth and pear-shaped, with prominent cheekbones. She didn’t seem to mind that his rough beard hadn’t been trimmed in six months, his unkempt hair hadn’t been combed in weeks, and his eyes were so blood shot from inebriation that their color was in question. Billy couldn’t keep his eyes off her large breasts.

Michelle drank wine as he ordered Vodka, straight up. “I’m from Suthern Jaw-ja,” she said in a made up accent that even the inebriated farmer knew was false.

“So, tell me, really, are you from New York or is it Jersey?”

She blushed, “Am I that bad as a southern belle?”

“Yeah, well no. As the southern belle, you’re prettier’n any girls from the South I’ve ever met, but you talk like a Yankee trying to imitate Scarlett O’Hara. Better stick to ‘Naw-thun’ talk.”

As they laughed she moved close to him. “You’re cute,” she said as one of her breasts rested on his arm.

Soon, sex was the only thing on his mind. She was willing and wanted to go back to his farm house. He drove his pickup as she followed in a gold Cadillac Seville.

At the farm, an excited Billy Watson jumped out of his vehicle and ran to hers. As he helped her from the Cadillac, she rubbed his crotch and pulled his head to her chest. His virility had suffered from the alcohol and coke, but it was back tonight. She undressed in his bedroom, and then he watched as she crawled, naked, onto the bed, and then on top of him.

Suddenly four men and a tall brunette walked into the room and stood by his bed. He sat up abruptly, “What the ...?”

Nicole shoved him back down. Each man grabbed an extremity.

Billy struggled, kicking and screaming. “Michelle! Do you know these people?”

Michelle reached over and pinched his cheek firmly and leaned her face to within a few inches of his. “Billy, I need your fuckin’ farm and I don’t need you to plant fuckin’
peanuts
on it.”

Billy started to weep. “Please, I’ll do whatever.”

“You’re fuckin’ pathetic. Where’s my knife, Nicole?” Michelle asked.

“Don’t hurt me.”

Nicole handed her a hunting knife with an eight inch blade.

Michelle ran it down his neck. “Nobody screws me without paying.” She laid the blade of the knife against his windpipe. She pressed the knife until blood oozed from a shallow cut. Billy pulled against the men restraining him.

“You’re what’s wrong with America,” she screamed. “The free ride is over!”

She grabbed his penis. With a single swipe of the blade, she cut it off. Billy screamed in agony. She shoved the organ down his throat, choking him.

He mustered all his strength to pull away, but the four men held him down firmly. Michelle pressed a pillow over his face until his struggling ceased.