Waterkill (Dave Henson Series) (13 page)

Dana nodded her head slowly in understanding as Spencer punched the speed dial number and handed the phone over to Abdul.

Chapter 20 (April 15, Friday 1:00pm, Yemen)

“Who is this?” demanded Dave, as he held the phone tightly to his ear to try and hear the man’s voice over the din of the Toyota Land Cruiser and the road noise.

Ben could see Dave was struggling to hear the voice on the other end of the connection so he slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road to stop the Toyota.

“This is Dana’s newly found friend,” responded Abdul in a thick mocking accent. “You need to listen very carefully to what I have to say Doctor Henson as your wife’s life depends on it.”

“What have you done to my wife?” asked Dave in a controlled and commanding voice, as he mentally assessed the man’s voice. The hair on the back of Dave’s neck suddenly started to bristle as the man’s accent registered in his head. It immediately brought back painful memories. He was clearly talking to a Middle Eastern man with a Persian sounding accent. Based on the particular dentalized sound in the man’s voice, he suspected the man was a native Farsi speaker. Probably from Iran, Dave mentally noted.

“I have done nothing to her yet Doctor Henson. However, if you do not do what I ask, you will severely regret your decision.”

“Where is she? I want to speak to her.”

“You will get a chance to speak with her in a moment, though I will be unable to share with you where she is presently.”

“What is it that you want from me?” demanded Dave. Dave glanced over at Ben and Murad. They were intensely focused on Dave as they tried to hear the man’s voice on the other end of the line.

“You have recently killed my brothers, one of whom was my blood brother, in Alaska. For that, I guarantee you, in time I will hunt you down like a dog and you will pay the ultimate price for your deed. However, I will spare your wife’s life if you do exactly what I am about to tell you.”

“Go on. What is it that you want?” demanded Dave, ignoring the man’s threat.

“You will immediately cease and desist your efforts to interfere with what my colleagues and I are working on.”

“And what is it that you and your colleagues are working on?” feigned Dave to keep the man talking.

“You know exactly what Doctor Henson,” responded Abdul in seething anger, spittle flying from his mouth as he spoke into the phone. “Do not tempt fate if you want your wife to live. You killed my brother and you know why you did so. We both do. I repeat. You will stop what you are working on immediately, and will in no further way assist the United States Central Intelligence Agency or the Department of Homeland Security in their efforts.”

Dave listened intently to the man’s voice, absorbing the warning and his message, but also assessing how he was going to rescue Dana and hunt down this man and his animal friends. Terrorists like this man took his parents from him years ago. He would not let them now take his wife from him too. He would die finding her before he would sit back and trust the word of a terrorist. He knew how they worked. How they operated. Terrorists can never be trusted. They have a sick mind and a perverted view of reality, and particularly those who have a twisted perspective of the Islamic religion.

“Do you understand me Doctor Henson?” repeated Abdul into Dave’s ear.

The sound of Abdul’s voice shook Dave from his concentrated analysis. “Yes, I understand, but I want proof that Dana is alive and in good health.”

Abdul looked over at Ahmad who gave him a nod. Spencer and Dana had both been listening to the conversation. Dana had to hold her tongue not to cry out to Dave until she was told to speak.

Ahmad gave another nod back to Abdul to have him position the phone next to Dana’s mouth so that she could speak to Dave. He also gave Dana a look with his eyes that made it vividly clear what would happen to her if she said anything to give him or their position away.

Dana hesitated to speak. “Talk to him,” said Spencer in a commanding but slightly hushed voice. A voice that did not go unnoticed by Dave.

“Dave, Dave, I am here and I am fine,” said Dana with a wavering voice, while still attempting to steel herself to show strength to both Dave and her captors.

Thank God, thought Dave to himself when he heard Dana’s voice. “Dana, do exactly as your captors ask. Do not do anything to upset them that will put your life at risk.”

“I won’t, but as the man just said to you please sever any work that you are doing for the CIA or DHS.”

Abdul looked at Spencer and grinned. Even their captor was telling Doctor Henson to back off.

“I love you,” said Dave. “Take care of yourself.”

“I love …..” Abdul pulled the phone away from Dana’s mouth before Dave could hear her complete her sentence.

“We have eyes and ears everywhere,” said the man on the other end of the connection. “You do as you are told, and she will live.”

“But when and where will you release her?” asked Dave.

“You live up to your end of the bargain and in two weeks we will release her. Where? She will tell you when she contacts you after her release. Until then back off if you truly love her.”

The phone connection went dead.

He looked up to see Ben and Murad staring at him intently. They had heard both sides of the conversation and were speechless.

“What do you want to do?” asked Ben.

Dave was quiet for a minute as he gathered his thoughts and formulated a plan. Finally he said in a calm and determined voice, “I am going to track them down, rescue Dana, and then make sure that mouth on the other end of the phone never utters another word again. And while I’m at it, I plan to also silence as many of his terrorist brothers as I can.”

Dave hesitated a moment before speaking again.

“Ben, get us back to the airbase as quickly as possible after we drop off Murad. In the meantime, I need to make a couple of phone calls.”

Ben put the Land Cruiser’s shift lever back into drive and pulled back onto the road to Mocha. Ten minutes later they dropped Murad off, thanked him for his help, and paid him a handsome bonus.

Once they were back on the road to the airbase, Dave called Ron who was back in Idaho.   He knew it was very early in the morning there, but he knew Ron always kept his cell phone on and by his side, even when he was sleeping. Five rings later Ron answered the phone in a tired sounding voice.

“Why are you calling me at this crazy hour of the day?” asked Ron in a semi-serious, half joking tone.

“Ron, I am sorry to wake you up, but it’s Dana. She has been kidnapped.”

Ron sat up in his bed, slid his legs over the edge of it and rubbed his eyes. “Kidnapped? When? By who?”

“I just spoke to her and one of her captors.” Ben looked at Dave with a questioning look. “Captors,” he mouthed at Dave questioningly?  Dave nodded his head.

“I don’t know who her kidnappers are at the moment, but we are going to find out. I need you to get over to NSurv headquarters and review the recorded conversations on Dana and my phones for the past twenty-four hours. I’ll also need the GPS coordinates associated with each call.”

In the past year Dave had installed a software app on Dana and his security-enhanced smartphones that NSurv had developed. The app recorded all conversations that occurred on their phones and automatically backed them up on a server located at NSurv headquarters.

“I’ll get right on it,” said Ron as he was already slipping on a pair of jeans. “Anything else you need from me?”

“Yes, please hurry and keep this information private. Not even Doctor Gillian needs to know about this situation. I know he has a strong fatherly affection for Dana, but there is nothing more that he can do right now except to stay focused on what he is working on. We may need his services later.”

“Roger that. I won’t say a word about this conversation to anyone.”

Dave terminated the call and immediately began to look up John Bates’ phone number.

“You have all your cell phone conversations recorded?” asked Ben Harper in a surprised and somewhat concerned tone.

“Yes, you shouldn’t look so surprised,” responded Dave. “One of NSurv’s primary product segments is surveillance hardware and software.”

“It is not that I am as much surprised, as I am concerned what CIA Director John Cote would think about that fact. You have regular conversations with CIA headquarters.”

Dave looked over at Ben. “Who do you think sponsored NSurv’s development of the software?” asked Dave.

Ben gave a weak smile as Dave punched the call number to John Bates. As he waited for John to pick up he said, “CIA has Dana and my conversation recordings as well. However, Ron can process them much faster, and more securely, than the CIA.”

“Hello, Bates speaking.”

“John, this is Dave Henson. I, we, have a problem.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Dana has been kidnapped by the same terrorist group that we have been pursuing, and that most likely poisoned the water supplies in Yemen and Germany.”

“How do you know Dana has been kidnapped?”

“Because I just received a call from her cell phone, and instead of her answering my greeting, a man with a thick Persian accent did. After threatening me with an ultimatum to either back off helping the CIA and DHS or my wife would die, he briefly put Dana on the phone so that I could hear that she was alive and okay.”

“Dave, we will get her back alive and in one piece,” responded Bates with a personal determination in his voice. “Do you have any idea where they may have her captive?”

“No. All I know was that she was headed to Eberswalde, Germany to report on the sudden epidemic that had broken out there. Up until a few minutes ago, that was the last time I had heard from her.”

“Most likely she was abducted there,” commented Bates, “but the question is by who.”

“I think she is being held by two male captors,” said Dave. “I am sure I heard a second man’s voice whisper to Dana before she spoke to me. The voice had a slightly familiar sound to it, but I could not place it. Also, the second voice did not have the same Persian sounding accent.”

“There are a number of different sounding Persian accents,” commented Bates.

“Based on my limited linguistic knowledge of the Middle Eastern area, I could have sworn the man who did almost all of the talking had a Farsi ring to it.”

“Farsi! Then possibly he is of Iranian decent,” interjected Bates.

“In light of the fact that Iran is a petri dish for growing fanatical Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, you are probably accurate with your assessment.”

The two men paused for a minute. Dave saw the secret U.S. military base in the distance, while Bates was contemplating a plan of action on finding Dana.

“There is another facet to Dana’s kidnapping,” said Dave into the phone. “It appears this terrorist group is working to a timetable. The man said he would free her in two weeks if I followed their directive.”

“Do you believe they will release her in two weeks?” asked Bates.

“I’m no fool,” replied Dave icily. “They will kill her, but not until they accomplish their mission.”

“Which is apparently soon,” finished Bates.

“So we don’t have a lot of time John. I need to find Dana, and I’m hoping her trail will lead to whoever is behind this bioterrorism plot.”

“Agreed, we need to move fast. I’ll start by having the CIA Communication Division recover your recorded phone conversations. I’ll also have them check Dana’s as well.”

“I already have Ron Blackwell doing that,” responded Dave, “but a second set of ears won’t hurt.”

“We may also be able to use our voice-print database to identify her captors, or at least the main guy you spoke to. If he has been working as a terrorist for a while, then chances are we have his voice previously recorded with a name and picture of his face beside it. At least that would give us a start on where to look for Dana.”

“Sounds like a plan, however, I’d like to go to Eberswalde, Germany since that is where she was probably abducted. Maybe someone saw or heard something. I will also test the town’s public water supply while I am there.”

“I will have the pilots contacted who are flying you out of Yemen to take you directly to Germany,” responded Bates.

“Also John, I wanted to let you know that we did run two water tests on the community well in the small Yemenis village. Both tests came back positive for trace amounts of a modified strain of cholera bacteria. I suspect we will find the same cholera bacteria strain in Eberswalde.”

“After departing Yemen, send me a detailed report on the water test results,” responded Bates. “Also, leave the water samples on the aircraft when you get to Germany. The aircraft will continue on to Washington after dropping you off. Once we get the samples back here, I will have them sent over to USAMRIID for further analysis and to be compared with what they find in the metal canister that you and Ron recovered in Alaska.”

“Will do,” said Dave. “I will also need some special items sent to me when I stop in Germany. From there, I plan to work independently on finding Dana and her captors.”

“Whatever you need Dave. Just email me a list of what you require when you’re in flight, and I will make sure it gets to Germany by the time you arrive there. However, are you sure you want to go after Dana alone? I could have a small team flown in to help rescue her.”