“I don’t have time for this crap,” Jake said, swishing the paper through the air.
“Mister Adams, that’s an official subpoena from the U.S. Congress.”
“I know what it is, Sonny. But I’m retired and on vacation. When I’m done here I’ll be heading down to Tierra del Fuego to catch as many sea-run Browns as humanly possible for a full week.”
“And then?”
Jake shook his head. He hadn’t planned that far ahead. He still had his apartment in Innsbruck, Austria. But in January it was too cold there. It made his synthetic left knee ache. He wasn’t planning to return to Austria until April or May. The same was true of his ancestral home in Montana. He couldn’t go there until June. He was considering someplace warm for a few months. Perhaps the West Indies or Costa Rica.
Jake looked at the letter again. “Two days? How am I supposed to get there by Friday?”
The state department man smiled. “We have that covered, sir. It’s an hour drive to San Martin. A two-hour flight to Buenos Aires, and then a ten-hour flight to D.C.”
“I am not flying coach,” Jake said vehemently. He still had the second half of his first class ticket from Argentina to Houston, from where he could fly almost anywhere.
“In the envelope, sir,” the man said with a smile.
Jake found a second piece of paper, folded in half against the side of the envelope. It contained his flight information and a hotel in Washington. Regardless, he still wasn’t sure he wanted to comply with this order. He had followed orders all his adult life. But now he only followed his own path.
“I am to accompany you to Washington.”
“No way. I don’t need a baby sitter. And I won’t ride in that death taxi,” Jake said, pointing at the decrepit car.
“Fine. We’ll take the vehicle you rented at the San Martin airport.”
Of course they would know about that, Jake thought. He had done nothing to cover his tracks on this trip. At the time he didn’t suspect he needed to hide from his own government. But they could track any Visa he used. Well, not any Visa. Only those with his real name. Without saying another word to the state department man, Jake got into his guide’s SUV. He guessed the stag roast would be dried out by now. Damn. That would have tasted great.
2
A steady rain pounded the roof of Professor James Tramil’s Toyota Camry as he drove slowly down 39th Avenue a few blocks from Oregon State University. Tramil had worked late in his lab until he had gotten a call from his colleague, Professor Stephan Zursk, asking him to stop by his home as soon as possible, which was out of the ordinary. The two of them had worked together all day in the nanotech lab, and Stephan had left at eight p.m. Now, after midnight, they would both normally be well asleep, ready to get back at their work by six a.m. But this current project was right on the cusp of a major breakthrough. They both knew it. In fact, Tramil had e-mailed his friend just a few hours ago, saying he thought he had broken their little stalemate. Maybe that’s why Stephan had called him to come to his place in the hills northwest of town.
Tramil hated this rain. The only good thing about the rain from November to March in western Oregon was it was much easier to focus in the lab, under the stark florescent lights. There was nothing distracting him outside. He didn’t ski. Hiked in the mountains only during the summer months. And only went to Portland to fly out of PDX to some conference. His only vice, if one could call it that, was his long runs every other day. He had gotten used to running in the rain, and even preferred it to bright sunny days. He also rarely got back to the home of his youth in Marquette, Michigan. He smiled thinking about checking the weather in the U.P. on his phone that evening. They had just gotten a foot of lake-effect snow off of Lake Superior and were expecting to get a new front push in from the south off of Lake Michigan — a double shot of the white stuff. Yeah, things could have been worse than this rain.
He slowed the car and turned up a lane that would bring him up into the hills, where the houses were a bit newer and larger, with half-acre lots. Stephan’s house sat on a hill with a view of the coast range mountains.
That was strange. Stephan’s house came up on the left, but there were no lights on. He pulled up on the street out front and considered what to do. Checking his phone, he saw that Stephan had called him only thirty minutes ago. Perhaps he’d gone to sleep. He had sounded somewhat distracted. Maybe even a little reticent. This was not normal for him. In his late fifties now, Stephan always said that time was running out on him. He had to make a major contribution to his field now, or he might as well retire. He was usually the most straightforward person Tramil knew. “Get to the point,” he would always say. But during this last call, he had not followed his own mantra.
Tramil considered just putting the car in drive, making a U-turn, and heading to his small house near the campus. Maybe he’d get a good microbrew before McMenamins closed.
Suddenly a light came on somewhere in the house. Okay, Stephan was awake.
He shut down the car, got out into the heavy rain, and started for the front door. Just as he passed the living room picture window, Tramil heard a scream, followed by two flashes of light. He stopped in his tracks. Was that what he thought it was?
Silence. Only his heart pounding loudly, trying to escape through his throat.
He stood at the door now unsure what to do. Just as he touched the door knob, the door swung in and Tramil saw the long pistol before looking up to a tall man dressed in dark clothing, a mask over his face.
Tramil ran, vectoring away toward the driveway. He heard a number of coughs through the rain. Then he reached the corner of the garage, heard a couple more silenced shots, and felt a pain in his posterior. He knew this area, having been to Stephan’s house many times. But what if there was another shooter around back? Instead, he turned left and ran into the woods, the wet tree limbs slapping his face and making him trip a few times.
When he got to the hill, he fell and rolled downward until he hit a small patch of sagebrush. Getting up swiftly, only looking behind him for a second and seeing nothing, he continued running.
Tramil didn’t stop running until he had gone more than a mile. His heart was racing more than on his normal runs, but then he wasn’t being shot at during those. He leaned against a tall cedar to catch his breath.
He felt a buzz in his pants, followed by U2’s In God’s Country. Grasping it quickly and seeing the number came from Stephan, he answered swiftly.
“Stephan? Are you all right?”
Nothing on the other end.
Think, Tramil.
“You are shot,” said a voice on the phone. Stephan’s phone. “You will die soon.”
He almost forgot the pain in his backside. Reaching his hand around his right side, he finally felt pain in his right buttocks cheek.
“I don’t think so,” Tramil responded, and then stopped the call. Then he quickly called 911 and said what had happened at Stephan’s house. Done with that call, he turned off his phone and removed the battery.
Slowly now, more cautiously, he moved through the woods toward the OSU campus. The pain in his buttocks now started to throb with each step he took. His judgment was clouded. His adrenalin was quickly turning to shock, as the cold dampness plastered his clothes to his skin. The scientist in him knew that shock would quickly turn to hypothermia if he didn’t get somewhere warm and out of these clothes in a hurry.
But where?
Was his colleague dead? If so, why? And why were they trying to kill him as well? All of these questions rattled through his brain as his teeth started to chatter from the cold, wet air.