Journey of Ric Heiden

The Journey of Rick Heiden

All Rights Reserved © 2018, Rick Haydn Horst

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER FIVE

At half-past five o'clock, David collected me from Maggie's flat to return to the penthouse.

He opened the car door for me. "I'm sorry, Rick," he said.

I must have looked depressed. "There's nothing to be sorry about," I said. "Maggie can't come, and that's that. I appreciate your warning me. I assumed she would join us; I should stop making assumptions."

"Please, don't do that to yourself, you couldn't know. How have you left things with her?"

"I couldn't guarantee that I would see her again. I wouldn't have wanted things to end in a rush, as I suspect they will, and neglect to tell her how much she means to me. We're good. I'm sad now, but we're good."

Staring out the window, I felt both disappointed and a bit numb. The rain had stopped, and the setting sun was coming through the breaking clouds to the west. It was beautiful. "Does Jiyū have beautiful sunsets?" I asked.

He gazed out my window. "They look more spectacular than they do here. We have clean air, and the higher oxygen level makes the sky deeper blue."

That sounded nice, and it did make me smile. We drove along Piccadilly, past Green Park near Buckingham Palace, to Haymarket, then onto the hotel just past Trafalgar Square. "What did you discover at the hospital at Queen Square?" I asked.

He glanced at me and smiled. "Figure it out, did you?"

"I knew you would follow our most obvious lead, so yes."

We turned into the parking garage.

"It seems our trouble is coming into focus, and I've learned something important."

"Okay, I'm intrigued," I said. "What is it?"

We took a parking space, and David turned in his seat toward me. "Cadmar arrived at the hospital alive, and according to the nurse on duty that day, he died after he got there. However, before he died --and here we have the stickler-- he hadn't fallen unconscious, and he talked a lot. Most of what he said made no sense, but he did say some words that they recognized, the list includes Levitt and portal."

"Oh, shit."

"I spoke to the charge nurse who worked that day, and the first thing she said to me, 'Oh, you're Levitt.' And get this, they wrote everything down and gave it to the person left in charge of the whole caboodle: Katheryn Elliot."

"Well, there you go, she's the leak," I said.

"Close, but not quite. Our evidence remains circumstantial. Nothing so far indicates Katheryn hasn't leaked the information, but coincidences do happen. Still, it does put Amanda's daughter, the portal, and my involvement in a convenient little package."

We entered the lobby of the hotel. It had luxurious contemporary decor, a high ceiling, and an enormous crystal chandelier that no one in their right mind would relish the task of cleaning.

Jatin, the young night manager, greeted us and looked quite handsome in his well-fitting, azure blue suit. "Good evening, Mr. Levitt."

"Good evening, Jatin," said David, "do you have any messages for me?"

Jatin looked distressed. He came toward us so the guests speaking with the concierge a few feet away wouldn't hear. "You have no messages, but Mikesh, the day manager who just left, tells me that a man has coerced him into letting him into your room."

"Have I someone in my rooms, right now? Didn't Mikesh call the police? When had he let him in?"

"I do not understand it," he replied, "but he said if you knew his wife, you would know why he could not call the police, and he begged me not to either. According to Mikesh, he only had to let the man into the room, and then forget about him. I do not know when it occurred. Should I call the police?"

"No," said David, "I'll take care of it."

"Mr. Levitt, please, I beg you not to damage the hotel again...well, too much." Saying nothing more, he left for other duties.

"What did he mean by

again?

" I asked.

"That's a very long and boring story." David considered what to do, and his eye stared into me. "I can't take you up there, but I must go up."

"Oh no," I said, "I won't allow anyone to treat me like a child or something delicate. If you go up, I go up. It may stun you how useful I am when someone hasn't drugged and restrained me. Besides, you don't know that it's the talking man."

"He springs to mind, though, doesn't he?" David asked.

"So, what shall we do, both go up or go out?"

"I find you wonderful and exasperating; do you know that?" He shook his head. He then motioned for us to head toward the lift. The doors opened, and we entered it alone. He retrieved the hotel room key card from his wallet. The doors closed, and it began its slow ascent to the penthouse.

"Do you have your pistol?" I asked.

"Of course," he said, pulling out the blue and black weapon I saw the previous night at the warehouse. In the light of the lift, it looked even more impressive. "You do realize this could end badly."

"He won't shoot the instant we walk in--provided he's still there. He wants something other than to kill us."

David looked at me. "You don't know that."

I shrugged. "If you say so. Do you think it sensible, brandishing technology about like that?"

"I would hardly call how I'm holding this weapon, brandishing."

I watched him consider it for a few seconds and put it away.

The lift doors opened to the vestibule with the penthouse room door. Everything looked normal. We flanked the entrance, and David put the room key into the slot. He turned the knob and flung the door open. Nothing happened. We both peered into the room, and there he sat, the bespectacled Aiden Park from the Government Office for Science.

"Come in! I waited a long time, and I'm gettin' hungry," Park said in the American voice he used for the talking man. He was sitting on the couch wearing a pair of jeans and a buttercream, button-down collar shirt, with no gun in sight.

"Nice accent you had," I said as we entered the room, "it fooled me, and grew up American."

"Thank you, that's a nice compliment," he said in his normal British voice. "I've had accents as a hobby for years. I owe it all to watching too many American films as a child. Please, sit down, Mr. Levitt, this is your home...on this planet, anyway."

"What do you want?" David asked him.

Park smiled. "Well, that's the thing. I love technology, and after hearing the two of you, I have a list. How about we start with the secret of immortality?"

David and I glanced at one another.

"Where did you hear that?" David asked him.

"Oh, you poor, naive man," Park said. "You've lived here for ten years, and you still can't think like a human. It seems you can take the man out of Jiyū, but you can't take Jiyū out of the man. They bugged you days ago. You never even suspected, did you? Catch." He tossed David a small round device. "Don't worry. I deactivated it so that we can talk in private."

"Oh no," David said, looking at the listening device, "what have I done?"

"What you've done?" asked Park. "How about what they've done. They've made you betray your people. You probably think your honor is beyond repair now. But come on and sit down!" He patted the seat next to him. "Let's talk about life."

"David, I had no idea," I said.

"I know," he said.

"Where else have they bugged besides here?" I asked.

"From what my computer easily intercepted, they bugged here, the lab, the car, and your flat." Park pushed his glasses up his nose.

"My flat too!" I said in surprise.

"Wow, you two are a pair," he said. "I can tell you are perfect for one another, especially after the video I saw last night. I must say, I'm not gay, but I saw the whole thing. It was unbelievable. David here should go into the business."

David scowled. "They installed cameras?" he asked, his voice rising.

Mr. Park pointed to three locations in the penthouse. "There, there, and over there in the bedroom."

David rushed to investigate.

"I turned them off!" shouted Park.

"So, you told the Americans about Cadmar's body and Amaré, why?" I asked him.

"No, I only told them about the scans," Park said. "Amaré hadn't arrived yet, and that man scares me, so I said nothing once he showed up. They shouldn't know about him, not from me anyhow. I feared what they might ask me to do. I just sent them a reduced-quality copy of the digital scans Katheryn gave us from the hospital. In my defense, our government hadn't made them a secret at the time, just a curiosity. And the Americans showed extreme interest, but once they found out it came from a dead body, they told me they wanted it. The next thing I knew, Katheryn informed us that we couldn't see it and that they had another group to take care of it. Since then, Katheryn has had it locked up like the Crown Jewels. I had no way to get my hands on it, and I told the Americans that, so they sent Theo.

"Could that man slap a guy, or what?" asked Park. "It even made me cringe. I'm glad David shot him. He made me do horrible things, like the abduction and the scene at the warehouse. I'm just a research scientist. He drilled me on what to say to you when you woke up, and he even made me call Amanda Newton and threaten her daughter while we waited. I disguised my voice; I hope she didn't recognize me."

"They would know you from your mobile," I said.

"I jailbroke my mobile long ago, and I hacked the SIM card. Trust me; I won't have that problem."

I stood there in dismay, shaking my head. "You tried selling the scans to the Americans? Why would you do such a stupid thing?"

"Because I've lived as a peon in Katheryn Elliot's group, funded by a council of the Government Office for Science for years. I do the work, she takes the credit for it and makes the money, but she's not just ambitious, she's downright Machiavellian, and I should know, I went to college with her. She wanted a position on the research council, but without her knowledge, I successfully argued with the right people to have her appointment halted."

"And why would you do that?" I asked. "With her gone, couldn't you end up with her former job that makes the same money?"

"If she had a position on the research council, she would have me fired because she hates me with a passion. I can't afford that. London is expensive, and I've struggled. I have difficulty paying the bills at my renovated moldy old hovel, and the Americans have money. Sure, they get it by nefarious means, but so do all the other countries of the world, and even with them, I've not seen a penny. Yes, it was stupid, but I was desperate. I want to tell you both how sorry I am for the trouble I caused you, and I wanted to thank you, David, for stopping them before they killed somebody."

"Did you have anyone else with you and Roberts?" I asked.

"No, just he and I," Park said.

"Well, David, Amanda's daughter sounds pretty safe now, you think?"

David busied himself, removing hidden cameras. "I agree," he said from the other room. "Aiden, do you know why Roberts forced you to assist him with abducting Rick? He didn't know anything."

"No, and Roberts seemed to already know about the portal. I know I hadn't told him; I never knew it existed until he mentioned it. But he doesn't know its location, and he wanted me to ask Rick about it."

"Did he ever mention me?" David asked.

"No," said Aiden, "come to think of it, the only name he ever said was Amanda Newton and her daughter's."

"Did he think I was you, David?" I asked.

"I doubt that O'Byrne would hire anyone that incompetent, but that would explain it," David said from the bedroom. "You said, he told you what to say, Aiden?" David entered the room, breaking the micro camera in his hand. "Rick, remember that odd piece of paper at the warehouse with '

That can't be true. Who told you that?

' written on it?"

"Yes, I do," I said. "That does fit. I presume Theo made the texts after I said the portal didn't exist?"

"Yes, that was Theo," Aiden said, adjusting his glasses.

"I looked inside his phone," said David, "he had no recent texts."

"He wouldn't use his phone. He insisted on using mine. I still have them if you want to look," he said, handing the phone to David.

"Oh, I get it," I said, "you've got stooge written all over you."

David checked the messages. "This number looks familiar. Hold on," David said. He pulled out his phone and checked the number with the video of the contacts in Theo's mobile. "Ah-ha! I knew none of the contacts on this list except O'Byrne and this one --assuming these contacts have the correct names, of course. He sent the messages to someone you may know, Rick. A man named Jackson Scott."

"I don't know a Jackson Scott," I said.

"Think Senator."

"You mean Senator Jackson Scott, the bigoted asshole?" I asked.

"The very same Senator Jackson Scott, who is also a card-carrying member of the C-Street Dominionists," David said, typing the phone number into his phone and hitting the 'call' button.

"What are you doing? You're calling him?" I asked.

David merely motioned for a moment of quietness. No one answered on the other end, but it did have a generic voicemail box. David left a message in the most menacing voice I had ever heard.

"Senator Scott, this is David Levitt. What you want will remain in my possession, Theo Roberts is dead, and your patsy has told us everything. Listen, I know you're holding Pearce, and that's a mistake. We have technologies you couldn't imagine, and I'm coming for you. There's only one way I will let you avoid your due, release him unharmed and retire from the Senate, or I swear I will burn you." David rang off. "There, that ought to do something," he said in his normal voice.

"Have you put me on your shit list?" Aiden asked in apprehension.

"I have not," said David.

"Do you think the dead man had his real phone number?" I asked. "It had no personalized answer message; you may have called the guy's grandmother."

"It must be someone important," said Park, "they told me to send everything to that number."

"We shall see," said David, and turned to Aiden. "Why did you want into the penthouse so badly? And what did you threaten Mikesh with to make him let you in?"

"I wanted to dismantle the surveillance devices before you got back, as a token of my goodwill. If I waited, it would only give them more to listen to while I explained myself to you. And I hadn't threatened Mikesh, well, not really. I just said that he wouldn't want his wife to know about his affair, and he let me in, no problem."

"How did you know he was having an affair?" I asked.

"I didn't know," Park said. "Statistically, have you any idea the percentage of married men who cheat on their spouses in India? It's about seventy-five percent. If he had cheated, I figured he lived here long enough to begin thinking cheating was wrong, but probably not long enough to stop himself from doing it."

To avoid appearing amused, David closed his eyes, squeezed his mouth shut, and turned toward me. "What shall we do with him?"

"Well, from what we know," I said, "his country could consider him a traitor, and maybe he broke the confidentiality agreement. Therefore, the government could come after him one day. On the other hand, he's only guilty of being stupid and naive, thinking that the United States would pay him when they could use him, take what they wanted, and leave him to take the rap. He hasn't actually harmed anyone and trapped himself into something more than he bargained for."

"I concur. Any conclusion?" David asked.

"It's too soon, more observation is necessary."

"Good call," David said. "Aiden, when you came in here, did the cameras see you?"

"No, absolutely not. I took precautions." He picked up the ski mask from the couch to show us.

"Since Aiden neutralized the cameras and bugs," I said, "might they return to see about them?"

David shook his head. "If you planted a bug, and your target found it, would you come back to check on it, possibly letting your target know who planted it? No, as it stands now, whoever did it can blame someone else."

"Could the Americans have done it?" I asked.

"Maybe, but I think someone local did it. The Americans knew about Amanda's daughter Helen. The only person involved in some way that knew of her is Katheryn. I think everything will keep circling back to her."

David and I had gotten hungry, and despite the unusual circumstance, we invited Aiden for dinner. The hotel's room service had delicious food, and since I had a larger than usual lunch with Maggie, I shouldn't have been that hungry. However, I felt famished and ordered three dinners, but David showed no surprise. As a vegetarian, David ordered a plate full of legumes, vegetables, and fruit. Aiden, however, stunned me when he ordered a plate of the greasiest food available. We chatted during our meal.

"When did you eat last?" Aiden asked me as I sat there with three plates of food.

"Don't worry about Rick, he's fine," said David. "What degrees do you have, Aiden?"

"Oh, I have many," he said, "like my masters in telecommunications, but the important ones are my three masters in various fields of biochemistry."

"You sound smart," David said.

"I passed the Mensa International test when I was ten."

"That's impressive," I said. "Did Mensa tell you your IQ?"

He tipped his head downward. "I shouldn't say. I used to say, but after you do, people treat you differently."

I knew what getting singled out felt like, and I hadn't wanted to make him uncomfortable. "That's okay, Aiden, we don't need to know."

"Aiden, how do you eat that?" David asked in disgust, watching him shovel the contents of his plate into his mouth.

"I would say with a fork, but I know that's not what you're asking," he said and then shrugged. "You get used to it."

Aiden had some social awkwardness. Sometimes I felt that way, depending on the conversation, but I functioned better one on one. I had Maggie, and David as well, but having two people hadn't happened often. However, I had gotten the impression that Aiden had no one.

"So, do you live alone?" I asked Aiden.

"I do now. I used to have a flatmate, but he left to get married. I can't seem to replace him. And before you ask, I no longer have a girlfriend; relationships are expensive. I already have difficulty paying the mortgage."

David and I smiled.

"We're sorry," David said, "we're simply curious. I have a question. What did you think when you heard everything about Jiyū over the surveillance?"

"You mean after I stopped thinking it was bollocks? I thought it sounded like the most amazing place I'd ever heard," he said and went back to his dinner.

David and I figured Aiden wouldn't fall under any governmental wrath for the time being. He decided to go to work the next morning as usual. Just before he left, however, he told us where they held Cadmar's body. He said it should remain intact, but after some delays, the other group scheduled the dissection that week. Aiden left us the gadget he used to sweep the penthouse for bugs, and we were grateful.

Once showered for the evening, David decided to make a complete --and somewhat paranoid-- sweep of the penthouse for any cameras and bugs. David checked the bathroom while I showered. "What do you think of Aiden? Is he telling the whole truth?"

"I don't know," I said, "but what he said sounded true. Didn't it make sense to you?"

"Yes."

"Well then, what's the problem?"

"If I know you," he said, "you'll want him to come with us."

I turned off the shower. "What do you mean, 'if I know you?' I watched you sit there at dinner and consider the prospect yourself." I got out and began toweling off, and I noticed he had quickly given me a look that became all too familiar. He never like it when I read him. He preferred to believe in his inscrutability. "You make a mistake if you think I would suggest bringing him as things stand."