Treachery

Copyright 2012 by madengineer3

My name is John. If I hadn't been up late one night I would have been oblivious to the danger that I was in. I had just bought the latest of Dan Moore's "Meridian's Shadow", science fiction series. My wife must have thought that I had gone to bed early. I normally like to be in bed by ten p.m. (22:00hrs) and she likes to stay up and watch the late night t.v. shows. However, I had started this book, "Nixie's Rise" and I couldn't put it down.

Our t.v. is in the living room. The living room is on the ground floor and our bedroom is on the second floor and to the back of the house. As a net result neither of us can easily hear the other.

When the phone rang at 11:30 (23:30hrs) I instinctively reached for it. As I picked it up I was startled by what I was hearing. My wife, Jane, was speaking in a quiet, almost conspiratorial, voice to a man who's voice I did not recognize.

"...yes, he's asleep and dead to the world. It's safe to talk."

"Well, in a few weeks he will really be dead to the world, right?"

"You've got that right, Brad. I just need time to make sure that the latest insurance policy I took out on him is fully in effect before he has his 'accident'."

"How much insurance have you got on him now?"

"A bit more than 1.8 million dollars. That plus his portfolio of investments and patents should see us happy to a ripe old age."

"Well, don't make any moves that will tip him off. We don't want this chance to escape us."

"Don't worry. A month and a half from now he's planning on flying his stupid plane across country to see his parents. You know what will happen. It'll go down in flames and he'll go with it."

At that point I quietly put the phone back on the receiver and quickly got into bed. I didn't want Jane to have any idea that I might have heard her conversation. I had trouble believing what I'd heard. I thought our marriage was in good shape. Yeah, the sex has slowed down a bit but we've been married twenty years and things change over time. I guess they changed more than I had realized.

I faked sleep as well as I could until Jane was in bed, and obviously asleep. Then I quietly got up and retrieved my pistol from the night stand. I took the pistol down to the basement where my bullet reloading equipment is set up. I took enough empty shell casings as it would take to fill the pistol's magazine and proceeded to put new caps in them and then seat new bullets in the brass cases. Note that I did not say that I put any powder in them What I filled them with was abrasive for my vibratory cleaner that I use to clean used shell casings. The weight of the cartridges was identical to stock cartridges as far as my hands could tell. I reloaded the pistol with the "dud" ammunition, went up to the bathroom and flushed the toilet so that my wife, if she was awake, would assume that I had gotten up to use the toilet. When I got back to the room she appeared to still be sleeping. I lay down and waited for about half an hour. Then I slipped the pistol back in the bedside table where it had been kept for the last fifteen years or so.

In the morning I got ready to go to my office. My office and laboratory space were in a small building about five miles from our house. I told Jane that I had an early meeting and would catch a quick breakfast on the way to work.

Since I own my own consulting firm I had no problems clearing my calendar for a day or two. My first call was to Bob, an old college buddy who runs a detective/security business about thirty miles from my office. I asked him to come to my office, with his anti-bugging equipment, at his earliest convenience. He asked my why and I said it was a secret matter that could not be discussed on the phone. Since he knows that I have done work for parts of the department of defense he took it at that and told me that he'd be over in about an hour.

While waiting for him I went over my office looking for bugs. I didn't find any.

He arrived about forty minutes later. Before we started to talk he put a small tape recorder on my offices table and turned it on. The noise was bizarre. It hissed and chirped, warbled and wailed. While this cacophony was going on he walked around the room with a funny looking gadget. He asked me to pick up my phone and moved the gadget around my phone and phone lines. Then, he turned off the noise and made the same measurements again.

Without speaking, he indicated that we should go outside. We climbed into his car before he said anything.

"John, at first glance I can tell you that you have three bugs in your office. They are good ones. They only come on and transmit when there is sound in the room or speaking on the phone. These are not the normal cheap "hobby spy" type bugs, these are mid to high end units."

"Your kidding, right? I thought I looked for bugs and couldn't see anything suspicious."

"I'm not surprised. Whoever put these in is quite skilled. The only time they turn on is when there is something to listen to. I suspect that they are in your false ceiling and in the body of the phone itself or in the outside junction box for the telephone line. I suggest that you do not remove them. That would tell the person, or persons, that you are on to them. They might be very unpredictable then. Tell me why you suspected a problem."

So, I told him the story.

"Can you tell your wife that you are going to have the office repainted next week. If this is her work they will probably want to remove the bugs before the paint work begins. They won't want them damaged."

"Yeah, I can do that. In the meantime, what do I do?"

"The easiest thing you can do is borrow this CD player and play music you like while you work. Inside the player's case there are a few specialized transmitters. They will transmit "white noise" on the same frequencies that the bugs are operating on. The specialized computer inside the player includes a simple frequency spectrum analyzer. Even if their bugs try to use spread spectrum transmissions this will provide a signal an order of magnitude stronger than their bugs. If asked about the new player, just tell them that you wanted to listen to soothing music while you worked on some tricky problems. Now, what do you want done at your house?"

We continued the discussion and I told him that Jane would be out of the house most of the next Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings for a book club she goes to.

"We'll bug your house using the absolute best bugs I have. Some of them use the walls themselves as the diaphragm for the microphone. Others camp on the phone line and load it so slightly that your wife's friend, or fiends, will not detect them unless they have swept the phone line with a time domain reflectometer. These are a generation newer than the old fashioned "loop extenders" used in the past."

"While we are doing that, a good friend of mine will be tailing and documenting what your wife does. We'll all but turn her car into a police "bait car". We won't have remote shutoff but we'll have video and audio as well as gps information. We'll use remote control devices so that the car is electrically silent when it is just sitting there or just idling. That is unless there are two, or more, people in the car then it will remain active.

"Now, what security do you have on your plane?"

"Just the airport personnel who are around most of the time."

"We'll fix that. You are about to have a surprise FAA airframe and engine inspection. While that is being done we'll wire your plane so that any attempt at modifying, adding, or removing anything will be recorded. We'll use third generation image intensifiers so that no infra red source will be there to tip off anyone. Before you leave on your trip, we will know about what has been done and make sure that it won't work."

Bob left and headed back to his office. He would arrange for the "painters" who would repaint my office.

I went back into my office, turned on the CD player, and tried to get some work done. It was a lost cause. I couldn't keep my mind off what I had just been told.

I called my current customers and indicated that I was going to suspend operations for a bit because of some remodeling that had to happen in the office. Fortunately, they understood.

My secretary was overjoyed to find out that she would have a paid week off while the painters were busy.

That night, at the supper table I told Jane about the repainting of my office.

"I've gotten tired of the colors in my office. I have a painting crew coming in next week to repaint everything. I'll work out of my den next week. Maybe we'll be able to spend some quality time together."

"Oh, I wish you had told me earlier John. I have plans next week that will have me out of the house almost every day. Other people are depending on me."

I'll bet they were. I had picked up a "throw away" phone that day so that I could make calls that weren't tapped. I used to love having my wife around, and now it was nerve wracking having her nearby. I had no idea if she and her friend would change their plans and move up the date of my demise.

The next week seemed to go by very slowly. Part way through the "painting" my friend Bob called me and set up a lunch meeting. We sat at a table off by ourselves. He waited until the waitress was no longer near the table before speaking.

"John, I'm a bit more concerned now than last week. The bugs that are above your false sealing are manufactured in a government controlled firm just outside Moscow. They are current generation Russian units. Whoever is in on this job has contacts that I would want to avoid. We're going to have to be very careful. Now, just because they are Russian doesn't mean that the Russians are in on this. However, whoever is using them either has friends over there or friends in a government agency here. Who have you pissed off recently?"

"Well, the only one I can think of is one little firm that was supplying devices to our government. I was asked to look over one of their designs to make sure that it would meet the specifications that they had been given. On paper it looked like it would do the job. However, the way they laid out the circuit board would guarantee that the device would have been detectable. I documented that problem and closed that investigation about nine months ago. Other than that I can't think of anyone who would be mad at me."

"Where is this company located John? What's its name?"

"They're located over in Smithton. They're called Radtel, Inc.."

"Oops! I know some of the people at that outfit. They make bugs for use by the FBI. When Mitalk stopped making bugging equipment they opened up with what had been one of Mitalk's designs. Their chief interface to the FBI is an ex agent. As I understand it he was too much of a loose cannon to keep in the agency. He was prone to use much more force than was needed in any situation. They had to get rid of him. His name is Ed Jones. They gave him a sort of "golden parachute", since he had seniority. He is supposed to be one mean son of a bitch and smart. We're up against another professional. During our checking of your plane's airframe and engine I'm going to have a metallurgical expert look it over to see if anyone has coated any of the critical welds with some form of corrosive goo."

"The name my wife used was Brad. That might rule out Mr. Jones."

"Not so, John, he wouldn't use his own name or address."

*******************

Several nights later my wife and I were sitting down for supper.

"I got some bad news today, honey. The FAA is pulling a surprise inspection on my plane. They'll all but take it apart and put it together again. They need to check that the airframe is solid and that the engine has been maintained as required and is equipped as it should be for the plane's registration. I won't be able to use the plane for the next week. They have pulled it into the hangar and it is under seal so that I can't even touch it until they're done."

"Is that going to stop your trip to see your folks?"

"No, but I never fully trust the plane for the first few hours of flight after a tear down. There's always room for a missed bolt or incorrect adjustment. I'll just have to fly it a bit before the trip."

"That's good, I know how much you have been looking forward to seeing them."

I well knew that her real concern was that I wouldn't be able to have my accident if the trip was canceled. Eating with my wife was no longer a pleasure, it was a time of intense concentration. Concentration on hints she might drop or subtle changes in the taste of the food. Concentration so that she wouldn't notice any tell tail signs from me that I might suspect something. Essentially eating with her was now a lot like taking oral exams for one of my Phds.

*********************************

A week later Bob got back to me regarding the bugs that he had installed in our house. They had picked up some interesting information. My wife and her friend "Brad" had enjoyed sex in our house. Now I know why she had me go to the store to find some obscure "cooking ingredients" a couple of times the previous week. Not only that she was giving him blow jobs, something that she had always refused to do for me. She was happy when I "ate her out" but she would never reciprocate.

At last it was time for the trip. Nothing had shown up during the inspection of the plane. Everything was as it was supposed to be. I was packing my suitcase when my wife came in with a fancily wrapped package.

"Please put this in your luggage, honey. It's a gift for your folks. I won't be there to see them but I want them to think of me."

"Okay sweetie." That wasn't what I was thinking. I was relatively sure that the package was the bomb that they hoped would kill me.

When I left home I meet Bob at his office. He had an "understanding" with a nearby veterinarian about taking x-rays of strange objects from time to time. This time it was the package for my folks.

When I arrived at the office Bob had another man with him.

"John, this is Charlie Gray, Charlie meet John. John, Charlie works for the BATF. He's one of their bomb experts. I suspect that we will need his input and maybe his help.

We handled the package with rubber gloves. That way any prints on the package would be mine, and my wife's. I doubted that her friend Brad would have left prints on it.

The x-ray prints were quite revealing. A barometric switch, some electronics, a few switches a battery, wires, and bomb could be clearly seen. It looked like it was made of a combination of a Claymore mine and a thermite incendiary. It looked to be one nasty son of a bitch.

Charlie spoke up: "John, this is one relatively sophisticated bomb. It looks like it is designed to go off if anyone opens the box or starts to descend from altitude. That way the explosion would happen on the far end of your trip or during a stopover for gasoline. I need to confiscate this beast. I won't be comfortable until we have it defused and everything fingerprinted and the source of the materials checked out. This is not an amateur job. Whoever put this together knew what they were doing."

Bob chimed in, "We have a suspicion that we may know who put this together, but we don't have any proof. We think it might be Ed Jones."

Charlie's response was troubling, "Damn! I wish you hadn't said that. I've worked with him on bombing cases. He knows bombs almost as well as I do and he is one mean mother!"

"Yeah, Charlie, that's what I've been thinking. John, you need to take your flight as planned. We'll take this from here. We need to get official court orders for the taps we have in place. That way we can record the phone calls when they find out you haven't had your accident."

I suddenly had an idea: "There is another thing we could do that might buy you guys more time. Suppose you report that there was a explosion in the air over the Rocky Mountains but the person who spotted it didn't have exact coordinates. The plane hasn't shown up but nothing is known at the moment. That might get them talking and would delay anything they had planned. After all if you can't prove death, insurance companies aren't about to pay off just to be nice. I even know of a place in that area where they might put me up, China Lake."

They looked at me like I had just grown two heads.

"You know, that might be a good approach. We won't indicate anything about a mid air explosion. That would get the CAP (Civil Air Patrol) out looking for wreckage. However, we can put you in isolation. I'll work it out with a friend over in the Department of Defense. I'll bet they could find an isolated airstrip and empty hanger space for you to lie low. We'll quietly tell your folks to act worried but that you are o.k."

"Try China Lake guys, it is isolated and I know people there. One other thing, guys, please let my folks know that I am safe but doing some government work. Also warn them not to tell Jane anything."

"Let's do it Charlie!"

My flight out was uneventful. I had told my wife that I would call her when I landed. I purposely left my normal cell phone at home. That way there would be no calls from them that could help pinpoint where I was. My flight out to China Lake (the designated area for my plane to disappear) was without incident. Since I had done work for the folks at the directed energy weapons testing facility there I had people who could very quietly get me a room and access to the mess hall. It should be more relaxing eating there than it had been at home for the last little bit.

******************************

"Brad, I haven't heard anything from John but I haven't heard about any plane accidents or explosions either. Could something have gone wrong?"

"No Jane, it's too soon to hear, especially if the device went off over an uninhabited area. Just assume things are fine. Wait until about ten tonight and give his folks a call to tell him you love him and assume that he was too busy to call you. Of course he won't have arrived, but you can then sound concerned; but don't over do it. Play this low key and all will be fine."

"Can you come over tonight and keep me company? I feel awfully alone right now."

"That's not a good idea, the neighbors probably all know that John left to visit the West coast. It would be safer for us to not be seen together or raise suspicions for the next few days. However, at some point in time I would love to get a chance to see your, probably deceased, husband's computer. It would be fascinating to see how his mind worked. Now, I need to get off the phone so that you can hear from him when he lands, right?"

"Right Brad, I love you."

**************************

The call from John didn't arrive. By ten that evening Jane felt ready to explode herself. She called John's folks.

"Oh, hi there mom. Can I please speak to John, he must have forgotten to call me."

"I'd love to Jane, but he hasn't arrived yet. What time did he leave there?"

"He left around nine this morning and should have been there by now."

"Well, we haven't heard anything. We'll let you know if there has been an unforeseen delay on his part. If not, he could have decided to modify his plans and dropped in to visit with some old college friends. He has some of those friends in Nevada, you know. I wouldn't worry about anything Jane, John knows how to take care of himself."

****************************

Jane was not used to being under pressure. She was leaning on Brad's assurances that all would be fine. The following day she called her in-laws again. Again there was no news from them, but they didn't seem overly worried. Jane talked to Brad a couple of times and he finally had to tell her not to continue to contact him because it would raise suspicions if anyone were to look at them closely.