Treachery

Jane did officially file a missing person's report and asked around the airport what kind of missing person report she should start there.

They indicated that they weren't in the business of searching for private pilots when there were no reports of downed planes. If she could prove that the plane went down they would search for it. Obviously she couldn't prove any such thing.

Meanwhile, John was relaxing in the officer's club at the base. He knew some of the China Lake staff from some specialized test work he had done for them in regards to directed microwave pulsed energy weapons. He knew that he was safe there. The site of the base was far off the beaten path, there were double fences and guards patrolling 24/7. He was about as safe as he would be in Fort Knox. Plus, the food and company were first rate. He made himself useful by doing some small work for them gratis. After all, it beat boredom.

As the days progressed Jane tried everything she could think of to track John. She found his address book and called his friends in Nevada, no luck! She called friends of his on the West coast, no luck! She pestered the airport's air traffic control people, daily, regarding his flight plans and progress from control area to control area. The only thing she could find out was that he was lost in the clutter of the Rocky Mountains and then never came out of the clutter.

Jane was becoming a nervous wreck. Ten minutes later Jane was talking to Brad.

"His folks haven't seen him yet and suspect that he could have stopped by to see some old college friends in Nevada. I don't like this. His friend, out in Nevada, hasn't heard anything from him. If he has safely landed and the bomb goes off it won't look like an accident. If it happens when he is with his government friends the entire FBI and BATF will get involved and then it would get very dangerous for us. What are we going to do?"

"What you need to do is keep your cool. Don't panic. Otherwise this whole scheme could go blow up in our faces. Assume everything is all right and if anyone asks anything, give them the answers that we have gone over. Things will be fine."

"It's easy for you to say. If this looks like a bombing I'll be on the hook for it. I don't know if I could handle a real interrogation."

"Just keep your cool Jane. This will work out just fine. Oh, as a side question who did you fill out as the beneficiary on those policies?"

"I did what you told me to do. The policies go to me and/or that charity you told me to use."

"Good job Jane. Everything will work out fine. Just to calm down, why don't you open that beautiful bottle of wine I brought over for a special occasion. It will help calm your nerves."

"Thanks Brad, I appreciate your taking care of me like this."

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

Ed Jones, or Brad as Jane knew him, wasn't worried. If the plane went down in the mountains and wasn't found the insurance money could be held up for years or forever. He also now realized that Jane was the weak link in his plans. Nothing could be traced back to him, except through her. She was the only one who could identify him. Since his fake charity would get the money if Jane died it would keep him safe. It had been careful planning, even for an eventuality like this, to leave Jane that bottle of wine. There was enough of the obscure poison in that wine to kill fifty people. Being a well known widely distributed brand of wine, with no tax seal on the bottle, tracing it to him would be impossible. Especially since he had purchased it several years earlier. The coroner probably wouldn't even detect the poison. After all it was part of the old KGB tool kit and wasn't easily available.

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

Charles, the BATF agent, listened carefully to the tape recording of the phone conversation. It was crystal clear. The comment about the wine made him uneasy. The wine wasn't something that fit in well with Ed Jones' psychological profile. He felt that there might be something wrong. But, he wasn't sure what he could do about it that wouldn't blow the cover on this part of his investigation.

His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his phone.

"Hello, agent Gray here."

"Hi Charlie, this is Mike from our D.C. lab. We got a break in this bomb that you got to us. There is a human hair in the box and half a print on the inside of one of the pieces of electrical tape. Our boy was sloppy. The print is from Ed Jones. We've just expedited a warrant for him."

"Wonderful news Mike, I have to run. Maybe I can save another victim of Ed Jones' handiwork."

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

Twenty minutes later Charley was on the front steps of Jane and John's house, and was ringing the bell. The door was answered by Jane.

"You don't know me Jane, here are my credentials. I have FBI agent Smith and a couple of local police along with me. We need to talk to you right now. Your life may depend upon it."

Jane let them in. The bottle of wine a glass and a corkscrew were on the coffee table in the living room.

"Have you had any of that wine?"

"Yes, it's quite good........."

"Call 911 guys, get a bus here now. Warn the local hospital that this will be a rush job to see if we can save this woman's life."

"What are you talking about, a friend of mine gave me this wine."

"Yeah, we know. You know him as Brad, we know him as an ex FBI agent named Ed Jones. We strongly suspect that he left that bottle here with poison in it so that you would not be able to identify him if things had gone wrong. Believe me, things have gone wrong!"

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

They used heroic measures to try to save Jane. But, they were too few and too late. Although nobody knew it at the time, the poison she had been given had no antidote. She had succumbed to the poison in a matter of just hours.

As for Ed Jones, the tape evidence and his finger prints on the wine bottle guaranteed him a life time free vacation at a federal resort, better known as a super-max prison.

Ed was sure that he was safe. He had carefully removed his bugs from John's office spaces and removed the tap on John's home phone. There was no way that they would find him now. He wasn't running, hiding, or doing anything out of the ordinary. They had no leads that could point to him. Or, so he thought.

Ed was just finishing up his afternoon work at Radtel, Inc when his secretary buzzed him and indicated that an old friend dropped by and wanted to say hi. Ed was curious, so he had them sent in. He recognized Charlie immediately, he didn't recognize the FBI agent who was with him.

"Long time, no see Charlie. What brings you into town? You on vacation or something?"

"Or something, Ed. I've got something here that might interest you." As he said that he handed a copy of the warrant to Ed.

"What kind of joke is this Charlie? Is this some twisted agency gag?"

"Nope, it's the real McCoy. We've had you under surveillance for over two weeks now. We have some of the best audio and video you have ever seen. You can even see yourself removing those Russian bugs from John's office. You left a single hair and half a thumbprint on the tape holding the bomb together. We have your prints on the bottle of wine and a full chemical analysis of the poison. We are very curious how you got your hands on up to date Russian spy gear and very old KGB poison. I'm sure you will help us find that out since we will have you in custody for the rest of your life. Oh, yes, John is doing fine. The bomb went to Washington D.C. instead of onto the plane with him. I disarmed it. It was a cute design but didn't have a radiation sensor that would trigger it if it were x-rayed. You always were sloppy."

Ed looked like he had been kicked in the gut. Ed was removed and John never did find out what happened to him, other than the fact that he was enjoying the hospitality of "Alcatraz of the Rockies" (Florence ADMAX).

John finally had a chance to sit down at home and consider how a science fiction book had saved his life. If he had not been reading Dan Moore's "Nixie's Rise" he would probably be dead now. It's funny how seemingly simple, innocuous things can make the difference between life and death.

At that thought, John shuddered.