Accelerating Returns

  Chapter 14. Kidnappings

   

  The kidnapping of scientists had continued for years, confounding law enforcement officials in every interested nation.  For most of his career as a detective, Agent Pazzo pursued only a handful of cases, and, to his regret, apprehended no suspects.  Every year, humbled by his annual review, he resolved to make no excuses for the coming year.  Age added to the seams on his pocked face, but he kept the faith, despite many inclinations and encouragements from family and friends to stop chasing ghosts.  But his persistence paid off in the year 2022, a year when so much happened for Agent Pazzo, starting with Fooman and the strangest report he ever had to write. 

  "Fooman," the codename given to a victim by his assailants, showed Pazzo a light at the end of the tunnel.  He could see a finish to the investigation, so in hot pursuit of kidnapped Fooman, he broke various laws, both land and maritime, and did so without remorse after logging thousands of hours and sitting in on several hundred stake-outs that discovered nothing.  His career could not sit in the car any longer.  Once confident as a younger man, on the border of arrogant, he remembered being brash with people, but he now understood the long path of a life in law-enforcement, and how the unending waves of criminals smoothed and beveled the rock of morality.  Not an edge remained, not on his shoulder or his visage.

   

  Fortune finally stopped spinning for Pazzo.  One morning he was in New Hampshire scouting a potential victim.  A young graduate student, a genius named William Versey, was on his way to an interview in Seattle.  After that day, Mr. Versey was known as Fooman by the cadets at Quantico, Virginia. 

  Someone followed Mr. Versey from Dartmouth University, and even ate pretzels on the same airplane.  But Pazzo also followed Versey and booked a seat on the same flight.  While Mr. Versey sipped on a cappuccino, a pair of eyes in the seat behind him watched closely, and Pazzo, also sitting behind Mr. Versey, took note of his neighbor's spying.

  Mr. Versey was shanghaied after his interview. 

  The interview went well.  Boeing saw Mr. Versey as a potential star.  The abductor saw the potential, too.  Perhaps the abductor saw him as a supernova.  Mr. Versey wooed Boeing with his thesis: "Corrections to Turbulence in Quaternary Protein Transversals," and then Boeing wowed Mr. Versey with an aggressive signing bonus and a giant salary.  On the way to the interview Mr. Versey didn't bother to practice his thesis speech because he knew that his reputation as a Systems Scientist with a focus on Proteomics preceded his arrival.  The only mystery for Pazzo was why Boeing had an interest in him. Modesty had never been a stumbling block for Mr. Versey and Boeing foresaw a great future for him as a research and development superstar, particularly in the area of molecular turbines. 

  After the interview, Mr. Versey had time to kill.  He spent the post-interview hours at a bar near the stadiums, where fashionable twenty-somethings gathered.  On the barstool next to Mr. Versey a beautiful University of Washington wonk with fake everything cozied up and batted her eyes at every word he said, despite his nervous stuttering.  Unaware of the shadows in the booth behind him, he drank in whatever the wonk said and he knew that she was out of his league but couldn't help himself.  Pazzo listened intently while Mr. Versey got played.  He knew too much about science and too little about love.   

  At 3 a.m., Mr. Versey staggered to the exit with the plasticized sweetheart.  She practically led him by the nose to a van parked outside of the bar. All that was missing was a halter.  Another pair of footsteps tapped the wet pavement behind Mr. Versey but he didn't notice.  It was a gentle abduction, really, until the taze.  When the van door slid open, the prongs lunged out at Mr. Versey's breast and a flash flood of electricity poured into his torso until he crumpled into the arms of his captor, almost romantically.  The shock knocked Mr. Versey out for the night.  The van driver paid the wonk, who turned out to be an escort girl. A wad of money changed hands. The van took Mr. Versey away to his new career.  Pazzo hailed a cab and simultaneously made a phone call to the Seattle FBI office to locate the escort.  While Pazzo followed the kidnapping to the end, the girl was brought in for questioning.

  Following the van became difficult in the downtown traffic, but the cab driver, a calm Iranian who had mastered the game of car-chicken, never batted an eye when death shone through the wet windshield.  Pazzo yelled several times, but the Iranian assured him: "Not to worry, they'll move."  He laughed as the cars swerved away from his yellow Chevrolet.

  The van reached a pier on Puget Sound, unloaded quickly, and on a pushcart wheeled a large box across a ramp onto a red cargo ship.  The van drove away immediately.  Certain that the box contained Mr. Versey, Pazzo waited until the platform cleared before he ran across it and stowed away on the boat.  Pazzo reported the make and model of the van to the Seattle office, who tailed it to a suburban address and encircled the driver, ripping him out of the window by his neck before he could send his distress signal.   

  The boat ferried William Versey to a ship in the bay. Slipping from the boat to the ship, Pazzo stayed low and sent text messages of his location, activating a transponder on his phone. On the ship, Pazzo wormed his way through pipes and people, ducking and dodging the ship's crew, until he discovered a strange operation set up underneath the main deck of the grain-hauling ship.  Modifications made to the internal structure in one of the cargo areas created an underground office building.  When he entered a clean hallway, with carpet, he took a picture with his cell phone, which automatically uploaded pictures to his FBI account.  The engine of the ship started to gurgle, and were it not for that guttural sound reminding him of the location, the office could have been confused with any typical space in a business park.

  Pazzo walked through the office space like a cat-burglar.  Breathing heavy with anxiety, he reached into his jacket to take a nitroglycerin tablet that dilated his veins and slowed his heart rate.  In the hallway, he looked up at the fluorescent lights, and although outside it was night, in the office it felt like day. 

  Voices came from the office doors that lined the hallway.  He passed a few doors and looked sideways to see a man or woman sitting in front of six or seven monitors, some showing video, others graphs and statistics.  The people in the offices wore headsets.  Some of them spoke, some watched the displays.  All of the office doors were closed, but each door had a light to indicate whether or not someone was inside.  Acting casual, Pazzo strolled down the hall and jiggled the handles of the empty office doors.  One door was not locked, so Pazzo slipped inside and sat in the dark.  By flipping open his cell phone, the display brightened enough to act as a weak flashlight for snooping around.

  Not knowing where to begin, not knowing what to touch, he did nothing but bump the mouse with his hand, which activated the displays.  The data and images in front of him disturbed him enough that he required a second nitroglycerin tablet.  On one screen he saw a man leaning on a desk, either unconscious or dead.  The screen below showed his breathing, pulse, and other signs, meaning at least the man appeared alive.  In the lower right-hand corner of the screen was a name: "Truckee."  Pazzo tried to identify the man, but he lay silent, with his face down on the desk.  Only his gray hair and his bald spot were visible from the camera angle.

  The other screens had information relating to Truckee, and Pazzo started to read the first screen, but it was mostly science lingo that he failed to comprehend.  Gently, Pazzo placed his hand over the mouse and tried to scroll down, but when he clicked a down arrow, all of the displays switched at once, and suddenly Pazzo no longer saw Truckee, he saw a woman in her early-thirties, frantically reading a sheet of paper while performing a lab experiment of some kind.  From the headphones lying on the keyboard, Pazzo heard a tinny voice.  He picked up the headphones and put them on. 

  "Use your resources," a male voice said.  "Learn to delegate.  Send the data to us.  You don't have time to read and write reports.  Now what do you need t
o know?"

  "I need to know the signaling pathway!" The woman yelled.  "And I need more B-Box protein."

  "Is that all?" The male voice answered.  "Copy that.  It's on its way.  What else?  Think!" 

  Pazzo heard a click in the connection.  The male voice changed its tone.  "Lab, this is Charlie here.  Did you hear what Cutter needs?"

  "She's got B-Box protein in her freezer," a woman's voice said, as if in disbelief that Cutter requested it.  "It's right behind the Pyrin."

  "What about the pathway?"

  "Josie's sending the existing signaling pathway information to Cutter right now."

  The male voice said, "Thanks.  I'll log it."

  The connection clicked again.  Pazzo heard the male voice.  "B-Box is in your freezer, Cutter.  Behind the Pyrin.  Please use your resources and delegate! We are here to help you."

  Cutter hustled over to the freezer and pulled out a vial.  

  The way the woman moved, like a small nervous animal, horrified Pazzo.  Her eyes were sunk back into her head, as if she hadn't slept in a week, yet she moved with energy and finesse, and seemed motivated, crazed with her work.  Only on close examination did Pazzo realize that he knew the woman, or knew of her, quite well actually, because he wrote a good portion of her dossier after her kidnapping five years before. 

  It turned his stomach to see the woman's emaciated face.  He realized that he'd found the prison that held all of the captives.  He needed to turn the channel to learn more, but feared losing the evidence of poor Thuy Trang, who they now called Cutter.  Before he tried to change channels, he held up his cell phone and took a picture of the display.  As the picture uploaded to the FBI server, he gritted his teeth and clicked the mouse button again, and another frantic soul entered the main display, typing on a computer like a concert pianist on fire.  The man paused and pulled at the hair on his scalp.  As he looked up in mad ecstasy, Pazzo recognized him, too.  The man tore out a handful of his hair.  Apparently oblivious to any pain, the man started typing again - with a smile on his face. 

  Pazzo clicked the scroll bar again and saw a new face.  He clicked again.  And again.  The voices on each channel changed along with the faces, as each victim seemed to have a different set of overseers.  He clicked faster and stopped clicking when he saw the name "Fooman" appear.  Above the name on the screen sat a disheveled Mr. Versey, rubbing his eyes and looking around in a daze. 

  A female voice on the headset spoke.  "This is your new prodigy?"

  "This is him," said the man.  "Finally.  I don't know why they waited so long to bring him in."

  "Because he's an American."

  "He's the hope of a nation," said the man.

  "You know how they usually end up," the female said and laughed.  "They're too soft."

  "Have you read his file?  Here - I'll punch it up.  You'll be impressed." 

  On one of the monitors, Pazzo saw a suite of documents appear.  Mr. Versey's selection as an abductee did not come at random.  In some respects, being kidnapped was a mark of high achievement.  A committee of bots strained Mr. Versey's name out of various data dumps, peer-reviewed journals, zines, science blogs, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scores.  Not that there was a mold, but Mr. Versey's curriculum vitae fit the objective.  His background matched the needs of a project.  Using the same parameters, the program apparently found Cutter.  The kidnappers did not discriminate against age.  Cutter got shanghaied.  Truckee got shanghaied, too. 

  Pazzo watched Mr. Versey, Fooman, look around at his room of whirring computers and silent lab equipment.  The equipment in the room was new, meticulously arranged.  Centrifuges and hoods, pipettes and refrigerators. Every device was on a wheeled base or a wall extension that could be raised, lowered, or extended.  The electricity in the air seemed to make Mr. Versey edgy.  Once blasted with a Tazer himself, Pazzo immediately developed a phobia of electricity.  The look on Mr. Versey's face reminded Pazzo of the sensation. 

  The room was a shoebox.  The only window to the world came through a slim web browser growing out of a black, graphite-topped desk.  Mr. Versey tried to use the browser but the connection was dead.  In a room with all that juice there was no internet connection, and the browser kept returning 404 errors when he tried to punch up a site, presumably to send out an SOS via e-mail or tweet. 

  Ticking and clicking noises surrounded Mr. Versey, along with the engine sounds from the ship.  Pazzo felt his body swaying slightly and wondered if Mr. Versey knew that he was on water, stowed as cargo in the hull of a seagoing vessel. 

  Mr. Versey's outstanding career made him a new recruit, and he would soon learn his fate.

  A plate of hot food came into the room and Mr. Versey began to eat ravenously.  The meal was intricate. 

  The male voice said, "Just like his nanny used to make." 

  Another voice asked, "What did you feed him?"

  "For soup we have crab bisque with crème fraîche.  Then there is the main course: sautéed red snapper with braised pancetta, fava beans and saffron.  There is also asparagus."

  Mr. Versey pushed aside the asparagus. 

  "I guess he doesn't care for asparagus.  I bet he doesn't like saltpeter and Ex-Lax, either, but he's eating it anyway."

  He shoveled the food into his mouth on an oversized spoon.

  Pazzo heard a click in the connection.  The voice came over a hidden speaker.  "Hello, Fooman."

  "Fooman?" he said. "My name is William."

  "Your first assignment begins now."

  "Assignment?" he scoffed. "What assignment?"

  "You have forty-five minutes."

  The browser in front of Fooman activated.  A document appeared on the screen. Pazzo examined it at the same time as Fooman. 

  Fooman asked, "A whitepaper?"

  Fooman looked around the corners of the room with an air of insubordination, not appreciating his situation yet.  He crossed his arms and bounced his legs on the floor.  Pazzo could see the fear on his face, despite his efforts to appear at ease.  Questions bothered Pazzo, a thousand questions, so he tried to record everything with his cell phone camera, streaming it to the headquarters. 

  Fooman's face turned sour. 

  "Your assignment has begun," said the voice.  "Is there a problem, Fooman?"

  Fooman said out loud, "I need to use the bathroom."

  The room wasn't equipped with a commode.  He looked at the glowing monitor for answers, but only saw his assignment.

  The connection clicked again.  The voice said, "It almost makes me sad to see him this way."

  "Oh, aren't you sensitive," said the female.

  "I'm kidding.  This is the best part."

  "You're a toddler." 

  "There he goes.  He's got a little fear-fire going now.  Let's stoke him a bit."

  As Fooman lost control of his intestines, his face frowned and he started to cry.

  "Who are you?!" cried Fooman. 

  For the first time in his life, Pazzo felt truly afraid for another man and even had an impulse to pray, but still he watched the display. 

  Five minutes passed and Fooman sat down in the chair, completely silent and still, like a rabbit in the grass after its killer had already spotted it.

  The voice came again. 

  "You have thirty-three minutes.  It is advisable to begin."

  The voice.  Pazzo almost spoke into the headset, but held back.  He grasped the side of his chair, and watched Fooman cave in. 

  Fooman stood up and leaned over the web browser.  He read the title of the assignment.

  "Perfusion of Capillaries by Blood Cells with conjoined Flagellabots: A Derivative of the Traveling Salesman Algorithm." 

  The browser suddenly stopped working, went blank, and nothing happened when Fooman tried to reactivate the browser.  He slapped at the screen like a freshman who forgot to save a report.  After a minute Fo
oman stopped trying and sat down, leaned back in his chair with a false defiance, but he was obviously scared, frustrated, and already going mad.  The browser did not turn on again.  The Ex-Lax took effect, and Fooman's face turned red with embarrassment. 

  The voices on the headsets had a nice chuckle at his shame. 

  Pazzo quickly switched through the channels again to see what else was happening in this madhouse.  In comparison to some of the other rooms, Fooman's room was relative serenity.  The other subjects worked frantically on their assignments and raked the sides of their heads and struck their foreheads with their frenzied palms.  The subjects moved back and forth between the browser with their instructions and atomic force microscopes, chemical hoods, freezers and more, like ants in forage.  When Pazzo came back to Fooman's channel, he heard the male voice speaking about "The Creative Process." 

  "The key to creativity," the voice said, "is two parts Kava and one part Coca.  The balance of urgency is important for longevity.  Unfortunately, the project manager wants to use Fooman as a stress test."

  "A stress test.  That's funny.  I give him six weeks."

  "No, no," the male voice argued.  "I have faith in Fooman."

  "Then you better give him two parts Coca, no Kava.  He was born with a silver spoon.  He won't last."

  With pity Pazzo watched Fooman struggling to keep his mind together.  He looked up at the ceiling as tears streamed down his face. 

  The female clucked her tongue and seemed to feel sympathy for Fooman.  A camera in the ceiling caught the raw emotion on Fooman's face.

  "This will be his easiest day," said the female, "and already he's blubbering."

  "He will start producing.  This reluctance to begin is simply impeding his progress as a great scientist.  It said on his resume that he expects to be a great scientist.  He seems like a nice guy."

  "You're a damn liar."

  "What?  He does!  Oh Jesus, but now look at him, sitting there, rocking his ego like a hushed infant."  The connection clicked again, and the male voice startled Fooman.  "This is a great opportunity for you, Fooman.  Act!  Act now!  Otherwise you may be excused.  Understand the assignment and start creating!" 

  Fooman whimpered, and then shouted. "Create what? For who?"

 

  Pazzo remained close to the screen until time ran out.  When the assignment ended, the male voice said, "Goodnight Fooman.  I'm marking this down as your first loss."

  "Loss?  What loss?" Fooman shouted.  "I didn't do anything!"

  "That's correct."

   

  A feeling of urgency ran through Pazzo's veins as he listened to a series of yelps come from Fooman, who was being shocked and flinching, jumping from spot to spot on the floor. 

  "These are motivating microshocks, Fooman.  When you win, this electric rain will not enter your suite, do you understand?  Nod if you understand?"

  Even when Fooman curled his body into a tight fetal position, he jolted and shuddered with each microshock.  The room lit up with minute bursts, like little falling stars mixed in with the room dust.  With every tweak, Fooman jumped.  It drove him over the edge.  He got up from the floor and ran around the room, screaming and jumping, accruing shock after shock.

  The voices on the headset went into hysterics.  "This is great.  Looks like Fooman go crazy." 

  "Holy shit, Fooman go wild,"  They laughed. 

  "He just became Fooman.  Yeah, he's ours now.  Some crack so quickly."

  When the shocks stopped, the male voice instructed Fooman.  "Pride will never impede your work again.  Urgency is very important to your every movement.  You must act like no one is watching you.  Think about moving, doing, thinking, compiling, ligating, dissecting, mixing, blotting, destroying, mutating, creating.  I hope you comprehend.  Unless you want to be shocked again?"

  Again he curled into a ball, this time in the corner of the room.  Fooman shook his head and sobbed, "No."  The connection clicked.  "The power of electricity.  Remarkable.  This is so much nicer than Gitmo.  It's nice to work with people that have never read the Manchester Document.  This is even easier than when we were at Argus." 

  "Oh God, so much easier," the woman said.  "These academics aren't used to being strong-armed like soldiers and criminals."

  The man said, "I love doctors.  They all come around. Their survival instinct is amazing."

  "It's because they have so much to lose."

  The comments told Pazzo that these were military men, but he scribbled down Gitmo and Argus for the FBI to research.  He listened hard at their voices for details in their diction or tone that might give away whatever branch of service they had served in.  The screen flashed and Pazzo stopped writing.

  The browser came on again in Fooman's room.  He crawled over to the screen to watch.

  The screen showed a muted video of a man standing on a plank wearing only a pair of underwear.  The man appeared to have star-shaped cuts on the back of his thighs, calves, arms, and upper back.  Blood oozed out of the wounds.  One sailor shook the man's hand and the bleeding man smiled.  The sailor put a medal around the man's neck.  They were speaking about something but no sound came through.  The wounded man turned around to face the sea, lifted his hands as if he greeted some kind of crowd.  Suddenly the sailor lifted his foot and kicked the man square in the back.  This sent the man tumbling overboard, and down he flipped, forty feet, into the sea below.

  As the man made his splash, Pazzo wondered why they sliced up the man's flesh before sending him over the plank, and more so, why the man seemed so happy about the occasion.  Perhaps he was happy to die.  Perhaps they played some final game with the kidnapped scientists.  But still, why the wounds and the blood?

  It took only a minute before the answer surfaced and started circling the man in the water. 

  Pazzo took the headset off, with disgust, and stopped recording the display.  "This is madness."  The scene disgusted him so much that he had to look away, so he looked down at the desk, and the paperwork staring back at him made him do a double-take.  Seizing the pages in his hands, he looked closely at the letterhead.

  Talbot Labs

  The glaring admission of guilt was emblazoned on every page in the office.  In file drawers and on the wall, the more Pazzo looked around the office, the more he saw the word Talbot.  He needed to get back to headquarters.  On his cell phone, he dialed his colleagues in San Francisco and arranged an escape.  As much as he wanted to free Fooman and the other kidnapped scientists, he needed to enlist the whole bureau, because alone Pazzo could not take the ship.