Chapter 1

The flight from Dallas to San Diego had been dull and boring, the in flight entertainment nonexistent, the seats cramped, the meal terrible, the drinks watered down, and the little bastard that sat behind me had continually kicked my seat giving me a headache and little sleep. To top it all off when I complained to the flight attendant I was told to have patience with Little Johnny he would settle down eventually, was I trying to give Little Johnny traumas her and the other flight attendants scolded me. Needless to say the little brat never did settle down. I was really looking forward to getting home having a shot of Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch, a good grilled bloody rare T-bone steak and baked potato, and kicking back to listen to some classic Simon and Garfunkle records I had on the old turntable.

After collecting my carryon out of overhead storage and stuffing my laptop back into it I was ready to pick up my ride in the long term paid parking section of the parking structure and leave when I got a call. I guess you could say that call, my good deed for the day it turned out, put my dull life on a different track forever, ha, ha.

Hours later I was approaching my dinky little econo car when a beautiful woman ran straight into me hard, almost knocking me over. That was what really changed my life forever I guess you would say, and no I’m getting a little ahead of myself here I guess. I didn’t know how beautiful she was right then only how she was dressed. Maybe I should say how little she was dressed in. Green hospital surgery gowns are not high fashion you know.

“Thank God I found you mister you’ve got to help me.” She said grabbing hold of both my shoulders and locking eyes with me as she tried to regain her breath. All the while searching my face intensely for something with her desperate haunted eyes.

I’ve seen desperation in eyes like hers before in different times, in other places. Other places and other times where I couldn’t do anything about their situation because of my official orders. Times and people I feel guilty about abandoning to this day. Times and people left behind with our “Peace With Honor” bull shit, promises broken and forgotten by most today, but still eyes that haunt my dreams some nights.

This wasn’t going to be one of those times I silently vowed to myself as she held onto me. This time I would make it right with my conscious I vowed to myself. What I saw in her eyes was the desperation of a drowning person going down for the last time. A person at the end of her last reserves of energy stretching out their arms to be recused.

I automatically reached out to hold her up as she started collapsing into my arms. At the same time I was holding her up I was trying to make a decision about what to do about her. You have to ask yourself, do I help, or do I get her help. There is a difference you know. The important thing is to get her what she really needs.

We were just standing there in that frozen moment of time where everything slows down around you and stops like in a dream when I caught motion in the suddenly murky gloom behind her. Two men, two big men, the kind of big that you didn’t know they piled shit that high kind of big men, emerged majestically from out of the dark swirling foggy gloom that seemed to have suddenly developed in the parking deck in mere moments.

Of course it might have just been smog from things that were burning somewhere else in Orange County at the moment. You were never quite sure what was burning in Southern California at this time of year, but there was always the smell of brimstone in the air and the fluffy white ash drifted down like snow flakes sometimes covering the roads like white snow at Christmas time. As the two Jolly Green Giants approached they separated and came at us from each side.

“Thank you for your concern sir. We’ll take charge of Mrs. Ward now mister ... mister...” When I didn’t answer immediately the one that was doing the talking went on.

“You really want to stay out of this sir!” He finished what he thought was a good argument for me to disappear.

“Stay out of what Mr ... Mr...” I asked, but he didn’t answer me either.

Without answering the first monster reached out and grabbed the woman’s bare shoulder and started pulling her away from me. Meanwhile the other one was in my blind spot and getting close enough to smell his loud cologne, or maybe just bad BO.

“She needs help and I’m going to see she gets it Jack, and if your buddy over there gets any closer he might need help himself. Get over here where I can see you asshole, and my name is Montgomery ... Mister Montgomery to you asshole.” I said as I pulled her from his grip and guided her back behind me. I then turned us both around where I could face them both with our backs to the parked cars. Both men were well over six foot three, maybe two thirty or two forty in expensive matte black tailored suits that strangely sucked at your eyesight in this low light. They were in black dress shirts, and even black ties, and military buzz cut hair, but my bet was they were just hired muscle not businessmen. Well they were well dressed expensive hired muscle anyway.

“Mrs. Ward is just a little confused Mister Montgomery. We need to get her home where she can be looked after.” Thug #1 simply stated as he let go of her shoulder and backed off a little.

“And where would that be Jack?” I asked.

“Your interfering fellow. We have a job to do and you could get hurt if you interfere. Hurt real bad you understand!” Thug #2 added as he rolled his massive shoulders and prepared to get physical.

Thug #2 decided me on my course of action. I just didn’t like him, or getting threatened by him either for that matter. This situation wasn’t going to stay static like this very long, you could feel it coming in the air as they used to say back in the day.

“Mrs. Ward, is that your name?” I questioned the woman I was partially holding up and who was mumbling no, no, no under her breath now.

“Yes, yes ... am Elizabeth Ward ... Doctor Elizabeth Ward.” She mumbled back.

“Do you even know these men Mam? Do you want to go with these men?” I asked the clinging woman.

“No ... No ... I don’t know them. Mustn’t let them take me. Please help me. Have to get away.” She looked back at them and then mumbled something else unintelligible under her breath.

“Ok, you heard her get lost before I call the cops.” I bluffed.

We were out in public and they didn’t really want to draw attention to themselves right now while they waited for their backups to get here I figured. For some even stranger reason I couldn’t explain to myself I didn’t seem to want to draw attention to us either, and I knew I should. I knew that they were just bidding their time, and there were probably more of them on the way here right now from the way they acted. I had to do something soon while I still had any advantage. It’s my experience that wolves, and these were definitely human wolves, hunt in packs and my luck would run out when the rest of the pack showed up.

Look I’m a former Marine and I can handle myself in most situations, but in a standup fight with these two monsters I was outclassed and I knew it. I’m six one at one seventy and yes I could hurt them, but in the end I would lose. I didn’t have a gun, or even a pin knife for that matter, and my carryon was more of a liability than an asset in this situation. All thanks to America’s paranoia about handguns. Airport security makes it too hard for the average American to hold onto a decent weapon while hoping planes. But, thank God, my own paranoia, and a lot of undeserved luck, I wasn’t exactly unarmed either.

What I had on me was something me and a buddy of mine had developed several years ago, more like decades ago really. Well we thought it up on our own anyway a few years ago. Of course we did have a little help from a former client with a connection to a good Chinese technical manufacturing resource that took a personal interest in it for some odd reason at the time.

I had the “flash”, a very very bright flash, just not the bang part that law enforcement and the military use in what they refer to as breach situations. Something to instantly disorientate and incapacitate the bad guys without killing them and their hostage outright.

The first ones we made were one inch round clear plastic balls like the old flash bulbs used with your old Box Brownie camera, just brighter, much brighter. It had a button and a delay of three seconds, but it had a bad habit of rolling away from it’s intended target once it was dropped or thrown.

We had tried to market them as a self-defense devices like the cute little tear gas pens you buy off the Internet, but we had run into all kinds of federal rules and regulations and we had finally just given up on marketing them. They were essentially just a small super magnesium flare with very little likelihood of causing a major fire, but the federal government didn’t see it quite that way. You can’t fight federal regulations we found out the hard way.

The one I was carrying now was a second maybe third generation model in the form of one of the old large gold colored Caesar’s Palace $100 poker chips which is about the size of a US 50 cent piece. The two I had on me were two of the last lot made. I had carried them around in my pocket like spare change for years. They had sort of become lucky charms for me in a way. These stayed where they were dropped and I had two in my pocket. One would render this Mutt and Jeff team as blind as a proverbial bat for hours in this dark airport parking garage I figured.

“What are you waiting for.” Thug #2 finally shouted at Thug #1 loosing his patience.

“Do we have to resort to violence here Mister Montgomery?” Thug #1 demanded, I guess he thought he was being diplomatic and reasonable about everything, ha, ha.

“I guess we do.” I told them as I bent the coin in half starting the chemical chain reaction that activated the flare. I then dropped the activated flare onto the pavement in front of me and stepped back and away from it. We had four seconds as we stepped back between the parked cars. Counting down ... one one thousand ... two one thousand ... three one thousand. I buried Miss Ward’s face deeply into my cheat with one arm, as my other arm covered my own eyes. There was then a nasty fizz sound and I caught some of the blinding flash of intense light even through my arm that was across my own closed eyes. I might be seeing imaginary spots for awhile, but the bad guys were totally unprepared and were totally blind for the next hour at least.

Some of you are going to say it was time to run. Some more of you are going to say beat the crap out of them. I have my own rule to never get carried away and waste precious time on needless macho gestures, but also never leave a functioning enemy behind my back if possible. So as they stood there, as dumb as two pole axed steers in the slaughter house I kneecapped them both. In the movies there’s all this fancy hand action and foot work, snap kicks to the head, and other moves made famous by Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris among others. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and place for all that kung fue stuff, but the weakest part of the human body is the male’s genitals, the family jewels, the balls, whatever you want to call them Ok. Of course that’s assuming he’s not wearing a cup down there, and that’s a big if with professionals like these. The second best exposed target to do the most damage in the shortest amount of time is his exposed ankles and knees.

So with a couple of well placed snap kicks to the side of their knee, the way they don’t flex, they were collapsed on the ground moaning. The bones and the cartilage in their knee was probably messed up if not broken and torn. To make doubly sure though as they were falling I brought up my own knee into their descending chins with a satisfying crunch. They were both unconscious and out of commission for hours now I was satisfied. Even if the two ugly sleeping trolls woke up any time soon they wouldn’t be following us or anyone else very fast I reasoned. Fast, simple, and effective if not plane brutal and expedient. Best of all they weren’t dead just out of action for a while.

Dragging their unconscious bodies over to a dark corner behind some cars out of sight I checked them over quickly. I found they were both armed with 9mm Glocks, collapsible security wands, some kind of nasty high voltage taser devices, one also had a 38 Smith & Wesson Chief Special holdout in an ankle holster, and there were several magazines for the Glocks. Quite an arsenal I had now I congratulated myself.

I was no longer unarmed anyway. I also took their cell phones, wallets, some papers, and some fancy security badges to go over latter. I checked but neither had those cute little blue-tooth ear pieces that have become so popular with law enforcement and others. Of course it would all go into the special foil lined brief case I always carry in my car until I had time to check it all for tracers or other nasty surprises when we got to the car.

At my car I put her in the back seat with orders to stay down out of sight and covered her with my long leather coat. I thought about putting her in the trunk, but with my car that would be cruel and unusual punishment, ha, ha. I then went around to the back of my car to my tag. By adding three or four pieces of narrow black tape, that I just happen to keep handy, I artistically altered one letter and two numbers of my tag.

There are times when you don’t want to leave a record behind for somebody to follow. If you try to obscure your tag your asking for trouble, but if you just change an L into an E, or a 3 into a B to drive through the exit cameras nobody’s going to have your tag number. If your wondering where this knowledge came from chalk it up to a misspent youth meeting shy confidential informants in many dark parking decks like this one in my misspent youth.

As we were driving away I was hoping that we had avoided being identified by the security cameras. Since I had given them a false name and they didn’t see which car we got in I figured we had a little time to talk now. I really needed her story before I could decide what to do with her.

“So who are you and what’s your story? What have I gotten myself into lady.” I asked, I demanded, well I begged, I guess you would have to say. In the end I asked nicely.

“My name is Elizabeth Ward, Liz to my friends ... well Doctor Ward really. I’m thirty two, single, no children, never married in fact, I own my own townhouse up in the hills above La Jolla and work for a pharmacological company named Gentech LLC. Yesterday we had a lab accident. Well we were all told it was an accident. I’m beginning to wonder now? When I went in to work today I was dragged off to one of the medical wards on the 3rd floor by some thugs like those we just left and locked up. Finally Doctor David Johnson, one of my bosses, came to interview me.”

“I’ve worked there six years, six years with Doctor Johnson, well David. Ever since I became a doctor I’ve worked there. I see him every day and he’s going to interview me? He wanted to know what I knew about Project 141. I told him I knew everything about it because my name is on the filed paten application. After all I was the one that actually discovered it ... well invented it anyway For some reason Doctor Johnson got very mad about that.”

About this time another man I didn’t know showed up and they began to argue loudly. It was like I wasn’t even there in the room with them anymore. The other man, who I didn’t know, kept insisting I was a loose end and had to be handled like the other test subjects. I was getting scared, I mean, “handle me like the other test subjects”?!, “I was a loose end”?! I mean what other test subjects?! Project 141 hadn’t even been approved yet for animal testing more or less human testing.”

“They finally called in two of those ... those ... goons. These were different goons not those goons, ha, ha. Then Doctor Johnson had them to hold me while he sedated me with Midazolam. For my own good he told me. Knocked out, drugged, for my own good?! As you’ve probably noticed I’m sort of a hyper personality and have a high drug tolerance, luckily for me the drug wore off pretty fast. I faked being unconscious until we got here to the airport. As luck would have it I finally caught a break here thank God.” She paused and took a deep breath then continued.

“As they were driving past the front entrance they got into a minor fender bender with another car. They tried to avoid reporting it, but the other driver, a woman, insisted on calling 911 and reporting it for her insurance. I got the car door open and sneaked away while they were arguing over who was at fault. The rest you know. I need to get to the police, the FBI, or the FDA, AMA, CDC, or ... or the ... the ... well somebody that can get me back my life. I can’t handle this.” She broke down into tears and sobbed to me.

“I’ve never been treated this way before. They forcibly drugged and kidnapped me you know, and I have no ideal what else they were going to do to me. If it wasn’t for you I’d probably be in a drug induced coma in the company jet headed for God only knows where right now. I don’t even know your name mister, but evidently, I am a trained observer you know, te, hee, hee, you do have experience with things like this. Can you? Will you help me?” She begged.

“Oh ... oh, I have to tell you that the other man told Doctor Johnson that they had taken my cell phone, canceled all my credit cards, closed my bank account and even transferred title of my Porsche and townhouse to Madison Paramedical. The only thing I own right now, and that’s only because possession is 9/10’s of the law I’ve been told, te, hee, hee, is this awful green hospital gown which is rather drafty in back. They even took my underwear and shoes away, the dirty rotten scoundrels, te, hee, hee.” I could see that everything that had happened to her was catching up now.

“I think I need to tell you too, that clinically speaking as a highly trained professional medical doctor, I’m not going to be of much use to you for awhile. As you may have noticed I am very, very euphoric at the moment. I surmise that as the adrenaline from the “fight or flight response” is wearing off, whatever else they dosed me with is kicking in with a passion. I am in no pain, te, hee, hee, but I don’t think I’ll be conscious much longer kind stranger.” And with that Doctor Liz Ward collapsed back into her seat unconscious. No longer worried about her troubles or even the world around her for that matter. All her concerns and worries forgotten for now.

“Just like a woman to start something like this and then check out when you need them the most.” I chuckled out loud as I saw her collapse in the back seat in my rearview mirror.

I’m a semi-retired appeals lawyer and travel a lot to consult with clients that want to hire me. I used to be a very good criminal trial lawyer, one of the best in fact, but I learned the hard way that being a real good ethical criminal trial lawyer with a large ego can be hazardous to your health.

After winning a string of high profile criminal cases that my more socially conscious colleagues wouldn’t defend in my home state I had made quite a reputation for myself. My clients, who for the record I neither liked nor admired, were notorious crime lords, but they really were framed by local corrupt cops and the DA and even the State Assistant Attorney General was in on it.

Just like in some of the better bad movies you may have watched my clients were innocent believe it or not. Well lets be absolutely truthful and precise here, they were innocent of the crimes they were charged with this time anyway. Because of my defense, the best defense is a damn good offense, it was proven at trial that the state had fabricated evidence and given perjured testimony. Several police officers and other state officers were eventually convicted for this.

With those wins my name and reputation was made, but my simple life was over. The problem was the wins made me a marked man by law enforcement. When they created RICO, the organized crime busting laws years ago, they forgot to include the biggest organized crime organization of all, organized law enforcement itself. In many ways organized law enforcement is much worse than the Mafia ever even thought about being, ha, ha.

I was finally framed years later by one of my own clients for friends of the cops that went to prison. The frame luckily fell apart when I was able to expose the plea bargain the DA had offered my client for his perjured testimony against me. Of course the secretly recorded tape of that plea bargain used to exonerate me came from a notorious Cuban Cartel mob boss. One of my former clients that I had defended, now retired and living in Mexico where they couldn’t extradite him. As a result of this more people in local law enforcement went to prison and jail. Needless to say law enforcement doesn’t fair well in prison, and I became even more popular locally. This did convinced me to find a safer line of work in the future.

Now I do appeals for upper courts and booklets for the US Supreme Court. I’ve become a specialist of sorts. If there’s an appealable error in the record of your trial I can find it. I’m only called in to consult when the client thinks he’s being shopped by his high priced criminal attorney. The question of adequate counsel is always appealable error after all. I don’t work cheap, but I think I’m well worth the price if you really want to know if you are being sold out and how. More importantly I can tell you how to preserve your rights for appeal. If you can afford me I’ll find the answers and give you a decent shot on appeal of a reversal or at least a new trial. The train to conviction might not can be stopped, but it can be derailed sometimes.

At the moment I’m more or less retired, only taking those cases that interest me personally in some way. I can well afford now to work for free on those cases that interest me now.

Our next stop was the local Howard Johnson’s Motel next to the airport. Checking us in I retrieved the package they were holding for me in their office safe. Once I had it I felt much better. The Howard Johnson’s was local and I used it when I flew out of San Diego to hold what I couldn’t fly with. It was secure in their safe and it was much better than a airport locker or checked baggage. First there is the five inch wide black elastic belly band holster rig, then the 45ACP 1911A1 with the new stacked 14 round magazine instead of the old 7 round mags. I know that some of you just think you can just shove it in the waist band of your pants, but that’s just a good way to drop it and lose it at the critical time you really need it. Thrust me the wide elastic holds the pistol and spare mags secure in the small of the back even if your running for your life. I know I’ve had to run a few times in my life. Wearing a loud lose fitting colorful Hawaiian sports shirt conceals everything really well and allows for an easy draw if necessary.

Then back to the car I carried in the still passed out Elizabeth Ward into our room and placed her onto the large single bed and covered her with a sheet for modesties sake. Green hospital gowns are not high fashion. Let her recover at her own rate I figured. I was a little worried about tracking devices which tend to get more sneaky every day. On the other hand there wasn’t much on her that could contain a tracking device, ha, ha.

There was a time when a simple AM/FM pocket radio was enough to detect them. Today they are a lot more complicated. The device I used to detect annoying bugs and other unwanted electronic vermin came from China. I can remember a time when it used to be Japan made all the cute little gadgets. My device was about the size of a pack of cigarettes and was supposed to detect anything actively transmitting. It gave me a negative reading at the moment. That was no assurance that in an hour or two a concealed device wouldn’t give out a high energy pulse yelling to the world here I am come get me. This strategy made the tracer both harder to find and added hours to their battery life these days.

I also had a second device that jammed any local signals in the immediate area around us. That was my backup if there was something active in her that wanted to tattle our location. Yes, it is not just drugs that are put in condoms that victims are forced to swallow or just roughly forced down their throats these days, and yes the cartels like to keep track of where their mules are at all times. My detector would alert me if one started screaming for help. I didn’t want to use it, but after all they had found her pretty fast back there at the airport I reasoned and I needed to be prepared. Once again blame it on my misspent youth that I even had devices like these around and knew how to use them, ha, ha.

The room had a comfortable padded lounge chair that I sat in to wait for my sleeping beauty to awaken. I wanted to try to be awake when she woke up. Hell I knew she was going to be disoriented when she woke up and I didn’t want her to panic or get hysterical and start screaming for the cops or trying to run away when she opened her eyes again. The walls of our motel room were thin and we, well I didn’t anyway, need the attention her screams could draw.

I wanted to take a shower and get something to eat, but couldn’t as long as there was the possibility of her waking up and panicking. Which reminded me to call and get pizza and the trimmings delivered to our room. Minutes latter a Lyft driver showed up with everything in a box all charged to my Lyft account. This was at 11pm.

Except for some moaning and body movement under the covers sleeping beauty hadn’t done much. I had feared she would have nightmares and start screaming, and I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. After what had happened to her I figured she was entitled. At about 6am the next morning she opened her eyes, threw back the sheet, sat up in bed, and stretched beautifully.

Then by the look that came into her eyes she discovered she wasn’t in her own bed and I thought she was going to panic and scream but she didn’t. She didn’t even scream when she realized I was in the room with her and she was in nothing but the ugly green hospital gown. Once again I wouldn’t have blamed her, after all it had been a dark night under bad lighting conditions when we met, but she didn’t scream. Instead she smiled and greeted me.

“You must be the kind stranger that saved me last night?” She declared cheerfully with a sparkle of hope in her bright blue eyes. Well I assumed at the time it was a sparkle of hope, I didn’t know everything then.

“Yes, I guess I am.” I laughed.

“What do I do now?” She questioned as she looked around.

“First things first. Do you want any of this breakfast of champions I ordered last night. I have cold pizza, cold cheese sticks, a serving of coleslaw, and cool not cold flat Mountain Dew left. I’ve also laid out a set of sweat pants and a old Jet’s jersey for you to wear. It’s what I usually run in by the way. Both are too large for you, but the pants have a draw string, and they are clean. They’ll cover you until we can get you something better to wear. I mean anything has got to be better than what your wearing right now Doctor Ward.” I had to laugh.

“Yes Mister ... Mister Montgomery I think you said last night?” She sort of asked.

“That was only for the thugs Doc. I never gave you a real one, but my name is Edward J. Simmons. I also answer to Ed and Eddie. Do you like Elizabeth, or Liz?” I asked.

“Oh, I like Liz the best Eddie.” She allowed.

“I guess we can cut to the chase then Doc what is this Project 141, and why do they need you so bad.” I asked.

It surprised me when Doc ... well Liz swung her legs off the bed ignoring the fact the hospital gown had ridden up and she was almost naked. Well from the waist down anyway. I guess I turned red because Liz laughed a very musical laugh at my embarrassment.

“Benefits of a liberal education Eddie. Some of the best medical schools were in France and most of the fabled French Riviera beach is clothing optional or nude I discovered while I was there. Once you get used to it it doesn’t bother you any more Eddie. I know I still have a nice body and work hard at keeping it that way. I quite enjoy men admiring it Eddie, just don’t be one of those creepy stalker guy types Ok.” She laughed and helped herself to a slice of cold pizza and plastic cup of Dew.

“Practically lived on this stuff during my senior year in college and my hospital internship Eddie, you just forgot the German potato salad and BBQ potato chips I like. Oh!, and I sometimes get the all veggie and mushroom one sometimes.” She said around a mouthful of cold soggy pepperoni and sausage pizza.

“I had forgotten how good it tastes in the morning. Hell, I had forgotten just how good it feels to just be alive in the morning for that matter after last night. Now you were asking about Project 141. I guess it’s sort of moot that you don’t have security clearance and I’m violating my contract with Gentech, ha, ha.” She said, while her mouth was full of soggy pizza and guzzling down Mountain Dew.