AWACS - An American With A Chinese System
Copyright© 2025 by PT Brainum
Chapter 20
I was just about to text Mo, and tell her I wasn’t going to be able to see her sing tonight, when the countdown clock to her performance flashed red and disappeared. I was confused, and wondering if my decision not to go had stopped the countdown clock, or if something else had interfered.
It wasn’t long, until I got a text from an unknown number: Hey this is Connor, the FBI is here asking about you
Well that’s not good. I wasn’t sure about replying, when another message came in, Hey, they say you’re not in trouble but they need to talk to you right away
Also, Bill wants to know if you have more peaches
What a lovely couple of knuckleheads. I texted Mo: I’m so sorry the FBI is bothering you. I really wanted to hear you sing tonight. Raincheck?
The reply was almost instant: Why did he think you were in a wheelchair when you came in?
Oh, hell.
I needed help. He wasn’t going to be happy that I waited to ask for it either.
I installed the app that lets you make anonymous internet based phone calls, and dialed a number, let it ring three times, and hung up.
Then I uninstalled the app, and opened a different one for chatting. I picked a random name, but made sure it ended in the number 12, and sent a text.
Hey, I’m in Portland. I’m in trouble, and need help, legal and otherwise.
It was probably going to be a wait, so I got myself a drink from the minibar, and sat back in the big comfy chair.
A single link was texted back, so I tapped on it. It led to a webpage that asked a simple question. How many woodchucks? I put in 12.
There was a pause, and the screen shifted, and I was asked to turn my camera and audio on, which I did.
I panned the room, to show I was alone, when my best friend of all finally came on the screen.
“Dude, what happened, you’re supposed to be in the sandbox!”
“It’s a long story,” I told Pete.
“I’ve got time.”
I trusted Pete like he was my own twin brother. Evil genius twin, but twin brother nonetheless. I started to lay out the issues.
“I interrupted a drunken public grope of a married woman by a rich douchebag who played the do you know who my father is card. He didn’t like my answer, which I shamelessly stole from you by the way, and his thugs beat the ever loving shit out of me. When I woke in the hospital, my boss pissed all over me, and sent me out of the country despite my injuries, nearly killing me, and likely hoping it would.”
I looked at Pete’s eyes, they were serious, but I knew he wouldn’t interrupt to ask questions, so I continued.
“In an act of premeditated insult and injury he sent me on the worst series of flight connections to North Carolina. I held on untill almost to Portland, when I let the flight attendant know that I needed a hospital when we landed. The ambulance met me at the airport, and whisked me away. It was five days, I think, before they had me well enough to release me, so I checked into the hotel next door.
“There I had the presidential suite, and a nurse that came and bathed my broken body once a day, room service provided my meals. I had the money, so I wasn’t worried about it, just needed to lay somewhere quiet and heal.
“Then a guy named John Marcham showed up, told me the company had not fired me, they needed instead to give me the best of care as the Saudi government was interested in my welfare, and would show their remorse over my condition by using the company to build more stuff. He told me that my old boss was on the run, as Saudi cops were looking to arrest him, and that I was looking at a promotion to the main office in Europe, or retiring early, my pick, choice to be made in a year, and until then I was going to keep getting paid my normal overtime paycheck, plus 500 a day for daily living expenses for the next year.”
Pete’s eyes went narrow at that, like he didn’t believe it or trust it.
“A couple days later I got an email confession from Mr Marcham that he had hired a hitman to kill me, at the orders of people in the company who were related to my old boss. I contacted the FBI, and forwarded them the email, and then discovered a box full of info on the guy who was coming to kill me. I got out of the hotel, and am now holed up at an Indian casino outside Portland.
“The FBI wants me in protective custody, and I don’t want to be.”
There was a pause, as I waited for everything to sink in, and he waited to be sure I had finished.
“If you have evidence that the company is trying to kill you, then you need a lawyer. That lawyer can also act as a go between for you and the FBI. I’ll send you a name. How did you get to the casino?”
“I rented a car, using my personal credit card.”
“Ok, don’t use that car again, it’s lojacked and the FBI is already looking for it. You have an advantage being at an Indian Casino, the FBI won’t come charging in quite so aggressively. They also won’t be able to easily get surveillance from the casino like they would in Vegas.”
“Getting another car is not a problem.”
“You need to move hotels as well, but don’t check out. Most Indian Casinos have a limit on how long you can stay, just pay thru that date, and then be gone before the FBI get there.”
“Five days, and I’m already paid up,” I told him.
“Ok, now for the big question, why did you wait so long to call, and why do you look so well for a guy who got beat up and hospitalized two weeks ago?” he asked.
“There was a delay at one of the many stops on the flight in Beijing, I got Chinese medicine, and I’m all better now. I have been pretending to be injured, mostly.”