Nuclear Ruse

ROBERT A. GONZALEZ

NUCLEAR RUSE

Copyright © 2012 Robert A. Gonzalez.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4759-0573-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-0575-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-0574-8 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 11/09/2021

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Dedicated to my wife, Susan,

who is an endless source of inspiration.

Special thanks to my cousin and friend Antonio

Mora for producing the cover to this book.

CHAPTER ONE

The dark blue panel van pulled into The Fairways of Halfmoon parking lot and circled it several times before working its way to a vacant spot in the far end of the lot. It was five in the afternoon and the three men inside were tired and hungry. They had traveled the 168 miles from Harlem to Albany in three hours and then spent another forty-five minutes finding the golf course in Halfmoon. The golf course was not particularly busy and from their vantage point it was easy to take a good look at all of the golfers as they returned to their cars after a day of golf. The men waited patiently. They had been given instructions to pick up a man and take him to Miami. They had been told that their man played golf every Friday afternoon and that he would be finishing around 6PM. Though they only had a vague description of what he looked like, along with a poor photograph of his profile that had been taken at a distance, they knew what kind of car he would be driving and the license plate number. They had spotted the car when they circled the parking lot and now were waiting for their man to finish playing golf.

What’re you going to do with your share of the money? asked the driver, talking to his brother who was sitting next to him.

Don’t know yet. I do know, however, that we’re getting screwed. We’re taking most of the risk and we’re only getting a small piece of the pie. That shit is not sitting right by me.

I know I’m pissed about that too, but what can we do? It’s probably best to leave well enough alone.

Yeah, yeah!

Both brothers fell silent and just stared anxiously at the car they were watching.

* * *

It was a perfect day. The sun was shining, birds were singing and the temperature was seventy-two degrees. Ed and Bill had just finished playing nine holes and were making their way towards the bar where two cold beers awaited them. It just didn’t get any better than this. Every Friday, since the middle of April, Ed and Bill played this course and waited at the bar for their friend Frank to come from work for the final nine holes. After golf it was their custom to meet their wives at a restaurant of their choosing. It was a ritual they had practiced many times before.

Ed Michaels, with 20 extra pounds on a 5' 10" frame was fairly average; that is until one focuses on the intensity in his piercing blue eyes. He had reached success early in life. Having founded an internet company which he sold for several million dollars, he had the luxury of retiring at the age of 50. Since his retirement a year ago, Ed devoted his life to golf and leisure. A very good golfer with a 6 handicap, he and his wife spend their winters in their condo in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina allowing him to practice his favorite pastime year round. Ed was happy in retirement, though he sometimes felt guilty for having such an easy life at such a young age. He’d come to terms with his guilt, however, rationalizing that he had worked very hard to get to where he was. His only vice was that he liked to gamble; perhaps a little too much. He took frequent trips to Las Vegas where he often lost more than he let his wife know about. In fact he currently owed more than $50K to one of the smaller casinos on the strip. Except for gambling, Ed led the perfect life.

Bill Moretti, at 54 the oldest of the three, owned his own car dealership. He had started with a small loan from his father-in-law fifteen years earlier. He purchased a small used car dealership and through determination and hard work had turned it into one of the most successful Chrysler dealerships in the area. Though he still worked, he decided some time ago that he didn’t want to work on Fridays and so he never failed to take Fridays off even during the busy spring season. Bill had made many enemies on the road to financial success. His cutthroat business practices have not endeared him to his competitors. Never-the-less he was a decent man and most of the people he dealt with liked him.

Frank Solis, 45 years old, tall and athletic looking, was a PHD metallurgist employed at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory where, for the past 16 years, he worked developing exotic materials for the Nuclear Navy. He was easy going and always up for some fun and because of that he had a lot of friends at work. He also had a serious side to him. When he worked on a project he was all business. Through the years he had been involved in several successful projects and had been rewarded with increased responsibilities and the title of Lead Metallurgist.

How’re you guys hitting them? said Frank as he entered the bar.

As usual, replied Bill. I’m consistently inconsistent. Ed on the other hand seems to be on his game.

The three friends enjoyed a beer together and then proceeded to play nine holes. With golfing out of their system, their plan was to head for Bellinni’s in Clifton Park to meet their wives. Rachel, Julie and Kristen were young and attractive. It was clear to anyone who saw them that they had deep affection for their husbands. Though, typical of couples married over 10 years, they did not always agree on things and had their share of marital disputes. The six of them, non-the-less, enjoyed their lives and each other’s company. On their Friday get-togethers good food and conversation would usually follow. On this Friday, when they finished eating, they planned to retreat to Frank’s house for dessert; thus a pleasant ending to the week.

The game was uneventful with Ed maintaining the Horses Ass novelty trophy which each Friday went to the person with the most pars. All in all it was a good day. They finished playing golf a bit early, set their golf bags on a stand, turned in their golf carts and headed towards the bar. They made small talk, and as usual, flirted light heartedly with the bar tender. When they finished their beers they retrieved their golf clubs and walked towards the parking lot where their cars were parked side by side. As they reached the first car a van pulled up next to them. Two large black men wearing gloves and carrying guns jumped out and grabbed the three men and, after a short scuffle, threw them and their golf bags into the back of the van

Let’s go, one of them yelled to the driver.

Hey; what the hell are you doing? cried out Frank.

Get your hands off me, yelled Ed.

There was no reply. The driver hit the gas and in a matter of a few seconds the van was careening out of the parking lot with all six men aboard. As the van moved out, Bill started to complain and was immediately struck with the butt of a gun on the back of the head by one of the assailants. Ed and Frank tried to grab the guy with the gun and were instantly struck from behind by the other man in the van. They crumpled to the floor struggling to keep from passing out. The thugs told them to hand over their cell phones and immediately threw them out of the van through a small sliding window. The three of them sat on the floor of the van with throbbing heads not daring to move or say anything for fear of being struck again. Left with his thoughts and the stench of locker room in the van, Frank wondered what would become of them. No doubt, Bill and Ed were having similar thoughts.

As his head cleared and his eyes began to focus, Frank lowered his head and looked around. The seats had been removed from the back of the van and he and his two friends were cowering on the floor. Apart from an old blanket and two small wooden boxes that were being used as seats by the two goons watching them, the van was empty. A small dome light provided dim lighting and had an eerie effect on their surroundings. The swaying of the van as it rounded corners made it difficult for the two large men to keep from falling off their make-shift seats. If it wasn’t for the seriousness of the situation it would almost be amusing. Frank’s mind struggled to make sense of the predicament he and his friends were in. This didn’t happen in real life, he thought. People weren’t just grabbed off the street for God’s sake. After all, this wasn’t a third-world country.

The van drove up Farm-to-Market road towards Route 9 passing several upper middle-class housing developments on the way. In many of those houses people were going about their lives with no real understanding that monsters like the thugs in the van with them could enter their lives without warning. The swaying van continued down Route 9 and headed towards the Northway and then to the Thruway where they would have a straight shot down to New York City. The van rolled for hours with no one uttering a word. The three friends sat on the floor of the van motionless wondering who these guys were and what they wanted with them.

As the time went by, Ed became more and more convinced that he was the target of the abduction. In his mind he was convinced that his gambling addition had finally caught up with him. It had all started while he was attending college at SUNY Albany. During his four years at SUNY his frequent trips to Turning Stone in Verona, NY and Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, CT became more and more frequent. The more he played the more he lost and the more he lost the more his obsession with Texas Hold’em and roulette grew.

When he finally graduated with a degree in Computer Science, he had amassed over $72,000 in school loans mostly due to gambling losses. Not being satisfied with working in a cubicle for a large company, he struck out on his own working out of a makeshift office in his parent’s garage. He worked 12 hour days with little to no leisure time with the exception of his gambling excursions. His passion for gambling was only exceeded by his passion for writing computer code. He ran his credit cards to the limit and borrowed money from anyone who would lend it to him. Finally after two years of struggling he managed to move his office out of the garage and into a small building where he was able to employ two part-time programmers to assist him.

Somehow during his years of struggle he had found the time to meet Rachel, the only woman he ever loved. They married and she joined him at his small software company taking care of the financial aspects of the business. After a couple of decades of limited success his small modest company had developed one of the first programs to employ crawl algorithms in its search routines. Word of his achievement soon reached executives at a large computer company. Recognizing the value of what this small company had accomplished, the executives made Ed an offer he could not refuse. He sold the company and began is life of leisure.

Since retiring he found that he had more time to devote to gambling. He hid his excessive gambling from his wife by telling her he was off on golfing trips. His last trip to Vegas had not gone well. He had spent four days in a small hotel/casino located in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip. In the four days he had lost over 120 thousand dollars; 52 thousand of which still had to be paid. Now it was beginning to look like the casino wanted its money and had sent out goons to scare him into paying up.

Paying back the money was no problem for Ed. The only reason he had not already done so was that he was reluctant to withdraw more money from his many accounts for fear that his wife would find out. Now he was feely guilty for having dragged his good friends into his problems. ‘No matter’, he thought, ‘as soon as they reached their destination he would arrange for payment of the money and this nightmare would be over’.

Bill too felt that he was the reason for the kidnapping. On his road towards turning his business into a thriving enterprise he had made many enemies. He was not proud of many of the things he had done during the past 15 years. He had systematically eliminated his competition by driving them to bankruptcies. He sold cars at prices that smaller dealerships could not compete with and entered into exclusive relationships with banks that allowed him to offer his customers lower interest rates on car loans. When other dealerships were forced to reduce their stock of used cars to raise money, he was happy to buy them paying considerably less than they were worth. Surely, he had pushed one or more of them too far. Now they had found a way of getting even with him.

When they reached New York City the sun had receded and been replaced by a starless sky. Finally the van came to a stop somewhere in Harlem. Ed, Frank and Bill were hustled out of the van and down a set of stairs to a dark basement of an aging apartment building. The attackers chained the men to a hot water pipe and left without saying a word. The small darkened room was damp and dusty with a foul odor which defied description. Looking around the room Frank noticed old crates and boxes stacked in a corner. Next to the boxes was an old recliner with many years of wear and stuffing coming out from all sides which had been left upside down. Apart from that, the room was empty.

You guys okay? said Frank.

Ed and Bill responded that they were alive but far from okay.

We need to find out what these guys want, said Ed.

Yeah, and what the hell they intend to do with us, quipped Bill.

The three men stood looking at each other latched to a pipe by pieces of an old rusty chain with caked blood evident in all of their heads. For the first time since their ordeal began three hours ago, Frank thought about his wife.

Guys, I just thought of our wives waiting at the restaurant. They expected us hours ago.

Holy shit, you’re right, said Ed. I’ve been so scared I forgot they were waiting for us at the restaurant".

We’ve got to get word to them. They must be worried sick, chimed in Bill.

They took our cell phones remember, said Frank, not that cell phones would do us much good chained up the way we are.

As they were talking one of the large attackers entered the room.

Please can you tell us what you want? If it’s money, we can get it for you. Just tell us what it is you want, pleaded Ed. At least let us call our wives and tell them not to worry.

Who the hell said not to worry? We haven’t figured out yet what we’re going to do with you. But hey, I promise you you’ll be the first to know. Just shut up and listen to me. Which one of you is Frank?

Why do you want to know? responded Bill.

Screw you guys, I’ll just go through your wallets and find out for myself.

With that the assailant roughly reached into their pockets and retrieved their wallets and quickly identified Frank. With a knowing grin on his face, he pulled out a key from his pocked. He then turned his attention to Frank with a menacing look in his eyes. He reached up and with very little motion released Frank from the chains and grabbed him by his shirt collar and shoved him ahead of him.

Where are you taking him? yelled Ed. Come back here

I’ve got a bad feeling about this, said Bill.

Ed and Bill looked at each other with fear in their eyes. Frank was taken to another room not far from where he had been chained up. His feet were trembling and his stomach gave him the sensation that it was about to throw up its contents at any minute. The dimly lit room was damp and smelled of old worn socks. Three other men, all black and all large, sat in the only chairs available. Frank recognized two of them from the van. The man in the middle was somebody new. At last he was finally going to find out why he had been snatched from the golf course parking lot.

* * *

It was now 7:45 and Rachel, Julie and Kristen were getting very anxious. Their husbands, who customarily arrived on time, were due 45 minutes ago. Worse yet, calls to all three of their cell phones had all gone unanswered. The three women, sitting around a corner table, were young and beautiful. Julie, the lone blond, was tall with not an ounce of fat on her. Her 22 year marriage to Bill had evolved pretty much as she had fantasized years ago in school; yet something was missing. He was a driven man with a dream while she always felt that his career came first. Though not unhappy with her lot in life she none-the-less felt a void. Julie, a school nurse by profession, had never wanted to have children. Now she wondered whether they had been too selfish in their decision.

Rachel and Kristen, the two brunettes, were no less attractive. Forty six years old, Rachel’s frequent visits to the Clifton Park YMCA were amply rewarded with a figure that women half her age would envy. Of the three women, she was the only one with children. She and Ed had a twenty year old son named Paul and a nineteen year old daughter named Sarah, both of whom were in out-of-state colleges. Kristen, at 39 was the youngest of the three women, she and Frank had tried to have children but after trying for over seven years Kristen was finally resigned to the notion that she would never experience motherhood. Their lack of parental obligations brought the six friends together. They relished their freedom and enjoyed going out to dinner frequently.

The three couples had first met four years earlier. They had built houses near each other and had found that they had similar interests. The friendship had grown to the point where they felt very comfortable in each other’s company.

What should we do? asked Kristen. The 39 year old school teacher was normally calm but she was having trouble containing the uneasiness growing inside of her. Frank was a stickler for promptness and she knew that if he wasn’t going to be on time he would have called.

Let’s call the golf course and see if anyone there knows where they are, answered Rachel.

I don’t like this. I have a feeling that something is terribly wrong. I mean it’s hard to believe that none of them answered our calls, said Julie.

I don’t know what to do. But I do know that I’ll go crazy if I don’t do something. Let’s take a ride over to the golf course and see if they are there, said Kristen.

What if they’re not there? said Julie not knowing whether to be angry with her husband or worried.

Let’s take it one step at a time, responded Kristen.

A few minutes later the three women were driving to the Fairways of Halfmoon in search of their missing husbands. When they arrived they immediately saw both Frank’s and Ed’s cars in the parking lot. Much relieved but angry at their husbands for ditching them and not responding to their calls they stormed into the bar area. The three women scanned the bar from one end to the other with none of their husbands in sight. The women approached the bar and caught Rosie’s attention. In her mid fifty’s yet with a figure that men still found attractive, Rosie had been tending bar here for over four years and had come to know her regular patrons quite well. In fact she looked forward to serving the men as they came in after a day of golf. More often than not, she would reach for their own particular brand of beer as soon as she saw them coming and would have it at their table before they got there. Rosie and her favorite customers loved to banter with each other with Rosie always giving back as much as she received.

Rosie, have you seen the boys? asked Kristen.

"Yeah, they left about an hour and a half ago.

Are you sure?

Sure am. I know because they finished their round early and came in for one final beer before leaving. I remember looking at the clock over there as they walked out.

The three wives looked at each other with puzzled looks on their faces. Ed had driven Bill here. So with both cars still in the parking lot, where could they have gone?

Let’s go to my house and gather our thoughts, said Kristen. If the guys have been in an accident the police will be calling our houses.

* * *

Frank was coaxed and pushed until he stood in front of the three men.

Are you Frank Solis? asked the man in the middle, who was obviously the leader, as he read from a piece of paper in his hand.

Why did you guys grab us? What are you planning to do with us?

I ask the questions. You answer. You got that? I’m not known as a patient man. So I’m going to ask you again. Are you Frank Solis?