On The Trail of Evil

By Dr. Michael Lee

While on the trail of an escaped convict, bold and daring P.I. Patton Douglas finds romance and intrigue at the United Nations. Assassins attempt to throw Douglas off the trail by kidnapping his romantic interest. He penetrates a heavily guarded foreign consulate in the middle of New York City, disposes of most of the bad guys... then escapes with his lady friend and drives away in a Roll Royce.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Michael Lee
• Release date: Jan 20, 2011

Dr. Michael Lee

Michael Lee spent some time in the U.S. Army as a Paratrooper and as an administrative officer in the Army Reserve. He completed several degrees after high school, including a PhD in Academic Administration. Dr. Lee is an expert statistical analyst and is a trained historiographer. Lee is a published author and poet and holds a U.S. Patent in his own name. Motivated by dreams of adventure and fantasy and grounded by a Great Grandmother born just after the civil war, Lee’s writing journey began in the eighth grade with a short science fiction story. His experiences included paid sports writing for a daily newspaper while still in high school and eventually evolved into a passion for writing book-length works, both fiction and non-fiction. Dr. Lee takes pride in recently joining the company of other 1,000,000 word authors. He is grateful to the Florida Writers Association for their recent second place recognition of his book-length manuscript in the 2010 Royal Palm Literary Award Competition.

Book preview

On the Trail of Evil

(A Patton Douglas Novel)

by

Michael Lee, PhD

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my sister, Patricia Sharon Lee Fowler. She was there covering my back during my childhood. Climbing trees, swinging on ropes and fishing with cane poles, she was as swashbuckling as any CIA agent in New York City!

On the Trail of Evil

by

Michael Lee

Published by Michael Lee, PhD

ISBN #978-0-9825096-7-8

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 by Michael Lee, PhD

All rights reserved.

Cover Design by Cherie B. Lee

The characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was no purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1

Penabelea Vanora Gordun is an interesting name, don’t you think? I fell in love with Penny while I was chasing an escaped convict through New York City. Did I mention Penny was covert CIA and worked in the United Nations? When diplomatic assassins attempted to throw me off my trail by kidnapping my new love, they killed a document forger who tied my case to a situation of interest to Penny’s bosses in the shadows.

Penny’s case became my case and we chased around the city in a vintage Rolls Royce as we collected our clues. We wound up at a gala ball on a luxury liner and we watched the NYPD arrest his honor, the Mayor.

When I left that day for Artesia, New Mexico, I had no idea prison riots, the murder of a NYPD cop and intrigue at the United Nations could be woven into the same story as the one unfolding for me.

Hey, Doug? the voice coming from my new cell phone was Bruce Loggen, the Deputy Chief Investigator from the Department of the Treasury. The name given me by my parents was Montgomery Patton Douglas. My Scottish Father was also a Montgomery. Montgomery Black Douglas, after a famous relative way back around 1300 A.D. My American Mother insisted on including a famous U.S. general in my name and added the Patton part. Most everybody calls me Patton. Loggen, the ex-Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent started calling me Doug right after we met, as some kind of a macho joke. He is also about my height and out weighs me by fifty pounds. I don’t very much mind him calling me Doug.

I’ve got to go check on one of our people out at Artesia. We think he might be skimming on a construction contract, he continued, I gave a shout to the Director of the FLETC campus out there to see if they might like to listen to your pitch on the Prickley Stick. He said to bring you along, if you like.

When are you going? I asked.

First thing in the morning, he said.

Since retiring from the Navy early last summer I have been making my living selling inventions and ideas to law enforcement agencies and the military. I wanted to make sure taking a two or three-day trip would be worth the time. Who would we be talking with? I questioned.

He said, The Artesia campus is made up mostly of students from Customs and Border Protection and the Bureau of Prisons, with a few occasional USDA Forestry Service students thrown in.

I was un-sure we could ever develop a significant market in Tasering trees but I could visualize some potential for controlling unruly prisoners and illegal immigrants. O.K. if I bring Shen and Gerald? I wanted to know.

Not a problem. We’ll put you all up in dorm rooms for the night and come back the day after tomorrow. Naturally you will be buying dinner, he said with some confidence.

Naturally, I said, sign us up.

Bye Doug, he was off the phone.

I started to flip the phone shut, then I remembered this one doesn’t flip shut. My number one partner, Shenzhen Chen, had insisted we re-equip our staff with new improved versions of cell phones as soon as our bank accounts had fattened up. Our entire office is structured around the Bill Gates interpretation of micro processing and I was extremely surprised when Shen outfitted us all with iPhones. He got a free iTunes download from Mac making it possible for our PCs to talk directly with the cell phones. Now, everyone in our office can communicate between and among computers and cell phones. I can even receive or send email messages under certain circumstances when my cell phone is outside of a normal service area. My finger pushed the reddish colored end call symbol to close out Bruce’s call.

My slightly built Chinese friend and I met a couple of years ago at a marathon race in Hong Kong. He was completing his graduate work at the University of Central Florida at the time, and was in China visiting with his parents. I was immediately impressed with Shen and his sense of humor and creative genius. He later demonstrated courage and determination during a dangerous operation and in a situation where my own life was in peril. Something about "six degrees of separation" flashed through my mind.

I was trying to more clearly recall the hypothesis saying any two people in the world are separated by a chain of no more than six acquaintances. "An example in the Wikipedia encylopedia indicates only six degrees of seperation exist between a relationship of Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love- to the East End of London to Jack the Ripper- to Prostitution and to the Bible," why was I thinking that? Oh, yes. My friend and partner, Shenshen Chen whom I met in China is a gadgeteer. Shen is a genius with computers and he uses his knowledge in Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering to help me with our inventions at Douglas Concepts. Shen completed a technical internship at Disney World in Orlando as a part of his graduate degree. One might think it improbable there could be two five feet five inch, highly energetic and inventive graduate students at Disney at the same time. Not so.

At the urging of Shen, Gerald Yanomami eventually joined Douglas Concepts and he has been a catalystfor creativity around our small company. Together they have gadgeted everything in sight. We bought both Shen and Natalie Barre, our other partner, company vehicles with some of the money from our first ventures. Natalie once served as a Law Clerk for one of the Supreme Court Justices until her automobile accident. She lost her husband in the accident along with both of her legs, below the knees. Natalie was pregnant with R.C. at the time. R.C. is short for Ronald Clarence, her five year old son.

Shen and Gere have DC’d (Douglas Concepts’ special customization) Shen’s new black Hummer into a mobile command center. From the outside Shen’s ride is identical to my own Hummer, except the Douglas Coat of Arms on my vehicle has three stars and Shen’s has a single star to signify "number one boy" as Shen would say. The automated satellite dish on the top of the one star Hummer also varies from the appearance of my own.

Natalie’s vehicle is a custom ford van in a black finish and it, too, has the Douglas Coat of Arms. The coat of arms on Natalie’s van has two stars. There is also a satellite dish on her set of wheels. Natalie can operate the rear cargo doors and lift ramp with a key fob and just roll her brand new electric wheelchair straight inside the vehicle and up to the driver’s station. Automatic wheel locks hold the chair in place while she drives. When the electrified chair is plugged into the vehicle, Natalie has the same command and control functions Shen installed in his Hummer. When her wheelchair is operating on its own, Natalie has a scaled down computer operation and iPhone built into the chair. Shen and Gere designed in a rear platform on her chair for R.C. to ride on looking something like a Roman chariot. The floor for R.C. is only about four inches off the floor and has arms surrounding the platform for safety reasons. They tell they have plans to build a seat for R.C., as well.

I spotted Natalie’s two star van in the school parking lot and located a parking space close beside it. There was an electric razor in the glove box and I used it to give my face and my head a once over before exiting the truck. I was wearing my off white safari outfit today. I didn’t want to scare any of the children. R.C. had show and tell this morning and I was his program. Natalie, R.C. and I had discussed the possible things I could talk to a group of kindergartners about and we settled on some non-secret things I had done in the Navy.

There was an air of suspicion from the teachers I met on my way to check in with the Principal’s office. I was a Navy Seal for twenty years and proud of the experience. I am six feet three inches tall and walk as if I have a board attached to my back. You might have guessed by now I do not lack for self-confidence, either. I did the worst possible thing I could do under the circumstances. I smiled warmly back at the judgmental stares I was getting from many of the teachers.

There were about two-dozen children in R.C.’s class this morning. I was met at the door by an attractive young woman named Bunny Lowery. Bunny had only recently moved to Brunswick with her husband. She had a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education from the University of Georgia and was serving as a teacher’s aide until she could land a job as a full time teacher. Ms. Lowery led me over to the lead teacher and introduced me to Ms. Hannah Cotton. From the looks of Ms. Cotton, Bunny would not have to wait very long to get her full time appointment. Ms. Cotton had a permanent smile plastered on her two hundred year old face. Her condescending manner belied the attempted smile she offered her audience of five year olds. Still, I noticed, the tiny bright eyes all cheerfully followed her every move and their ears focused obligingly on her every word.

Ms. Cotton tried very hard not to look at me. In the first place I towered over the five-foot tall old woman and secondly I don’t believe she was too thrilled with me being in her classroom. Sensing her discomfort, I backed off a little way from her and allowed her to introduce R.C. Natalie always called her son R.C., so naturally Ms. Cotton called on him as Ronald. Ronald, would you like to introduce your guest to the class? She asked the small boy who was bouncing up and down with excitement.

Natalie upstaged R.C.’s teacher by starting up her wheelchair and after R.C. jumped onto the chariot’s platform, she drove him up to the front of the room. They must have rehearsed the introduction because Natalie remained pointed toward the blackboard and left R.C. standing on his low height platform to make his introduction.

In his loudest very small voice R.C. said, Mr. Douglas is my show and tell today. He was a Navy Seal and has scars from bullets and everything, I watched as Ms. Cotton winced, and he designed secret stuff, like ships and everything. And he and Shen and Gere invent real neat things, like my Mom’s chariot. He stopped talking and Natalie did a circle with her wheelchair chariot, the paraplegic equivalent of a wheelie. She drove him to the back of the room amid claps and cheers from his classmates.

Shen and Gerald had put together a PowerPoint presentation for me featuring the X-Craft, Fast Sea Frame/Sea Fighter and the experimental HSV-2 Stealth Ship. The pictures of the high tech vessels were exciting to look at, for both children and adults.

I talked about my secret design team and how we came up with the ideas going into making vessels capable of up to sixty miles per hour on the surface and navigating into very shallow waters. Most of the children could grasp the concept of the cargo function of the ships because of their personal cubby holes used in the classroom to store their belongings. I explained by utilizing special containers or cubby holes we could change around the contents of the ships according to what each mission required. One of the children wanted to know if the X-Craft could be used as a re-stocking point for Santa Claus. We had not originally considered the possibility when we designed it, but I replied, I surely think we could make it happen if Santa asked. I made a mental note to pass the idea along to my old buddies at Norfolk.

The presentation was supposed to be fifteen minutes. The things seeming to make the greatest impact on the fertile minds fidgeting in front of me were related to Shen and Gere and how they worked in their own cubby holes back at Douglas Concepts. I promised the class, and a frowning Ms. Cotton, a tour of our operation whenever the proper arrangements could me made by school officials. I finished my presentation in less than half an hour. The kids swarmed around Natalie’s chariot and she showed off her new gadgets for another ten or fifteen minutes. Children. Children. Back to your places, said the wrinkled instructor, Ronald’s Mother and Mr. Douglas are busy people. They must go now, her real motive was to usher us out, not to explain our busy schedules to the students.

Ms. Lowery escorted us out of the classroom and down the hallway. The children really enjoyed your visit. Both of you. Thank you for coming, she said as the bell sounded marking the end of the period She opened the exit door for us and was almost run over by five or six youngsters as she leaned outward to hold the door. Natalie preceded me to her van. She proudly demonstrated her acquired prowess at operating both the van and her chariot. I followed her inside the vehicle so I could talk with her for a few moments.

Natalie, Bruce Loggen has booked us into a presentation on the FLETC campus at Artesia, New Mexico for tomorrow. Can you get tickets for Shen, Gerald and myself to Albuquerque and then on to Roswell in the morning and then return to Brunswick the day after tomorrow? We will need a rental car pick up and return in Roswell. Will there be any problems? I wanted to know.

No problems I know about. Anything else?

We will be demonstrating the Prickley Stick. Is it possible to get half a dozen of the batons and an assortment of attachments air freighted, overnight, tonight to the FLETC location, I asked.

I believe we have a couple of dozen in inventory. It shouldn’t be a problem, and Patton, she paused, thanks for today. It meant a lot to R.C.

I told her back, He’s a great kid. You should be proud.

There was still the task of informing Shen and Gerald of our eminent trip to New Mexico. They both were amused at how uncomfortable I was at using the iPhone. Shen had programmed in a few numbers for me so I didn’t have to do anything except scroll to the numbers and touch it lightly in order to initiate a call. "This new device gave a whole new meaning to reach out and touch someone," I thought. I reached out and touched Shen’s number.

My partner and our newest employee were down in St. Augustine working on the only vessel in the Douglas Concept’s fleet. We had inherited a very old shrimp trawler because of our involvement in a Department of the Treasury operation. I had given my go ahead for Shen and Gere to re-design and re-equip the vessel. They had chosen a ship builder in St. Augustine, Florida to do the work. As we were only working on a single project for the ATF right now, the mighty mites of electronic gadgets had been spending two days a week down there. "Loggen’s trip would give us the opportunity to spend some quality time together," I was hoping.

Hey, Boss, a cheerful voice said from my phone.

How is everything going? I asked with interest.

If I told you we would have to kill you, Shen said playfully.

He was right. I had agreed to give them full reign on the project. I figured if I didn’t like what they did or if I saw something lacking, we could correct it later. The really warm days in the Golden Isles were ending now. It was almost Halloween and we would have several months before we would likely be spending much time on the water. We had lots of time to work out any kinks before the Brunswick ship New Inventions was Christened.

Shen is your workload caught up enough to take a trip with me tomorrow? We would be gone overnight and come back the following day. Gerald can come, too. How about it?

He didn’t miss a beat, We’ll get back this evening and get our clothes together. Do I need to know anything else?

If you could bring your DVD presentation on the Prickley Stick, it would be good, I answered.

I drove on back to the office where I kept an apartment. The next few days probably would not afford us the time to exercise very much and I also needed to test how well my wounds had healed from last August. I dressed for an evening run and soon found myself outside and in a familiar routine. The first couple of blocks I would walk four or five steps and then throw a kick into the air, then it was step, step, step, step, kick, all over again. There was no noticeable pain issuing forth from the scars where the 9 mm round had torn through my wetsuit. I ran hard underneath the canopy of ancient oak trees, crunching acorns under my feet. Around the turn onto Highway 17, I picked up my pace and headed up the steep incline to the bridge. When I reached the top I lengthened my stride and glided the rest of the way across the bridge. I picked a turn around point part way to Jekyll Island giving me a total run of about ten miles.

I have come to relish the richness of the colorful displays are the signature of Coastal Georgia at sunrise and sunset. I go out of my way to situate myself so I can experience as many as possible in this wonderful place. There is a mystical quality to Old Brunswick I have come to read in cloud formations, swirling fog and in the sounds of the foaming surf. I was too early in the evening to read the signs I was looking for as I ran back toward our building. There was a faded out three quarter moon hanging at ten o’clock above the horizon and just a few wisps of very high clouds in the sky.

Well, my body is working again, I thought, let’s see what tomorrow will bring.

Chapter 2

Our plane set down in Roswell around 11:00 AM, Mountain time. It took two plane changes and five hours to get here. The final plane had twenty-seven seats, nine rows of three seats each. The passenger seats were arranged two on one side of a narrow aisle and one seat on the other. Shen and Gere were small enough to be able to sit comfortably next to each other in the side-by-side seats. I sat in a single seat directly behind Bruce and across from the mighty mites.

Roswell, New Mexico, sits on a flat plain surrounded on two sides by vestigial mountains. If a person has ever visited the high plains in Wyoming it would be easy for them to make a comparison. The expanse of un-ending, flat, desert running into mountains in the distance is the same here, except the mountains are not as tall as the snow capped Rockies. Dry winds blow in this place, but not strong enough to turn over box cars on the railroad as they do in Wyoming. The gnarly sagebrush on the plains of New Mexico is smaller than those in Wyoming but seem to chase each other a little faster and more energetically than those in the other state.

Neither Wyoming nor New Mexico get a lot of rain. An average year will provide Wyoming with about 20 inches. New Mexico averages only 17 inches. However, New Mexico was created with two significant rivers, the Rio Grande and the Pecos. The high plains desert of New Mexico is dotted with pockets of farming communities using the water from the rivers. New Mexicans also irrigate to grow marketable crops. They use monster sized sprinkler systems constructed like a giant compass. In the center of the compass is the water source, a well or man made pipe. A