A Capital Offense

By Ross R. Olney

Congressman Buck Landson from Ohio is a fan of big time auto racing, including, of course, the famous Indy 500, so he is concerned when terrorists threaten a major disruption of the next race on Memorial Day weekend. The race is, everybody agrees, a major American event, perfect for a strike by a terrorist. Landson is also pals with Jim Phillips, son of James Phillips, founder and owner of vast Dresden Industries of Indianapolis, a company deeply involved in medical and space research, holography, and other cutting edge sciences, and major sponsor of one of the cars in the race. Jim Phillips, in fact, will serve on the pit crew of the Dresden racer. Amil Nazhar is the one chosen to make the mighty statement with a bomb that will kill thousands of race fans at the Indianapolis Speedway on race day. "A Capital Offense" builds to a stunning conclusion that directly involves Landson, the Phillips, Nazhar, and other characters including Landson's new wife, Kathryn D'Angelo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781304077233

Book preview

A Capital Offense

A CAPITAL OFFENSE

By Ross R. Olney

ISBN: 978-1-304-07723-3

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, unless by written permission from the author, and then only to be used in brief critical reviews. Requests for permission may be addressed in writing to the author at www.rossrolney.com, www.rossrolney.net, or [e-mail].

Copyright 2013

DEDICATION: To my longtime friend, collaborator, and fine physician, Doctor Ernest H. Price, who conceived of the remarkable medical technique opening this book, and worked out the details. Dr. Price is sure this will be a routine procedure in the not too distant future, to the benefit of all of us.

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Ross R. Olney

Ross R. Olney has written and published more than two hundred books on a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction subjects with many of the major New York trade publishers, until he turned to self-publishing for more content control. The trade publishers include Dutton, with his Offshore and They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, Dodd Mead with This Game Called Hockey, his best-selling Daredevils of the Speedway with Grosset and Dunlap, and many others. He has also written and published countless newspaper and magazine stories, including several articles in Readers Digest. He is a prize winning photographer who often illustrates his own non-fiction books and the books of other authors, and he is a popular lecturer at colleges around the country where he speaks on being an author and how to break into the writing business. He can be studied at www.rossrolney.com, or www.rossrolney.net, and contacted at [e-mail]

CHAPTER ONE

Fidgeting nervously, the green clad surgeon once again, for at least the fifth time, readjusted the helmet-like maze of plastic, lenses, wires and glass encasing his head.  The air in the room smelled pure and clean, sterile, as it should be even under these unique circumstances. The temperature was perfect, cool but not cold. As he fumbled, he knew in his heart that he looked more like an optometric patient with a phoropter attached to his face, than a medical doctor.  Overhead lights flooded the stainless steel table in the center of the cool, white operating room deep in a sub-basement of the medical facility of Dresden Industries in northwest Indianapolis, Indiana.  The room was perfectly designed and equipped to accommodate the procedure that was about to begin, as it had accommodated the same procedure at least a dozen times before with various human and animal remains. Nobody was to be hurt, no pain was to be felt, no happy outcome was to be enjoyed, not really. What was to happen was the hope of a successful experiment, nothing more. The surgeon knew that, of course.

On the hard steel table before him was his patient, a nearly naked woman. She was already dead so he knew that nothing could be done about that.

He thought about it for just a moment. There was a medical resemblance between the uncomfortable, helmet-like equipment around his head and an eye doctor's measuring device.  He also wasn't wearing a surgical mask, not that he could have worn one with the paraphernalia around his face and head.  It didn't matter.  A mask would not be needed for the procedure. Only he and his assistant were breathing. Oh, yes, and so was the last-minute and generally unwelcome onlooker breathing there in the autopsy room with them, but at least he was waiting well over by the door.

Irritated by the double Cyclops complexity of the micro-surgical contraption that made him look more like an astronaut with eyesight problems than a physician, he impatiently fumbled with the stereo-focus knobs projecting out up by his temples, almost Frankenstein-like from the strange apparatus he was wearing.

Dammit Bill, he grumbled to his assistant, They ought to be able to make these things with at least a semblance of comfort.  Even as he spoke, he knew that what he wore on his head was only a small part of the total apparatus needed to accomplish the upcoming procedure, but a part that he, himself, had helped the Dresden engineers design and build.  Electronic equipment on wheeled carts crowded around the two nearest the central table, with read-out gauges and dials and probes on small shelves projecting directly from the stainless steel operating slab or from equipment above, on more permanent shelves.

The associate, without a surgical mask or cumbersome helmet, grinned.  Jake, you should be used to that stuff by now.  You've done this procedure on animals at least a dozen times...and by the way, it's gonna to work on a human, too.       

The third man in the room, the unwelcome onlooker, stern-faced and out of place in a business suit, shuffled uncomfortably, attracting the attention of the two doctors.  Over near the door, the onlooker could watch but not overhear the quiet conversation of the two surgeons.  The first doctor took advantage of the fact, and spoke even more softly.  I know...I know...but I'll never get used to this gear, or, for that matter... his voice trailed off.  He looked at the naked body on the table before him, resting on a partially unwrapped thermal blanket.  What a goddamned shame! he said almost to himself.

Then he moved the blanket aside.  Even in death...and the ugly, gray-edged puncture wound of a small caliber bullet was evident on the whiteness of her skin between her smallish breasts...she was beautiful.  She appeared asleep, her pale skin perhaps just as pale in life. She was no sun bather, this young woman, the proof of what that activity was doing to human skin at last very well accepted.  On that final table, where secrets are exposed, she looked intelligent, sophisticated, and actually quite lovely.  Her stomach was flat, her legs long and lean.  The pubic hair at their juncture was precisely trimmed and carefully shaved, as though she might very recently have enjoyed being naked, and physically admired.

From vents around the room, the white noise murmur of an air conditioning system was ignored as both men looked at the dead woman.

What...? the associate prompted, speaking just as softly.

What? the surgeon repeated, then, Oh... he remembered, I don't know...this damned procedure always makes me feel like a peeping Tom, even with animals, and with a human...well, I don't know... he trailed off.  

The associate surgeon grinned again, sighing softly.  Jake, you kill me, you know that?  You perfected this procedure.  You had a hand in the development of the equipment.  You made this cryogenically cooled brain wave detector a thousand times more powerful than the old electro-encephalograph, he went on, waving at the wall of computers, recorders, and other equipment with handy probes and connectors, and the small junction box control panel near the end of the steel table.  Near the head of the dead woman.  Hell, there aren't that many people who've even heard of the procedure.  How many animals have we worked on...? he finished.

I don't know...maybe a dozen or so, I guess, the chief surgeon answered.  "I know we're under the gun on this one, though.  This is really our first human, and we drew a pip.  She isn't an animal and she isn't like most other humans, either."

The stocky man at the door in the dark business suit seemed to be straining to listen, at the same time checking through the small window to be certain the attendants with the hospital gurney were waiting outside.  Meanwhile, the assistant surgeon readied the first of the instruments he knew would be needed for the procedure.  He knew what to do. He’d done it before. In his hand were two needle-like probes.  Thin tubing ran from the probes to the nearest bank of equipment alongside the table. Near the head of the dead woman were two more similar probes with tubing.  As he worked, he talked quietly.  But, Jake, what the hell is the idea of the goon by the door?  And why the hurry?  My God, they've got attendants waiting outside right now to rush her away the instant we're finished.  What's going on...?

I don't know, the first doctor admitted with a sigh.  Dresden procedures, I guess...or maybe it's just who we're dealing with here.  I know the word came down in no uncertain terms.  Get the procedure accomplished, successfully, of course, but one way or the other, quickly turn her over to them.  That's all I know.

Well, something is sure as hell up.  I feel like we're really under the gun on this, Jake, the assistant complained.

I know what you mean, my friend, so let's get on with it.  Yeah, it would have been nice for our first human to be handled a little more leisurely, but that isn’t going to happen. And the sooner we get started, the sooner we finish.

The assistant continued to arrange equipment.  You know how much this could mean to police if it works...even relatives, for that matter?

The surgeon sighed again.  Relatives...?  Yeah.  Take her, for instance.  He paused, examining the woman on the table not as a doctor, but from the point of view of a man.  "Lovely, isn't she?  And she's no transient. She's no homeless, unknown cadaver hauled in here for testing the procedure, as we damn sure hoped for.  She is somebody. Really somebody. She's...I mean, she was the wife of Buck Landson, for God's sake."

I know, the assistant nodded.  Landson has been one of the movers and shakers back in D.C. ever since he was elected.  He is one important man, Jake...he's power! Hell, he's going for President one of these days, they say. The assistant surgeon paused, looking down at the sleek body of the woman on the trough-equipped steel autopsy table.  Then he continued quietly but intently.  "So you know what bugs me, Jake? I'll tell you.  With all that power, how the hell did Dresden wind up with Congressman Buck Landson's wife...and dead at that?  The assistant shook his head in disbelief as he stared down at the corpse.  I mean, I know what happened, but that was only three or four hours ago...and in New Orleans, for Christ's sake!  How could such a thing even happen in the first place, and how could she wind up here and not in Washington, or over in Ohio?"

The primary surgeon paused, glancing at the short, somewhat portly man near the door. His dark suit was ill-fitting and he badly needed a haircut. In any case, even though the guy looked like a gangster of some kind, it wasn’t up to the surgeon to say no to a visitor requested by his bosses. Besides, this wasn’t like regular surgery. A few extra germs wouldn’t make a bit of a difference. Then he turned back to the body on the table.  He recalled the report he'd read in the car they sent for him with orders to get to the Dresden medical facility, to the autopsy room, as quickly as possible.  His assistant would be there waiting, they said.

Ohio Congressman Buck Landson and his wife had been in New Orleans to attend a seminar conducted by Dresden, a company pioneering in his own specialty, surgical optics, and with Dresden, countless other sciences as well. He knew from the report that was waiting for him in the car that there had been an incident at the New Orleans airport.  He knew that she, the wife, the woman on the table, had left the conference early to return to Washington.  He knew her life had ended during the airport incident.

Of course her husband, Buck Landson, had immediately rushed to the scene of the tragedy after he was called at his hotel.  With pressure from both Landson and Jim Phillips, the son of Dresden's president and the surgeon's own immediate supervisor, local regulations had been plowed under and the body of Mrs. Landson had been loaded on a Dresden jet and rushed to Indianapolis.  The head...quite obvious to the surgeon as he noted the ringlets of hair still plastered to the neck and temples...had been packed in ice to preserve the eyes and optic nerves, and the brain, for his procedure.  Even the body, he knew, had been kept very cold...almost, but not quite, freezing.  It didn't matter, except that the colder a cadaver could be kept, the longer the two surgeons had to successfully complete the complex, highly classified procedure.

This is gonna be a real shake-up, you can bet your ass on that, said Jake, the surgeon.  Jim Phillips personally accompanied her here.  He's waiting up in his office for the results.  Yeah, a real shake-up...

They were both still speaking quietly, privately.

That's for sure, the assistant agreed.  Then they take her out of here in a hurry...to where, Jake?

Hell, I don't know.  I just work here.  If young Jim is involved, though, I'd suggest we do our part then go home, grab a beer, and watch some TV.  It ain't our business, buddy.  The helmet had become almost painful.

The assistant nodded.  Yeah, I guess you're right.  You ready?

You know what they want from us?

Yeah.

We'll try, the surgeon said heavily, but dammit, it still makes me feel like a peeping Tom.

Jake, if the procedure works, they might learn who did this.

The surgeon snorted.  How in hell could they have allowed it to turn out like it did?  How in hell could they have screwed it up like that?  It really burns me.  Look at that abrasion, he said, lifting the body's shoulder upward to reveal the underside, and the harsh bruise.  Know where that came from?  He dropped the shoulder on the stainless steel table and lifted the hip, slightly rolling the still limp body to reveal one perfectly rounded buttock all the way to the cleft.   Same here, see?  You know where these abrasions came from?

The assistant nodded, but the head surgeon went on anyhow.  From landing on the ground under the airplane, that's where.  After they shot her.  Hell, she was still alive, from the looks of this.  The fall probably killed her, if the bullet didn't.

It doesn't matter now, Jake, was the quiet response.  The air conditioner hummed on, keeping the room cool. The man by the door shuffled again, glancing at his watch furtively.  The assistant continued. Let's do it.  I've got a date later.

Damn, you smell that, Bill? the surgeon asked absently. The sudden aroma rising from the corpse and probably caused by the movement of the body, was that of an expensive perfume.

What...?

That aroma...that perfume.  She still smells...I don't know...good.  That stuff must have cost a fortune.

Yeah, I smell it.  Nice, huh?

It'll work, Bill, Jake, the principal surgeon, said, responding to his assistant's earlier statement.  Her head and eyes, and almost certainly her brain, are perfect.  They're undamaged.  She fell on her shoulder and her rear.  She's only been dead four hours.  Hell, her core temp would still register if they hadn't cooled her.  It'll work.

The procedure began.  In deference to the family and later funeral arrangements, and suggested by Dresden’s Jim Phillips who was quite familiar with the upcoming procedure, the two surgeons lifted and taped the eyelids rather than slitting them open, although the latter would have given them more elbow room.  They worked gently not so much because of who she had been or because the eyes had been beautiful, but rather because they could not succeed if the nerve connections to the eyeballs themselves were damaged by their carelessness.  They didn't speak.  They had worked together before.  With as much care as the situation warranted, they inserted the probes from the dye blenders into the carotids at each side of the slim neck, then the dye return probes into each jugular, bypassing the recently dead heart.  The assistant then reached behind to turn on a small pump, and the clicking sound from the pump's piston intruded sharply into the room.  The third man, the one in the dark suit, visibly flinched at the strange new sound, then glanced at his watch again.  Smoothly the three primary colors moved from the blenders through the tubes and into the bloodstream of the head.  In seconds the remaining blood moved from the jugular through the tubes to the blender.  The diluted dyes would gather at the rods and cones in the rear of the eyes to offer a stereopticon view.  There was no need for suction.  The procedure was dry.

As he worked, the surgeon recalled previous experiments with animals. He had worked with this same assistant on several species, though they personally preferred dogs or monkeys.  Few outside his own lab even suspected the scope of their work, or what they hoped to accomplish.  The animals proved the theory, though results on video display tubes had been unintelligible, even with monkeys.  But, with this work, any result was proof that the whole procedure could work as he planned when he conceived the idea.  Not that evidence obtained through his experimentation would be accepted in any court.

Still, the time could come when it would.

Finally, very recently, they were permitted a cadaver...but only for working out the logistics of the procedure on a human.  Only for road-mapping the locations of probes and inserts, and to determine pump force and color blends.  The young man had been mutilated by a train.  His head and eyes were about the only things not damaged, the surgeon remembered with clinical interest.  If only Dresden had permitted him to go through the entire procedure, he was certain he could have proven that the youth had been administered a drug before the accident, and perhaps even by whom.  But he had not been permitted to go on. The young man, and many of the animals, had laid alone on the very same table he now worked over, then they were cremated, legally he was certain, somewhere in the vast Dresden industrial and research facility in Indianapolis. He had no idea what they did with the ashes of the boy.

Now, at that same table, he was working on the wife of well-known Ohio Congressman Buckley Landson, a politician growing ever more popular and thus ever more powerful in Washington.  Mrs. Landson was not an animal and certainly not an unknown cadaver, not by a long shot.  Nor, he was absolutely certain, would she be rushed to a crematorium by the nervous men waiting inside and outside his pathology lab.

Dynamic young Buck Landson, confidante of the President.  Landson, who quite obviously had his eyes on higher office.  Landson, who had shaken the House of Representatives on several occasions with his powerful speeches on what he considered to be needed legislation.  It was this man's wife Jake had there on the table.  No, there would be no quick cremation for her.  But what did they want with her?  Why were they waiting, glancing at their watches, obviously less interested in what he was doing than in the job they had to do? What was the damned hurry?

Well, there would be hell to pay for this...especially in view of Congressman Landson's stand on terrorism.  The report had indicated that this was one possibility back in New Orleans at the airport. The one who shot the congressman’s wife could also have been a potential hijacker. And both doctors knew that where Landson may not have subscribed to the hang 'em at the airport theory, he had for some time been pushing legislation that would make terrorism, thus hijacking, a capital offense.  His ideas were known, and popular.  He appealed to the blue collars in America, millions of folks who were sick and tired of mollycoddling criminals and terrorists.  Landson was one of the bright stars of his party, to the extent that several of the older guard from both sides of the aisle were shaking in their patent-leather shoes at the thought of just how far young Buck might go.

Working around the woman's head almost by force of habit, the surgeon grinned inwardly.  United States Senator from Ohio Malcom Medwick was certainly on the list of patent-shoed shakers.  And that was just fine with him, decided the surgeon as he worked. He'd never cared for the smooth-talking, very overweight politician from the state next door, though Ohio folks had elected Medwick several times to the United States Senate.  To Jake, though, fat little Medwick was too careful, too sure of himself, just a little too slippery, even for a politician. Senator Medwick seemed to the surgeon to be too solidly on the side where the most votes could be counted.  No, the surgeon didn't care for Senator Medwick.  Not, as a Hoosier, that it mattered all that much to him.

Hell, he'd probably never meet either Landson or Medwick.  Congressman Buck Landson, whose dead wife he had there on the table, was a real comer, nevertheless.  And this, as terrible as it might be for Buck Landson, wouldn't stop him in the long run, the surgeon was pretty damned sure.

Jake pulled his thoughts back to the procedure as his assistant worked with the equipment.  Project Soul Search they'd called it in the inner circle of Dresden during the experiments. Finally it had been shortened to Project SS, then finally just SS, and that is what they called this still secret procedure as he worked, attaching the needle-like probes to the inner ear, near the eardrums.  He sighed.  It wasn't as though he could save the life on the table. His was an after-the-fact job, little more than a fancy autopsy.

His hands moved with practiced precision.  Watch for the movements on the gauges, Bill, he ordered softly.  Carefully he moved the probes in the throat and then the ears as the assistant watched the control gauges on the panel.  From the tableside control panel went cables to monitor-equipped computers.  We'll soon know... he mumbled to himself.  Soon now... he repeated as he probed with infinite patience, his eyes on the gauges.  There! he finally snapped.  "That should do it!  We have firm connections and readings on every probe and the dyes are flowing to the eyes.  I think we're ready.  If the trauma to the body didn't cause the ciliary muscles to pull the lenses out of whack, and if the cornea or the vitreous humor hasn't clouded, and if the retina is still