The Lucifer Sanction

Chapter FOUR

Santa Monica, California

March 23, 2015

8:22 A: M



“You ain’t looking too good, Sam,” Blake said with trepidation. “You feel okay?” He placed a cigarette between his lips and caught Sam’s look of disapproval. “I’m not too keen on meeting with these guys again this morning . . .” Blake said, “. . . what with all of that pandemic shit. Surely there’s someone else they can send to wherever the hell it is?”

“Order me a coffee and French toast,” Sam groaned, failing to camouflage his concern. “I’ve gotta hit the John.”





“Uh oh, big chief ain’t looking too good,” Dal quipped, and caught a sickly backward glance from Sam as he exited.

Breakfast passed with little conversation. Sam checked his watch and within minutes all four headed back to the Marriott. They stepped from the elevator and made their way single file to the SoCal Exports office.

“Any calls, Marcie?” Sam asked.

“No calls,” Marcie replied. “But there was a note under the door. I put it on your desk.”

Bell hung back for a chat with Marcie as Blake and Dal followed Sam into his office.

Sam eyed the envelope with hesitancy and then raised his eyes to Blake and said, “Why am I feeling paranoid about opening this?”

He slit the envelope open, peeked down and pulled three airline tickets.

“Sam?” Dal probed.

“Sam, you okay?” Blake queried.

“Yeah.”

Blake asked, “Danzig’s little vacation package, huh?”

“Yeah, three airline tickets,” and he passed one to each.

“Well, well, well,” Blake sighed, “and I thought it was all a f*ckin’ nightmare.”

Sam unfolded a foolscap page and read in silence.

“What’s up?” Dal inquired. “It’s from one of those two crazy motherf*ckers, right?”

Blake sat on the edge of Sam’s desk and rubbed both palms hard into his eye sockets.

“Los Angeles International at ten o’clock tonight,” Sam said. “You fly out for Zurich, arrive tomorrow at four. Not too bad – a five star hotel.”

“Jesus Christ, Sam,” Blake said cynically. “They put all this together overnight?”

Sam studied the note further then raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Overnight?” he chuckled. “These people transport humans through wormholes in the universe. You really think booking flights to Switzerland while we’re sleeping would be a stretch?”

Blake and Dal glanced at Bellinger who was also staring at the ceiling.

“At eight tonight,” Sam groaned. “I’ll have the three of you at LAX.”

Marcie tapped on the door. “Excuse me, Sam, I just had the weirdest call, a Doctor Drummond. He was asking for you. He wouldn’t stop rambling, didn’t take a breath. I tried to say can you hold but I couldn’t slide the words in edgeways.” Her hand covered her mouth as she suppressed a slight giggle. “He had a heavy accent, Scottish I believe. I could hardly follow what he was saying. To make matters worse we had a bad line.”

Sam tilted his head, parrot fashion. “Was he calling from LA?”

She gave him an inquisitive look. “It’s the strangest thing. He said he was calling from Zurich, something about finding a note, a note written to you from Drew. He mentioned something about the pier, the pier here in Santa Monica.”

Sam threw Blake a quizzical face. “You recall leaving a note for me in Switzerland?”

“Hmm. I was skiing in Geneva about eighteen months back,” Blake replied. “But no, I didn’t leave any note.”