The Zimmer Doctrine (Corps Justice Book 11)
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Authors: C. G. Cooper
“The Zimmer Doctrine”
Book 11 of the Corps Justice Series
Copyright © 2015 C. G. Cooper. All Rights Reserved
Author: C. G. Cooper
Editor: Andrea Kerr
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This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations and events are all products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual events or real persons are completely coincidental.
Any unauthorized reproduction of this work is strictly prohibited.
Warning:
This story is intended for mature audiences and contains profanity and violence.
Dedications
To my loyal group of
Novels Live
warriors, thanks for your undying enthusiasm. Keep pushing me up the hill.
To our amazing troops serving all over the world, thank you for your bravery and service.
And to the United States Marine Corps: Keep taking the fight to the enemy.
Semper Fidelis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Technion- Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel
August 24th, 10:38am
A rare curse escaped Dr. Aviel Nahas’s lips as the needle-nose pliers pinched his left index finger. The Israeli scientist-turned-inventor flung the tool across the room, barely missing a neat row of cork-topped vials. He winced at the clatter while he chided himself for being so rash. He’d never had a temper. Until recently, he’d never once yelled at another human being in his adult life.
Dr. Nahas exhaled and tried to concentrate on his work. The last two months had been the most strenuous of his fifty-two years of life. Living under this constant anxiety wouldn't help him complete his current project in the time allotted. Earlier that day, upon looking in the mirror, it appeared he'd accumulated a new crop of overzealous gray hair. And for what?
The grant provided was substantial, the largest in his career, but the toll it was taking on his health and the time it was stealing from his other projects…
He shook his head and sighed. Such was the price of doing business with the Israeli government. His colleagues had warned him, but he had not listened. Looking back, Dr. Nahas knew that his own ego, a thing that had rarely reared itself during his distinguished career, was now threatening to induce a nervous breakdown.
His once dead-steady hands felt clumsy and alien to him. His world-renowned brain flitted from fear to fear like some buzzing insect rather than staying on task.
He owed this change in his temperament to those government slave drivers and especially that bastard Colonel Osman. The man didn’t have a clue about proper protocol. He insisted on calling at odd hours, pressing him with strange questions, and treating Dr. Nahas like a lowly soldier. He was Dr. Aviel Nahas!
For the hundredth time, Dr. Nahas debated filing a grievance. Maybe someone would listen and get Osman off his back. He didn’t need to be micro-managed. The stress of constant scrutiny would only serve to impede the speed with which he could complete his work.
But he was a quiet man, not one to make waves. With a heavy dose of reluctance, Dr. Nahas got up from his stool and went to fetch the discarded pliers. As he bent over to pick them up from the floor, the office door buzzed, signaling someone’s entrance. His stomach turned at the thought of yet another snap inspection by Osman. However, when he arose it wasn’t Col. Osman coming through the door.
Dr. Nahas stared at the three men standing in front of him. They were all dressed casually, their faces amiable yet unreadable. With their light complexions and sandy hair, Nahas presumed they were of European descent. He thought they looked like athletes who’d somehow, while en route to the gym, took a wrong turn and instead stumbled upon his work space.
“Can I help you?” he asked them.
“Doctor Nahas?”one of the men asked in English, rather than the usually-spoken Hebrew. He had handsome emerald eyes.
“Yes?”
“We’ve been sent to fetch you, Doctor.”
He didn’t have any meetings scheduled. Col. Osman had made sure that his only responsibility was the completion of his current endeavor.
“I am sorry, gentlemen, who are you with?” Dr. Nahas asked.
“Our employer would like a word with you concerning your research.”
It was not an unreasonable request. He had wealthy businessmen asking him for a number of meetings. But this request could not have come at a worse time.
“If you could please tell your employer that I am extremely busy at the moment. I have a deadline, you see, and…”
“We know about tomorrow’s deadline, Doctor.”
Dr. Nahas froze. There was something in the man’s eyes now, a goading, like he was toying with him.
“That is impossible. This project is…”
“Classified,” the man finished for him. “We know all about it. That is what our employer would like to discuss.”
He could not discuss it with anyone except Col. Osman and his people. Dr. Nahas knew that Osman would kill him if he found out that he’d broken the terms of the grant.
“You will be compensated for your time, Doctor. Now, if you please, we have a car waiting outside.”
The man was courteous and he even smiled when he motioned to the door.
Dr. Nahas shook his head.
“As I said, I am very busy. Leave me your card and I promise to contact you as soon as my work has been concluded.”
He wanted the men to leave. The adrenaline had cleared his muddled mind. How had these men found out about his work? His research and development was so highly classified that even his parents were not cleared to know what he was doing.
“I am afraid I must insist,” the man said, still smiling.
Dr. Nahas summoned the courage to reach for the phone. He’d extended his hand to pick up the receiver when the man firmly insisted, “Please turn around, Dr. Nahas.” Then, in an abrasive tone that left no doubt as to the men's intentions, he growled, “With your hands up please, Doctor.”
For the first time ever, Dr. Nahas wished that Col. Osman would show up for one of his impromptu inspections. He didn’t like the man but he knew the grizzled veteran could single-handedly take care of the strangers.
When he turned to face the three men, they held pistols in their hands. Any forthcoming retort stuck in his throat as one of the men grabbed his laptop off the table.
“Now you may lower your hands, Doctor,” the green-eyed man said. “Come quietly and I can promise you will not be harmed.”
Dr. Nahas almost laughed despite the fear threatening to choke his air supply. All he could do was nod and gulp.
Pistols were holstered and hidden from view. The man carrying his laptop opened the door, looking first left and then right down the hallway. He gave the all-clear sign to his companions and the green-eyed man gruffly nudged Dr. Nahas to the door.
With every step, his feet felt like dead weights. Dr. Nahas wondered again if Col. Osman would make a sudden appearance, saving him from whatever fate these men and their employer had in mind.
They passed unobservant university students as they marched down the hall. No one knew him. He was a stranger, just a temporary tenant in their midst.
The four men walked out into the late summer heat. There was a dark SUV idling beside the curb. Dr. Nahas shivered. He took another look around, praying to see Col. Osman’s scowling face, which never came. Dr. Aviel Nahas slid into the back of the waiting SUV, and he disappeared without receiving a second look from students or faculty rushing to escape the scorching sunlight.
Chapter 2
Dunecrest Lane
Wild Dunes Resort
Isle of Palms, South Carolina
August 26th, 9:00am
It was the same routine every Wednesday. She let herself in with the combination provided by the property management company.
She’d taken care of the current tenant for five months. It was beyond her comprehension how one person could afford the luxury of staying in a five-bedroom beachfront rental for that duration.
Only twice had she seen him. The first time he was on the rooftop porch, staring out to sea. The second time he’d been at the bedroom door. He nodded quietly and then closed the door. He was a handsome man but his eyes were hollow, bordering on haunted. His eyes reminded her of the street children she gave dollar bills to when she visited her sister in Xalapa.
Carmela’s first stop was the kitchen on the third floor, adjacent to the master bedroom. As usual the place was spotless, but that didn’t stop her from dusting every ledge, vacuuming every inch, and mopping the hardwoods until they shined in the sunlight.
There were no dishes to be washed, no food to be discarded. Even the refrigerator was empty. Carmela knew from months prior that someone was living in the house; however, her only clue was the neat pile of Styrofoam to-go boxes in the kitchen trashcan.
As a mother of six, she frowned with disapproval when she inspected the trash. After lifting the lids of the top two boxes, Carmela saw that the meals inside were barely touched. She made a sign of the cross and returned to her duties. Whoever this man was, he would need a mountain of prayers. Carmela decided to add him to her daily prayers.
+++
He’s dead. Travis is dead
.
Cal Stokes lifted his head at the sound of the housekeeper’s humming. It never bothered him, but then nothing bothered him anymore. It was as if the colors and tastes of the world had somehow been ripped from his being. He just didn’t care. He felt completely numb.
He’d hit the road in March traveling from Charlottesville to San Diego. He then traveled to London, if for no other reason than Travis had spent time there over the years.
His cousin, Travis Haden, was dead
. The remaining branch on Cal's family tree had been forcibly removed from his life and torn from his soul by the brutality of fate.
San Diego had been a blur. He drank his way from bar to bar, often catching glimpses of times spent with Travis. Travis flirting with a girl, Travis ordering a Boilermaker, Travis laughing with his SEAL buddies. It was too much and London wasn’t much better.
His bender continued across the Atlantic. He was an easy target for the London locals, drunk punks who loved to fight and draw blood. It had been too easy. They were no match. Two on one? No problem. Four on one? Fuck them. Six on one? Now, that had been the doozy. Ten stitches and a stern warning from the cops later he’d hopped on another plane, back to the States, to the only place he could think of - the beach.
Travis had loved the beach. They’d spent much of their childhood taking trips to the beach. When they were in middle and high school, they would take Cal’s dad’s car and hit the waves outside Camp Pendleton or they'd comb the beach for girls at Camp Lejeune. But Charleston was Travis’s favorite. There he could get away and blend in with the civilian crowd.
The last vacation taken together was to the same house where Cal now resided. The management company had said it was booked for most of the summer but after Cal had offered double the going rate for the entire year the owner happily consented. The cost didn’t matter; Cal could afford it.
He’d shaved his head to save time at the barber. At least that’s what he’d told himself. It really was to save himself the headache of going out in public. Every time he stepped into a grocery store, he felt like everyone was looking at him. “How are you doing?” “Are you okay?” he imagined them asking.
Now he had his food delivered to the house. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was sprinting barefoot over the sand until he wanted to puke, or he was swimming against the riptide until his lungs felt like they would explode.
But none of it helped. The booze had lost its taste. In fact, he hadn’t touched alcohol since leaving London. Food no longer looked or tasted appealing. He ate it simply to have energy for his jogs.
Cal wondered if the day would come when he’d just lose the will to get out of bed. Sometimes he wished for that day. It was all so empty now, like a shell of a life, a void where once there had been light.
Cal closed his eyes and tried not to think. But the thoughts came without bidding, like a neon sign blinking in a dark alley. First he had lost his parents, then Jess, and now Trav.
He’s dead. Travis is dead
.
+++
“How is he, Daniel?” President Brandon Zimmer asked. He’d asked the same question twice a week for the last five months.
“He’ll be okay,” Daniel Briggs answered.
Daniel had been the one to follow Cal after Travis’s funeral. He'd stayed in the shadows, always watching. He’d told the president that Cal knew he was near, but not once in five months had he made any attempt to contact his fellow Marine.
“How does he look?” the president asked.
“Thinner,” came the sniper’s honest reply.
Zimmer shook his head. He was minutes away from addressing the United Nations. It could be the pivotal speech of his career. He was supposed to be rehearsing but, just like so many times since March, the president found himself lost in thoughts of Travis Haden and Cal Stokes. Travis had been both his Chief of Staff and a good friend, and he considered Cal his best friend. They had bonded through tragedy and bloodshed, through good times and bad. Travis, Cal and Daniel had risked everything for Zimmer when everyone else had wanted to see him fail. He’d taken them for granted. Not until a terrorist’s lucky shot killed Travis and the resulting grief sent Cal running did the president truly understand how integral a part they had played in his life.
He’d racked his brain trying to conceive of a way to help Cal, to pull him from his despair, but every idea seemed too contrived or not sincere enough to compensate for the loss.
“Is there anything I can do?” Zimmer asked.
“He’ll come out of it,” Daniel said, his even tone reminding the president that Daniel had been through the same, if not worse, and had come out okay.
“Just let me know if you need me.”
“I will. Thanks for calling and good luck today.”
The president chuckled, suddenly remembering that he was standing just outside the back entrance to the General Assembly.
“Thanks, I may need it.”
+++
Daniel smiled when the call ended. Brandon Zimmer was a good man. Despite his nonstop schedule, Cal was always on the president’s mind. He’d offered any resources he had at his disposal including therapists, vacation homes, and anything else that might aid in returning Cal to the land of the living.
But it wasn’t that easy. Daniel knew that Cal had to deal with the crippling pain in his own time and in his own way. It had only been five months. Daniel had spent years traveling from town to town before finally finding his peace.
He would not rush Cal’s recovery. He would not push.
He would wait, and he would pray. The answers would come and, when they did, Daniel would be there.