Tycho Brahe's Labyrinth

This story can also be read as the continuation of my previous submission Metamorphosis

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Unlike most of the helipads which are built for show but never used, the pads on Tycho Brahe’s 400 feet yacht Sita Faustina get frequent usage. Two were built, one on the foredeck and the other on the sun deck, so the arriving potentes did not have to experience the embarrassment of landing prioritization which revealed their pecking orders.

Jed Cooper stepped down onto the sun deck helipad on the highest point of the ship with his shoulder length hair swirling under the spinning rotor and embraced the awaiting Tycho Brahe who was mumbling “What nice surprises.”   

They climb down from the landing pad and made their way through the boisterous revelers filling themselves with champagne, swaying to the live band, and sunning by the pool.

“You lil bitch!” A woman shrieked behind them, followed by approaching clicks of high heels on the varnished deck. “You left me high and dry back in Nashville. Ever thought about what people might think of me, a lone woman in that town?”

Ariadne Metha wrapped her long arms around Cooper’s neck and kissed him on the lips, imparting the vanilla note of Dom Perignon.

“Did tell Carlos that I was in a bid of a jam and had to bolt in a flash.”

“Ditching someone through her chauffeur? What a prince Coop! A real classic act you are. Why don’t you just stuff a wad of singles down my bra and call me a cab?”

“Guilty! Tacky as hell I admit. Promise to make it up to you.” Cooper smiled indulgently, wiping the white powder residue from the tip of Ariadne’s nose. “Didn’t realize you knew Tycho.”

“All us Indians know each other don’t you know? It’s like having 1.4 billion family and friends. And how did you know Tychy?” 

“We worked on optical switches together back in his CalTech days. As a matter of fact, I am here today for his technical advice on light routing vs electrical conversion - a bid on the QT if you know what I mean.” Cooper touched his nose.

“Ew!” The bikini clad woman waved her hand dismissively. “You nerds go have your geek masturbation and get it done with. And don’t you dare leave the ship without coming to me first. Now where is my caviar? I was only halfway through the tin. ” 

Her heels clicked away in an alcoholic wobble.

Brahe led Cooper down to the main deck, entered the library, and shut the heavy door.

“The fuck are you doing here?”

The surprise guest leaned back in the chair, put his metal-toe cowboy boots on the mahogany desk, helped himself to a large pour of whiskey, drained it, poured again, and downed half.

“Well … I bring what I suppose is good news for you.” Cooper slurred in a sarcastic drawl, leering at Brahe through his unruly bang. “They wanted to postpone D-day.”

“He is watching for my response.” Thought Brahe, plastering on an brow raising expression of shock. “What! But why?”

“Search me. The call came down from high up.” Cooper pointed his left index finger upward while taking a deep pulls from the tumbler in the right hand.

“You mean from the field office? The regional director? Chief of Intelligence? Chief of Operations? The Head Administrator of DEA?”

The finger was still pointed upward.

“No?. The AG’s office?”

“Yup. The deputy fuckin assistant attorney general of the United States, Ewan McGrady himself, in his Brooksbrother suit and chauffeur driven limo, bothered to call a grunt like me.”

“Agent Coopa” Cooper imitated McGrady’s high-pitched Bostonian accent, holding his hand to his ear as if talking on the phone. “The Justice Department recognizes your hard work and dedication. I should say that even the POTUS has noted your personal sacrifices. But this one, I am afraid that we need you to stand down, due to the recent shift in geopolitical environments. This is what’s best for the country now and we thank you for your service.”

Cooper suddenly stood erectly and saluted into the air, shouting. “Yes sir! Absolutely sir! Sacrificing for our country gladly sir! Jumping into the trenches and napalm fields with a big smile sir!”

He hurled the crystal tumbler into the bookshelf, shattering it. “I guess I’ll just take the bottle.”

After another long dram Cooper continued in a raspy drone. “So til further notice the scheduled apprehension and prosecution of Luca Sosa is on hold, and your state’s witnesses testimony against him as the biggest supplier in the western hemisphere and subsequent witness protection agreement is stayed but cannot be rescinded per our legal department, since it’s the government that did not fulfill it’s part of the signatory agreement, not you. Say, you made out pretty well in this deal. Your service was not rendered yet we can't touch you. And you will continue to be the biggest regional distributor and enjoy all this.” He pointed around him. “This high-flying jet-setting shit. Respect from the community. Admiration by the elites. You got, what, five pools, two movie theaters, helicopters, and all the tails in the world on this tub. I hear you even have a fuckin submarine onboard- everything you have an inherent right to, correct?.”

Inherent nothing Agent Cooper. I was a hungry street urchin in West Bengal. Only an unexpected entrance exam result got me into the Danish Serampore University with scholarships and work study. Not adopting the name of a Danish scientist, not graduating summa cum laude from Serampore and then Ph.D from Caltech, not one hundred and fourteen publications on peer reviewed journals, not three patents and two companies started and sold after IPO earn me any fuckin respect or admiration Agent Cooper. No sir! It was only after I bought the Sita Faustina with my ill gotten gains that people stopped looking at the color of my skin and wrinkling their nose in search of the lingering smell of curry. So fuck you you self-pitying hick. Boohoo you ran into a hiccup in your career, sitting here whining about it over thousand-dollar scotch until you get your fill, then go upstair to eat my caviar and rare steaks, and think about fucking that tart who try to wrap her herself around you. You would never hear your mother telling you that she got AIDS from her customers, see your teenage sister forced into an ramshackle abortion clinic and then never came out, or the emaciated body of your little brother removed by the city workers responsible for collecting corpses from the street each morning. So drink up. Plenty of liquor in here. I hope you drown in it. 

But just like all the other successful criminals and accomplished businessmen, Tycho Brahe never lets people know what he really thought. So he fished out another scotch bottle and placed it on the desk for Cooper just as the disgruntled DEA agent bit the tip off a cigar and spitted it on the floor. “Here is another bottle for ya. Why don’t you cool off for a bit here. Need to take care of the caterers and the band. Will be back.” 

Brahe exited the library with a bottle of brandy in his hand and locked the door from the outside.

The gracious host descended into the bowel of the ship, arriving at the the windowless secondary lower deck, a space usually occupied by the shipmates, the chef, and bodyguards, and knocked on the doors of the last stateroom in ghastly lit corridor - three short and one long, the door unlocked.

“Sorry about keeping you guys here but the master suits on the main deck are unsecured during parties like this - even if I lock them the amorous drunks tend to break-in to take advantage of the waterbeds.”

“Absolutely no worries old chap. Special agent Van Zant and I are quite satisfied with our current disposition, we were just talking about it weren't we Rod? And how is our Agent Cooper fairing currently, by the bye? No idea that his Moby Dick was just below deck?” Lucca Sosa, who claimed that he was born Columbian but spoke English with a British boarding school accent, replied in his bathrobe and slipper monogammed S.F. for Sita Faustina, while reclining on one of the two twin beds in the stateroom, skillfully swirling a snifter of brandy.

“Not an inkling. Just preoccupied with being confused, angry, and insecure. Not sure why his baby was on iced. That’s why he made the unannounced visit here today - just a bewildered child acting out. On purpose he made the conspicuous helicopter entrance in front of the party crowd, just to make sure if he ever came out as a DEA agent, I will go down the tube as a stooge. Just trying to flex his muscles and remind me that he could hurt me if he wanted.

“Nice!” Rod Van Zant, the FBI legal attache to Bogota, grinned in his checkered tie and sweater vest . “So he mentioned nothing about Lucca turning state evidence against Alexi Aliyev?”

“No. Nothing about the son of the president of Azerbaijan or the sales of Russian military stockpiles by his father.”

The turncoat drug lord took a gulp on the brandy while winking at Brahe and his FBI handler gave a thumbs up.

“Well he is drunk and locked in the library. I am hoping we can still proceed with our original plan of smuggling you into the U.S. soil amidst our party guests once we moor in New Orleans.

Bypassing the cumbersome custom and leaky border control, no pesky DEA gumshoe will be apprised of Sosa’’s existence terra firma of the United States. Then a discreet phone call could be made, inviting Alexi Aliyev for a golf vacation in Nanea Club on Big Island. The beauty of Hawaii often led to amnesia about the fact that it’s still US soil and any illegal transaction planned and documented, such as the taped conversation about the retailing of the Soviet Strela-2 surface to air missiles with passive infrared guidance system to Abu Sayyaf, Al-Shabaab,or Sinaloa Cartel, will run afoul of the law of the land and open Aliyev junior for prosecution with the threat of freezing all Aliyev family’s oversea accounts and justifying economic sanction, isolating Azerbaijan from financial institutions, multinational corporations, and reputable shipping companies, putting the squeeze on President Ilam Aliyev of Azerbaijan, and slowing down the materiel and technology transfer to the undesirable dregs of the world.

Brahe placed the fresh bottle of brandy on the dresser, removed the nearly empty one, then stepped out of the room as the pair in the room high-fived each other and then relocked the door.

The drug runner trudged further into the lower decks of his lair on a spiral staircase and reached the deserted berth level where the waiters, mates, and deckhands slept. The door to one of the berth rooms opened as he approached in the dim aisle, revealing a youthful face with close cropped haircut and form fitting suit.

Brahe entered the room and nodded to the four other bearded men in the Tommy Bohama shirts with the bulges. Leaning on the bunk beds they scrawled at him.

“Jesus Christ !” Tycho Brahe exclaimed earlier on the helipad as the five men climbed out of their chopper. “Why don’t you just give them a uniform that says ‘Official CIA Grab Team’? And maybe jersey numbers? They even have the same tattoos for God’s sake! You trying to scare away all my party guests?” He insisted on the group hiding out of sight until their time, angering the goons who are missing out on watch party girls doing laps in the leisure pool.

‘How is tricks?” The fashionable youth inquired.

“Smooth sailing. We should pass the twelve mile marker in fifteen minutes.”

The young man dialed on the satellite phone and barked into it. “This is Dietrich. We are a go in fifteen. Is the AG ready? Sure he has Van Zant’s number? OK so this is how it’s going to go down. In about fourteen minutes we will be positioned outside of their stateroom. I’ll give you a go signal and you have the AG call Van Zant and tell him to stand down and relinquish Sosa to us. We will swarm in upon the conclusion of the call. No foul, no drama. You just make sure that the extraction helo is waiting on the deck.”

“You see, the Government of the United States of America has to triage a hierarchy of priorities in our enforcement actions in terms of risks and rewards.” Case Officer Horatio Dietrich of the Central Intelligence Agency explained to Tycho Brahe in an earlier prep session. “For example, nabbing a trafficker like you is worth a feather on the regional DEA agents and half a page in New Orleans Times-Picayune, bagging a whale like Lucca Sosa would get a 10 minute interview on CNN for chief assistant attorney general of the United States, and charging President Ilam Aliyev of Azerbaijan with illegal arm sales to Yemen and Burundi will bring out the Secretary of the State and white house speaker.

But what captures the people’s imagination is any mention of the word ‘nuclear’. Say the word, and any red blooded American will put down their beer mugs, swallow their hamburgers, turn off the college football, and sit up to listen. Play it right, you can get the congress to fund a war. Play it wrong, you will end up actually fighting the war. So tasks like this are of the highest priority and require some, should we say, finesse, boldness, thinking outside of the box so to speak - really above the pay grades for the two federal employees upstairs. Cooper is a trailer trash two packs short of a mandatory rehab order. Van Zant is a nice enough guy, Ivy League and all, writes nice action reports with no spelling error, but has really reached his ceiling.

Then enters A.G. Khan, the nuclear physicist who established India’s nuclear weapon program. Fine, that’s all done and hooray for his fervor and patriotism. But then Khan gets the notion that he can auction his talent on the international market, to the likes of Iran and North Korea, and that’s a big no-no in Uncle Sam’s book

Lucca Sosa is the only person on God's green earth who has seen the face of A.G. Khan and yet still managed to stay alive. So the game plan is we will shanghai Mr. Sosa once we reach the high seas twelve miles from shore, circumventing US regulation forbidding the CIA from conducting any operation on the soil of the United States. And since torture has been proven not to work by the the Democratic staffers of United States Congress and therefore forbidden by law,” Dietrich chuckled . "we will outsource the task to retired Russian and South African counterintelligence types staffing this retired oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico where the only drilling and extraction nowadays are done on the prisoners, with an eventual goal of locating Khan.

“Nine more minutes to go.” Brahe declared looking at his watch. “Where do you want me?”

After a momentary pause all five CIA men broke out in howling laughter. Diedrich put his hand on Brahe’s shoulder. “Mr. Brahe, Dr. Brahe, Tycho, you can get drunk, take a dump, fly a kite, fuck the Queen of England or fuck a queen in the Queens, nobody gives a flying fuck where you are, as long as not in our way, OK?”

As his guests continued with their chortling while checking their weapons, the criminal mariner exited the room and shut the door. He sauntered into the shadow at the far end of the deck, opened a hatch on the floor panel and climbed down into the holding deck where the ballast, piping, and wiring are installed. 

“I have a feeling that it is about that time.”

“Battery fully charged. The submarine should reach Grand Island where I have a jeep waiting.” Ariadne answered, emerging from darkness, retracting loops of wiring around her forearm.

When Jed Cooper realized that the library that he was locked in was built like a jail he was already sobering up. All the books were fake facades, nothing was flammable, and the portholes were bulletproof glass with a steel cap rim which did not open. Nothing was movable except for the liquor bottles. Pounding on the door merely produced insulated thuds that cannot be heard on the outside. Finally he decided to kick in the drawer locks on the mahogany desk with his metal tipped boots hoping to find a copy of the key.

Thump, thump, thump, thump, the lock eventually yielded just as the metal boot tip broke off. He open the drawer and found a Montblanc fountain pen, an unloaded revolver, and a file folder containing a diplomas, certificates, and articles of incorporation. In the bottom of the folder a yellowing sheet read: Be it known that, pursuant to an application file with Indian National Registry of Citizens in the City of Serampore, District of Hooghly, State of West Bangel, the administrator has authorized the name of Tycho Brahe to be bestowed upon the individual born Amir Gupta Khan.

A deck below, one of Horatio Dietrich’s heavies sniffed the brandy bottle brought in by Tycho Brahe earlier, now half-empty.

“Cyanide.” He mumbled to Dietrich, whose voice was, by then, hoarse from screaming and hands bloodied from punching the walls. Next to them, a pasty white Rod Van Zant remained mute and dumbfounded by the limb body of Lucca Sosa.

At even lower level, Ariadne were attempting the shed some light on Tycho Brahe’s bewilderment.

”Human beings are in a perpetual struggle on the spectrum between fairness and security. The obsession with personal liberty, protection from unfair persecution, and the need to proof a crime was committed in the court of the law before punishment can be dispensed are luxuries enjoyed by large, wealthy, western society. Those smaller entities in the world, who are more preoccupied with survival, are less concerned about collateral damages and collective punishments. Why am I doing this you ask. Let’s just say there are interested parties who are more desperate than United States in preventing Iran from achieving nuclear competency and are not as concerned with institutional regulations or hampered by ethical hand-wringing. So I was provided with a lucrative contract to perform a service for such interested parties.“

“You mean Mosaa ….” The suppressed muzzle from Ariadne’s pistol flashed, interrupting Brahe's query.