Mozzie sat at Neal's table, "I had a lot of weird dreams while I was in the hospital recovering from that gun shot."
"That's understandable, Moz." Neal said pouring Mozzie some coffee.
"I'm trying to make sense of them. In one you were explaining that you were born in the jet stream." Mozzie ran his hands over his head, trying to makes sense of it.
Neal was surprised by this statement.
"I believe that is because you move fast, and you can be unpredictable."
"You weren't reading any weather books were you?" Neal kidded Mozzie.
"Ha… No, I wasn't."
"What other weird dreams did you have?"
"One where I was invisible and followed the suit around, he made all these promises. His hand was always behind his back with his fingers crossed."
"You don't trust him, obviously." Neal said as he finished his coffee and walked the cup to the sink.
"Oh, I tried to tell you, but you couldn't hear me, you looked right at me but didn't hear."
"Not all dreams mean something, Moz." Neal said, "They don't have to mean anything at all." He emphasized the word 'mean'.
"There's nothing more frightful than ignorance in action."
Neal just stared at Mozzie.
"Johann Wolfgang von Goethe." Mozzie smiled.
"The German Playwright?"
"And poet."
"OK, then go ahead, write them down and if you want my help, we can work on them. Do you remember getting shot or who shot you?"
"No."
Neal walked into the office. Peter was standing by his desk looking at his watch.
"I'm on time."
"Just barely."
Neal took off his hat with a twist and a flip and it rolled across his arm and into his hand. He sat the hat on his desk and smiled at Peter.
Peter said shaking his head, "Come up to my office."
Neal followed Peter, "Close the door."
Neal did so and sat down. "What's up, Peter?"
"Read this." Peter handed him a standard blue FBI folder.
Neal opened the folder and read the left side quickly, only three pages. He flipped to the right side. "Is this a mistake? The same few pages repeat themselves, three times."
"This is the file we pulled from Appleton's file cabinet."
"No picture, but it sounds like Larssen."
"We believe so." Peter said. "Enough matches the records and information we got from Fowler, we're ninety five percent sure."
"Then we could use aliases in the travel records to help track him."
Peter took the file back, "Jones is already doing the searches."
Something about that bothered Neal. "You've already told him. If he's doing the searches, then the clerks will know and that means everyone else would too, about five minutes later. Why did I need to close the door?"
Peter stood up and walked to the door and then back to his desk. "Neal, we found more aliases. Do you recognize any of these?"
Peter slid a single sheet of paper across his desk.
Neal looked at the dozen sir names. "I recognize a few of these."
"Ever do any... work ..with any of them?" Peter asked.
"I might have worked with Gian Crocifisso, Thad Lowe is a familiar name, though I haven't worked with him. Marc Starhlstrom, I heard his name when I was in Europe, and Aaron Habrit is an Israeli. Again didn't work with them."
Peter took the page back, "Tell me about John Crocifisso."
"Sounds like John, but it's Italian G I A N, Gian.
Peter tilted his head and looked at Neal.
"Sorry. If we had worked together, it would have been similar to working with Wilkes, he wanted to use more force than was necessary. I used the ... work I had done ... MIGHT have done to ... more or less to head him off. Make it so he couldn't hurt anyone. He's not to happy with me either."
"We believe these are all Larssen's." Peter said.
Neal leaned back in his chair, shocked. "Holy..." Neal caught himself, "Really!" He looked at all the names again.
Neal opened his door to see Mozzie still at the table. "Did you move at all this morning?"
"Of course. I went from here to here a few times and once even to here." Mozzie leaned right, then left and then lean back in the chair. He then leaned forward again, over a sheet of paper. He was writing his dreams down.
"How's that going?"
"Hmm. Slowly. Come to check on me during lunch? "
"Yeah. Want a distraction?" Neal sat the list of last names in front of Mozzie.
"Oh a puzzle." Mozzie used his pencil to write something next to each name.
Neal looked over Mozzie's shoulder. This seemed to bother Mozzie, "Sit down, will you."
Neal sat next to Mozzie, not saying a word.
"There you go."
"Moz, you've written a name or word next to each of these. Explain, please."
Mozzie just sat there.
"Moz. Mozzie. Are you OK?
"My dreams are starting to make sense."
"Do you want to work on them?" Neal asked.
"Look here, I think they're related. Starhlstrom is German for jet stream, more of a modern German, it used to be Strahlstomung. If that's right then Lowe is Thaddeus C. S. Lowe."
Neal looked at Mozzie, "I heard of Thad Lowe... go on, Moz."
"OK, Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe, was the commander of the US First Balloon Corp during the Civil War, he used his knowledge of hot air balloons to discover the jet stream. Post, is Wiley Post also said to have discovered the jet stream."
Mozzie circled items on the notes he had on his dreams.
"These next three..." Mozzie pointed back to Neal's list, "...all refer to something biblical. Crocifisso is the Crucifix, in Italian. Corbenic, could be the castle where Galahad 'achieves' the Grail."
"The Holy Grail?"
"Yes, that Grail. Habrit, I'll go with Aron Habrit."
"I'm guessing that's not a name?" Neal asked.
"Neal ,it's Aron with one A, Aron Habrit is the Hebrew name for the Arc of the Covenant."
Neal sat back, shocked twice like this in one day. What did it all mean he wondered.
"The next three are simply planets, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. Not very good sounding aliases."
"OK." Neal waited. "Those are also Roman gods, more or less equal to the Greek gods, Zues, Poseidon and Hades."
Mozzie looked at his 'dream list', "OK...Ah, Neal, I think this is some kind of code. The first three are all about the jet stream, the upper stratosphere. The next three are biblical references. Then three planets, Pluto is still a planet in my book. The last three are names from the Manhattan Project. Groves, as in Brigadier General Groves. Eltenton, is George Eltenton, the name Oppenhiemer gave as person asking for nuclear secrets and, Teller, is Edward Teller, the guy so unhappy with the A bomb he had to start work on the H bomb."
Mozzie looked at his list of weird dreams. His mind was racing.
"It seems so far fetched, Moz. I don't see how those tie anything together." Neal rubbed his forehead, trying to put something together to get Mozzie back on track. "Moz, these are aliases."
"And they tie into my dreams." Mozzie held up his page, "This one you were born in the jet stream." He pointed to the first three names from Neal's list. "Jet stream, jet stream, jet stream." Mozzie was getting upset.
Mozzie held up his document again. "The suit and his crossed fingers. Crocifisso, the Crucifix, the cross. I may not understand it yet, but it's in my head. I know something about this and I don't know what. Yet."
"OK, we can look into that." Neal would try to appease Mozzie. "Do you know who the Italian Gian Crocifisso is?"
"A thug, as I've heard it. Uses force, as opposed to finesse, to acquire works of art."
"Here's what I know." Neal said, "All of these are aliases believed to be used by Larssen."
"Did you show your little friend the list?" Peter asked.
"Almost sorry I did." Neal shook his head. "He was tying it to all kinds of oddball stuff."
Peter and Neal were making their way through a crowded sidewalk to the office after getting a quick bite for lunch at the coffee shop.
A lady stepped off the sidewalk and into the street when a bicyclist nearly ran her over. He yelled 'sorry' and kept riding.
"Are you OK?" Peter asked.
"I'll be fine, if I can find out who the boy was." she responded. She was on a cell phone and continued her conversation.
Moments later in the elevator Neal asked. "Wasn't that the lady that bumped into you and spilled your coffee?"
"Karma's a bitch" Peter smiled.
"Mozzie heard of Gian Crocifisso, but nothing really more than I already knew."
"What about the oddball stuff?"
"It's out there, Peter, though some of it ties to his dreams he trying to understand."
Peter looked at Neal, "Dreams?"
"Yeah, after being shot he's had these weird dreams and he's trying to figure them out. Many seem to fit into the list of names, but in weird ways that only Mozzie could come up with."
"So they point to Larssen?"
"Yeah, I guess in some way they do, but with a Mozzie twist. The jet stream, religion, planets or Roman gods and the Manhattan project."
Peter's eyes opened wide, then he shook his head. "How's he doing?"
"He seems fine, but just has a blank space of time around the shooting." Neal answered.
Peter sat at his dining room table, papers and folders in strategic stacks that only he could decipher.
Elizabeth opened their door, her arms loaded with orders, proposals, and plans. "Hi, Sweetie. Didn't think I'd find you home so soon."
Elizabeth stepped out of her heals near the staircase and walked over to the table. "I need just a little space." She pushed a couple of Peters piles of folders and papers aside.
Peter looked at El, "Let me help you, Honey." Had this been anyone else, Peter would not have been so accommodating. Peter reshuffled his stacks of work to give El some room.
"What are you working on?" Elizabeth asked.
"Trying to catch Larssen."
"He's the guy that shot Mozzie and worked with Fowler?"
"That's the guy."
El looked over Peter shoulder. "What's going to happen over the city?"
Peter looked over his shoulder at Elizabeth and then at the paperwork she was looking at and back to her. "What?" What had he missed?
"Right here you have a list with Mozzie's writing."
"How do you know Mozzie's writing?"
"Well, this is Neal's and this isn't yours." She said pointing to the document.
"OK. What did you see?"
"It's right here." Elizabeth said, "Sky, religion, planets and the Manhattan...oh, I missed the word 'Project'...still it seems to me to be 'the heavens' and 'Manhattan' that really fit anything. So what's happening over the city?"
"I need to find out." Peter said.
"Department of City Planning, Moz."
"Beethoven!" Mozzie shouted and then rubbed his eyes. "Oh, Hi, Neal, guess I fell asleep. What did you say?"
"Department of City Planning has a database, and guess what it's called?" Neal didn't give Mozzie a chance to answer. "Pluto."
"I dreamt of the music box."
"Mozzie! I came across it a few weeks ago when working on a banking scam. Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output. I just remembered it."
"Wouldn't that be 'PLUTLO'?"
"I didn't make up the acronym. Besides tax info, it has building characteristics and political districts"
Mozzie asked, "You're talking about this database?"
"Yes, Moz."
"There are plenty of places named Neptune something and Jupiter this or that." Mozzie said.
"You're right, but of all the 'aliases' we were given, the three planets didn't fit.
Neal said to Peter, "This is all a game to him, to Larssen."
"Yes, and I hate to say it, but I think Mozzie was right on those associations."
Neal switched the phone to his left ear, "What do you have?" He grabbed a pen.
"Elizabeth saw it right away, I was so ready to write it off as part of Mozzie being ... Mozzie, that I didn't see it. Manhattan and the heavens, something happening over the city." Peter said.
"The planets, they're Roman gods and each the son of their father, Saturn. Larssen has been working at this for a long time, making sure these aliases would be found out and the clues each seem to point towards."
"Saturn is visible in the morning, Jupiter and Neptune in the evening, don't think you can see Pluto." Peter rattled off.
"I would have never guess you knew that." Neal said.
"Guess you don't know everything about me do you, Neal?"
Neal knew not to answer that but spoke anyway, "Peter, how do you think this ties into the music box?"
"How soon can you be in the office? Peter asked.
"A lot sooner if you pick me up on your way in."
Jones walked into Peter's office, "I cross referenced New York City and the planets you gave me and came up with this." He handed Peter a piece of paper.
"The U.S. has a spy satellite that will pass over us tomorrow morning?"
"It's in orbit and not stationed directly over any specific target at this time." Jones answered.
"Or it is over us for a reason."
"Guess that's a possibility."
"Do you think the code Larssen stole has something to do with it?" Neal asked.
"It might, but why would he lead us to it?"
"It's a game to him." Neal answered.
Peter asked, "Neal, want to guess the name of the satellite?"
"Not really, Peter. What is it?"
"Cassini two."
"I thought the Cassini satellite was going to Saturn?"
"Cassini two." Peter repeated, holding up two fingers. "Don't know that I had ever heard of it before now."
Peter's phone rang. "Peter Burke, FBI. Oh, hello, sir."
Peter hung up the phone. "That was Hughes. Looks like your search, Jones, threw up some red flags. The C.I.A. called him at home. We're off this angle. We have to find something else."
"Let's burn through Larssen's aliases and find the bastard."
A/N I have thought about ending this here, but might add another chapter.
