Steel Force

by Geoffrey Saign

  His fists clenched. The enemy was still coming at him and he had no clue who it was. He didn’t want to tell CID. They would find out he was living at home.

  Carol would want to know about Spinner so he left another message on her voicemail, suggesting they meet for dinner. Maybe she was just too busy for him or spending time in an affair. If he followed her for a day he might find out who the guy was, but he worried about what he might do if he knew.

  Needing exercise and fresh air to think, he decided to make sure the sheds remained untouched. It was dark when he walked to the motorcycle shed, and then the LLC Jeep shed. Everything was fine. The air was cool. An owl hooted in the distance and brown bats flitted through the sky, devouring mosquitoes.

  From the LLC shed he walked back halfway to the motorcycle shed and stopped. He stood in the darkened forest, spotting an old oak tree. Standing on its west side, he counted off ten steps, and knelt down. Stuffing the Glock into his belt, he dug his hands into the leaf litter, feeling for a handle. Finding one, he lifted it.

  A round manhole cover came up, with four inches of leaves and sticks glued to its top. It opened to vertical on its hinges. He descended the rungs, closing the cover behind him, which left him in darkness.

  At the bottom he found the pad and punched the code. The lock clicked, and he pushed the metal door inward, closing it behind him. The dark tunnel was also braced by cement blocks. It took minutes to reach the entrance to the lower barn level. Like the house tunnel, this exit was also hidden behind wall paneling.

  His thoughts returned to the Komodo Op. He needed to explore the money angle. Using a secure browser, he went online and bounced his ISP around the world. He researched articles on the friar, Francis Sotelo. After some digging he found one that held his attention.

  Sotelo supported Vegas because the general wanted to hold companies responsible for environmental degradation in Mexico, especially foreign corporations, and make them clean up land and water they had polluted. One major concern were hormone-mimicking chemicals that scientists worldwide were saying could cause cancer and reproductive problems for humans and wildlife.

  Most of the pollution had been dumped in poverty-stricken areas. Steel’s jaw tightened. Environmental issues had always concerned him and having a child made him even more concerned about the future of the planet.

  The estimate for cleanup costs and related health care costs for affected Mexican citizens was in the billions. One of the U.S. companies listed was MultiSec. They had the most flagrant pollution infractions, resulting in thousands of citizen health complaints, and stood to lose the most financially if Vegas was elected.

  In an article dissecting one of Francis Sotelo’s speeches, the reporter stated that the friar had mentioned MultiSec’s flagrant environmental pollution. But Steel couldn’t see how a corporation like MultiSec could take over a Blackhood Op and order a hit on two generals and a friar.

  He checked MultiSec’s management list, advisors, trustees, and anything else he could find. No names registered. He stared at the photo of the CEO, William Torr. MultiSec could have bribed people, but it would have to go all the way up the line to the president, who signed off on Blackhood Ops missions. That seemed even more absurd.

  It felt like a dead end.

  There was one other point of attack. He looked up a list of MultiSec’s subsidiaries. Another name caught his attention. Spirax. The smaller company had recently merged with MultiSec. An old friend worked at Spirax, one of many with whom he hadn’t maintained contact.

  Someone else he didn’t know if he could trust.

  CHAPTER 18

  Steel pushed the candle centerpiece aside. He had declined the server’s offer to light it, even though Dixie’s interior was dimly lit. He liked the shadows.

  There were tables for two and four in the center of the bar restaurant. Booths along the walls. His back was to the wall in a corner booth, and the voices from nearby tables tumbled all around him. He listened attentively to John Grove, while consistently scanning the other tables and aisles. On the way to the table he had looked over everyone in the restaurant, but new people were arriving.

  Grove was a retired Army captain. Overweight and overworked. A paper-pushing captain morphed into a paper-pushing CFO.

  Grove wore a gray suit and had a shock of black hair, an energetic face, and was six-five with a paunch. He was also high up in the MultiSec food chain. Two years ago, when they last met, Grove was honest. But people changed.

  Steel wondered if he would see shadows everywhere now, distrust everyone.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Grove sipped his beer.

  “What can you tell me about MultiSec?”

  Grove’s face went from relaxed and smiling to tight and frowning in the time it took the words to reach his ears. “Why MultiSec?”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s against policy for me to talk in any detail about our company to an outsider. I just told you I’m the CFO at Spirax, which merged with MultiSec, and it could cost me my job.”

  “No one would have to know.”

  “Someone always knows.”

  Steel hesitated. “They might be involved with something illegal.”

  Grove sat back and ran a meaty hand through his hair. “In what capacity are you investigating them?”

  “A concerned private citizen.”

  “You have no legal standing.”

  “So?” He didn’t understand Grove’s resistance.

  Grove shook his head. “Can you tell me what it is they might have done?”

  “It’s better if I don’t.”

  “You’ll have to give me more than that, Jack.”

  “It would put you at risk.”

  “Talking to you puts me at risk.”

  Steel thought that could be true, but for different reasons. He didn’t want to mention the three hired killers or the attack on Spinner. Grove would never talk then. “I’m asking as a friend.”

  Grove shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jack, I can’t.”

  He hesitated but didn’t see a choice. There was one last point of attack. He had known Grove on and off for ten years and had served under him at one time. “You owe me.”

  Grove’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Afghanistan.” Grove had botched planning an Op, which Steel had rescued from disaster. Afterward Grove had suffered a reprimand and had been relegated to office work.

  Grove’s face darkened. “You lowlife. To bring that up.”

  “I need help.”

  “Go to hell. I’ve paid my dues.”

  A few people looked their way. Grove didn’t seem to realize how loud he was, or maybe he didn’t care.

  Steel lowered his voice. “You wouldn’t have kept your career if I had told them what I knew at the time. Men died needlessly.”

  Grove started to get up.

  Steel grabbed his wrist. “Do you want me to start telling that story to some of your old friends who lost buddies on that mission?”

  Grove’s chin tightened. Steel released him and sat back, resting his left arm on the table in case Grove took a swing. He remembered the man had quick hands for a big guy.

  Grove teetered for a moment, his face contorted and his lips twisted, but he sat back down. His voice was hoarse. “I pay this debt, you don’t call me again.”

  “Sure.” He would add Grove to the list of people he never called.

  Grove downed half his beer. It took a minute before he calmed enough to talk, and then he kept his eyes on the table. “A lot of MultiSec’s holdings are diversified now, but they used to work almost exclusively on missiles, tracking systems, and auxiliary components for aircraft. Now they’re also manufacturing paper products, synthetics, soap, plastics, and chemicals. Before the merger we performed due diligence to see if MultiSec had all the
holdings it claimed existed. It was routine. Our lead information systems audit manager, Tom Bellue, headed the project. In some ways it was an enormous undertaking. Old defense contracts can be hard to audit.”

  “Why?”

  “A lot of it, especially in the past, was black budget, meaning you didn’t have an audit trail to follow on expenditures. In the past, half of the Army bill for tactical weapons research was black budget. Navy had a third of its tactical warfare black budget, and Air Force had almost all of its intelligence and communications research black. I lost track of all that long ago.”

  “What about MultiSec?”

  Grove looked into his beer mug. “Tom Bellue had access to MultiSec’s records while performing the due diligence. He went through ten years of data. Tom was excellent at his job and he enjoyed tracking down little mysteries. I’d call it an obsession with anything that was out of the ordinary.” He paused. “Like you in that regard. At some point Tom detected something inconsistent and wanted to talk to me late on a Friday. But I was on the phone in the middle of another mess.”

  Grove sipped his beer. “I was busy so I never found out what it was or how trivial or important it was. Tom was like that. He came to me with a problem straight-faced, and for all I knew our company was going under or there was a five-dollar error somewhere.”

  Grove kept his head down, his voice weary. “Tom was killed the same night he wanted to talk to me. A month ago, on a Friday evening.”

  “Murdered?” Steel spotted a big guy by the bar eyeing them. The man looked like a pro wrestler in a suit, but he turned away.

  “A burglary break-in. He surprised a thief. They haven’t caught the killer and it doesn’t look like they have much to go on.”

  “You suspect foul play due to the audit?”

  Grove shook his head. “We didn’t find anything on Tom’s computer that showed any problems, and we continued the due diligence and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Then?”

  Grove finally looked up. “Tom’s wife, Janet, is upset. She works as a floor manager at a department store. She doesn’t believe the burglary explanation. But as far as connecting Bellue’s death to what he wanted to talk to me about, that sounds farfetched. We have pretty tight security at Spirax. It’s doubtful someone got in and wiped out a file he worked on.”

  “You’ve told the police this?”

  Grove nodded. “They don’t believe it was anything other than a burglary that ended in a shooting.”

  “And you don’t either.”

  “What do you think?”

  Steel considered Grove’s words. “Could I talk to Bellue’s wife?”

  “When?”

  “ASAP.”

  Grove stared at him for a few moments. Pulling out his phone, he stepped away from the table. He quickly returned and sat down. “She lives in Fredericksburg.” His face tightened and his brow furrowed.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Grove glanced away for a moment. “Janet Bellue was with me the night her husband was killed.” He paused. “She feels guilty. So do I. That’s why she won’t let this go. She wants the killer caught to make her feel better, I guess.”

  Steel looked down at the table, a sour feeling in his gut. He suddenly had less of an opinion of Grove. Grove also had motive. His earlier resistance to talk made sense. He wondered if Grove had told the police about his affair with Bellue’s wife. They would have considered him a suspect.

  Grove leaned forward, his face earnest. “Just try to reassure her, will you?”

  Steel gave him a sharp glance. “About what?”

  “That it’s not her fault that Tom’s dead.”

  He wondered if Grove wanted reassurance too. And now he had another reason to talk to Janet Bellue. She was going through the same thing he was, in a way. Like himself, she grieved the loss of a spouse. It was also a way to see Carol in Janet Bellue, stepping out on him. He wondered what the Groves of the world thought when they became third party to a marriage.

  Grove’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I owe her.”

  It occurred to him that Grove owed Tom Bellue something too, but that debt could never be repaid. Who was the thief in his marriage, stealing emotions that Carol kept hidden from him? What gave a deep ache to his chest was that he had kept his own emotions from her.

  Steel nodded. “All right. I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thanks.” Grove kept his eyes lowered.

  He wasn’t doing this for Grove, but he kept silent about that too.

  They left the restaurant. Steel waited to see if the big man at the bar would follow them. The man never came out. Scanning the streets, he watched Grove until he drove away. No one tailed him.

  He staggered slightly to his Jeep, got out his keys, and fumbled with them. They slipped out of his hands, hit the edge of the curb, and dropped down to the street.

  Kneeling down, he reached for them, quickly eyeing the bottom of the car for tracking devices. Standing, he stumbled to the front of the car and knelt down, reaching beneath the car, pretending to be looking for his keys again. Shifting around to the driver’s side, he repeated the same charade.

  Finally he stood, keys in hand, and opened his door. He quickly drove away, watching his six.

  CHAPTER 19

  Janet Bellue averted her eyes, staring at the tan carpet which matched the soft pastels of drapes and furniture. The interior of the house suited the quiet suburb outside. Comfortable. Tidy. Ordinary. Janet Bellue seemed to belong here too.

  She pressed her wrinkled yellow summer dress over her knees. “Pepperoni pizza and cookie-dough ice cream.”

  “What?” When Steel had arrived she was waiting for him, almost too quick to invite him in. It made him wonder what Grove had told her.

  “Every Friday Tom bought pepperoni pizza and cookie-dough ice cream. He never missed a Friday. There wasn’t any here the night he...” Her brown hair was in disarray, like her features. Wrinkles lined her high forehead, accenting her puffy eyelids and bloodshot brown eyes. She was small and petite, her attractive features twisted by her emotions.

  “A door or window was forced?” he asked gently.

  “The back door.”

  “What items were taken?”

  She looked at her lap, tears on her cheeks, unable to answer.

  Just your husband, huh?

  “Money and jewelry,” she finally said. “About five thousand dollars.” She looked up at him. “Things were disturbed though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Books were slightly pulled out on the shelves and papers were shuffled on Tom’s desk.” She wiped her eyes. “As if someone was looking for something.”

  “Do you have a safe?”

  She nodded. “On the wall in our bedroom. That’s where we kept the jewelry.”

  He wanted to know her feelings, get those on the table. But he asked, “Can I see Tom’s office?”

  She led him upstairs to a medium-sized room. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with volumes of accounting manuals, novels, and children’s books.

  “You haven’t touched anything?” He didn’t see much out of place.

  “No, but Tom was fastidious. Everything was perfectly straight and orderly in here all the time. The children’s books were for the future,” she added softly.

  He and Carol had purchased children’s books too, before Rachel was born. Avoiding her eyes, he looked at the computer station. “Was he in here a lot, working on anything special recently?”

  “He came in here late at night sometimes.” She moved closer to the desk, next to him. “I’m a sound sleeper so he didn’t wake me up. If he did, I’d fall right back to sleep again.”

  “May I?” He gestured to the computer. She nodded, and he turned it on, looking at the files o
n the desktop. Bellue had home accounting and business files, miscellaneous files, and some games. And an icon for Steganos security software. Two flash drives were near the computer. He picked them up and turned to her. “Can I look at these?”

  She nodded again, and he put one in. It had the Steganos program on it. He put the other flash drive in, but it only had personal photographs.

  He turned to her, close enough to smell her sweat, her pain. His gut wrenched. He held up the first flash drive. “Can I keep this for a little while?”

  “Of course.”

  He shut off the computer, needing to swallow before he asked the next question. “Did Tom seem worried in the last month or talk to you about anything in particular that was work related? Anything unusual?”

  She shook her head and heaved a breath. “He was always excited about his job. He was happy. We were happy.”

  His eyes went back to hers in accusation. And then it all fell apart. How? Did it disappear overnight? Or over months?

  “I should have been here.” She turned to him, her eyes questioning, her mouth twisted down.

  He shook his head. “You would have died too.”

  “Yes.” She said it as if that would have been preferable.

  He wondered if Carol carried that much pain over Rachel. Maybe. That idea gave him little satisfaction.

  “I was with someone else.” She moved closer to the bookshelves, her fingers running down the spines of Mother Goose and other books. “During the last hours of our marriage, I was in someone else’s bed.” She put her head into her hands and began to cry silently.

  He didn’t want to but couldn’t help himself. Quietly he stepped closer and put a soft hand on her shaking shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss.” The next words almost choked him. “In time it will get better.” A year of missing Rachel hadn’t been enough for him.

  Her head barely moved up and down.

  He returned to the desk, using a pen and notepad to write down his burner phone number. He held it out to her. “If you think of anything else, call me. Any hour.” He hesitated. “It doesn’t matter why.”