Top Secret Corpse

by Andria Stone

  He used it on his cellphone. No red lights flashed—finally, a bit of luck. Jack called Brad with the news.

  “You are in some deep shit, Amigo.”

  “Just tell me how to use this handy-dandy little contraption on my computers.”

  After sweeping the 4,700 square foot house, desktop, pads, pods, and a host of other electronics, without finding any other hidden listening or tracking devices, he moved out to the patio. Jack’s height afforded him the ability to reach places most others could only access by ladder. In short order, he located two more bugs facing each other—one on the fence, another on the house.

  “Should I remove them or leave them?”

  “I recommend putting them on cop cars—covertly, of course.” Brad chuckled. “I guarantee the person running surveillance on you will get the message.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Now, what have you found on the mastermind or banks?”

  “Seven people are in federal prisons as a result of Ogden’s money laundering case. The brains of the operation vanished. About six or seven months ago, Agent Hartman contacted Ogden. Once they compared notes, Hartman concentrated on a few suspects in the Orlando area—three men and a woman. I’m still working on the names.”

  “Great. What about the banks?”

  “Man, what a fustercluck. Atlantic Alarm Security is tied into 75 percent of the banks in Florida. But…I’m concentrating on the ones with high-dollar transfers. They should have set off alerts to the financial managers or account analysts—unless the bank employees are getting a cut, which makes them complicit.”

  The doorbell chimed.

  “Gotta go, Brad. Check in with you later.”

  A young Atlantic Alarm Security employee had arrived. Jack followed him like a bloodhound as the kid disconnected sirens, capped off wiring, removed battery packs, motion detectors, and all the cameras.

  Jack walked him out for the sole purpose of putting the GPS tracker taken off his car onto the AAS van. Ha! That ought to shake them up when it pulls into their warehouse.

  Jack had enough time to wolf down a sandwich with a lite beer (which didn’t count as booze).

  The IGA Security installer, an older guy, arrived on time. This man knew his way around electronics. He impressed Jack by hooking up a video doorbell, plus numerous upgrades compared to the equipment removed earlier.

  Jack focused on planning his next move: to surveil those who had surveilled him. First, he disguised himself using an old Halloween Magnum P.I. mustache, dressed in ratty old jeans, a faded green t-shirt, a Miami Marlins baseball cap, and sneakers. He drove to a police substation in a nearby strip mall where he stuck the two remaining cameras on cop cars. Next, he rented a mid-size pickup and continued on to stake out the AAS building. The office occupied the front half, warehouse the rear, with a parking lot out back surrounded by a fence.

  He parked opposite the exit gate, munching on fitness bars while watching employees leave for the day. Twenty-seven cars drove away. As six o’clock approached, Jack took the backpack and went for a stroll.

  Chapter 9 – Invasion

  He hid in plain sight, blending into a small grove of trees behind the parking area. Jack pulled high-powered binoculars out of his backpack to scan cars still in the lot. Two blue ones caught his eye, but neither had Maryland plates.

  About six-thirty, several men left in pickups or muscle cars—probably installers. A little after seven o’clock security lights illuminated the rear warehouse bay doors as well as the parking area where half a dozen sedans remained. Time passed. No one else left.

  Jack made his move. He walked toward the fence with bolt cutters in hand.

  A metal door slammed shut, echoing in the stillness.

  He dropped to the ground and scooted over to a grassy mound for the small bit of cover it might give him.

  Footsteps advanced toward the cars—heavy ones.

  He peeked through the grass.

  What the…??!

  Under the floodlights, the person in front of him had the same build—hefty, like an Olympic discus thrower—and the same man bun—no doubt about it. If someone tries to run you over, you damn well remember what they look like.

  Except it hadn’t been a man, but a woman.

  Brad had said there was a woman involved in all this, and she stood right in front of him.

  She started a blue sedan, letting it idle for a while.

  Jack did a low crawl back to the trees, then sprinted hell-bent for the pickup. If necessary, he intended to follow her all the way to Canada.

  She had a head start, so he kept her taillights three or four cars in front of him, thankful he’d chosen a darker colored truck. He followed her into a run-down neighborhood—many houses not lived in, shutters hanging askew. Jack turned off his headlights, praying he didn’t run over anybody. Few dwellings had lights on inside the further he followed, until she slowed and backed into the driveway of a dilapidated house.

  Jack pulled into the driveway of an empty house with broken windows, grabbed his gun, and remembered to turn off his phone. Not a single street light around him worked, but a crescent moon threw enough light to keep Jack from running into things as he hurried over to the woman’s house. One light shone through a side window, the one next to her car.

  He took a chance. Staying in the shadows, he circled around to get the best view possible. Jack edged up to the window. A torn curtain blocked his view to almost everything except a freezer—a large, older model shaped like a coffin. The minute that thought came to mind, Jack cringed.

  The woman walked over, lifted the freezer’s lid, and bent down to scoop out a large black bundle.

  A body bag? No, not a full-length one anyway; folded in half, maybe, or thirds. He cringed again. Jeez, his mind worked in ways he wished it didn’t. Jack sought cover in the overgrown bushes of the adjacent house, where he knelt and watched.

  The back door slammed. Seconds later, her vehicle’s trunk opened, shining a light on her face. He committed it to memory: big round eyes, turned-up nose, full pouty lips—a baby doll face on an overgrown body, now flushed from carrying the heavy black object. She dropped the bundle inside, slammed the trunk closed, and returned to the house.

  Jack hot-footed it back to the pickup, ready to continue his surveillance wherever she led. He didn’t have long to wait. Keeping his lights off, he let her get a block ahead. At the corner, he made a mental note of the street name: Figueroa.

  She employed no countermeasures such as driving in circles or backtracking like someone with a guilty conscience might do to avoid being followed. Either she wasn’t guilty of anything, or she had no conscience. Jack bet on the latter.

  The farther she drove, the farther he stayed behind—until she entered an off-the-beaten-track subdivision with a sign pointing to a neighborhood lake. He shut off his lights, coasting to a stop about half a block behind her. Numerous street lights surrounded the area, yet—no surprise—none where she parked. With alarming speed, she exited the car, retrieved the bundle, and rolled it into the lake—all in less than sixty seconds.

  When she drove off, Jack sat in the dark thinking. What would you take out of a freezer, drive miles away, and drop into a lake in the middle of the night?

  Only one answer: he’d just witnessed a body dump. First, Ogden—in water. Then the ninja had attempted to murder Jack, who felt lucky to still be alive, or he might have been in the freezer, too. Now she—the money laundering mastermind—had gotten rid of another body in water. These people definitely had a preferred method of eliminating evidence. The body count was mounting faster than in Iraq.

  He considered going to a motel for the night. Instead, he returned the rented pickup. At home, Jack sat at his desk, staring at the computer. No wife, no kids, couldn’t work. He peeled off the Magnum mustache, stuck it on the bathroom mirror, and checked his wound, which had healed nicely thanks to Doc Barclay. Still feeling bummed-out, he grabbed a lite beer and called a friend.

  �
��I’m up to my ass in alligators, Brad. Tell me you have good news.”

  “Check the encrypted email site. I sent a file.”

  Jack hurried to open it. “Okay, what am I looking at?”

  “Follow the money, Jack. According to the timeline I constructed, the deposits from AAS started to increase shortly after Alfred Patterson died. There’s a picture attached of the relative who inherited the company.”

  “No way!” Jack bolted upright in his chair, almost spilling his beer. “It’s her! The bitch that tried to run me over! I watched her take a body out of a freezer a couple of hours ago and dump it in a lake.”

  “What?”

  He gave Brad a play-by-play briefing of his surveillance activities.

  “Jack, Vivian Seiger is the woman you’re looking at. She’s Patterson’s stepdaughter,” Brad said. “Check the other pictures. See if you recognize anyone else.”

  He flipped through a rogues’ gallery of images, everything from mug shots to vacation photos taken of people out in public areas. One jumped out at him. “Unbelievable. The ninja is Alvin Gaines. Her husband? Uh…talk about a mismatched pair—I think the body she dumped tonight was his. I broke his arm when he attacked me. Might’ve ripped it out of the socket when I body slammed him on the street. Could’ve cracked his skull, too—which I didn’t tell the cops. He never made another sound, even when she threw him in the car.”

  “If you did take him out, it’s no wonder you’re on her hit list. You know what they say: money makes for strange bedfellows.”

  “I think it’s misery or politics, but in this case, money works.”

  “The way I see it, they made a big ass mistake coming after you in the first place. The rest is on them—or her now.”

  “I guess I’m sleeping with one eye open and my finger on the trigger until she’s caught.”

  “Or killed.”

  Chapter 10 – Payback

  For a more authentic disguise, Jack decided not to shave. Unable to hide his size, he camouflaged it with the straw hat and baggy tan clothing of a landscaper which included half Florida’s population in the summer.

  Brad’s simple mission had two objectives: make an untraceable call alerting law enforcement to the suspicious parcel dumped in the lake, then disrupt power to the AAS facility.

  Jack’s dangerous mission had only one objective: make Vivian Seiger leave him alone. Since the authorities weren’t doing their job, it fell on Jack to alleviate the problem—namely Vivian Seiger. She’d tried to have Jack killed. Although her attempt had failed, she’d continued to threaten his family. No more. It was Jack’s move now. There would be no bucket fire. The counterattack he planned would finish her—for good. The military had taught him how to deal with enemies—and he’d done it extremely well. Jack would put his skills to work once more by blowing up the AAS facility. Completely doable, but with stringent parameters: no loss of life, minimum damage to surroundings, leave no evidence—rules that hadn’t applied to Jack in the past. Logic dictated it would spook Vivian Seiger into pulling up stakes and force her to go somewhere else.

  It had a fifty-fifty chance of working—or he hoped so, anyway.

  Carrying a backpack of specific tools, he visited a different rental agency for a van. Afterward, he made numerous stops for supplies purchased with cash. Without the old standbys of C-4, det cord, or grenades, his ingredients of choice were gasoline, cheap t-shirts, and glass bottles.

  Clouds gathered overhead, blotting out the Florida sun. The humidity climbed to an uncomfortable level. It hadn’t rained for a week, but the dry spell might be coming to an end. If it rained today, Jack’s raid would be postponed until tomorrow, which made him antsy.

  A dark parking garage provided the most secure spot for Jack to build his explosives. With a flashlight, gloves, and tarp, he painstakingly assembled enough fireworks to light up the Daytona Speedway. At eight-thirty, he removed the van’s license plate before leaving the garage.

  All the clouds had floated away to dump their buckets of rain on outlying areas. A clear evening sky with pale light from the crescent moon worked fine for Jack’s nighttime project. He parked behind the AAS lot, hiding the van in the same clump of trees for cover he’d hidden in the night before. Once again, Jack crawled up to the fence, bolt cutters in gloved hands. He keyed a prearranged code in his phone to let Brad know it was time.

  Brad had already wormed his way into Winter Park’s power grid. He remotely tripped an isolated network, causing a voltage overload to short-circuit the entire AAS building site. It would reset in fifteen minutes—or less—so Jack had a deadline.

  The parking lot lights blinked out.

  Jack started cutting through the hurricane fence. Since power outages were routine for most Floridians, not just during hurricane season, anyone else affected wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow.

  He ran to the door Vivian had exited from yesterday. It opened without effort since the power outage had disengaged the locking mechanism. Jack entered and unloaded his heavy backpack. To prevent the sprinklers from engaging once the power returned, he shut off the building’s water supply at the main valve.

  Twelve minutes left.

  Jack hustled to set bottles in strategic locations, leaving a trail of gasoline from one to the next, careful not to splash any on himself. He had no desire to become a crispy critter. Drenched in sweat, he placed ten more bottles with his heart pounding in his ears. Frankly, he was too old to be doing this kind of shit, but desperation can push anyone over the edge, and that’s exactly where Seiger had pushed him.

  Four minutes left.

  He panicked for a second, got it under control, and continued with the plan. Jack’s successful getaway left no margin for error. After repeating the process until he had one bottle left, his phone finally buzzed.

  Time to haul ass.

  He ran to the exit. Emptied the gasoline. Lit the last Molly on fire. Tossed it.

  Whoosh!!

  The building went up like rocket fuel.

  Jack was outside near the fence when the first explosion blew off part of the roof. The blast sent debris high into the air. It spiraled down in fiery chunks to land smoldering on the cement.

  The second blast erupted as Jack started the van. Side mirrors reflected images of spectacular flames jutting into the otherwise clear sky as sirens wailed in the distance. Again, he sent Brad a prearranged code. A sense of triumph settled over him, the kind following a job well done. If it worked, his family would be safe. If not, well, as Brad said, there was always a backup plan.

  He drove in the opposite direction for several miles, stopping at another drive-thru for dinner. However, instead of leaving right away, he parked in the back to reattach the license plate before wiping down the van’s interior. On the way back to the rental agency, he tossed the backpack in a row of dumpsters along with any leftover supplies.

  Once the van had been returned, Jack relaxed behind the wheel of his own car for a tranquil drive home, the air on high, Alana’s favorite tunes playing in the background.

  Boris lay curled up on the vanity countertop as Jack showered away the tension of the past few days. They both stretched out on the bed to watch the eleven o’clock news. Sure enough, coverage of his handiwork appeared, although not the screen-worthy robotics variety he normally produced. The clip from a local TV station’s satellite truck showed dazzling footage of a roaring blaze. The luminescent exposure against the black sky was perfect—expert editing by the production staff. Jack squelched the urge to record it. Only psychos kept mementos.

  Helen called a few minutes later. “Alana and the kids are safely tucked away. Communications will go through me until their security is guaranteed. I sent a few thinly veiled threats to those in power at the FBI this morning, as well as to Winter Park’s Chief of Police.” She snorted a laugh. “Since feces roll downhill, I suspect a majority of their underlings experienced an epic ass-chewing today with their coffee and donuts. I should see movement on severa
l fronts tomorrow…hmm, by the way, did you happen to catch the late news?”

  “News?”

  “Yes, Jack, on TV. It seems the Atlantic Alarm Security building went up in flames tonight.” She wasn’t a dummy. They’d played the same cat and mouse game when she’d questioned him about his service in Iraq before he’d married Alana.

  “Huh? Faulty wiring, maybe?” He didn’t like lying to his mother-in-law, but he had no intention of telling her the truth.

  “Could have been anything, I guess. The investigators should know more tomorrow.”

  “Okay, then. Tell Alana and the kids Boris and I miss them. We’re not used to being alone. Goodnight, Helen.”

  “Be careful, Jack.”

  On his way to get a beer, he made the rounds of double-checking the front door, back door, garage doors, patio doors, every window, plus the new alarm system. With everything locked down tight, Jack set two guns beside the bed then called Brad.

  Chapter 11 – Deadline

  The first thing Jack did when he woke up was jump in the pool to stretch out the kinks from yesterday. He tried not to think about Mr. Ogden. It would take a while for the image to fade away. After a short workout in the garage, he made coffee and started to work. Jack felt good.

  Until the phone rang, and ruined his day.

  “Mr. Bennett, this is Detective Fuentes. How are you this morning, sir?”

  “Fine Detective, have you caught the people who tried to kill me and burn down my house yet?”

  “Well, there have been some new developments. Wonder if I can come by to give you an update?”

  Jack had watched too many movies not to pick up on the sneaky undertone in Fuentes’ voice. “Recent events, totally out of my control, have forced me to send my family away for their safety. I’m behind in my work. I’m under contract and on a deadline. So, we’ll do this over the phone; otherwise, I’ll be calling my attorney, Michael Sheridan. He’s also my brother-in-law.”