Extending his hand to Dan, he added,” And Mr. Parks, that was great work on the Belini case,” referencing a particularly difficult case Parks had recently completed.
“I didn’t realize you were aware of that, sir.”
“We’re always tuned in when one of our team members pulls a tough case out of the fire for us.”
Parks tried semi-successfully not to blush. “Thank you, sir.”
There was movement by the door.
“And as promised, here’s the other co-founder.”
An equally tall man, wearing an identical Canali suit, entered the conference room. If Meeks, Parks, or Givens had asked, the two would have jokingly explained that the identical suits allowed them to fill in for each other.
“John, I’m going to run to the men’s room while you do your introductions. We’ll start when I get back, okay?”
After hearing the greeting from the first co-founder, Meeks knew the other was the lawyer known throughout the firm as Just John, another pun commonly used in referring to the two men.
The new arrival nodded and began to greet the others as his counterpart slipped out of the conference room.
When all were present again, it was Just John who led the discussion.
“Have you all reviewed the information packets?”
Meeks, Parks, and Givens all indicated they had.
“Good. So you’re familiar with Chad Swan’s situation and the involvement of his daughter, Morgan Swan.”
Again, the three confirmed.
“And Nora, you can fill the others in on Dr. Swan’s associate, Angel Cruz?”
Nora nodded. “Certainly,” she said, now aware of the connection to her last assignment.
Then I’m sure the next question in your minds is why our firm would get involved in such a situation. Am I right?”
Meeks had an idea as to what was appealing about the case. “I’m guessing there must be some high billing rates involved somewhere, sir.”
“Please call me John.”
“Yes sir.”
John smiled at Meeks, who corrected himself. “John.”
“Actually, this is a pro bono case.”
The three were forced to ride herd on their demeanors to conceal their shock.
“Each of you has been hand-picked because this is among the most important of cases to us right now. You will be empowered to leverage all of the resources of the firm to ensure a favorable outcome for Chad Swan and his interests. If you encounter any obstacles that you are unable to resolve, you are to contact one of us. You will be provided with our personal contact information.”
He paused for a few seconds to let his words sink in, then asked, “Do you have any questions?”
The three were a bit too stunned to respond.
“Good. I’ll take that as a no. And now, unfortunately, we must be off to make flights to London and DC.”
The two co-founders thanked their three gifted employees and departed in a flurry, leaving Meeks, Parks, and Givens in some ways more puzzled than they were before the meeting—and wondering what about this man Chad Swan was so important to their firm’s founding fathers, John and John Quincy Adams.
Chapter 55
It was 11:30 Friday morning. Chad was in Ithaca at Uncle Marvin’s Alehouse. Things had changed in the twenty-plus years since he’d last been at Marv’s. For starters, Marv was no longer there. Chad liked to think that Marv had retired to some beach town in Mexico or on the Florida coast, although he wasn’t confident enough in such a happy ending to ask the new bartender if that were the case. He’d have to think about it. He might be better off just imagining Marv in blissful tropical retirement.
Another unwelcome change: much of the classic 40’s and 50’s memorabilia the large barroom had been known for had long since been replaced with newer, louder, trendier decor. Still, Chad was pleased to find that Marv’s was at least still there, basically intact. It seemed fitting that he should stop here before this last leg of the long journey to determine what exactly happened to Jill Paulson.
Chad had just ended the second of his check-in calls to his daughter, Morgan. He had told her only that he was in upstate New York and that he was still figuring things out—just enough to keep her from worrying too much.
“But what are you doing there, exactly?” she’d pressed.
“Well, right now, I’m visiting my Uncle Marvin’s,” he’d told her, trying to be cute.
“What? Who’s Uncle Marvin?”
“Nobody honey. Just funnin’ with you. I’ll call again to check in before midnight, okay?”
“Okay,” she’d said halfheartedly.
The call had ended with each expressing love for the other, Morgan feeling puzzled and worried, and Chad feeling somber and determined.
Before heading out, he had one more call to make—to Angel Cruz.
The plan, which Chad and Angel had thrown together hastily after Chad had gotten the copy of Jill’s note from Morgan, was for Angel to pose as a buyer for a large, upscale restaurant chain operating in Central America. Angel had connections with the chain’s management and had arranged for them to back up his story, should the mark contact them to check on him. Angel’s true agenda was to lure the mark, the primary person of interest in Chad’s off-grid investigation, away from his residence and keep him occupied for several hours, while Chad searched for evidence to confirm what he thought he already knew.
Chad was well aware this was not the ideal way to pursue justice. But with authorities from multiple jurisdictions drooling at the very thought of slapping the cuffs on him, locking him up, and throwing away the key, he couldn’t take the chance that they would listen to anything he had to say about the fate of Jill Paulson. He had to do this himself. With a little help from his friends, of course.
Angel answered Chad’s call with a simple, “Hi Chad.”
“Angel. Good to hear your voice. I guess this means that John and John Quincy took care of you?”
“Of course. They are good boys, no?”
“Sí, amigo. Very good boys. Is everything arranged?”
“Yes. We will be meeting for dinner at the Conesus Steakhouse. He wasn’t very happy about the hour-and-a-half drive, but I told him I just had to have one of their legendary Maximum-cut prime rib dinners before returning home. With the drive, dinner, and talk, he should be out of your way for at least five hours.”
“Sounds good, Angel. Real good. Just be sure to call me if there are any complications. Wouldn’t want to get caught with my pants down, so to speak.”
“No problem, Chad. I’ll also call you when he leaves the restaurant, so you’ll know when you have just an hour and a half left.”
“Great, Angel. Thanks.”
“De nada, amigo. Good Luck. May your search be fruitful.”
“There is only sad fruit for me to find, I’m afraid.”
As if prearranged, the two observed a brief moment of silence, both tacitly understanding the grim reason why.
“Best of luck to you too, Angel. And be careful with this guy.”
“You know me. Always careful. Hasta Luego, Chad.”
“Luego.”
Chapter 56
Romeo checked his watch. He was a little pressed for time and wasn’t going to be able to clean up right now, not completely anyway. There was still the girl’s clothing to deal with. And her personal effects, some of which he would keep—as he always did.
What was she anyway? Number 16? Or was it 17? A dark smile began to form, the line of a serpent on a demon’s face. It tickled his deviant mind that he was now at the point of losing count.
He looked over the top of his resomation tank, which stood about chest high and was roughly twice that wide. Technically speaking, it was more like his version of a resomation tank. It used similar chemicals and considerable heat, but not the pressure, and thus not as much heat as a real resomator. Because the temperature had to be kept below the boiling point, it took longer to dissolve a hu
man body than it would using the alkaline hydrolysis process as implemented in a commercial resomator—about three days instead of three hours.
But the results were the same. Everything liquefied except for the porous, brittle remains of bones, which, once dried, were easily crushed to a powder and spread around his garden. The abject psychopath was utterly unable to comprehend the degree of desecration inherent in the solution he’d crafted for disposal of the dreary byproducts of his abominably horrific hobby.
He reached over and checked the tautness of the heavy neoprene-coated chain that had lowered the lifeless body of his latest victim into the ghastly tank. There was still some resistance there. Probably another few hours to go.
The other end of the chain led to the mechanical components of the automated system he used for hoisting his slain prey. The hoist system was attached to a heavy, overhead I-beam, part of the structure of the large warehouse-sized outbuilding. The I-beam ran perpendicular to the tank, ten feet above its dead center. This allowed the block-and-tackle to roll along the I-beam to several feet in front of the tank for loading and unloading. He was quite proud of the design of this morbid apparatus and the rest of his death cave, as he liked to think of it.
He’d really thought of everything, starting with a first-class central security system. The two 40- by 60-foot outbuildings on this part of the property—the one that harbored the death cave and the other, which was actually used for legitimate business and was somewhat farther from the main house—appeared virtually identical. Both had only two access doors: one garage door and one entry door. To avoid the appearance that he was harboring or hiding something, he made sure the doors were nothing special, just what you’d expect to find on such buildings. So the doors themselves were no great shakes—any intruder worth his salt could get through those. But the security system was another matter.
Every inch of both buildings was covered by the state of the art system. There was no local alarm, but the central service would notify him within two minutes of a suspected breach. There was even a wireless communication backup in the event the phone lines went down or were taken out. He had arranged not to have the police notified, using the excuse that he had his own security personnel on site. The police were the last ones he would want snooping around his death cave.
And then, there was his pièce de résistance, the doomsday feature. The entire building was rigged with enough Semtex and incendiary accelerants to incinerate—or perhaps more like vaporize—the entire building almost instantly if it became necessary. Everything would be obliterated. There were two hardwired access points from which detonation could be initiated: one near the control panel for operating the automated hoist for his little dipping tank, and one in the narrow loft area above the tank. He chose the loft, which at five feet wide was actually more like a catwalk, as an alternate spot because it had a small one-way window, which provided an excellent vantage point from which he could see anything that might be approaching. Should someone or something be coming in force, he would be ready to make a grand exit with the help of his detonation button.
Of course, hardwired detonation would be suicide and thus the very last resort. The preferred detonation method would be via the small remote he always carried. It had a range of about 1,000 feet, a safe-enough distance even for his rather excessive version of localized apocalypse.
Such are the features of a playground conceived and rendered by a deranged and sadistic, but highly intelligent, psychopath.
As the issue of time popped back into his mind, he abandoned his self-absorbed musings, if only temporarily. He would really rather not leave the premises with a dissolve not yet completed, but he needed to be on his way to a meeting regarding his legitimate business. He would have a bit of a drive to get to the meeting location and also needed a few minutes to prepare the persona he showed to the outside world—the unknowing, the clueless lambs, as he regarded most of the race.
He would be meeting with a potential buyer from Central America, a part owner in a chain of restaurants there. The meeting was to be held over dinner. It meant a 90 minute drive for him at an inconvenient time. He had been very close to declining the meeting due to its last-minute nature, and he had even gone as far as to contact the headquarters of the restaurant chain this Diego Morales purported to represent. But he had decided to go, since the chain had confirmed that Diego was for real and since it could mean a lot of business. Easy business. The best kind for a man with other interests.
Unexpectedly, a tone sounded. His security system. Someone was at the entrance to the main house. He turned to his right and looked up at the multi-split-screen monitor mounted near the hoist control panel and saw that there were two men in dark suits at his front door.
Hmmm. I think there’s only two possibilities here, Jehovah’s Witnesses or FBI. Too menacing looking for Witnesses. Got to be FBI. He felt a momentary rush of excitement. Are the dolts finally onto me? Let’s see if they can actually prove anything.
He worked his way quickly and silently back to the house, entering through a rear door, which he had meticulously ensured was concealed from view for just such situations. This allowed it to appear as if he had been in the house all along.
The two visitors were indeed FBI agents. He explained his delay in answering the door by saying he’d been in the basement working on a project. To his amazement, they weren’t there about his extracurricular activities at all. It turned out they had come calling about his old “friend,” Chad Swan.
Apparently, Chad had gotten himself into some hot water and left the country. He was believed to be back in the Northeastern United States and they were checking, presumably with everyone Chad ever knew, to see if he had turned up anywhere.
Although he didn’t allow himself to laugh or even smile, Romeo found all of this very amusing. They even filled him in on some Hispanic guy who was known to be helping Chad. They said his name was Angel Cruz. Their description of this individual was pretty run-of-the-mill and, with the exception of a small tattoo of a scorpion on his right hand, it probably fit a thousand other guys just as well.
He managed, as always, to feign just the right amount of concern and sincerity. In no more than fifteen minutes, the agent named Jarboe had left his card and both suits were on their way back to wherever they had come from.
Just in time for him to make his dinner meeting.
Chapter 57
Islamabad, Pakistan
“Samir the Resourceful,” as he was known to his customers, believed he would finally be getting something the Americans would pay handsomely for. He and his unwilling subject were in a secluded room in a old, forgotten building that Samir had carefully selected.
The room was not much more than a large stone-lined cube. The only windows in the musty, dimly lit space were near the top of the twelve-foot ceiling. Had it been daylight, the small, high windows would have perhaps provided a little more light than Samir wanted right now. For the purpose at hand, night was better.
His subject was restrained in a wooden chair facing a bloodstained oak table that Samir presently leaned against. There was nothing on the surface of the table, but fastened underneath was a battery operated tape recorder. His customers, particularly the Americans, always preferred to hear things from the actual horse’s mouth. So important was a recording in bringing him top dollar, that Samir had adopted the unusual practice of concealing a much smaller recording device by taping it to his body, in the event the primary device malfunctioned or was confiscated.
A bright light shined into the face of the man being questioned. Samir made sure that the man could not see anything other than the waterboarding apparatus in the far corner of the room. Samir had never used it, but found its unspoken threat to be a potent motivator.
The man, known only as Ahmad, was mercifully asleep for the moment. Samir had kept him awake for most of the last twenty-four hours but hadn’t actually hurt him physically and really didn’t intend to.
Sa
mir picked up a bucket of tepid water and completely doused chair and occupant.
Ahmad came to with a shivering gasp.
“All you need to do is give me something and we can both leave here.”
Ahmad’s eyes widened. “I tell you and you just kill me.”
“Why would I kill you if you tell me something I can use?”
“It doesn’t matter. I tell you, they kill us both.”
“Who. Who would kill us?”
From somewhere deep emerged what little rage remained in the profoundly fatigued Ahmad. He responded in a seething whisper, in a tone suggesting that the very stones in the walls might hear him. “The Conclave.”
“The Conclave, my friend, does not exist. Are you going to force me to work harder on you?”
“The Conclave does exist. And for telling you that alone I will die.”
“Enough of this. I need something specific or things are going to get unpleasant.”
From some disparate recess of despair, Ahmad summoned an unlikely chuckle. “I don’t know anything more. They don’t let anyone know anything. I’m dead now anyway.”
“Very dramatic, Ahmad.” Samir walked behind Ahmad’s chair, tipped it backwards, and began dragging it on its back two legs in the direction of the waterboarding table.
“Okay, okay. One thing I can tell you. It’s not that important, but I can tell you.”
“I’m listening. And you better hope it is important.”
“Okay, okay.”
Samir allowed a brief pause for Ahmad to collect his thoughts.
Ahmad seemed to will himself to a calmer state, then started slowly. “There was a guy, an American guy, working in some technical job in the US DoD. His name was uh, Swan, something Swan.”
“Not very interesting so far. Go on.”
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