Shell Game

by Jeff Buick

  Kelly shifted slightly. “That’s difficult, Richard. I may need logistical help that I can’t get here. I’d hate to say for certain I won’t ask anyone at the CIA for help. At some point I may need to.”

  “You know what I mean, Kelly. I don’t care if you ask them to run a license plate number. I care if you sanction Mr. Bestwick. If you have him killed.”

  “That I can promise you. No harm will come to Alan Bestwick. At least, nothing will happen to him because of what we do.”

  Tolman was thoughtful. Finally, he said, “I’ll authorize you to access the satellite data we have stored on the hard drive for the southernmost thirty miles of the Cabo region for two hours on either side of when the car went over the cliff. That’s it. No more.”

  “Thank you,” Kelly said. Taylor nodded and smiled.

  “Don’t make me regret this decision, Kelly,” Tolman said as they all rose.

  “I won’t, Richard.”

  They shook hands and left the office, closing the door behind them. They walked down the hall to the elevator in silence. Kelly’s and Renita’s offices were two floors below Tolman’s, and they punched the appropriate button. It wasn’t until they were in Renita’s office that they spoke.

  “I can’t believe it,” Taylor said. “I never thought we’d get the okay.”

  Kelly grinned. “Richard Tolman and I go back a long time. He was my boss before I took the leave of absence and worked for you at G-cubed. We’ve got a mutual respect for each other. He trusts me. That’s why his final decision was made on my promise that we wouldn’t remove Alan if we found him.”

  “Remove Alan,” Taylor said. “Christ, do you have any idea what you sound like when you say that? You talk about killing people like you’re ordering breakfast at a Holiday Inn.”

  Kelly was quiet for a minute, then said, “Taylor, this is a different world than the one most people live in. We deal in national security. When it comes to the nation’s well-being, individual people are expendable. It’s that simple. Cross the line and there’s a good chance you will not live. When you’ve got those kinds of resources at your fingertips, you’ve got to be careful how you use them. That was Tolman’s concern. Alan Bestwick is not a threat to national security, and other than analyzing the satellite data, we leave him alone.”

  “I know what Tolman was saying,” Taylor said. “I’m just a bit shocked at the offhand way you and he refer to killing someone. That’s all.”

  “I’ve never been involved in anything like that,” Kelly said. “I never want to be.” He turned to Renita, who had been mute for the entire meeting. “When can you start analyzing the download from the hard drive?”

  She shrugged, brushing her hair behind her ears. “Anytime. I’ve got a hundred things to do, but nothing on the front burner. As soon as the authorization comes through, I can start working on it.”

  Kelly smiled. “It’s already through. I know Tolman. The moment we stepped out of his office he was on his computer setting up the access codes.”

  Renita checked her watch. “I’m going to grab some lunch. Meet you in the situation room on twelve in an hour?”

  Sixty minutes later they met up with Renita Gallant outside the darkened computer room on the twelfth floor. She punched in her code, and they entered. Taylor sat in a chair near a bank of computer terminals facing the large screen on one of the walls. Renita took the seat at the center console and began typing on the keyboard. After a couple of minutes, she leaned back and smiled.

  “Up and running. I’ve got a four-hour chunk of satellite data from November third, between three-thirty and seven-thirty. The GPS coordinates cover the tip of the Baja Peninsula, to about thirty miles up from Land’s End.” She worked the keyboard for a minute, and an image flashed on the large screen. It was the exact stretch of land she had just mentioned and the surrounding water, the Sea of Cortez to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south. “Okay, point to where the car went over the cliff.”

  Taylor walked up to the screen and traced the road from San José del Cabo northward along the coast. She asked Renita to enlarge the area so she could see the details better. The screen changed, now showing the east coast from San José del Cabo and a few miles north. Taylor ran her finger along the road, pausing at a tiny dot she thought might be Buzzard’s Bar.

  “Can you zoom in on this?” she asked. The image changed again, this time gaining great detail as Renita zoomed in on the precise location. With eleven million pixels in each frame the satellite recorded, the quality of the picture didn’t diminish in the least. “Okay, that’s Buzzard’s. Alan went over the cliff about four miles up this road.”

  She waited while Renita recalculated the distance into GPS positioning, then realigned the image. When the new picture flashed on the screen, the section of road where the car had plunged over the cliff was near the top. Taylor put her finger on the corner.

  “This is it. He went over right here.” Again the image shifted, sharpened up.

  “Okay, when did it happen?” Renita asked.

  “Five-ten,” Taylor replied. “Give or take about five minutes.”

  There was a pause, then a slight blip and the time in the lower right hand corner changed by one hour and fifty-two minutes. They watched the section of road and coast in real time, the individual stones on the road surface clearly visible. Waves crashed into the base of the cliff and the image was so clear they could see the spray from the surf. Then Taylor sucked in her breath. The cars had just come into view.

  She watched as Brand parked the Explorer and slipped out the driver’s side of the vehicle. He stood by the door, but he was not looking out over the ocean. He was watching the road—waiting for her and Alan to arrive. A minute later their rental car rounded the corner and came to an abrupt stop. Brand jumped back into the Explorer and a second later their car rammed the SUV, driving the rear tire over the edge of the cliff. The car backed up, and Taylor watched as she tumbled out of the car onto the road. The car roared ahead, kicking up dust in its wake. The Explorer surged forward just as the car reached the edge of the cliff. A few milliseconds later it was airborne. Then it hit the surf, sending up a plume of water. Moments later the car disappeared beneath the choppy waves.

  “Good God,” Renita said, staring at the screen. “No wonder you thought he was dead. That was one hell of a convincing crash.”

  Taylor’s eyes followed Edward Brand’s car as it careened back onto the road and headed north. A few seconds and it was out of view. Then she watched herself as she ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down. She saw herself fall on the ground. And she relived every second of what she had thought was her husband dying. But this time there were no tears. Just anger.

  Renita concentrated on Brand’s vehicle as it headed northward along the coastline. “We’re almost at the end of our coverage to the north. If he goes any farther, we’re going to lose him,” she said after a few minutes of tracking his SUV as it moved up the coast. They got a short distance farther, and the screen froze. It wouldn’t move any more. They had reached the north end of the data Tolman had authorized. The Explorer disappeared. “That’s it. We’ve lost him.”

  “We need more,” Taylor said. “We need to know where Brand went.”

  Kelly shook his head. “Not going to happen. Tolman authorized us to find out what happened to Alan, not Edward Brand. He’s not going to give us any more of the satellite data than what we have here.”

  “Now what?” Taylor asked, frustrated.

  The image on the screen rewound until it was centered on the crash. Then it shifted ever so slightly so the section of water where the car impacted was dead center on the screen. Renita positioned the time to precisely when the car went over, and they all watched again as it tumbled over the cliff and hit the water. She let the video run for about three seconds, then froze the picture.

  “I’m going to try applying a polarizing filter to the data,” she explained as she worked on the keyboard.
r />   “What’s that?” Taylor asked.

  “It’s really a very simple filter. Photographers use it all the time when they’re shooting something under the surface of a body of water. Say for example you’re on the side of a lake and you see a large trout sunning himself next to a log. He’s maybe six to ten feet underwater. You pull out your 35mm camera and snap the shot. When you get it processed, all you see is the surface of the water and whatever reflection is on it. But put a polarizing filter on the lens and turn it until the filter aligns with the light reflecting off the water’s surface and suddenly the fish is visible on the picture.”

  “So you’re going to adjust this filter so we can see beneath the surface?” Taylor asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Renita worked for a minute or two. The image began to mutate. The tops of the waves disappeared and the entire sea took on a homogenous blue tone. She let the video run, the underwater picture now visible and undulating with the flow as the waves hit the rocks and the undertow forced the water back from the rocky shore. The impact from the car hitting the water dissipated, but they could see the distinct outline of the vehicle as it sunk beneath the waves. Then something appeared from the left side of the screen—from under the rocks at the shore’s edge. Two figures, moving quickly toward the car, towing a bag behind them. Scuba divers.

  “Oh, my God,” Taylor said. “Look. Divers.”

  Renita pulled the image in a little closer and sharpened it. The car, still sinking to the bottom, was dead in the center of the screen. Bubbles poured from the driver’s window as the air inside the vehicle escaped. The divers reached the car, and one of them pulled on the driver’s door while the other dug in the bag they had brought with them. Because Alan had cracked the window, the pressure between the sea and the inside of the car was equalized, and the door opened easily. Alan appeared, and in a flash the second diver had a scuba regulator in his mouth. A steady stream of air bubbles floated upward as Alan began rhythmic breathing. One of the divers fitted him into a buoyancy control device, weights, flippers and a mask; the other worked on attaching the severed hand to the dash. Then, when Alan was in complete scuba gear, the three figures began to move. They swam south from the wreck, paralleling the shore.

  “Son of a bitch,” Taylor said as they sat watching the divers round a set of rocks. Renita kept the image focused on them as they swam, slowly moving the positioning so the divers stayed in the center of the screen. Since they were moving south, there was no chance the NSA computers would run out of data before the divers had to surface. They swam underwater for the better part of an hour, covering well over a mile before surfacing. Moments after they broke the surface, a twenty-foot speedboat appeared from off the screen. The divers pulled themselves and their gear into the boat. The smile on Alan’s face was not lost on Taylor.

  “You bastard,” she hissed as she watched the speedboat take off toward San José del Cabo. Another boat appeared as Renita followed the first one. Moored just offshore, the yacht was waiting for the smaller boat to arrive. As it pulled up alongside, Taylor sucked in her breath. Standing on the deck, waiting, was Edward Brand. He must have doubled back on an inland road, driven into San José del Cabo, then taken a shuttle boat to the yacht. As Alan climbed up the ladder and onto the yacht, Brand walked to the top of the stairway. When they met, they shook hands, both men all smiles. Then they disappeared inside the vessel.

  Taylor sat staring at the screen. She was in complete shock. Even though she had known in her heart that Alan was involved in the scam, the definitive proof was overwhelming. But again, there were no tears. Her emotions were in overdrive, but empathy or understanding weren’t part of them. Loathing and anger topped the list. She continued to stare at the screen as Renita further adjusted the sharpness and zoomed in on the stern of the yacht. There was lettering and it was clearly visible.

  Mary Dyer.

  Edward Brand had just left them an opening. Taylor glanced over at Kelly and he nodded.

  “Got him,” he said quietly. There was a hint of a smile on his face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Mexican sun was intense against a backdrop of pale blue sky. Its rays reflected off the tips of the small waves, making the water shimmer and dance as the boat sliced through the cool blue of the gulf. Ahead, gracing the Mexican shoreline was Puerto Vallarta, the once sleepy village that grew to a major tourist destination. Aboard the deck of the seventy-two-foot Viking Sport Cruiser was a solitary man. He cupped a mug of coffee in his hands and watched the approaching shoreline with a touch of trepidation.

  Edward Brand didn’t like Puerto Vallarta. On at least two occasions, the local police had extradited high-level con artists who used Mexico as their base of operations. The highest profile arrest was Alyn Waage, the Internet scam artist who had run a ninety million-dollar con out of Puerto Vallarta and Costa Rica until he ended up in a Guadalajara prison. His abrupt crash from luxury hillside living to a squalid jail cell came about when Mexican customs agents found four-point-five million dollars in money orders on board a chartered Learjet at the Puerto Vallarta airport. Brand could envision the scene in his mind—Waage trying desperately to buy off the customs agents, knowing that he was facing a pivotal moment in his life. But for some reason he had failed to convince the agents to let him go. And that lack of cooperation by the Mexican authorities worried Brand.

  But trying to conceal a seventy-two-foot yacht in a smaller center was impossible. And keeping a low profile was one of the keys to staying out of jail. The Mary Dyer was a beautiful ship, and it blended in well in an upscale marina. But the Cabo region was too hot now that they had faked Alan Bestwick’s death on the cliffs at La Laguna. Taylor Simons was a resourceful woman, and although Brand doubted she would stay on in Cabo San Lucas, he wasn’t about to take foolish risks. She had a million dollars from Alan’s death—a detail they had built into the scam to keep the grieving widow from digging too deeply into her husband’s death. But he was more than just a little aware that it could also backfire. The million dollars gave Taylor the resources to stay on in Mexico and search for him. If she decided to go that route and he stayed in Cabo, she would eventually find him. Other than Puerto Vallarta, that left ports in Manzinillo, Mazatlan and Acapulco on the Pacific coast. None of which truly thrilled him.

  He figured the risk to be the least in Puerto Vallarta. His yacht just another one in the pack, moored in a slip and surrounded by like boats. The captain slowed as they approached the final leg into the marina. One of the crew members appeared from the salon, a phone in his hand. He passed it across to Brand and disappeared back into the boat. The wind was almost nonexistent and the line clear of static. The voice on the other end came through as though the man was in the next room.

  “I’m still waiting for the final installment,” he said once they had traded greetings.

  “It’s coming,” Brand said. “Give it another week or two, just to make sure your end of things is under control.”

  “Everything is fine here,” the man snapped back. “Just get me my money.”

  Edward Brand watched the harbor lights slip past as the boat neared the marina entrance. Brand knew the man on the other end of the line had the potential to be very dangerous to his freedom. But only in the United States. Right now he was in Mexico, where he planned to stay for quite some time. Which put him in a favorable position for negotiating and also for how much crap he had to take. He decided today wasn’t a good day to take any.

  “You’ll get your money when I decide to send it,” he said coolly. “That will be when I know for certain all loose ends on NewPro are tied down. Including Taylor Simons.”

  “The woman is not a threat. She’s wandering around like a lost puppy right now.”

  “What do you mean?” Brand asked.

  “She flew to Paris and stayed for a few days. Now she’s in Washington, D.C., visiting a friend. Following her movements is simple—she’s using credit cards everywhere she goes. Sh
e’s dragging an electronic trail behind her like a comet’s tail.”

  Brand stiffened at the mention of France. “When did she go to Paris?”

  “Monday, December fourth. Why?”

  “How long did she stay?” Brand asked, ignoring the man’s question.

  “Three days. She flew back to Washington on the seventh.”

  “What else do you know?” Brand asked, sitting forward in the chair as the boat passed the final marker and entered the marina.

  “Not much. We weren’t very interested, so we didn’t watch her too closely. We know from her credit card purchases that she stayed at Edouard VII. It’s an upscale hotel on Avenue de l’Opéra.”

  “Shit,” Brand said. He knew Paris and he knew where Alan’s flat was located. Too close for coincidence? He didn’t know. “Get me everything you can on what she did, where she went,” he said.

  “Let’s back up a bit,” the voice said. “This conversation started with me wondering where my money was. I don’t recall asking for more work.”

  “Your money is coming. It’s safe. But it won’t be if I’m in jail. I need to know what Taylor Simons was up to in Paris. I’ll pay you an additional fifty large to find out.”

  “Okay, but I want this wrapped up quickly. I feel like my ass is hanging out of my shorts, and I don’t like it.”

  “Like I said, you’ll get your money.” Brand clicked the end button on the phone and set it on the table next to his coffee mug. The Mary Dyer was barely moving now, the captain keeping the wake in check as he navigated the narrow channel between the docked boats. Brand leaned on the railing and watched the people watch him—wondering who this man was. If only they knew.

  Taylor Simons’s trip to Paris was probably just a strange coincidence. She was probably still in some sort of shock over Alan’s death. Grieving at least. But there would be no benefit to Taylor having a chance run-in with her husband, who lived in a second-floor apartment in the Latin Quarter. Brand checked the time, calculated the difference to Paris, then realized he didn’t care. He dialed Alan’s number.