The Shop

by J. Carson Black

  Business was good. Mike was poised to reap the rewards of a decade of war, individual freedom, and intense paranoia. But the pet project they’d come up with during one of those fishing trips off Cape San Blas was outdated, and worse, dangerous. There was a new administration now, and that bitch with the Texas twang must have been a bookkeeper before she became the president of the United States. She had unloosed the bean-counters, and pretty soon they would get to Whitbread’s place on the ledger, and someone would start asking questions. Like: Just what do you do? What exactly are you outsourcing? At the very least, they’d cut Whitbread loose. At worst, they might start an internal investigation inside the DOJ.

  The big money was overseas. Face it: the unit had outlived its usefulness.

  Mike stared out the window at the sullen summer sky.

  Times had changed. Celebrities weren’t the draw they once were. It used to be the media flocked to a Paris Hilton, or a Britney Spears, or a Lindsay Lohan. If one of them stubbed a toe, it was big news. But with all the troubles the country had suffered lately, there seemed to be a change of tone. People were preoccupied with their own problems, not personalities.

  One thing the American people weren’t interested in: how the U.S. government did its business—even its dirty business. They were interested only when the government raised taxes. Then it was Katie Bar the Door. Nothing else mattered to them. They were too busy trying to hold on to their mortgages or keep their kids in college.

  Frankly, the program he’d thought up along with the (now deceased) president and the attorney general wasn’t necessary anymore.

  Although you have to admit, it did come in handy when the veep killed that boy.

  Filigree brought in a contract for him to sign. Today she wore a saffron peasant blouse, a purple and green print skirt, and a red sash.

  Moments after the boy’s body hit the water miles off Cape San Blas, the operation was a go. Doubtful anyone would have raised a stink about a promiscuous gay kid, but the vice president’s sexual proclivities had made the cover of the Enquirer twice. Even though it was the kind of sensational stuff the voting public as a whole ignored, the story had been released into the ether, like an invisible gas waiting for a lit match.

  The lit match couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  The day of the VP’s trip down to Indigo, Owen Pintek’s chief of staff received a call from a writer with People magazine concerning their upcoming article on Owen and a male prostitute.

  People wasn’t the Enquirer. This would be believable. In the interview, the prostitute, who was amazingly photogenic, said he feared Pintek.

  And where was Owen? Down in Florida, choking the life out of a young man as if nothing had happened.

  And so Whitbread deployed its A-Team to Aspen before the People article hit.

  Mike was stationed in Kuwait during Desert Storm. He saw his share of oil rig fires, and he saw how KBR dealt with them—by setting off massive explosions that sucked the oxygen from the fire, thereby giving it nothing to feed on. Fight fire with something bigger—an explosion.

  They’d needed to manufacture a virtual explosion to take up all the media’s considerable resources, something that would suck the air out of everything else in the news—

  And it worked. The media always chased the Next Big Thing—one bright shiny object after another. The murders in Aspen swallowed the news week whole, like a python swallows a pig.

  One thing Mike took away from it, though, was the realization that Indigo was bad mojo. Place was like a black hole, swallowing up all the good they had done, almost as if it were cursed. When you thought about it, where did the veep get carried away and actually kill a young man? On Indigo Island.

  Franklin was a liability. Mike was sure Grace knew about the unit. Right there, that was enough. Not only that, but you couldn’t rely on Frank in any way. He’d turn on you as easily as he’d turn on his worst enemy. He was kind of endearing in a bumbling way. But the man had nothing inside him that was constant or reliable. It was all about self-preservation with Frank—he went on pure instinct. Like a cockroach.

  Mike took his lunch at his desk, a chicken Caesar sandwich from Cosi. Outside, the traffic was picking up. Horns honking. Cars whooshing by after the light. Mike could smell Filigree’s perfume—patchouli oil mixed with the scent of sandalwood. He’d told her to stop burning that fucking incense! The last thing he wanted to do was make the place smell like there were foreigners doing business with his firm, even if Whitbread worked mostly with foreign governments now.

  He wondered for the thousandth time why he put up with her. Realized that if he ever fired her, she’d probably lay a curse on him.

  But nothing could spoil today. He was relieved to have finally made the decision. It would be easy to erase all traces of the Shop. He’d set the unit up so there would be no blowback. From the beginning, the operatives had been kept in the dark. They didn’t know exactly where their paychecks were coming from. They only knew their employer was associated in some way with the United States government, that they were working for God and country. But they didn’t know the who or the how or the why. The company was concealed—again, like the Russian dolls, dummy company inside dummy company.

  Long ago, Mike had drawn up a cover story in case he ever needed it, revolving around Grace Haddox’s church. The weird but charismatic minister, speaking in tongues and making the news regularly with his antics. He fit the mold—the Jim Jones/David Koresh mold. There was even a rival Congolese church with ties to human trafficking and money laundering—a group that would be easy to blame.

  One last black op for the unit, and they would be disbanded and sent to one of the foreign divisions.

  Keep it simple. Use both teams. Two targets—the cultist church and the attorney general’s compound. Take care of everything in one swift motion. The result would be a dangerous cult consumed by a cleansing fire. By sunrise, he would have wiped out every trace of the Shop.

  The phone rang. Filigree came on the line. “Franklin Haddox, sir. Do you want to talk to him or should I make an excuse?”

  Franklin? Was he a mind reader?

  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. “It’s okay, Fil, put him through.”

  Frank’s voice came on the line. “Mike.”

  “How are you doing, Frank?”

  “Not so good.”

  “What do you mean, not so good?”

  “I think the FBI is onto us.”

  “Calm down. What makes you think the FBI could possibly know anything about what we’re doing?”

  “I think…I think they’re watching me.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “Someone followed Grace home last weekend, from Tallahassee.”

  “From the church?”

  “What does it matter where she was? Jesus! You need to come down here. We need to have an emergency meeting.”

  “I can’t come now. I’m in the middle of—”

  “Right now, Mike. I’m this close to calling my lawyer and seeing what kind of a deal I can get.”

  “For Christ’s sake, man, get a grip! No one can prove anything.”

  “For all I know they’re tapping us right now.”

  “This is a secure line, remember?”

  “It’s time to pull the plug.”

  “Well, we’re going to need to talk about—”

  “You need to come down here, Mike.”

  “No can do, Franklin.”

  “There’s a jet waiting for you.”

  “I thought you sold your jet.”

  “Netjets. You’d better be on that plane, or you just might be the last man standing. If you’re not here by five p.m., I’m calling my lawyer. And we’re going to throw you to the wolves.”

  “Frank—”

  “Be on the plane, Mike. If you aren’t, if you aren’t here at Indigo by five p.m., you can kiss your ass goodbye.”

  He hung up.

  Mike looked at the phon
e in his hand. He had never heard Franklin Haddox talk that way.

  He had no illusions. Frank meant every word he said. He was probably speed-dialing his lawyer right now.

  Mike thought maybe he should go. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get down there where the action was, but he’d prefer to maintain control by taking his own jet.

  Unfortunately, both of Whitbread’s jets were already in Florida, one in Tallahassee, the other at a private airfield near Port St. Joe. They would stay there until early tomorrow morning. The jets were on standby. They would be used to get his teams out of harm’s way as soon as possible.

  Both operations were scheduled for the small hours of the morning. Ultimately, it would be up to the teams when to go in and what resources they would use to complete the mission. He didn’t want to second-guess them. But now Mike was worried.

  Clearly, Frank had some kind of sixth sense. Like a cockroach, scuttling out of the light just before you bring down your shoe.

  Eight hundred miles away, Frank breathed in and out, trying not to hyperventilate. He’d taken the big step—no going back now. Mike Cardamone was ruthless. If he hadn’t been coming for them before, he was coming for them now.

  Frank had enjoyed playing him like a fish on the line. But now it was over, it wasn’t so much fun anymore.

  Frank looked at Salter. “You’re sure all your men are in place?”

  “We’ve got them positioned on the island and on San Blas, but you’d never know they were here.”

  “Because I’m telling you, this guy doesn’t fool around.”

  “See that fishing boat out there?”

  Frank nodded. He felt queasy.

  “Our best snipers are on that boat. So, do you think it worked?”

  “It worked,” Frank said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.” He looked down at the phone tucked into his palm. His hand was shaking.

  Landry said, “Tell me everything you know about Mike Cardamone.”

  “W-what do you mean?”

  “His attitude toward warfare. Would he send someone after you or come himself?”

  Frank thought about it. Finally, he said, “He’s pretty hands-on. He was in special forces, and he’s always boasting about that. He…he has a cruel streak.”

  Special Agent Salter nodded. Smiled. “Good,” he said.

  46

  Landry left Indigo shortly after Frank finished his call to Cardamone. He told no one he was going. He made only one quick side trip, to the boat. The dock was so wide you could drive on it.

  He’d chosen the maid’s sedan, a seventies-era Pontiac, for the spacious trunk. He needed every bit of it.

  Before leaving, Landry had laid it all out for Frank. Landry told him he would be nearby, concealed, watching and waiting along with his team for the first sight of Mike Cardamone. He told Frank that Cardamone would be coming in the early hours of the morning with his team. Frank believed him. Frank was not to answer the phone if Cardamone called—anything else he said might make the man suspicious. The AG was to sit tight and wait, stay with his routine. Play a round of golf, have lunch, work in his office—but stay on the island. As long as he remained at Indigo, he would be under the FBI’s protection.

  Landry didn’t completely trust him, but it was the best he could do. He had more important business to attend to, and there was no choice in the matter.

  Landry drove seventy miles out of his way to Llewellyn, Alabama, a town with little to recommend itself except for a bank, a smattering of small businesses, a Sonic, and a gun shop. He had lunch at the Sonic, enjoying the old-fashioned car-hop experience, then drove two doors down to the gun shop set back from the road.

  A yellow plastic sign stood out on the grass, the stick-on letters proclaiming, “CHUCK’S GUNS AND BAIT – Ammo All Kinds – Smith & Wesson Special Ask Within – We Have Wigglers.” Behind the grimy store window, backed by a sun-faded panorama of a woodsy fishing scene, rifles and handguns shared space with an umbrella stand holding cane fishing poles.

  Landry had to duck to get through the door. Chuck’s was small inside, too, like a sod house on the prairie. The owner sat on a stool behind the cash register. Late fifties, Harley cap, ponytail, a complexion like the deli meat mortadella.

  “Good day, sir.”

  Landry nodded toward the window. “You know you misspelled wigglers?”

  “Wigglers?”

  “On the sign. There’s an ‘r’ in it. After the ‘w.’”

  He thought about it. “That don’t sound right. If it was, it’d be pronounced ‘rigglers.’”

  Landry removed the packet from his hunting vest and laid it on the glass counter.

  “And what is that, sir?”

  Landry undid the flap and laid out three thousand dollars in cash.

  The owner looked at the money, then at Landry. “What’s this for, sir?”

  Landry nodded to the clock. “Almost lunchtime. You could go for a coffee while I take a look around.”

  The man stared at the money. “How do I know it’s real?”

  “There’s a bank two doors down. Why don’t you deposit it?”

  “You’re just looking, right?”

  “I promise I won’t steal anything.”

  “Doesn’t appear that you would. Thank you, sir.” He took the packet and stuffed it in his own vest. “But you’re wrong about wigglers. I grew up around here, and it’s always been wigglers.”

  Landry watched him walk down to the curve in the road where the one-story red-brick bank stood in a patch of mowed lawn. He watched as the man went inside. Then he started shopping.

  Before long, the box he’d brought in with him was full. He pulled a bag of Pemmican off the rack by the cash register and put it on top, just as Harley came back. Harley scrupulously avoided looking at the box and its contents.

  Landry laid out another three thousand dollars. “You have some nice weaponry here. I like your sound suppressors.”

  “Yes, they’re the best. Expensive, too.” Looked ruminatively at the three thousand dollars. “So nothing struck your fancy?”

  “Maybe next time. Where’s the nearest liquor store?”

  “Sir, guns and liquor don’t mix.”

  “Tell you what, you give me back the six thousand, and I’ll put everything back.”

  “There’s a liquor store on the way out of town, on 71.”

  “Thanks.” He looked out the window again. “I really think you should change that sign.”

  “I’m not changing that sign, sir. You can forget about that. It’s still a free country, last I heard.”

  Landry nodded, picked up his box, and walked out to the car. The maid’s car fit right in around here. He loaded the box into the backseat. He would have liked to put the box in the trunk, but the trunk was taken. He covered the box with an army blanket.

  At the liquor store, Landry bought three ice picks and four bags of ice from a sullen kid with a faceful of acne and a mullet. He was surprised anybody still wore mullets, even in the deep South.

  He drove to a Dumpster hidden from view by a strip mall, opened the trunk, and replaced the melting bags of ice under and around the bodies of Special Agent Eric Salter and the “piss-poor” private investigator, Ted Bakus. Salter had told him Bakus was in way over his head. This turned out to be true.

  Landry threw the old ice bags in the Dumpster.

  Back inside the car, he loosened the handles on the ice picks. Just a couple of threads; he didn’t want them too loose. Then he stopped for pie and coffee at a diner called Sandie’s in Wewahitchka, Florida. He hated secondhand smoke, and the fifteen minutes in the diner irritated his eyes, but on the up side, the pie was good.

  From the post office box in Port St. Joe, he picked up the key to the safe house. The safe house was on the outskirts of Port St. Joe, in a recently built subdivision. A third of the subdivision was unoccupied.

  A foreclosure sign stood outside the safe house. The house nex
t door was empty. A cloud of mosquitoes dogged him to the house. He looked over the fence to the neighbor’s yard. The pool was olive-green. Algae floated on top.

  He went in through the kitchen. A list of instructions had been left on the counter. He read them through, paying particular attention to the detailed schematic of the target area, which included aerial photos and blueprints.

  He was right about the target.

  Landry looked at his watch. His brother Gary would have landed by now, probably already on the road, visions of stud farms dancing in his head. If someone with the Shop checked, they would see that Bill Peters had departed LAX at six thirty this morning, changed planes in Dallas and Atlanta, and arrived in Panama City at four fifteen this afternoon. A check with the car rental desk at the Bay County International Airport would show that Bill Peters had rented a car from Avis. No one would know that Landry had been in Florida for the last two and a half days.

  Landry divided up the handguns, ammo, knives, rifles, sights, infrared scopes, night vision goggles, and suppressors, then stashed them in three of the house’s four bedrooms—one for Jackson, one for Davis, and one for Green. There would be three bags of goodies, and three closets. The walk-in closet he saved for Jackson.

  Every time they met, they spent time getting acquainted with their weaponry. Broke the firearms down, cleaned them, put them back together. Checked the sights. So many weapons for them to look at.

  It would be like Christmas morning.

  As Landry decided which guns would go where, he flashed on the Aspen massacre. That one, they’d kept simple—just three Bowie knives. Two were destroyed afterwards, but the last one they left in the possession of a white supremacist gas station attendant named Donny Lee Odell.

  Acting on an anonymous tip, the local police, the ATF, and the FBI converged on Bud’s Texaco in Colorado. Landry had watched it on television. The local cops paraded Donny Lee out before the cameras, a jacket draped over his manacled hands. He looked a lot like the poor mope with the mullet at the liquor store in Llewellyn—the same kind of stupid. Donny was a natural because he was weak. He had been jailed twice for the possession and sale of crystal meth.