by CJ Petterson
Sully judged the drugstore nearly perfect for surveillance on Mirabel. He knew it’d be rare that any of Adkins’s regular customers accepted the pharmacist’s offer for a free cup of coffee on a hot day, so it wasn’t likely he’d have any company at the counter. And he had a clear view of Mario’s, where Mirabel and Briggs were eating breakfast.
The interior of the drugstore with its nine-foot-high, tin ceiling, was a quiet place where Sully could sit in air conditioning instead of loitering in the sun. He inhaled a deep, satisfied breath and wrinkled his nose. If odors had sound, a cacophony of smells permeated the air. The stink of coffee that’d been stewing on a burner too long mingled with the aromas of pungent liniments and ointments and the flowery fragrances of colognes, shampoos, and lotions.
Sully regretted having topped his navy blue jeans and navy, cotton knit T-shirt with a sky-blue linen blazer. With the knuckle of his index finger, he pushed a nascent bead of perspiration off his temple then adjusted his shoulders and briefly lifted the front of his blazer away from his chest and the belt holster that kept his SIG tucked under his left elbow. “Going to be a scorcher, George.” Sully raised his voice just enough to be heard in the back.
“Thank heaven for air conditioning,” Adkins said without looking up. “Awful expensive to keep this old place cool, but sure can’t do without the AC.” Adkins lifted the tablet-filled cylinder off the side of the tray and poured the pills into a clear plastic bottle.
Sully twisted so he could see both the storekeeper and the street. “What’d we do before we had air?” While he chatted, his gaze alternated between checking the street and watching the pharmacist work.
“Suffered, mostly,” Adkins mumbled. He capped the bottle then ratcheted a business-card-sized label onto the black rubber platen of a 1960s Smith-Corona manual typewriter and hunt-and-pecked out a few lines.
Cup in hand, Sully walked toward the front window, stopped a few steps behind the display, and watched cars and pedestrian traffic move in and out of his line of sight. He tensed, and his pulse accelerated a tick when the elderly Asian woman he’d met in Mario’s back hall shuffled into view. Hunching along, she moved without the walker she had leaned on so heavily when he had first encountered her.
It seemed she had materialized out of thin air. He realized she had been eclipsed by a pair of brown men wearing work boots and broad-brimmed straw hats with the brims tipped low over their eyes.
“No way that old woman walked any distance,” he muttered and checked the street in both directions. There was nothing but pickups in front of the café. Her car must be around back.
When the old woman entered the café without looking in his direction, he knew he was perfectly hidden as he looked past the magnifying mirrors, electric razors, and other drugstore sundries arranged in the store’s bay window.
The sidewalk emptied for a few minutes, and Sully took the time to warm up his tepid coffee. The wide-plank pine floor sagged and creaked under his weight as he made his way back behind the soda fountain counter. The boards were bowed and scarred, their form sculpted by years of foot traffic. He picked up the coffee pot and topped off his cup. “Yo, George. Need a refill?”
“I’ll come get it, thanks.”
Thank you, Sully murmured, grateful that he didn’t have to abandon his vantage point for very long. He set the pot back on the warmer and returned to the window.
Adkins vacated the pharmacy desk carrying an over-sized black mug decorated with a golden “A” in Old English Script. “That sure was terrible news about Sheriff Thompson. The reporter called it a tragic accident.”
“I saw that.”
“Chasing some good-for-nothing, most likely. Got away, too. Evan Thompson worked hard for a lot of years in this town. Hate to see things like that happen to good people.” He bowed his head and fell silent for a few seconds. “Looking for somebody?” he asked when he caught Sully leaning to peer out the window.
Sully straightened. “Just people-watching.”
Adkins grunted. He walked behind the counter, sniffed at the pot, and wrinkled his nose in distaste. “This stuff smells pretty nasty. Go on and throw yours out. I’ll make fresh. You come in for something in particular?”
“No, just came in to take you up on that offer of a cup of coffee and to chat a bit … and get out of the heat.”
“Always glad to have the company.” He splashed the dregs of the coffee into the stainless steel sink and rinsed the pot.
“Where’s your help?”
“George Junior comes in after lunch.”
Sully saw Mirabel and Briggs leave the café, get into the Wrangler, and drive off. He took a sip of coffee and kept watching Mario’s door to see if anyone followed them out.
“Does seem a bit devious, don’t you think? People-watching,” Adkins said. He poured water into the reservoir of the automatic maker, spooned coffee grounds into the filter, and toggled on the switch. “I’m not criticizing, you understand. It’s one of my favorite pastimes. People are kind of interesting when they don’t know they’re being watched.” He switched his focus from Sully’s face to a spot over his shoulder. His eyebrows lifted, and he pointed. “For instance, lookie there.”
Sully let his eyes slide in the direction of Adkins’ finger. “What?”
“That Chinese lady coming out of the café.”
“She’s Japanese.” He caught the questioning look on Adkins’s face. “I’ve run into her before.”
“Whichever. I was just about to remark that she looks too feeble to get around, don’t she?”
“All by herself, too.” And for an old woman, you do get around, Sully thought. “Speaking of getting around, I’ve got to get moving before the day gets away from me.” He set his cup on the counter and turned to leave. “Thanks for the coffee, George. Catch you later.” He slipped on his sunglasses and walked into the brightness before Adkins could reply.
The sun at its apex stripped color from the landscape and blurred shapes. The elderly woman had vanished into the glare. The leaf canopy of the line of crape myrtles planted alongside the curb was slightly taller than Sully and offered neither shade nor interference as he sought to define the faces of pedestrians.
Where’d you go? he wondered. He was two strides into the street when he glimpsed the speeding white Mercedes out of the corner of his eye.
The heavy car whipped around a slow-moving, dusty green pickup. The driver, obscured behind a dark windshield, punched the Mercedes into passing gear and aimed the grille at Sully. The engine’s twelve cylinders and six hundred-plus horsepower sucked up diesel fuel with a growl. The car raced forward.
The roar triggered a burst of adrenaline into Sully’s brain. He dove toward the sidewalk, tucked one shoulder into a curl, and rolled to his feet. Breathing hard and gun in hand, he crouched between two of the pickups angle-parked at the curb and watched the Mercedes disappear in the distance.
The gun was back in its holster, and he was brushing dirt off his sleeves and pants by the time Adkins reached him.
“Are you all right? That maniac could’ve killed you.” The pharmacist brushed the back of Sully’s jacket as he talked. People spilled out of the café and joined gawking pedestrians in a tight circle around Sully.
“I’m fine, thanks. It was my fault, really. I didn’t see him. The sun,” Sully pointed vaguely toward the sky.
“We have to report this.” Adkins took a cellphone out of the pocket of his white lab coat.
Sully put his hand on the phone. “Don’t think we need to do that. It was as much my fault as his.”
“But that guy left the scene of an accident. Sheriff’s office is going to want to know about this. Got to get that crazy off the road.”
“Thanks, George, but it’s okay.” Sully worked to calm the agitated pharmacist. “It wasn’t really an accident. No da
mage done except I got dirty. If I didn’t see him, he probably didn’t see me.” He patted Adkins on the arm and shouldered his way through the ring of onlookers. He jogged to the parking lot behind the drugstore, pulled out his cellphone, and slipped his arms out of his jacket when he got close to where his Jeep was parked.
He dropped the cell on the front seat, threw his jacket into a wad on the back floor, and peeled a freshly cleaned blue shirt out of a clear, plastic bag on the back seat. He slipped it on over his T-shirt, leaving the sleeves unbuttoned and the shirttails flapping, then retrieved the cellphone and used his thumb to tap out a speed dial number. “Frank, it’s me. Hold on a sec.” He slid into the Jeep and then held the phone to his cheek while he cranked the engine. “That white Mercedes, the one Mirabel said Evan was chasing, it’s a Maybach. Almost got my butt tattooed by that double M hood ornament when it made a run at me. See who you can find. I’ll check with you in a few.”
Sully toggled off, dropped the phone on the seat beside him, and drove in the direction the Maybach had taken. After several minutes of fruitless search in morning traffic, he dialed Griebe. His speed wasn’t what he wanted it to be, and he dogged slow-moving drivers. “What’d you find?” he asked as he rolled up his shirtsleeves.
“There aren’t a lot of those models around, even among the glitterati in Hollywood. That plate isn’t registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles.”
“SinJen doesn’t work with a partner, Frank, so I’m guessing whoever is in the Mercedes is his handler.”
“You okay?”
“Pissed is all. I just got that jacket out of the cleaners. If the car’s not in the California DMV database, check with the port authorities. Check all ports of entry, every coast. Border crossings, too. They sure as hell didn’t drive it all the way from Germany.”
“Can do. By the way, Pete called and said the coroner’s office ruled Thompson’s death a homicide. Seems the sheriff and his patrol car were sporting a spray of bullet holes.”
“No surprise there.”
“Maybe there is. Remember your hunch that he was dragging his feet? I found where he’d deposited a hundred K into his savings account five weeks ago.”
Sully swore under his breath. “Somebody’s throwing a lot of money after something. What about his deputy?”
“Nothing yet.”
Sully’s eyes flicked from the rearview to the side-view mirrors and then to the cars next to him. “Anything on the dentist’s BMW?”
“Pete hasn’t found it yet, and I’m thinking he won’t.”
“Because?”
“I don’t think it’s stolen. I think Briggs has it stashed someplace or sold it.”
“Ouch. Mirabel likes him.”
“There’s no way Saint John would let Briggs live unless he had a good reason.”
“I’ve got to go back for Mirabel. She’s with Briggs right now.” Sully made a U-turn in the next intersection and headed toward Briggs’s house. “What’s his story?”
“He’s a New Orleans boy, orthodontist, graduated seven years ago in the top ten percent of his class at Louisiana State’s dental school. Clean as a whistle until a few weeks ago. Then things get a little wiggy.”
“What happened?”
“He used his cell to make a couple dozen international calls to a dozen different numbers. Most of those calls were made in the last two weeks.”
“That’s not Saint John then. He’s here.”
“The calls were routed through London, Tokyo, Berlin, and a couple of other places then to one of those use-’em and lose-’em cellphones. No way to know who bought it or where, but I can tell you the call ended up here in the States. So yeah, it certainly could be Saint John.”
“Good thing Briggs wasn’t savvy enough to not use his personal cell. I knew your gee-whiz computer skills would pay off.”
“Here’s the kicker. I hacked into SWIFT — that’s the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication to you — and found an international funds transfer with his name on it. Tracked it from a Japanese export company to the Nassau bank account of a Raymond David Briggs. Two hundred and fifty big ones.”
“A quarter of a million dollars,” Sully breathed in a soft voice. “Bought and paid for.” He tromped on the accelerator and ran the yellow light.
“It all fits,” Griebe said. “When he came to town, he got new office equipment, built a house, and started playing big spender with a string of ladies.”
“He does like to live large. What else?”
“Well, it seems there isn’t enough big money in Mendocito to bankroll his highlife. He incorporated himself as a business, so I was able to check his tax returns, and he’s been upside down in his debt to assets ratio three years running. The latest splurge was that fancy BMW Z4 3.0i that set him back about forty-two grand. He paid cash.”
“So his kidnapping was a setup.”
“He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s been set up all around. The Bahamas aren’t far enough offshore to keep that kind of transaction secret. Depositing his payoff there is an open invite for U.S. authorities to trace it. All it takes is an anonymous phone tip to the IRS about some possible tax evasion or money laundering scheme to get the ball rolling. They’re in the business of running down assets hidden in offshore banks.”
“Whoever the money man is wants Briggs exposed. I have to believe it’s Saint John’s employer,” Sully said. “The Mercedes attack on me was probably no more than an opportunity shot. I was in the wrong place at the right time. Thanks, Frank. Talk to you later.”
Sully’s next call was to Mirabel’s cell. She answered as if she were at the lab. “This is Mirabel.”
“Where are you?”
He knew he had failed to keep the urgency out of his voice when she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Where are you right now?”
“Is there a problem?”
“Mirabel,” he growled, “stop answering my questions with a question.”
“I’m getting ready to leave Ray’s house.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve already pulled out of the driveway and headed home. I’ll meet you at my house.”
He swore at the dead phone in his hand. Shifting gears and lanes like a race driver, Sully slalomed through a line of cars and headed for Mirabel’s house. Once clear of traffic, he tapped in his speed-dial number for the CIA. He needed to learn what Marshall had discovered.
Marshall’s voice came on the line. “Davis.”
“What’d you find?” Sully said without introduction.
“I can barely hear you. You need to quit calling me from the Jeep when you’re driving with the top off.” Marshall’s voice was full of static and more teasing than impatient. “You were right. There’s another nanosatellite somehow flying in our shadow. Its orbit has started to wobble, so, for short bursts of time, it moves out of absolute sync with Procyon. That’s why you spotted it.”
“That took more than a few brainiacs and some out-of-the-box technology. Your average Hezbollah or Red Brigade doesn’t have the power or influence to raise that kind of extreme money.”
“Soujiro Itoh.”
Sully’s eyes flicked to the side view mirror. “Remember him well. Son of a Japanese delegate to the United Nations. Power, influence, and money all wrapped up into one nasty little psychotic bundle with diplomatic immunity. Wonder if Soujiro’s daddy knows what his little boy is doing with his allowance?”
“Doubt it. Daddy is old-school. Death before dishonor and all that.”
“Japan’s work with nano-technology shouldn’t be a surprise,” Sully said, “but I don’t remember hearing about it.”
Sully heard Marshall sigh. “Japanese companies had agreements with American companies as far back as 2004 to
develop and share nano-technology. Those trade agreements were solicited by some of our own state governments.”
“Got to love that global market. Is Itoh’s nanosat a weapons delivery?”
“Intel says bio-weapon. Some kind of genetic engineering, and the target is rice.”
“I lost you for a sec. You said the target was what?”
“You heard me right. About a third of the world’s population depends on rice for their daily meals.”
“Sounds a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face. His own country falls into that category. Defense Department has laser systems, airborne and ground. Can we bring it down with a laser?” Sully slowed for a turning car.
“Not an option,” Marshall said. “The Chinese and Russians would take it as a shot across the bow. They’re already making noises about our new ground laser. It’s still in development, not much more than a concept, but some media hound picked up on vague references to its existence in DOD’s budget data.”
“Whose side are those ink-jockeys on, anyway?”
“Good question. If we exploded the nanosat, the debris cloud could be a major problem. Given the numbers of launches of weather and communications satellites over the years, the result would be a high probability for fragmentation events with every piece of hardware up there for another twenty, twenty-five years. Right now Itoh’s got us right where he wants us — we can’t expose his satellite without revealing our own secret flyer. We’re working on alternatives.”
“Odds are better than even that Mirabel triggered Saint John’s arrival when she called Palomar,” Sully said. “She told them she’d seen a strange object and asked for pictures. Itoh must have an informant — ” He checked himself. Dan had been right. There was a mole in the company. And the source would have to be very high level, not at Palomar. Sully mentally ran through some possibilities. He needed to gather more intel before calling for a sweep team at Langley.