The Long Shot (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  Schoelen dialled the telephone number of an insurance company in Baltimore. He knew that the office would be closed – it was after nine o’clock at night – and that the call would not be answered. He waited until the third ring, then pressed the grille against the mouthpiece of the telephone. With deft movements he pressed twelve keys, one at a time, sending tonal pulses down the line. He put the phone to his ear and listened to a series of clicks which told him that the call was being routed through the Baltimore exchange and across the country to San Francisco. The clicks stopped and he heard the dial tone again, though this tone was being generated by an exchange thousands of miles away. So far as the phone company records would show, he had made a local call to the insurance company and nothing more. He put the box back to the receiver and keyed in a second string of pulses, which again produced a series of clicks. This time the call was being routed down the West Coast to an exchange in Los Angeles. Schoelen ran his finger down to a number of a call-box which he knew was in a line of six such boxes in Long Beach. He keyed in the pulses, and thousands of miles away the phone began to ring. Schoelen’s fingers moved quickly because he had to get the next pulses down the line before the phone was answered. He keyed in another string of twelve pulses which transferred the call to the main San Diego exchange. As the pulses shot across the country at close to the speed of light, the telephone stopped ringing in Long Beach.

  Schoelen put the phone to his ear and once again he heard a dial tone. This one was being generated by the San Diego exchange, but if anyone should try to trace the call, the trail would end at the pay phone in Long Beach. The final pulses generated by the black box set the telephone ringing on the hall table in his parents’ house in Coronado. His mother answered on the fifth ring and immediately poured out a torrent of questions in her thick Germanic accent which had changed little during all her years in the United States. Schoelen waited until she’d finished. “Mom, I’m fine,” he said. “No, I don’t know when I’ll be back. How’s Willis?” Schoelen’s dog was the reason for the call. Before he’d left Coronado, his Rottweiler had been off his food and had been listless at night.

  “Oh, Lou, he was not so good,” said his mother. “He was sick many times, so we took him to the veterinarian last week. His intestine is twisted, he said.”

  Schoelen’s stomach lurched. “He’s okay, isn’t he, Mom?”

  “Oh, he’s fine now, he’s back home, but it was expensive, Lou. Eight hundred dollars for the operation and the medicine.”

  Schoelen sighed with relief. He had raised the dog from a puppy and loved it with a passion. “That’s okay, Mom. I’ll send you the money in a couple of weeks. Is he eating okay now?”

  “Like a horse. We have to take him back next week to have stitches removed, but his stomach is fixed. So, when are you coming home?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. This job is very important. It’ll all be over in two weeks though.”

  “Willis misses you, Lou. And so do we. Please come home soon.”

  “I will, Mom. Say hello to Dad for me. I have to go now.” Schoelen replaced the receiver. On the television screen Captain Kirk and Spock beamed up to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

  The days of FBI agents wearing telephone company overalls and scaling telephone poles to tap phones disappeared with the advent of digital exchanges. Physical wiretapping was replaced by computerised monitoring, much to the relief of the agents who had previously been forced to spend hours in damp basements or in the back of vans, their ears sweating under too-tight headphones.

  Once Jake Sheldon had obtained the necessary legal approval for the monitoring of the telephone line at Lou Schoelen’s parents’ house in Coronado, the details were passed to an agent, Eric Tiefenbacher, on the fourth floor of the FBI’s East Indianola Street offices. He in turn liaised with a fifty-year-old technician in the phone company’s headquarters, a man who had been as closely vetted as any FBI agent. It was his job to arrange for the line to be monitored and he did that by pressing a few keys on his computer terminal and sending the signal along a dedicated line to the FBI building. He did it while on a second line to Tiefenbacher and sent a test signal down the dedicated line to ensure that the link was good. At any one time the technician was responsible for up to sixty telephone taps, most of them for the FBI and the DEA, and he had enough information to destroy a host of long-term investigations into organised crime and corruption. He was positively vetted every year by the Bureau, but the technician would never in a million years consider trading the information he had. His granddaughter had died five years earlier, knocked down by a getaway car driven by three black teenagers who had just robbed a liquor store. For him, wire-tapping was a personal crusade, a way of helping the forces of law and order against the vermin who ruled the streets.

  Three walls of the office in which Tiefenbacher worked were lined with tape-recorders. The machines were voice-activated and the reels only turned when a call was made. In the centre of the room was a teak veneer desk and a chair at which Tiefenbacher chain-smoked while he monitored the tape-recorders and replaced the tapes as necessary. Each hour, on the hour, he picked up a clipboard and went from machine to machine, noting down the digits in the tape counter next to each line. The notation was a back-up check because the time of each call was electronically recorded on the tape, along with the number of the phone on the other end of the line. Call-tracing with digital exchanges had become a simple matter of computer programming.

  Tiefenbacher alternated his shifts with three other agents, all of them heavy smokers, and between them they ensured that the office was occupied twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Some of the tape-recorders had red stickers attached, signifying that any calls had to be immediately reported to the agent involved, the rest were checked on a daily basis. Most of the agents in the building referred to the surveillance room as The Tomb and the four agents had long been nicknamed The Living Dead. All four had in one way or another offended someone high up in the Bureau. Being assigned to The Tomb was not a good career move for an ambitious agent.

  Eric Tiefenbacher’s transgression had been to allow his partner to take a bullet in the chest during what was supposed to have been a straightforward arrest of a bail-jumper. He had been in The Tomb for five months and was already applying for other jobs outside the FBI. When the Schoelen tape began to turn, Tiefenbacher stubbed out his cigarette, picked up a pair of headphones, and walked over to the machine, which had a red sticker on it along with the names of two agents: Cole Howard and Kelly Armstrong. He plugged the headset into the machine and listened. The old lady made only a few calls, usually to local stores who delivered, or to the vet who had been treating her dog. The red sticker had the home telephone numbers of the two agents so that they could be contacted outside of office hours. Kelly Armstrong had visited the surveillance room soon after the phone tap was arranged, and she’d asked that she be called first if there was anything of interest. She’d told him a little about the investigation as she perched on the edge of his desk, leaning forward to give him a glimpse of cleavage. She was one hell of a hot babe, Tiefenbacher thought, with breasts that he just ached to touch. She had class, too; her clothes were stylish and he noticed that the watch she kept looking at was a gold Cartier. She was wearing a wedding ring but he was giving some thought to asking her out for a drink after work.

  He listened to the conversation. The old woman was obviously talking to her son, Lou Schoelen, the man the agents were interested in. The display below the tape counter listed the number of the telephone number the old woman was talking to. The digits would be recorded on the tape at the end of the call, but Tiefenbacher scribbled them down on his clipboard so that he could tell Kelly Armstrong right away. Maybe if he impressed her, she’d be more amenable to a date.

  Lisa Howard carried two mugs of coffee into the sitting room and placed them on the table, being careful not to disturb her husband’s papers. “Thanks, honey,” he said, looking up and smili
ng. “How are the kids?”

  “Fast asleep,” she said. “They’re growing up so fast. Eddy asked me if he could start playing golf today; can you believe that?”

  “I bet that’ll please your father no end,” said Cole. Theodore Clayton was a scratch golfer, and Lisa had been playing for years. She was good enough to turn professional, though she only played for fun.

  “Daddy wants to buy him his own set of junior clubs.” She sipped her coffee.

  Howard put down the yellow marker he had been using to underline paragraphs of interest in the papers he was reading. “Hey, if Eddy wants golf clubs, I’ll get them for him. His birthday isn’t far off, they’ll make a great present.”

  Lisa smiled thinly. “Actually, I was playing with Daddy today and he’s already bought them.” She saw that her husband was about to protest, so she rushed to speak first. “I know, I know, but there was nothing I could do. You know how strong-willed he is. It’s just a set of golf clubs.”

  Howard scowled. It was more than just sports equipment, it was yet another sign of his father-in-law’s interference. Howard had always strived to maintain his independence, to do the best he could to support his family, but no matter how hard he worked, no matter how many hours of overtime he put in, he could never hope to compete with Theodore Clayton’s immense wealth. Howard knew that it wouldn’t stop with the golf clubs. Down the line there’d be offers of horses, cars, college tuition, vacations, anything the children wanted. Acceptance would become easier as time went on, and he didn’t want his children to grow up thinking that everything would be handed to them on a plate. “If my son wants to take up a sport, I’d rather be the one who sets him up . . .” Howard began, but he stopped himself when he realised how petty he sounded. “Does this mean he’s gone off baseball?”

  Lisa smiled and shook her head, her long blonde hair spilling around her shoulders. “Of course not. He just wants to be able to play golf with me, that’s all. And he’d love it if you played with us.”

  Howard picked up his marker again. “Yeah, right,” he said. “Me on a golf course.” He could feel an argument building, so it was with a sense of relief that he heard the telephone ring. “I’ll get it,” he said. It was Kelly Armstrong. Howard frowned and looked at his watch. She must be phoning from home, he realised.

  Kelly told him about the call Lou Schoelen had made to his mother, and that the telephone company had identified a pay phone in Long Beach as the source. “Cole, I think I should go out there and co-ordinate the search,” she said. “I don’t think the Justin Davies credit card was a diversion, I think they really are on the West Coast. The President is due in Los Angeles in ten days, I think that’s what they’re planning for.”

  “Well . . .” said Howard.

  “There’s a plane leaving in forty-five minutes, I’ve already booked a ticket. I’ll call you from our LA office.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s . . .”

  “Cole, I’ve already conferred with Jake Sheldon, and he says I should go.”

  Howard took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “In that case, Kelly, of course. Have a safe trip.” He banged the receiver down and went back to the sitting room where Lisa was looking up, clearly concerned. “That bitch Kelly Armstrong,” he said. “She’s trying to run rings around me again.”

  “Well, I’m sure she won’t be any match for you, honey,” said Lisa.

  Howard grinned. “Yeah, you might be right.”

  The Amtrak Metroliner rolled into Washington and the platform was soon filled with bleary-eyed commuters. Joker was one of the last to leave the train. He’d managed to grab some sleep during the four and a half hour journey, though the pain in his side was still bothering him. By the time he got out of the station, there was a line waiting for taxis and he joined it. It was a pleasant, warm day and he took off his pea jacket, wincing as he did. The woman in front of him turned, looked him up and down, and moved away, a look of disgust on her face. Joker figured he must look and smell fairly nauseating. He hadn’t had a chance to wash or shave since leaving his hotel and he’d finished off the bottle of Famous Grouse on the train. The woman was elegant and wearing full make-up. Her clothes were obviously expensive and new. He could see that she was carrying her leather shoes in a Gucci bag and even the Reeboks she was wearing were pristine white. Joker wasn’t surprised at her reaction.

  A black man in a threadbare overcoat was moving down the line, asking for change. The woman in Reeboks turned her back on the beggar, making a clicking sound of annoyance with her tongue. “Change? Got any change?” he repeated to her back. The beggar looked at Joker, saw the condition he was in, smiled, and moved on down the line, repeating his litany to uncaring ears.

  Joker wondered if the two heavyweights in his hotel room had managed to untie themselves yet, and what they would do for clothes. He smiled to himself. The Frowner’s automatic was in Joker’s suitcase, wrapped up in the man’s trousers. It gave him a comforting feeling knowing that it was there. He doubted that they would come after him – they had no way of knowing where he’d gone. If Beaky Maguire had told them that he’d mentioned Patrick Farrell’s name, he reckoned that at most they’d telephone Farrell and tell him that someone had been asking questions about him and Bailey in New York.

  Joker reached the front of the line and clambered into the back of his taxi. He told the driver to take him to the nearest cheap motel and slumped back in his seat. His first priority was to get a room, a few hours sleep in a bed, and a fresh bottle of whisky. Then he’d start looking for Farrell’s aircraft company.

  Mary rolled over in the bed, luxuriating in the warmth of the blankets, and stretched. The clock radio on the bedside table was set to go off at nine, so she reached over lazily and switched it off. She didn’t have to check out of the room until midday so she was in no rush. A shower, a leisurely breakfast, and then she’d curl up with a good book. The only agenda she had was to wait for Matthew Bailey’s telephone call. She picked up the phone and ordered scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, orange juice and a copy of the Baltimore Sun, and then headed for the shower. In the bathroom she checked the roots of her dyed blonde hair and realised that she couldn’t go much longer without having it redone.

  She was just finishing off her eggs when Bailey called. “M-M-Mary,” he stammered, “is everything okay?”

  He sounded tense, but then he always did when talking to her. “Everything is exactly as it should be, Matthew,” she said. She gave him the address and telephone number of the house on Chesapeake Bay.

  “We’re still going ahead?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she replied. “The weather’s terrific here, and everybody else is already at the house. Why don’t you drop by Pat Farrell and check that he doesn’t have any problems before you come round to the house?”

  “I will. I’ll check out the plane at the same time.”

  “Good, that’s good.”

  There was a pause on the line and then Bailey stammered: “M-M-Mary?”

  “Yes?” she answered, tensing because she feared she was going to hear something uncomfortable.

  There was another, shorter, pause. “Nothing,” he said. “I’ll see you.” The line went dead and Mary replaced the receiver. She was beginning to get a bad feeling about Bailey. She hoped he wasn’t getting cold feet.

  Howard was in his office at 8 a.m. but Jake Sheldon had obviously beaten him to it. There was a message on Howard’s desk asking him to call Sheldon. He picked up the phone to call Sheldon’s office, but then had second thoughts and replaced the receiver. He walked down the corridor and pressed the bell at the side of the door to The Tomb. He waved at the surveillance camera above the door and the lock mechanism buzzed. He pushed open the door and stepped inside. The agent on duty was an old friend of Howard’s, a twenty-year man called Gene Eldridge. Eldridge had been sentenced to The Tomb for being unable to get his weight below 300 pounds, ostensibly for medical reasons but everybody knew it was because the Bureau t
op brass was trying to weed out all those agents who didn’t fit into its desired profile of young, healthy go-getters. He was a good-natured man, grey-haired with a florid expression, who had to have his suits tailor-made. He always wore a large handkerchief in his top pocket which he would produce with a flourish to mop his forehead at frequent intervals.

  “Cole, how’s it going?” asked Eldridge. He was standing at the far end of the room wearing headphones. He waved Howard over. “Come and listen to this.” He slipped off the headphones and passed them to Howard. A man and a woman were talking on the line, though the man’s input consisted mainly of heavy-breathing and grunts. The woman, whose voice was husky and deep, was describing what she wanted to do with the man in graphic terms. “He’s a drug dealer the DEA are on to,” said Eldridge. “He makes one of these calls every morning.” The man on the line was building to a climax and Howard handed the headphones back to Eldridge, who unplugged them from the tape machine. “So what brings you back to The Tomb?” he asked.

  “Tap on a house in Coronado, name of Schoelen. A call was made last night. Who was on then?”

  “Eric Tiefenbacher,” replied Eldridge, wiping his forehead with his red cotton handkerchief. He sat down at the desk, his massive thighs squashing together like plump cushions. “Is there a problem?”

  “No, it’s not a problem. He called Kelly Armstrong last night about a call made to the Schoelen home.”

  “Yeah, the ice maiden. Eric’s had the hots for her for some time. Watch that one, Cole, she’s on the fast track. Her husband’s a big wheel in the Justice Department, isn’t he?”

  “No idea. Can I hear the call?”

  “Sure.” Eldridge pointed. “That’s the machine over there. Take the tape off and play it on the machine next to it. Just in case a call comes in while you’re playing it. You haven’t forgotten how to do it?”

  Howard gave the overweight agent a withering look. “No, Gene, I haven’t forgotten.” Howard had spent seven months in The Tomb after the Bureau had first discovered his drinking problem. It wasn’t a time he liked to think about. He replaced the tape, and put the original on the machine Eldridge had indicated. He switched it on and the two agents listened to the conversation.