by Sam Cade
Two bellhops attacked the limo like it was on fire, and had the baggage offloaded in fifteen seconds.
A woman and man, both dressed in conservative business attire, stepped out from the rear seat. Lucky didn’t recognize them. Another man sat in the passenger seat staring through the windshield talking intently on his cell. He rang off, slid the phone in his suit coat pocket, opened the door, threw his legs around, stepped onto the pavement and stood up into a full stretch. He slung a computer bag over his left shoulder. A thin Jack Georges alligator leather briefcase was in his right hand. The briefcase alone cost three times the price of the MacBook nuzzled in the computer bag.
Draper Sims held the corner of a folded fifty in the air with two fingers of his left hand. The driver eased the bill into his hand like a magic trick and performed a slight bow with his head. “Thank you, sir.”
King Draper had arrived.
Alpha predator eyes watched his every move.
90
Black Point, Alabama
JAKE PARKED DOWNTOWN directly beside Black Point pharmacy. He left the windows down, hopped out of the truck wearing a fresh oxford and sunglasses and started the 100-foot trek to Wild Bill’s office. A white ninja USB computer charger was in each side pocket of his pants.
A pleasant scent welcomed him as he walked into the office, but he couldn’t place it. Liz was speaking into her headset. She held up a finger. The call ended twenty seconds later.
“Good afternoon, Jake.”
Jake sniffed the air. “The room smells nice, Liz, what is it?”
“Lemongrass and sage. It’s supposed to enhance energy and invoke mental clarity.”
“I need some for my office in D.C. Right now, we have the embedded scent of bureaucracy which invokes bloated inefficiency, laziness, and clock-watching. What’s going on today at the mighty legal machine?”
Speaking through a hearty laugh, she said, “Well, for me, I’m shopping for some clothes online on Bill’s dime. I’m going on a cruise out of New Orleans next week. Mexico. Honduras. Belize. Can’t wait.”
“Did you book me a ticket? It could be our little secret.”
“Don’t I wish.” She winked. “Otherwise, my team is working away in their cubicles, Teddy just left for his afternoon session at Coffee Loft, and Bill is upstairs with one of his bodyguards, Lorenzo.
“What’s that mean, afternoon session?”
“Teddy runs by there for an hour or so every morning and afternoon. Good coffee but I’d just as soon stretch my legs and walk over to Latte Da or Refuge. Heck, they all make a good brew.”
A soothing symphonic sound emanated from Liz’s mini switchboard. She looked at it. “All my staff are on their phones. I’ve got to take this.” She punched a button and spoke into her headset. “Burnham Law office.”
Jake mouthed the word ‘restroom’ to her and pointed down the hall. There were two unisex restrooms directly across from Theo’s office. Jake scampered down the hall passing one door open to a room with four paralegal secretaries working from expansive cubicles. They didn’t appear to notice him.
He reached the end of the hall. Restrooms on his left. Theo’s office on the right. The office door was closed. It had to be locked. Jake looked toward the front of the building. He heard Liz still talking. He placed his hand on the doorknob to Theo’s sanctum, slowly turned it. Unlocked.
Jake zipped in. Silently closed the door. The laptops were gone. Their chargers were plugged in the wall. White cables, like he remembered. He dropped to his knees, bent under the folding table, pulled both chargers from the wall. Pulling both ninja chargers from his pocket, he rapidly unwrapped the cable and plugged them into the socket. He grabbed the two original cables, jumbled the wires into a ball and stashed them in his pockets.
He opened the office door, listened. He stuck only his head out, then stepped into the restroom, flushed the toilet and ran some water in the sink. He came out and walked towards the lobby.
He walked past Liz and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Exiting the stairs Jake found himself looking at a large black man who stood immediately from his seat and walked towards him with a look of intensity. His chest and biceps were about to rip through the fabric of his polo shirt.
“Jake Montoya, FBI. Please let Bill know I’m here.”
Lorenzo Johnson eyed him suspiciously. Jake saw his eyes dart towards his pants pockets. They were inflated with the tangled wires of the charger. “Yeah, I’ll do that. Stay right here, please.”
“I need to take a leak. Be right back,” said Jake.
“Yeah.”
Jake stepped into a restroom and locked the door. He pulled the jumbled cables out of each pocket and started wrapping the wires in a neat configuration. He stopped. Saw something. A tiny red dot maybe three millimeters in diameter drawn in Sharpie on the wall plug. He looked at the other plug. Same small red dot. That paranoid mother... DAMN! Theo will be back any moment. Gotta leave ‘em. Need one sign-on...only one.
Stepping out of the restroom Jake almost walked right into the former Green Beret. “He said run on back.” Lorenzo glanced at Jake’s pistol, worn cross-draw on his left side. “Think I’m about to put my old Beretta nine out to pasture. Probably going Glock like you. That a .40?”
“Nope. A .45. If I hit someone, I want them down.”
“Roger that, chief.”
“Come on back, Jake.” Bill stood at the door of his office.
Bill sat down at his desk, threw his feet up on his mini-fridge, and picked up his green plastic bottle of Mountain Dew. “My doc says I gotta get off this crap. Says it’s fighting my anxiety meds.”
“Are you going to donate your trailer parks?”
Wild Bill scraped both hands up and down his jowls like he was scrubbing a pot. “Well, looks like I’ve got a choice. Donate ‘em and hope I never hear from them again or star in a gruesome movie I won’t live to see. Or maybe Lorenzo and W.C. can live with me forever.”
“That’s why I’m here. I want to talk to them. But, tell me again. How’d they end up here. Exactly how.”
Bill told Jake about everything from the postcard to the meeting with Lucas Knight and his boys.
“So, Lucas Knight. What’s your take on him?”
“Clean cut. Serious. A businessman. He wanted to see the office and my home. Then he left. He wasn’t here for more than a few hours. I assumed he was busy, running a company operating world-wide and all. Why?”
“I want my old buddy protected by the right people. Did Knight go into his background, any details?”
“Not really. I just figured he had some type of military background. Once he introduced me to W.C. and Lorenzo, a couple of Green Berets, that’s all I needed. Knight looked like a cub scout compared to those two. I mean, damn, Jake. You just met Lorenzo.”
“He’s formidable, I’ll give you that. By the way, the money you sent to Panama was then sent to Hong Kong.”
“Ahhh, shit. You’ve got your eyes on it now, though, right?”
“The financial team in D.C. says it went into Bitcoin from Hong Kong. They’re trying to track it, but it’ll be slow. Do you know anything about crypto?”
“Jake, I only understand three things, trailer parks, suing people, and bourbon, you know, the bedrock of America. Theo could probably explain it to us.”
Now, that’s an idea, thought Jake. Theo.
“I’m gonna run. I want to talk to Lorenzo a moment.”
“Yeah. Make sure he knows his job.”
Lorenzo was sitting at a desk facing the stairwell. His eyes were studying a webpage on his laptop. Fishing charters out of Orange Beach, Alabama. He saw Jake looking. “I get a week off soon. Wouldn’t mind getting a day fishing offshore in the Gulf.”
Jake slid a chair up next to the desk. “Lorenzo, what’s your take on things?”
Lorenzo had a sweet demeanor, like a big teddy bear. Jake knew he was anything but.
“Well, I don’t really have one yet. I feel l
ike I’m sitting in Mayberry. Black Point’s a mighty fine-looking town. Hard to picture any serious violence around here.”
“How long have you worked for Knight Force?”
“It’s my first gig. An army buddy of mine started working a similar detail on a lawyer in Michigan. Said it was a sweet deal. He passed my name on to Mr. Knight. Told him I was available. And here I am. I introduced Knight to W.C. And here he is.”
“Yeah. I haven’t met Knight. Is he coming to Black Point any time?”
“Not sure. But he might come in soon to bring my relief.”
“What’s his background?”
“Military. That’s all he said. Military.”
“Special forces?”
“No clue. He plays his cards close to his vest. Very focused, eye on the ball kind of guy. I picture him as a former officer of some sort. Once he told me Knight Force was paying twice what anybody else was paying, I didn’t ask questions.”
“All right, then.” Jake nodded, glanced around the room. “Lorenzo, I want you to be careful. We don’t know who’s behind this, but I know they are very calculating. They’ve demonstrated they’re dangerous cold-blooded killers. I’m pretty sure Black Point’s sedating sunsets won’t take any gas from their tank if they want to hurt Bill. Or you.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
Jake stood, shook his hand, clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for your service, Lorenzo.” He pulled a card from his pocket and scribbled his number. “Call me anytime day or night if something comes up.”
91
JAKE WALKED INTO LYRENE’S TEN MINUTES after leaving Bill’s office. His mind was running wide open. Thought number one was a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. He ordered a slice of apple pie with vanilla ice cream and ice water from a young waitress. It was 3:25 in the afternoon.
Theo takes daily sessions at Coffee Loft. Morning and afternoon.
Jake scrolled through his phone until he landed on Andy Grissom of the Mobile, Alabama field office. Punched call.
Five rings then voicemail. “Andy Grissom. Please leave a message.” Jake asked him to call at his earliest convenience.
Jake was relaxed. Contemplative. Lucas Knight. Knight Force. Handling security assignments for other lawyers. Needed to look into the company background. He was typing Knight Force into Google when his phone rang. Grissom.
“Andy, that was fast.”
“Sorry I couldn’t answer right when you called. Paying for a burrito at Chipotle. Late lunch. What’s the latest?”
“I told you I’d need you some time and now’s the time.”
“What can we do for you?”
“Surveillance. Here in Black Point. I need at least two people. I’m watching a guy who goes into a coffee shop twice a day and gets cranking on his computer.”
“You want us to try to get a glimpse of what he’s looking at?”
“No, no, not at this time. Just trying to nail down his pattern of life related to going to the shop. What times of the day, how long does he stay, is he meeting people, that kind of thing.”
“For how long?”
“Not sure. But probably ten days minimum. Weekdays only for now.”
“No problem. We can play it by ear. I can have somebody there by lunch tomorrow.”
“Great. I’ll get all the particulars including a photo in an email to you this evening. Remember, this is Black Point. No sport coats or ties. Wear short pants, tee shirts, that kind of thing. Make sure they bring a computer. The look of the average coffee shop freeloader.”
“How about a female part of the time and a male part of the time.”
“Perfect.”
Jake had just hung up when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and saw a tall wiry woman who looked like dried beef jerky wearing a cotton dress purchased in 1956. Her face had more lines than an Arkansas road map. Ninety-two-year old Lyrene herself, a woman that outlived four bad husbands. “How’d I do on that pie, boy?”
“Miss Lyrene, that was better than three cheerleaders on a Saturday night.”
She started cackling, stomping her lightweight hiking boots on the floor. “Damn, Jake I love that...three cheerleaders...if I could go one more sorry man, I’d want it to be you. I bet you’re some kind of dangerous animal in the sack.”
Jake was at a loss for words at that.
After a short conversation, Lyrene cleared his table and he went online and scoured the Knight Force website from beginning to end. Glanced at his watch. 4:00 p.m. Hopefully Theo was back at the office. Time to implement part two of the cyber babe’s plan.
He walked to the Land Cruiser on the corner and removed two Bluetooth remotes for the charger cables. He picked up a Page and Palette bag from the floorboard and extracted a thick trade paperback book. With the Bluetooth devices in his pockets, he strode toward the Burnham Law office with the book swinging in his right hand.
Liz watched him come into the office. She held a red wild berry Tootsie Pop in her left hand, leaned back in her chair, swirled her tongue around it as she looked at him. “Well, lookie here, won’t you? You do want to go on that cruise with me after all.”
“More than anything. But I have no more vacation time until December.”
“Well, unlucky you.”
“Theo back? I’ve got something for him.”
She pointed down the hallway. “He’s in the den of darkness.”
Jake strolled down, knocked on Theo’s door.
“Yes?”
Jake walked in.
“Agent Montoya. How goes it at the Bureau?”
In a blip of a moment Jake saw both laptops on the folding table. They were plugged into their chargers.
“Every day’s a struggle, Theo. I followed your suggestion. I read Fall of the House of Zeus and loved it. You were right, a great southern Greek tragedy. Liked it so much I bought this, Circle of Greed. It’s about William Lerach, another lawyer who went down in flames. Man, this guy’s a piece of work. Buncha fuckin’ lawyers, right?”
Theo took the book out of Jake’s hand, read some of the blurbs on the back cover. “Ha, John Grisham liked it. Okay. Looks interesting. Thanks.”
“Just wanted to dump that off. Pass it on. I don’t need it back.”
Jake closed Theo’s office door as he was leaving. He glanced down the hall then popped into one of the bathrooms and punched the button lock. He pulled both USB Bluetooth devices out of his pocket. He launched his customized payload, a malware keystroke logger. Supposedly his malware was now in both of Theo’s laptops. Jake would see every word typed, every login entered, every document accessed, and every website pulled up. Thank you, Belinda.
At 5:47, Theo had had enough legal research for one day. He decided to run by Guthrie’s, grab some chicken fingers, then go back to Coffee Loft to recheck the latest on Sims. He didn’t expect much of a change as Sims was about to start a trial tomorrow.
Theo powered down his tower computer. Then he bent under the folding table and unplugged both laptop chargers. He was hoping more than anything that the Sims murder would get them over the hump. Thoughts drifted to his future. Might be a good time to just go back into poker in Vegas. Hang some with Philly-boy. No boss. No set hours. A time to slowly reappraise things.
His thoughts were on the DataCage IPO as he placed both laptops in the computer bag. He had a nice chunk of change coming from that. He began wrapping cable around one charger and stopped. The wall plug felt slightly larger. He looked at it. Turned it over in his hand.
It was larger, barely. There’s no red dot.
Theo knew exactly what he was looking at.
92
JAKE HID BEHIND A THICK HEDGE at the rear of the downtown Hampton Inn and snapped seven crystal clear shots of Theo as he walked to his Subaru in the city garage.
After Theo pulled off, he walked into the Hampton Inn for some air conditioning and took a seat in the breakfast area. He scrolled through the contacts on his cell. Found Jeannie Hunt. He knew he mig
ht catch some crap, but he had to call. She was a Georgia girl making a name for herself as an investigative reporter at the Washington Post. He took a breath, punched call.
Three rings. “Well, well, well... J. Edgar Hoover himself resurfacing.”
“Jeannie, look girl, I’ve been on the road almost nonstop for the last several months. The Dragons and those hijacking murders in Silicon Valley. And these trial lawyers going down...it’s hectic.”
“Well, thank goodness, my tax money is well spent. And here I thought it was me.” Jeannie’s words came out in a sultry southern accent which drove most guys slightly wild.
“But I’ve got good news, I mean if you’re available.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt are playing a week from Saturday at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Two legends. I’m thinking we might take it in.”
“That’s not good news, J. Edgar, that’s great news.”
“So, you can make it? I’ve got seats up close, too, fifteenth row.”
“Shoot yeah I can make it. And I’m making it with Peter Dunleavy. He has second row seats plus we’re meeting James and Bonnie backstage after the show.”
“Dunleavy? That trust fund sissy?”
“Okay. He’s a little scrawny and a lot bald, and he bounced out of Princeton, but he has nice eyes. And his phone knows how to call me.”
“What about those freakin’ huge Dumbo ears...okay, okay. I surrender. I hope you enjoy it and I also hope James skips ‘Fire and Rain’ and ‘Sweet Baby James’. But there is one other thing, Jeannie. Something tiny.”
“I knew it, I dern well knew it. Montoya, I was almost feeling good about your call. Now this.”
Jake’s face scrunched.
He glanced at his watch. 6:25 central time, 7:25 in the east. “Let’s negotiate. You’re a reasonable woman, Jeannie. Plus, you’ve got a strong stomach, Dunleavy and all. So, here’s what I’m thinking. A long weekend in Manhattan at Christmas. Shopping, festive lights, fine restaurants.”