Black Point

by Sam Cade

“Burnham sets up five separate investment accounts with the $47 million. He placed $1.5 million in an account at a Black Point bank. He will probably dole out research funds from there. From what I can tell, the $47 mil is in conservative investments, which is smart. He probably hopes to pull in six to nine percent a year off those investments. Most people will use the return on investments as capital donation funds. Rule of thumb—don’t touch the principal.”

  “So, he might be looking to have something like around $3 million to donate yearly, right?”

  “Exactly. And Burnham’s already in business with the foundation. Let me digress here for a moment. I did my own research on this so-called Wild Bill Burnham. Seems that guy’s slipperier than a pig in horseshit. He seems like the type to try to stiff you on painting bills.”

  Broyle laughed. “Hit the nail on the head. He’s got like ten thousand billboards. The man’s an outrageous spectacle.”

  “Okay, back to the business part. Burnham’s doling out money. He sent $11,500 to a privately funded study on cognitive decline in college soccer players related to heading the ball. I mean, when you watch these kids taking these repeated shots with a soccer ball that somebody kicked the hell out of you gotta think there’s negative repercussions. That was in association with the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York.”

  “Then he’s got $6,000 going to the National Institute of Health who’s doing a study in conjunction with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.”

  “To study what?”

  “Traumatic photalgia. The phenomenon in which even moderate light can bring on pain for people with a brain injury. I had to look that up.”

  “Sounds somewhat legit, don’t you think?”

  Cecil nodded. “Yeah, I do. Now, here’s why I wanted to meet. A donation of $55,000 went to Positex Pharmaceuticals. Positex has an office in Los Angeles, but it’s a corporation formed and based out of Wyoming, which is a key state for anonymous corporations. The Secretary of State’s office has a registered agent only, a lawyer who does this for thousands of corporations. No other ownership listed. And Positex has a website, one of the simple Simon jobs. Stated the primary research objective was to create a next-gen seizure med for those with TBI. So, I called the Los Angeles number and got a pleasant secretary on the line. I asked to speak to their R and D office. She said she would pass the message on. I left her the message that I represented a wealthy family trust that was interested in donations related to research on seizure medications.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “I got a call the next day, same female voice, that told me they were not taking outside funding at this time.”

  Broyle rubbed his chin with his right hand, thought about that.

  “And, there’s another outfit. Bristol Research. Burnham sent them $95,000. Bristol also has a cheap limited info website. Office address is in Atlanta on Peachtree St., a half a mile from the Shepherd Center, a leading center on neurologic rehab, which they happen to reference in the website. Bristol is incorporated in Nevada. Just like Positex, it’s anonymous. Their research is on brain-mapping technologies using artificial intelligence. So, guess what I did?”

  “What?”

  “I had a light day and thought what the hell, so I grabbed a cheap flight to Atlanta. Thought I’d pay these tech wizards a visit. Took Uber from the airport straight to the office of Bristol Research.” Cecil smiled.

  “Okay, what?”

  “It was a fucking desk in an executive suites operation. A guy at the reception desk said he’d never personally seen anyone from Bristol.”

  “Well, hot-damn.” Broyle shook the ice in the cup, popped off the top, dumped some ice in his mouth. “Okay, so back to my question. Is Burnham stealing the money?”

  “Damn right he is. That sly bastard’s sucking it dry and not paying you one red cent.”

  Broyle didn’t mention what he was thinking.

  Dude Codger’s up to his eyeballs in this shit.

  112

  Washington, D.C.

  Tuesday, September 24, 2019

  JAKE AND ROWDY FINISHED THEIR THREE-MILE RUN by 6:40. It was a brisk fifty-four degrees with fall rushing in like a heavy tide. Jake showered, fixed breakfast, and was out the door in a tie, a button down, and gray wool slacks. The breeze tousled his dark hair as he zipped down M Street in his top-down vintage 280 SL wearing dark Wayfarers over a black Patagonia fleece.

  A guy that looked like somebody, even if you didn’t know who.

  HE ANSWERED HIS OFFICE PHONE after the first ring. It was 8:24.

  “Okay, Jake, you’re live, complete with the email CTO@4thdownanalytics.com to use as the initiating email. Your password is ‘grillmaster.’”

  “Thanks, Belinda. I’ll keep you updated.”

  For the rest of the day he launched his emails. His focus was on the responses, if any, from berkeleyblue2. But he hedged his bets. He and two assistants sent out 900 emails in total. Berkeleyblue followed by digits 1 through 100 to nine free email sites.

  Now, wait.

  JAKE ARRIVED AT HIS COTTAGE AT 5:45. He changed, ate a snack, fed Rowdy. “We’ll jog later, boy. Something big happening.”

  Leaving the estate, he plodded along in a slow three-quarter mile jog to M Street, walked through the white door to the left of LuluLemon and hustled up the stairs to Kinesis. It was 6:25 p.m., and the sidewalks were crowded with walkers, dogs, and strollers. Seeing the stylish women, he wished he’d have invested in athleisure wear.

  Ben Staggers was in the back punishing a speed bag at warp speed with sweat splashing off his face. He stopped as Jake walked up.

  Breathing hard, he said, “Sorry, man, nothing yet. I showed the photo to two guys here in D.C. but they didn’t know him. But these guys are in their early sixties, so before your boy’s time. But I did email the photo to another former SEAL down in Virginia Beach two hours ago. He’s in his late forties and was in Team 4, mostly South American missions.”

  “Sounds good. I appreciate the effort. If you can’t dig up his name I might have to go on post at Little Creek and Coronado. But like I said, I’m trying to backdoor this.”

  Both men went into a series of stretches for about seven minutes, chatting about nothing.

  “Think I’m good. Let’s do it.” Jake unzipped his pack and dumped out his gear. He pulled his rash guard shirt over his head and down over his chest, hooked on his shin and head protectors, slid a mouthguard in his mouth, and pulled on his MMA gloves.

  Staggers did the same with his gear. They started in easy, warming up, light jabs loosening the arms, slow sidekicks stretching out the legs. Both dancing with light, balanced movement, feet in constant motion, like they were on hot coals.

  Staggers phone rang. He held up a glove, garbled out, “Might be our guy.” Three hops and he grabbed his cell off a shelf and looked at the caller. He glanced at Jake, nodded.

  “Freddie, hold it, I’m sparring.” Staggers tossed his gloves and headgear to the floor, spit his mouthguard into his hand and went back to the phone. “Okay, I’m back. Anything on our guy?” He listened, looked to Jake and gave the thumbs up sign. Then he mimed writing.

  Jake went to the counter, leaned over it, spotted a pen and pad and ran them over to Staggers.

  Staggers sat, placed the pad on the floor and started writing.

  “And, so you know the guy personally?” He listened as Freddie spoke. “Okay, that’s cool, man. Look, here’s the deal, I want to get out and get some work, make a little extra money. Going stir crazy at home, you know. But I haven’t spoken to my wife about any of this, so it’s all preliminary.” He listened. “Yeah, I know you know the deal.” He listened. “That sounds great. I’ll be in Virginia Beach in a couple of weeks. I owe you a steak, buddy. You take care.”

  Staggers looked up at Jake. “Freddie says that guy’s name is Luke Hendrickson. He was in SEAL Team 6, a rock star. Freddy met him but doesn’t really know him. Hendrickson was a commander, one of the Naval
Academy guys who wasn’t a pussy.”

  Jake’s brain started sparking. Why does that name sound familiar?

  “Freddy says the guy has a good rep. Super smart. Confident, not a big guy. And he actually heard something about Hendrickson starting an outfit of contractors but didn’t have details.”

  Jake moved in a blur. He threw his gear in his backpack, headed for the door. “Sorry, Ben, gotta run. And, thanks.”

  He ran down the stairs like a fireman, burst out the door and broke into a run.

  It’s in one of those cases. Somewhere.

  ROWDY JUMPED OFF THE SOFA INTO A RED ALERT STANCE when Jake burst through the door of his cottage. He’d been watching Steve Irwin relocate a ten-foot crocodile in Australia on Jake’s big screen. The Mali tended toward anxiety without Animal Planet.

  “Easy, boy, the croc’s okay.” Jake powered up his laptop, flipped a treat to Rowdy, and Googled Luke Hendrickson.

  Fernandina Beach High School. Salutatorian. A few sports-related mentions in the local paper. All-Region in baseball. United States Naval Academy. Impressive. Four smiling faces in a happy photo in the Fernandina News Leader. Luke Hendrickson in a crisp white uniform on graduation day in Annapolis, Maryland, accompanied by his father Crede, his mother Wanda, and brother Deke.

  Not a mention of special forces. He checked Facebook? Nothing. No social media. Those guys live off the radar.

  He bounced out of the newspaper site and popped into the cloud site Theo Fuller created containing Burnham’s lawsuit cases. The bus crash file was stand-alone. He clicked the file open. It slapped him in the face.

  Codger versus Hendrickson Trucking. Home office, Fernandina Beach, Florida.

  Lightning shot through every nerve in Jake’s body.

  He Googled Hendrickson Trucking. The earliest articles from years back were about rapid growth, bright prospects, the goal of the founder, Crede Hendrickson, to pass the company on to his sons. The most recent articles, which were slightly over a year old, were about misfortune. The company’s bankruptcy. And worse.

  The most in-depth article was posted by the Jacksonville Business Journal. It detailed the lawsuit after the bus crash as well as Crede’s inability to refinance after the verdict, which forced the company into bankruptcy. The reporter churned out a poignant piece about Crede, a man without a college education, forming a family business that was capitalized with the financial backing of his father-in-law. The company was prosperous for over forty years, and then disappeared faster than smoke in a breeze.

  Jake’s muscles tensed after he read the final sentence.

  “Crede Hendrickson’s life ended in Macon, Georgia when he drove his pickup at high-speed into the very same I-75 bridge abutment that killed his mother in 1964.”

  Bus crash. Wild Bill Burnham. Lawsuit. Bankruptcy. Suicide. Luke Hendrickson.

  113

  Wednesday, September 25, 2019

  FBI Headquarters

  CHECK THE EMAILS. That was the first thing on Jake’s agenda. A slammed full inbox. He bounced page to page to page taking inventory. Best count, 846 bounced emails...no actual email address. He very carefully went through the pages checking the boxes for the bounced mail and deleted them all.

  He now had a single page with seventeen replies. By his reckoning he had thirty-seven emails that went to an actual address, but there had been no reply.

  His focus was on berkeleyblue 2.

  Gmail responded. A guy named Walton James in Asheville, North Carolina. “I’m in. Sounds exciting!! How do we proceed?” His resume had some splashy sounding techie-speak. Ruby on Rails. Wordpress. Full stack development. And this. Cryptocurrency Expert.

  No way! It can’t be this easy.

  The head shot showed a kid only a few years out of high school, twenty-one, maybe. Jake became skeptical. The education portion on his resume was thin. One year in Immersion Bootcamp. Theo Fuller’s LinkedIn resume looked like Alfred Einstein’s compared to Walton James. Jake also knew a gaunt resume didn’t mean squat related to digital technology. Some people are born with this knowledge embedded in their genes. Edward Snowden didn’t have an undergraduate degree. Gates dropped out of Harvard, no damn degree. Zuckerburg quit Harvard, no degree. Jobs, no degree. Michael Dell shucked Texas.

  He’d check in on Mr. Walton James.

  Berkeleyblue2@protonmail. Nothing. What’s protonmail? Jake Googled them. An encrypted email system with zero access architecture based in Geneva, Switzerland. Explanation: the company cannot see a user’s content. Developed by CERN and MIT engineers. Brains. Data centers located in a former military bunker under hundreds of meters of granite in the Swiss Alps. Content protected by Swiss privacy laws.

  The same email outfit the killers used to contact Wild Bill.

  Jake opened berkeleyblue2@yandex.com. Yandex was a Moscow based company. He found Mala Dumitru. Based in San Francisco. Four years in the Romanian Army with two tours in Afghanistan. Bachelor Applied Science, Computer Science, Academie de Studii, Bucharest. London School of Economics, Bachelor of Science, Banking and Finance. Full Stack web development. University of California, Berkeley.

  Mala reports, “I am qualified for virtually any coding scenario conceivable. I possess a mind capable of deep critical thinking that can be applied to any life or commercial application. I’ve seen and done things in my life that most can’t conceive. Don’t make the mistake of not speaking to me.”

  Jake’s eyes left the screen and looked blankly into space.

  I definitely WON’T make that mistake, Mala.

  His hand quickly went to his cell phone lying on his desk. He punched the phone icon on Randy Garrison’s number.

  “Mr. Montoya, how’s your wet Wednesday going?”

  “Exciting, that’s how. Damn exciting. You’re flying out of town tonight and you’ll be back Friday night?”

  “Something good?”

  “Yes. I need another set of eyes and ears on a couple of people I want to interview. This could be critical.”

  “I’ll make it work. The noise is getting very loud after Draper Sims got turned into a wiener roast.”

  Jake emailed a short note to Walton James. “Lots of interviews going on. Can you meet tomorrow in Asheville?”

  Next, Mala. “Excellent credentials. You bet I want to meet you! Need to meet quickly. How about San Francisco on Friday?”

  Both responded within thirty minutes. It was a go.

  THE RAIN STOPPED AN HOUR AGO. Jake grabbed his fleece and a recent issue of Garden and Gun magazine, marched out of the building at 12:55 onto the still-damp street and headed to Oyamel Cocina, two blocks away on 7th. The rain left a cooling breeze, but the squeamish sun was struggling to break through some fast-moving clouds.

  He was two tacos down with a third one left and half of his guacamole dip remaining. He was about to start reading his favorite section of the magazine, Good Dog, when his phone vibrated. A text from Tolleson.

  Where the hell are you?!!!

  Jake dialed him immediately. “Where’s the fire, Ross?”

  “In your office. Get back here!”

  “Got something?”

  “Hoooo, yeah.”

  “See you in fifteen, maybe twenty.” He wasn’t about to let the last taco go to waste. He started reading. Damn, what’s this? An article by Sonny Brewer, a writer from Black Point, Alabama discoursing about his dog, Bobby. That’s cool. He’d met Sonny some years back at the local indie bookstore. One paragraph in and Jake was hooked. Sonny Brewer can by-God write, and Bobby? Helluva good dog.

  Walking back to headquarters he thought about Bobby...and Sonny. Next trip to Black Point, Jake wanted to drive a Big Jake by their house and grill ‘em both a fat sirloin.

  He needed to meet Bobby.

  114

  JAKE WALKED THROUGH HIS OPEN OFFICE DOOR and found Tolleson pacing like a man about to be executed.

  “Ross, what’s up? Can’t be that bad, can it?”

  Tolleson turned towards Jake,
cocked his head, opened his palms out by his side like, huh, HUH? “Oh, no, not bad at all.”

  Jake sat at his desk. Ross pulled a chair up close, sat on the edge.

  “First of all, not all that many hotels and accommodations out near Cambridge. We got some responses from some places without having to get a subpoena. They just shot the guest list to us in an email.”

  Jake sat up, felt something good coming.

  “We got a hit. Eastern Shore of Maryland and Charleston.”

  Jake slapped the desk, stood up. “Hell, yeah.”

  “The man’s name is John Thomas Turner, address Germantown, Maryland.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Jake snapped his fingers. “Same town the wildlife officer gave for the guy he saw in the van. Hell yeah!” On Jake’s desk was the sketch artist drawing from the refuge ranger. He picked it up and flashed it at Ross. “This guy. Keep going.”

  “Turner was at a hotel in Easton, Maryland for two days prior to Sims’ murder. He also had a room at the Doubletree in Charleston booked for two weeks prior to Green’s murder. And, get this. He checked out four days early... the very morning of the day of the Green murders.

  Jake did a double fist pump. “Hell, yeah! Ross, get a sketch artist into the Doubletree. Speak to anyone who saw him.” Jake clucked his cheek. “But, man, that’s five months ago, and that place is filling and emptying daily. So, we might not get much. Or, maybe nobody’s story matches. Let’s see what comes out on the sketch and see how it compares with the pictures of Lucas Knight. We’ll see the sketch first then show the picture of Knight.”

  “Already on it. I spoke to the hotel general manager two hours ago. Get this. Surprisingly, he has some memory of him.”

  “You’re shittin’ me! Any reason why?”

  “Yes. First, Turner went by Dr. Turner, but was not a medical doctor. He said he was an agricultural plant guy, a PhD meeting at the medical school there for drug research. What made the manager remember was that Turner didn’t want the house staff cleaning his room if he wasn’t there. Turner said something about valuable company data.”