by Sam Cade
Jake picked up his phone, scrolled contacts, punched dial. A female answered after three rings.
“It’s Montoya. It’s time.”
120
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
BEN STAGGERS WALKED THROUGH A BLOCK AND A HALF of light rain to reach the Hoover building. By 8:57 he was hanging up his wet parka in Jake’s office. A mug of coffee and a Morning Glory Muffin sat on the outer edge of Jake’s desk.
“Bought both from Dog Tag Bakery in your honor, Ben. Pull up a chair.”
Jake introduced Ben to Belinda Brant who’d been in the office batting around the pluses and minuses of a plan.
“Here’s the deal, Ben,” said Jake. “I’ve been thinking hard since our workout last night about how to draw Lucas Knight, you know, Hendrickson, back into Black Point. I’m about to try to reach him by phone. I need your permission to throw out your name as a possible hire. In effect, bring reality to the ruse you told Freddie about your interest in contractor work with Knight Force.”
“Okay.”
“Could you go to Black Point for an interview if he asks? Or if he outright says he wants to hire you?”
“Hell, yeah, Jake. Otherwise, I’m gonna do what? Grab a three-hour lunch at Subway and try to put together a game of pickleball?”
“But I’d prefer you not to go to Alabama, not in the next few days anyway. The last thing I’d ever want to happen is you get hurt...or worse. Remember, this is not you, a good citizen, freelancing out to the Bureau. This is you interviewing for an actual contractor position in the private sector.”
“I’m in, guys. Call him.”
“Okay. Gotta take a leak first. Collect my thoughts.” While he was splashing pee into a urinal his mind rapidly went through the phone narrative he devised last night.
Back at his desk, Jake said, “Okay, quiet.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s 6:20 in California, if that’s where he is.”
Jake exhaled and punched the number Wild Bill gave him into his office phone touchpad. He was recording the call but did not alert Lucas to that fact.
“Knight Force. This is Lucas Knight.” Knight’s voice was clear, awake, but sounded breathy.
“Mr. Knight, I’m Special Agent Jake Montoya with the FBI, calling from Washington.”
“Yes, sir, Agent Montoya. Whoa, let me slow down.” Jake heard Lucas huffing. “I’m running interval training. You got me at the end of a four-hundred-yard sprint... Bill Burnham mentioned your name to me. I believe he said he’s known you since kindergarten.”
“That’s right. Played ball together in high school. We’re close. I’m worried about him. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Something come up I didn’t hear about?”
“I’m not sure. You know he paid out a significant sum in May. Then his Rolls blew up in June.”
“Yeah, yeah. That was months ago. I’ve got four top-notch men rotating in with him. We’re watching him closely.”
“Well, I’m more concerned after the last two demands came in. Bill donated $30 million in real estate to a trust for scholarships for college students. That was last week.”
Lucky was walking around slowly in a cool down phase on the Mission Beach boardwalk. His eyes snapped open at that number. He was in the dark about that.
“Well, good for him. Bill’s a generous fellow.”
“It wasn’t his idea, Mr. Knight.”
“Oh? But, please call me Lucas.”
“Sure, thanks, Lucas. I met Johnson and Powell when I was in Black Point. Sharp guys, extremely capable. But Bill has asked me if I know of anybody else to add to the detail. I do, but I don’t want to step on your toes. I’d like a man I know to email his resume to you. He’s a guy I train with in martial arts, retired from Delta Force. I think he’d be a great addition if you’re hiring. And, he’s available today.”
“Delta Force? Yes, definitely. Get his CV to me and I’ll contact him right away. My company’s growing faster than I can staff it.”
“Well, Bill’s told me he’s very pleased with your team so far. But, let me get to my most immediate point. We’re about 90 percent sure of one or two factions behind this. And, frankly, I’m worried. They’ve definitely got a boner on for Bill Burnham.”
“Okay. Who are your suspects?” Jake listened to detect concern in Lucky’s voice, but couldn’t find any. He sounded as casual as ordering a beer at a Braves game.
“The main suspects are a crew of Russians involved in ransomware. Most of that is done out of Eastern Europe with payment in Bitcoin. We’re also getting some hits on a Chinese cyber gang based out of Macao with a strong faction in Los Angeles. Right now, the Russians are our focus. Our New York organized crime division fielded a call yesterday from an informant. This particular individual is also being looked at for a string of bank robberies in metro Boston. They were old fashioned hum drum I’ve-got-a-gun-give-me-the-money robberies. Not big money, only two-three thousand, but a teller was killed recently. The informant, his name’s Utkin, says he has information on these four dead lawyers. He knows who planted the car bomb. That’s what he says, anyway.”
“Well, that sounds like good news. An inside man talking to you.”
“It’s great news. But the bad news is Utkin heard some rumbling about something going down in New Orleans. And that’s two hours from Burnham. We think Utkin is in New York and we’re looking for him under every rock.”
“I’m glad you called me about that. I’ve got to let my guys know we’re operating under an imminent threat.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m calling, Lucas. I want to share the info we have on these guys with your team. I’ve got photos on active Russian street soldiers. What I’d like is for you to be in Black Point to review this with them and me. Is that possible?”
“I’ve got teams on five other lawyers. I definitely need to be in the loop on this. I can be there tomorrow. That work?”
Ben and Belinda were watching Jake’s face, listening to every word. They smiled when he smiled.
“Yes, Lucas, tomorrow sounds perfect.”
“And, hey, watch for an email coming in on Ben Staggers. He’s a good man if you need him. I’ll text you my cell number when I hang up, you shoot me an email address. And, thanks for your help on this.” Jake hung up.
“Academy Award, Jake.” said Ben.
LUCKY CHANGED OUT OF HIS WORKOUT GEAR into long track pants and a fleece over a tee after a shower and shave. A Channel Islands Surfboards cap went on his head and a pair of dark Costas over his eyes. He drove his Jeepster back down to the boardwalk for breakfast at Woody’s.
It was ten minutes after seven, sixty-one degrees, sunny. Early birds walking the beach.
He sat at the counter facing the ocean, sun at his back, a couple of people on either side of him. He spooned some oatmeal and sweet fruit into his mouth. Thinking.
Russians? He raked everything that had happened in the last ten months into a small pile in his brain. He could picture it, everything. Theoretically, nothing farfetched about the Russians. Montoya even mentioned the Chinese. Lucky Googled the news daily for any breaking information about the murders. He’d read about the Asian suspicions.
Lucky smiled. The fuckin’ Russians.
He gazed out over the pacific, thinking about Montoya. Burnham said he was a badass. Lucky Googled him after his first meeting with Wild Bill. Exceptional athlete. Pro baller. Big guy. Killed three men in Virginia Beach in the last seven months. Also saw two other incidents with Montoya. Took four men down at a white supremacist compound in Idaho with a full-auto M4. Also a Chechen man in Florida who was being questioned about the Boston Marathon bombing. He came at Jake with a knife. The knife ended up going into the man’s heart. Repeatedly. Rumblings about excessive use of force.
Lucky glanced at the time on his phone. Thirty-five minutes past nine in Black Point, Alabama. He scrolled his contacts. Found it. “Ed Wall Grass Airstrip.” Tapped dial.
“Ed, this is Lucas Knight. I met you a few weeks ago in Black Point when I had that great biscuit at your mother’s restaurant.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. You have the Cessna Caravan, right?”
“That’s right. Good memory. Listen, I wonder if the offer still stands to fly into your grass strip. I’m heading to Wyoming to fly fish in ten days with some buddies and I’ll be flying in on dirt. I’m arriving in Alabama the next day or so and would like to practice some touch and go’s on natural terrain if possible.”
“Ahhh, sure. Use it all you want. But, listen, I’m out of town for a week. I’m in Port Canaveral with the wife right now. We’re taking an anniversary cruise down to Belize and Nicaragua.”
“Congratulations, Ed. And, thanks.”
Out of town. Perfect.
121
Black Point, Alabama
Thursday, October 3, 2019
CHIEF TATUM ARRIVED IN HIS OFFICE AT 7:00 A.M., his weekday ritual. His cell phone rang five minutes later. “Good morning, Jake.” Jake filled him in on the generalities of the play in motion.
“Pike, you probably know the guys working at the airport, right? Taking fees for the planes coming in and fuel and whatever else they do.”
“Of course. Why?”
“We’re expecting Lucas Knight to fly in today. I need to know when he arrives. Very quiet-like. Just a call that he’s in town. Could you speak to them and give ‘em my number?”
“You bet. I’ve gotta run by Lyrene’s, grab breakfast, and I’ll drive out there myself and give them a heads-up.”
EVERYBODY ARRIVED EARLY. Some by thirty minutes. It was now fifteen minutes until 8:00 a.m. A degree of controlled tension sifted through the small conference room in the branded four-story hotel overlooking I-10 in Daphne, Alabama. Coffee, Danish, and juice were available on a side table. With coffee cups in hand, informal introductions were being made.
Ten miles south of the meeting room, Theo Fuller had just booted up his computer at the coffee shop. He’d calculated he had ten more business days to transfer the rest of the Bitcoin into Monero cryptocurrency. And be done with Lucky.
Eight FBI SWAT Team members from Birmingham joined four men from the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, an elite tactical squad. They were called in to Black Point to oversee the possible apprehension of one of America’s most highly trained killers.
The dress was casual. Slacks and collared button-front shirts. No ties. Benton wore a long-sleeve tee over Adidas track pants. Marcia Allen looked like a high school basketball coach, muscular legs shooting down from running shorts. Belinda Brant wore the stylish Black Point mommy wear a young woman fresh from morning yoga would be seen in. Sleek black Lululemon three-quarter leggings covered her trim legs. Running shoes. A fitted lightweight blue hoodie.
Brant, Allen, and Benton would all be in Coffee Loft at some point today.
Marcia was showing eight-by-ten photos of Theo Fuller to Belinda. “It’s a small place, you can’t miss him. Always with his back to the wall wherever he sits. Slim. Usually in black. Nice hair, curly and dark. Works on a Dell. I’ll be down around eleven.”
Belinda left the hotel in a Chevy rental before the official presentation began and headed to the coffee shop in Black Point. An ultrathin MacBook Air rested on the seat next to her in a chic laptop case. She also brought a prop, a book. Light On Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar.
After some mingling, Jake went to the front of the room.
“Everybody, please have a seat, let’s get started. I’m Jake Montoya out of the Washington office, coordinating this operation.”
Jake introduced Garrison, Grissom, Allen, and Benton. He mentioned that Brant came down from Washington, one of the leading agents in Washington’s Cyber Division.
“Our goal is to take down two suspects here. One is dangerous with a computer. The other is dangerous in every other way conceivable to man.”
“I’ll start with the least dangerous first.” Jake first read through Theo Fuller’s LinkedIn CV. He described the relationship to Bill Burnham and the odd nature of a man of his talents working for fourteen bucks an hour. “People, from everything we know, he hates his stepfather, Bill Burnham. And, he’s planted himself right under Bill’s nose.”
Jake ran through slide photos of Bill’s office, Bill’s mansion, both from the highway and up close on the front and bayside of the home, the Coffee Loft, and of Theo Fuller himself.
“As you have likely heard we believe there is significant money, millions I’m talking about, leaving the country because of extortion demands. Fuller’s resume revealed he has worked on Wall Street as well as for a Russian oligarch’s hedge fund in London. We believe Theo Fuller is controlling global movements of millions of dollars from his laptop in a podunk coffee shop in a sleepy Alabama town. I know, it sounds absolutely crazy.”
Jake saw smiles of disbelief. “I know. But here’s the plan. Tomorrow morning we’re taking him down at the coffee shop while he’s working on his laptop. There’s a third suspect also, an American born Russian named Mikhail Kuznetsov, a former college roommate of Theo Fuller’s at MIT. The Bureau has been looking for this guy for three years related to ransomware attacks. He’s deep underground. At this time we’re focused on the two men in Black Point.”
Jake popped a photo up on Power Point.
“Now, let’s look at someone you don’t want to turn your back on. His name is Lucas Hendrickson. He went by Luke up until high school. And somewhere in that time frame people started calling him Lucky. That’s what he went by in SEAL Team 6. Everybody knows 6 and their reputation. Top dogs. Now listen to me. This guy’s not strolling around on luck. He is a well-seasoned, highly-skillful killer. He’s here under the name Lucas Knight. Knight was his mother’s maiden name and his middle name. He’s created a security outfit called Knight Force which we believe he’s running as a legitimate outfit. Let’s look at what we believe is the handiwork of Lucky Hendrickson.”
Jake ran through a twenty-photo Power Point presentation of the murder scenes of the four lawyers. The room was dead silent. He showed them a picture of Burnham’s white Rolls. Then the street scene after the blast.
“Serious business, that guy.” One of the HRT guys.
“Very serious.” Jake laid out the deep background and Lucky’s motivation. Hendrickson Trucking. The bus crash. The lawsuit. The company bankruptcy. The suicide.
“And, yet, somehow, Lucky Hendrickson ends up guarding the life of the man who was responsible for his father’s death. Anybody think this is a coincidence?”
Heads shook among the SWAT team.
Jake’s phone rang. Tolleson, in Washington. Jake raised a finger to the crowd. “One moment, please.”
“What’s up? I’m in a meeting.”
“Pause the meeting. We need to talk.”
“Folks,” Jake spoke to the crowd, “Take fifteen, please.” People stood, stretched, started milling out for the restroom or more coffee or fresh air. Jake grabbed a legal pad, a pen and took a seat at the table.
“Okay, Ross. Whatcha got?”
“So, you know we combed through the names we got from One Strike Tactics, right?”
“Yeah. Regarding the tomahawk.”
“Right. And, the guy running that outfit is a good dude, a former Green Beret named Sexton, who wanted to help, but said we’d have to get a court order for the names. He has a lot of special ops customers that don’t ever want to be identified. Guys that follow the rules, keep their mouths shut, move in the shadows and all that sneaky shit.”
“Right.” Jake felt a tinge of optimism.
“Okay. We got the hits on names, right. Jerry Trask. John Thomas Turner. And Lucas Hendrickson, after you showed his photo to Staggers.”
“No way! Somebody’s on the list?”
“Hold on, follow me now. But, no. Those names are not specifically on the list.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Shut up and li
sten, Jake. You’re hearing research from the mind of a genius.”
Jake snorted a quick laugh, stopped talking.
“Eight hundred and twenty-three One Strike Battle Hawks have been sold. They’re handmade and they ain’t cheap. Seven hundred seventy-nine bucks a copy. Nothing on those names, unfortunately. So, I grabbed four interns in the building. Sat them in cubicles with a phone, a list of purchasers, and the purchaser’s phone numbers One Strike provided through subpoena.”
Jake’s foot began to tap, excitement creeping in.
“I told them to call every name on the list. If they weren’t in, we left a message and called back. The interns identified themselves as running a satisfaction survey for One Strike, the company. How do they like their tomahawk? Did they buy it as a gift? If so, for who. And so on.”
Jake’s eardrums were ready to pop. Give me something, Ross!
“So, we get this fellow in Perry, Georgia, a small town. He’s a high school football coach there. Name’s Marvin Arrington. Said he bought one as a present for one of his favorite players ever. Now, here’s the beauty part. It wasn’t a kid from Georgia. It was a kid he coached in Fernandina Beach, Florida years ago when he was an assistant. Coach said the kid was a terrific ballplayer, ultra-hard worker, a natural leader, and developed into one of the finest men he ever knew. Drum roll, please. For one million dollars, do you know this football player’s name?”
“Lucky Hendrickson.”
“Bingo. Have a nice morning, Jake.” Ross hung up.
Jake reconvened the meeting. “Great news, folks. I just received news that Lucky Hendrickson owned a battle tomahawk just like the one used in the Green murders in Charleston. The one I showed you in the slide. Okay, so here’s where we are. Take your vehicles and familiarize yourself with Black Point. I have maps for you marking Burnham’s office, his home, and the Coffee Loft. The weather’s beautiful. It should be an easy day. Grab a lazy lunch but don’t bunch up. Everyone’s phone numbers are also written on the map. The basic plan is this. We’ll take down Fuller on his computer in the morning. Then we’ll deal with Lucky Hendrickson. We believe he’ll stay at the Hampton Inn in downtown Black Point. It’s also on the map. Photos of Hendrickson and Fuller are with the maps, too. If you spot either today, keep cruising. Don’t stare. No alarms.”