by Josie Brown
Instead, he murmured, “Your insights have been invaluable, Deputy. Thanks for your time.”
“You say you’re a friend of poor dearly departed Hottie?” If Jolene had any interest in the handsome stranger standing in front of her—and hell yeah, she did—it just increased fourfold.
Jack’s mouth turned up at the edges. “Is that what you called him, ‘Hottie’?”
“Not to his face, per se. It wasn’t as if we were formerly introduced or anything. But something tells me I could have called him anything and he wouldn’t have minded.” Jolene batted her lashes. “I’m just here to serve, if you catch my drift.”
To make sure he did, Jolene leaned over the counter as far as she could, just in case for some silly reason he hadn’t noticed her breasts—difficult to imagine, considering they were practically falling out of her too tight and too-low-cut uniform.
Still, New Hottie’s eyes never left hers—something she found confusing at first, to say the least. Soon, though, she felt it, like a Vulcan mind meld or something. She’d never considered Mr. Spock to be the sexiest of the Star Trek characters. She was more of a Captain Kirk girl, herself. To her mind, Dr. Bones came in a close second, with Scotty bringing up the rear, if only because she couldn’t see herself with a man who yelled, “I’m giving it all I’ve got” all the time.
With Jolene, you didn’t promise.
You delivered.
No doubt, New Hottie never let a girl down.
She’d be willing to find out first-hand.
“So, tell me, Miss Caruthers—that is Jolene.” He leaned in, too, and smiled. “Did Hottie—I mean, Mr. Stone mention where he was headed?”
She pursed her lips. At least, she thought she was pursing them. She had a Collagen injection the day before, so for all she knew she might have been gulping like a guppy. She just hoped that her mouth looked inviting. Hell, it better. Her lips were so inflated that it took half her lip-gloss to look decent—a new shade called Inner Labia, whatever that meant. All she knew was that it was pink, shiny, and tasted like strawberries. If she played her cards right, he’d be leaning in for a taste of it, too. “He didn’t exactly say, no. I thought he was headed back to LA because he was dressed so nice and all. But they said the crash happened east of here, beyond Steeg.” If she could rustle up a few crocodile tears, she wondered if he’d try to comfort her. If he cuddled her to his chest, it would be worth smearing her supposedly waterproof eyeliner.
“So, in other words, the only thing he did was pay for a tank of gas?” New Hottie frowned.
Jolene had too much pride to let a man walk away disappointed, inside or outside of a restroom stall. “No, I wouldn’t say that! I mean…he also bought two pieces of pie and two coffees.”
Hearing that, New Hottie seemed interested again. “So, you sat down to join him.”
“No, not me, silly! Some short, bald dude.”
Jack put his hand over hers. “Anything else you can remember about him?”
That was all the encouragement she needed to at least pretend to remember something. She tried to furrow her brow, but recent Botox injections made that an impossible feat. She sighed, frustrated. “Your pal had just paid for his gas when Baldy drove up—not in any sports car or nothing, just some car your granny would drive, only newer.”
Jack nodded encouragingly. “What else, Jolene. Please think hard, because it’s important.”
“Oh…well, he was in his fifties. He certainly wasn’t dressed as nice as Hottie. By that I mean, no suit or nothing. Sports jacket and khakis, like any other middle-aged man. And he had glasses, too. Not sunglasses, but round ones, like Harry Potter. I remember because he was dripping with sweat, and the lenses fogged over when he walked in here.”
The way Jack jotted down what she said in his little pad made her feel important, for once in her life. There was something else about the man that was unique. What was it again? Oh yeah—
“And he was wearing this pinky ring.”
Jack quit writing and looked up at her. “Really? Can you describe it?”
“Sure! It was platinum, but it had a big black flat area, where a stone would go. I guess the guy couldn’t afford one. Instead, it had some writing on it…a number.”
He reached out for her hand. “What number?”
“It was thirteen.”
Bingo, Jack thought.
Jolene’s Baldy has to be the same man who left Leonid’s party with Tatyana and Ross. Well, this certainly verifies Ryan’s suspicions that the Quorum carried out the hit on Carl.
“Jolene, you didn’t happen to overhear any of their conversation, did you?” He patted her hand encouragingly.
“Not exactly. But I do know that Hottie—I mean, Carl—wasn’t too happy with whatever Baldy had to say because Carl didn’t say much in return, and he frowned the whole time.”
Maybe while Pinky Ring was distracting Carl, someone was rigging Carl’s car with explosives, Jack thought. “Did they park side by side?”
“No. Carl, the bad boy, left his car at the pump. See that big ol’ ‘No Parking’ sign? Baldy pulled in over there. Of course, you can’t expect foreigners to know how to read English, I suppose.”
“How did you know he was a foreigner?”
“He spoke with an accent.”
“Was it a German one?’
She shrugged. “Could have been. I’m only an expert on the romance languages. Comprende, amigo?”
By the way she entwined her fingers in his, Jack could tell she was getting bored from talking about something other than herself. Too bad for her. Aside from the fact that she wasn’t his type, he needed to get back to Los Angeles as soon as possible and fill Ryan in on these developments.
He locked eyes with her once more as he handed her a card that identified him as Jack Craig, Vice President of Prime 1 Bank. “Here’s my private number. If you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”
The look in his eye—of true appreciation, as if what she told him held the key to secrets of the universe—gave her something she never had before:
An overwhelming degree of self-respect.
Hell, this is better than sex, she thought.
Still on a high from it, right then and there, she made a brash decision. She reached under the counter where she had hidden Carl Stone’s cell phone behind a box of plastic knives and handed it to Jack.
“This belonged to your friend. He left it here that night. He turned it off when we…” Suddenly shy, she hesitated. “I mean, when some truckers came in, bitching because he’d left his car at one of the pumps. I know someone was trying real hard to reach him.”
To thank her, he shook her hand firmly.
Then he kissed her on the forehead.
By the time he’d driven off, Jolene had already made the decision to quit the truck stop. There had to be something better in life than being the Trucker’s Dream along Highway 62.
Maybe she’d follow her dream—live in Las Vegas.
Last time she was there, they were looking for bar maids in her favorite hotel, New York New York. Slinging drinks there had to earn her better tips than delivering a side of fries and a burger in this dump.
Not to mention that the town was filled with hotties.
Jolene didn’t need a dead man’s cell phone. She needed a live guy’s love.
She didn’t wait for her shift to end. She rolled out the door without once looking back.
Chapter 7
Collection
A thorough investigation requires the collection of intelligence from numerous sources.
If these sources involve technical data, it falls into one of these categories: signals intelligence (SIGNINT); measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT); open-source intelligence (OSINT), and imagery intelligence (IMINT).
If the intelligence gathered comes from an individual based on what they saw, overheard, actually experienced, actively engaged in or initiated, or were witnessed doing, it’s known as hum
an intelligence (HUMINT).
Whereas technical intel is quantitative, HUMINT is subject to perception, memory, and supposition. That said, when it comes to HUMINT, remember this:
Truth is in the eye of the collector!
“Okay, let’s review what we’ve got so far, from the beginning,” Ryan said to Jack and Arnie, the tech op assigned to the investigation.
The three men were sprawled out around one of the conference tables in Acme headquarters. Outside, the sky was a dry bright blue. It was late afternoon, and already cars were backed up on the Ventura Freeway, the roadway just beyond the greenbelt outside the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Let’s look at the big picture. A man leaves his wife at a Los Angeles area hospital as she goes into labor on the excuse that he forgot her maternity bag, but never shows back up,” Ryan continued. “Several hours later, it’s confirmed that his car blew up near the Arizona border.”
“If the trucker following behind him hadn’t memorized the license plate when Carl passed him, would we have even known it was his car, or what direction he was headed?” Jack wondered out loud.
“Yeah, sure,” Arnie assured him. “I could have traced him via his car’s GPS record.”
Jack shook his head. “Carl was too smart for that. He would have dismantled the GPS the moment he realized he was being followed, or tracked.”
Ryan nodded. “That’s where this all started, remember? Carl found the GPS tracker, which had been planted on his car. The fact that he put it in Donna’s maternity bag was one way to buy time. The Quorum would assume he’d spent the night traipsing the floor, like any other anxious, expectant father. It would also tip us off to the realization that he was on the run.”
“There’s another way I could have traced him, but it would have taken a heck of a lot of time to do it.” Arnie hesitated. “I could have pulled up the hospital’s security web cam feeds from the time he left the hospital to retrieve the bag, then followed him via the street and highway feeds to the new house they’d just moved into, back to the hospital, and beyond.”
“Which means, the Quorum could have also done that,” Jack pointed out.
“Which brings us to the Hot Wheels Truck Stop,” Jack added. “Arnie, what did you pull from the café’s video cams?”
“It has two of them,” Arnie explained. “One, which is fixed in place, is on the canopy over the pumps. The other scans the truck parking lot. Carl drove up in the evening, so there’s a lot of shadow, and their equipment has a lousy digital feed to begin with, but you can still make him out at the pump. From the looks of things, at first he reached for his credit card, but then he decided to pay cash for his gasoline purchase.”
Ryan nodded. “That makes sense. If he felt someone was following him, that would make it harder to trace his whereabouts.”
“The other man she mentioned parked off to one side. I was able to isolate one frame for a photo, but like I said, the camera is crap, and even blown up, the shot is fuzzy.” Arnie pointed to a picture on the table.
Jack picked it up for a closer look. “It’s not a great shot, but that’s Pinky Ring alright.”
“It was a lucky break that the waitress gave Carl’s cell phone to Jack,” Arnie continued. “But unfortunately, by the time we realized he was missing, the battery was dead. I couldn’t have traced his GPS coordinates in any event, since his cell is tied to Acme’s GPS jammer and our secure satellite. It’s why the Quorum put a tracker on his car in the first place.”
“At least Acme now knows the answer as to why his cell phone’s last known GPS coordinates don’t coincide with the location of the bombsite,” Jack added. “What else can Carl’s phone tell us, Arnie?”
“Not much. There are three sets of fingerprints on it,” Arnie admitted. “They belong to Carl, his wife Donna, and the waitress, Jolene.”
“Have you been able to trace any of the calls that were made to it before the battery died?” Ryan asked.
“You mean, other than ones from his wife?” Arnie shook his head. “Like most terrorist organizations—and for that matter, black-ops groups like Acme—the cell phones of Quorum operatives have some sort of GPS jammer.”
“How about his cell’s contact directory?” Ryan asked.
“Empty,” Arnie declared.
“Was there a reason for his wife to field his calls, or scan his directory?” Jack asked. He jotted down this thought, with a question mark.
“If he left it on the nightstand by the bed, there’s always a chance she picked it up to move it, or to hand it to him,” Ryan reasoned. He paused then added, “In any event, I don’t want you questioning her.”
Jack looked up sharply. “Why not? In the months leading up to Carl going on the run, she may have noticed some odd behavioral pattern that would be of use to the investigation.”
Ryan shook his head firmly. “Donna knew nothing of his life as an assassin. And besides the fact that she’s shaken to the core over his death, the classified aspect of this investigation means we have to keep her in the dark about our findings.”
“Wow, talk about clueless,” Jack murmured.
Ryan shrugged. “Not necessarily. She didn’t come out and say so, but when I came clean with Carl’s real position at Acme, I could tell she knew something was up, if not exactly what. Carl was certainly adept at keeping her in the dark. It may also have been why he wanted to move his family to a gated community—Hilldale, in Orange County.”
Arnie typed something into his iPad. Up came a live 3D map. He let loose with a low whistle. “Talk about McMansionLand! Hilldale has the typical bells and whistles you find in these über-environs—great schools, excellent shopping, top notch restaurants for the parental units, tricked out parks for the kiddies, not to mention around-the-clock security. The whole place is walled up, like a fortress.” He swiped the screen a few times until he found what he was looking for. “Ah, here we go—the architect’s floor plan of the Stone’s casa grande.” He zoomed in, then let loose with a low whistle. “Wow! Carl put in a customized security system, and a state-of-the-art panic room, too. Looks like he was preparing for Armageddon.”
“You’re starting to sound like an infomercial,” Jack muttered. He turned to Ryan. “Did Mrs. Stone give you any idea where he may have hidden the intel in his possession?”
Ryan shook his head. “We were hoping he put it in the bag he dropped off at the hospital for her, but it wasn’t there.”
“Heck, I even pulled apart the baby’s teddy bear, to make sure he hadn’t slipped it into the stuffing,” Arnie added.
“Donna noticed your handiwork and she wasn’t too happy about it.” Ryan frowned. “When she got home from the hospital, she realized that someone had gone through their personal possessions as well. I didn’t admit it to her, but I’d sent Abu over there. He came up empty-handed. Ironically, he feels someone beat him to the punch.”
“Maybe the Quorum found the intel after all,” Jack said. Frustrated, he pounded his fist on the table.
“We’ll know for sure if Carl’s family is left alone from here on out,” Ryan reasoned. “However, some things were missing: according to Donna, every picture of Carl was gone.”
“He could have done that himself,” Arnie declared. “Especially if his game plan was to go off the grid.”
“Maybe he took the intel with him as a bargaining chip.” Jack hated to throw that supposition out there, but considering he was a marked man with a wife and kids, he could see why Carl would do so.
Ryan turned toward Jack, “If so, in all likelihood the intel was blown to smithereens along with him.”
“She also mentioned there was nothing out of the ordinary in his behavior before the night he left. I spoke as candidly as I could with her in order to assess what she knew about his undercover assignment with the Quorum. Needless to say, she knew nothing about his true position with us.”
“I’ll bet it was a shock,” Jack muttered. He’d witnessed Carl’s charm when in t
he presence of a pretty woman. Then he remembered Jolene. Even when he wasn’t present, Carl left a lasting impression.
Ryan threw up his hands in frustration. “We’re coming up dry.”
“In that case, let me interview the Widow Stone.” Jack leaned in to make his point.
“Are you kidding?” Ryan exclaimed. “No way. Her husband just died, she just found out her husband lied to her, she just had a baby, and she’s now facing the reality of raising three kids by herself. She’s stunned, upset, and depressed. The way she feels about Acme right now, she’ll throw you out on your ass—especially if you give her the impression you think she was naïve about Carl.”
“Let me guess,” Jack said, “She’s a dumb blonde.” Carl’s type, from what he’d seen.
“In fact, she’s a brunette. And sharp as a tack. But hell, if the Quorum comes calling, she and her kids are sitting ducks—” Ryan’s tapping fingers suddenly stopped. “I’ve got an idea. The community is fairly new. Abu noticed that there were still a lot of empty houses on the block. In fact, the one directly across the street had a for rent sign in the yard. I’ll lease it immediately. That should make surveillance much easier on you.”
Arnie gave Ryan a thumbs up. “Great! Anything to get me off my mom’s couch!” He turned to Jack. “We can be roomies.”
Jack winced. “Wow. Great.” He turned to Ryan. “I presume you’ll want us to do a more thorough sweep of the Stone residence, when it’s convenient. With three kids, I suppose she has cause to leave the house, if only to go grocery shopping and take the older ones to and from school.”
“With three children, I’m sure she does a hell of a lot more than just that,” Ryan muttered. “Yeah, okay. Just find what Carl left behind—and Jack, do it fast. When you do, we’ll leak it so that the Quorum has no reason to hang around.” Ryan shifted uneasily in his seat. “And don’t get caught! The last thing she needs is to think that Acme is spying on her. If so, all the trust I’m trying to build with her will go right out the window.”