Fatal Exchange

by Russell Blake

  No point in dwelling on the past—he had a different serial on his hands here, so a trip down memory lane wasn’t going to pay dividends. It was nice of the guy at the FBI to remember, though; Ron would have to send him a note or call and thank him. You could never have too many friends with the Feds—their databases were comprehensive, and having access to their info in a pinch was a godsend, especially when you needed profiling capability.

  * * *

  Gordon’s line buzzed. It was the minister, checking in to see if he'd heard anything ominous. Another courtesy call, apparently. That gave him pause. He knew all this courtesy was bad news.

  “Our men are finishing up as we speak, and should be ready for your help in the next day or so.”

  “What do you want me to do, precisely? I thought I was done when I opened the box for you,” Gordon said.

  “We will need you to pull out the money from the watch dealer’s box once we have the key and the box number. It is a two-minute job. You go in to remove something from your box, open his instead, pull the cash out, and you’re on your way. It is nothing.” The minister dismissed it as a small thing, really. Gordon considered it. He supposed it wasn’t a big deal.

  “You can rely on my assistance. How will I get the key?”

  “I’ll contact you shortly. We won’t ask until we have the key secure. An intermediary will drop it off at a place of your choosing. It will be no effort, I assure you.” That ended the call.

  Gordon thought about his participation to date. He wanted to make sure the Asians were accomplishing everything as effectively as the minister would have him believe. He kept hearing about how it was all going smoothly and was no problem, but the matter hadn’t been resolved yet. He might as well touch base with his contact at Treasury again and confirm nothing had shown up on the radar there.

  He called his guy.

  “Hey, it’s Gordon. Anything else surface?”

  “Not really. There’s been some high-level meetings about something over the last day or so, but I’m not privy to those. Probably getting ready to make another change somewhere on the tens.”

  “Well, keep in touch if anything suspicious happens.”

  “Pretty dull over here, Gordon. I never heard another peep about the New York stuff, so that must have turned into a big fat nothing. Not too surprising, especially when you consider the source.”

  “No problem then. Talk to you soon.”

  * * *

  Duff and Tess rode their bikes to her bank and pulled out fifteen grand, half her life savings. The teller looked at her strangely, but it was her money and she could do what she wanted with it. She hadn’t shared with anyone that she had at least a couple of million coming her way from the inheritance.

  They’d agreed to pay Rufi half the money up front and the other half once the job was done. She had no moral quandary over paying the local gang to handle her problem rather than waiting for the NYPD. If this was really a foreign hit team, they probably wouldn’t get the chair once they were caught; they would likely be traded back in exchange for some concession. That wasn’t an eye for an eye.

  They rode up to Rufi’s and the same sentry waved them up. Rufi was in his office talking to a twenty-something youth wearing oversized jeans and a Lakers jersey. Duff handed Rufi the cash, and he counted it and smiled. Gold teeth across the front. A diamond in one of the incisors.

  “This is my man Jamal, and he got six more niggas want to do some wailing. Right, J?” Rufi asked.

  “Rufi laid it all out. Sounds like we going to have us a little party.” Jamal was enthusiastic.

  Duff explained the whole thing again, and both Rufi and Jamal nodded. They got it.

  Tess stepped in. “They killed the security guard, Jerome, with some sort of poison, so you have to be careful. I don’t know how they got it into his system, but one of the police said it was a dart. So anything in their hands could be a dart gun, no matter what it looks like.”

  “Was Jerome a brother? That’s cold, shoot a brother with a dart.” J sounded genuinely annoyed.

  “That’s okay. We gonna take care of em now,” Rufi declared.

  She looked straight at him with those green eyes. She believed him.

  * * *

  Ken was working on his fourth cup of coffee as he entered the conference room. The entire group was already there, and they jumped right into it.

  The NSA man spoke first.

  “We should have the data on the employee bank accounts within an hour. If we see anything suspicious, we’ll do a secondary screen to filter out things like insurance settlements and inheritances, and whatever is left will probably be our target. The secondary screens shouldn’t take more than a day, so if there’s anything to catch we’ll know by tomorrow.”

  The first Secret Service agent chimed in.

  “We’ve run traces on every sale of ink from the major suppliers over the last year, and there are a number of suspicious larger sales to a company in Hong Kong. It could easily be a shell company; in fact it looks that way to us. Peeling the onion on that will take time, but we’re in the right region of the world for North Korea or Myanmar, both of which are hostile, rogue states. Hong Kong could be where the buying’s coming from if it’s one of them.”

  The NSA man spoke again.

  “A Korean diplomat—mid-level, no one special—arrived and departed last week in San Francisco. On the ground for two hours total. Name’s Kiu,” he said.

  “That’s got to be our guy. Can we arrange for an interrogation with the South Koreans?” Ken jumped in.

  The CIA man leaned back and nodded. “I’m way ahead of you. Unfortunately, the mysterious Mr. Kiu was the victim of a brutal robbery the day of his return. He and his wife were killed. Very unusual for the area of Seoul he lived in.”

  “So a dead end?” Ken asked.

  “Depends on how you look at it. The question is, why was he killed literally right off the plane? And who did it?” The CIA man continued. “I read the report on the watch dealer murder, and saw one of the items taken into evidence was a Patek Philippe watch worth over a quarter million dollars. The assistant claimed it was one of those sold to Kiu.”

  The NSA man smiled. “I won’t ask how you got that report. We’re still waiting for a copy from NYPD.”

  “Suffice it to say, we know Kiu flew in, then turned around and flew back to Korea, presumably taking his newly purchased watches with him, and was robbed the moment he stepped through his door. Then one of the watches shows up in New York at the murder site a few days later. Could the link be any clearer?” This from the second Secret Service man.

  “I’m afraid it has to be clearer before we can do anything. This is all circumstantial, and we need hard evidence before we can take draconian steps.” The Director had advised Ken that they needed hard, tangible proof. The White House was willing to go to the mat on this, but not without incontrovertible evidence.

  “Let’s hope the intel comes back with meat, or we find the traitor. Without one or both of those, we can’t do a lot.” NSA again.

  “We still need the bills, too. We can’t have this leak out, ever, and we’ll need proof should China or anyone else question our actions after the fact,” the second Secret Service agent said.

  Ken looked around the room. “Let me know how the scans of the phone records are going; maybe we’ll get lucky there. Let’s reconvene tomorrow. How’s the effort to keep this quiet going? It’s harder every day to keep this under wraps. Just the way it works, I’m afraid.”

  Secret Service and NSA regarded each other and assured Ken there’d been no leaks. CIA smiled and pointed out it wasn’t a question of if the word spread, it was when. They all glanced around the table. The clock was ticking, and time wasn’t their friend.

  Chapter 29

  Ron and two of his detectives were at Red Cap conducting another set of interviews, trying to get alibis and looking for changes in the stories from the last round. Ron had interviewed everyone o
n his star list except for Tiny and Turbo, who were due back shortly.

  Luis had seemed agitated again, but had an alibi for Monday night; he’d been at a Salsa club by Times Square. They’d have to check that out. Dirter and Skid had been at rehearsal and then a bar to watch some friends play. So again, probably clean, but the alibis hadn’t been checked yet.

  Turbo arrived first, and stepped into the little lunchroom reluctantly, his eyes looking everywhere and his mouth working almost unconsciously.

  “So why do they call you Turbo, James?” Ron asked by way of initiating the discussion.

  “On account of how fast I get from place to place,” Turbo fired back.

  “It wouldn’t be because you’re jacked on meth, would it, James? Rev you up, kind of like a turbo?” Ron figured he’d toss that out there.

  Turbo smiled. “Why, Detective, that would be illegal, now wouldn’t it? Poisoning myself with a controlled substance?” You could make out a little Texas twang. He smiled, and his teeth were grayish, the gums receded. Periodontal issues were the least of Turbo’s worries, Ron guessed.

  “I saw you were in the military, James. Four years. After that, you got into a little trouble and then bummed around, and then you went dark for a while. Care to talk about where you were for the three years you dropped out?”

  “Oh, you know. I wanted to see this great country of ours, detective. Here and there, I suppose. Here and there.” Turbo was staring around again, looking feverish.

  “Did you know Candy?” Ron asked.

  “Can any of us truly know anyone, Detective?” He grinned again. “I knew her. She worked here; we were pals, sort of.”

  “Sort of? She ever call you, want to get together?” Ron asked it casually.

  Turbo calculated his answer quickly; he looked slyly to the side, and then back at Ron. His demeanor was that of a weasel or a wolf—a wild animal, trapped, caged against its will. “She would call me every now and then. I think she wanted some Turbo love, you know?”

  Ron studied his full sleeve tattoos, the demented look and obvious junkie pallor.

  “Who could blame her? You are a stunning specimen. Do you remember when she last called, looking for some game?” Ron could play along, although he was running short on patience.

  “Nah, my memory ain’t so good since the military. Coulda been any time.”

  “Like Monday night?”

  “Sure, maybe. I don’t pay much attention to the local skanks who wanna get a piece of me. Too many.” The grin again. “Supply and demand, you know?”

  “Yeah. I can see that. Where were you on Monday night, Turbo?” Ron asked.

  “Just chillin’ at the crib, detective. Watching MTV. No big.”

  “Anyone there with you? Anyone who can confirm your whereabouts?” Ron felt like he was getting close. This prick was toying with him. Cocky.

  “Well, now, Detective, I do recall that someone stopped by, but I don’t recall who it was. I’ll have to think on that and get back to you. My memory from the service, all that post traumatic stress… It’s a bitch sometimes,” Turbo explained.

  “Yeah, do that. Candy was murdered on Monday night, Turbo. Do think on that, would you?”

  “I will, Detective. Can I help you with anything else? I still gotta go make a living. Idle hands and all.”

  “Why do you think the killer is cutting their hair off, huh? Got any ideas, Turbo?” Ron threw it out as his parting shot, trying for a reaction.

  “Well, I reckon he likes their hair, chief. He’s taking scalps like the Indians used to. Didn’t they do that to steal their enemy’s power or something? I never was too good in social studies.”

  “You should have paid more attention. The white man initiated scalping as part of a bounty program for killing Indians. The Indians only started as retaliation, after years of scalping by the whites. Had nothing to do with power, everything to do with money,” Ron explained.

  “Hmmm. Well whaddaya know. Maybe if I’d learned more stuff like that I’d be a homicide detective instead of a bike messenger. You got anything else?” Turbo was unfazed. Completely didn’t give a shit.

  “No, we’re done here. Wouldn’t want those hands to be idle for too long. Got any plans for tonight?” Ron asked.

  Turbo grinned again, and Ron noted one of his lower teeth was almost completely rotted out, brown from decay.

  “Nothing special, Detective, nothing special at all. I’ll try to remember who stopped by on Monday, though.” Turbo sauntered out of the room.

  Turbo was trouble. Stone crazy, but sly. Ron liked him more for the killings the more he talked to him. He could imagine an old man in Texas, rocking back and forth on his porch, being asked about young Turbo—could practically hear the man’s response. “That boy ain’t raght…”

  Tiny was next, whenever he rolled in. The freak show continued.

  * * *

  Tess called her dad’s attorney on her cell. Simon picked up within a few moments.

  “Hello, Tess. I reached your sister, and she agreed to a telephonic reading. So we can schedule that for whenever you both like.”

  “That’s great, Simon. Listen, I’d like to ask you a legal question. Hypothetically, if you had a stack of counterfeit currency you received believing it to be genuine, would you be breaking any law possessing it if you didn’t plan to circulate it?” Tess asked.

  “I’ll have to look up the actual law, but I seem to recall something about a five-thousand-dollar fine and up to fifteen years in prison, although it’s questionable depending upon the circumstances how it would be handled. Why do you ask?”

  “Confidentially, my dad received a million dollars worth of bills from a Korean, and I’m now of the opinion that the reason he was killed was to get them back because they might, and I stress might, be counterfeit. Let’s say I knew where he stashed them, and let’s further say I was interested in exchanging them with the Treasury Department for the real thing, assuming they were interested in getting their hands on them. What would be the best way to handle it?” Tess was thinking out loud. There had to be a way to convert the bills into real dollars.

  She told him the whole story about Stan being killed, and Saul, and Nick. That Saul had claimed the bills were nearly identical to the real thing, and that an airport currency booth had verified them as genuine.

  Simon thought the U.S. Government might not want the public aware of the existence of such a big chunk of bad bills floating around.

  “Hmm. If you intended to go on television or do an interview with the New York Times, and if the government wanted to keep it quiet, you’d have considerable leverage. Hypothetically, that is.” Simon played along. He understood the fundamentals of the question.

  “Could you make a call to the Treasury Department and see what their interest level might be in doing some sort of exchange? That is, in the highly unlikely event I could find the bills?” Tess had already considered moving them from the safety deposit box to another location out of town.

  “I certainly could, although I do need to know that you don’t have possession of the bills yourself, and therefore aren’t in violation of any law.”

  “I don’t. But please keep my name and identity out of it. I don’t trust anyone at this point,” Tess requested.

  “You can rely on my discretion. What did you have in mind for a fair value for the exchange?” Simon wanted to know the parameters.

  “I hadn’t really thought about it. Do whatever you think is right,” Tess said.

  “I’ll let you know what happens.” If Robert had been killed because of some sort of counterfeiting scheme, and if the bills were so good they passed as genuine, then he might have some real negotiating room with the government, although he knew from harsh experience that one had to tread lightly when it came to Uncle Sam. After looking up the laws on the books and ruminating on a solution, he called Washington—an attorney friend who was high-level on the Beltway, and who knew the Director of the Treasury, among othe
rs.

  This should be interesting, he thought. He wondered whether he could get the watch store at a discount if he pulled off a slick one for young Ms. Gideon.

  * * *

  The Asians had taken the day off to deal with the taller man’s injuries. Who could have predicted he would be so badly damaged by a rank amateur? It had taken several hours to get enough fluids in him to replace the lost blood; his mouth hadn’t clotted, and he’d been in real danger of bleeding out. His strength was badly compromised, and he knew he’d need at least a day to get back on his feet. It was an inconvenience, but a necessary one. The smaller man couldn’t handle the assignment by himself, and he couldn’t afford to go back out until he wasn’t a liability.

  He was hopeful he’d heal quickly. They had important work to do.

  And they were on a schedule.

  Chapter 30

  Gordon was skimming a report predicting the direction the Euro would take over the next six months. His cell rang and he noted the Washington telephone number.

  “Samuels here.”

  “We have a huge problem. A high-quality counterfeit bill wound up in Washington, and apparently they have a task force on it now. I just found out.” It was his Treasury contact.

  “Slow down. How can you be sure? How do we know it’s ours?” Gordon asked.

  “I’m dating a division head’s secretary—she mentioned everyone was scrambling because of a task force. I asked what it was about and she said it was over some fake bill from New York.” The man was speaking rapidly in a hushed voice.

  “Where are you calling from?” Gordon had broken into a sweat. This couldn’t be happening. Just couldn’t. It was his worst nightmare.

  “My cell. I’m at the office. Gordon—this could get ugly fast. If they know about the bills, the jig is up. I’d start covering my tracks if I were you.” The man sounded a little panicked. Okay, more than a little.