Cantina Valley (A Ben Adler Mystery Book 1)

by Trevor Scott

  Maggi shot Ben a bewildered glare.

  “I would be shocked,” Marlon said. “How do they have the time or resources?”

  “Back in the day they would monitor only a select group of publications,” Ben said. “Things like daily newspapers were easy to monitor, so the government concentrated its efforts on mostly academic publications. You see, there are plenty of crazy publications and blogs out there, but these are written by widely discredited nut jobs. At least in the eyes of the general public. So the government doesn’t have to worry too much about those. But now almost everything is published in digital form. Now the government feeds all publications through a filter with key word recognition. The intelligence agencies only have to review those publications that flag a problem.”

  “That’s crazy. I had no idea.”

  “Right. Most people don’t. Let’s assume your article on Bigfoot and its relationship with this giant ape was flagged by the FBI or some other agency.” Ben let that thought hang out to dry for a moment while he looked at Maggi and shrugged.

  “Crap. But would they actually shoot at my house and my men at the truffle fields?”

  “Maybe not the FBI. But they could have some rogue agent hire that out to someone else.”

  Maggi scrunched her forehead at Ben.

  Marlon said nothing.

  “This is just a theory, Marlon,” Ben said. “I have no evidence to support my theory.”

  “No, but the circumstances are suspect,” Marlon said. “Just after someone shoots up my house and place of work, the FBI shows up and takes my computers. They also haul in my best truffle crew. That’s some coincidence.” Marlon’s voice had gotten increasingly animated.

  “It’s just a line of inquiry,” Ben said, trying to diffuse the situation a little. “Let me look into it and see what I can find out.”

  “All right,” Marlon said, his voice much calmer. “Keep in touch.”

  Ben flipped his phone shut and set it on the coffee table.

  “What the hell was that?” Maggi asked.

  He explained how he had researched the consortium and found out they were asking Marlon Telford to join them, which made it less likely they were trying to attack the former professor and millionaire. Then he went through his discussion with Marlon about the giant ape theory. Finally, he recapped his thoughts about how someone might want to discredit the professor slash Bigfoot enthusiast.

  “All right,” Maggi said. “Do you really believe the government might be attacking Marlon?”

  “In my opinion, stranger things have happened.” He hesitated for a beat and then added, “What have you found out?”

  “I got a call from Della. She’s still at the FBI building. She says she’ll have all of them out by the end of business.”

  “And?”

  “And I really think she wants you.”

  Ben reached his hand out and set it on her leg. “I’m more interested in a certain McGuffin.”

  “Would you like to try out my bed?”

  “That depends. Have you had time to properly hide your dildos and vibrators?”

  She didn’t answer until she was already up and heading toward the stairs. Then she turned her head and said, “Who says I hid them?” Maggi smiled and walked upstairs.

  Ben got up and hurried after her.

  27

  The next morning Ben woke to the sound of the shower in Maggi’s en suite bathroom. He moved his foot and the young kitten bounced on his foot, digging its claws into his flesh. He was thankful that Maggi had put the cats out while they slept. But she must have let them in before heading to the shower.

  He considered joining Maggi in the shower, but he wasn’t sure if she would like that. What the hell. Still naked, he jumped out of bed and threw the covers over the kitten.

  Then he went into the bathroom and slid the shower door open.

  “I was hoping you would come in,” she said.

  After a long shared shower encounter, they got out and got dressed before heading to the main level of her townhome.

  “I have almost no food in my house,” Maggi said.

  “What about coffee?” he asked.

  “I usually hit a coffee hut on my way to the office.”

  Her cell phone buzzed on the counter and then played its annoying pop song until Maggi picked up.

  “Yeah,” she said. “What’s the word?” She listened and her disposition went from cheery to disturbed. Then she said, “That’s crazy. You know that’s not possible.” She wiped away a tear and simply hung up.

  “Your lawyer friend?” Ben asked.

  “No. My FBI friend. She said they have enough evidence to charge my brother and his friends with conspiracy to commit a terroristic act.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous.”

  “I know. I have to call Della.” Maggi moved across the room and gazed out the window at the forest as she discussed the new development with Della Bluesky. In a matter of minutes she came back with a bit more life in her expression.

  “Well?” Ben asked.

  “She’s pissed. She’s already at the office and will head over to the FBI building right now.”

  “What evidence could they possibly have?”

  “I don’t know. Della thinks someone must have talked last night. If that happened, she’ll have their ass, since she told them all of the men were represented by her. And they were not to talk without her present.”

  “The men can waive that right,” he said.

  “I know. But I would hope they wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we go get something to eat and coffee,” she said. “There’s a place within a mile of here.”

  “And then?”

  “They won’t be arraigned for at least a couple of hours at the federal building downtown. I’ll need to go there.”

  “All right. I’ll drive.”

  Once they got outside with his Chevelle and Ben got the car properly warmed up, he slowly pulled away down the side street. Swirling clouds made it hard for the sun to poke through, but at least the rain had slowed and the pavement had dried somewhat overnight.

  Sure that his engine was properly warmed, Ben dropped the clutch at the stop sign and shoved both of them back into their seats as the engine roared to life. He hit second and the tires broke free slightly with the torque, propelling them beyond the speed limit significantly.

  “Nice,” she said. “But you just passed the restaurant.”

  He hit the brakes and slowed down in a hurry before pulling a U-turn and heading back to the restaurant. It was one of those old school places that had survived the onslaught from the chain casual joints. A place with marginal coffee and massive platters of food.

  They found an isolated booth and got some coffee immediately. Ben added a healthy helping of cream to make it palatable.

  She ordered an omelet and he got a tall stack of pancakes.

  “I would have expected you to get eggs,” she said.

  “After you’re used to fresh eggs, it’s hard to eat those from the store.”

  “I thought an egg was an egg.”

  “An egg is what the chickens are fed,” Ben said. “My chicken feed is top shelf. I can afford to give them the best. Who knows what the big companies feed their hens? It’s probably stuffed with shredded newspaper.”

  They ate and Maggi went back and forth with texts throughout the meal.

  “I thought you were off,” Ben said.

  “I am.” She lifted her phone. “This is Della and my FBI friend. One is pissed and determined and the other is bending over backwards to apologize.”

  “That’s telling,” Ben said. “She must know the charges are bogus and won’t stick.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Without saying so, she’s giving you hope.”

  Maggi smiled and typed a quick text. The response was almost immediate. “Della agrees with you.”

  After eating they went bac
k out to his car.

  “Now what?” Ben asked. He started his car and the engine roared before leveling off to a gentle purr.

  “First, we put this car back in my garage before you get a ticket. Then, I need to head back down to the FBI or the federal courthouse. You don’t need to come for that. You could stay at my place and continue to research for your Bigfoot friend.”

  Ben backed out and instinctively gazed about the parking lot, his Air Force training kicking in. When he put the car into first and started to slowly pull forward, he confirmed his suspicion.

  “We’ve got company,” Ben said. “Don’t look. They’re pulling out now.” He glanced briefly in his rearview mirror and saw that the car was a late model black Ford sedan, with no front license plate. That was illegal in Oregon.

  Maggi casually looked out her side mirror and then said, “Black Ford?”

  “Yep. Hold on.”

  Ben turned right and powered through the gears slower than on the trip to the restaurant, but faster than the average Joe. He turned right again and entered an onramp for the Sunset Highway, the major freeway leading from downtown Portland through the suburbs of Beaverton and Hillsboro on the way to the coast. As Ben entered the freeway into light traffic, he hit the gas nearly to the floor, sending them back into their seats again as the old car showed those in Beaverton how it was done in the 60s.

  He was turning 70 before redline in third, so he slapped the stick back to fourth and cruised in the fast lane past cars like they were standing still, hitting the century mark.

  Checking his mirrors, Ben saw that the Ford was still there but having a tough time keeping up. He passed a line of cars and came up to an eighteen wheeler, a double trailer.

  “Hang on,” Ben said.

  Glancing back for a second, Ben looked forward and cranked the wheel while he hit the brakes, vectoring across the three lanes, cutting right in front of the semi trailer, and hitting the exit ramp at 80 MPH. He knew it would be close as he jammed the brake and clutch to the floor while he shifted from fourth directly into second and dropped the clutch once they had slowed and were nearly to the top of the ramp. The tires locked up with the engine torque, and he hit the clutch again briefly as the light at the top turned to yellow.

  Cranking the wheel to the left, the Chevelle slid sideways through the light. He hit the gas again and the car lurched to life and into the left turn lane, which would put them back on the freeway heading back toward Portland.

  “You see them?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah. They didn’t make the exit. They’re still heading toward Hillsboro. Who are they?”

  He didn’t answer directly. Without waiting for his ramp light, he cut across between two cars and entered the downward ramp to the freeway.

  Finally, he said, “I’m guessing it’s the same people who shot up Marlon’s house and the boys at the truffle camp. Did you get a look at them?”

  “You mean before you took off like a bat out of hell? Ah, no. Besides the windows were dark.”

  “And no front plate,” he said. “How in the hell did they find us?” He glanced to his right for just a moment, and then shifted his eyes frequently from the front to the mirrors.

  “I have no clue,” she said.

  He racked his brain, trying to recall if he had been tailed from her townhome. No way. If he had been, he would have seen the car when he mistakenly passed the restaurant on purpose and pulled the quick U-turn. No, they had somehow tracked them at the restaurant.

  By now he was blending in with traffic toward downtown Portland, trying to hide among a line of trucks.

  “We need to drop off my car and pick up yours,” Ben said. Checking his mirrors to make sure the Ford wasn’t following, he turned off at Maggi’s exit and crossed over the freeway again.

  A couple of minutes later and they were at her townhome, parked in the short driveway.

  “You were texting both Della and the FBI friend at the restaurant,” Ben said. “Did you tell either of them where you were?”

  “I told them both I was doing breakfast with you,” she said. “But I didn’t say where.”

  “Have you ever eaten there before with them?”

  She nodded yes. “Both of them. I love their potatoes.”

  Crap. “Do you trust your friend at the FBI?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, you might want to rethink that for now,” he said. “I think I just outran an undercover FBI car.”

  28

  Ben dropped off Maggi, who took her own BMW to downtown Portland to visit her brother at the detention facility. She was determined to get her brother out that day with the help of the shark, Della Bluesky. Ben hoped she succeeded.

  Then Ben drove directly to a business complex south of Portland, pulling into the parking lot of a large white building. The sign in front read ‘Mammoth Paper Company.’

  He talked his way in to their PR Department, where he convinced them he had information about a data breech, which got him in to see the director of IT. The man in charge was old, with a full head of gray and who had to have been around since the first computer was built.

  Ben sat in the lone chair beyond the IT director’s cluttered desk with two computer monitors. The man looked concerned and perhaps a little afraid—his corpulent structure oozing with sweat.

  “What can I do for you, Mister Adler?” the IT director asked.

  Flashing his old Air Force OSI badge, which he had kept upon retirement, he explained who he was, without really lying. He also made sure the guy saw his gun on his right hip to lend credibility.

  Then, with the ruse intact, Ben said, “I understand you’ve had a data breech.”

  “How do you know this?”

  Because this man just confirmed it. Also, Ben had hacked into their system faster than a teenager could change his high school grades. “Has any damage been found in your system?”

  “No,” the IT director said. “It looks like only snoopers. As far as we can tell.”

  Now, Ben needed to tread lightly. He didn’t want to let this IT director know why he was really there. “Have you figured out what they were looking for?”

  “It makes no sense,” the paper man said. “We think they were only looking at contracts and lease agreements.”

  Ben tried to feign shock. “Seriously? Why that?”

  “We can’t figure that out.” The IT director rubbed his scruffy red beard.

  “What are these lease agreements?” Ben asked.

  “Nothing special. Mostly just access to our lands for hunting and other reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  The IT director shrugged slightly and said, “Recreation mostly.” He hesitated and added, “And our mushroom and truffle access programs throughout the Coast Range.”

  Ben pretended not to be interested in this. “Anything else related to these lease agreements?”

  Clicking on his keyboard for a couple of seconds, the IT director finally said, “Actually, yes. We ask all of our lease holders to update their access with us weekly. That schedule was also downloaded.”

  Bingo. That’s what Ben wanted to confirm, since he had been able to get into that system from his laptop at Maggi’s townhome. “Have you been able to trace the hacker to a source?”

  “No, the guy’s good. We just know someone accessed our system.”

  Ben got up and thanked the man for his help.

  As he was leaving, the IT director said, “Are we in some kind of trouble?”

  Standing at the door, Ben pondered the question. “You should be all right. But you might want to shore up your security.”

  Ben got back out to his car and he sat for a moment thinking about the situation. Although he had found out how easy it had been to breech the security on the Mammoth Paper Company’s database, he still didn’t know who had accessed the lease information and the location of Marlon Telford’s truffle crews.

  Next he drove south a few miles past Albany, where he turned e
ast for ten miles to the town of Lebanon. The Veterans Administration had built a nursing home and rehab center there a few years back, and Ben guessed that he might end up there at some point in the future—assuming he didn’t die from some other reason before he needed the nursing home.

  He signed in to the rehab part of the facility and was escorted to a room with two patients.

  When Lt. Col. Bull Keyes saw Ben, he gave a double take, not sure if he was seeing things properly. At one point Bull Keyes had lived up to his name, with broad shoulders and a gruff disposition that gave him the appearance of a charging bull. Now he was diminished considerably. His hair, cut still into a flattop, was completely gray. The left side of his wrinkled face drooped lower than the right, with a touch of drool coming out the side of parched lips.

  “Jesus Christ, they’ll let anyone in here,” Colonel Keyes said with great effort, his words slurred.

  “No need to call me the Lord and Savior,” Ben said.

  “You bastard. I know too much about you to call you that. What the hell you doing here?”

  “Thought I’d drop by before you’re dead.”

  “You son of a bitch. I’m not dead yet. This is just a temporary set-back.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I had a fucking stroke. What’s it look like?”

  Yeah, the man was still the Bull. Ornery as ever. He’d probably outlive Ben. “I got a visit from a pretty Irish girl the other day. She dropped your name.”

  “Pretty young lady,” the colonel said. “You find her brother?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you might be thinking about tapping that young girl.”

  Ben tried to hold back a smile, but he knew the Bull was accomplished at understanding facial expressions.

  “Shit, you already tapped it,” the Bull said. “Hell of a thing being young and single.”

  “I’m not that young, Bull.”

  “I know. You need to start living your life. Can you grab me a tissue?”

  Ben pulled a couple of tissues from a box and handed them to his old boss. With his good hand, the Bull blotted out the drool at the side of his mouth.