“Which is why he wants Melinda dead,” I said.
“Do you think she’s safe?” Rick said.
“Only temporarily, she can hide for just so long,” Dad said.
“So we better get busy. Why don’t you go get Jamie and come back here right after breakfast. We have a lot of planning to do,” I said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CARLOS GOES TO CHURCH
H is Mom always told him, “Why don’t you go to church and meet a nice girl?” And he actually did meet her in church. She was standing in front of him in line at the confessional when her knees crumpled and she slowly slid to the deck. He picked her up and carried her to a nearby pew and then got her a drink of water and told her to sip it slowly. When she regained her composure she told him she was taking Lorazepam for anxiety because she was bi-polar and that she may have accidentally taken one too many.
Carlos soon discovered that two of those things were actually true, she was bi-polar and she was taking Lorazepam. But she was also taking everything else she could get her hands on and there was nothing accidental about any of it. There were also lots of reasons she was in the confessional line at St. Marks, none of them because she was a nice girl, and he later figured that if she had gotten in ahead of him, it might have been an hour or so until it was his turn.
But damn she was good looking and even dressed modestly for church he could see that she was very well put together. And what red blooded American boy is not a sucker for a damsel in distress? So he got her number and called her the very next day. They went out dinner and when he took her home she asked him to come in. And when one thing invariably led to another and when there was a trail of clothes from the living room to the bedroom, and they were locked in a passionate embrace, she looked him in the eye and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want a normal girlfriend?” But by then of course, it was too late for disclaimers and weeks later, she threw it back in his face. “I gave you a chance to say no, and you didn’t take it,” and Carlos had to admit that was true. But almost everything else she told him besides how tall she was and the color of her eyes was a lie.
She told him she worked in a doctor’s office. And she had been in quite a few, but only to bat her big brown eyes at the doctor and see if he took the bait. And even if he didn’t she might still be able to con him out of a script or steal a prescription pad if she could. Her bathroom looked like the pharmacy at Walgreen’s, and even the nightstand had pill bottles everywhere. “I get free samples because I work in the industry,” she said, “the salesmen give them to me.” Turned out she did ‘work’ in the industry due to her weakness for doctors. And if they were willing to do her a favor, she was more than willing to do them one in return. The rest of her time was spent expanding her knowledge of the pros and cons of a wide range of available pharmaceuticals.
When Carlos told her he was breaking it off, she told him she loved him, couldn’t live without him, and threatened suicide if he left her. When that didn’t work, she started following him everywhere, showed up at the bakery, outside his apartment at 3:00AM, banging on the door, yelling profanities and waking the neighbors.
She was a train wreck and soon made his life so miserable he wished he was back in Afghanistan, dream or no dream. When she kept playing reveille outside his window at zero dark thirty he went to court and got a restraining order. When that didn’t seem to slow her down any he got an unlisted number and then moved to another apartment.
Finally his luck turned and she was arrested for Obtaining Prescription Medication through Fraudulent Means, a Class 6 felony, which was, surprise, surprise, a repeat offense and she wound up in jail. He promised himself not to look at anymore girls in church. He figured if they were there, they were there because that’s where they needed to be, on their knees, begging for forgiveness.
CHAPTER FORTY
BREAKING AND ENTERING
W hen I got off the staff elevator on the twelfth floor and pushed the bulky cleaning cart around the corner, I almost collided with a woman wearing a uniform identical to the one I put on for the first time just hours ago. Earlier that morning I’d sawed through the cast and used tanning oil to try and match my now much lighter left forearm with the one on the right. Wearing a new name tag, with Karen in big letters over my left breast I felt like I was wearing a flashing neon sign that screamed “Imposter,” to anyone that bothered to take a closer look.
The woman’s eyes were vacant with I guessed not much behind them. Maybe a few lines to a Mariah Carey song, daydreams about cocaine piled as high as snowdrifts and the cruel remnants of a shipwrecked childhood, scattered like jetsam on a distant shore.
“You new?” the woman said.
“Yes,” I managed to say, my voice finally deciding to make an appearance. “Uh, how you like it?” I said, my pulse pounding in my ears.
She shrugged, noncommittal. “It’s a living.” Her beeper went off and she took her time responding.
“They want me on ten,” she said, and walked off.
My hands were shaking. This was harder than going five rounds with Dorota Zembrewski. Breathe I told myself, take a big breath and exhale slowly.
If this part is harder than five rounds with Dorota, I thought, getting access to Big Ear’s hard drive could be harder than Russian Trigonometry. I should have paid attention to the Marine Corps dictum, ‘never volunteer.’
I pushed the cart down the hallway until I got to 1215, took the stolen smart card out of my pocket and looking both ways, ran the card through the slot. I got the green light, pushed down on the handle, and entered the room.
I checked my watch; it was 11:55 PM. Our reconnaissance revealed that the cleaning crew usually arrived just after midnight so I had just over five minutes to get in, access the computer, plug in the doctored USB flash drive that would download the malware file and get out. We spent time over the last two days hanging out in the employee lounge, trying to identify the various cleaning crews that worked the casino. Rick was supposed to detain tonight’s designated cleaning crew on the eleventh floor by pretending to be drunk and flirting outrageously, asking them to clean his room while waiving hundred dollar bills around. The hundred dollar bills were our lunch money and we were counting on Rick’s good looks to ensure the money wound up in his pocket instead of theirs.
I’d memorized Alphonso’s user name and password that he used for the Knights of Columbus website and we were hoping they were the same as the ones he used for his office computer. I found the computer in a room just off the master suite. It was set up like a small study with a row of bookshelves and some family photos. I hit the power button and when it sprang to life, pressed enter on the keyboard and prayed.
The username and password screen dutifully appeared. I prayed some more and began typing, my fingers as thick and uncooperative as tree stumps. Backspace; delete, delete. More typing, hit Enter, more praying.
I heard voices in the hallway as the dreaded words ‘Invalid Entry’ flashed on the screen. It sounded like Rick, even though the words were slurred and several octaves higher than usual. His voice mingled with the higher pitched feminine voices accompanying him. There was lots of giggling, with the continual use of Shhh! doing absolutely nothing to lower the volume. I needed a place to hide and the closet seemed like my best option. I stepped inside, leaving a small slit in the sliding wooden door so I could see without being seen.
The cleaning crew looked like Fay and Phyllis, two of the more fun-loving members of the night shift staff, who liked to party. They must have started drinking before they came on duty for they were both a little unsteady on their feet and rather than pushing the cleaning cart they were using it for support. It also seemed they were way too interested in making sure Rick was ‘comfortable.’
“Why don’t you let me take your tie off honey and maybe pour us another drink, what do you say?” Phyllis said.
Rick dutifully poured and while Phyllis worked on his tie, Fay was busy unbuttoning his shirt. �
��You are just the cutest thing, but way too tense,” Fay said.
“Phyllis, is there some way you can get this poor boy to relax?” she said.
“I’m not sure,” Phyllis said, reaching for his belt, “but I have an idea.”
My options were to watch, which made me obligated to tell Jamie what I saw, or not watch, which gave me the chance to plead ignorance. The result, as I closed the sliding door, was like listening to the audio of a porn flick, without being able to see the visual. As the giggles gradually tuned to moans of delight I didn’t need much of an imagination to gather the details.
When Rick opened the closet door almost 20 minutes later, I noticed the wine bottle on the carpet was empty and Phyllis and Flo were both asleep, one sprawled on the sofa and the other in the bedroom, their clothes scattered across the floor. Their cleaning cart was just inside the door, right where they left it.
“Nice work Agent X. I must say I had no idea you were so talented,” I said.
“It wasn’t what I wanted believe me, but I didn’t have much choice,” Rick said, busy tucking in his shirt.
“I know, you took one for the team, how noble,” I said.
“My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country,” Rick said.
“One life is all you’re going to get if Jamie finds out,” I said.
“Let’s hope she never does,” Rick said, looking directly at me. “Right now, let’s worry about Alphonso’s computer. I didn’t see the USB key attached.”
“I couldn’t log on. Then before I got the chance to try again, you showed up with the traveling circus. All we needed was a brass band to call any more attention to ourselves.”
Rick was already busy typing. “Our two friends were more than half lit when I ran into them on the eleventh floor. I couldn’t convince them to come with me so I had no choice but to go with them.”
“We’re in,” he said. “Someone left the CAP LOCK on. “Let me have the USB key.”
“Uh, sorry. I may have been a little nervous,” I said, handing him the USB key. “How long does it take to download the malware?”
“Just a couple minutes,” Rick said. “I want to check out the original PDF attachment from the e-mail that Melinda showed us. Can you get those two dressed while I take a look? I’m surprised no one has come up to check on them.”
“Dad was supposed to create a diversion, remember?” I said.
“Well he’s doing a hell of a job but I’m not sure how long our luck will hold,” Rick said. I grabbed the empty wine bottle and put it in the garbage bag on the cart, and then started picking up scattered bits of clothing.
“Uh, which one had the blue underwear and which one had the green?” I said.
“I’m not sure,” Rick said. “Everything was kind of a blur.”
“What about this bra? I said. “It’s much bigger than the other one.”
“I seem to recall it belongs to Fay,” Rick said.
“I thought everything was kind of a blur,” I said.
“Well yes,” Rick said. “I can only remember a few details.”
“Oh really, you may be more of a typical male than Jamie gives you credit for,” I said.
We finally got both girls up and dressed. I pocketed the doctored USB Key and we somehow managed to get the girls and the cart out to the hallway without any further mishap. They swore up and down they were both sober enough to finish their assigned duties before the end of their shift. They were obviously well behind schedule and needed to really hustle to make up for lost time. Not that it kept them from flirting with Rick all the way down the hallway.
We said our goodbyes to Fay and Phyllis and Rick and I got on the elevator. “I’m not cut out for espionage,” I said, as the elevator lurched downward. “I’m a wreck. Everything that could possibly go wrong did.”
“Everything except the fact that we successfully completed our mission,” Rick said.
“Let’s hope,” I said.
“I guess you should know that I added a few little extras to the USB Key,” Rick said.
“Oh really,” I said, “why was that?”
“I wanted to make sure I’d get their attention by adding a couple of overrides to the previous instructions. The first one being that any funds siphoned off effective 1:00AM tonight will now be split two ways, as there are presently two accounts, one at a Portuguese Bank in Macau in addition to the previous account at the Bank of China in Beijing.”
“Why Macau?” I said
“Because that is where Alphonso plans to set up shop. To any interested onlooker it will appear that Alphonso is feathering his nest, making it easier to access his funds without any possible interference from the Chinese. Which I’m hoping would violate the terms of their original agreement.”
“By any interested onlooker you mean PLA 61398?”
“Exactly,” Rick said.
“I imagine they are not going to be very happy about that.”
“Right again,” Rick said.
“So maybe by next week sometime Big Ears could be up to his ass in Red Chinese?” I said.
“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” Rick said.
“You said you made a couple of overrides?” I said.
“Yeah, and I promise I’ll tell you all about them when we have more time,” Rick said, as the elevator door opened.
“Okay, they’re not too technical are they?” I said, hoping that I would understand the details.
“Not at all,” Rick said, “even if the Chinese are all sitting around reading Mao’s Little Red Book, I don’t think they’ll miss them.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
KENO ANYONE?
W e met up with Dad at our assigned rendezvous point, the Keno Parlor, the gambling equivalent of watching paint dry, ordinarily the province of old men and even older women and anyone wanting to take a quick nap.
I didn’t want to tell Dad he fit right in. “You must have created one hell of a diversion; we spent over 30 minutes in Big Ear’s suite and somehow managed to get away with it,” I said.
“I won $880 at blackjack,” Dad said.
“Well, that’s nice and all,” I said, “and it helps pay our expenses but how does that qualify as a diversion?”
“It didn’t. I was planning on winning $20,000 and being real obnoxious about it, so I was forced to resort to plan B,” Dad said.
“Which was what exactly?” I said.
“Where were you at the briefing?” Dad said. “Plan B was Jamie fainting while in line at the Cashier’s window.”
“Oh yeah, now I remember, how did that go?” I said.
“That girl is a natural. She was so convincing even I started to believe she really passed out,” he said.
“Where is she now?” I said.
“I think they took her to Las Vegas General. She is supposed to meet us back at Howard Johnson’s once she is released,” Dad said.
“You do recall that Plan B was actually a two phase operation?” Dad said.
“Of course,” I lied. I must have been really tired that day.
“Your boy, Mikey, did a great job. He made a complete ass of himself in his Power Ranger costume. He was yelling, ‘To Infinity and beyond’ at the top of his lungs, and posing for pictures with all the tourists. He kept Security busy for quite a while until they convinced him he needed to leave,” Dad said.
“Dad, I think that’s Buzz Light Year who says, ‘To Infinity and beyond.’ ” I said.
“Is that why he kept asking if anybody had seen Woody?” he said.
“Yeah Dad I think so,” I said.
“Well, whatever,” he said. “At least he kept quite a few pairs of eyes off the monitors and focused on him instead.”
“So we’re supposed to all meet back at the Howard Johnson’s?” Rick said.
“Yes, and we better leave one at a time,” Dad said, “just in case they go back and roll tape and spot the two of you leaving Alphonso’s suite together it will be harder for t
hem to pair you up later. Were you able to launch the USB?”
“That’s affirmative,” Rick said.
“Good,” Dad said. “Rick, why don’t you go first and I’ll wait while she changes into her street clothes. We’ll meet back at our room for the debriefing and call it a night. You look tired.”
I arched an eyebrow at Rick, but he somehow managed to ignore me and played it straight. “Yeah, it’s been a long day,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
NOT SO FAST GRINGA
W hen I came out of the ladies room Dad was nowhere to be found. I figured he got spotted, maybe drew some unwanted attention from casino security and thought it best to wait outside. I made my way to the exit and looked around. There was no sign of Dad so I began the long walk back to the hotel.
The desert night was crisp and clear, the air surprisingly cool. I quickened my pace to offset the chill and the blocks went by quickly. The chill of the night air was nothing compared to the chill down my spine when a late model Cadillac pulled to the curb beside me and screeched to a stop. Jamie sat ashen faced in the passenger seat with a gun pressed to the back of her head.
“Get in,” a voice filled with gravel said from the backseat.
I looked at Jamie. She silently mouthed the word, run, and I did just that. Jamie, I’m so sorry I thought. I broke across the lawn and sprinted for the block wall of one of the only houses on the street, waiting for the sound of gunshots. My arm wasn’t fully healed but the adrenaline was pumping and I made it over the wall no problem.
I heard growling and caught movement out of the corner of my eye, heard the clank of a metal chain against concrete as the dog that was asleep on the back porch when I vaulted over the wall was now fully wake and gave chase. Is there such a thing as too much adrenaline? I’m not sure, but I knew I had more than my share as I easily cleared the back wall and went up and over and hit the ground running. I heard the screech of car tires but from a distance and I hoped that their decision to follow me by car rather than on foot cost them enough time for me to make my getaway.
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