“No.” Toby slowed the Aerostar past a line of buildings marked only by ankle-high bricks that outlined what remained of their foundations. “They’ve gotta be up the road.”
“Toby, I don’t like this. What if they’re cops?”
Toby gave his brother a brief, disdainful look. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“I just—”
“Stan, Freddy’s friends checked these guys out, all right? Brother D is some guy named Darian Brown. You know that. I told you. That nigger’s done time, enough that Freddy’s Brotherhood friends knew of him. One of the other guys was a basketball player before he did time. Do those sound like cops to you?”
Stanley looked back out the windshield, avoiding the challenge. “There they are.”
Off by the side of a muddy dirt track that circled behind a group of fallen structures a faded green Buick Electra 225 sat. Resting against its hood were the same three who had met them at the zoo.
“No rear guard this time,” Toby observed. “I guess they trust us.” But if not, the .38 in his waistband would help settle matters.
The Aerostar turned off the “main” road through Sandberg, nosing right up to the big Buick. Toby took the duffel from between the seats and stepped out with his brother.
“You picked a cold enough place for this little get-together,” Roger, his hands tucked beneath opposite arms, commented to the white boys.
“Wait’ll it starts to snow later,” Toby responded, adding a snicker.
Darian stood straight from his leaning place against the car. “First, the money.”
Toby nodded. His father really was right about these guys. They could be bought cold. “Stan.”
“Here.” The younger Barrish boy handed over a soft, simulated-leather briefcase, an inexpensive model he’d picked up at Wal-Mart.
Mustafa, the only one of the men wearing dark glasses, took the case and laid it on the warm hood of the Buick, popping the twin latches. What stared up at him from the case’s interior made him smile.
“A hundred grand,” Toby said. “It’s all there.”
“It’s cool,” Mustafa said from behind Darian.
“Well, then, I guess we can talk business.” Darian looked down at the bag in the head white boy’s hand.
Toby lifted and unzipped the duffel, removing the cylinder with one hand. “Here it is.”
Darian frowned at the small object, so small that the boy’s hand covered almost half its length. “What the hell is that?”
“That’s no bomb,” Roger said, scowling.
“A bomb?” Toby reacted, laughing. “You’re right. It’s no bomb.” He told them what it was, taking a few minutes to cover the operation of the timing and release controls. When he was done the Africans were silent. Maybe too silent. “Is there a problem?”
Darian looked briefly back to Mustafa. “You were in the Army.”
“That’s what’ll happen,” Mustafa confirmed, remembering the training he’d received on gas attacks.
“And what do we do with it?” Darian inquired.
This took longer to explain, with Stanley producing a map and several sheets of blueprints from inside the Aerostar. “You’ll have one hour from the time you activate the timer,” Toby said. “You’ve got to be clear by then.”
Darian leaned over the plans, as did his two comrades. His finger traced a path from the elevator to their target. “We just show up with a camera and tell the engineer we’re there to take pictures?”
“For Mr. Stearns,” Stanley said. “It’s all arranged.”
“But there’s one other job we need done that day,” Toby said. He removed a three-by-five card from his pocket, along with a folded newspaper clipping. He unfolded the latter to reveal an unflattering AP photo of the man. Really, he thought, there were no flattering shots of him.
“Who is he?” Darian asked.
“A problem,” Toby answered. There was no need to share any more information than that. “Eight A.M. Here’s the address.”
Darian looked at the card. It was in the north valley, far from the downtown area they’d need to be in at the same time. Doing both would be impossible. Unless... Yes. It would be the perfect way to break in the Griggs kid. Roger and Mustafa could handle the big job. Yes. The first use of the cell, and the teams within that had just been established. “And I’m sure you’ll compensate us fairly for this little extra.”
“Fifty grand more when we meet up for the next job,” Toby said.
“Which is?”
Toby smiled. “Let’s just say we’re going to reshape the government.”
Darian’s chin came up as he looked down upon the shorter white boy. His right eye was whacked out, the NALF leader saw, vibrating as the cracker grinned. “You have big ideas.”
“Why go small?” Toby wondered rhetorically. “It’s the government that’s the problem, remember?”
“When and where?” Darian asked.
“Not so fast,” Toby said. “We have to do this right. People are going to be looking after the first job is done.” It took them ten minutes to decide upon a plan of action that was acceptable to both. “Once we get together again we’ll go over the next job.”
“Our price goes up for that one,” Darian said.
“Up how much?”
Why not shoot for the sky? Darian thought. “One million.”
The amount drew looks even from the African’s comrades. But there was no reason not to agree to it, Toby thought. No reason at all. “A hundred up front, plus the fifty for this little extra, and the rest once the job is done.”
Darian considered the payment split briefly. If these guys had that much money to throw around, he didn’t want to piss them off by dickering over up-front money.
Plus, a hundred grand, what they were getting for the entire first job, was nothing to look cross at. Yes, he could do business with these white boys. Lots of business. “I guess we’ll see you when we get there.”
“I guess so,” Toby said, giving possession of the cylinder to the African. “Enjoy.”
“Oh, we will,” Darian assured him. A couple thousand dead white folks? Enjoy wasn’t the word. Savor was.
* * *
“The fucking bastard!” Art said, storming down the steps of the Rayburn Building to Independence Avenue. He halted at street level and turned, waiting for his partner to catch up. “I can’t believe he did this.”
Frankie folded the six-page typed statement provided by Vorhees’s office in half, then half again before tucking it away in her blazer.
“He let us fly out here and he knew he wasn’t going to be here!”
“His office says the trip was unexpected,” Frankie reminded her worked-up partner.
“Unexpected my ass,” Art shot back. “I should chase his butt up to Boston and nail him on his home turf.”
“That wouldn’t do any good, partner. Neither is this.”
It wasn’t what Art wanted to hear, which, considering that it came from a person he trusted his life with, probably meant he needed to hear it. That bit of self-realization allowed him to switch from a boil to a simmer. “I hate this political bullshit. You know that.”
“I do, too.”
Art looked around, oblivious to the glances he and his partner were rating from pedestrians as they passed. The Capitol was directly across Independence, and a turn of his head to the left set his eyes upon the alabaster obelisk a mile away. The Washington Monument. A tribute to the man who could not tell a lie. Well, that virtue had obviously gotten lost in the D.C. shuffle, especially where the Honorable Richard Vorhees was concerned.
“Do you think he’s trying to hide something?” Frankie asked, the afternoon traffic sweeping by to her rear.
“Hide?” Art looked slightly away. “Avoid, partner. He’s putting us off, leaving that statement for us. Generous, isn’t he? Yet he couldn’t have one of his flunkies give us a call. It’s a game of importance. He’s important in this town, we’re not, therefo
re the rules of courtesy and forthrightness don’t apply to him like they would to anyone else. Like they would to us.”
“At least Crippen was cooperative,” Frankie said.
“Royce should have used him instead of Limp Dick,” Art commented.
“It would have made more sense,” Frankie said. “Crippen’s the one on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That’s closer to what Royce needed done than House Armed Services.”
“Senator Crippen is a lifer, partner,” Art observed. “He knows when not to get involved in something.”
“The funny thing about Vorhees is,” Frankie began, “his statement answers just about all the questions we had for him.”
“Of course it does. It’s probably the God’s honest truth, too. Vorhees is smart, partner. He’s not going to let us say he was being evasive. Plus, what was he doing here? Doing a favor—questionable, maybe—for a contributor?”
“Don’t forget keeping the country safe,” Frankie added.
“Right,” Art agreed sarcastically. He blew out a long breath. “Back to work, partner.” That simple statement had a five-hour commute attached to it, he knew. The good thing was that they’d be out of this town.
“Amazing,” Frankie said, looking across Independence to the Capitol. “I’ve been here before, seen that before, but it looks bigger every time.”
“Remember the egos it has to hold,” Art commented, recognizing the mean streak rearing its head once again. Something had to be done about that.
“You’re getting as cynical as me,” Frankie observed with a devious grin. “I’d better get you back to Anne for some attitude adjustment.”
Art lowered his head, smiling broadly. “My plans exactly.”
* * *
“How’m I doing?” Darren Griggs asked, no tears at all having come this session.
“Darren, I’m not the one to judge that,” Anne answered. It was never the response a patient wanted. Things would have been easier, they invariably believed, if the doctor could just listen to them, bless them as well, and send them on their way. But it didn’t work like that.
“Yeah. I know.” Darren smiled meekly, mildly ashamed of himself for the attempt at praise seeking. “I am feeling better.”
“Good. That’s what counts.”
“Felicia is doing better, too,” Darren said proudly.
“Have you convinced her to come with you?”
“Well, actually, we were talking about that last night. I don’t think she’s ready to, you know, come out yet.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But, Felicia thought it would be good to have you over for dinner.”
“I’m supposed to be making dinner for you,” Anne reminded him with a chuckle.
“I know, but it would be good for her. And...”
Anne knew what Darren wanted to say. “Moises.”
“I’m hoping he’ll come home soon. It would be good for him to see you, too.”
“Maybe,” Anne said. “But if he’s being as rebellious as you say, he may be doing more you don’t know about.”
“I’ve thought the same thing. I’m worried. He’s a good boy, Dr. Preston, but he’s hurt by this.”
“I understand that. But he may need a dose of authority other than yours to prevent him from getting involved in behavior that’s self-destructive. I’m not an authority figure, Darren. But I know someone who is.”
The man in her life, Darren recalled. An FBI agent. “He’s welcome to come.”
“Good. When?”
“Is Monday all right?”
“For me, sure. I’ll have to check with Art,” she added. “But, I have a way with him.”
Darren knew what she meant, having been on the receiving end of a woman’s persuasive abilities for twenty years. “We’ll see you both Monday.”
TEN
Comings and Goings
“You remember him, then?” Hal Lightman said hopefully as the bank teller nodded at the picture of Nikolai Kostin.
“Yes, vaguely.” The young lady, her manager standing next to her for support, looked away from the enlarged driver’s license photo. “I can’t remember much else about him.”
“The register shows that you handled the last cashier’s check that this gentleman came in for,” Omar Espinosa said, trying to jog her memory. “A little more than three weeks ago. Try and think.”
“It was in the morning, Sherry,” the manager said, putting a reassuring hand on her teller’s shoulder.
The teller’s head began to shake slowly as she looked apologetically to the agents. “I’m sorry. All I can remember is the face.”
“Anything about the money?” Lightman asked. “He brought in twelve hundred in cash. Did he say anything about where he got it? A job, maybe? Anything?”
“I’m sorry,” she responded.
Lightman let out a breath. “That’s all right. You did your best.”
“We may need to talk to some of your people at a later time,” Espinosa told the bank manager.
“Anytime.”
The two agents left the Palmdale branch of Suncoast Security Bank, stopping just outside the glass front of the financial institution.
“It was a long shot anyway,” Espinosa said. “What’s she going to remember after three weeks? She sees hundreds of people a day.”
“I know,” Lightman agreed, leaning on the side of the Chevy and scanning the area around the bank. It was a typical strip mall, probably built in the early eighties by the looks of it. Earlier than the big building boom. That was apparent from the absence of any southwestern styling and earth tone stucco on the facade. Just a grouping of stores stretching from both sides of the bank, all the way to the side streets.
Espinosa, too, was surveying the area, which was suffering a mild case of blight. Things weren’t very new compared to other areas of the high desert city. “Why did Kostin come all the way over here to get his checks? There are closer banks to his place.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Lightman answered, the why hitting him with more force as he considered it again. “Maybe he came to this bank as an afterthought.”
Espinosa saw his fellow agent looking to the row of stores more closely now. “He may have been coming here for something else.”
“Right,” Lightman said. “This bank may have just been in a convenient place.”
“Let’s check it out. You start at that end,” Espinosa suggested, pointing to the east end of the strip mall. “I’ll take this side.”
Hal Lightman studied the numerous storefronts as he walked toward his end of the strip mall. A dentist. A doughnut shop. A sandwich place. Some offices. It was quite a hodgepodge, he thought. Of course there were also the all-too-common FOR LEASE signs, the product of so many strikes that the Golden State had against it.
Defense cutbacks. Earthquakes. It had all hit California. Except for locusts, Lightman thought, hoping he hadn’t somehow suggested the plague to some higher power with his errant musing. Enough of the negative, he told himself as he entered a pool supply company at the end of the row.
Strike one, he knew, leaving the business after just a few minutes. No one had recognized the picture of Kostin. The same result from the next two businesses, a dentist’s office and a doughnut shop. The next in line was a small office, obviously closed for the day. Lightman moved on, the smell of something wonderful hitting his nose before entering the restaurant.
“Good morning,” a pleasant-looking older man said, greeting the agent. “We are serving lunch. Just one?”
“No, thank you.” Lightman showed the somewhat startled restaurateur his shield. “We’re checking with merchants in the area. Have you ever seen this man?”
The restaurateur bent forward, bringing his eyes close to the picture. His head came back up, nodding, a concerned look on his face. “Yes. Nick.”
Yes! “He’s been in here before?”
“Many times,” the man answered, seeming surprised at
the question. “His office is next door.”
“His office?”
“Yes.” The man gestured in the direction from which Lightman had come. “Is he in trouble?”
“Right next door?” Lightman asked, trying not to seem excited.
“Yes. But he has not been there in a while. Is he all right?”
“I’ll be back, sir. We’re going to need to get a statement from you.” Lightman walked back the way he had come, stopping at the darkened office of Birch and Associates, or so the gold stencil on the glass front door said. He cupped both hands around his eyes and pressed close to the glass, examining the interior of the small office. There wasn’t much to see. A desk, with no phone on it or anywhere in sight. A chair. One chair, actually. Some in/out boxes, all empty. Pictures on the wall, though they looked like they could have come with the place.
A front. It wasn’t hard to come to that conclusion, and Lightman had already solidified the conjecture as he raced back to the Chevy, motioning to Espinosa. He had the cell in hand, the desired speed-dial button already pressed, as his fellow agent came up. But the first words about the discovery were spoken to a very pleased senior agent quite a distance to the south.
* * *
“Seymour,” John Barrish said, his time on hold longer than anytime he could recall. The relationship had changed, apparently. Was the Jew still his defender? It didn’t really matter. He needed only one final thing from the legal zealot.
“John.”
“I need to see you. It’s important.”
There was a pause, paper shuffling, the springs of an old chair creaking. “About what?”
There was no need altering the John Barrish Seymour Mankowitz had come to know. No need for sweet-talking. “Dammit, Seymour! You know I can’t talk over the phone.”
More hesitation. “All right. Let me check my—”
“No. I pick the time. This could be a problem, Seymour. A big one. And I’m not going to talk to any of your cohorts about this. You hear it first.”
“All right. All right. When?”
“Wednesday morning. Eight o’clock, at your office.”
A pencil scratched out the notation in an appointment book before the leather cover closed with a slap. “I’ll be here.” Mankowitz wanted to hang up, wanted to be done with John Barrish once and for all. He had already requested that he be removed from the case. Let some other eager young attorney have his turn with the man. But, this unexpected call did make him wonder... “John, are you in trouble?”
Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) Page 16