by Jude Hardin
“Can I just go home now?” she said.
“I assume you were in the coffee shop when JR was killed,” Colt said.
“Yes. That was horrible. I thought they were going to kill me too.”
“The guys in the long black coats?”
“Right.”
“When all four of you were in the coffee shop together, did anyone mention anything that might be construed as being a threat to national security?”
“No. Those guys never intended to give JR any money, though. I can tell you that. They were planning to kill him all along. They shot him, and I thought he was dead for sure, but then he started talking. It kind of freaked me out.”
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. Just some random letters, like maybe his brain had started dying already or something. Like he didn’t know what he was saying. H-E-L-V-E. Is that even a word?”
Diana pulled to the side of the road and braked to a stop.
“It’s a word,” she said. “Helve. It’s the handle to a hammer or an ax or whatever. It’s also the name of a terrorist organization.”
“An acronym?” Colt said.
“No. It’s their symbol. The handle to the sledge that will crush democracy as we know it.”
“These are United States citizens?”
“Yes. Their leader has an IQ of one-fifty, I think. Something crazy like that. He’s a first-rate con man, a master manipulator, and a master of disguises. He gets people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do. We’ve tied him to over a dozen acts of terrorism over the past few years.”
“What’s his name?”
“Good question. They call him Mr. S. He has about a hundred aliases. We don’t even know which one is real, or if any of them are. Actually, the organization hasn’t been very active lately, due to some funding issues. We’ve been able to shut down some of their businesses, and we’ve taken out a few key members, but so far Mr. S has been able to evade the L and E we have on him. He always seems to be a step ahead of us.”
“Do we know what he looks like?” Colt said.
Diana pulled out her cell phone, scrolled through the L and E database, tapped on a series of photos marked Helve 1.
She handed the phone to Colt.
He looked at the first picture, and the second, and the third.
“These are all the same guy?” he said.
“Yes. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
Colt swept his finger across the screen and looked at the next picture.
And the next.
And the next.
He stopped on number seven, sat there and stared at the photograph in disbelief.
Thinning hair, dark brown eyes. Round face and a double chin.
It was Benny.
41
Benny was the leader of the terrorist organization called Helve.
IQ one-fifty. Something crazy like that.
Colt felt like the biggest sucker in the world.
And something else dawned on him at the same instant he saw the photograph.
“The SUV,” he said.
“What?”
“I double parked it by a cargo van in front of the video store. When I looked in the mirror a minute ago and saw the cops turn into the alley, it was gone.”
“What are you talking about?” Diana said.
Colt pointed to the digital photograph. “I was with this guy,” he said. “We drove up here together in an SUV. He was one of the kidnappers.”
Felisa leaned forward. “Let me see,” she said.
Colt showed her the picture, and she confirmed that the man was indeed one of the kidnappers, the one named Benny.
“Benjamin Korto,” Colt said. “He even has a Facebook account.”
“And you let him go?” Diana said.
“He had an entire history. He seemed like an okay guy, you know? I felt sorry for him. I decided to give him a break. His father hit him in the head when he was a kid and—”
“You let him go?”
Colt didn’t know what to say. In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do.
“I have some video footage on a flash drive,” he said. “From the security camera, the night of the kidnapping. At the end, it looks like someone writes something on the inside of the windshield. I thought it was the word help, but it must have been helve. I guess it was Benny’s arrogant little wink to law enforcement about what was to come.”
“And nobody picked up on it?” Diana said.
“It wasn’t clear enough. Valinger thought it was just a random smear.”
Colt heard a thud in the back seat, turned around and saw that Felisa had passed out against the door.
“She’ll be all right,” Diana said. “And she won’t remember anything about the past hour or so when she wakes up.”
“Same compound as in the darts?”
“Similar.”
“When are they going to start giving me some cool stuff like that?”
“Maybe when you stop letting criminal masterminds get away.”
Diana reached into her backpack and pulled out JR’s cell phone, along with a booklet the size of a cigarette pack.
“What’s that?” Colt said.
“Hacks for every electronic communication device on the market. Comes in handy sometimes.”
She flipped through the little book, found the page she wanted, used the code to defeat the phone’s password. Colt watched as she accessed the contact list, and then the text and voice messages.
“Anything interesting?” he said.
“Looks like he deleted everything. Almost everything. There’s one voicemail from today, and that’s it.”
She played the message on speakerphone:
Use the wig I sent. Just get there any way you can. I’ll be very disappointed if you can’t make it.
Heavy foreign accent, but Colt had a keen ear for tonal quality.
“I’m pretty sure that’s him,” he said. “Benjamin Korto.”
“AKA Mr. S. He made the call at 11:31 this morning.”
“Right before he showed up at Clark Kisham’s house.”
“Who’s Clark Kisham?”
“Let’s go after Benny. I’ll explain everything on the way.”
“We have no idea where he went,” Diana said.
“I have an idea,” Colt said. “Go up to the next light and make a U-turn.”
“Where are we going?”
“Mac’s Diner. I have a feeling Benny robbed his own restaurant.”
42
On the way to Rock Creek, Diana stopped and rented a hotel room, making sure it was on the first floor and that the door wasn’t visible from the road. Colt carried Felisa in and put her to bed. If anyone had asked, he would have told them that she had too much to drink. But nobody asked.
“I’ll make an anonymous call to the police in a little while and tell them where she is,” Diana said. “Right now I think she could use the rest.”
“I could use some myself,” Colt said.
He hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob as they exited the room.
They climbed back into the Charger, and Diana navigated back out to the highway.
“Want me to stop and get some coffee?” she said.
“No thanks. I’ll just need to sleep for about forty-eight hours when this is over. I would like to stop somewhere and get some thirty-eight cartridges, though. I’m all out.”
“I have some in my bag.”
“Is there anything you don’t have in that bag?”
“Answers. Like what makes you think Mr. S is in Rock Creek.”
“You haven’t figured it out yet? He was calling JR’s cell phone and leaving messages as Mr. S at the same time he was hanging out in person as Benny Korto. He had everything planned. Orchestrated to a T. The one thing he didn’t plan on was me—or anyone—being at the Kisham house. He had to do some improvising after that, but in the end he pretty much got everyone to do what he wanted them to do, me
included.”
“Okay,” Diana said. “So he robbed his own restaurant. That makes sense. He probably used the money from the robbery to buy the materials for the cheap diesel-fuel bombs that JR—or whoever—packed into the van, and then the restaurant was reimbursed by the insurance company for the stolen money. Win-win for Mr. S.”
“Right. And Felisa Cayenne really did just happen to be there at the wrong time. Benny saw an opportunity and took it. I’m still not sure about the guys in the black coats, but I’m thinking they might have been hired by Sam Gosswald. Or an associate of his, or a family member or something. The Gosswalds have money. Big payday for Mr. S and his Helve organization.”
“So what happened to the money?” Diana said. “Everyone at the scene was dead, and I didn’t see any sort of briefcase or anything.”
“It was probably in the trunk of that long black car, and Benny probably grabbed it while we were in the coffee shop. He knew all along that those guys weren’t really going to give him and JR all the money—maybe none of it—and that’s why he decided not to attend the meeting. That’s why he sent himself on the little errand to get some beer. He figured there were going to be some dead bodies left at that place, and he didn’t want to be one of them.”
“You still didn’t answer my question. Why do you think he’s in Rock Creek?”
“A couple of reasons. At the end of the message you played back at the coffee shop, he said I’ll be very disappointed if you can’t make it. The exact same phrase is printed on the menu at Mac’s Diner, signed by Mac himself. I doubt if that’s a coincidence.”
“And?”
“The bus ticket.”
“Bus ticket?”
“Benny had a bus ticket to Rock Creek. I saw it. He handed it to me.”
“Why did he have a bus ticket to Rock Creek?”
“I’m guessing that Mr. S—Benny—called JR and told him to buy the ticket. JR probably thought Rock Creek was going to be a rendezvous point, but Benny knew better. He knew that JR would never make it past the guys at the meeting. He knew that the gangsters would kill JR and take Felisa and keep the money.”
“I’m still not following you. How was Benny ever going to get any money in the first place?”
“That was the beauty of it all. In the original plan, Benny was supposed to leave Perk-U-Now with half the money. This was all cooked up by Benny’s alter ego Mr. S, of course. JR was just following orders. He did whatever Mr. S told him to do.”
“Which would leave Benny with a big load of cash that he would have to launder somehow,” Diana said. “And the safe at his restaurant would be as good a place as any to stash it for now.”
“Right. And if he was able to get it out of the long black car, then that’s probably still his plan. If he got the money, then he’s probably in Rock Creek. If he didn’t get the money, he might be anywhere. But I’m betting he got the money.”
“And I’m betting you’re right,” Diana said.
43
Diana took the back roads to Mac’s Diner, steered into the parking lot and killed the engine.
No SUV in sight, but there was a Corvette with a license tag that said Mac 1.
“That has to be his car,” Colt said.
Diana pulled out her cell phone and did some research.
“It says here that someone named M. A. Chronis owns the diner.”
M.A.C.
It made sense now.
“Another one of Mr. S’s aliases?” Colt said.
“Not one that we have on record.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.”
“I know. It complicates matters considerably.”
“So how do you want to approach this?”
“Carefully,” Diana said. “You identified Benny as Mr. S, but we’re not a hundred percent certain that Mr. S is M.A. Chronis. And we won’t be able to tell by looking at him. He’s too good at disguising himself.”
“I’m pretty good with voices.”
“Pretty good isn’t good enough, Nicholas. Not for an L and E. We’re talking about executing this guy on the spot. We need positive identification.”
Diana was right. They couldn’t just kill the guy without being sure.
“We could wait here and follow him when he leaves,” Colt said.
“We could, but when Mr. S assumes an identity, he plays it to the hilt. You said that Benny had an entire history, and it’s the same with all of Mr. S’s aliases. I’m sure M.A. Chronis has a nice normal house somewhere. Maybe even a wife and kids. We could follow him home, stake the place out, but it might be weeks—or even months—before we could find anything solid enough to move on.”
“I’m starting to understand why The Circle hasn’t nailed him yet,” Colt said.
“This is how Mr. S operates: he’ll assume one or two identities for a while, and then, once he’s milked those particular personas for all they’re worth, he’ll disappear and set up shop elsewhere. Start all over again. He’s one of the most elusive criminals on the planet, and he always leaves a path of destruction in his wake.”
“Suggestions?”
“I have an idea,” Diana said. “But it might be too risky.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“We could walk in and get a table, and then ask to speak with the owner. If M.A. Chronis is the guy you were with earlier, the guy you knew as Benny, you won’t be able to recognize him now, but he’ll be able to recognize you right away.”
“He might turn around and try to make a run for it,” Colt said.
“That’s one possibility.”
“Or he might pull out a gun and shoot me.”
“That’s another.”
“Or, if he’s as smart as you say he is, he might not react at all. Just play it cool. Talk to us nicely like any restaurant owner would, and then return to whatever he was doing before we interrupted him. Maybe slip out casually after a few minutes and drive off in the red sports car.”
“There’s no telling what he might do,” Diana said.
“Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out. You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Let’s go. I recommend the Blue Plato Special.”
44
They climbed out of the Charger and walked inside. It was a little past four. Lunch had been over for a while, and the dinner crowd hadn’t started trickling in yet. There were two guys at the bar, three empty stools between them, and a man and a woman at a booth with a baby in a high chair. Otherwise, the place was empty.
A perky young lady wearing a short knit dress and a counterfeit smile bounced up to the podium with a pair of menus. “Two for dinner this evening?” she said.
“Yes,” Colt said. “Is Erin working tonight?”
“She’ll be in at five. You’re welcome to wait at the bar if you would like for her to be your server.”
“We’ll go ahead and take a table,” Diana said. “That one, if it’s available.”
She pointed toward the first in a row of booths along the front window. It was a good choice. Close to the door, nice view of the red Corvette in the parking lot.
The hostess brought glasses of water and sets of silverware rolled up in cloth napkins.
“Your server will be with you shortly.”
“Would it be possible to talk to Mr. Chronis?” Colt said.
“Oh, you know Mac?”
“I just wanted to tell him what a nice place he has here.”
“I’m sure he would be happy to hear that. I’ll see if he’s available.”
“Thanks.”
A waiter named Kyle came to the table a couple of minutes later. Young guy. Just a kid, really. Clean cut and tanned from the sun. Colt felt like giving him a glove and a cap and telling him to go outside and play.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
Colt ordered an Old Fitz on the rocks and a basket of fried calamari from the appetizer menu, and Diana ordered a soda water with lime. Kyle promised to be
right back with the drinks.
“Three security cameras,” Diana said, her voice just above a whisper. “One behind the bar, one over the servers’ station, and one mounted in the corner by the restrooms.”
“Yeah. They weren’t here the other day. Which makes me wonder if we’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“How so?”
“I doubt if Mr. S would go to all the trouble and expense, especially if he’s planning on clearing out soon.”
“Maybe the insurance company insisted on having them installed.”
“Maybe. Or maybe Chronis isn’t our guy after all.”
Kyle brought the drinks, turned to walk away, almost bumped into a tall man wearing a dark gray suit. He told the man he was sorry, and then the man said, “Are these the people who wanted to talk to me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Kyle carried his cork-lined tray back toward the bar.
The man in the gray suit stepped up to the booth and said, “Hello, there. My name is Mac. How can I help you this evening?”
It’s not him, Colt thought. No way. Mac had a mustache and a cleft chin and a full head of hair, salt-and-pepper gray. He looked nothing like Benny. The height was about right, and the weight, and there was something in the voice—behind the thick foreign accent—but all of that put together wasn’t enough to override the extreme difference in facial features.
Certain now that M.A. Chronis and Benjamin Korto were not the same person, Colt started to compliment Mac on his restaurant, but Diana spoke up first, deciding to go for the jugular right off the bat.
“We know who you are,” she said. “Sorry, but we’re going to have to take you in.”
Colt’s jaw dropped. What was she doing? This wasn’t the guy.
“Who are you?” Mac said.
Diana produced her ID case, opened it with her left hand. Her right hand was under the table.
“Rhonda Webb,” she said. “United States Deputy Marshal. We have reason to believe that you are the leader of—”