by Blair Howard
She sat down again, closed her eyes, and massaged the bridge of her nose. When she looked up at me her face was a grim mask.
“So what do you want?” she asked.
I opened my iPad, went to the Kalliste website, flipped through the screens until I found the one for Hera, and then I handed it to her.
“I want you to tell me all about this.”
Shock and awe is a military doctrine, and I quote, “based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.” It’s also a term the use of which was absolutely appropriate here. The look on Mason-Jones’ face was one of total disbelief. Her eyes widened, she stared at screen for a moment, then slammed the leather cover shut and clasped the iPad to her chest.
She began to stammer, the words disconnected, unrelated, making no sense. I reached out across the desk for the iPad; she clutched it to her even more tightly.
“Come on,” I said. Give it to me.”
She shook her head, “You… you… you can’t.”
“Oh but I can, and I will. Now hand it over.”
Reluctantly, she did so, and with its departure she seemed to gather strength, pull herself together. She took a long, slow, deep breath, and then said, “I have nothing to say, and now I must ask you to leave.”
I nodded. I wasn’t surprised, but I wasn’t ready to give up, not yet.
“I think you should reconsider that,” I said. “There are at least half a dozen of your students on that website. And those are the ones we know of. One of them, Emily Johnston, is dead. Murdered. Two more are missing, presumed dead. Erika Padgett, a close friend of Johnston’s, is also dead. We believe all four deaths are connected to this website which, so we believe, you run. We believe that because we know you and Captain Rösche coerce your students into participating in acts of lesbian prostitution—by definition, that’s human trafficking—a felony punishable by up to twenty years in prison. This is serious shit, Ms. Mason-Jones. I think you’d better talk.”
Her face was white, but she replied calmly. “Once again, I must ask you both to leave my office immediately. From now on you will communicate with me through my lawyers unless you intend to arrest me, which, unless I’m mistaken, you do not have the authority to do.”
She stared at Kate. Kate stared back, unmoving.
“I thought not,” she said. “Now. I insist that you leave my office.”
It was obvious we would get nothing more from her, so I rose to my feet. So did Kate.
“Big mistake, Vicky,” I said. She didn’t bat an eyelash. She just sat there staring at us. And so we left.
“What do you think?” Kate asked, as we walked out of the admin building and down the front steps.
“She’s tough,” I said, “but not tough enough. We’ll get her. For now, though, all we have is Jessica’s word about what’s going on. It’s not enough. She could just be trying to cover her ass. Coercion is one thing, if that’s what’s going on here. Freewill participation in a lesbian dating website is quite another. Hell, it all could be quite innocent. They have to meet somewhere, somehow, don’t they?”
She gave me one of those looks, part disbelief, part amusement, “Yeah,” she said, dryly. “I suppose they do.”
We walked in silence to the car.
“What now?” she asked as she opened the door. “You want to talk to the horse woman, Michelle Scott?”
“No point. At least right now. We know how Emily and Erika met. It wasn’t at the horse barn. I don’t think Michelle had anything to do with it.”
“I agree,” she said as she checked the Glock 26 on her hip. “So. Let’s go step on a roach.” I had to smile at that one, but then I saw the look on her face. She wasn’t smiling. Other than the two spots of pink high on her cheekbones, her face was pale, and her lips were set in a thin, tight line.
Chapter 24
I pulled the Maxima to a stop outside the campus police office. They were outside on the front porch, and obviously waiting for us. They looked like a couple of orangutans.
We got out of the car. Mirrors took a step forward; so did I. That put us almost nose-to-nose. I jerked the M&P9 out from under my arm and jammed the barrel into his nostrils. He yelped, took an involuntary step backward, and grabbed his now bleeding nose with both hands.
“Goddammit!” he yelled through his fingers. “What did you do that for?”
“I did it to get you the hell out of my way, and that goes for you too, Lenny or Squiggy or whatever the hell your name is,” I said to his partner. “Either one of you so much as twitches a finger in the direction of those Glocks and I’ll blow your friggin’ hand off. Now, lead the hell on. We’re going to see your boss.”
Their boss was behind his desk. He was in uniform, leaning back in his chair, seemingly perfectly at ease. That’s what he would have had us believe, but there was just a hint of fear on his thin face as Kate, Glock 26 in hand, and I herded his two monkeys in in front of us.
“Come on in, Harry, Lieutenant.” He smiled, but there was no humor in it. “The chancellor said you might drop by. Sit down. Take a load off.” He looked with disgust at his two minions. “You two,” he said, “can go, but stay close. Oh, and be sure to let the others know where I am.”
The instructions were a clear order to fetch help. I wasn’t having it.
“You two stay the hell where you are,” I said. “In fact, why don’t you just sit down over there where I can see you, like good little boys?” I twitched the M&P9 in the direction of two chairs set against the wall at the right side of his desk.
They looked at him. He nodded, and they sat, both looking exceedingly uncomfortable. We remained standing. I was just about to speak, but Kate beat me to it.
“What the hell are you running here, Rösche?” she asked. “This is a high-end college for women. Why do you need a small army of armed mercenaries? And who the hell trained them to attack a female reporter and gun down a man without provocation?”
It was a question he’d been expecting. I could see that, but it was also one he wasn’t going to answer, at least not willingly. I could see that too.
He grinned. He had all the charm of a cornered rat.
“Oh I don’t think it was unprovoked. Your reporter was trespassing, and the man, your employee, Harry, attacked one of my men. Pretty cut-and-dried case of us doing our job, protecting the vulnerable young ladies we have here, wouldn’t you say?”
“Have you seen the news today?” she asked.
“Of course. So?”
“So your men, both of them, are screwed. They’re going to jail, you stupid son of a bitch. It’s all on camera. And if Ryan dies, your man’s going down for murder; attempted murder if he doesn’t die.”
He shrugged. “Our lawyers have different ideas. They were trespassing and they disobeyed clear instructions to leave. Ryan attacked one of my men as he attempted to eject them from the property and incapacitated him. Ronson was simply doing his job when he drew his weapon in response. I’d say you’ll be receiving his suit for personal injury quite shortly; Ryan was, after all, acting on your behalf. Is that not correct? And on private property too.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The man was serious. He really thought he was going to get away with it.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Kate put her free hand on my arm. “I’ll ask you again, Rösche,” she said quietly. “Why the army?”
“Army? You mean my eight security guards? Not really an army now, are they?”
“Let’s move on,” Kate said. Her face was as set and cold as stone. “What do you know about Kalliste?”
It wasn’t much, but it was there: the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes unlocked from hers, switched from her to me and then back again.
“Kalliste? What’s that?” And there it was, the tell. He knew it was a what and not a who.
I grinned at him and waited to s
ee if Kate had caught it too. She had.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Know? Know what?”
“That Kalliste is not a woman’s name?”
“I didn’t.” He now looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I just thought—”
She stepped around the desk and jammed the muzzle of her Glock into his crotch, hard. There was nowhere for him to go; his back was already against the back of the chair.
“Tell me, you son of a bitch, or I’ll blow your baby bag to hell and back.”
He gasped, trying to wriggle out from under the gun, but she simply shoved the Glock harder into his tender parts. His face had gone white and his hands were clamped to the arms of his chair. I watched Mirrors and Aviators, ready if they were to make a move. They didn’t. They watched, shocked, as their boss squirmed under the increasing pressure of the Glock.
He was scared shitless, and who wouldn’t be? Nobody likes to have a firearm pointed at them, much less have one shoved into their genitals. Accidents happen all the time. I smiled inwardly. I could see what he couldn’t: Kate’s finger was not on the trigger.
“Do your worst, bitch,” he snarled through his teeth. “I was trained by the best. You’ll get nothing from me.”
She glared down at him, shook her head, gave the Glock another sharp shove, twisted it, and stepped back. He slumped down in the chair and grasped his injured package in both hands.
“So let me tell you what we know, asshole.” She sat on the edge of his desk, the Glock in her hand, resting on her thigh and pointing at his crotch, which he was gently massaging.
“We have a witness. We know that you and the queen—the chancellor—are blackmailing students into prostitution. That, you son of a bitch, is human trafficking, and it’ll get you twenty years.”
“Screw you,” he snarled. “Get the hell out of my office, and off the property.”
“He’s right, Harry. He’ll give us nothing we don’t already know. Let’s get out of here. Oh yeah,” she said, glaring at Rösche, “and keep your damned dogs clear of us.”
“I’ve got a job to do, bitch. As long as you’re on the property, my people will be watching you.”
She turned in the doorway, face emotionless, and said, “You’d better pray that Bob Ryan makes it. If he doesn’t, I’m coming after you.”
Back in the car, she sat quietly staring out the windshield. What was going through her mind, I didn’t know. I knew one thing though: I’d just seen a side of Kate I’d never seen before, and it wasn’t pretty. I let her be as I swung the car out of the lot and away toward Signal Mountain. It wasn’t until we were almost in Red Bank that she finally broke her silence.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
“About Rösche?”
She nodded.
“I think Jones is the brains. He just works for her. He’s the guy that gets the goods on the women, the video footage they use to coerce them, and probably runs protection for the girls, too. I also think his cajones will have turned black by morning.”
She nodded again, but made no further attempt at conversation.
It was almost six thirty when we rolled through the gate, into the parking lot behind my office. The rest of the crew was already there, waiting, anticipating. Tonight, Jacque was going on a date.
I had just one thing left to do before we headed out; I called Amanda.
She picked up on the third ring. “Harry. I was just going to call you. I went up to the school this afternoon. It was a disaster. No one would talk to me. She, that Mason-Jones woman, had those pigs escort us off the property.”
“Oh jeez, Amanda. I thought you promised not to go back up there.”
“I did not. I promised not to confront Rösche. You said nothing about Mason-Jones or Jessica Henderson.”
“You talked to Jessica. She didn’t say so.”
“No. I didn’t get the chance. I met with Jones. As soon as I walked into her office, she called Rösche. You’re right about him. He’s a pig. Anyway. We weren’t there but a few minutes. He insisted we leave and not come back. He and one of his men followed us to the gate. Harry, I can hear you smiling. It’s not funny. I have a story to produce.”
You can hear me smiling? Oh that’s too much.
The weird thing was, I was indeed smiling.
“I wasn’t,” I said. “Well, only a little. Listen. You’ll get your story. I promise. Just be patient. This thing is unfolding fast. I don’t yet know quite where it’s going, but it’s going to be big, and—”
She interrupted me. She rattled off a list of questions without taking a breath. Now I really was smiling.
“No, Amanda. Not now. I don’t have it all together, and no you can’t go dropping hints on the air. You’ll screw things up if you do. Please, just bear with me.”
She wasn’t happy, but she agreed to wait, and I promised to give her what details I could when I got home.
Chapter 25
Jacque had made a dinner reservation for eight thirty, and they had arranged to meet in the lobby of the Read House at eight. Jacque had also booked a king suite in the hotel and checked in at six that evening. By eight o’clock, Tim and his girlfriend, Samantha, were seated at their table in the restaurant, waiting. Heather was in the lobby seated at a table outside Starbucks.
Kate and I were in the company van, which was parked in the multi-story next to the hotel. I usually have Tim run the electronics, but with Bob still in hospital and Tim in the restaurant, I had to do it myself.
Everyone inside the hotel, including Jacque, was equipped with a watch that could record both video and sound. These were connected to the van’s electronics by WiFi. I had one myself—it was the only one I ever wore, because, well, you never know.
At eight o’clock, Jacque came down from her room and arrived in the lobby a couple of minutes early. Heather spotted her first. She looked stunning in a white cocktail dress. The white of the dress and matching clutch accentuated the coffee color of her skin. She found a seat and sat down to wait, but not for long. At precisely eight o’clock, Artemis entered the lobby from the street.
She looked around, spotted Jacque, and walked toward her. Jacque rose to meet her.
Artemis was a true goddess. She was maybe five foot nine, the honey-colored ringlets a stark contrast to the long-sleeved black pencil dress.
Jacque extended her hand, “Artemis?” I adjusted the sound a little. The watch was working perfectly.
“And you must be Jennifer.” The voice was low, quiet. I adjusted the sound again. Damn. I wish Tim was doing this.
“Would you like a drink before dinner?” Artemis asked, still holding Jacque’s hand.
“Yes. I think that would be nice.” I smiled. She was putting on the West Indian accent, and it suited her perfectly.
Heather followed them into the bar. They took a table, and the waiter was on them almost before they’d gotten settled. They ordered martinis. Heather seated herself at a table close by, where she could face and record them.
“So, tell me about yourself,” Artemis said.
“Oh, I think you already know all there is to know. Is that not correct?”
“It is, but I’d rather hear it from you.”
I crossed my fingers, but I needn’t have bothered. Jacque was good. Far better than I could have imagined. She ran out the background of the persona Tim had provided in a relaxed and conversational way that, if I hadn’t known better, I would have believed myself.
“So what do you do for a living?”
“Why, nothing, of course. I told you, my father is a very wealthy man. Now, you know all about me. I’d like to hear about you.”
Artemis stared at her for a moment and then smiled.
“My real name is Wendy. I… I’m self-employed. Look, let’s get to know each other a little before we, well. Let’s get to know each other. Did you bring the money?”
“I did, but I’d like to keep it for later, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, I did. But as you said, we don’t know each other, now do we. So….”
Artemis rose to her feet. “I think not.”
“Damn,” I said to Kate. “She’s blown it.”
“I don’t think so. Watch.”
Jacque smiled sweetly up at her. “Are you leaving then, and so soon? That’s too bad. I was so looking forward to tonight. The money’s safe, in here.” She patted her clutch. “There’s no need for you to leave.”
Wendy, or whatever her name was, paused, looked down at her, nodded, and sat down again.
They went into the dining room at eight thirty, ordered, and chatted quietly together as they ate. Between Tim and Jacque, we got most of it, and that wasn’t much. Every time Jacque brought up a sensitive point, Wendy deftly parried and changed the subject.
By ten o’clock they had finished their meal. Tim and Samantha, not being able to stretch things out without it becoming obvious, had already left, and both were now inside the van with Kate and me. Tim, thank God, had taken over the electronics.
Jacque charged the meal to her room and together they headed for the elevator. The ride up was a weird experience, at least for us. Jacque’s arm was at her side and the image moved back and forth as she moved it. It made my head swim. At one point, they must have kissed, because she put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and we were treated to an intimate view of the inside of her ear.
“Very pretty,” Tim murmured.
“If you’ll excuse me for just a moment,” Wendy said. “I need to use the bathroom.”
She closed the bathroom door, and Jacque looked at the WiFi spy camera on the sideboard next to the TV—it was disguised as an air freshener—and winked, and then she walked over to the window and stared out over the city nightline. The camera provided a 180-degree view of the room. She stood with her back to it, feet slightly apart, arms folded.