Double Jeopardy

by William Bernhardt

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible. All my men are out on assignment. And by the time I got men reassigned from other departments—”

  Travis completed his sentence. “Moroconi would’ve flown the coop.”

  The man tilted his head in assent.

  “Well, at least you can join us.” Travis glanced at Curran. “Any problems?”

  Curran didn’t say anything.

  “Cavanaugh?”

  “No. I like the idea of having a trained FBI agent along for the ride. As long as he doesn’t shoot Moroconi before we can talk to him.”

  “I won’t,” the man replied. “I’d like to ask that gentleman a few questions myself.”

  “Good,” Travis said. “Let’s not waste any more time. Moroconi has almost an hour’s lead on us as it is.”

  He agreed, still smiling. “Your car or mine?”

  Kramer walked back to their cars with them. Not a bad recovery from a near-fatal blunder. He had been so intent on eavesdropping that he hadn’t seen that idiot commando until he was flying over the hedge.

  He had to think hard and fast if he was going to make this masquerade fly. At least he had managed to come up with the Henderson bluff, using the name and password he found in Travis’s car. It was a calculated risk. He wasn’t absolutely positive Byrne had never met Henderson, although it seemed unlikely. Henderson was a desk jockey—someone more likely to send flunkeys out to put the fear into a two-bit criminal attorney.

  Apparently, Mario had blown it. Crumbled like a cracker. Gave away Jack’s address. If Jack went down, he’d take the rest of the corporation with him. Byrne had to be stopped.

  Of course, he’d been planning to take Byrne out anyway. Now he could be more than a paid assassin. He could be a hero. It wouldn’t matter what Mario said about him, or what Mario tried to do to him. Mario would be the traitor, the weasel, the one who talked. Kramer would be the knight in shining armor, the mastermind who saved the family after Mario’s blunder.

  As they approached the Jeep Kramer noticed that the kid—Curran, they called him—remained a few steps behind him. Come to think of it, he was watching Kramer very carefully. Apparently the punk had some doubts about this alleged FBI man who dropped in out of the blue. Smart punk.

  It was a perfect setup. He would stick to these people like glue, and let them lead him to Moroconi. Once that was done, he would simply wait for the right moment and blow Byrne’s head off. On second thought, a bullet through the kneecap might be better—extremely painful and not immediately fatal. Then he would fire another bullet into an extremity every few minutes or so. Then set fire to his clothes. Slowly. It might take Byrne hours to die. Good. He wanted that shithead lawyer to suffer for what he had put him through. He wanted him to hurt.

  He would just wait for the right moment, when this Curran punk was out of the way and not in a position to retaliate. Or he would kill Curran first. Whatever. He would probably have to kill them all, come to think of it, now that they had seen his face. Not that that particularly bothered him.

  “We have to find Moroconi before midnight,” Travis said. “Otherwise—” He didn’t finish the sentence, but Kramer knew what he meant. He knew all about Staci’s midnight deadline—since he’d created it himself and leaked it to his pigeon at the paper.

  Byrne was holding the gun Curran had knocked out of Kramer’s hand. He was obviously uncertain what to do with it.

  “If it makes you more comfortable,” Kramer bluffed, “you keep the gun.”

  “No,” Travis said. “You’re going to need it.” He returned the pistol.

  Kramer had to exert extreme control, but he managed to suppress his strong desire to laugh.

  Thanks for the murder weapon, Byrne. Yours.

  68

  7:10 P.M.

  IN A SMALL OFFICE ON the penthouse floor of a high-rise in downtown Dallas, the real Special Agent Henderson stormed into Agent Simpson’s office. He was behind Simpson’s desk before the man had a chance to blink.

  “Mr. Henderson!” Simpson cried, startled.

  “Don’t bother getting up,” Henderson growled.

  “Oh no,” Simpson said, pushing himself out of his chair. I wouldn’t dream—”

  Henderson shoved him back down. “I want to know what’s really going on, Simpson. And you’re going to tell me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean—”

  “Bureau 99 is going to hell in a handbasket, that’s what I mean. I had a clean, perfectly functioning little team here, and suddenly it’s all gone to shit. I think we have a mole.”

  “A mole?” Simpson did his best to feign surprise. “Surely not.”

  “Spare me the crap. I’m onto you.”

  “Don’t tell me you suspect that I—”

  “No, I don’t. You haven’t the imagination.” He hovered over Simpson’s chair; Simpson could feel his hot breath on his face. “But I think you know who it is.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’ve always been a mindless little toady. Anything anyone wanted you to do, no matter how dirty, you were ready to do it.”

  Simpson tried to squirm out of his chair, but Henderson didn’t give him an opening. “But, sir—”

  “Mind you, I’m not complaining. There’s a place for mindless toadies in every operation, as long as you know who they are and who they’re working for. So that’s my question, Simpson. Who are you working for?”

  “You, sir!” Beads of sweat trickled down his brow. “I only take orders from you.”

  “Is that right? I just had some phone records pulled up from the central database in Quantico. Maybe you didn’t know we had a double check on the phone monitor?”

  Simpson’s befuddled expression showed that Henderson had guessed correctly. “I didn’t—”

  “Funny thing. I found several unauthorized, unrecorded phone calls to Mr. Janicek’s extension. And they all occurred while either you or the late Agent Mooney were supposed to be monitoring the phones.”

  Simpson desperately wanted to loosen his collar but feared it would be a dead giveaway. “You know, sometimes the switchboard gets so busy, it’s possible I might miss a call—”

  Henderson grabbed him by his shirt. “What really happened at that shopping mall, Simpson? I never believed for a minute that Travis Byrne killed Mooney.”

  “B-but—he did, sir. It was just like—”

  “Bull. Makes no sense. And if he wasn’t killed by Byrne; that means it was either you or Janicek.”

  He tightened his grip on Simpson’s shirt, lifting him out of his chair. “One of you is going up the river, Simpson. Who’s it going to be?”

  69

  8:12 P.M.

  TRAVIS AND CAVANAUGH HID in a grove of trees north of the large ranch-style home they had determined was the elusive Jack’s current residence. It was a lovely, secluded area not far from Mountain Creek Lake. Curran had volunteered to make a preliminary sweep of the grounds. Although Travis had a hard time believing Henderson could be much help to him, for some reason, Curran had insisted on dragging the man along with him.

  Travis tried to keep them in sight, using Curran’s high-powered infrared glasses, but the slope of the hill obscured his view before they had traveled two hundred feet.

  “How long have they been gone?” Cavanaugh whispered.

  “Only about twenty minutes. Not long, really.”

  “Curran said he’d be back in ten.”

  “He was estimating.”

  “What if he’s been caught?”

  Travis tried to comfort her, even though her words only echoed his own thoughts. “Henderson is probably slowing him down.”

  “Henderson should know his way around the block if he’s such a big FBI hotshot.”

  “Maybe he’s been behind a desk too long.”

  “I suppose.” She shuddered involuntarily. “Eerie-looking guy, though. Did you see that scar on his face? Gives me the creeps.”

  “Yeah. Well, you can’t judge a book
by its cover.” Travis was about to spin off a few more reassuring platitudes when he heard the barely discernible sound of approaching footsteps—a tiny crunching of leaves, an almost inaudible rush of air. It was coming from behind him, away from the house.

  Travis’s hand involuntarily went to his gun. He cursed himself bitterly. And just what did you think you might do with that gun, Byrne?

  To his relief, he saw Curran trudging up the hill, Henderson a few steps in front of him. “How’d you get behind me?” Travis asked.

  “Years of practice,” Curran replied. “So how’s it look? Did you see any security?” Curran and Henderson exchanged a meaningful look. “You could say that.”

  “A burglar alarm system?”

  “True, they do have that. An electric touch-and-sound-sensitive system wired to every door and window in the house. Very sophisticated. Noise detectors, motion detectors. The works.”

  Travis swung his fist in the air. “Damn.”

  “Don’t sweat it. The flaw with any system that big is that it requires a lot of power. I found the power source and cut it off. It’s useless.”

  “So they’re all in the house without power now?”

  “What do you take me for? I didn’t shut off all the power. I just cut the line feeding the security system. They’ll never know the difference.”

  Travis’s eyes brightened. “That’s great. So we can just waltz on in.”

  “We can, assuming you can avoid the guardpost, the security cameras, the magnetic card gate, and the bodyguards.”

  Travis’s chin fell. “Oh. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Moroconi’s here. Henderson ID’d his silhouette in an upstairs window.”

  “Then I was right!” Travis thought for a moment. “If we can’t get in, how did Moroconi?”

  “My guess would be that he was admitted voluntarily. He seemed to be chatting with someone. And by the way, I never said we couldn’t get in.”

  “Then you think we can?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “Okay,” Cavanaugh asked, “how do we get past the security guards?”

  “There are only two of them.”

  “I’m not that handy in a fistfight,” Travis hedged.

  “That’s not the critical issue,” Curran replied. “Frankly, I could take them both down myself. The issue is time.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I could take them both out, but not before one of them triggered an alarm. Or called for help. That’s why I need you.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cavanaugh said. “If you can take out the burglar alarm, why can’t you take out the phones?”

  “I could, but the security guards might notice and they’d know something was up. I’ll take the phones out once we’ve taken care of the guards.”

  “Why don’t we just sneak past them?” Henderson asked. “You and I did it when we scouted the grounds. All those bozos are watching is the road in and out of the house.”

  “We probably could get past them,” Curran answered. “But what if they notice a disturbance in the house after we break in? They’ll get reinforcements, then come rushing in with big guns. And we’ll be history. No, we need to take them out before we go inside.”

  “What if you do take these two?” Cavanaugh asked. “What about the bodyguards inside? What about the magnetic card gate? What about the security cameras?”

  “One thing at a time,” Curran replied.

  Travis and Curran approached the guardpost, one on each side, using the dense trees, brush, and darkness as natural camouflage. The post was basically a small shack with barely enough room for two men to sit. There were Dutch doors on both sides—top halves open, bottom halves closed. Presumably, one man covered incoming traffic while the other covered the outgoing. Both roads had a gate blocking the lane that could be raised by the guards.

  Curran crept up to the Dutch door on his side, then sprang up to his full height. “Excuse me.”

  The guard nearest him jumped, startled to see a man suddenly appear in the doorway. “What the—” His hand moved toward the gun in his holster.

  “Whoa! Calm down.” Curran held out his hands reassuringly. “I don’t want any trouble. My car broke down about a mile up the road and I can’t get it started.” He showed them the grease he had smeared all over his arms and face. “I thought maybe you’d have a phone.”

  The guard glanced at his partner, who shrugged. “I suppose that would be all right.” He unlatched the bottom part of the Dutch door.

  The instant the door was unlocked, Curran grabbed it and slammed it back into the guard. He doubled over the top of the door; Curran slammed it back again. The guard fell backward, knocking his partner against the control panel.

  On the other side of the guardpost, Travis saw the other guard’s hand groping for an alarm button. He leaped over the Dutch door and grabbed the man’s hands. He heard Curran’s fists connecting with some part of the other guard’s anatomy, but he didn’t stop to see what or where. His job was to make sure his man’s hands didn’t make contact with the control panel.

  Suddenly Travis’s guard bent forward and rammed his head into Travis’s gut. Travis fell back with a shout. The guard dove for the control panel. In the midst of this sudden flurry, Travis saw Curran land another fist on his target. He was doing fine, but the guard was proving too resilient. Curran would be done soon, but not soon enough.

  Travis grabbed his guard around the neck and jerked him away from the control panel just as the man’s thumb was about to make contact with a large red button. He thrust the man’s head downward; his chin struck the metal panel. He fell onto the floor, apparently unconscious.

  Travis heard another punch and saw Curran’s man fall to the ground in a similarly unconscious state.

  “I can’t believe it,” Curran said. “You put your goon away before I did mine. How’d you do that?”

  “Vitamins,” Travis said, gasping for air. “Now take out the damn phones.”

  70

  8:43 P.M.

  TRAVIS GRABBED THE GUARD by the back of his neck and shook him. He still didn’t rouse.

  “Nice job you did on him,” Henderson commented. “He’s out cold.”

  “That had more to do with the solidity of the control panel than the strength of my fists.” He shook the man again. No reaction.

  “Let me try,” Curran said. He stood behind the guard, wrapped his arms under the man’s shoulders and around his neck, then jerked him violently upward. Travis heard the guard’s neck crack. His eyes shot open.

  “Who the fuck—” The guard looked around furiously, then groaned. His head fell to one side.

  Curran lifted the man’s head and motioned for Travis to begin the inquisition. Travis searched back in the far recesses of his mind to his police days. Interrogation 101. Play on the suspect’s insecurity. Make him uneasy, unsure. Don’t let him know what you want. Let him wonder—

  Oh, the hell with it. “Where’s your security card? Punk,” he added for dramatic effect.

  The man stared at Travis, still semidazed. “My what?”

  “Your entrance card. The little magnetic gizmo you stick in the box at the door so you can get into the house.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, right. Hold him tight, Curran.”

  Travis proceeded to search him. He followed standard police procedure; it was all coming back to him. He patted down the man’s outer body, then came up on the inside of his legs and arms. In the man’s shirt pocket, he found a piece of plastic about the size of a credit card with an electromagnetic strip on the back. “This it?”

  Curran glanced at the card. “Probably. Let’s sneak up to the house and give it a try.”

  The man sneered. “It won’t work, you assholes.”

  “Did you hear that?” Travis said. “He says it won’t work.”

  “What did you expect him to say? Be my guest?” Curran tightened his grip a
round the man’s neck. “So why won’t it work, chump?”

  The man grimaced. “You ain’t as smart as you think you are.”

  “I think he’s referring to the voiceprint ID,” Cavanaugh suggested. The man’s immediate reaction told them she was right. “I’ve seen this equipment in operation before. You pop in the card and the machine asks you a few questions. Your voiceprint has to match the one the machine has on file.”

  “If he thinks that’s going to stop us, he’s in for a big surprise,” Curran said. In the blink of an eye, he released his grip around the man’s neck, whirled him around, and shoved him back against the guardpost. He held two fingers about an inch from each of the man’s eyeballs.

  “You see these fingers?” Curran asked. His voice was soft but dark; his expression was menacing. “Do you know how long it would take me to avulse your eyeballs? In case you don’t know, that means to pop them out of their sockets.”

  The man shook his head slowly. He was staring at the two threatening fingers.

  “About three seconds,” Curran answered. “Believe me. I’ve done it before.”

  The guard’s head was trembling. “You’re a fuckin’ lunatic.”

  “You know what? You’re right.” An evil leer crossed from one end of Curran’s face to the other, transforming his boyish features into an eerie satanic mask. He rested his fingertips on the man’s eyelids. “Two seconds left.”

  The guard’s entire body shook, but he kept his mouth shut.

  Curran pressed down on his eyelids. “One second left. And then—pop! go the eyeballs.”

  “Chrissake, don’t do it!” The man’s chest was heaving; he was on the verge of crying. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Good.” Curran whipped him around again. “I’m going to tie you up now. Then we’ll lead you to the front entrance to the house. We’ll stick your card in the slot, and then you’re going to say whatever it is you’re supposed to say. You’re not going to scream or yell for help. You might bring help, but not in less than three seconds. If you so much as peep, you may as well start shopping for a Seeing Eye dog. Understand?”