by C J West
He trotted to the car and craned his neck underneath before they got in. Nothing suspicious had been added. Vincent looked at him as if he were crazy, but he didn’t explain. He told Vincent to get them out of town anywhere but toward the farm. They meandered through open country roads where no one could follow without being seen. Jean-Claude had never been this afraid for his life. He’d worried endlessly about going to prison, but after today he was as expendable as Marcus. These men would kill him with precision and dump his body without a second thought. The handgun was little comfort against professionals.
A dozen miles from the bank he remembered what Marcus had said. “Vinny, what is velociminty?”
“Velocemente means fast or quick. He said spend the money quickly. Does he know something?”
Jean-Claude wondered what Marcus had said to Herman’s henchman back at the bank. He doubted the two were scheming against him. Marcus was a bit player in this scam. If anyone should have been worried it was Marcus. “He’s just a greedy, fat man taking everything he can get his hands on. He’s nobody,” Jean-Claude said, almost believing it himself.
“He doesn’t think he’s nobody. He was cocky, like he knew something was going to happen and he wished he could watch.”
Jean-Claude was taken aback by Vincent’s insight. It was no coincidence that the thugs from Boston appeared for this last withdrawal. This would be the most dangerous trip. Jean-Claude searched the fields in silence wondering if he’d make it back to Boston.
“I don’t think he liked the transfer,” Vincent said.
“Next time, he’ll ask for more money.”
Marcus might not wait that long.
They made a wide arc around the town and back to the farm, intently surveying every car and face they passed.
Back at the farm, it was Jean-Claude’s turn to pace. He spent the afternoon and most of the night traveling from window to window, waiting and watching. The fields were dark again and although he was anxious to get started, he needed some light to navigate through the mountains. The sun would rise soon, followed a few hours later by hikers and campers and other tree huggers who’d see him fly overhead. He collected his briefcase and overnight bag, thanked Vincent for his help, and started for the door. Vincent stirred, patted the thick envelope in his jacket and smiled as Jean-Claude quietly opened the back door and hiked across the open field. He climbed up the slope and settled into a thick stand of trees to observe the woods before climbing the rest of the way to the old dirt road.
The minutes passed slowly as he listened to the rush of leaves under each bird and squirrel stirred by the coming dawn. He rose to leave, then froze, hunched-over, half-standing. Two figures were barely visible in the pre-dawn light as they trotted across the field and spread out. Jean-Claude’s chest sank as he watched one of the men stop just inches from the outer wall, duck under the windows and sneak toward the front of the house. The other man moved toward the back door.
Jean-Claude unbuckled his holster and raised the .45. The bead drifted on and off the dark outline at the back of the house. The man was big and muscular, like the man in Marcus’ office earlier. Across the field, he was entirely blocked out when viewed through the sight on top of the barrel. Jean-Claude couldn’t hit him at this range; he might not even hit the house. The shot would give away his position, but it would give Vincent a few seconds warning. He eased the weapon down. Vincent would have to get out of this himself.
Jean-Claude climbed for higher ground as the men entered the house. He squeezed between two large rocks that would provide excellent cover no matter which angle they chose to attack from.
The man at the back door burst inside. If Vincent was still half asleep and tiredly watching the driveway he’d have no chance.
A sharp crack echoed from the house.
Vincent wasn’t holding a gun. He’d be face down on the floor with a pool of blood gathering where his face met the wooden planks.
Jean-Claude lay wedged into the rocks afraid to move, waiting for the assault and wondering why the assassins had come so far for him. He pulled himself higher over the rough surface for a better view. He watched with his face pressed against the rock as the men emerged from the back of the house and stood together on the grass. One of them talked into a palm-sized phone and tucked something into his jacket. Jean-Claude guessed it was the envelope he’d given Vincent hours earlier.
The silhouettes lacked detail in the faint morning light, but one was much broader than the other. They couldn’t have followed them from the bank. Marcus must have told them where Vincent lived. Jean-Claude wished he’d shot him when he had the chance. His heart thundered as he forced himself to lay still and quiet, watching the men and planning tactics to defend himself.
The first man folded his phone and the two of them retreated back around the house and disappeared. The engine of the Mercedes started, barely a whisper across the field. A faint cloud of dust rose as they sped away. They weren’t even going to look for him.
Chapter Forty-two
Bob Hicks followed Erica into the elevator and the two parted to opposite sides of the car as the doors closed. His eyes trailed the fringes of her skirt and on down to her heels. She hadn’t worn a skirt to work since her original interview sixteen years ago. She certainly hadn’t chosen this outfit for Bob’s benefit, yet she didn’t give him the sneer he normally would have earned for such obvious gawking. After watching her parents’ marriage disintegrate Erica had never sought a man’s attention. At thirty-four she realized for the first time that a turning head wasn’t something to be feared. It was actually affirming, especially from a good looking twenty-something. Her visit to the Turners’ had changed her. She wondered how long it would take Gregg to notice.
Bob walked off the elevator with his head over his shoulder. He narrowly missed one of the columns in the lobby and Erica chuckled as the doors closed. She wanted to follow him and visit Gregg, but she didn’t want to add to the rumors that had been swirling around them for years. They were going to kick into high gear as more people saw them together, but it didn’t matter anymore. They were a couple. They should have been years ago. A delighted reflection faced her from the shiny panel.
She strode to her office two hours later than usual, looking and feeling like a new woman. Not one person noticed. Heads were down and fingers were poised on keyboards in every cubicle she passed. Brad was still on vacation for another day, but tight deadlines pervaded.
Forty-two emails waited in neat ranks, payment due for three days off. A dozen voicemails begged a quick response. She was going to suffocate under a never-ending string of questions from people desperate for help with whatever minor technical glitch was bogging them down. She longed for the pressure to create, the pressure to deliver the impossible, but Brad would never let her feel that pressure again. Not here.
Her hard-driving approach had caused problems with bosses before, but it was different with Brad. She’d worked her heart out, kept her mouth shut and still Brad had fought her from day one. Surely her mother was wrong. Whatever his reasons for antagonizing her, it wasn’t her fault. Not this time.
Gregg’s problem was the biggest challenge that faced her.
Both Gregg and Sarah were convinced it was serious. A dozen people had seen Brad shred Gregg’s documents, but only Brad knew why he acted the way he did. Being Marty’s brother-in-law put him beyond the reaches of HR. He could do what he liked. What would Marty do if he knew how much damage Brad had caused around his company? Maybe telling him would change things. Not likely. Going to Marty would only push the conflict between them to the next level. One of them would have to go and the odds said it would be her. She hated the work Brad was giving her so much that she was willing to take the risk. Ousting Brad was her new mission.
She shuffled through one pile of folders then another. Her research was gone. It had been the last thing she worked on before leaving with Gregg for the weekend. She knew she’d left it on top of the stack, but spu
n to search the filing cabinet anyway. Years of project reports and notes on various technologies crammed the drawers. The folder wasn’t among them and it wasn’t on her desktop where she’d left it. Only Gregg and Sarah cared about this problem and neither of them would take her research without asking.
Brad’s reaction to this problem had been over the top. She’d never told him she was working on it, but if he’d taken the folder, it wasn’t petty trickery. Mr. Johnson’s ire, Brad’s raving assault on Gregg, and the contradictions within the data added up to something more than any of them knew. Sarah had good reason to be excited. It was no accident that her notes had disappeared a second time. This was no software bug. Brad was hiding something – something huge. This was her chance to repay him for years of torment.
She picked up the phone to call Sarah. She was abrupt and gung-ho, but Sarah wouldn’t come into her office and take her work. She might have the authority, but she wouldn’t have the guts, not after a few weeks on the job.
Erica dialed Gregg’s extension, but hung up before it connected. She hopped off her chair and headed downstairs to feed the rumor mill.
Standing outside Gregg’s cube, Jane Wheeler gave Erica a smile that said she’d heard the news and she approved wholeheartedly. Erica turned and tapped a short fingernail against the aluminum trim of Gregg’s cubicle. She examined her fingertip while she waited, resolved to let her nails grow to a more elegant length, maybe even paint them. Gregg didn’t seem to mind them as they were. All smiles, he finished his call quickly, his eyes surprised by her outfit.
She stepped in when he took off his headset, landed her hands softly at his waist and angled her lips up to meet his. She caressed his soft lips long enough that work in Jane’s cubicle came to a stop. Gregg slowed to pull away twice before she finished. When they faced each other from inches away, Gregg gushed over the change.
She eased her fingertips up toward his pecks and withdrew a foot away. He stood stiffly at his chair, his head barely visible above the cubicle wall, his body awaiting her command.
“This is a nice surprise,” he said.
“I was going to call, but I couldn’t resist sneaking down for a visit.”
“No need to sneak.” He indicated the chair next to his and tilted his head in Jane’s direction. She rolled her chair forward out of sight.
Erica didn’t have to look to know she was watching. She pulled herself up on the desktop and waited for him to settle back in his chair, tense about how much or little he should be looking at the leg draped off his desk.
She dangled her black heel toward the knee of his khakis. “Relax, will you?” She leaned in toward him. “I came to chat about that problem you brought me a couple weeks back. Remember the Johnsons?”
“You kidding? I have shredder nightmares.”
“I made some good progress last week, but I can’t find the file. You didn’t borrow it, did you?”
He looked offended. “I wouldn’t. You didn’t lose it twice?”
“Definitely not.”
The protective look he had the night of the break-in was back.
“You think Sarah would take it without asking?”
“Doubt it.” Gregg’s eyes darkened. He sensed it, too. There was more to this than a computer glitch, but with so many ears on the other side of the cubicle wall, he couldn’t say so.
After a long silence she leaned in close as if she were about to kiss him goodbye. “It’s not a mistake,” she whispered.
“What?”
“It’s not a bug.”
“Can you prove it?”
“No. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Brendan’s too sharp to enter the transaction two hours late. Johnson knows when he called. The phone records prove it. Someone’s mucking with the data and I think we both know who it is.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“Who else could it be?”
“He doesn’t need money. His family’s got more than God.”
“Not his family, his sister’s family. Who knows what he’s got?”
“No way he blows a sweet gig like this for a few thousand bucks.”
“He got a few thousand from Hank Johnson. We’re talking millions.”
Gregg’s eyes widened, disbelieving, locked on hers. He shook his head a few times, fighting the logic, but eventually it overtook him. “What if you’re right? Are you safe up there?”
Erica’s proof was gone and even if she had ironclad evidence, the decision was Marty’s. He couldn’t fire his own brother-in-law, never mind prosecute. It would be easier to shoot the messenger. She needed to rebuild her case and when she brought it, she’d better not face him alone.
“We need help,” she said.
“Sarah?”
“She thinks I’m the devil. Mostly because she has the hots for you.”
He smirked.
“I’d rather start smaller.”
“Who then?”
“Stan Nye.”
“C’mon. The guy’s an idiot.”
“Maybe. But he’s on the IA team and you know where he stands.”
“You want me to go up there with you? It might take both of us to wake him up.”
“Not yet. I’m going to re-create my work from last week. I want something that will light a fire under him.”
“No one can light a fire under Stan Nye, not even you.”
“We’ll see.”
Chapter Forty-three
Jean-Claude skimmed the Cessna dangerously close to the treetops with the rising sun at his back. A group of early hikers scattered from a clearing as if the plane was about to crash land in their midst. Backs turned, scampering away, none of them could identify the plane or its destination. Inside, Jean-Claude wondered why Herman had sent the men to kill Vincent. He knew almost nothing and he’d worked cheap. Whatever Herman’s reason, it was one less person who knew about the scam; one less potential blackmailer in their past. He hoped Herman wasn’t thinking the same way about him.
Jean-Claude circled low around the base of the last peak and followed the widest swath of treetops back to the farmhouse. He skirted the edge of a lake and aligned himself directly downwind from the makeshift runway. When he reached it, he descended below the trees and landed without rising or circling to make his approach. He touched down and his momentum carried him to the entrance of the barn where he quickly retrieved the tractor and towed the plane inside. In minutes, the canvas cover descended and hid the plane from view. To anyone trying to follow the craft, it had silently vanished mid-flight.
Jean-Claude lugged the heavy case into the second floor bedroom. Vincent’s murder still disturbed him, but he told himself he was better off. He wondered about the opportunity he’d missed with Marcus. He couldn’t imagine Marcus would ever find him, but a hint of doubt would have him checking the shadows for the rotund banker for years to come. Herman’s goons were a more immediate threat. They knew where he lived and they’d already proven they could slip inside without him knowing. He could come home any day to find them waiting. If he really wanted to be safe, he needed to get rid of Herman, but could he look a man in the eye and launch a bullet through him?
He debated with himself as he stood in the closet and removed one of the trim boards. He stuffed the money from the briefcase into a hole just below the ceiling. Stack by stack the little packets fell between the wallboards and landed on dozens of others, completely hidden, safe for years to come. The two million he’d skimmed on each trip had filled six gaps between the wall studs. This was his reward for taking all the risk. Herman would never know.
He went down to the cellar and stored Jean-Claude’s papers. He’d never had even a brush with the law as Jean-Claude. If he ran into trouble in the states, he could quietly retire here in anonymity. He removed a dense box of .45 cartridges and two sets of credentials from the safe. One driver’s license and passport identified him as Brad Perry, the other set belonged to Brad Foster. When everything was in order, he killed the powe
r and dowsed the house with enough chemicals to kill the mice and insects for the next fifty years. No creature was going to make a nest of his retirement fund. As long as the house didn’t burn, the money would be there when he came back, no matter how long it took.
Brad pulled the tarp from the rented BMW and switched cars, covering the dented old Fiat in the garage.
Back by the barn, he prepared a test for himself. He set a bucket on a stump and backed up a comfortable distance, where he presumed he wouldn’t see the eyes of the man he was about to shoot. Brad lifted the gun, imagining Herman’s face on the pail and fired. He couldn’t see a hole from sixty feet away. Walking halfway up he could see the smooth, plastic surface was intact. The bucket was more than twice the size of a man’s head and he’d missed completely.
He stepped back for another shot, a little closer than the first. He steadied and fired again. Three shots sailed by and burrowed into the grassy runway. Brad walked closer, now only twenty feet from the bucket. He fired and the bucket jumped immediately, a triangular black hole poked in one corner. The bucket tipped over and rolled a few feet behind the stump. Encouraged, he fired again; a direct hit, punching a hole through the center. He fired rapidly, punching another hole, missing, and finally smashing half of the bucket away before the empty gun refused to fire. He replaced the clip with a full one and emptied it faster than before, barely waiting for the barrel to come level before firing. There was power in the loud steady reports. He wished he’d started practicing sooner.
He walked to the car and slowly pressed fresh bullets into the clips and stored the gun and ammunition under the seat of the Fiat. He locked the garage and hoped no one would discover it before he returned.
The BMW was a pleasure to drive after the rusty Fiat and the trip to meet the tour bus passed too quickly. He hung a camera around his neck to make the purpose of his trip self evident. He opened his wallet and removed everything except eight hundred in cash and the documents that identified him as Brad Perry. The border guard had sold him this passport and he’d used it to enter Switzerland nearly a dozen times. In all his trips to France, there was never a record of Brad Foster leaving the country until he returned home.