COP

by Jim Magwood

  “Okay. Maybe tomorrow, then? And we were going to bring you a cheeseburger, but Jake wouldn’t hide it in his pocket, so we ate it downstairs.”

  Her stomach convulsed again and her finger nodded a strong, “Yes.” Then again. Then again.

  Jake asked, “So, you gonna be back at work tomorrow?” The finger wagged a weak, “No.” They saw more tears coming up, so Jake grabbed some tissues and carefully dabbed them away.

  Jake said, “Syl, maybe this isn’t the time to ask, but while we’ve got your full attention for once, did you see anything? Remember anything? Anything at all?”

  A few more tears bubbled and were wiped, and the finger wagged, “No.”

  Then the finger pointed to the two men and back to her mouth and wiggled, so both men started talking. Work, nonsense, joking—stuff. They talked for a solid half-hour, until the door opened and a nurse said, “Guys—time. She needs her rest.”

  They closed off their conversation, then both men bowed and carefully kissed her bandaged cheeks. More tears to wipe. More finger wiggles. And the men left. Out in the hall, both of them had to wipe their own eyes. Jake said, “Too much dust in this hall.” Paul just nodded.

  The two hadn’t been at their respective homes for more than an hour when they were called out for another school fire, this time at the Rose Elementary School on the west side of town. They both arrived within half an hour and searched the grounds as best they could. The fire had been caught early and contained to about four rooms on one corner of the main building. By midnight, nothing had been found and the fire investigators had just started to enter the building, so the detectives headed home again.

  CHAPTER 69

  Jake and Paul rolled out at four in the morning to the Shepherd school fire on 14th Street in the Northwest. They were so groggy from the late night at the Rose school they could hardly function. This time, though, they had help from a major force of street cops looking all over the neighborhood for clues or witnesses, and providing protection. This had gotten far out of hand and the city was screaming.

  Again, nothing of substance was found. No one had seen anything. The fire had been discovered about 3:45 and was fully developed by the time fire units got there. It turned out to be almost a complete loss. Just another nice, little elementary school with no reason to be torched. No reason. But now it lay in ruins, smoldering.

  Jake had picked up a child’s finger painting outside one of the buildings. It was scorched but still able to be seen. Probably from a young grade child, he thought. He carefully put it in his briefcase and brought it back to the squad room. He tacked it carefully and prominently up on the wall behind their desk in very plain sight. Both men looked at it often.

  The call came about two hours later from a fire investigator. “We have a fuel can—and a fingerprint. A thumbprint. We think we have a match with a taxi license, but it’s not good. However, the Army has acknowledged that they might have a match. They’re running it, also, and are supposed to get back with us some day, but they aren’t talking much. One guy seemed to have something he didn’t want to say.”

  “Let me get on the phone. I know someone that can put some pressure on them. And fax the jacket to me, okay?”

  Paul’s call was to Tom Drummond, the president’s chief of staff at the White House. Drummond told him to hang around because he should expect a call from the Army within a couple of hours. The call came through in less than one. No apology. No hint of having been slow before. Just a call as if it was usual, giving him a name and identification, to be followed by a fax with a service record. Whatever Drummond had passed on had likely been heard without the phone by everyone in the Pentagon.

  The Lieutenant who gave them the information hemmed and hawed a bit, until Paul asked him point blank what he wasn’t saying. The officer finally said, “Well, I shouldn’t say this, but I think you need to know.”

  Paul said, “What?”

  “I’m stepping out of bounds here, but if this is the man who the thumbprint seems to say he is, be very careful. It’s not in the file you’ll get, but he was a member of the black ops, hidden groups that were never brought to light. Very well trained. He probably knows every way there is to mess up someone’s day in a big way. Weapons; explosives; hand-tohand. You name it.”

  Jake had been listening on the second phone and was heard to mutter a short, vicious expletive. Paul muttered to himself, “The demons.”

  The men all hung up and the fax started running with the service record in the name of, “Concorde, Joseph Samuel.”

  “What now, Paul?”

  “I don’t really know. We might know who he is now, but we don’t have him, so it doesn’t give us much. What about you?”

  “I agree, but at least we can broadcast this and the picture. We can do a BOLO and have eyes all over the city. He might just pop into sight somewhere.”

  “Okay. But be-on-the-look-out for a demon? At the most he’s a “person of interest” at a fire, so we’re not likely to get many field personnel on our call.”

  “Yeah, but remember, it’s how many fires now? Ten? Plus the couple of shootings at them. Plus maybe the WBAK fire. I think that’s enough ammunition to get the top floor interested. Get a few more troops out looking.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t mean to be negative. Everybody’ll be looking. I wonder what else he might have pulled.” Then he stopped for a moment, before blurting out, “What about the hotel? That’s who we were looking for when we went there—the firebug. Do you think…?”

  Jake was already reaching for the phone. When he got through to the bombing investigation team, he said, “What do you have from the room yet? Any signs at all? Any fingerprints? All right. Fax all the prints you got over to me NOW. It’s urgent. No, doesn’t matter if you don’t have them searched yet. We may have our man. Yeah, get them here like now.”

  Five minutes later the fax began spitting out several sheets of paper with various fingerprints on them. Before Jake could get out of his desk, Paul had them in hand along with the set from the Army jacket of “Concorde, Joseph Samuel” and was heading out of the room.

  “I’m on the way to the lab,” he called back.

  About fifteen minutes later, Jake answered his phone and Paul’s trembling voice said, “It’s him. The same guy.”

  Jake growled back, “Yeah.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Jeff Sheldon was thinking about how he could manufacture something that would directly affect the politicians all over the United States. Something that would hurt—really hurt. He knew they were, for the most part, isolated from the normal stream of things, protected from much that would affect the normal citizen. Because of their government jobs that people just couldn’t attack, investments that were given to them by “friends,” paychecks that were as secure as the overall government could make them and so on, they were just about immune from anything and everything. That was the main reason they fought so hard to keep their constituents buffaloed and keep getting voted back into their positions.

  And the thought suddenly struck him: One of the biggest reasons for keeping their jobs was to keep making money. I wonder if I could attack that aspect of their lives? he thought. Is there a way to attack their money?

  That idea kept him dreaming for hours. He knew he couldn’t just raid their bank accounts. That would be caught too soon and there were too many accounts to find. Something had to be available that would more or less reach them all. Something they could or would all…invest in? Something so attractive they would all want in. But to create a stock or a specific bond or a company they could put money into?

  He also knew he couldn’t create something in one politician’s name or experience and then tell the others about the wonderful opportunity. They would pick up the phone and talk to the first person. It would be stopped dead. It had to be something private, quiet, anonymous, but dazzling. Could it be from a foreign country or would it have to stay local? What would attract without scari
ng them off? And it couldn’t be something that could be checked by simply picking up the stock market report. It would need to be private and basically hidden, but with some kind of a verifiable track record that could be seen and examined—and believed.

  What if it was made to appear just a little bit shady? Offshore? Under the table? The average politician wasn’t the least bit concerned with integrity—unless he got caught. Maybe the hint of less-than-clean, out of the public view, but with great rewards, would get them scratching at the door. Foreign; private; untraceable; no taxes; large returns; enough risk to make it exciting.

  His mind was now whirling with possibilities.

  He couldn’t possibly catch every politician, even if they were all greedy. But what if he caught fifty percent of them; twenty percent? That would be thousands of politicians from across the country caught in something that could ultimately blow up in their faces. Destroy them and their credibility in the eyes of constituents. Cause the country to lose their participation in running the government as they were too busy trying to stop the bleeding of their bank accounts and fighting lawsuits.

  I wonder how many of them might even go beyond their own funds and tap the government or constituent tills? Cynically, he thought, Probably all of them.

  Then his mind drifted to What about their retirement? Everyone is intensely interested in their retirement, especially politicians. They all know they have a good likelihood of getting bounced out any given year, and the thought of going out to find a real job would be anathema. Most of them couldn’t hold a job if their lives depended on it. That’s why they worked so hard, schemed so much, to hold onto their political positions. Where else could they find something that enabled them to get so much for doing so little and only required them to lie better than the next guy?

  What if he put together a phony group, endorsed by first names only (for reasons of security and privacy), but names that would be recognized, with a description of an investment plan that had been running for some years and that had a great, but doable, rate of return? (The plan is now ready to present to high-level government officials who, because of normal political ups and downs, need most to have a vehicle to protect their lives and livelihood from the unexpected.) With an exceptional end payoff when anyone finally wanted/needed to cash in? What if it had certified financial statements available on request? What if the good Senator, or Mayor, or… only had to reply by personal e-mail (we do not accept any government accounts) to get all the information? What if the recipient would then see that all the investments were in hard assets— machinery, commercial real estate, minerals, profitable durable goods manufacturing plants and the like in various well-run, solvent countries around the world—places without any political risks? What if they were then contacted by secure e-mail by actual banking representatives who would be their investment counselors, and they would receive actual investment receipts for all funds put into the plan? (You will be responsible for your own reporting of all activity to any taxing authorities.) What if the investment needed was high enough to drive out the flakes (minimum investment parcels of $100,000, secure U.S. funds) with any number of parcels available for those who really wanted to place their funds for maximum advantage? What about a high-risk hedge fund requiring a minimum investment of $100,000 averaging a 24% return (and more in special circumstances?) That ought to get their interest. The right words. Nothing too fancy, but something they would all know a little about. Just not enough to know how to investigate.

  Sheldon had lists of almost every government official, from cabinet officers to governors to mayors to local councilmen, and within the next six days the plan had been fleshed out and e-mail letters were going all over the country. There was no indication of urgency, but there was a simple statement of there being a cap on the total funds that could be accepted and that all funds would be accepted on a first-come, firstserved basis. Just enough to have them reaching for their checkbooks instead of calling around for more information.

  Two days later, Jeff was already deluged with request for the “certified financial statements” from e-mail addresses all over the country. Luckily he had already composed them, patching together statements he had in his files to make very interesting, and exciting, documents. Assets located in Japan, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Canada. Twenty years of history. Cautious, but progressively faster rates of returns that were now in the twenty to thirty percent range. Almost no debt load. Nothing unbelievable. Nothing scary or obviously toogood-to-be-true. No annual dividends; all profits held for reinvestment; yet, obvious liquid worth available to cover all requests for payouts. And payouts climbing over the years to closely match the increasing value of the “investment company.”

  E-mail letters were sent to the investors from “personal banking representatives” that explained the investment program in language toned to be unhurried yet ready to be of maximum service. No pressure tactics were used, yet there was a slight hint of the need to respond in a timely manner as there were going to be ultimate caps on the amount of funds that could be invested in the next limited time period.

  Within only two weeks, funds had been received from over sixty thousand political figures and had reached a staggering total of over twenty-seven billion dollars. Even Jeff was amazed. On the average, he knew that fully three-quarters of the “investments” were for the minimum $100,000. That left only about fifteen thousand individuals having invested the remainder of almost twenty-two billion dollars—almost two million dollars each. Where in the name of anything imaginable did they get those funds? He wondered in almost awe how many campaign funds and state houses were now empty?

  The bank account the funds had gone into had been emptied as fast as it had been filled. All the funds were split out into more than twenty other accounts around the world and had then been moved twice more. There would be no tracking the money.

  Jeff now wondered what he should do about it. A wellplaced message to any of a dozen investigative reporters would blow the lid off the country, but maybe that would simply be too quick and easy. Maybe he should wait. Just let things percolate for a month, a year. Let some of them start looking for their money and profits and be faced with dead air. Let some investigations and audits naturally take place and the screaming begin. He had a list of every name that had invested. It would be simple to drop some hints later on with a name or two attached, maybe to a newsman, maybe to some FBI agent. Already there were some very quiet investigations being conducted (he had been tasked with a major one himself) by agencies that had received copies of the original investment letter by “honest” politicians, so the heat might catch up to itself with no help from him.

  Jeff took himself out to a very expensive victory dinner that night. His hatred of all things government had almost been satisfied. He knew it never really would be and that he would find more things to work toward bringing down the government, but for right now, he felt good. He wanted to see the government come down hard and this latest scheme, on top of the first ones, would go a long way toward crippling it.

  Could one man actually bring down a government? he thought.

  He greatly enjoyed his dinner.

  CHAPTER 71

  “Okay, the files have been generating overnight. Have any flags popped up?”

  “No, nothing red. We had another about one hundredforty pages of data come up, but apparently it’s all related to earlier events, so nothing flagged. Do you have any more ideas of where to go with this, Jacob?”

  “Nothing specific. It seems to be amazing that with all this data, nothing is surfacing that is giving directions on our specific crimes. All I can think of at this time is to just start physically looking through the files to see if human eyes bring things out.”

  “Okay. There was one thing that did come up, though. Interesting, but not related to our specific work. Over the last couple of weeks there’s been a large amount of money moving through apparent non-government channels. Really nothing in compa
rison to the total amount of normal movement throughout the world, but basically all in the U.S. to a few main banks, then going off-shore. Again, nothing major in comparison to the total fund movements, but all concentrated in just a couple of weeks without going to either government agencies or large corporations. I’ve set those records aside to perhaps look at some time later.”

  “I would agree that moving in a short time period might indicate a major purchase or investment scenario, but if you don’t see it related, you’re right to set it aside for now.”

  “I think I’ll e-mail my detective in Washington and see if he has any more updates. Maybe there’s something that will get us started.”

  “While you’re doing that, I’ll get started reviewing these new pages of data.”

  “Okay, here they come over to your computer.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Four hours later, Paul’s message back came in and Roger was looking at it. It included the hotel bombing incident, the information on the new cases they had been given, and the data on the fingerprints that had been found. He put the new material into the database already started and was just about to break free to pursue another possible angle when the computer red flagged a couple of files.

  “Jacob, look at this. I’ve got some files that are flagging.”

  Jacob scooted his chair over to Roger’s screen to take a look and both men tried to understand what they were seeing.

  “It’s saying here that this file that Paul just sent us, about the bank break-ins or something, have a link of some kind to this list I got earlier. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with our first case, but it seems to be causing a stir in the system.”

  “So, what is this second file, Roger? It looks to be several pages long.”

  “Yeah, I remember it now. It appears to be a list of banks with a list of some kind of code. It appears to all be sorted by dates. I didn’t look at it in any depth because it wasn’t related, but maybe…”

  “So the first number is a date? 0516 and so on?”