by Jim Magwood
Jake saw Paul’s tears as they met in the hall and just nodded.
The men stopped at the nurse’s station and Paul said to Virginia Cannon, “I want to know when he goes. I’ll take care of the end.”
She looked at him and nodded, then made the note in Sarge’s chart.
CHAPTER 92
“Did you bring more ice cream?”
“Well…”
“Donuts?”
“Uh…”
“Then why are you here?”
“Well, I thought…”
“Oh, come on in, anyway. Sheesh. What a friend.” Sylvia was grinning at having Paul drop in and their hug
was warm.
“It’s good to see you, Syl. You seem to be looking a little
better. Feeling okay?”
“Yeah, no surgeries for a couple weeks now. Maybe they
got all the pieces now and I won’t have to go back in.” “Looks like you’re moving okay.”
“I’m feeling pretty good. I’m doing a lot of exercising
every day and I’ve created a walking path around the back
yard, so I put in a mile or two every day now. I’m not running
yet, but petty soon. Want some coffee?”
“Sure, if it’s ready.”
“It’ll only take a few minutes. Sit down, will you? And
what brings you all the way across our lovely metropolis—
without bringing donuts, I might add.”
“Honest, Syl, it was so difficult to go past all those donut
shops without stopping, but I just knew they wouldn’t be good
for you, so…”
“Next time, bub.”
“Yeah, next time.”
“So what’s up?”
“Well, we got some leads and I wanted to share them with
you. Might be some good starts. Actually, they’re the first
ones we’ve gotten this whole time, so we’re hoping beyond
hope.”
“So tell. Tell.”
Paul spent a long time going over all the material Roger
and Jacob had sent them, and that Sammie and the investigators had corroborated. The Army had finally supplied enough
jacket material on both Concorde and Honda that Paul and
Jake had built strong leads through their lives. But Paul saw
Sylvia come up with a very puzzling look and stopped with,
“What?”
“That name. I’ve seen it or heard it somewhere.” “Which one?”
“Honda. The boss guy. I don’t know his first name, but
the last name is different and I know I’ve seen it.” Paul saw
her drift off, so sat quietly.
Sylvia reached over and picked up the phone, She dialed
and Paul heard her rattle off her department ID to the police
operator and say, “Get me to Sammie in Data, please.” A moment later, she was saying, “Sammie. Hi, it’s Sylvia.
Yeah, that one. Thanks. Listen, I need a quick search. No, I’m
not officially back, but I just thought of something. Yeah,
search for the name, Honda. Yeah, capitalized.”
She waited a moment and then said, “No, we’ve got that
one. Run it deeper, please.”
And another minute later, she exclaimed, “Yes. That’s it.
That’s what I remember. Great, Sammie. No, Paul’s here right
now so I’ll follow on it. Run all the relatives, okay? Yeah.
Thanks again.” She hung up and grinned.
“I did remember it, Paul. The name Honda. I saw it when
I was running down all the data. Just kind of flashing through
it. It’s the last name of one of the girls that was shot in that
thing a few years back, that bus that went through the gang
shootout. Cindy Honda. And…”
“It’s also the name of the leader of the shooters and ar
sonists,” Paul added.
Her phone rang and it was Sammie back at her. “He’s the
uncle of the girl, Sylvia. It popped up right away. Uncle on the
father’s side. We hadn’t gone further with the kids than the
immediate families so we didn’t see him. But there he is.” “Address?”
“All I’ve got so far is an old military address. I’m trying
to spread out, so maybe we’ll get lucky.”
A minute later, Sylvia hung up and turned back to Paul. “Good job, Syl. We’re on our way.”
They talked about the case for a while more, then Paul
said, “I’ve got something else for you,” and handed her a piece
of official looking paper.
As she started scanning it, she asked, “What is this…?”
then stopped with her mouth open.
“A will? But… Who is this Frank Jesse Kimball? I
don’t…” Then she went silent as she read on. Finally lifted her
head and said, “Sarge?”
“Yeah,” Paul answered quietly.
“But, why…?”
Paul told her what had happened, the last visit with the
old man, then contacting the lawyer and getting a copy of the
will for her. He watched her as her eyes watered and ran. “I had to push the lawyer a bit, but he was sympathetic to
what Sarge had asked him to do. It appears there’s quite a bit
of money involved, Syl. Apparently, Sarge had his retirement
pay direct deposited ever since he got out and then only took a
couple dollars a month out. Lived on the street, like we found
him, and only needed enough cash for some shaving supplies,
a little food, stuff like that. He paid for his own hospital stay
from it, but that was really very little. So the rest has just sat
there all these years gaining interest. There’s nothing else.
Home, clothes, investments and so on. Just the cash. “ “Paul, I can’t accept this. You know that. I…” “Syl, I talked with the lawyer about it. You’ll need to
follow up yourself, of course, but he said it’s all absolutely straight forward and above board. There’s nobody else anywhere in line, and Sarge identified you by name and a very tight description, so he said it’s all good. I know how you feel, but I think it‘s okay. And Sarge told me direct it was what he wanted.”
They talked quietly for another hour, then Paul left her to her thoughts. And her tears.
CHAPTER 93
“Paul, I’m afraid we’ve got another blank wall. I have a lot of background on this Ronnie Sage Honda, but about three years ago or so, he disappeared. He’s still getting his pension direct deposited, but his old address is now bad, no other leads to him. We could go through the system and get the Army to cut off his pension deposits, but that’ll take a long time. He might show up if that happens, though.”
“Okay, keep searching and we’ll see if we can find any other avenues. Thanks, Sammie.”
Paul and Jake sat for a couple of hours pondering the whole case and the loss of directions—again. Every once in a while, Paul heard Jake mumble deeply under his breath and was glad he couldn’t hear all the words. Occasionally, they would start to say something to each other, or ask a question, then silence reigned again.
Finally, Jake started a reasonable question. “So, if he’s still getting, and collecting, his pension, that means he’s still around, right? But by name he’s dropped off the planet. So that means he’s either in hiding and living with the old name or he has to have changed names. Right?”
“Sounds like the only answers to me.”
“But if he has the same name, and it doesn’t show up anywhere, then what?”
“Right. No social security trace. No valid driver’s license. No legal job because social security doesn’t have anything. He transfers his pension to an offshore, so no banking tra
ce. No tax return for a couple of years, but IRS hasn’t gone after him yet. And our dear friend in the crazy house at least said they weren’t employing him at all now. So we’ve got nothing. Again.”
“And it means that he’s either living strictly off his pension, which doesn’t seem likely if he was living here in this city, or he’s got an under-the-table job.”
“Or he’s got another name. That sounds like the best possibility to me.”
“Me, too, but how do we find that, Paul? It’s not hard, actually way too easy, to create a new identity. Collect some old birth certificate info, file for some new documents, and you’re a new guy.”
“Or, you just go out and buy a whole new set of documents, with a history attached to them. Fast and easy, Jake. Especially if you’ve done stuff with the crazy palace and know some places to get material. I think I trust Ron over there to be truthful about employing him. He knows how important this is and would give us some kind of lead if he had one. But if this guy has a little CIA know-how, he can get anything he wants.”
“Yeah, but how…”
The phone rang and when Jake picked it up, Roger Evans said, “I think we’ve got him, Jake.”
“Who?”
“The guy I gave you earlier, Ronnie Sage Honda.”
“You’re kidding. We were just talking about him. We’ve run into another wall. He’s disappeared. Nothing but dead ends on the stuff you gave us earlier. Hold on. Let me put you on the speaker for Paul.”
“Hi, Roger.”
“Hi, Paul. Shall I repeat?”
“No, you were saying you have a lead on our guy, Honda. We lost him. He disappeared a while back.”
“Yeah, because he changed his name.”
Jake replied, “We were just saying that. You’re not kidding an old cop, are you?”
“Not this time, Jake. We were running everything we could tap with his name and came up with a link to a niece in Missouri, one of the kids that was killed in that school incident. We kept on running until finally we got some hits through news articles. A few where the kids were named back then. A few others where the names apparently had absolutely no relation to any of this.
“But, then just about two years ago, well after everything had died down, another newspaper started putting out a couple of articles naming the kids, the dead ones, then just the one by name of Honda. There didn’t appear to be any reason to start stories again, but these seemed to take up the cause again for the missing memorial and calling the people negatively involved a lot of names and so on.
“The stories also let out a little too much knowledge, I think, about some of the things that have happened—the shootings and fires, for instance. They weren’t just references to the things. It sounded as if someone slipped and said things that got a little too close. I’ll send you all the material by tonight, but I thought you might start trying to find this guy.”
“Who? What guy?”
“Guy by the name, Franklin Howard. He’s a news columnist, a talking head for your paper, The Washington Times.”
“Franklin Howard,” Jake said, and Paul bounced upright. “I know him. He writes good stuff here. Why…”
Roger went on. “He started writing for the Times about three years ago. Showed up out of nowhere. Started sending in articles, got them published, eventually got hired. Basically gave no background, but they didn’t care because he wrote good stuff and they paid him freelance. Had a following right away. Then he really took off when they hired him and he got his own column. But he’s the one wrote the columns I just mentioned.
“They were good columns, as such, but they were hot and brought up some of the old feelings again. At least it sounded like he had them. And with the mistaken hints he let slip, I felt like it was too close to not follow. Found another real interesting tidbit. His paycheck from the paper? Gets direct deposited into the same bank as your Ronnie Honda and gets transferred out to the same off-shore bank as Honda.”
Both Jake and Paul were silent, then Paul asked, “Do you have anything hard on him, Roger? Anything we can use for a warrant? What you’ve said is great, but it still leaves us quite a way out.”
“We’re checking out the off-shore as we speak, Paul. Hopefully, we’ll be in there soon and back to you with maybe a definite on the account.”
“Is that a legal tap, Roger? Going into the bank?”
“Off-shores don’t have the same rights as legal and cooperating U.S. banks. As long as we don’t actually steal anything, they can’t squawk. Oh, they might squawk, but nobody’ll listen. We’ll get the information; you can make the warrants.”
When they hung up, Paul said to Jake, “I know him, Jake. He’s a neighbor just down the road from me. We’ve had barbecues together a couple of times.”
“If it’s him, maybe that’s how he knew where to line you up for the shootings.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Three days later, Bob D’Arcy of the FBI and Paul Corbin and Jake Hardee of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, walked into the lobby of the Washington Times building and asked for the manager. Responding to their badges, he was with them in just a couple of minutes. They took him to a private far side of the lobby and explained they were there to see Franklin Howard, immediately and without fanfare from anyone. He escorted them to Howard’s third floor office, where they left him out in the hall and walked through the door, presented themselves in front of Howard’s desk and gave their names. D’Arcy then said, “Mr. Howard, we are here to arrest you according to both federal and local warrants for murder, mayhem, arson and about twelve other things, possibly including domestic terrorism charges. I would suggest you stand up slowly, put your hands out for these bracelets and then proceed down to the FBI building with us.”
After an initial thought of bravado, Howard realized he had no way out with the three men and slowly complied with the commands. The further he got into the system, the more the pressure of the past years and the immediate situation broke into him and he finally ended by shrugging his shoulders and self-destructing. About all he would say for months was, “But they wouldn’t do anything for Cindy. She got killed and they did nothing. They just left her out there in the dark with nothing to show for her life.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Franklin Howard couldn’t give any current information on Joseph Concorde. He didn’t know where he was living, only had his phone number. “I don’t know where he is. I only phoned him. Knowing him, he’s probably living or dead under a bridge somewhere by now.” After one attempt to track down the phone, it was finally traced and found in a gutter on a decrepit commercial street in the Anacostia area. Concorde was never seen again.
CHAPTER 94
“I just got in, Roger, and got your message. What’s up?”
“Good news, Paul. Our search came through and I think we’ve got something solid for you on the computer cases.”
“Great, Roger. After just nailing the school fire guy, if we clean up this one the city will be almost quiet. The FBI is actually heading up this case, or cases, because they’re nationwide and dealing with the banks and so on, but I can take any info you’ve got and then work it through with them.”
“Okay, then. Here’s what happened. You remember that all the traces we had kept ending up at cutouts that we couldn’t get past. Then we got the warrant that enabled us to go through to the Internet providers that were involved.
“Well, we had the ‘Net names of the sender of a lot of the messages, and the names of some of the receivers, so messages going back and forth. This guy was really sharp, Paul, with a lot of names switching around, one leading to another, then to another and so forth. Ultimately, several of them went to the same cutout at the end of the chain, at least as far as we could get. It was located in Spain at an outside phone box at a little inn outside of Alicante on the Mediterranean coast.”
“I’m not going to try to understand how they do these things, Roger, but is this kind of thing common? Do people
do this a lot?”
“Regular people, no, but these aren’t regular people. The mobs and illegals hire experts to do this for them all the time—set them up with almost untraceable phone and Internet systems. If you’re actually looking for someone, you can find traces and, if your search is strong enough, actually break through to the sources sometimes. But regular Joe Snoop won’t have enough knowledge to break into the systems, get through their security systems. Sometimes, though, some teenager working out of his bedroom can beat us all.”
“So what did you come up with?”
“After we got the okay to go ahead, we entered a couple of the providers we had traced. They usually have pretty strong security, so we had to be careful, but we got in. Then it was just a matter of running back down the ‘Net names to their personal name and address files to find our guy.”
“I hear you keep saying ‘guy,’ singular. Is it just one person?”
“From what we see here, yes. There could be a lot of others involved behind him, but there’s only one guy out front.
“The interesting thing that capped all this off, as I told you earlier, is that we caught two of the cases going through the same cutouts; the mortgage scheme and the Federal Reserve deal. That’s where we first got interested. Too many coincidences to not be related. So, tracing them back to their sending names, and then tracing them back through to the ‘Net providers gave us some of the same people—or, in this case, the same person. And this name is going to shock you.”
“I’m beyond shocked, Roger, with the last guy. Who is this one?”
“He happens to be a very highly placed computer investigator for your Justice Department, with access to codes, lists, and systems that can get him anywhere. Mr. Jeff Sheldon has an office on the eleventh floor of the National Press Building, leased by the Treasury Department, where he’s been conducting investigations for many of the alphabet agencies for a few years. It also appears that he may have been doing some very deep and dark things for himself.
“Now I don’t have positive proof of his direct involvement, just links that seem to go to him. There might be someone else involved, or someone pirating his name and system. I don’t have that searched out yet. But at this point, these things do give every appearance of coming from his office and computer system.