COP

by Jim Magwood

  “I don’t have a complete search on him personally yet, but I don’t find any bank accounts with large amounts of money in them. There does seem to have been a lot of money flow past his fingers, but not directly into accounts under his name—at least not within your legal system. Offshore—almost certainly.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you have enough to link him to these so we can get an arrest warrant, right? You’ll be able to send me what you’re got so far, right, because the same judge that issued your search warrant will have to issue the arrest warrant? And he’ll be able to understand what you send?”

  “Yes to all the above. I’ll send it to you as soon as we finish our conversation. I’ve already drawn up a flow chart to go with all this so you can visually see how it all interacts and links. The judge will be able to follow it all.”

  Within an hour, Paul and Jake were going over the documentation Roger sent. Early the next morning, they were in Bob D’Arcy’s office in the FBI building, walking him through it all. They had, of course, made a complete copy of everything overnight so they could follow it on their own if need be. Jake had insisted on that. Before noon, they were in the office of Federal Judge Oliver Carpenter explaining the results of the first warrant he had issued, and before quitting time had a second warrant for the arrest of Mr. Jeff Sheldon.

  In order to be sure to catch Sheldon in-office, they decided to wait until after office opening hours the next morning. At 9:30 the following morning, D’Arcy, Paul and Jake, and Sheldon’s direct supervisor at Treasury, Tom McCauley, walked into the beautiful National Press Building and took the elevator to the eleventhfloor. When they got to Sheldon’s office, they found it still locked and quiet. D’Arcy had brought a locksmith with them and within a few minutes they were all standing in Sheldon’s office, looking at very quiet equipment.

  A quick perusal of the unlocked file cabinets showed not a single piece of paper left behind. No computer or recording disks. Nothing. D’Arcy immediately called in a federal APB to find and secure Sheldon, then he called for computer experts to get to the office to pull everything apart safely. The experts quickly found that everything had been completely erased. Computers, printers, fax machines, even the speed dial on the phone system. It was all as clean as if the equipment had just come out of new packing cases.

  When they eventually got back to Treasury and some of the other agencies Sheldon had done work for, they found that all traces of correspondence with him through the computer systems had also been erased. There was no trace of him to be found.

  Scrutiny at all the airports, bus stations and other places of flight brought no sightings of him. His personal passport had not been used. A raid and search at his home revealed nothing. It was emptied and wiped clean. A beautiful Mercedes registered in another name was left in the garage, but nothing left a track to Sheldon. There wasn’t single piece of paper of any kind left in the house.

  Jeff Sheldon was gone and everything to do with the cases was gone with him.

  Sylvia, Paul and Jake put together a very small memorial service for Sergeant Frank Jesse Kimball, formally of the United States Army, honorably discharged at his retirement, and living since in Washington, D.C. An Army Chaplain attended the service and brought with him a brief commendation signed by Chief of Staff of the Army, General George Casing. A request from Paul to the president’s Chief of Staff, Tom Drummond, had brought that commendation and an entry into the Sergeant’s service jacket. The Chaplain from Walter Reed Hospital was also there at Paul’s request.

  Pastor Steve Sanders helped with the little memorial, with both the Chaplains adding their thoughts. The Walter Reed Chaplain recounted his last couple of days with Sarge and his assurance that Sarge was at home with his Lord.

  Sylvia paid for a special memorial plaque to be placed at Sarge’s marker in Arlington Cemetery. He had left her a little more than $139,000 and she hadn’t decided how to use it yet, but she knew that Sarge needed to be put to rest in honor. There would be no official burial. Sarge had been cremated, but he would always be remembered with the rest of his military brethren.

  The six of them sat around a small buffet provided by Sylvia until both the chaplains had to leave. Then the four continued reminiscing with stories or thoughts of Sarge. Sanders led them in a brief prayer of thanks for an old man who had struck the hearts of the three officers with respect and admiration, then he had to leave.

  Sylvia, Paul and Jake then sat quietly for another hour, not saying much of anything, before finally leaving for their respective homes.

  A week after they had said goodbye to Sarge, Paul and Jake were in the office finalizing a lot of reports when Commander Carver called them into his office.

  “Sit,” he gruffly told them.

  They sat.

  “You girls have been playing around for long enough with these cases. It’s time you got into cleaning up a lot of other stuff around here. So, I’ve got a new partner for you so you can start being more efficient.”

  Both men looked at each other with amazement and a lot of concern, and then Jake said, “Partner? Cap’n, we don’t need a partner. We’re doing just find as we are, and we…”

  “You’ll have a partner if I say so, and I say so.”

  “But, Commander, we’re covering everything fine now and…” Paul started.

  “As I said,” Carver broke in, “you have a new partner.” He called his secretary and said, “Okay.”

  As the two men hung their heads, the door opened and a soft voice said, “Hey, guys.”

  Both men whirled around and in one voice, almost shouted, “Sylvia.” Hugs and almost frantic dialogue went on and on until Carver shouted them down and kicked them out of his office with, “You’re all worthless for the rest of the day. Get out of here and don’t let me see you until tomorrow.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  When Paul finally got home, he grabbed the mail, threw on a pot of coffee and dropped into his special chair. He felt good. Sylvia coming back had capped off the day, even the week and more. With the end of the cases that had caused so much trauma for so long, he and the others could relax for a bit as if crime and violence were lost words.

  He was almost dozing off when his cell phone rang. His heart jumped, then dropped back with a response coursing through him of, Oh, no. I’m on vacation tonight. Please.

  “Hello,” he said brusquely.

  “Daddy, it’s me.”

  His breath stopped and his heart felt like it was stopping,

  too. He barely managed to croak out, “Sarah?”

  The subdued voice came back: “Hi, daddy. Yes, it’s me.

  How are you?”

  “Sarah. Oh, my. I don’t…I mean…What…” He finally

  settled down enough to be coherent and said, “I’m okay. How

  are you? Where are you?”

  Hesitantly, she replied, “I’m okay, daddy. I’ve been doing

  well. Working and doing a little traveling. But I’m okay.” Paul said, “So, what are you doing?”

  Again hesitantly, she replied, “Daddy, I’ve been thinking

  of maybe coming back home, if you thought that might be

  okay?”

  Now his heart was exploding again, and he stammered,

  “Oh…Sarah. Oh…yes. Of course. Yes. I think that would be

  wonderful. Where are you?”

  “Well, right now I’m down at the bus station. I was wondering…”

  He replied almost frantically, “Where? Do you need

  money to get here? Where can I send…”

  “Daddy, I’m downtown here in D.C. at the station here. I

  just got in.”

  “You’re here? In D.C.?”

  “I’m down here at the Greyhound station, daddy. I wonder if you could…”

  Paul was already running out the door, slamming it behind him, his jacket flying, and in his car as he called out, “Don’t you move. Don’t even move. I’ll be there in five minute
s. No, maybe it’ll take longer, but I’ll be there right away. Don’t go away, honey. Please stay right there. I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER 97

  It was eight months later that Jacob Asch got a strange hit as he was searching the Internet for an investigation he was conducting. He was using his Mossad connections to search through different satellite systems looking for e-mail messages from a terrorist group that had laid out some cryptic threats toward his beloved Israel.

  The threats included hints toward both gas and nuclear attacks and specified locations in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. Jacob knew that nuclear threats from relatively small terrorist groups were not likely. However, the suitcase-size weapons of modern days were available from places like North Korea and the ex-Russian satellites and couldn’t be discounted. Gas attacks, though, could take place anywhere and could be set off from containers as small as thermos bottles. With modern weapons, Israel was wide open to devastating attacks, and annihilation was a definite possibility.

  As he was searching the Internet for signals with the key words of terrorism and mentioning Israel, he kept seeing a few messages with hints of attacks against the United States. There was nothing blatant, nothing to immediately get alarmed about and send warnings to his contacts there, but they got him wondering what they were and where they were coming from. As his own searches were spinning on, he began a sub-search on the new puzzle.

  He began following a couple of the messages forward to see who they were going to, but got stopped at the third cutout. That wasn’t unusual in his business and he started to move on when something caught him up. The last cutout: Spain, Alicante, on the Mediterranean coast. And Jacob knew. Something in the back of his mind said, He’s back.

  The presumed perpetrator of much of the Washington terror, Jeff Sheldon, had walked away from the chaos he had caused and not been heard from since. Now…?

  As he then worked the trace backwards trying to get to the source, he was astounded when he found three of them—ending in Tel Aviv.

  Tel Aviv. My home. My country.

  No, sir, he thought, with a sad, grim feeling in his heart. You did not want to come to Tel Aviv. That you should not have done.

  POSTSCRIPT

  No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

  Edmund Burke

  Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.

  Winston Churchill COMING SOON

  JACOB

  by Jim Magwood

  The most powerful weapon on earth is the passion of a devoted man.

  CHAPTER 1

  Eight months after helping to stop the chaos domestic terrorists had caused in Washington, D.C., Jacob Asch got a strange hit as he was searching the Internet in an investigation he was conducting. He was using his Mossad connections to search through several satellite systems looking for e-mail messages from a terrorist group that had laid out some cryptic threats toward his beloved Israel.

  The threats included hints about possible gas and nuclear attacks and further hinted at locations in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. Jacob knew that nuclear threats from relatively small terrorist groups were not likely. However, the suitcasesize weapons of modern days were available from places like North Korea and the ex-Russian satellites and couldn’t be discounted. Gas attacks, though, could take place anytime, anywhere and could be set off from containers as small as thermos bottles and lunch boxes. With modern weaponry, Israel was wide open to devastating attacks, and annihilation was a definite possibility.

  As he was searching for signals with key words describing terrorism and mentioning Israel, he kept seeing a few messages with hints of attacks against the United States. There was nothing blatant, nothing to immediately get alarmed about and send warnings to his American contacts, but they got him wondering what they were and where they were coming from. As his own searches were spinning on, he began a sub-search on the new puzzle.

  He began following a couple of the messages forward to see who they were going to, but got stopped at the third cutout. That wasn’t unusual in his business and he started to move on when something caught him up. The last cutout: Spain; Alicante; on the Mediterranean coast. And Jacob knew. Something in the back of his mind said, He’s back.

  The presumed perpetrator of much of the Washington terror, Jeff Sheldon, had walked away from the chaos he had caused and not been heard from since. Now…?

  As Jacob worked the trace backward trying to get to the source, he was astounded when he found three points of last contact—all ending in Tel Aviv.

  Tel Aviv. My home. My country .

  No, sir, he thought, with a sad, grim feeling in his heart. You did not want to come to Tel Aviv. That you should not have done.

  CHAPTER 2

  On September 13, 1935, Adolph Hitler ordered two civil servants of the Interior Ministry to draft anti-Semitic laws for him to bring to the floor of the Reichstag. On September 15, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws— before the Reichstag. The laws, among other things, deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship. On September 19, Hersh and Aliza Asch secretly fled Germany in the “secondary immigration,” (the Aliyah Bet or Ha'apalah) and arrived on December 19 in the land to be called Israel. Their daughter, Libi was born en route.

  The family walked from Germany south through France to the coast, then acquired passage on a boat that was secretly carrying escapees, and they landed about twenty miles north of Haifa. They walked to the city with others in the dark of the nights, hid away with sympathizers for several days, and finally took up life in their new country. The trip took them three grueling months.

  Hersh lived up to the meaning of his Yidish name, deer, as he always seemed to be moving quietly from place to place gathering sustenance, whether food or information. As a professor of languages, he was prized and he quickly advanced to the fledgling University of Tel Aviv.

  Aliza, joyful in Hebrew, always did seem to find joy in life. Even during the terrible purges in Germany when they were driven to escape, and having to make the grueling journey while pregnant and then carrying a new-born, she could be counted on to see “the glass half full” and to be thankful for it.

  Aliza chose the name Libi, Hebrew for my heart, for their daughter who was born on their arduous journey from Germany. With so many things having fallen apart for them in the life they had begun, Libi truly was their heart and joy.

  Adir, strong or mighty in Hebrew, was born in 1939 and quickly took up his job of discovering life. He was an inquisitive youngster and his name reflected his strong will. He did thoroughly enjoy life.

  While the family didn’t put too much stock in the old Hebrew manner of naming children for something they hoped they would grow into, they did pick names they felt already expressed their feelings for the children. When Jacob was born in 1942, they certainly didn’t expect him to follow in his ancient forefather’s footsteps, but both Hersh and Aliza had a strange feeling that this child would be a fighter for his country. Thus Jacob started his life with a direction that was pointed out to him often, and his training from his earliest days prepared and guided him toward following in that direction.

  As the family lived through the turbulent times of the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, they watched the progress of the tiny gathering of Hebrew refugees and the gradual growth of a new nation. As Theodor Herzl, David Ben-Gurion and others continued to press the world and the British for the establishment of a “state” that would be Jewish, they devoured the news every day and watched the developments.

  On May 14, 1948, Jacob was sitting by the family’s tiny radio when he heard the news that David Ben-Gurion, standing under the portrait of Theodor Hertzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, in the old Tel Aviv Museum of Art building on Rothshild St. in Tel Aviv, had declared the establishment of the State of Israel. At first, Jacob sat stunned with the news for several minutes. Then the s
ix-year-old boy simply began screaming, and his family came running.

  Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister of the new state. Both superpower leaders, U.S. President Harry Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, immediately recognized the new state. And within hours, war broke out with the Arabs as the armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, hoping to annihilate the new Jewish state, invaded. As Jacob continued to listen to the news day and night, a feeling was welling up in him that he did not understand at the time. But, it could be expressed as he grew older in four words; My home. My country. Those words would continue with him throughout his life.

  Jim Magwood was born too many years ago in Vancouver, Canada. He was dragged south across the border by his parents when he was too young to protest and has lived in California the rest of his life.

  His work in the military and business took him throughout the world and gave him a penetrating view of that world in chaos and out of control, and he remembers well the poverty and unrest (as well as the beauty) of so many places.

  He retired early and moved with his wife, Gayle, to their quiet mountain cabin in Twin Oaks, California. The loudest noises now are some howling coyotes, the wandering cattle and a million raucous birds. The rabbits and quail have come to recognize that Shiloh (the ranch) is a sanctuary for them, so they hang around every day looking for handouts.

  Jim is the author of the international suspense thrillers, SANCTION, THE LESSER EVIL, and COP. He is retired and is writing novels of international suspense, political intrigue, and the people on both sides of the conflicts. A fourth novel,

  JACOB, is coming soon.

  You can visit Jim at his website,

  www.JimMagwood.com.