The Imposter's Trail (The Sean Kruger Series Book 3)

by J. C. Fields

  Four hours later, the small man who identified himself as Juan handed Bishop a California driver’s license, a United States passport and an American Express Platinum card in the name of Gary Yates of San Diego, California. They looked authentic.

  Bishop nodded. “Cuanto cuesta?” How much?

  “Diez mil…americano.” Ten thousand, American.

  Bishop shook his head. “Demasiado.” Too much.

  Juan reached for the items just given to Bishop. Holding them back, the new Gary Yates offered, “Nueve.”

  Juan stared at Bishop for a few moments, tilted his head slightly to the left. “Noventa y cinco.”

  Bishop smiled and handed the man a bundle of one hundred dollar bills.

  Juan smiled a toothy grin. “Gracias.”

  As Bishop walked toward the exit door of the expansive empty warehouse, Juan said in heavily accented English, “The American Express is good for month. Owner on cruise in Mediterranean.”

  Bishop turned and smiled. After hesitating for a second, he walked back to Juan and handed him the remaining five one hundred dollar bills from the bundle and the Everett Stewart passport and driver’s license. “Thanks for the tip, amigo.”

  Juan nodded and slipped the money into his jeans pocket. He opened the passport Bishop handed him and smiled.

  “This made in Thailand; it is good. I do better.”

  Bishop stared at the diminutive Mexican for a few moments, smiled, shook his head and walked out of the warehouse.

  Two hours later, Gary Yates crossed the border from Nogales, Mexico, to Nogales, Arizona, without so much as a second look from the US Border Patrol officer. He got behind the wheel of his Jeep Grand Cherokee and drove north toward Phoenix.

  All of the stashed money from the spare tire area was now in the rolling suitcase purchased at the Flagstaff Walmart, as were his clothes, laptop, cell phones and personal items. Before crossing back to the US side, he picked up two additional cell phones with prepaid minutes from a Mexican cell phone company.

  He parked the Jeep in a heavily used long-term parking area at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, leaving the keys in plain sight and the doors unlocked.

  The shuttle took him to the departure terminal. He immediately went to the Hertz counter in the arrival terminal and thirty minutes later, using Gary Yates’ American Express card, he was exiting the airport driving a Dodge Charger. He checked into the Four Seasons resort in Scottsdale using the American Express card and settled in for a few days of planning and shopping.

  Chapter 26

  Springfield, MO

  “Stephen Blair’s Jeep Cherokee was found stripped and abandoned in a really bad part of Phoenix last night.” JR stood from his seat at the cubicle and walked to the Keurig. “Everett Stewart entered Mexico at the Nogales crossing under a forty-eight-hour Tourist Ticket and never left.”

  Looking up from the report he was reading in the next cubicle, Sean Kruger asked, “When did they find the Jeep?”

  “About 3 this morning, their time. Police report thinks it’s been there at least a day.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “Snooper program. Similar to a Google search engine, but without all the ads.”

  “I thought we were supposed to be notified when anything about Blair, Bishop, or Everett Stewart was discovered by local police departments.”

  “We will, but it still takes a few days. That’s why I’m using the snooper program.”

  “Shit.” Kruger was now pacing. He watched JR start to make a cup of coffee and drifted over to the machine and waited for him to finish. When JR took his cup back to the cubicle, Kruger started his own cup. “Have you ever heard of a drip coffee maker?”

  “Sure, but you have to clean them. All you have to do with a Keurig is fill it with water.”

  Kruger frowned and stared at the finished cup of coffee. He shrugged and walked back to JR’s cubicle as he sipped the hot beverage. “This is like fast food. It takes time to make a good cup of coffee.” He frowned as he sipped it again. “So what where you saying?”

  “I like the convenience of the Keurig…”

  “Not about the coffee machine. About Nogales.”

  “I’m saying Bishop probably got a new set of IDs in Nogales and is back in the US with a completely unknown identity.”

  “Okay, how?”

  JR chuckled. “How long have you been an FBI agent?”

  “Is it that easy?”

  “Uhhhh, yeah.”

  “How much?”

  “It’s expensive, at least five figures.”

  Kruger stared at his friend. “How do you know?”

  Shrugging, JR took a sip of coffee. “Before you and Joseph helped with my identity crisis several years ago, I contemplated changing Mia’s and my identities and moving to Australia.”

  Kruger was silent.

  “Of course, I didn’t have to. But through my connections within the hacker community, I discovered some of the best forgers are in Nogales, Mexico. Close to the border and all that. They usually charge at least ten thousand. Usually more, depending on what they are offering their clients.”

  “Huh.”

  “Which tells us Bishop has access to cash.”

  “Huh.”

  JR turned to look at Kruger, who was staring at his coffee cup. “You okay?”

  “Yeah…”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, JR kept his attention on Kruger.

  “How did he know about a forger in Nogales?” Kruger asked. “I don’t see him having that kind of information at his fingertips. Who’d he call?”

  JR’s eyes widened, and he turned to his computer. “Damn. Damn, I should have thought of that.”

  Watching JR work the computer never ceased to amaze Kruger. His fingers danced over the keys, and his head swiveled between three flat screen monitors like spectators watching a tennis match. Two minutes after he started, he sat back, lifted his coffee cup and took a sip.

  “The number in Thailand we know about was called by a Virgin Mobile number three days ago, just before Everett Stewart’s trip to Nogales.”

  Kruger took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Bishop’s bought new phones.”

  “I would agree. I can trace the Virgin phone, now that I know about it. But he’s turned it off and hasn’t used it since.”

  “He probably bought several throw-aways in Mexico. I would.”

  “So would I.” JR placed his elbow on the desk and his hand under his chin as he stared at the computer monitors. “I’ll place a tripwire on the Thailand phone, then I can monitor any phones that call it.”

  Kruger walked closer to JR’s cubicle. “Where did the Virgin phone call Thailand from?”

  “Flagstaff.”

  “The Vegas office assumed he went north.”

  JR was typing on the keyboard again. He paused, reading the left screen for several moments. “Everett Stewart checked into an Embassy Suites in Flagstaff. Never checked out. He paid cash for three days and was gone a day later.”

  “Damn. How can you follow him?”

  “Until he uses the Virgin Mobile phone again, I can’t.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  JR glanced at the time on the lower right corner of his computer screen. “I’ll get as much information before the conference call as I can. When Joseph arrives, we can bring him up to speed.”

  ***

  The conference call was scheduled for noon, Central Time. All the local participants were sitting around JR’s conference table by 11:45. Sandy Knoll was in town, so he sat next to Joseph. Kruger and JR sat across from them. JR’s version of a conference call speaker box was a modified Polycom Voice Station fed through a laptop. Not because it mattered, but because he was JR, no one on the other end of the call would be able to trace where the call originated.

  Joseph clasped his hand on the surface of the conference table. “In three days, with an unknown identity, Bishop cou
ld be anywhere in the United States, or the world for that matter.”

  Kruger nodded. “He hasn’t used the one phone we know about again. He may have already ditched it.”

  “I don’t think he has.” JR shook his head. “According to records I found in the Virgin Mobile server, he bought a Samsung smartphone with cash at a Walmart in Flagstaff. He also paid for five hundred minutes of calling time. I wouldn’t think you would pay for that much time, use four minutes, and throw it away. Doesn’t make sense.”

  “I would agree. Keep an eye on it. He’ll use it again, and we’ll know more about what we’re up against. In the meantime, the purpose of this conference call is to bring the President up to speed on our other projects. Sean, will you be covering those?”

  Kruger nodded, but was obviously concentrating on something else. Joseph stared at him. “Sean?”

  Looking up, Kruger returned the stare. “Yes.”

  “Let’s get a cup of coffee.” Joseph stood and left the conference room. Kruger followed.

  Kruger went to the Keurig and placed a coffee pod in the machine. Joseph crossed his arm over his chest. “Care to tell me what’s keeping you so quiet?”

  “Bishop.”

  “I gathered that. Do you want me to take the lead on the phone call?”

  “Yeah, you probably should today.” He raised the coffee cup to his lips, sipped the hot beverage and grimaced. “We’ve transferred funds and frozen most of his assets, so he’s going to be pissed. He knew we were in Las Vegas to arrest him, thanks to Franklin Dollar. The question I keep asking myself is, if he feels desperate what’s he going to do next?”

  Joseph was pouring water into the Keurig from a gallon jug JR kept under the coffee service area. “Does he know who you are?”

  Kruger nodded. “He used my name in Atlanta to gain access to Tom Zimmerman’s condo.”

  “So, what precautions do you want to take?”

  “Stephanie and I don’t do Facebook or any of the other social media, and we don’t talk to reporters. My name was all over the news channels last year after the Fayetteville thing, but we never identified where we lived. Plus we’ve moved since then. JR has helped to keep our internet presence non-existent. Brian and his fiancée don’t have a social media presence either. It drives them nuts, but they understand why. These days, it’s hard not to be found, but I think we’ve taken the right precautions. I’ve made a few enemies in my life Joseph, though most of them are in jail or dead. But they’re out there. Bishop is different. He’s the most dangerous and cunning foe I’ve ever faced. This is the second time he’s eluded me. It’s almost like he can sense I’m getting close.”

  Sandy Knoll stuck his head out of the conference room. “President’s running late, ten more minutes.”

  Joseph smiled. “Thank you, Sandy, we’ll be right there.” He turned back to Kruger. “Only cats have nine lives, Sean. He’s going to make a mistake and you’ll be there when he does.”

  “Let’s hope so. A mistake I made six years ago has cost innocent individuals their lives. There are at least three we’re sure of. I assume the woman they found in the Chattahoochee River was killed by Bishop, and we can’t find the body of Stephen Blair. Who knows how many he killed while overseas. I have to live with that knowledge, Joseph. I need to find him and put him away before more people pay for my mistake.”

  Joseph was silent as he looked at his long-time friend. He put his hand on Kruger’s shoulder, smiled, and then walked back into the conference room.

  Chapter 27

  Aurora, CO

  Bishop sat in his rented Dodge Charger on the street in front of a ranch-style home on Newark Street in Aurora, Colorado. The exterior was red brick with a large picture window between the front door and the garage. The landscaping was mature and in bad need of trimming. The owner was currently at work. She was an associate professor at the University of Denver nine miles west of the house. If she followed her normal schedule, she would be arriving within the next fifteen minutes.

  His dark gray suit was from a local Men’s Wearhouse store and the Aurora Police Department IDs were as fake as his Gary Yates passport and driver’s license. The occupant of the home was the woman who claimed to be FBI Agent Sean Kruger’s ex-wife. She had shared numerous Facebook posts about their past relationship after his successful thwarting of a terrorist plot in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her name was Christine Daniels, the former Christine Kruger.

  The black Dodge was parked so she would see the car as soon as she pulled into the driveway. Ten minutes later, she did. As soon as she drove into the now-open garage door, Bishop exited the Dodge and walked toward the woman, who was now standing behind her car watching him approach.

  “Can I help you with something?” Her tone was sharp and distrustful. She was a tall woman, slender, with short stylish blond hair and dark roots. She wore a gray pantsuit with a silk blouse. Her blue-gray eyes were narrow as she stared at the man approaching her.

  Bishop smiled, held up the fake badge and ID. “Detective Barry Miller, Aurora Police Department. Ms. Daniels, may I have a word with you?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s this about, Detective?”

  “It’s about your ex-husband. May we step inside?”

  “I haven’t seen or spoken to my ex-husband in over twenty years, Detective. No, we may not step inside. You can tell me what this is about out here.”

  Bishop frowned, turned around and quickly scanned the neighborhood. Seeing no one, he slipped his hand inside his suitcoat jacket and pulled a Sig Sauer P224 from its holster on his belt. He returned his attention to Christine Daniels. Pointing the pistol at her chest, he smiled. “Get in the house, bitch.”

  ***

  “When did you last speak to your ex-husband?”

  Christine was duct-taped to a wooden chair, moved from the dining room to her bedroom. She shook her head and stared at the floor. “I’ve told you over and over, I haven’t seen the man for twenty years. Can’t you get it through your head?”

  Bishop slapped her harder and bent over. Getting close to her face, he screamed, “I don’t believe you.”

  Frustration overcame her fear, and she stared into Bishop’s eyes. “Believe what you want. I don’t have contact with the man.”

  Bishop straightened and pointed at all the pictures on the wall of her bedroom. “Then who is that?”

  Christine sobbed, “My son.”

  Bishop stood perfectly still. He stared at the woman, than back at the pictures on the wall. There were a few pictures of a young boy, but the rest of the pictures were of a tall slender man. The pictures appeared to be natural, without the subject posing. “He looks remarkably like his father.”

  She nodded and took a deep breath as she sobbed. “They look more like twin brothers than father and son.”

  “Where does he live?”

  She shook her head.

  Bishop slapped her hard. She screamed, but did not answer his question.

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  She shook her head again. “I hated being a mother. I left when he was less than a year old. I haven’t spoken to him since he graduated from high school.”

  “But you have feelings for him.” Bishop walked closer to the wall and examined the pictures more carefully. Each was an eight-by-ten taken with a telephoto lens from a distance. Closer to the picture, he could tell the man was younger. “Obviously, you know where he is. You took these pictures, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He stopped at one picture in particular. It showed the man walking with a young woman on what appeared to be a college campus. The couple was holding hands. “Who’s the girl?”

  She remained quiet.

  “You might as well answer me. I’m going to find out eventually.”

  Christine stared at the floor.

  “Answer me.”

  She shook her head.

  Bishop took a switch-blade from his pocket and flipped it o
pen. He held the knife to her blouse and cut the first button off.

  She took a sharp breath.

  He cut off the next three buttons, exposing her bra.

  “I would rather find out where your ex-husband is. You’d spare your son and his girlfriend a lot of pain. Tell me Christine.”

  She shook her head harder.

  Bishop slipped the knife between her chest and the middle of her bra, turned it and cut the fabric holding the two cups together. With her breasts now exposed, she gasped and started to cry.

  “I don’t know where Sean lives. He used to live in Kansas City, but when he got married, they moved. How many times do I have to tell you I don’t talk to him?” Tears ran down her cheeks as she looked at Bishop. “What do I have to say to make you believe me?”

  Bishop grinned as he cut the rest of her clothes off.

  ***

  Sitting in front of Christine Daniels’ laptop, Bishop searched her Facebook account for any clue to the location of her ex-husband. He learned her son’s name was Brian from several letters she kept in her nightstand. The letters were written in a child’s handwriting on lined notebook paper, now yellowed with age. After an hour of searching, he found what he was looking for. It was a PDF file with an engagement announcement for Brian Kruger and Michele Brickman. The announcement was from the Columbia, Missouri, Daily Tribune. The announcement mentioned Brian was the son of Sean and Stephanie Kruger, Springfield, Missouri. No mention of the owner of the house he now occupied. She did tell him the truth. She was completely and totally out of the lives of her ex-husband and son. Sad.

  Bishop stood and went back to Christine’s bedroom. He stared at the body lying on the bed. “You could have saved yourself a lot of anguish by just telling me. Plus, you might have had a chance to reconcile with your son.”