“Come on!” Sydney said.
Then they were out, all three of them, running.
Twenty seconds later the aircraft exploded in a fireball that lit the canyon like daylight for a full half mile.
Then something weird happened.
Up the road it looked like the car missed a turn and crashed into the river.
Sydney ran that way.
“Come on!” she said.
Teffinger pulled his gun and followed.
His legs didn’t work right.
When they got there, the car was no more than a black silhouette jammed in the middle of the river.
A voice came from it, a female’s voice screaming for help, stuck in the car fifty feet from the bank.
Teffinger stepped into the water.
It was stronger than he thought and ice cold.
“Just stay where you are!” he shouted.
Suddenly something cold and wet and strong had his head in a vice grip. Then incredible muscles twisted his neck and forced him under the surface. Water immediately filled his ears and nose and mouth. He shifted to break loose.
It did no good.
Instead he went ever farther under.
He kicked his legs but got no traction. His lungs would fill with water in seconds. He twisted, got his head above the surface and sucked precious air. Then he reached behind and got his hands to the back of the man’s head. The other man lost his traction but got Teffinger in the same position. They were back to back, locked together, each pulling as hard as they could, trying to snap the other’s neck. Teffinger tightened his neck to keep it from breaking.
His muscles screamed.
Then he pulled the man’s head with every ounce of strength he had.
95
Day Eleven—June 21
Thursday Night
LONDON DRANK MARGARITAS at Jose O’Shea’s on Union until her money ran out; then staggered home in the rain. The alcohol was supposed to erase the image of Sarah Woodward saying, “And found you,” but it didn’t work.
She got home to find Hannah sleeping naked on top of the covers.
Venta’s little buddy.
What nerve, to still be here.
Hadn’t Venta told her that the charade was over?
Drunker.
That’s what London needed to be.
Drunker.
She changed into dry clothes, poured a glass of wine and then sat on the couch in the dark as the storm battered the building. When the wine was gone she walked into the bedroom and slapped Hannah on the ass as hard as she could.
“Get out of my apartment and out of my life!”
“What the—?”
“Now!”
She swung again, this time getting the woman’s leg instead of her ass.
“Stop that!” Hannah said.
But London couldn’t stop.
She swung again.
And again.
Then the woman grabbed her hands and said, “Stop it!”
But as soon as she let go, London hit her again.
That was a mistake. The woman wrestled her to the carpet. She fought back but was no match. The woman twisted London onto her back, then straddled her and pinned her arms above her head. London tried to muscle loose but the woman just gripped her wrists tighter and shifted her weight even higher on London’s chest, until her crotch was almost on London’s face.
“Get off me!”
“I will,” Hannah said. “But first you have to listen to what I have to say.”
“I said get off!”
“No.”
Hannah kept London pinned on her back until she calmed down. Then she said, “Stay,” and loosened her grip on London’s wrists. London immediately brought her arms down. Hannah grabbed them and pulled them back up. “Stay, I said.”
This time when Hannah released her grip, London left her arms above her head.
“That’s better,” Hannah said. “I’m now going to make you my lawyer. That means that whatever I tell you is privileged and confidential, right?”
“I’m not your lawyer,” London said.
“You better be, otherwise I can’t tell you what’s going on,” Hannah said.
A pause.
“Okay, I’m your lawyer.”
“That means that whatever I tell you, you can’t tell the police or anyone else, right?”
“Right.”
“Good.”
“FIRST OF ALL, I KNOW YOU’RE MAD AT VENTA,” Hannah said. “Don’t be and I’ll tell you why.”
“There’s nothing you could possibly say.”
“Hear me out,” Hannah said. “Venta was hired by a mystery law firm to follow someone named Bob Copeland to Bangkok and get dirt on him, exactly like she said. What she didn’t tell you is that she took me with her. We both went to Bangkok.”
“You went too?”
“Yes, I went too,” Hannah said. “I was her assistant and she felt too intimidated to go there alone. At that time my hair was a lot longer and it was blond. That night we followed Bob Copeland to a blowjob bar in the Soi Cowboy district. I was the one who went inside while Venta waited outside. Someone spiked my drink. I woke up in sexual slavery. It was me, not Venta, who got abducted.”
“You? Then why did Venta say it was her?”
Lightning flashed outside.
Followed by the loud crack of thunder.
“I’m getting there,” Hannah said. “Venta was frantic to find me. She stayed in Bangkok for two weeks looking for me. Eventually, she heard about the place and learned that women could be purchased for snuffs. But she had no idea where the place was and couldn’t go there even if she knew, because she’d be taken herself. So she went back to the United States.”
“Okay.”
“Are you following me?”
“Yes.”
“She took a loan out against her house for $300,000,” Hannah said. “Then she came back to Bangkok with a friend of hers—a man named Ernest Poindexter. He started to spread money around and asked about a dungeon where he could have some serious fun. It took a while but he eventually ended up at the place. He purchased me for a snuff at a cost of $250,000. Then we all came back to the United States.”
“So Venta bought your freedom,” London said.
“Exactly.”
“And there was no traffic accident.”
“No. We had to make that part up.”
Silence.
“All of the things that she told you that happened to her were all true, except that they happened to me,” Hannah said. “One man was particularly brutal. He told me he was a pilot and lived in Denver but never told me his name. Venta and I came to Denver to find him. Venta did most of the work because I was an emotional mess. She dressed up like a man and stalked him. Then we confirmed he was the right person.”
“Alan English,” London said.
“Right, Alan English,” Hannah said. “After we found him, I knew that I had to kill him. Venta tried to talk me out of it a hundred times, but I was hell-bent on revenge. And then I took it. I stabbed him to death in his bedroom.” She paused and then said, “I don’t regret it. He got what he deserved. We made sure that Venta was in a public place at the time so she had an alibi if she ever needed it.”
“So you killed Alan English,” London said.
“Yes—but remember that’s privileged and confidential,” Hannah said. “You’re my attorney. You can’t ever tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
London was still lying on her back with her arms above her head.
“Can I get up now?” she asked.
Hannah let her up.
They poured wine and sat on the couch in the dark.
“Anyway, Venta was worried about me getting caught,” Hannah said. “She knew that there would be a murder investigation and had sniffed around enough to determine that the main guy in charge of the homicide department—a man named Nick Teffinger—would get involved at least to some extent. Venta
decided to buddy up to him to keep track of where they were. That way she could tell me if they were getting too close, at which point I would disappear to Mexico or whatever.”
“So she wasn’t serious about him,” London said.
“Not at first,” Hannah said. “She followed him around and looked for a way to meet him and make it look like an accident. He spotted her one night—actually, it was the same day I killed Alan English—and lured her into a bar. They met. Then she fell in love with him.”
“So she really does like him?”
“She’s crazy for the man,” Hannah said. “I’ve never seen her like this before. Anyway, with Alan English dead, Venta and I next set our focus on trying to find out who hired Venta in the first place. That’s when Venta bumped into you.”
London remembered.
“The problem was, though, that we were both scared to death that if my name came into the picture and got associated with Bangkok, the police might trace me to the murder of Alan English. So we decided to keep me totally out of the picture and just pretend that everything had happened to Venta instead of me. That was wrong, I know, but we had no choice. We both knew that there was a law firm that needed to be brought down. But because of Alan English, Venta needed to be the plaintiff instead of me. She had an alibi, so even if she got associated with English it wouldn’t make a difference.”
“I see.”
“So everything Venta told you was true,” Hannah said. “The only difference is that it happened to me instead of her.”
“And she left out the fact that you killed Alan English.”
Hannah took a sip of wine and shook her head.
“Technically she didn’t leave it out. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the case against V&B. And you never asked her about it.”
The rain pounded even harder against the window.
London scratched her head.
“Then how did Venta recognize Remington as being in the dungeon?”
“Easy,” Hannah said. “When you came up with the idea to have Venta look at the V&B profiles to see if anyone in the firm had gone to the dungeon, Venta made sure that I was there at the time. If I saw someone, I was supposed to kick her and then she would tell you. It turned out to be easier than that, though, because you went grocery shopping. I recognized Remington, told Venta about Remington including his tattoo and the size of his dick, and then she called you as if she knew it all firsthand.”
London pondered it.
Then she said, “But you weren’t there when Venta identified Kiet from the BJ bar, sitting in a booth with three or four women.”
“True,” Hannah said. “But what happened is this. Venta came into the bar to look for me after I never came back out. That’s when she saw him.” Hannah sipped wine. “So I guess the question is—what do we do now? We still have a law firm to bring to justice.”
London nodded.
True.
Very true.
“You’re our lawyer,” Hannah said. “Right?”
Yes.
She was.
“So what do we do now?”
96
July 21
Thursday Morning
(One month later)
LONDON WALKED through the heart of Denver’s financial district under a bright Colorado sky. She wore a conservative pinstriped suit and carried a leather briefcase. The city bustled around her and felt like home.
She felt like a lawyer.
She was a lawyer, a lawyer with a good man named Michael Montana in her life.
Most of the picture had come into focus for her during the last month.
The information came from a variety of sources.
Dylan Jekker, for example, left behind a wonderful laptop filled with places, dates and names. Apparently it was his way of getting back at V&B from the grave if the firm killed him. The firm didn’t, of course. Instead, Jekker died at the hands of Teffinger during a horrible fight in the icy waters of Bear Creek. Still, the computer was found in Jekker’s middle boxcar and served its purpose well.
Some of the information came from Porter Potter’s house.
Some came from the extensive interviews of V&B’s attorneys conducted by the D.A.’s office, as well as interviews of V&B’s clients. Some came from documents such as phone statements, financial records, day timers, personal notes, and the like. And some came from other sources—often unlikely sources.
Most of the information went to Teffinger, then to Venta, and then to London.
In the end, a clear picture of a deadly, high-stakes international conspiracy of terrible proportions emerged.
THE LAW FIRM OF VESPER & BENNETT had two or three high-ranking partners in each of its offices throughout the world who functioned as part of a highly-solidified and clandestine group.
They called themselves rainmakers.
The rainmakers from Denver consisted of three people.
Mark Remington.
Thomas Fog.
And Sarah Woodward.
The rainmakers used carefully selected persons to enhance the law firm’s advantage in high-stakes litigation. The enhancement might include, for example, the elimination, intimidation or coercion of a judge, witness or party.
In the United States, the enhancer was Dylan Jekker.
Thomas Fog was his contact—the person who assigned the projects and arranged for payment.
In Europe, the enhancer was Jean-Paul Boudiette—a man who had become a person of interest to INTERPOL following the suspicious death of a Paris judge.
PORTER POTTER WAS AN IMPORTANT WITNESS who needed to be enhanced. But V&B didn’t need him dead. What it needed was false deposition testimony from the man.
Potter’s daughter had died in an airplane crash earlier this year.
The law firm located another woman who bore a striking resemblance to Potter’s daughter, a woman named Tessa Blake. The firm had Dylan Jekker kidnap the woman. After the woman’s abduction got reported in the media, the firm contacted Potter and made him an offer. If he lied in his upcoming deposition, the woman would be released alive and unharmed. If he didn’t, the woman would die. The firm hoped that Potter would think of the woman as his daughter and be sympathetic towards her. They even let him talk to Tessa Blake by telephone to confirm that they actually had her and that she was still alive and well.
The gamble paid off.
Potter chose to cooperate and lied in his deposition.
That swung a billion dollar case from a probable loser to a probable winner; a case that V&B had on a 25 percent contingency fee in the event of success, in addition to being paid on an hourly basis, meaning an extra $250 million or more.
At that point it was incumbent upon the firm to follow through with its end of the bargain and release the woman; otherwise Potter would undoubtedly go to the police and recant his testimony. Unfortunately, the woman had seen Jekker’s face and couldn’t be released without risk. So rather than releasing the woman, the firm had Jekker kill Potter and make it look like an accident.
Now they had the man’s deposition to use as evidence at trial with no associated risk.
VESPER & BENNETT WAS NOT ENGAGED in human trafficking or an international conspiracy to lure women to Bangkok for sexual slavery.
However, Mark Remington was, and had been doing it for years in exchange for money and unbridled privileges with any woman in the stable anytime he wanted. Tall, athletic blonds brought a high premium in that part of the world, both as a daily rental and as an outright purchase for a snuff. Remington came up with a wonderful idea to find female investigators who fit the physical profile and lure them to Bangkok.
Venta Devenelle from San Francisco.
Rebecca Vampire from Miami.
Susan Wagner from Cleveland.
Shirley Jones from New York.
Venta came to Denver to pursue a theory that her assignment had not been legitimate, but had instead been a charade to get her to travel to Bangkok of her own accord
where her abduction was prearranged.
Venta hired London who rattled swords at V&B.
When the two other rainmakers—Thomas Fog and Sarah Woodward—found out what Remington had been up to, they decided that he needed to be removed. There was too great a risk that Venta could actually file a public lawsuit alleging the firm’s involvement in sexual slavery. That would result in tremendous media spotlighting, which might spill over to and uncover the whole rainmaker operation.
Since Jekker was friends with Remington, they couldn’t use Jekker for the job. So they brought Jean-Paul Boudiette in from France. As long as he was going to be here, they decided to have him remove Jekker too.
Jekker had been getting too sloppy.
He let Tessa Blake see his face.
He killed Samantha Rickenbacker.
He was a liability.
Remington then learned that he was being targeted. He learned that from the FBI profiler, Dr. Leanne Sanders, and from Nick Teffinger, when they came to Remington’s office after Boudiette assaulted the profiler.
Remington fled to Bangkok.
Boudiette then went after his second target, Dylan Jekker.
Unfortunately for Boudiette, Jekker got the upper hand.
The law firm told Jekker that Boudiette was either a rouge or else someone unknown was pulling his strings.
Jekker fell for it and stayed in Denver.
The firm then flew its Hong Kong enforcer to Bangkok. That person hung Remington in his hotel room and made it look like a suicide.
VESPER & BENNETT PLANTED A BUG in London Vaughn’s apartment early on, almost immediately in fact. London actually remembered coming home one night and feeling as if someone had been there.
But the bug wasn’t found until long after the fact.
In the meantime, Sarah Woodward and Thomas Fog learned that London and Venta had suspicious thoughts about another law firm, one that had ties to Bangkok, namely Thung, Manap and Deringer.
They then fed London false information.
They told her that their Bangkok P.I. had uncovered information to suggest that the Thung firm and associated family members were rumored to operate the dungeon where Venta had been taken.
All that was a big lie.
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