Solid Oak

by William F Lovejoy

  She knew she worked hard for what she earned. The Chair actually passed on part of what he received to shadowy people who assisted the cause in various ways. That was the baksheesh factor. Sometimes he used funds from the operating account. The Treasurer was up to speed on financial matters around the world, from venture capitalists to foreign stock exchanges, and he provided the group with advantageous advice on where to invest their funds outside the borders of the United States. The Vice-Chair provided leads garnered from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and other think tanks, courtesy of her husband. From those leads, Alicia enhanced her own data banks.

  From time to time, Alicia charged all of their accounts a 1% fee to refresh the separate operating account. That was the account from which she paid various “Consultants” like October, November, December, and Tuesday.

  Next she connected with one of the stock brokers she utilized, this one based in Saudi Arabia, and sold 1.1 million dollars worth of Qatar Commercial Bank stock. One hundred thousand dollars of the order was for her own account. Neither the group nor she owned any of that stock, of course. The sale was based on the premise that the Qatar Commercial stock price would drop precipitously, and soon. Then she would buy up stock at the lower price to fulfill her sale. She had made a tremendous amount of money for the group under this practice.

  Once those tasks were completed, Hampstead checked on Doyle Katt, who was setting up an e-mail announcement on the Qatar situation for the members. Then she closed the door to her office and called November.

  ‘Yeah?”

  “You were told to not bring attention to yourselves,” she reminded him.

  “So? We didn’t. At least, I didn’t.”

  “Then how is it that the Sausalito Police Department has issued a BOLO with your description? It has been picked up by the state police in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona.”

  “Shit! That can’t be.”

  “Did you rent your car under your own name?” she asked.

  “How else would I do it?”

  What an idiot!

  “After dark, get in the car and drive to Texas. Don’t stop anywhere along the way except for gas at the least populated stations. Eat only what you can find in a convenience store. In Houston, abandon the car, and then take a bus to New Orleans. Call me then.”

  “But, May. . . .”

  “Just do it. And don’t shave. We’ll try to get you out of the mess you’ve created.”

  She would have preferred to have another “consultant” available to take care of this one.

  Then she called the Chair and reported on all of this as well as the fiasco in Sausalito.

  “December is dead?” he asked.

  “I should have told you I was going to use him because Malone is considered dangerous. I apologize for that.”

  It was quiet for a long time, and she knew the Chair couldn’t be happy about her freelance decision.

  Finally, he said, “Okay. You were right to send two against Malone. Where is November now?”

  Alicia told him about the New Orleans destination.

  “Why New Orleans?”

  “Because I can connect him with someone to get him new papers. We’ll get him a makeover.”

  “That’s fine, May. Let me know when that happens.”

  She sat quietly after he hung up. His disappointment in her had been obvious to her, and oh, how she hated to fall short in his eyes.

  *

  Malone had abruptly left Bobbi and moved to his office. She loaded the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher and then went upstairs to retrieve her laptop. Sitting at the kitchen counter, she wrote a five sentence letter of resignation, logged onto Malone’s wireless router, and felt her heart clench a couple times before she hit the “send” button.

  Gone.

  Finished.

  All over.

  Twenty years of her life.

  She had friends in the Agency who would wonder what happened to her. She supposed word would get out about her shooting some intruder. Bobbi wasn’t about to get involved in defending herself to the people she knew. They either knew her, or they didn’t. Or maybe she’d send out an e-mail. She’d have to think about it.

  She hadn’t slept since the telephone vibrated and woke her up. She had pulled on her jeans and shoes, grabbed the Glock and tiptoed downstairs. Just in time as it turned out.

  God, she’d felt terrible!

  And then Oak held her close and it was better. No one had held her like that in many, many years. By the time Detective Martinez had questioned her, after he’d seen the surveillance video, she’d recovered a little. She had reacted kind of instinctually, but shooting people was not part of her psyche. If she hadn’t pulled the trigger, Oak would be dead, and that would be far, far worse. Following Oak’s request, she hadn’t mentioned the three names or the rest of what was going on to Martinez. And by now, she felt as if her ship was righting itself. She was getting close to being on an even keel.

  Henry Kincaid was just an asshole bent on assassination for some obscure purpose. The world was a better place without him.

  The bigger question was why in the hell was all of this happening? It wasn’t as if Oak had to avenge Dinmore’s death. He met with Dinmore and suddenly became a target. But Malone didn’t like people shooting at him and wanted to know why, and now, she did too.

  Then Malone came out of the office and took the stool next to her.

  “How we doing, Bobbi?”

  “What’s with the we? I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be okay.”

  He smiled, “I was sure of it. Did you think twice about resignation?”

  “It’s gone. I’m done.”

  “Actually, I think you’re far from done. Things will look a lot better than you think. Here.”

  He handed her a check, and she had to blink when she saw the number.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your first paycheck. I pay a year in advance, and you just got a $25,000 raise to $200,000 for work performed. Of course I took out the withholding for fed and state taxes, Social Security and Medicare. Remind me to pay those sometime.”

  ‘Oak, a year in advance? That’s ridiculous!”

  “No, it’s not. We’ll get you set up for health and life insurance and a 401K which I also take care of.”

  “I can’t take this!”

  “It’s kind of a guarantee, Bobbi. Say I don’t make it back from some operation. You’ve got a buffer until you find something else to do.”

  “Don’t tell me that, please.”

  His eyes were locked on hers, and she thought they were begging her to say “yes.” This was a side of Malone she hadn’t seen before. Or maybe it had always been there, and she’d been blind to it.

  She finally said, “I’ve got a condo in Alexandria.”

  “Keep it for when you visit.”

  “I’d have to find a place to live here.”

  “No rush. You can bunk right here.”

  “I don’t even know what the job description is.”

  “We do investigations. You know the data sources and analysis that I’ve had to pay others for since I’m no good at it. I’m getting off cheap.”

  “You don’t work all the time.”

  “Gives you freedom to explore. Call it extended vacation. Maybe you’ll like sailing.”

  “Give me one example of this job.”

  “Okay. I work frequently from assumptions I have to make about people or events. Let’s say that my visit to Jim Mears told the boss man who I’m calling Big Brother that I was in Phoenix and the boss sent someone, this Kincaid or the big guy, after me. So he’s in Phoenix, but he can’t find me. Then he gets the word that I’ve gone to Des Moines, and that’s where he goes. But then, I’m not in Des Moines, so he’s told to head for my home. That’s where you come in.”

  Galway thought about it for about thirty seconds.

  “You’d expect me to find the passenger manifests
of all aircraft flying from Phoenix to Des Moines in a certain time span and compare them with flights booked from Des Moines to San Francisco in another time span. At least one name would appear on both. Or might appear on both.”

  “See? You fit right into the job.”

  “There’s a little hitch to this, Oak. As of about two minutes ago, my passwords and access have been cancelled. I don’t have the resources anymore.”

  That didn’t deter him. Malone said, “You’ll work something out. I know you can.”

  As a matter of reality, Bobbi did have a code-breaking program on her laptop. It was Agency developed, and she sometimes used it when she was working from home. She wasn’t supposed to have it on a personal machine, but she was sure no one knew about it. She also had a few data files loaded. She was fairly certain she wouldn’t be finishing any of the three projects she’d been working on, but she should get some storage media to back up what she had. Just in case the laptop went on the fritz.

  “How about ethics, Oak?”

  He sat up straight on his stool and ruminated for a few seconds. “I guess I’ve come around to calling it ‘situational ethics.’”

  “And that means?”

  “It means I do what I have to do to accomplish the task as long as bystanders don’t get hurt. In terms of computer hacking, I’d apply it the same way. I wouldn’t think twice about getting into a database for information that helps solve a problem. But I wouldn’t screw up the database or interfere with other people.”

  Well, Galway recalled a few instances where she’d done the same thing all in the name of national security.

  She looked at the check in her hand. She thought about the mostly static life she’d been living in Washington. She thought about some of the men who’d been hitting on her, and who she could care less about. She thought about Oak holding her tight.

  “This is purely professional, right?”

  Much as he tried to appear stoic, his mouth went a little south. “Of course it is.”

  “I’m not looking for a new relationship.”

  “I understand that.”

  “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  A flash of concern in those steel gray eyes. “Go?”

  “Start a bank account and shop for clothes.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Don’t think so. When I get back, I’ll start on that first task.”

  Chapter Ten – Wednesday, June 19

  At 8:00 in the morning, Malone called Detective Amber Chu. He used the phone on the kitchen counter and waited while his call was shunted around a couple times. Trying to locate her.

  “Yes, Mr. Malone?”

  “Couple of items, Detective. First, were you able to reach Detective Ford?”

  A few seconds went by while Chu composed an estimate of how much she should tell Malone.

  “I did,” she said. “He told me that the Central Intelligence Agency wouldn’t tell him much about your career there, but they did speak highly of you.”

  They damned well better.

  “And he confirmed that Dean Mal was an alias for the man you shot in Washington. He did have Special Forces training and a general discharge. Ford is currently making the assumption that Mal was a contract killer.”

  “My assumption, also. What about Kincaid?” he asked.

  “It was not an alias. His fingerprints tell us that was his true name. It was also on his British passport.”

  So much for intuition.

  “He was a Brit?”

  “As some major with a British accent in Buckinghamshire, the UK, told me, Kincaid was cashiered out of the SAS.”

  “Special Air Service.”

  “That’s the one. Pretty elite outfit I’m given to understand.”

  “It is,” Malone confirmed. “He had to have screwed up badly if they dumped him.”

  “Whatever it was, it seems they’re not going to tell us about it. It probably no longer matters.”

  Not to Kincaid, anyway.

  “All right. Thanks, Detective. Now, I’ve got one for you. The big guy you’re looking for? His name is Conrad Sherry. Or at least, it’s the name he’s going by.”

  He heard a shallow intake of breath. “Now how did you learn that, Mr. Malone?”

  “My colleague, Ms. Galway, tracked it down by checking with airline reservations for names that appeared to be following me on my travels.”

  “I see. Well, I suppose a CIA agent could do that.”

  Malone didn’t think it was the appropriate time to announce Bobbi’s retirement to Detective Chu. Or discuss the difference between agent and analyst.

  “She also managed to locate an airline ticket agent who didn’t remember Sherry’s name right off the bat, but did remember a big man with a badly scarred face.”

  Malone wasn’t going to mention Phoenix or Des Moines if he didn’t have to do it.

  “The address Sherry used for the flight reservation was bogus, though. Supposedly in Miami.”

  “We’ll check it out. Do you know the flight he was on?”

  Malone gave her the airline and flight number.

  “Very well. If it looks right, we’ll update the BOLO.”

  Oak thought it should be an APB, an All Points Bulletin, rather than a Be On the Lookout, but he wasn’t in charge.

  From the moment of silence, he thought Chu wanted to say something, or was deciding how to say it.

  “Anything more, Detective?”

  “Mr. Malone, I have serious reservations about you.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re a resident of this city, but I worry about the kind of people you’re associated with. We don’t need your kind of trouble.”

  So much for an exemplary CIA career, but well, that was the Detective Amber Chu he’d anticipated.

  “This is a first for the five years I’ve lived here. But I’ll certainly try to keep them out of town.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Malone.”

  “Anytime, Detective.”

  After he hung up, he walked down to the office which he had given over to Bobbi. She had protested, but he insisted that all he needed was the big chair. He had cat-napped in it again last night, but no Conrad Sherry or freedom-loving Labrador.

  When she had returned from shopping the previous afternoon, he was pretty sure she had spent the whole paycheck. From her rental car parked in the garage, he carried in box after box after box. Then sack after sack after sack. Clear upstairs to her bedroom.

  “Not that I’m not happy to see all of this,” he’d told her, “but what in the world have you done?”

  “I’m going to have a West Coast wardrobe and an East Coast wardrobe. I can get rid of my suitcase.”

  “Hey, just like Lani Dixon.”

  “What!”

  Then he had to tell her about Lani’s full closet and armoire in Scottsdale.

  Now he caught her un-boxing a variety of hardware and spreading it out on the desk top.

  “Would you mind moving your desktop machine somewhere? Maybe to the garage? My laptop is all I’m going to need.”

  “I can do that. What have you got here?”

  “Another laptop to use offline. Hard drive and flash drive storage. A scanner. Toys of my trade. I’m going to replace your wireless router with something more sophisticated.”

  “Seems to me that’s all business expense. Deductible. I’ll reimburse you.”

  “Forget it,” she said and dropped into the chair. “I’m going to buy a better chair than this one, too.”

  Malone unhooked the desktop machine and moved it out to the garage where there was a workbench he never used. He wasn’t adept at home fix-it-up and had no desire to restore a Packard or a Corvette. His limited collection of tools was stored aboard the Tacky II since she was most likely to need a repair. Generally, she needed repair when she was underway and not at her mooring. Twenty-year-old blocks and shackles and sheaves gave up the ghost at the most inopportune moments. The auxiliary diesel engine coul
d cough up a fuel pump whenever it felt like it.

  When he completed that task and returned to the office, Galway asked, “How’s your wound?”

  “Fine, I think.”

  “You’ve changed the dressing?”

  “Well, not yet.”

  “Peel off the shirt.”

  She came up out of the desk chair, and Malone opted not to argue. He pulled his T-shirt over his head.

  “Jesus, Oak! What are all of these scars?”

  “Close encounters of one kind or another.”

  She gave a kind of harrumph.

  “Where’s your first aid kit?”

  It happened to be in the half bath, and he retrieved it, a small box.

  “You don’t really call that a first aid kit, do you?” she asked.

  “I’ve got a better one on the boat.”

  “Where it’s handy? Let me have that one.”

  Bobbi deftly removed the dressing on the back of his arm, inspected it, swabbed the wound with an alcohol pad, and used gauze and tape to recover it.

  “Not too bad,” she said. “Who’s your doctor?”

  “Jim Gillespie. He’s downtown.”

  “Make an appointment to have him look at it.”

  “You know, that’s what the EMT told me. But there’s no rush.”

  “Now!” she said a bit harshly. “Don’t let some assistant put you off.”

  “What are you doing? You could go with me.”

  “I’m busy chasing the money trail you’re so hot about.”

  So he called Gillespie’s office, cajoled Missy into working him into the schedule, and drove downtown. He had to wait forty minutes, and then allow Gillespie to remove the Steri-Strips and replace the dressing. He was also ordered to pick up a prescription anti-biotic, and he went to the Walgreen’s on Shoreline Highway for that. While he was there, he also picked up the best, most elaborate first aid kit he could find. Got two, in fact, because the one on the Tacky II probably wasn’t up to his description of it.