Jack of Spades

by Diane Capri

  “Thanks, Mom. I’ll be okay. I’ll be careful. I promise,” he said for the zillionth time. He nodded, hugged her, and kissed the top of her head for the very last goodbye. “You stay inside. It’s really cold out there.”

  He hurried out to the SUV, where he hoped she wouldn’t follow in her nightgown and slippers. He stowed the provisions on the passenger seat and tossed his parka into the back. The motor was already running with the defrosters blasting warm air into the cabin.

  He waved goodbye, slid into the driver’s seat, and eased the Jeep out of the driveway.

  He didn’t know when he’d see her again, and he found himself more sentimental about that than he’d expected. His whole life, she’d been the one who supported him, through good times and bad. He’d probably have ended up in prison long before now, if not for her.

  After a fight left two kids with broken bones and outraged parents had filed criminal complaints, his mother had begged unabashedly for his future when his father had lost the will to rescue him one last time. She’d insisted the judge reconsider. Eventually, he was moved by her pleas to offer Jake’s weary parents an unusual choice. They could enroll Jake in Junior R.O.T.C. for the rest of his high school career, or he could do two years of prison time. Mom’s persistence had made all the difference. Junior R.O.T.C. had taught him how to handle himself and instilled a healthy respect for the U.S. military. Win-win, as people say, although he hadn’t felt that way about it at the time.

  Jake turned and blew his mother a kiss and then watched in the rearview mirror until she stepped back into the warm house and closed the front door firmly against the wind.

  A few blocks later, he pulled onto Main Street. In the end, he left the solid and prosperous red brick buildings and neat old-fashioned streets of his hometown behind without a single twinge of regret.

  This journey simply felt like the right thing to do. He would come back home one day, sure. Eventually. After he saw a bit of the country. He was admitted to Harvard Law School next year. He’d be back for a visit before then.

  He drove along county roads. He’d planned a detour to drive past Harvard at the start to drop off some papers. So he headed toward Boston and then Syracuse, where he figured he’d stop for the night. The winter thaw had cleared the back roads and kept them dry. Speed limits were lower than the interstate which slowed his progress and a couple of minor accidents had blocked traffic for more than two hours.

  He didn’t care. He was in no real hurry. And the last thing he needed was to come around a corner too fast and end up in a ditch somewhere. Or worse, hit a deer and screw up his Jeep before he covered the first three hundred miles.

  The last weather report he’d heard on the Jeep’s radio had changed the forecast. Colder wind and snow was headed down from Canada tonight. He noticed the outside temperature had been dropping for the past couple of hours already. Gusty winds blew snow across the road, making the pavement slick. He’d lived in the northeast all his life. He knew deadly black ice could be waiting under the thin blanket of snow.

  As he’d told his mother, the county roads weren’t the most direct route to California, but he’d see something of the country doing the drive off the interstates. If the bad weather moved in, he could always stop for a night or two and wait for the roads to be cleared again. After all, he didn’t have an appointment with anybody. He didn’t need to worry about being late.

  What he hadn’t counted on was the solitude. Or rather, he’d welcomed the idea of solitary travel before he found himself stuck with it. He’d listened to his music, flipped past all the static on the radio, and run through two audio books before he got sleepy and bored with being alone.

  Which was why, when he saw the hitchhiker slogging along the deep snow on the shoulder about two hours from Syracuse, he made the snap decision to pick up the guy and give him a lift. His mother would have been horrified. But she wasn’t with him. And if the hiker didn’t try to slash his throat or something, at least he’d have someone to talk to if he felt like it.

  The guy was bundled up, as if he was wearing every item of clothing he owned. His big army-green parka hood was pulled up, covering his head and face. He carried a well-used backpack with an external frame, like the ones serious hikers wore on their backs for long overnight treks. Heavy gloves made his hands look like catcher’s mitts. Brown work boots created waffle prints in the snow on the shoulder of the road.

  Maybe the guy would like to talk a little baseball. Spring training was already under way. The Grapefruit League had started this week. Cactus League, too. The guy would help pass the time and the miles and keep him awake.

  Jake heard his mother’s voice practically shrieking in his head to be careful, be careful, be careful. He grinned.

  “I’m always careful, Mom,” he said aloud as he turned on his indicator and pulled onto the shoulder just ahead of the hitchhiker.

  The guy hustled up to the passenger side of the SUV and Jake lowered the window. The wind had picked up and almost carried the hiker’s voice away. “Where ya headed?”

  “Syracuse,” Jake replied.

  “Me, too,” the hiker shouted against the wind.

  Jake jerked his right thumb over his shoulder. “Put your stuff back there and climb in.”

  A pair of headlights coming up fast from behind him on the road snagged Jake’s attention. He hadn’t seen a single vehicle for the past fifty miles. His gut clenched. Maybe this was a setup after all. He’d heard about such things. One guy distracts the driver while the second guy attacks.

  He swung his head side to side, looking for the others, if there were any. Jake didn’t mind a good fight. But it was too damn cold to hang around out there.

  He grabbed the Jeep’s wheel with both hands, moved his left foot to the brake and prepared to floor the accelerator with his right to speed away, leaving the hitchhiker in the road.

  He kept his eyes on the mirrors, watching the headlights come closer.

  When the pickup truck slowed and kept moving safely past him, Jake felt a little foolish. His mother’s anxiety was stuck in his head and there was no way to get rid of it. He’d been her son for twenty-two years. Her fears would probably be with him forever.

  While he’d been watching the approaching truck, the hitchhiker stashed the heavy backpack as instructed, opened the passenger door, and climbed inside.

  The door slammed shut and the hitchhiker pulled off the gloves and threw back the parka’s hood.

  Which was when Jake saw that the guy was a woman. His eyebrows shot up.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Friday, February 25

  3:00 p.m.

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Desmond Trevor waited at a table in the back of the dimly lit bar, watching the entrance. He had arrived early and settled with a draft beer. He didn’t intend to drink it. He simply didn’t want the waitress to come around to take his order later. He had come here for anonymous privacy, not socializing.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall and compared it to his watch. The clock was ten minutes fast. The knowledge tamped the heat he’d felt rising in his chest. They weren’t late. Yet.

  Three minutes later, the brothers arrived together as usual. Trevor watched as they made their way to his table. They were fraternal twins. The family resemblance was striking, but the two were easily distinguishable.

  Both were big men with brown eyes, broad shoulders and long arms. Both were dressed in jeans and cowboy boots. They wore plaid shirts, one red and one green. Their black leather flight jackets were of the same vintage. The outfits were clean enough and worn enough not to attract unnecessary attention anywhere.

  Owen, the older one, was an inch shorter and twenty pounds lighter. He’d shaved his head once when he’d lost a challenge of some kind and decided he liked it. Oscar had a full head of long brown hair he wore in a ponytail. Owen led the way as he always did. He’d been born a minute and a half before his younger brother and he’d been the front runner their whole
lives. They stopped at the bar to get a beer and Owen paid the tab. Neither one took a sip. Trevor nodded approval.

  When they reached his table, Owen sat directly opposite Trevor and Oscar slouched into the chair on his left. As always, Owen did the talking.

  “We haven’t found him yet,” Owen said without excuses.

  Trevor’s grip tightened on the beer glass but he held his temper. Time was running out. He had no desire to spend the rest of his years in a stinking prison. “Then why are we here?”

  “He was extraordinarily careful. He used several different names. He traveled on commercial flights from Cape Town to Houston, but he stopped a couple of times to change planes.” Owen barely paused for breath. He cleared his throat and plunged ahead. “He booked the tickets in the name of a newly created shell corporation nested by ten others. Nowhere does his real name appear on any document. We checked every single one.”

  Owen paused when the waitress came over. He nodded to indicate the beers already on the table. She smiled and moved on.

  After the waitress was out of earshot, Trevor said, “Continue.”

  “Looks like he chartered a Gulfstream out of Houston and flew into Syracuse. From there, he chartered an air taxi to a small airfield near Manchester, New Hampshire. At that point he was traveling under the name of Hourihane.” Owen paused again as the waitress walked by too closely before once again withdrawing.

  Trevor shook his head and frowned. “Hourihane? What kind of name is that?”

  Owen shrugged. “No idea. The only identification he used was a California driver’s license with a home address in San Diego. The ethnicity could be almost anything.”

  Owen showed Trevor a photo of the driver’s license and two frames from a surveillance camera in the Houston airport. The driver’s license photo was Trevor’s business partner, Casper Lange. No doubt about it.

  But the surveillance camera images showed the man’s back. He was the right height and weight to be Lange. He was carrying two black leather duffel bags.

  Trevor looked closer. One of the duffel bags had a brown leather insert, three inches wide, around the middle. Trevor recognized the bag because it belonged to him.

  “Right,” Trevor said, thinking about it. “You’re sure it was Lange?”

  “More likely than not,” Owen replied. “The trail is pretty tight. But not a hundred percent sure. No.”

  Trevor nodded. Everything Owen said tracked. It was all consistent with Lange’s behavior in the past. A past that hadn’t included evading trial testimony in Belgium next week. The investigations had been going on for years, but the trial was finally scheduled only after Lange disappeared. Over the past several months, Trevor had tried repeatedly to contact Lange to let him know. No success.

  If Lange didn’t appear in court, they both stood to lose almost five billion dollars and be sentenced to spend time in prison. Which was not something Trevor wanted to brush off. He figured Lange wouldn’t either. Unless he’d simply decided to extend his vacation for some reason.

  Trevor needed that duffel bag and its contents back. And if his plan for the contents went south, he’d need Lange to appear at that hearing in Belgium. They’d already reached the end of every viable excuse Trevor’s well-paid lawyers had devised.

  After Trevor and Lange had made it big enough to be of interest to reporters on every continent, Trevor had insisted on precautions. Lange didn’t agree until he’d had two near misses with a tabloid photographer who’d followed him all the way to a Chinese brothel where an unfortunate pair of prostitutes died in his room. Trevor snatched the guy’s camera and then hired a man to silence him permanently.

  After that, Lange employed better techniques to conceal his identity when he engaged in high-risk distasteful activities. But he hadn’t ceased to engage in them, regardless of Trevor’s threats or his own promises.

  Trevor had long ago accepted that Lange was an uncontrollable thrill seeker. The kind of thrills he preferred were illegal, immoral, and deadly. He had the trophies to prove it.

  Lange would have taken the sort of precautions Owen described. Since the brothel incident, he always had.

  Trevor’s gut told him that the man Owen had tracked was Casper Lange, more likely than not. He breathed a little easier.

  But finding Lange wasn’t his only problem.

  Sixteen months ago, without Trevor’s knowledge and while Trevor was out of the country, Lange had removed the black and tan duffel from the office safe. The duffel was filled with one million dollars in untraceable cash. Lange left Cape Town alone and never returned.

  To a man in Trevor’s tax bracket, one million dollars was a pittance. But keeping his money close was how he’d made his billions. He’d chopped off the hands of thieves who’d stolen much less. Lange knew how Trevor felt about his money. He’d no doubt intended to repay it.

  Except Lange didn’t know how dangerous that particular duffel actually was. Trevor had never told him about the flash drive hidden in the lining. The reporter who’d acquired the video from the Chinese brothel was dead. But the video he’d shot was on that flash drive, and Lange wasn’t the only man in the room when the prostitutes were killed.

  Lange had killed one of the women. A Belgian judge had killed the other. The same Belgian judge who was set to preside over next week’s trial. Trevor had kept the video for the day when he’d need it. That day had come. Now it was missing. Along with Lange.

  Lange had narrowly escaped death several times before. He always said he was too lucky to die. But he’d never been silent so long. He’d never failed to check in when so much was at stake.

  Seemed like Casper Lange’s luck had finally run out.

  The investors were nervous. Very nervous. The tax collectors were practically rubbing their hands with glee. The criminal prosecutors on four continents were sharpening their claws. Even the Belgian judge relished his chance at their public flagellation, the smug little prick.

  Lange could be dead. But Trevor needed to be absolutely certain before he’d admit the situation and shoulder the consequences alone. He wasn’t going to prison and he wasn’t going to pay Lange’s share of the debt. He needed to see Lange’s body. He needed that flash drive back. He’d do whatever he needed to do.

  “What about cargo?” Trevor asked.

  Owen frowned as if he didn’t understand the meaning of the word. “Cargo?”

  Trevor wanted to reach across the table and punch him. “Did he have any cargo with him when he landed in Manchester?”

  Owen’s face cleared. “There’s no video there, but according to the air taxi pilot, Hourihane stowed two soft bags and two hard cases aboard. The soft bags were both black leather duffels. One was significantly heavier than the other.”

  That was good news. In Trevor’s experiences, a duffel bag full of cash was usually heavier than a bag full of clothes. “What happened when he arrived? Rented a car?”

  “Someone picked him up. A man driving a Mercedes, the pilot said,” Owen replied. “The pilot recognized the guy. Said he had picked up passengers at the airport before. He didn’t know the guy’s name or anything else about him.”

  “A chauffer?” Trevor frowned.

  Owen shook his head. “No. More like a local. But he was waiting when Lange arrived. Pilot said the guy wasn’t just hanging around, hoping to catch a fare or anything. So we figured he’d been expecting Hourihane in particular.”

  Trevor’s patience had worn thin. His face went hot. His hard glare locked with Owen’s gaze.

  Without warning, Trevor slammed the palm of his hand down hard enough to make the beer glasses bounce. Amber ale spilled on the table’s surface and spread over the edge and dripped onto his expensive suede loafers.

  He growled in a subdued voice, “Dammit, man! You’re wasting my time! Did you find the driver or not?”

  The brothers froze in place.

  Oscar’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared. His face reddened and his jaw muscles clenched.<
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  But his brother Owen, always the smarter one, placed a calming hand on Oscar’s forearm. Owen’s steady gaze never wavered.

  “We might have found him. Or at least, we might know where he went.” Owen reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another photograph. He slid it across the table toward Trevor, careful to avoid the spilled beer. “This picture was taken by a local kid who got a new drone for Christmas.”

  Trevor looked down at the shot for a second. At first, he thought the photo was printed in black and white. He saw dense leafless trees, snow-covered ground, and then a clearing where a huge fire must have destroyed at least half an acre and everything on it.

  Owen said, “Taken about a week ago, near as we can tell. The fire happened a while back. Figure five to eighteen months ago, according to the local gossip. Which would make the timing right for Lange.”

  Trevor continued to stare at the photo. “Where is this place?”

  “About twenty miles from Laconia, New Hampshire. Easy driving distance from that Manchester air strip where Hourihane flew in.” Owen paused for a quick breath before he delivered the bad news. “Kid’s parents gave the photo to local law enforcement and they called in the feds.”

  Trevor’s rage began to rise in his gut. Not only local yokels from the rural cop shop to deal with, but the FBI. Great. Just great. The very last thing they needed was to draw the attention of one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the world. What the hell was Lange thinking?

  Owen said, “We’ve been watching the place. They hauled some bodies out of there a few days ago.”

  “Bodies? There were multiple fatalities in a fire that huge and nobody noticed it for months?” Trevor felt the blood pulsing in his head. Felt his temperature rising with every beat of his heart. What the hell had Lange gotten them all into?

  Owen nodded. “From a distance, we watched them bring the body bags out. At least nine that we saw.”

  “You’re saying one of the bodies is Lange? Or are you saying Lange did the killing?” Trevor asked through gritted teeth, barely keeping his rage in check. If Lange was dead, that would be fine with him. But if he’d killed nine people, and the feds could prove it, Trevor might never get away from this, even if Lange died in the process.