* * *
Sanchez marveled at the activity a cell phone could produce. On scene he had the coroner’s office, the county and state police, two or three TV crews, the FBI, and all of his own officers. When he was hired, he had been smart enough to get to know his neighbors in the business, and they had a mutual support agreement for just such a case as this. It was going to be a long day.
* * *
He settled into a chair at the airport bar and ordered a large soft drink. His stomach couldn’t tolerate alcohol anymore. He could see his gate from his stool, but more important, he could see the TV mounted to the wall over the bar. The story was just being told for the second time but he couldn’t hear it. The bartender saw him watching.
“Some big-shot lawyer up in Orlando just got his head blown off. Can’t imagine who would want to do that!” The crowd at the bar laughed with her.
They called his flight. He drained his drink, smiled at the bartender and left.
—TWO—
The state of Alaska holds 4,527 inmates in its prisons.
Approximately 3,000 are repeat offenders.
Special Agent Jack Randall already felt the headache coming on. The call from his office had arrived about the same time as the story had aired on CNN. As he packed, his fax machine began cranking out page after page from the Hoover building. He looked at the first page as he brushed his teeth.
T. Carlton Addicot, huh? Not his favorite guy. Everyone he knew at the bureau had heard of him. Jack recalled what he had read on the man; a big money tort lawyer. Sued big companies for anything he could think of, claiming to do so on behalf of the victims. Never mind that he raked in more than all the victims combined. Word was he had a partner in every state and flew around in his own Gulfstream jet, litigating. His specialty was medical companies. Last year he’d made sixty-two million on a case involving a male impotency drug that supposedly gave its users heart attacks, often while in the act it was deemed for. No real evidence was available to prove the drug did cause the attacks, but the company chose to settle and pay off the users and their lawyers in the face of greater losses. The drug was quickly pulled from the shelves. The FBI had looked at T. Addicot three times for some shaky tax shelters and possible jury tampering. The man was guilty as hell, but they had been unable to pin anything on him. He also had friends within the bar that defended high profile criminals and had often funded the case when the client’s assets were seized. All for a hefty fee of course.
The phone rang. Spit. Wipe. He snatched it on the second ring. “Randall,” he spat into the receiver.
“Jack, it’s Deacon; you get the faxes I sent?”
“Yes sir, still spitting them out.”
Deputy Director Mark Deacon was Jack’s current boss although they had worked together for a year and a half on the Russian Mafia killings in New York and had become good friends, Jack would always call him sir. He had too much respect for the man.
“Sorry to ruin your weekend, but this one came addressed to us. Seems our shooter left a note with your name on it. I told you fame had its drawbacks.” He was right. The press had a field day following Jack during the trials. They had plastered his name and face on every rag on the east coast. His mother sent him every newspaper clipping she came across. All it did was make him useless for undercover work.
“The letter is just coming through now, sir, what’s the game plan?” His wife had just entered the doorway and was listening with her disappointed look. It worked better on him than it did on the kids she taught.
“I want you, Larry, and Dave to fly down and take charge. I’m sending Sydney and her team with you. The press is running a story on it being a car-jacking gone wrong. That sounds fine for now, just don’t make any statements unless the truth gets out. Tell the locals the rules; keep this in the dark. Mel in Orlando isn’t too impressed with the local boys, but he says their Chief knows the game. Read up on this victim on the plane and be ready to dig when you get there. From the letter we have to assume this shooter has an agenda. I want to know how good he is and where you think he may go next. Take all the time you need and be thorough. Just give me reports when you have something new. There’s a plane waiting for you at Andrews. Get a line on this quick, Jack, and apologize to Debra for me.”
“Yes sir,” Jack replied. He was still getting the look from his wife as he pushed the button to end the call. He now regretted using the speaker phone, as it allowed him to pack and talk at the same time. Debra had heard it all and was not pleased.
“Jack, you’ve only been home a week and now you’re leaving again? We have guests you know. Can’t the damn FBI do without you for two weeks?”
He hated that tone, but he knew she had every right to complain. He had promised her some time together after the trials, and here he was, running off not yet halfway into their vacation.
“Honey, I’m sorry, but the Director calls and I go where he sends me. That’s the job. I have a team waiting for me at the airport. You’ll have to apologize to Mark and Kathy for me.” Jack knew this would only be the beginning.
“Does this team include Sydney?” Debra asked.
Jack winced. Having your ex-girlfriend as a colleague was not one of Debra’s favorite things about his job. It had caused some friction in the last year.
“Yes, it does, the Director is sending her and her team along with me. You know I have no control over that. It’s just work,” Jack confirmed. No use lying, she knew the answer before she had asked the question.
“Fine, I’ll just go downstairs and tell our friends that you’re running off to Florida with your girlfriend to chase bad guys again, and won’t be able to join us tonight.” She left before he could reply.
Damn it, why couldn’t she understand? Jack thought. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and I’ve had to do it faster than most due to my delayed start. I’m finally to the point that I’m happy with my job, and now she’s unhappy. It was always something. Sooner or later it will come to a serious talk, but right now I have to get going. Mark and Kathy were her friends anyway. Where the hell were his keys?
* * *
Sydney Lewis was in her Drill Sergeant mode; barking orders from a list in her head. Her people were jumping accordingly, but after seeing a couple of strange looks from them, she forced herself to stop. Her people knew their jobs, they didn’t need that. It was her first call from the Deputy Director himself, and her crew could tell it had spooked her a little. Sydney just needed to calm down and trust them to do their jobs. This was just another shooting, not like they hadn’t seen them before, especially their boss.
If there was one thing Sydney had seen in her career it was gunshot wounds. After six years as a paramedic, and three more with the FBI as a crime scene investigator, she had become an authority on the subject. She had even studied at the University of Tennessee’s three-acre cadaver farm. People who had donated their bodies to science all thought they’d be heading for medical school anatomy labs when they died. They didn’t know that they might end up on the farm with a few post-mortem gunshot wounds, only to be tossed in the woods and observed while they rot. But the university had been pivotal in the development of forensics. She had not only excelled, but had written several papers on the different ways bullets affected the body, and developed new ways to determine time of death in relation to them. All but one of them had been published. This had caught the eye of the head of the FBI lab. A job had been offered upon graduation, and she had made her first marks working the Russian Mafia cases last year. She was considered a rising star by her peers, and given her own crime scene investigation team.
“Is Jack heading this case, Sydney?” one of her crew asked.
“Yes, Larry and Dave are coming, too. Why?”
“Just wondering.” The crewman smiled at her. It was no secret that she and Jack had a past, a point that her crew liked to bring up. They had been an item in college, but went their separate ways upon graduation. Both of them we
re more serious about their late career changes than about each other.
“You people done packing yet?” Sydney gave them her mock serious look.
“Yes, ma’am!” They all grinned.
She grinned, too, and shook her head as she returned to her equipment. She needed new batteries for her flashlight again, and another box of gloves. Her team wore large gloves, but she had small hands.
Jack had lasted longer in the business world than she thought he would. He was just not the kind to sit at a desk and crunch numbers. She had seen that right away. But his family had been making money in investments for three generations now, and Jack was destined to take over. That his father had tolerated his stint in the army without disowning him was a miracle. He must have seen the trait in his son, and hoped the army would either work it out of him, or change his mind. His father’s subsequent stroke had ended Jack’s army days prematurely, and Jack found himself both in school and in charge of the firm. The fact that he minored in criminology should have been a hint to his real goal. But Jack toed the line and married the daughter of a board member. That kept his family happy until his father’s death. Jack then announced his resignation from the chair, and intentions to join the FBI. Family friends had pulled some political strings and he had gotten a shot. From there he made it on his own. Cracking open the Russian Mafia on his second assignment was a stroke of luck, and his actions on the case and subsequent trial marked him as a future star. He was eventually assigned to Mark Deacon’s office.
Sydney caught herself smiling. Not bad for a guy she had met at a pistol range.
* * *
Jack pulled the Corvette into one of the bureau slots at the airport. He had been thinking of Sydney on the drive in. He hadn’t seen her for a few weeks. Catching sight of her now, unloading a van in the hangar, brought a smile to his face. It occurred to him that she looked the same as she had in college. Tonight she had on her typical khaki pants and blue bureau shirt, badge and gun on her belt. Her long black hair was pulled back into her at-work ponytail. Jack knew somewhere in her immediate area was a clipboard with several lists. She was a notorious list maker. She remarked once that she didn’t like making lists; she liked crossing things off them. It gave her a sense of detail that was hard to match and had served her well, too. When he met her, she’d had a loaded gun in her hand. Most people who are bad shots are often referred to as “Couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.” Well Syd, as he liked to call her, couldn’t hit the barn if she were shooting from the inside. With the doors closed. With a shotgun. He remembered taking her under his wing to get her past her qualifying shoot at the end of class. Now she was, well, a fair shot, he allowed. Some people just never really developed the skill. The one year romance that resulted was just icing on the cake. They’d just had different futures at the time.
He had to admit, she had come a long way. Born on the lower end of middle class, her father was a factory worker and her mother a part-time waitress. She had decent grades until they divorced in her first year of high school. Her grades suffered as her father was often laid off, and she was forced to work. Just after graduation she was involved in a car accident, but thanks to a sharp paramedic, was able to walk out of the hospital. When she stopped by the station to thank the crew, she was intrigued by the job. Soon she was waitressing by day and attending the paramedic academy by night. One year later she was on the streets. She had a talent for it, but after a few years found herself hanging out with the medical examiners at the crime scenes. Through them, she discovered that the dead can be just as interesting as the living. Her Medical Control Doctor sponsored her in an accelerated program that lead to her degree. She impressed the right people, and wound up at the FBI, where a big case led to her and Jack working together. They made an even stranger team than they did a couple, him, the rich boy who did the job because he hated his former life, and her, the smart, pretty, and poor girl who liked dead people.
He grabbed his bag out of the trunk and walked toward the hangar. This was going to be interesting.
* * *
The flight was uneventful. Sam was still getting used to first class. The large seats allowed him to recline almost flat, and that helped take the pressure off his abdomen. His carry-on bag held his laptop, a few toiletries, some clothes, and of course, his medications. His false papers had worked just fine, and with every use he was beginning to think that the price he had paid was fair. He had a total of eight identities. Three used and five remaining, all expertly done by a gentleman in Toronto who charged $2,500 per set. Each set came complete with a driver’s license, credit cards in both Visa and MasterCard, and U.S. and Canadian passports. They also came with such things as video store cards, gas cards, phone cards, even a couple library cards. The forger also had a lady friend who was skilled in makeup and hair. Sam smiled as he thought of the wigs they had tried. Quite an operation the couple had, one-stop shopping with no questions asked.
The half-hour layover was short and unavoidable. He watched a harried mother try to control her two toddlers as she waited for their father. She frowned at her checkbook in between calling the kids back into their seats. The bulky winter boots the kids wore made them clumsy as they repeatedly wandered away from mom. One met his gaze and, after a short staring match, Sam smiled at the boy. He smiled back before running back to his mother.
The twenty minute flight home on the commuter plane was likewise uneventful. No first class on this one. Sam slept till the wheels hit the ground. Short naps were a skill he had picked up in the army, especially on planes. Paul just nodded at the gate and led him out to the car. Once they were in and heading toward I-94, he turned and gave his brother-in-law a slight punch on the shoulder.
“Any problems?” Paul asked.
“Not a one, went off just like I planned it. EMS was quicker than I thought, but good for them. I saw one ambulance and one fire unit on the jog out, but the cops must have come in from the north,” Sam replied.
“The envelope?”
“Left it nailed to a tree upwind from the fire. I’m sure they have it,” Sam said. The envelope was clean, as was the letter and printed articles in it. Sam had bought the envelope at a Wal-Mart and had pulled the one he’d used from the middle of the box using gloves. The articles had been printed on a library computer and also handled accordingly. The highlights and circles, as well as the addressed name, had been done with markers from the same Wal-Mart. The lettering was in second-grade block letters. No, the envelope was clean.
“The press is saying it was a car-jacking gone bad, how about that?” Paul said.
Sam thought about that for a minute. That smelled like the FBI, trying to keep this low-key as long as they could. The word would get out soon. The wife or the lawyer’s buddies would start making noise, or more likely a reporter would bribe somebody for information. Keeping it quiet was wishful at best. He voiced this to Paul, and they rode in silence for a few miles. He waited for the next question he always got.
“How’s the pain?”
“It’s there, but tolerable. The drugs the doc gave me are working as advertised. I guess that’s about all I can expect.” Sam didn’t want to go there right now. “So what’s next? Did you find that stuff I need?”
“Yeah, I made a run to Chicago last week and picked up almost all of it. Used up an ID, but it was worth it,” Paul replied.
“Good.”
Paul looked at Sam. Sam was always full of energy, but right now he looked tired. He’d let him sleep before he asked about the lawyer. Maybe he’d wait till morning? He took the exit ramp to US-131 north. Ten minutes to home.
—THREE—
The state of Arizona holds 31,170 inmates in its prisons.
Approximately 20,883 are repeat offenders.
“Larry, you draw the kid. The report says he’s traumatized, but see what you can do. You’ll probably have to spend a good deal of time talking to the parents first. Be careful, dad’s a lawyer, a tax lawyer, but a
lawyer just the same. If you hit a wall back off, we can come back later. Then hook up with this Chief Sanchez’s boys and canvas the homes in the area. Find out who they hire to do the yards and pools and whatever. Get a list. After that, get a hold of this construction company and talk to everyone working that site for the past two weeks. Mel might have some of this started already, so check with him first. Got all that?”
The plane had just left the tarmac, and Jack was game planning their arrival before he got into the faxes he had to read. Larry had a degree in psychology from the University of Michigan, so he always got the fun interviews. He watched Larry scribbling furiously in his own private short-hand.
“Not a problem, Jack, but I might need some help, my Spanish is worse than yours and I’m sure most of the help down there speaks it.”
“Point taken. I’ll bet Mel has somebody you can bring along.” Jack was planning to call Mel Dexter, Special Agent in Charge of the Orlando office, when this meeting was over. He didn’t know Mel, but he had a good reputation for combating the drug flow through central Florida.
“Dave, I need you to talk to the wife, secretary, girlfriends, golfing buddies and anyone else you can think of. Get records of his most recent cases and find out if he received any threats. This guy probably got a lot of them. Try his business partners. I doubt you’ll get a lot of help, but try anyway. See if he was involved with some of his less clean clients on a business level. Pick through his life, I want to know everything he did for the past two weeks.”
Dave just nodded his head and moved to the other end of the plane to talk with his partner. Dave was not one to comment a great deal. His head however, was a vault. When Dave was done he would know all he needed to know about the late T. Carlton Addicot.
Jack looked down at notes he had made on the ride in. What’s next? He looked up to see Sydney looking back at him from across the plane. “Syd, I need you to split your team; work the car, the body, and the scene. I’m sure Mel had the car moved by now, so hook up with his guys and talk to the medical examiner. Work fast, but don’t miss anything, the press will have the truth soon and we can’t have any mistakes. This will not become another Hollywood trial.”