"So why are you calling me from a payphone? Have you lost your cell phone?…And why are you still in Miami? Are we never going to be able to get rid of you?" James ‘IceBreaker’ Callaghan asked, jokingly.
"My cell phone is being tapped. Probably the people who were following me in the blue Mazda. I'm flying back to Washington tomorrow morning. I was wondering if you’d had any luck in your investigations?"
"Yes. We need to talk…How about Hooters in half an hour? I'm just getting off work, and I could do with a large cold one."
Hooters was heaving. Friday night, and the weekend had begun. When Kerrin got there, James was already at the back of the bar, a large pitcher of beer sitting in front of him, two large glasses already poured.
"So what have you got then?" Kerrin asked, shaking James hand. It was good to see a friendly face.
"You're not going to like it…it's interesting though. First of all, you'll find some information in here on your guy David Sonderheim, including a copy of his driving licence. Next, here are all the telephone numbers of all the calls dialled and received from Henry Robert's house. There's a lot of Washington and Californian numbers there. And there are a few from New York."
James slid a clear see-through plastic folder across the table. Kerrin pulled out the contents and started to scan the list of numbers on the paper.
"His wife told you that the night he died, Henry had received a call from the office asking him to come in? Well, according to the phone records, no he didn't. Old Henry was telling porkies."
"So who called him then?"
"At 9.30 p.m. that night a call was picked up at the house, maybe by Henry or his wife. But the call came from the private home number of David Sonderheim."
"That doesn't surprise me…"
"…But shortly afterwards another call came in…from the private cell phone number of Alex Swinton…the only one in your group who is maybe still alive now, right?"
Kerrin looked up. That was even more interesting.
"So who did Henry go to visit? Was it Alex or David? If either of them…"
"I don't know. But whoever it was, they probably killed him. It makes you think though…maybe Alex is the man we're looking for. He killed the rest of the team, and then took off!"
"It's something we can’t discount. You said 'killed', did you speak to the coroner?"
"Yes, and this is the thing, the new tests the coroner ran show that Henry was definitely murdered. It wasn't suicide. Shit, Kerrin, this is heavy stuff…what are we getting ourselves into here?"
"We're not getting ourselves 'into' anything. We're already in it. Tell me what happened with the coroner?"
"Okay, so I call the guy up, naturally telling him it's on police business. I ask him if an autopsy was carried out on the Robert's body, and if it was still in the morgue. Yes, and yes. But the coroner says it was clearly a heart attack. I ask if there was any possibility that the heart attack could have been induced. He says that that could happen…that there was a whole number of ways that it could be done."
"…I ask him if he could run some basic toxicology tests to see if there are any signs of poison in his system. He said it would normally take a while, but since there was a shortage of bodies for him to cut up, he could start straight away: apparently the department was going through a bit of a quiet spell at just then!…What sort of man gets his kicks out of cutting somebody else up? Never could figure these guys out…"
"…Anyway, he called me back about three hours ago…says he got something on the very first run…"
"What was it?" Kerrin asked.
"I can't remember…I wrote it down somewhere…he's sending the file over to me tomorrow. But basically he said it was some type of muscle relaxant…he found an injection mark between his toes. where someone had pumped him full of the stuff. The guy's body stopped responding to his brain commands…he stops breathing, and dies…at first glance it looks just like a heart-attack."
"So what do we do now?"
"Not much. I can't really do anything without the Feds starting to ask questions about what I'm doing. And I can't tell my boss what I've done, or he'll want to know why I'm running around the place playing games with you. Looks like that information has to remain between the two of us for now.”
"Okay…" Kerrin agreed.
"Fact is Kerrin, these guys are serious, whoever they are. It takes a lot of nerve to walk into a hospital and kill someone in cold blood. They knew what they were doing…they've got to be professionals…Someone with a lot of clout has got to be behind this. Someone with connections in the FBI, and who can get files to disappear in police stations…someone who can manipulate the police to their own end. Who else could get the police to close an investigation into what is so obviously a series of murders, and cover them up as being suicides? No, there's some weird shit going down here. And we've got to start watching our backs…"
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Laura sat in her car outside the bar. One of her men had tailed Captain Callaghan to 'Hooters'. Not one of her FBI men, but one of the external secret team she had built up over the years to help carry out her extra-curricular activities.
She had done some investigating and found out that the man they were trailing was working independently which was the best news she'd had all day. The questions he had been asking were not part of any authorised official police investigation and the new autopsy on Henry Robert's body at the hospital had not been authorised either.
Her group hadn't been involved in the Orlando murders. That had been down to John's group from the North East Sector. He had flown down a couple of his men to do the job. They had fucked up, not her. If it had been down to her, the man Alex Swinton would never have escaped in the first place.
Exactly why David Sonderheim wanted all these people dead, she did not know. All she knew was that Sonderheim was part of Chymera, and that she was part of the Security Division at Chymera. In effect, they were work colleagues.
Chymera had recruited her over three years ago, and since then it had proved to be a very fruitful relationship indeed. The kind of fruitful that had put $1m dollars in her account. But it wasn't all about the money…She enjoyed being part of something big, part of the bigger picture.
Her cell phone buzzed, and she picked it up from the passenger seat beside her.
"They're leaving. What do you want us to do?"
It was one of her men parked in the van nearest the entrance to the bar.
"Hold tight for just now. We'll see what they do next."
As she watched, the policeman came out of the club with the other man, whom she now knew to be Kerrin Graham. She had watched him go into the club a few hours ago, and it had immediately put the other piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Captain Callaghan was somehow working with Kerrin Graham.
The temptation was to get rid of both of them then and there. Otherwise Laura might just bump into Graham in South Africa in a few days time. Unfortunately, she couldn't. Sonderheim's orders had been quite specific. They had to leave him alone, until they could find out what he knew, and if he was working alone or in a team.
At the bottom of the steps in front of the entrance to the bar, the two men shook hands, separated, then walked towards their own cars.
She picked up the cell phone.
"Let them go. We'll proceed as planned. It'll be better that way."
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Day Thirteen
The next morning James and his partner were driving round the suburbs of Miami as they did every normal day. They made a few circuits of the neighbourhood, stopping to talk to some characters they knew, and checking with the locals what was going on in the vicinity. Then they stopped to pick up some strong fresh coffee at the local deli, just as they did every time they went out on patrol.
As they were driving around the block from the deli, the radio buzzed, and James responded.
"Car 282, over. "
"Robbery going down at Daniels Pawn Shop on 28
th Street. Please attend."
"Roger. We're only one block away."
Two minutes later, sirens blaring and lights flashing, they pulled up in front of the Pawn Shop.
Covering each other, they quickly entered the premises. It was dark inside, and it took a few minutes for their eyes to adjust to the lack of light. Regrettably, if they had been able to see straight away they would have realised that the pawnbroker was already dead, his body lying behind the counter where he had fallen.
They would also have seen the two men with black hoods and black overalls, standing just inside the door, shotguns raised and pointing straight at them.
The impact of the shotguns at such short range blew both of the policemen back out of the door and into the street. Both were dead before they hit the sidewalk.
The two men in the black overalls ran out after them, deliberately spilling most of their stolen money over the bodies, and leaving it lying scattered in the street. A red car swept around the corner, screeching to a halt in front of them. The two men jumped in, and the car accelerated away.
In a second they were gone, leaving behind them two bodies sprawled across the sidewalk, their blood forming a pool which spilled over the edge of the kerb and began to run down the gutter into the nearest drain.
Chapter 17
Day Thirteen
The Gen8tyx Company
Purlington Bay
California