Sabotage (23 page)

“Anything else?” Grant asked.

“Nope, give it to me.”

Grant took a heavy blue dinner napkin from a serving tray and stuffed it into her mouth.

“Thanks,” he said, knowing how much she was risking.

She winked at him again, knowing she might well be kissing her career goodbye. At least it wasn’t another Judas kiss.

T
he revelation that big money had transferred to Grant Miller bothered the president. He knew it shouldn’t, that Miller might have been bitter or worse for many years, considering the way he was treated, but it did bother him. He wanted to see Miller persevere and win; he did not want to see his name trampled any further.

He went back and forth with Vanessa about this several times. He believed they could bring Miller in, trace the funds, show he had nothing to do with this, and quietly take him off the case. He believed that whoever was responsible found an easy target in Miller, and, frankly, even if it was something worse than this, he did not want another scandal. Give the man a chance to walk out a side door and away from this drama.

Vanessa believed this was the president interjecting too much of his personal feelings. Miller was an agent and, at one time, a good one. He knew the pitfalls of doing the wrong thing; if he did so, let his ass hang out in the wind. This White House needed no more issues right now.

There was just over an hour until Sabotage’s deadline. Bomb squads and other crews were scouring the grounds of Kenner Industries for any signs of foul play or possible explosives. The president was not interfering with the stock price and not closing the markets, but the American people propped the stock up at thirty-seven. If this was Sabotage’s goal, he would have his short-term victory, but Vanessa was going to make it a personal goal to bring him down. If this was all about money, she would never let it go. Good people, including children, died today in a painful and indiscriminate manner. She would do whatever necessary to see him swing.

Vanessa had expected to hear something from Mandy by now. The separate interrogations should be underway. It had been over twenty minutes since she got word they landed. She palmed her phone and checked the e-mail again—nothing. She thumbed the antenna on and off just to make sure it was still working. Cell phones sometimes did strange things even one belonging to someone in her position. Still, there was no sign.

She looked down and read the latest FBI briefing. It mentioned the amount in Grant’s account. Then something hit her—something she wanted them to follow up on.

Miller was more business savvy than most agents. He made some diversification of his assets, she learned earlier that day. He was not going to retire, but his finances were healthy, set up for long-term growth. She knew this because the agents were required to submit their accounts to full-time monitoring. Miller knew this and had supplied the information to the Bureau.

So why would Miller give that account to the Feds? It would be easy enough to set up a dummy account under a corporate name. Without a serious goof, there would be almost nothing that the FBI could do to find this if they went looking, and it certainly wouldn’t happen the same day as the transfer.

Miller was a smart guy. It seemed totally out of character for him to ask that any bribe or reward money be put in this account. It was like cheating on your wife on your couch while she was at home. You were assuring your own defeat.

Mandy seemed hesitant when she told her what to do with the men. She was understated, but she believed Miller was being set up. The president still had his doubts. Maybe she was being overly harsh. Maybe there was a middle ground.

Just then, as she finished the report, the phone rang. It was Vegas.

Mandy was calling but not from her own line.

“Yes, Mandy.”

Mandy sounded shaken. She hoped she was pulling this charade off for a very powerful audience. “I’ve got some bad news. Amin and Miller overpowered me. They tied me up. The other officers are looking for them, but I think they’re gone.”

So much for that theory, Vanessa thought as she tried to imagine how to tell the president.

B
ritt made it downstairs and was learning how to walk with his new infirmity. He had packed several damp washcloths around the injury and looked an absolute mess. He was feeling lightheaded, and he instructed his driver to find the nearest Whole Foods and run in to get him some food. He needed energy. He didn’t want to check the dressing too often, but, man, it hurt. There were just certain places that were going to be stunningly painful for a long time. He knew he needed to get it checked for infection as soon as he could. Human bites were among the gnarliest things to fix. He told his driver to find someone who could give him something for all of this. Vegas was filled with backroom quacks. He needed to find one quick.

As his man moved back into Vegas traffic, Britt tried to get his mind off of the last hour—the blood, the dead girls, and the limp dick. He felt ashamed, and he knew he needed to feel something else. He decided to try to get his mind back on the impending deadline.

He liked the direction the stock was trending. By his calculation, it was worth a couple million dollars more for the stock to hit thirty-five, but that wasn’t his main concern. The trading activity itself made him fifty million dollars while he was sitting in his chair. His five-million-dollar investment in the plot and the ten million he spent that week to make sure Grant’s name was ruined forever seemed well worth it. He would take that return any day of the week.

But he was still not out of the country, and that was an issue. He didn’t have a “forever” arsenal of computer tricks. He was one man with a lot of money, but he wasn’t Fort Knox. He wrote a few more programs that would dazzle and injure, but Sabotage was created to get him on his way out of the country within 24 hours. That time was rapidly approaching. He felt a little like a gambler with a dwindling stack of chips. Before, he was going on mojo, but, now, he had to plan how to maneuver with the mayhem he left. It was not a fun place to be.

There were no concubines or indentured servants, and he still had favors to repay. He needed to plan for the longest window of time as possible. He made each one of these thoughts between winces and thinking about opening the dressings just to see how much damage was done. Any movement felt like death. He needed a place to regroup.

When Caitlin left, he had a strong assumption she knew there were plans afoot. He made a mistake in ordering Tony to bring her back instead of simply putting a bullet in her scalp. He knew that now. The phone tracking device that worked so well and let him pinpoint her in less than an hour was still circling Las Vegas. It was clear she had ditched it and put it in a cab. He had to figure that she pieced some of his plan together and knew he was more than just a jealous boyfriend. Would she go to the authorities? He wasn’t sure.

Caitlin was a serious party girl. She didn’t turn tricks, but she could rage with the best rock star. Chances were she was carrying at least coke, if not molly, and maybe even some pressed pills. As he said these things to himself, he again could not believe he had allowed himself to be so compromised. Even a smart, alluring party girl was still a party girl.

He had to assume she would go to the cops, especially if she thought Grant was dead. The media had played up the fact that St. Louis was hit and even added this was the location where the famed FBI playboy was thought to be working. He knew she still was unresolved about Grant; she couldn’t look him in the eye when she talked about him.

He developed a rhythm to aid with the pain. Deep, protracted breaths worked best, and the road seemed smoother than it had. He knew it probably wasn’t getting better, but he was learning to deal with it. He could live with that until he could just hit the skyways.

If Caitlin went to the police, he thought, they could start piecing things together earlier than needed. He wasn’t worried about Tony, who foolishly headed in the wrong direction in the desert, still an hour or two from LA. He had already sorted that out. But Caitlin could bring the heat too close.

Red was on her way. She would be worth ten Tonys, but he still had one other card to play.

They stopped and pulled into a low-rent strip mall. Britt looked up, and his driver signaled that someone was going to meet them with a medical bag and some friends. That made Britt the happiest he had been in some time.

While he waited, Britt gingerly grabbed a laptop out of his bag. It was one he hadn’t used for a month, because it had one specific purpose. Six months ago, he had paid a college student a small fortune to reroute a completely different mobile internet signal, one far less secure and easier to manipulate than the one he had carefully devised for Sabotage. It was routed so that it mirrored in every way a connection from Little Rock, Arkansas. He had tested it several times on Facebook, with local maps and other applications, and every time it had shown him as being in a neighborhood in the south half of Little Rock. He had installed it for exactly this purpose. The kid thought it was about some sort of illicit porn connection, but, really, it was so much cooler than that.

Britt logged on to his e-mail account as FriendlyHenry. FriendlyHenry had a Facebook account, a Twitter handle, and had ordered several pizzas, all from different hotel rooms in Jonesboro and Fort Smith, Arkansas. He had ordered gifts from Amazon and Target and had written letters to Mike Huckabee. In other words, when they started asking questions about this tipster, he would appear genuine. They would eventually find this was the computer that had set up the shipping business American Securities.

He opened the e-mail form and addressed it to Gayle Nipstad, an FBI agent high enough up the chain to be able to quickly make waves. He knew she would be working, because he had hacked into their scheduling computer that very morning. He also addressed it to twelve other agents and the general FBI e-mail address so that it would seem more believable. He typed in all cap—FriendlyHenry always typed in all caps.

I’M IN ARKANSAS. I’VE BEEN PAID WELL. I CAN’T STAND THE THOUGHT OF WHY I WAS PAID SO WELL. CHECK OUT AMERICAN SECURITIES AND THE OMEGA JET TO FIGURE OUT THAT I KNOW MY SHIT. I HELPED HIM SET IT UP. PRETTY SURE THE GUY’S NAME IS BRETT OR BRITT. I CALLED HIM BRAT, ALTHOUGH HE ALWAYS HAD ME CALL HIM YANKEE. HE HAS AN APARTMENT ON THE 29TH FLOOR OF TRUMP TOWERS, LAS VEGAS. HE HAS A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAINS. I CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE PLACE.

He proofread, added a spelling mistake or two, and pressed send. The apartment was actually on the 34th floor, but they would figure that out. This would divert them for hours if not longer. If it really worked right, it would kill them.

Just then, the door opened and a short man in a polo that showed way too much of his gut brought in his medical bag and nodded at Britt. He didn’t know what tone to strike, so his “Let me see,” came out forced and almost comical.

Britt rolled his eyes, dropped his drawers, and prayed for anyone to stop the pain he felt.