Scarcity (Jack Randall #3) (19 page)

Tonight they were at a senior senator’s home. The welcoming party for the new freshman congressmen who had just taken office was a much anticipated gathering. Some had been carefully selected and subsequently elected with the backing of the party. Others were in place due to massive campaign spending out of their own pockets. A few were radicals that had jumped on a vacancy left open as the result of a juicy scandal. Whatever the route they arrived by, there were a lot of new faces in the crowd. Tonight the established would be checking out the new class. Everyone was either on stage or one of the judges. Jack hated every minute of it.

Nevertheless, he shook hands and said the right things as they made their way through the crowd. His wife had snagged a glass of something bubbly off a passing tray, but he had yet to see anything to his taste travel by. Finally, he spotted what looked like a bar in the far corner. Skillfully passing Debra off to a talkative wife-of-somebody, he made his way there.

“What can I get you, sir?”

The man was older than Jack by twenty years and calling him sir with an island accent. Something Jack was never comfortable with.

He eyeballed the table and saw nothing but glasses of champagne and what looked to be several different wines.

“This it?”

“We have over thirty wines from the senator’s native California, as well as several champagnes.”

“Okay . . . what’s your name?”

“My name is Marco, sir.”

“Just Jack is fine, Marco. You have anything . . . else?”

Marco looked left and right before leaning foreword.

“The senator has a full bar in the butler’s pantry. What can I get you, Mister Jack?”

“Some scotch?”

Marco nodded and signaled to a passing waiter. A whispered conversation led to his disappearing into the hallway behind Marco. He reappeared moments later with a towel covered tray. Marco placed it under his table before rising with a rocks glass full of amber liquid in his hand as if by magic.

“Macallan 12?”

“You’re my hero, Marco.”

“I have the bottle here, should you wish some more.”

“I won’t be far.”

Jack saluted the man with his raised glass before returning to the crowd to find his wife. He was forced to stop and shake a few hands and endured having his picture taken with a few senators as he wandered the room. He soon found her in a small group of people. Two of the couples he recognized as a sitting senator nearing the end of his last term and the head of the Department of Agriculture. A fourth woman was in the group alone and was drawing the gaze of a few passersby. The hair was a little too blond and the makeup a little too heavy. The dress, while certainly stylish and expensive, just didn’t seem to fit and barely contained the body within it. Despite her skinny figure, she sported an obviously augmented bosom that she apparently was quite proud of by how much of it was on display. She gripped the champagne glass like it was a hammer and laughed loudly at an unheard joke while she tottered on her heels.

Jack caught his wife’s eye and raised a questioning eyebrow. She managed to roll her eyes before returning her face to its mask of politeness. Jack moved in to rescue her.

“Oh, is this your handsome man?”

“Yes, this is my Jack. He’s the FBI liaison to Homeland Security at the moment.”

“And doing a fine job I hear,” the senator added.

“Yes, thank you, senator.”

“Honey, this is Luanne Foster, Congressman Foster’s wife. From Mississippi.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“And you too. I didn’t know there were so many handsome men in Washington. Debra here better keep an eye on you.”

“She does,” Jack confirmed. He took a sip of his scotch so he wouldn’t have to say more.

“Just where is our newest member anyway. He leaves you all alone?” the senator asked the woman’s cleavage. His wife stewed, but kept her face impassive.

“Oh, he went to find the little boys room. I’m sure he’ll find his way back soon.”

As if on cue a young man in a new suit joined the group. He quickly retrieved his drink from his wife’s hand before slipping an arm around her. His smile was full of white teeth and he radiated energy.

“Hello all, what did I miss?”

“Honey, this is Jack Randall and his wife Debbie.” Jack felt his wife tense—she hated to be called Debbie. It had been Debra since high school.

“Hello, don’t believe I know you. I’m Congressman Harry Foster of Mississippi. Nice to meet you.”

Strike one, Jack thought. Never admit to not knowing someone, especially in this crowd. He exchanged a look with the senior senator as he shook the man’s hand. He released it and sized him up while he shook Debra’s hand a little too vigorously before returning his arm around the waist of his wife.

Strike two. Jack’s eyes didn’t miss much and he now focused on the small trace of white powder on his shirt just right of his tie, probably left there as he returned something to his inside jacket pocket. He checked the man’s eyes as he listened to something the Cabinet head was saying and got the confirmation he was looking for. Jack waited until he was done speaking and before the young man could reply he spoke.

“You missed some.”

The young man stopped with his mouth open before recovering and turning his gaze to Jack.

“I’m sorry?”

Jack leaned forward slightly and fixed his gaze on the man’s shirt.

“I said you missed some.”

His wife saw it before any of the others and quickly brushed at it, but the damage had been done. Jack took his wife’s arm and led her away.

Debra allowed herself to be led to a corner before speaking.

“Jack, that was totally uncalled for.”

“Uncalled for? The man is dumb enough to do that stuff here, in front of all these government people,
and
an FBI agent, and you think I’m wrong? It amazes me how anybody that stupid can get himself elected.”

“Still, you didn’t have to make a scene.”

“
I
made a scene?” He fixed his wife with his gaze. Now it was him calling her out.

“Okay, maybe not. But do you have to be a cop all the time? Can’t we just have a night without the FBI on duty?”

“All right. Not sure how I’m supposed to do that.”

Debra just stewed and waved to a friend. Keeping up appearances. Jack decided to defuse the situation.

“Somebody should at least call the fashion police on that wife of his.”

Debra face cracked into a grin. She couldn’t help herself.

“Stop it.”

“Well? How anybody can wear that much makeup and still be overexposed is beyond me. She shrink that dress on with a hair dryer?”

Debra hid her grin behind her hand and stifled a giggle.

“I thought Senator Rosen was gonna fall right in if he leaned forward any more. Was she on that Real Housewives show?”

Debra let out a laugh, but managed to cut it short. She dragged her husband away till they were out of earshot.

“Oh, Jack. I think I’ve had enough for tonight. Take me home.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jack got a nod of approval from Marco as his wife pulled him past the bar.

The evening turned out better than they had both hoped.

Mexico suspects ex-drug czar took huge bribes from traffickers
November 21, 2008—CNN
 
 

—FOURTEEN—

L
uis thumbed the remote till he found the soap opera his wife liked. As long as it was on she was happy. And occupied. Without the TV she was constantly finding reasons to nag him. It was one of the drawbacks to working at home. He dropped the remote on the table and walked to the back bedroom. The kids knew not to bother their father when he was in the back room.

Closing the door behind him, he sat at the desk and fired up his computer. After a few security measures he was in his email account. An innocent looking message caught his attention and he clicked it open.

Anyone looking over his shoulder would see the message as a normal correspondence between two family friends. This one contained a brief update-on-the-family type of message and had a few pictures attached.

He clicked on the first one to see what looked like a birthday party for a young boy. The boy smiled at the camera with the cake full of candles in front of him. Another showed the boy with his mother and father looking on as he blew them out, while a third pic was of the three of them posing and waving into the camera.

Innocent pictures.

Luis quickly saved each picture to his hard drive and called up another program. He transferred the first picture to the new program and waited for the prompt. When the program had scanned the picture, the prompt appeared with no hint as to what was needed. Luis knew. He looked at the numbers he had jotted down from the text section of the message. Arranging them in order, he added and subtracted the first number to and from the remaining ones until he had the key decoded. He quickly punched it into the computer.

The picture became a mess of pixels as it was slowly decoded by the software into a text document. It was a lab report. He clicked on the icon in the corner and soon the printer was spewing the data out. He lit another cigarette while he waited and then repeated the process on the remaining two pictures.

Once he had all three printed out he exited the program and called up another file. His guest list, as he liked to call them. He eliminated most based on blood type alone. After narrowing it down to three, he settled in for a more detailed comparison. The cigarette burned down in the ashtray, ignored as he read the last file.

He had a match.

He fired off a return message to the sender before leaning back in his chair with a frown. The timeline was too quick. They would probably not be able to pull a double profit out of this one. But it gave him an idea.

He only had to wait a few minutes for the reply. The computer announced it with a beep and he eagerly clicked the mouse. It was what he expected. He copied down the times and sending instructions.

He clicked the computer off and stored the files in a locked file cabinet before picking up his cell phone. It was answered on the first ring.

“Yes?”

“I need you at the clinic tonight. I’m sending you the information. I’ll need some additional items also.” He went on to explain.

“I understand.”

Luis hung up and selected a different phone from the many in the drawer. This one was also answered on the first ring.

“The package goes to the clinic tonight.”

“The usual time?”

“Yes, don’t be late.”

Luis hung up and selected a third phone.

“We have a change in plans. We will be using the second script tomorrow.”

“It’s too soon. What if they ask for more proof?”

“I have an idea for that. Listen.”

A minute later the man was chuckling.

“That just might work.”

•      •      •

Half a world away, the Major had received a similar email. After checking his files he had also found a match. Now he sat in the makeshift morgue with his partner to discuss their options.

“A heart? Why couldn’t it be a damn kidney? Even with the new transport machine, we’d be right on the edge of the viability time.”

“How long do we have?”

“A kidney is good for forty-eight hours with the new machine, maybe more. A heart was only good for four to six maybe until they came along. If I harvest it while there’s still blood flow I can get it on the machine immediately. Maybe twenty hours, but that’s pushing it. It could last long enough to get it to the east coast. But the plane will have to be waiting on the damn runway ready to go.”

“The plane’s in Bangkok right now. I can get them here quick. We just have to time it right. If the heart is no good, we don’t get the full amount, not even close.”

“This can’t be a cadaver harvest. The heart needs to come from a living donor.”

“Living donor? The kid needs to be alive when you take it? How the hell are we supposed to do that? We don’t get them until they’re dead.”

The mortician paced the room while he thought it out. It was a lot of money and he only had a few weeks left to make it. He could give a damn about some filthy little Afghan kid.

“The kid would have to be brain dead.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Brain dead just means the brain is gone but the body keeps going. There’s no way to bring them back and they would die a few days later anyway. We just have to figure out a way to do it without the medical team getting suspicious.”

“There isn’t going to be an autopsy. The body and the heart will be gone before he has a chance to get cold.”

“I know that,” the man snapped. “But that doesn’t mean the team won’t notice something wrong! What did the doc say when you were in there with him?”

“Umm, he said the kid’s burns were healing okay, and that he wanted to take him off the vent in a few days, if he could.”

“So the chest tube is still in and the kid’s sedated. Good, what else?”

“Something about him being worried about infection and a . . . P.E. A pulmonary something.”

“Pulmonary embolism. It’s an air bubble or blood clot in the lungs.” The mortician continued to pace. “Does he have an infection now?”