Storming Heaven (28 page)

“Yesterday.”

“Why did I ask?”

“Look, this is important, Ken. Get me this by tomorrow and I will literally get down on my knees and kiss your ass next time I see you.”

“I’ll have to give that offer some thought. What’s the second favor?”

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Uh-uh. I’m going back to bed, Mark. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

M
ARK
B
EAMON PUT HIS HANDS ON HIS LOWER
back and bent backward, trying to stretch the muscles that were twisting his spine. Feeling guilty about blowing off his new personal trainer last week, he’d unwisely decided to haul the mountain of boxes containing the Davis hie copies to his car by himself.

Satisfied that he wasn’t permanently crippled, Beamon began threading his way through the sea of desks toward Craig Skinner’s cubicle. His young computer clerk saw him coming, though, and made a dash for the bathroom.

“Freeze, Skinner.”

The young man stopped a few feet short of the men’s room. Beamon grabbed him by the collar and led him back to his cubicle. “Sit. What the hell happened, Craig? Do you not understand the word ‘quietly’? Let me translate: The use of subtlety. Wanton sneaking. The overzealous practice of stealth. What did you do, call personnel and ask them if you could download their files?”

Skinner twisted a lock of his hair around his Index finger. “Well, do you know how long it would take me to scan in the entire FBI personnel list? I figured it would be easier that way.”

Beamon pushed his glasses up and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.
“Okay, I’ve got something else for you, Craig. But this time we’re going to keep it between us. And by us, I mean just you and me, right?”

Skinner looked doubtful. “They thought I was a spy or something, man. I got in a lot of trouble, you know? Layman made me delete the whole file.”

Beamon ignored his protest. “There’s a software company—TarroSoft. I want you to find out what you can about them.”

Skinner thought about it for a moment. Finally he turned toward his computer and began working with his mouse. At a screen with Yahoo! written across it, he typed in the word TarroSoft.

“That’s weird.”

“What?”

“No hits. You sure it’s a software company?”

Beamon shrugged. “Not dead sure. But with a name like that I figure it’s either software or toilet paper—and I’m guessing it’s not toilet paper.”

Skinner chewed the end of his pencil, obviously intrigued by the problem. “Let me do some digging and I’ll let you know.”

Beamon looked at him sternly.

“Subtle digging,” Skinner corrected.

Satisfied, Beamon turned, walked to the middle of the office, and jumped up on a chair, opting for a less subtle approach to solving his next problem. “May I have everybody’s attention, please? Hello?”

The low buzz of voices that made up the background noise in the office faded and the agents all looked up from what they were doing.

“Thank you. I’d like everyone here—everyone—to write down on a piece of paper what longdistance company they use.” He pointed to Michaels. “Then bring them to me at Chefs desk.”

Beamon lumped down, feeling another twinge In his back, and then dragged the chair over to Michaels’s desk, “Where have you been all day, Chet?” The young agent still had snowflakes clinging to his red hair.

“Workin’ for you, Mark.”

Beamon dumped out Michaels’s Inbox and pointed to the empty container as the first people began walking up with scraps of paper In hand. “And what Is It you’ve been doing for me?”

“Freezing to death at a private airport before six this morning.”

Beamon didn’t let the fact that he was impressed show. He hadn’t been at all sure that Michaels could run down the church’s plane this fast, “Kind of waited till the last minute, didn’t you? What did you find?”

“They do have one private jet capable of making It to Turkey. I got the numbers and called them Into the Oklahoma office this morning, They’re checking with the FAA,”

“What’s the time frame?”

“Real fast. I told them It was top priority,” Michaels said, taking a manila envelope off the edge of his desk and handing It to Beamon. “I ran some computer checks on the previous address of your new neighbor—Robert Andrews. Kind of Interesting. There are seven other people who list that address as their permanent residence. All men, All between the ages of thirty and forty, All ex-mllitary or ex-cops, now self-employed. But then you knew what I’d find, didn’t you?”

Beamon looked over his shoulder. The Inbox was full of paper, and everyone appeared to have sat back down and gone back to work. “I didn’t
know—
It was just a hunch. Ernie told me that Sara Renslier had put
together a specialized security group at the church. Fanatics who’ll do anything she says. I think you found them.”

Michaels looked a little worried. “Based on the records I was able to pull, Mark, these aren’t people you want to mess with … “

“And you should remember that. What about Sines?”

“Sines sounds like he’s probably part of this group. Ex-military—resigned for no apparent reason shortly after being promoted to major. He’s forty- one. Lists the church as his employer and Kneiss’s compound as his permanent residence. No criminal record. I couldn’t find anything relating to what he does for the church—just that he works there. Same as Renslier.”

Beamon opened the manila envelope in front of him and wrote each of the names it contained on a piece of legal paper, adding the name of the man watching his condo to the bottom. “I’ll be back in a second.”

He walked across the office and stuck his head into Skinner’s cubicle. “Hey, Craig.”

“It’s only been a few minutes, Mark!”

“Calm down, son,” Beamon said, holding out the paper in his hand. “I just want you to run these names against that list I gave you.”

“I told you, Mark. Layman made me delete that file.”

Beamon rolled his eyes. Skinner had a hacker’s heart. There was just no goddamn way he’d deleted that file. “Run the fucking names, Craig.”

“Well, uh, maybe there is a way to reconstruct the file,” Skinner said, reaching hesitantly for the sheet.

“Uh-huh,” Beamon said, starting back toward Michaels’s desk.

“What else you got, Chet?”

Michaels turned his palms upward. “I’m sorry, Mark. Nothing. David Passal’s known acquaintances are a dead end—and I don’t mean that I couldn’t find anybody he knew who might fit the profile—I mean I can’t find anybody he knew. The guy was a freaking hermit. Otherwise, there are no local sex offenders with MOs even close, or for that matter the opportunity. Our national search of people who have been involved in this kind of thing so far is a big zero. Recent parolees? Another big fat zero. And we’ve got nothing on the physical evidence side.”

Beamon looked blankly at the young agent. “That’s quite a laundry list of things you don’t know. So what do you think happened here?”

Michaels let out a loud breath. “Maybe it does have something to do with the church. Or maybe the whole thing was a big coincidence. A fluke.”

“How so?”

“What if Jennifer’s dad just went nuts? Killed her mom, then himself? Jennifer saw it all. She panics. Runs out into the street where she flags down a passing car. Turns out that the guy who picks her up is a bad seed. Things get out of hand and he kills her. I’m starting to think that one way or another, we’re gonna find her when the snow thaws.”

“Why didn’t she just use the phone? Call for an ambulance?”

“Couldn’t stay in the same house with what was left of her folks.”

“Reasonable. Why’d she take the gun?”

Michaels shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about that. She’s completely freaked out. She falls to her knees and cries for a while beside her parents’ bodies. She’s got no relatives living, so she’s totally alone. She can’t take it. Picks up the gun, puts it to her head, then chickens out. Forgets to drop it when she runs out of the house.”

“Why wouldn’t she just go to a neighbor’s?”

“Maybe the guy in the car saw her running without a jacket toward a neighbor’s house and offered her a ride. She’d have probably taken it.”

The phone on the desk started to ring, but Michaels ignored it.

“I don’t think so, Chet,” Beamon said, speaking slowly. “It’s good piece of reasoning, but my gut just says its wrong.”

“Mine too, actually. That leaves us with the church, but Layman’s pretty much shut us down there.”

Beamon had purposely kept many of the individual components of the investigation—his visit to Sara, much of the information he’d gotten from Ernestine Waverly—from the young agent. He had a feeling that the less Michaels knew, the better off he’d be in the end.

“Chet!” D. yelled, holding her phone in one hand and waving with the other. “There’s a guy from the Oklahoma City office on the line. Says you’ll want to take the call.”

“Could you put it through, please?” He picked it up on the first ring.

“Hi, Terry. Nothing, huh? Nothing on the commercial flights, either? Hey, thanks for doing this so quick. Yeah, I’ll tell him …”

Beamon reached out and plucked the phone
from Michaels’s hand. “Terry. Mark Beamon.”

“Mr. Beamon. How are you, sir?”

“I’m good. Hey, I just wanted to tell you myself how much I appreciate you jumping on this like you did.”

“If there’s anything else I can do, Mr. Beamon, please let me know.”

“Actually, there is, Terry. Tomorrow afternoon I want you to try to pull that flight plan again.”

“We’ve never had problems with the FAA before, Mr. Beamon. I think the information is accurate …”

“I’m going to have to ask you to humor me on this one. It’s important.”

“Of course. I’ll call you tomorrow evening.”

“Thanks, Terry. I owe you one.”

Beamon replaced the handset and looked into the confused face of Chet Michaels. “Another hunch,” he explained. “Chet, keep going where you’re going on this case. Make sure we didn’t miss anything and I’ll concentrate on the church. Stay away from that. Okay?”

Beamon grabbed the scraps of papers that had accumulated in Michaels’s
IN
box and walked back to his office.

After going through them, all but two were in his garbage can. He took out a Post-it, wrote his name on it and put it in between the one with his secretary’s and Michaels’s names.

“D.!” he yelled at the open door to his office. She leaned around the corner.

“When did you sign up for NickeLine?”

“I don’t know exactly. It was probably around the same time I took this job. So about a year and a half ago.” Beamon heard the phone on her desk
start to ring and she disappeared to answer it. Her head reappeared in his doorway a moment later. “It’s Ken Hirayami from Athens.”

“Put him through, please,” Beamon said, picking up his phone.

“Ken! What’d you find out?”

“No record, Mark. As far as Turkey’s concerned, he’s not in the country.” There was a pause over the phone. “Now are you going to tell me what the second favor is?”

“Yup,” Beamon said. “Tomorrow afternoon I want you to run the same check again.”

“The same check?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know if I want to do that, Mark. I think the Turks would find it a little insulting. It’d look like I was saying they didn’t know how to do their jobs. And they do.”

“Ken, I got fifty bucks that says they find a record of Kneiss’s visa this time through.”

“What’ve you got cooking over there, Mark?”

“Will you do it?”

“I guess I can find someone else to run the search and hope it doesn’t get back to the first guy. Yeah, I’ll do it.”

“Thanks, Ken. Oh, and Ken?”

“Yeah.”

“I want my fifty in American.” Beamon pushed the lever on the phone down with his index finder and stared at it like it was the enemy. He had to do it, he knew. He had to make the call. But he knew he was going to live to regret it.

He pawed through his Rolodex and dialed one of the numbers he found there, grimacing as it started to ring.

“You’ve reached Goldman Communications Consultants, leave a message at the beep,” a mechanical voice told him.

Goldman Communications Consultants. It sounded so benign. The Goldman part was Jack Goldman. They had worked together years ago when Beamon was just starting with the Bureau and Goldman was just getting ready to retire.

Goldman had started as a telephone repairman when he was still in his early teens and when phones in private homes were probably more the exception than the rule. After he got busted placing bugs for AI Capone’s organization, J. Edgar Hoover had taken him under his wing and Goldman had become the king of the FBI’s “black bag men.”

When Beamon first met him, Goldman was already older than God. And about as cantankerous a sonofabitch as had ever walked the earth. That little personality flaw aside, though, he was the best. Always had been, always would be. The man could bug the incisor teeth of a rabid Doberman.

Despite his undeniable skill, the government wouldn’t work with him anymore. His corporate clients, though, were more than happy to put up with his colorful demeanor in return for his ruthless efficiency at finding—and most likely placing—any eavesdropping device ever invented.

“Mr. Goldman, this is Mark Beamon. I have a question that might be up your—”

There was a momentary screech of feedback and then, “Mark! Goddamn, boy, I can’t remember the last time I heard from you. Someone told me that you’d screwed the pooch one too many times at headquarters and they sent you off to pasture!” His voice shook with age.

“Uh, hello, Mr. Goldman,” Beamon said slowly into the phone, already starting to regret the call. “I’m in Flagstaff now.”

“Jesus, son. They did put you in a one-horse town. What do you do there, investigate shoplifting?”

“It’s actually a pretty good size—”

“Uh-huh. So what do you want? I’m a busy man, you know.”

“Yes, sir. I have a theoretical question. If I bought one of those phone companies where you dial an 800 number and enter your PIN before you call long distance, could I listen in on all the calls that went over those lines?”