The Brethren (32 page)

He returned home after nine, certain that they were watching. He turned the television on full volume, and made more coffee. In the bathroom he stuffed his cash into pockets.

At midnight, with the house dark and quiet and Trevor evidently asleep, he slipped out the back door and into the night. The air was brisk, the moon full, and he tried his best to look as though he was simply going for a walk on the beach. He wore baggy cargo pants with pockets from the waist down, two denim shirts, and an oversized windbreaker with money
stuffed inside the liner. In all, Trevor had $80,000 hidden on himself as he wandered aimlessly south, along the edge of the water, just another beachcomber out for a midnight stroll.

After a mile his pace quickened. When he’d gone three miles he was exhausted, but he was in a desperate hurry. Sleep and rest would have to wait.

He left the beach and walked into the grungy lobby of a run-down motel. There was no traffic along Highway A1A; nothing was open except for the motel and a convenience store in the distance.

The door rattled enough for the clerk to come to life. A television was on somewhere in the back. A chubby young man of no more than twenty emerged and said, “Good evening. Need a room?”

“No sir,” Trevor said, as he slowly drew a hand from a pocket and produced a thick roll of bills. He began peeling them off and placing them in a neat row on the counter. “I need a favor.”

The clerk stared at the money, then rolled his eyes. The beach attracted all kinds. “These rooms ain’t that expensive,” he said.

“What’s your name?” Trevor asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Let’s say it’s Sammy Sosa.”

“All right, Sammy. There’s a thousand bucks. It’s yours if you’ll drive me to Daytona Beach. Take you ninety minutes.”

“It’ll take me three hours because I have to drive back.”

“Whatever. That’s more than three hundred bucks
an hour. When’s the last time you made three hundred bucks an hour?”

“It’s been a while. I can’t do it. I run the night shift, you see. My job is to be on duty from ten until eight.”

“Who’s the boss?”

“He’s in Atlanta.”

“When’s the last time he stopped by?”

“I’ve never met him.”

“Of course you haven’t. If you owned a dump like this, would you stop by?”

“It’s not that bad. We have free color TV’s and most of the air-conditioning works.”

“It’s a dump, Sammy. You can lock that door, drive away, and come back three hours later, and no one will ever know it.”

Sammy looked at the money again. “You runnin from the law or something?”

“No. And I’m not armed. I’m just in a hurry.”

“So what’s up?”

“A bad divorce, Sammy. I have a little money. My wife wants it all and she has some pretty nasty lawyers. I gotta get out of town.”

“You got money, but no car?”

“Look, Sammy. You want the deal or not? If you say no, then I’ll walk down the street to the convenience store and find somebody smart enough to take my cash.”

“Two thousand.”

“You’ll do it for two thousand?”

“Yep.”

The car was worse than Trevor had expected. It was an old Honda, uncleaned by Sammy or any of the
previous five owners. But A1A was deserted, and the trip to Daytona Beach took exactly ninety-eight minutes.

At 3:20 a.m., the Honda stopped in front of an all-night waffle grill, and Trevor got out. He thanked Sammy, said good-bye, and watched him drive away. Inside, he drank coffee and chatted with the waitress long enough to persuade her to go fetch a local phone directory. He ordered pancakes and used his new Radio Shack cell phone to find his way around town.

The nearest airport was Daytona Beach International. A few minutes after four, his cab stopped at the general aviation terminal. Dozens of small planes sat in neat rows on the tarmac. He stared at them as the cab drove away. Surely, he told himself, one of them was available for a quick charter. He just needed one, preferably a twin-engine.

TWENTY-NINE

T
he back bedroom of the rental had been converted into the meeting room, with four folding tables pushed together to make one large one. It was covered with newspapers, magazines, and doughnut boxes. Every morning at seven-thirty Klockner and his team met over coffee and pastries to review the night and plan the day. Wes and Chap were always there, and six or seven others joined them, depending on who was in town from Langley. The technicians from the front room sometimes sat in, though Klockner did not require their attendance. Now that Trevor was on their side, they needed fewer people to track him.

Or so they thought. Surveillance detected no movement inside his home before seven-thirty, which was not altogether unusual for a man who often went to bed drunk and woke up late. At eight, while Klockner was still meeting in the back, a technician called the house under the ruse of a wrong number. After three rings, the recorder came on and Trevor announced he was not in, please leave a message. This
happened occasionally when he was trying to sleep late, but it usually worked well enough to roust him from bed.

Klockner was notified at eight-thirty that the house was completely still; no shower, no radio, no television, no stereo, not a sound from the normal routine.

It was entirely possible he’d gotten drunk at home, by himself, but they knew he had not spent last night at Pete’s. He’d gone to a mall and arrived home apparently sober.

“He could be sleeping,” Klockner said, unconcerned. “Where’s his car?”

“In his driveway.”

At nine, Wes and Chap knocked on Trevor’s door, then opened it when there was no answer. The rental sprang to life when they reported there was no sign of him, and that his car was still there. Without panic, Klockner sent people to the beach, to the coffee shops near the Sea Turtle, even to Pete’s, which was not yet open. They canvassed the area around his house and office, by foot and by car, and saw nothing.

At ten, Klockner called Deville at Langley. The lawyer’s missing, was the message.

Every flight to Nassau was checked; nothing turned up, no sign of a Trevor Carson. Deville’s contact in Bahamian customs could not be located, nor could he find the banking supervisor they’d been bribing.

Teddy Maynard was in the middle of a briefing on North Korean troop movements when he was interrupted by an urgent message that Trevor Carson, their drunken lawyer in Neptune Beach, Florida, was missing.

“How can you lose a fool like him?” Teddy growled at Deville, in a rare display of anger.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe this!”

“Sorry, Teddy.”

Teddy shifted his weight and grimaced from the pain. “Find him, dammit!” he hissed.

The plane was a Beech Baron, a twin-engine owned by some doctors and chartered by Eddie, the pilot Trevor had coaxed out of bed at six in the morning with the promise of cash on the spot and more under the table. The official quote was $2,200 for a round-trip between Daytona Beach and Nassau—two hours each way, total of four at $400 an hour, plus some fees for landing and immigration and pilot downtime. Trevor kicked in another $2,000 for Eddie’s pocket if the trip took place immediately.

The Geneva Trust Bank in downtown Nassau opened at 9 EST, and Trevor was waiting when the doors were unlocked. He barged into the office of Mr. Brayshears and demanded immediate assistance. He had almost a million dollars in his account—$900,000 from Mr. Al Konyers, through Wes and Chap; about $68,000 from his dealings with the Brethren.

With one eye on the door, he pressed Brayshears to help him move the money, and quickly. The money was owned by Trevor Carson, and no one else. Brayshears had no choice. There was a bank in Bermuda managed by a friend of his, which suited Trevor just fine. He didn’t trust Brayshears, and he planned to keep moving the money until he felt safe.

For a moment, Trevor cast a lustful eye at the account of Boomer Realty, currently with a balance of $189,000 and change. It was within his power, during that fleeting moment, to snatch their money too. They were nothing but felons—Beech, Yarber, the odious Spicer, all crooks. And they’d had the arrogance to fire him. They had forced him to run. He tried to hate them enough to take their money, but as he wavered back and forth he felt a soft spot for them. Three old men wasting away in prison.

A million was enough. Besides, he was in a hurry. If Wes and Chap suddenly charged in with guns, it wouldn’t have surprised him. He thanked Brayshears and ran from the building.

When the Beech Baron lifted off the runway at Nassau International, Trevor couldn’t help but laugh. He laughed at the heist, at the getaway, at his luck, at Wes and Chap and their rich client now minus a million, at his shabby little law office now mercifully idle. He laughed at his past and at his glorious future.

At three thousand feet he gazed downward at the still blue waters of the Caribbean. A lonely sailboat rocked along, its captain at the wheel, a scantily clad lady nearby. That would be him down there in just a few short days.

He found a beer in a carry-on cooler. He drank it and fell sound asleep. They landed on the island of Eleuthera, a place Trevor had seen in a travel magazine he’d bought the night before. There were beaches and hotels and all the water sports. He paid Eddie in cash, then waited an hour at the small airport for a taxi to happen by.

He bought clothes at a tourist shop in Governor’s Harbour, then walked to a hotel on the beach. He was amused at how quickly he stopped watching the shadows. Sure Mr. Konyers had plenty of money, but no one could afford a secret army big enough to track someone through the Bahamas. His future would be one of sheer delight. He would not ruin it by looking over his shoulder.

He drank rum by the pool as fast as the bar maid could bring it. At the age of forty-eight, Trevor Carson welcomed his new life in pretty much the same condition he’d left his old one.

The law office of Trevor Carson opened on time and things proceeded as if nothing was amiss. Its owner had fled, but its paralegal and office manager were on duty to take care of any business that might unexpectedly develop. They listened in all the right places, and heard nothing. The phone rang twice before noon, two misguided inquiries from souls lost in the yellow pages. Not a single client needed Trevor. Not a single friend called to say hello. Wes and Chap busied themselves by going through the few drawers and files they had not yet inspected. Nothing of consequence was found.

Another crew combed every inch of Trevor’s house, primarily looking for the cash he’d been paid. Not surprisingly, they didn’t find it. The cheap briefcase was in a closet, empty. There was no trail. Trevor had just walked away, with his cash.

The Bahamian banking official was tracked to New York, where he was visiting on government business.
He was reluctant to get involved from such a long distance, but he eventually made his calls. Around 1 p.m. it was confirmed that the money had been moved. Its owner had done so in person, and the official would divulge nothing else.

Where did the money go? It was moved by wire, and that’s all he would tell Deville. His country’s banking reputation depended upon secrecy, and he could reveal only so much. He was corrupt, but he did have his limits.

U.S. Customs cooperated after some initial reluctance. Trevor’s passport had been scanned at Nassau International early that morning, and so far he had not left the Bahamas, at least not officially. His passport was red-listed. If he used it to enter another country, U.S. Customs would know it within two hours.

Deville delivered a quick update to Teddy and York, his fourth of the day, then hung around for further instructions.

“He’ll make a mistake,” York said. “He’ll use his passport somewhere, and we’ll catch him. He doesn’t know who’s chasing him.”

Teddy seethed but said nothing. His agency had toppled governments and killed kings, yet he was constantly amazed at how the little things often got botched. One bumbling and witless lawyer from Neptune Beach slipped through their net while a dozen people were supposed to be watching. He thought he was beyond surprises.

The lawyer was to be their link, their bridge to the inside of Trumble. For a million dollars they thought they could trust him. There’d been no contingency
plan for his sudden flight. Now they were scrambling to develop one.

“We need someone inside the prison,” Teddy said.

“We’re close,” Deville answered. “We’re working with Justice and the Bureau of Prisons.”

“How close?”

“Well, in light of what’s happened today, I think we can have a man there, inside Trumble, within forty-eight hours.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Argrow, eleven years with the agency, age thirty-nine, solid credentials.”

“His story?”

“He’ll transfer into Trumble from a federal prison in the Virgin Islands. His paperwork will be cleared by the Bureau here in Washington so the warden down there won’t ask any questions. He’s just another federal prisoner who requested a transfer.”

“And he’s ready to go?”

“Almost. Forty-eight hours.”

“Do it now.”

Deville left, again with the burden of a difficult task that suddenly had to be done overnight.

“We have to find out how much they know,” Teddy said, almost in a mumble.

“Yes, but we have no reason to believe they suspect anything,” York said. “I’ve read all their mail. There’s nothing to indicate they are particularly excited about Konyers. He’s just one of their potential victims. We bought the lawyer to stop him from snooping around behind Konyers’ post office box. He’s off in the
Bahamas now, drunk with his money, so he’s not a threat.”

“But we still dispose of him,” Teddy said. It was not a question.

“Of course.”

“I’ll feel better when he’s gone,” Teddy said.

A guard with a uniform but no gun entered the law library in mid-afternoon. He first encountered Joe Roy Spicer, who was by the door to the chamber.

“The warden would like to see you,” the guard said. “You and Yarber and Beech.”

“What’s this about?” Spicer asked. He was reading an old copy of
Field & Stream
.