Attorney's Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) (16 page)

11:43 a.m.

Damn.

Where had the morning gone?

Teffinger looked at Zucker and said, “I’m going to be honest with you, we’re up to our asses in alligators around here. If it wasn’t Jena Vernon who called, we wouldn’t be talking right now. That doesn’t mean we don’t understand your situation and your concern as a father. And it doesn’t mean we don’t sympathize. It just means that you need to understand our time constraints and the fact that this really isn’t even in our jurisdiction. But if we can grease some skids for you we will. Actually, Kate will, which is why she’s sitting in. With that, tell us what’s going on.”

Zucker told them the story.

Brandy, age 20, still lived at home.

She left the house yesterday to go for a hike.

She never came back.

“Go for a hike where?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Zucker said. “She was talking about somewhere around Morrison or up Bear Creek Canyon. Last night we called everyone she knows and no one knows anything. We got up at the crack of dawn this morning and drove up and down Highway 74 but couldn’t find her car anywhere.”

“She’s probably just lost,” Teffinger said.

“No,” Zucker said. “She always took her cell phone with her. Everyone in our family has the same plan. The reception is good in that whole area. If she got lost she would have called.”

They talked for another ten minutes.

At the end Teffinger said, “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll open a missing person’s file right now and get a BOLO out for her vehicle.”

A BOLO?

Be On Look Out.

Oh.

“Kate will help you coordinate with the parks department and the forest service. Is that good enough?”

Yes.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Teffinger cocked his head.

“Does she have a credit card?”

“Several.”

“Get us the numbers,” he said. “We’ll see if any of them have been used.” He looked at Kate and added, “Also check with her cell phone company, find out who she talked to in the last 24 hours, and see if they know where she is.”

Kate nodded.

Teffinger looked at Zucker and said, “In exchange, we expect good weather from now on.”

AFTERWARDS AT THE COFFEE POT, Teffinger told Kate, “Sorry to stick you with this.”

“I have to admit, I’m not too motivated,” she said. “We both know she’ll wander home sometime this afternoon either hung over or with rug burns on her ass.”

“Maybe,” Teffinger said. “But Channel 8 has helped us out a lot over the years. This is called payback. I just wish it had come at a better time.”

“So you want me to really follow through?”

Yes, he did.

TWO HOURS LATER DR. LEANNE SANDERS CALLED. “I thought I’d let you know I’m loosing my target.”

“You mean the Frenchman?”

“No, his target, the lawyer.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“The lawyer is getting on a plane to Bangkok.”

“Bangkok?”

“Right.”

“Why? What’s in Bangkok?”

“I don’t have a clue,” she said. “We’re monitoring all flights at this point. If the Frenchman follows him, I’m going to be in tow.”

“Do you think that’s smart? He’s already attacked you once and you’ll stick out like a sore thumb over there.”

“I don’t think he ever really got a good look at me,” she said.

“Yeah, well I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.”

“Maybe not,” she said.

The line went dead.

Bangkok.

That’s where the pilot, Alan English, had been just before he got butchered in his bedroom.

Teffinger called Leanne back.

“Be careful,” he said.

“Always.”

“I mean it.”

46

Day Six—June 16

Saturday Morning

AS SOON AS THE BULLET RICOCHETED, even before Jekker dropped to the ground, he knew he’d been set up for a hit. At the backside of the railroad car, he got low to the earth and stuck his head out just far enough past a wheel to where he could see the mountainside.

No one was running down towards him.

He saw trees, boulders and fallen logs, but nothing human.

The air stood deathly quiet.

What to do?

In the middle boxcar he had a gun, plus his bow. But they might as well be on the moon. He was lucky enough that his hunter missed once. It wouldn’t happen again. Was the man coming for him to finish the job or was he getting the hell out of there?

He was coming.

Jekker saw nothing to indicate that but could feel it.

That’s what he would do.

Think.

Think!

HE BACKED AWAY FROM THE BOXCAR and, still hidden from view behind it, got to the base of a forty-foot lodge pole pine. On the backside, he shoved four or five good throwing stones in his pants pocket and then climbed up the trunk until he was thirty feet off the ground. Then he got his breathing as shallow and quiet as he could and waited.

Nothing happened.

Ten minutes passed.

Then another ten.

And another.

Then what happened took him totally off guard. A man with a rifle came down the mountain, behind him. All this time he must have been circling around.

Jekker was in plain view.

He held his breath.

The man wasn’t going to pass under him. Jekker couldn’t jump down on him, even if there weren’t twenty branches in the way. The man passed, stopped ten feet short of the boxcars, and bent down to see if Jekker was hiding underneath.

Jekker swallowed hard and then started to climb down.

47

Day Six—June 16

Saturday Noon

THE ROCK STAR WAS STILL WAITING at the designated spot when London trotted up, out of breath, fifteen minutes late. He looked at his watch and said, “I was only going to give you one more hour.”

“Thanks for waiting,” she said.

“Two at the most,” he added.

She smiled.

“Then I’ll consider myself two hours early. I’m starved.”

“What are you in the mood for?”

“What are my options?”

“Anything you want, and I even remembered my wallet.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, but remember, you said it.”

She grabbed his hand, led him over to a street vendor and ordered a $1.00 hotdog and diet coke. He grinned and said, “Two.” They ate as they walked down the 16th Street Mall.

“True confessions,” she said. “I got dressed up for you.”

“You look nice.”

“Liar,” she said. “This is as good as it gets. I don’t own a dress.”

He smiled.

“Full disclosure,” he said. “I like that.”

“Nor do I want to.” She took a bite, chewed and said, “So disclose something about you.”

“Like what?”

“Are you married?”

He laughed. “No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve been waiting for someone to come along who likes hotdogs better than lobster,” he said.

“That’s not necessarily me,” London said.

“No?”

“Well, it may be or it may not be,” she said. “I’ve never had lobster, so I can’t tell you with any honesty one way or the other.”

“You’ve never had lobster?”

She shook her head.

“Never ever?”

“No.”

“In that case, we need to make a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf one of these days.”

“Where’s that?”

“San Francisco,” he said.

She laughed.

“I usually don’t go that far to eat.”

“Me either.”

“You’d be hungry again by the time you got back,” she added.

He agreed.

“That’s the downside.”

They were approaching a homeless woman sitting on the sidewalk in the shade. The rock star pulled a $10.00 bill out of his wallet, put it in her hand and closed her fingers around it. She looked up, took a moment to focus and then smiled. “Thank you, Michael.”

“You’re welcome.”

“She knows you?” London asked.

He nodded.

“How?”

“That’s not important,” he said. “What is important is that I want to see you again. I already know that so I’m just going to get it out in the open. You don’t have to say yes, but don’t say no.”

She studied him and found the words sincere.

“Yes,” she said.

VENTA PICKED HER UP AT 2:30 and must have seen something on her face because she said, “Someone’s in lust.” London’s first thought was to deny it, but she didn’t.

“Possible lust,” she said.

“Lust,” Venta repeated.

London grinned.

“Okay, lust.”

“Details.”

London gave them and added, “There’s only one downside.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s a lawyer.”

Venta chuckled.

“FYI girlfriend, that goes in the plus column.”

London felt herself get serious.

“Usually, yes,” she said. “But he’s not your ordinary lawyer.”

“So what is he?”

“He’s a lawyer with Vesper & Bennett.”

“Vesper & Bennett?”

“Right.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was.”

“Well that’s a pretty big coincidence.”

London nodded.

She already knew that.

“Let me ask you something,” Venta said. “When you met this guy this morning, was he already in line or did he sort of hop in there right in front of you?”

London didn’t know.

She hadn’t been paying attention.

Venta retreated in thought.

Then she looked at London and said, “I’m not saying it’s a setup, but I’m not saying it’s not a setup either.”

London understood.

“You’ve been to Fisherman’s Wharf, right?”

Venta had, hundreds of times.

“Do they have good lobster there?”

“Good is an understatement. Why?”

London shrugged.

“Just curious.”

THEY DROVE IN SILENCE. Two blocks before London’s apartment, Venta said, “Assume it’s not a setup. Are you going to be able to do this?”

“Do what?”

“You know.”

“You mean go for blood against V&B at the same time that I’m all hot and bothered over one of their attorneys?”

“Right, that.”

London looked at her.

“Maybe V&B isn’t our target,” she said. “Maybe it’s Thung, Manap & Deringer. Either way, I won’t let you down. I promise.”

Venta studied her and apparently didn’t see the need to press.

But she added, “It’s not just me at this point. In fact, I’m all safe and sound back here in the U.S. I’m more concerned about the other women who will disappear down the road if we don’t do something.”

London nodded.

She understood all too well.

48

Day Six—June 16

Saturday Night

TEFFINGER WAS SOUND ASLEEP when his cell phone rang. He twisted and checked the clock—10:02 p.m., meaning he had only been out for a half hour. Next to him, there was no Venta. Then he remembered that she was picking up a friend at the airport, someone named Hannah.

“Got some job security for you,” Barb Winters said.

Teffinger grunted.

“Tell them to be dead in the morning. I’m too tired.”

Thirty minutes later he squeezed the Tundra into a parking spot on Broadway and walked over to a small public parking lot in the middle of the downtown’s financial district.

A sign with the rates caught his eye.

Outrageous.

What was this, New York?

Someone had already taped off the entire lot and sidewalk, very impressive. It was better to have a crime scene too big than the opposite. One of the responding officers turned out to be John Root, a hang glider fanatic who got slammed into the side of Lookout Mountain last summer and broke a bunch of body parts.

Teffinger shook his hand and said, “Still flying?”

“Oh yeah,” Root said. “In fact, last week I caught this absolutely crazy wind, took it way the hell up there and stayed up for four hours.”

“Four hours?”

“Yep.”

“How do you—?”

“What?”

“You know, go.”

“You mean to the bathroom?”

Teffinger nodded.

“You just unzip and go for it,” Root said.

Teffinger pictured it and said, “Man, I’d have to be really high to do that.”

Root looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be dragging that bad boy on the ground.”

Root pushed him.

“In your dreams, buddy.”

“It reminds me of the Ohno bird,” Teffinger said.

“What’s that?”

“You never heard of the Ohno bird?”

No.

Root hadn’t.

“Well,” Teffinger said, “the Ohno bird is about the size of a vulture, and it’s the only bird species in the world where the size of the male’s member is actually longer than its legs. Every time it comes in for a landing it makes the same sound—oh no, oh no, oh no!”

Root laughed in spite of himself.

“Bad, even for you.”

“You love it,” Teffinger said. “You’ll tell it ten times.”

THE VICTIM TURNED OUT TO BE A WHITE MALE, early 30s, slumped over in the passenger seat of a Jeep Commander, with no visible signs of physical trauma.

“Overdose?” Teffinger asked.

Root shrugged.

“The paramedics said it seemed like he had a broken neck.”

Teffinger must have had an expression on his face because Root asked, “What?”

“Nothing, except that I just had a broken neck case,” Teffinger said. “A woman named Samantha Rickenbacker.”

Root looked blank.

He hadn’t heard about it.

“You don’t get that many of them,” Teffinger added. “Guns and knives. That’s the bread and butter.”

Root pointed to an Avis sticker on the rear passenger window of the vehicle.

“A rental,” he said.

“Can you do me a favor? Call Avis, find out who rented it and have them fax me over a copy of all the paperwork, including the guy’s driver’s license.” Teffinger handed him a business card. “Use that fax number.”

“Done,” Root said.

Five minutes later Root returned and said, “A guy by the name of Jean-Paul Boudiette rented the car from the DIA Avis.”

Boudiette.

Teffinger recognized the name but couldn’t place it.

“Word is he’s a Frenchman,” Root added.

Teffinger nodded.

Remembering now.

The INTERPOL guy.

He was pretty sure that the victim was Boudiette rather than some third person, but put on gloves and pulled the man’s wallet out of his pants pocket.

It turned out he was right.

Then he called Leanne Sanders.

“You’re still looking for the Frenchman, right?” he asked.

She was, very much so.

“I’ll bet you a steak dinner that I can find him before you do,” he said.

A pause.

“You know where he is,” she said.

“Maybe,” he said. “Do we have a bet?”

“Where is he?”

“I can’t tell you unless we have an official bet.”

“That’s low.”

“True. But do we have a bet?”

“Fine, we do.”

“A steak dinner,” he said.

“Agreed.”

THE FBI PROFILER showed up twenty minutes later carrying a thermos and two disposable cups. She looked for a bullet in the back of Boudiette’s head, saw none and said, “I’ll be damned. It’s him. How’d he die?”

“Broken neck, from what we can tell.”

“Too bad, he was such a nice guy.” She looked at Teffinger and said, “I’ll make you another bet.”

“What kind of bet?”

“I’ll bet that you want what’s in this thermos more than you want that steak dinner,” she said.

He tilted his head and said, “I’ll bet you’re right.”

“So I’m officially off the hook?”

“Yes, but only because you play dirty.”

He poured while she held the cups.

It was some kind of chocolate flavor, piping hot.

“It’s decaf,” she said.

“Too bad,” he said. “Decaf doesn’t count.” He nodded at the body and said, “Does our buddy here have any ties to Bangkok?”

Leanne wrinkled her forehead.

“Not that I know of, why?”

“Something’s been nagging at me ever since you told me that the lawyer, Mark Remington, got on a plane to Bangkok. I have another case involving a pilot named Alan English who got stabbed in the back a bunch of times in his bedroom, right after he got back from a flight to Bangkok.”

“When did that happen?”

Teffinger searched his memory.

“That would have been Monday.”

“Boudiette wasn’t in Denver yet, if you’re implying that he did it,” Leanne said.

“Right, I know that,” Teffinger said.

“Remington was though, I assume,” she added.

Teffinger nodded and took a drink of coffee.

“So who killed your Frenchman?”

“I don’t have a clue,” she said.

“Then let me give you one,” he said. “Someone strong.”

49

Day Six—June 16

Saturday Night

JEKKER’S CONTACT LIVED in a stately Riva Chase mansion on a primo 5-acre cul-de-sac lot with a stream. Deer, elk, fox and coyotes abounded, yet downtown Denver was a mere twenty-minute jaunt down the freeway.

Right now he wasn’t home.

Jekker waited in the dark with the lights off down the road, behind the wheel of the Nissan rental, not knowing yet if he would kill the man or not.

On the seat next to him sat a manila envelope, the envelope that Jekker found inside the center console of the Frenchman’s vehicle. Inside that envelope were several photographs of Mark Remington. Of greater interest, however, were the photographs of Jekker himself.

The photographs meant one thing and one thing only, namely that Mark Remington and Jekker had both been set up as targets.

Why?

Headlights suddenly reflected from the rearview mirror into his eyes. A car approached. Jekker’s heart beat faster and he ducked down as the lights swept past. The driver was alone and headed for the driveway. Jekker cranked over the ignition and followed with the lights off. By the time the other vehicle pulled to a stop, Jekker was right behind it.

“Good evening,” Jekker said as he got out.

A beat, then the man said, “This is squarely against protocol.”

“So was the hit man who paid me a visit. The now-dead hit man, to be precise.”

“I was afraid something like this might happen,” the man said. “Come inside.”

THE MAN WALKED ACROSS A LARGE VAULTED ROOM to a wet bar, poured whiskey into two crystal glasses and handed one to Jekker, who took it but didn’t drink.

The man swallowed half the glass and said, “Go ahead and drink. You’re not going to kill me.”

Jekker swirled the liquor.

“We haven’t established that,” he said.

The man laughed. “Damn, you’re strung tight tonight.”

Jekker handed him the envelope and watched as the man removed the photographs of Mark Remington and Jekker and looked at them.

The man studied them and said nothing.

Jekker pulled the .357 SIG out of his coat jacket and pointed it at the man.

“Talk,” he said.

He expected the man to tremble but he looked more like he was trying to solve a puzzle instead. “The Frenchman is your Western Europe counterpart. He’s either gone rouge or someone’s pulling his strings. We’re not sure which yet.”

“Go on.”

“We just recently found out that he was after Mark Remington,” the man said. “I had no idea he was after you until just now.”

How?

How did they know he was after Remington?

“He was hanging around outside Remington’s house Thursday night,” the man said. “It turned out that a female FBI agent was tailing him. He doubled back and attacked her—a stupid thing, but a thing he did, nonetheless. The next morning, the agent and a homicide detective by the name of Nick Teffinger paid a visit to Remington to find out why he was a target. Remington told me about the visit.”

“Then what?”

“Remington got on a plane to Bangkok.”

“So then the Frenchman turned his attention to his second target—me,” Jekker said.

The man nodded.

“It seems that way.”

“He tried to snipe me but missed,” Jekker said. “When he came in to finish up, things didn’t go the way he planned.”

“You killed him?”

“Yes. I snapped his neck.”

THE MAN REFILLED HIS GLASS. Jekker pondered the situation for a heartbeat more, then lowered the gun, drained half his glass, and let the man top it off.

“So why was he after Remington? And me?”

The man held his hands out in surrender.

“We don’t know,” he said. “He went AWOL three months ago. A month after he dropped off the radar screen, his counterpart in Hong Kong—and your counterpart—showed up dead. We have every reason to believe he did it but don’t know why. That’s why there’s an opening in Hong Kong, like I was telling you about before. And the opening in Western Europe is to replace him, obviously. That’s the slot you’ll be filling.”

Jekker took a solid drink of alcohol.

It dropped hot and tingly into his stomach.

“Has the Frenchman taken out anyone else, besides Hong Kong?”

The man nodded.

“A man named Gordon Smyth, in London. A damn fine guy.” He sipped the liquor. “What did you do with the body?”

“I put it in the passenger seat of his car and parked it in a parking lot downtown.”

The man looked dumbfounded.

“Why?”

“Well, I thought Remington might have been behind it some how. I parked the body by the law firm. It was a warning to him.”

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” the man said.

50

Day Six—June 16

Saturday Night

LONDON WORKED HER SHIFT at Cactus Dan’s from four to nine and miraculously encountered only one customer from idiot-land. She kept having a vision of the rock star, Michael Montana, walking in with a bunch of friends and accidentally bumping into her, but that didn’t happen. She got home at ten and logged on to the Colorado Bar Association website to see if any new jobs had been posted.

None had.

She twisted a pencil in her fingers, then snapped it in two.

Venta knocked on the door ten minutes later. With her was a woman in her mid-20s, five-ten, incredibly attractive, athletic, with short black hair, wearing jeans, sandals and a green long-sleeve shirt.

“This is my assistant, Hannah,” Venta said.

London shook her hand and liked her immediately.

Venta held up a bottle of white wine and said, “Brought another friend too.”

They sat at the kitchen table—a cheap folding unit—and Hannah filled London in on what she knew so far about Susan Wagner, the private investigator from Cleveland who disappeared in Bangkok approximately eighteen months ago.

She was a solo practitioner.

Twenty-three.

Attractive.

Blond.

And, most notably, she made a $7,500 cash deposit into her checking account.

“I’m heading to Cleveland in the morning,” Hannah said. “I actually had a layover in Denver, so it isn’t costing any money to be here.”

LONDON GOT UP, pulled fresh ice cubes from the freezer and plopped them in her wine. Both of the other women held their glasses up and she did the same for them.

Then she sat down and twisted a pencil in her fingers.

“What we need at this point more than anything is a direct evidentiary link to either Vesper & Bennett, or to Thung, Manap & Deringer,” she said. “We need to trace a phone call to their office, or get evidence that they hired a messenger service to have the cash delivered, or trace an email to or from one of their lawyers, or get a connection between them and Bob Copeland, anything like that.”

“Exactly,” Venta said.

“I don’t care how small it is,” London added. “It’s driving me nuts not knowing which one is the target.”

“What does your new lawyer friend from V&B know about any of this?”

“Michael Montana?”

“Right.”

London snapped the pencil in two.

“I don’t know and I’m not going to ask him,” she said.

Venta patted her hand and said, “You’re rough on stuff. Do you know that?”

London grinned.

“I’m going to do a background check on him,” Venta added.

“Michael Montana?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because if he’s married or has a girlfriend or something like that, then the whole meeting-you-thing was a setup, meaning that V&B is our target.”

London didn’t like the idea but couldn’t disagree with the logic.

“Just don’t do anything illegal,” London warned. “If we do end up suing V&B, we don’t want them to have a counterclaim against you. That would destroy your credibility, not to mention putting the entire case at risk.”

Venta cocked her head.

“Fine. If we need to bend the rules, we’ll have Hannah do it.”

“No,” London said. “No one bends the rules.”