Project Northwest (4 page)

“Why not just buy one?”

“Baby, it has to be secret. They can’t know
and it would look suspicious if I suddenly bought one. It’s not
like I can walk into a Best Buy and ask for the secret sales
register.”

“I don’t know, James. I guess I could borrow
Cindy’s, she never uses it at work, and she’s pretty laid back, so
she won’t make a big fuss.”

James stood, gulped down the remaining beer,
and grabbed her hand. He planted a thankful kiss on her cheek and
whispered, “Follow my lead.” She just stared at him and finished
her beer.

As he entered the living room, he said aloud,
“Do I have to go? Can’t you go by yourself to get the
schedule?”

Bridget quickly caught on, “Yes, James, you
have to go. I’m not leaving you here, so you’re going with me or
I’ll get fired.”

She grabbed the car keys and impatiently held
the door open as James took his sweet time, his back still aching
from being hogtied, and the beating didn’t help either. As he
passed through the door, he whispered, “Beauty and brains.” She
smiled and patted him on the butt.

* * * *

Mr. Wright’s team saw, heard, and recorded
everything.

They saw James fold up the note and place it
into his wallet. They watched Bridget’s arms flail about in the car
and heard every single word as she told James of all her attempts
to find him as she drove them to the condominium.

Mr. Wright got a great deal of professional
pleasure in listening to her tale—and to think he had set this all
up, starting with the murder of Karl Brownstone four months
earlier. Every detail meticulously calculated and planned out. The
best surveillance equipment black-market money could buy. It was
his decision to choose Mr. Spain as the mark, his choice of
professional associates. This was his team, his plan, and it was
working perfectly.

He heard all the tender caresses in the
apartment as Ms. Davies nursed James back to health
(lucky
bastard, well, lucky to have her anyway—not so lucky he was chosen
for this job).
Mr. Wright’s wife could no longer provide the
type of intimate power a good woman could give a man. Ms. Davies’
attentive nature made Wright glad he was a man and jealous he
wasn’t her man. Sure she was too young, but what better way to
spend one’s imagination.

He watched James wake up on Sunday morning
and heard the normal conversations of concern as she cleansed and
bandaged his wounds. He heard them over breakfast and coffee. He
heard every phone call of co-workers checking in to make sure he
was okay.

He watched in real-time every webpage Bridget
visited as she searched WebMD and other sites for the best way to
care for James’s wounds. All of it, every conversation, every
camera view, and every single action on any webpage were being
recorded on an iron-clad network of servers just blocks down the
street. Everything was indexed and searchable down to the room they
were in and when they were in it. Yet even with all this
technology, he missed a great deal of conversation as the couple
sat on the balcony.

“Is the balcony bugged?” he screamed at the
surveillance technician.

“Yes, it’s bugged. We have our best
high-fidelity wireless devices in all the living quarters. We can
hear and see everything.”

“Really? We can hear everything? Is that what
you said? All I can hear is a bunch of shushes and whispering,
sounds like a fucking funeral in there. Followed by her screaming,
‘What the hell is going on?’
I ask the same question to
you.”

“It’s ... the mic is in the light—above—she
stood and that’s why it was so loud,” stammered the technician.

This was followed by more whispering and the
technician, as much as he wanted to, couldn’t get a clear voice
path, the voices were too low and mixed in with the ambient noise
of vehicle and city noise on the street.

Mr. Wright was losing his mind. Patience had
deserted him long ago and he just sat writing a note as the
whispering continued. He was fuming and tore up note after note,
until he seemed pleased with the last one he wrote.

Finally, they could be heard again. They
entered into the living room and apparently, a trip was in order to
get a work schedule for the lovely Bridget, and Bridget, being the
good girl she was, was not going to leave James behind. Mr. Wright
stood. His hand made a circular motion in the air and three
associates, not including the technician, jumped to their feet and
began to mobilize. They were on the move.

Wright ripped the note from the notepad and
handed it to the technician, it read:

“Get this fixed. If a cricket farts in that
condo, or on that balcony, or in their car, I want to hear it, and
you never know, I just may throw a gassed up cricket in there as a
test.”

As Wright was leaving the room, the
surveillance technician overheard him ask the associate holding the
door open, “Do crickets eat beans?”

The associate replied, “Maybe bean leaves and
stalks. Maybe cooked beans?”

Another associate replied, “I think crickets
are carnivores.”

They were in the black Tahoe before James and
Bridget made it to their car. The laptops were glowing and the
planted GPS devices working.

“Target is a go, sir,” announced the
associate in the back seat.

“Perfect,” Mr. Wright replied as he reached
out and grabbed the drivers arm, “Now remember. We want him to know
we’re here, but not to know we’re here. We’re the spooky ghosts,
right? When we’re not here, I want him to think we are, I want him
to feel our icy stares on the back of his neck, and when we are
there, it should be obvious.”

The associate started the Tahoe, all of the
passengers waiting for the engine to warm.

“And we’ve taken care of the car radio?”
Wright asked.

“Yes, the radio will only play the
pre–recorded songs, per your request.”

“And we have a warm body at her job?”

“Yes, he’s taking his seat now, has a clear
view of the front door, and will track her once she enters. We have
another ready to track Mr. Spain if he enters the restaurant.”

“Excellent. Let’s let them know we’re
here.”

The driver pulled out of the parking lot and
stopped on 8th Avenue, turned on its fog lights and rolled down the
driver side window, allowing the remaining light of the day to
silhouette the three men inside.

The associate in the back seat piped up, “We
could cover larvae of some sort with bean paste, but are we even
sure a cricket can fart? I mean, just thinking—it—it would have to
be a very high pitched fart, you know, because its butthole is so
small.”

The other associates laughed. One finally
replied to the open-ended question, “You eat beans and you’re going
to fart—it’s a natural biological law of some sort.”

Mr. Wright watched James and Bridget intently
and smiled as he listened to the banter between his associates.

Chapter Three

~ The Schedule ~

Bridget opened the
passenger door and let James into the car. She then jumped into the
driver’s seat and started the Honda Accord. Although the high of
the day was in the mid to upper forties, the temperature had
quickly dropped to forty as the sun began to set. They sat and
waited for the engine to warm up, both eagerly wanting to crank up
the heat.

Her current favorite CD,
The Best of
Concrete Blonde,
spun in the CD player and began playing across
the speakers. Neither thought to change it or eject it as they both
loved the gut-wrenching lyrics and the powerful vocals of CB’s lead
singer, Johnette. Unknown to them, they were unable to change the
CD. They couldn’t even eject it or listen to the radio. Wright’s
technician made her radio play all Concrete Blonde all day
long.

James checked the contents of the glove box
and was glad to see a flashlight. He quickly examined the rest of
the interior. Nothing out of the ordinary. A couple of empty
Starbucks coffee cups, a basket of her laundry in the back seat
along with her Information Technology college books, and then he
saw it, a little black dot stuck to the bottom of the mirror.

He motioned to Bridget and guided her eyes to
the small device and she immediately knew it didn’t belong. This
was her first new car and she knew it like the back of her hand.
She nodded in confirmation, still unsure why an employee
investigator would go to this length to investigate a car accident.
The questions were stacking up in a queue in her mind.

The temperature drop had slowed and was
hovering near a chilly 39 degrees. As soon as the car’s heater
kicked in, the Honda was in drive and Bridget was off, a quick left
onto 8th Avenue.

James noticed the black Tahoe with blacked
out windows as Bridget turned on to 8th Avenue because its fog
lights were turned on and windows rolled down. He could see the
silhouette of the driver and someone in the passenger seat. It
appeared to be Mr. Wright, but he wasn’t certain. He made a mental
note of the fog lights and their placement on the vehicle. He was
sure it was them and they obviously wanted him to know they were
there. He just didn’t know who ‘
they
’ were. He instantly
knew he was doing the right thing. He kept thinking he had to keep
his friends close and his enemies closer—he needed to find out who
he was up against, he needed to find a way out.

Bridget made a quick right onto Pine. James
looked back, pretended to be collecting something from the back
seat and saw the Tahoe tailing them. He eyed the laundry basket and
came up with a quick idea. He told Bridget that he was thirsty and
to pull into the next convenience store.

James was constantly checking behind them—all
along Pine the Tahoe followed at a distance. Then moments after
Bridget’s turn onto Union, the Tahoe appeared five vehicles back.
Bridget was getting excited by the notion of it all, the cloak and
dagger tone, but surprised they went to this detail over a little
weed. The music coming across the car speakers only heightened the
experience. “Okay, we can stop at N & W Shell near my job.
That’s the nearest one I can think of, unless you want to back
track to Madison. Or I can get you a juice from The Lounge.”

“The one near your job is fine. Let’s do it
after you get your work schedule.”

By the time Concrete Blonde’s “Scene of a
Perfect Crime” was playing, she was pulling into a little known
alley street off Union. The Tahoe slowed as it drove by, then
continued on Union, James lost sight of it and was somewhat
thankful to see it go by and disappear.

Bridget opened the driver’s door, put on her
coat, and was on her way to The Lounge before James whistled to get
her attention. He got out holding up her purse. She rushed back to
him.

Five months earlier, on Christmas Day of all
days, the purse was the subject of their first argument, not an
argument really, but a clash of minds. The purse was a Chloe
knockoff that she purchased on the internet for herself as a
Christmas present. It was a decent knockoff, but failed miserably
under close inspection. He had purchased her a Cole tote for
Christmas and totally missed her sense of style.

He now regretted ever buying the Cole and she
had mixed feelings about the Chloe knockoff. Sometimes she liked
the attention it garnered from the other girls. At other times, she
despised it. Imagine having feelings for a purse, she thought, it
went against who she felt she truly was: a modern day tree-hugger.
But her lifestyle was changing back then. She acted impulsively
and, in the big scheme of things, it was just a purse. James’s
point centered on the fact she spent $590 dollars for the knockoff
purse and he’d rather she not spend much at all or buy the real
thing—why buy a knockoff at that price? It didn’t make any sense to
him.

She looked at the purse, then eyed James.
“Irony, huh? Bet you’re glad I bought it now.”

He placed the purse on the trunk of the car.
“I’ll be glad when you’re back.”

He pulled her close and whispered, “Write the
note to Cindy here, before you go into The Lounge, sign it with
something vague, something Cindy would know, but others, strangers,
wouldn’t. Grab the phone as quick as possible, also grab a work
schedule. Don’t stay. Don’t get me juice. Leave your cell phone
here. In and out, okay?”

She dug into the purse, found a pen and
notepad, and set the purse on the trunk of the car. She curled the
note in her left hand, grabbed the purse, and gave James a quick
kiss. For the first time, James felt the purse situation was
forgiven. He swore to himself, if they made it out of this alive,
he would never buy a purse again.

Moments later, she entered the backdoor to
The Lounge. Her co-workers were pleased to see her, but surprised
she was there to pick up a schedule. She could simply call, but
they were all in a rush to make money and didn’t linger on the
small details.

She hurried to the locker room. It wasn’t
really a room, more like a closet that had nine small metal lockers
where the staff could store their items during shifts. There was a
small table littered with notes, flyers, and old magazines along
one wall. One wooden chair stolen from somewhere on The Lounge’s
floor was tucked under the table.

* * * *

James waited for a few minutes and watched
Bridget turn the corner and head toward The Lounge.

Seattle blocks were like most large cities,
they were somewhere between square and rectangular and one could
calculate the driving time to circle a block. He waited twelve
minutes and didn’t see the Tahoe. James quickly jumped in the
passenger seat and started removing all of his clothing. He removed
his jacket, his shirt, his pants, and socks and stopped at his
underwear. After a few moments of contemplation, he decided to
remove them, as well.