by Roy Glenn
When he got inside he, Mike and Shy were seated at a table in the back. When he saw Nick come in, Mike stood up and motioned for him to join them.
“Hello, Shy. It’s good to see that you’re all right.”
“Thank you, Nick. I’m just glad it’s over. You look nice,” Shy said of Nick, who was dressed in a tuxedo.
“Thank you, Shy,” Nick replied graciously as he sat down. “Wasn’t that Gomez I saw getting in that limo?”
Mike looked at Shy and smiled. “Was it? I didn’t see him.”
“Must not have been him. You couldn’t miss him in a place this size.”
“Guess not,” Mike said.
“Where you going, Nick?” Shy asked.
“I’m going to meet Wanda. We’re going to a party at Martin Marshall’s house.”
“What are you gonna do? Walk up to him and ask if he had that reporter killed?” Mike asked.
“Something like that.”
“Handle your business,” Shy said.
“How’s your partner, Monika?” Mike asked.
“She’s doing a lot better. She’s coming with us tonight, were gonna set up a little something on Marshall tonight,” Nick said as Travis, Jackie and Vonda walked in the restaurant.
Mike stood up. “Hello, Jackie,” he said and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Shy rolled her eyes and Jackie returned the favor by rolling her eyes right back at her.
“Travis,” Mike said and extended his hand. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
Travis accepted his hand. “Good to meet you too, Mr. Black.”
“Black will do. This is my wife Cassandra, Travis Burns and Jackie Washington.”
“Please call me, Shy,” she said.
Mike turned to Nick. “Have you two met?” he asked and pointed at Travis.
“No,” Nick told him. “Nick Simmons.” The two shook hands.
“I know you gotta go, Nick.” Mike paused. “Why don’t you take Travis with you tonight? From what I hear, Mr. Burns is very good with computers. He might be useful.”
“Yeah,” Nick said nodding his head. “I think we can find some use for him tonight.” Nick turned to Travis. “You ready?”
“Yes,” Travis said and followed Nick out the door. He was excited just to be invited to meet Mike Black and to have him say that he might be useful made his night.
“Don’t worry, Jackie. Nick will take good care of your boy.”
“Travis is a big boy. He can take care of himself,” Jackie said and started to sit down.
“Who are you?” Mike asked as Vonda was about to take a seat.
“Black, this is Vonda. She’s the newest member of our team.”
“It’s good to meet you, Vonda, but why don’t you wait over there?” Mike said and pointed at the bar.
While Vonda walked toward the bar, Jackie sat down. “Can I order you something?” Mike asked and signaled for a waiter.
Jackie picked up a menu. “I’ll have Hennessey on the rocks and some Shrimp Dumplings,” she told the waiter.
“And the lady at the bar,” Mike said to the waiter and pointed at Vonda. “Put whatever she orders on my check.” Once the waiter was gone Mike said, “I heard that you were very valuable to Freeze the other night.”
“I just did what I had to do,” Jackie replied.
“I appreciate that,” Mike said and discreetly handed her an envelope. “I won’t forget what you did.”
“Thank you.” Jackie put the envelope in her purse.
“I may have some other things that you could do for me.” Causing Jackie’s mind to wander to the things she’d like to do for him. “But we’ll talk about that some other time,” Mike said and turned to Shy.
“You used to work at Frontier pharmaceuticals, right?” Shy asked.
“I sure did. I used to be a chemist, until they fired me for insubordination for refusing to work on a project on my own time.”
“That’s not right,” Shy said. “What I need Jackie is for you to tell me everything you know about Frontier.”
While Jackie sipped on Hennessey and munched on her Shrimp Dumplings steamed in a jalapeno sauce, she told Shy what she wanted to know. Once Jackie was finished, Shy told her exactly what she wanted her to do.
Chapter Thirty-nine
At the home of Martin Marshall, the party had begun. The house was packed to overflowing with his guests, talking, drinking, and snacking on finger food. Marshall’s guests were the rich and powerful. The political crowd for the most part, a few wealthy campaign contributors, and the usual array of hangers-on who always seem to show up at these types of events.
Earlier in the evening, when Nick and Travis picked up Monika, she came out of the house dressed in a beautiful electric blue silk gown by Stephen Yearick. It had a straight neckline, multiple beaded straps over the left shoulder, low asymmetrical back, asymmetrical beading in silver and midnight blue. She had wrapped her head with a scarf that matched her dress to cover her bandages and a patch over her eye.
The sight of her walking toward the car caused Nick to laugh at her struggling to walk in heels and Travis to sit up straight in his seat and take notice of her hips swaying from side to side.
“Only for you, Nick,” Monika said as she got in the car. “And not a word about these heels. I don’t know how I ever got anywhere in these things.”
After Nick filled Monika in on the details of the job they were going to run, they went and picked up their surveillance van. While Monika gave Travis a crash course on the equipment and what he had to do, Nick caught a cab to pick up Wanda and Glynnis.
Once they were inside, Glynnis drifted off to socialize with her colleagues leaving Nick and Wanda alone. Wanda looked at Nick.
“You look very nice in a tux, Nick.”
“I was just about to tell you how beautiful you look tonight, but you always look beautiful.”
“Well thank you, Nick.” Wanda blushed. She wore a black crepe gown with a sweetheart neckline with beaded straps from the center bust and sheer insets at the waist. “I thought that you were going to bring someone else with you. I was hoping to meet her.”
“She’s here. I saw her wondering around when we first got here. I didn’t want us to be seen together. You’ll meet her soon enough. She’s checking out the house to get the lay out in case we need to come back again. In fact, do you see that woman over there with the blue dress?”
“The one with a patch over her eye?”
“That’s her,” Nick said.
“She’s pretty, Nick.”
“You’re not jealous are you, Wanda?” Nick hoped.
“No, of course not. Why should I be jealous?”
“Why should you?”
Truth be told, Wanda was beginning to enjoy Nick’s company and was just a bit jealous, but she wasn’t ready to admit it, not even to herself, so she changed the subject.
“Have you spotted Marshall yet?”
“No, not yet,” Nick replied and looked around the room. “But he’s here somewhere; I don’t think he’d miss his own party.”
While Wanda and Nick waited for Marshall to show himself, Travis sat outside in the van. It was like being a kid on Christmas morning, as Travis played with all of the devices that Monika had introduced him to. His assignment in this operation was to watch and listen. Monika explained that the image on screen before him was a satellite generated, 3-dimensioal thermal image of Marshall’s house. She told him that the red lines represented wall so he could see each room in the house.
“What are those dots in each room?” Travis had asked earlier.
“Those represent everybody in the house. But we’re not gonna use that this time,” Monika said and turned that function off. “Once we get inside, you’ll see two moving indicators. One will be me and the other will be Nick. Are you familiar with the Greek alphabet?”
“Yes.”
“Nick is alpha, I’m beta and you are omega. Once we identify Marshall, I’ll tag him, and yo
u’ll be able to track him too. He’ll be gamma.”
The other device that Monika had Travis monitor was a parabolic microphone. That device magnifies distant sounds allowing them to locate the source of sound and suppress background noises. “Because of its special design, it is capable of picking up and magnifying signals up to 75 times that of a normal omni-directional microphone,” Monika told him.
While he waited for Monika to tag Marshall, Travis was amusing himself by listening to different sounds and conversations going on around the house. He listened to a couple of boring conversations at the party, picked up and identified where the kitchen and the bathroom were, he even overheard a couple having sex in one of the rooms on the second floor.
Travis was drifting from conversation to conversation when he found one that interested him. He knew he had something when he heard Black’s name mentioned and immediately began recording the conversation.
“…I don’t want there to be anyway this can come back and bite me.”
“You worry too much, my friend. Once the word begins to spread about his involvement in this business, his political allies will run for cover and you will have no need to fear him.”
“But if you can’t find that package or whatever you call it, and it becomes public it will put me and a lot of our friends in an extremely compromised position.”
“If that happens, which it won’t, because I assure you that the package will be recovered, we have set these things in motion so the spotlight will be on Mike Black …” the man said and laughed. “and others that I will make known to you when the time is right.”
“There is one other thing that concerns me.”
“What is that, my friend?”
“DeFrancisco. He’s shaky. I am not sure we can trust him to keep his mouth shut if anything goes wrong.”
“How much does he really know? What have you told him?”
“I only told him what he needed to know to put the operation in motion. Still, he has me, and I don’t need any more heat. I just got somebody else’s stink off me.”
“He is your man. When he has outlived his usefulness, you will have to insure his silence.”
“I’ve got to get back downstairs.”
“I understand completely. I will leave through the service entrance.”
After that, Travis heard what sounded like footfalls walking and the door opening and closing. He tried to follow the walking sound, but he couldn’t stay with it.
“This is beta,” Monika said into her wireless microphone. “Objective acquired. I’m moving toward him.”
“Acknowledged,” Nick said.
“Acknowledged beta. I have you,” Travis said feeling like old times.
Monika began to approach Marshall, who was standing with a woman and a man. She grabbed a glass of champagne from a waiter as he passed and stood close to Marshall. When he turned to walk away, Monika stepped in his path and purposely bumped into him. She placed a very small device on the sleeve of his jacket. Marshall smiled when he saw Monika. “I am terribly sorry, miss?”
“Ryan, Jeri Ryan,” Monika said.
“Martin Marshall.”
“I know who you are, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. And it is me who owes you an apology. I should watch where I’m going. A bit too much champagne,” Monika said and raised her glass.
“Are you okay? Do you need somebody to drive you home?” Marshall looked at Monika the way a predator looks at his prey and took a step closer.
“No, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Monika said and tried to move away from him.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m quite sure, but thank you for the offer.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I was wondering about the eye patch?”
“I was hurt in an accident recently. They weren’t able to save the eye.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Are you all right?”
“Other than this, I’m fine,” Monika said, anxious to get away from Marshall. “Well, Mr. Marshall it was a pleasure meeting you.”
“And you as well, Ms. Ryan.” Marshall handed her a card. “Call me sometime. Maybe we can get together and have a drink.”
“I’m sure that pretty wife of yours won’t like that at all,” Monika said and walked away. When she had gotten far enough away, she said, “Objective is tagged.”
“Acknowledged beta. Omega, do you have him?”
“I have him, alpha,” Travis said.
“Acknowledged omega, I’m coming to you,” Monika said and began moving toward the front door.
“Advise me when you get there, beta,” Nick said.
“Acknowledged.”
“What happens now?” Wanda asked.
“We wait until Monika gets back to the truck and then we’ll make our move,” Nick told her.
“I just gotta say, this is all very exciting to me.”
Nick smiled. “What’s that, Wanda?”
“All this spy stuff. You know I don’t get out much, so like I said, I’m just glad to be a part of it all. Did Mike say anything when you told him I was coming with you?”
“No. He knows it’s you that has the contacts. What could he say?”
“Do the words conspiracy to commit a felony mean anything to you, Wanda?” she said trying to sound like Mike.
“You’re right.” Nick laughed, knowing that she was right. Mike had always been very protective about what parts of the business he involved Wanda in. “Maybe it won’t be an issue for much longer.”
“Maybe.”
“You think we’re really getting out?”
“I don’t know, Nick,” Wanda said and looked into Nick’s eyes. She had the strongest urge to kiss him, but she ignored it. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“This is beta. I’m in position,” Monika said when she got to the van.
“Acknowledged, beta. Assume operational control.”
“Acknowledged.”
Travis started to get up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Monika asked.
“I thought that meant he wanted you in this spot,” Travis said looking confused.
“I am assuming operational control. I am now in command here, that’s what that means to me.” Monika looked around the van. “This is your baby, you handle it. I blow shit up.” And with that Travis sat down.
“I got something I want you and Nick to listen to later. I recorded it earlier, I think it might be important.”
Back inside the Marshall house, Nick got ready to make his move. He asked Wanda if she would go and get Glynnis to walk him over and introduce him to Marshall. “I can introduce you to him,” Wanda said. “I mean I do know him.”
“I’m sure that you do,” Nick said as they walked. “But if he knows you, then he knows that you work for Mike Black and I want to keep him out of it.”
Wanda looked at Nick skeptically. “Okay. As long as you’re not just trying to protect me. I’m a big girl, you know.”
Nick looked at Wanda the way a predator looks at his prey. “I can see that.”
Wanda smiled. “I can take care of myself,” she said as they found Glynnis.
“So, you guys ready to meet the man?” Glynnis asked.
“He is, I’m not,” Wanda said. “Nick is afraid that Marshall will connect me to Mike.”
“Yes, that’s right. I didn’t think of that.”
“Neither did I,” Wanda frowned. “So, I’m going home. Will you be all right, Glynnis?”
“Oh sure, Wanda, I’ll be fine with this crowd.”
“Okay, then. Will you please call me later, Nick?” she looked at Glynnis. “Just to let me know how things worked out?”
“I promise; I’ll call you later.”
Chapter Forty
Nick and Glynnis watched Wanda until she was out of the house. Glynnis turned to Nick. “Okay, handsome, let’s go.”
“When we get to him, Glynnis, introduce me as Patrick Mitchell.”<
br />
“Patrick Mitchell, right.”
When Nick and Glynnis approached Marshall, he was talking to two men. “Hello Martin,” Glynnis said and tapped him on the shoulder.
Marshall turned around. “Glynnis, it’s so good to see you,” he said and turned to the men he was with. “Will you gentlemen excuse me?” he asked.
“I’ll give you a call, Marty. We can discuss this further over 18 holes,” one of the men said.
“I’ll make some time on my schedule,” Marshall promised, and the men went away. “Thank you for coming to my rescue, Glynnis. Lobbyists, always want something.”
“I know how that goes, believe me. I want to introduce you to Patrick Mitchell. Patrick, this is Martin Marshall, he’s a state senator.”
“Patrick, right? Good to meet you.”
“It’s an honor to meet you sir,” Nick said and the two shook hands.
“Oh,” Glynnis said. “There goes Chris. I just have to talk to him. I’ll be right back, Patrick.” Glynnis hurried away leaving Nick alone with Marshall.
“So, what business are you in, Patrick? Don’t tell me that you’re a lobbyist.” Marshall joked.
“No, sir, nothing as complicated as that. I’m a private investigator.”
“Really?” Marshall said and laughed a little. “What are you investigating? And please don’t say you’re investigating me.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about a murder.”
“A murder?”
“Tavia Hawkins. Do you know her?” Nick asked and Marshall’s facial expression changed.
“I’m afraid I do. That woman has made a career of writing lies about me. Did she send you?”
“No sir. She was found dead last night.”
“Oh, my goodness, that’s terrible. How did it happen?”
“An overdose of sleeping pills.”
“Sleeping pills? I thought you said she was murdered?”
“I never said she was murdered. I just asked if you knew her.”
“I see. How can I help you, Mr. Mitchell?”
“I know the story she was working on was about you,” Nick lied. “I was wondering what you could tell me about that?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Marshall smiled. “But I’d be happy to do what I can to help. Let’s get together and talk about this at another time.” Marshall handed Nick his card. “Call me at my office and I’ll look into it. Now if you’ll excuse me.”