Solar Flares & Tax Snares

by Rachel Ford

  Solar Flares & Tax Snares

  The Time Travelling Taxman, Book 9

  By Rachel Ford

  Chapter One

  Alfred Favero, senior analyst with the Internal Revenue Service, drummed his fingers on his desktop. He stared with unseeing eyes at his screen, a deep frown furrowing his brow. He had a decision to make, and time was running out. He had to get it right. But the truth was, he still didn’t know what to do.

  “Well?” Nance’s text message popped up on his phone screen. “What’s it going to be?”

  Nance – Nancy Abbot – was his fiancée and coworker. And she’d been trying to draft him into their workplace planning committee for months now. He’d steadfastly resisted.

  And then, two days earlier in their Monday morning team briefing, Director Caspersen had mentioned that she was looking to fill a recent vacancy on the committee. Nancy put Alfred’s name forward; and Caspersen nodded, saying she liked the idea. Which was precisely when Justin Lyon pounced.

  Lyon was another senior analyst. And Alfred’s office nemesis. He’d declared himself eager to sign up. “I really think the committee would benefit from more masculine presences. And, no offense Freddie, but we’ve already got Nancy on the team; we should have a little diversity of thought, shouldn’t we?”

  “Believe it or not, Justin, we do actually have ideas of our own.”

  Caspersen had glanced between the two men questioningly. “Well, give it a few days’ thought,” she’d said. “If you’re both still interested by Wednesday, the committee will put it to a vote.”

  Now, the more sensible part of Alfred’s brain urged him to let Justin have the spot. He really hadn’t been interested. On his list of least favorite things to do, party planning ranked right up there alongside party attendance. So why not let Justin have it?

  He drummed his fingers again. The pettier part of his brain argued that he couldn’t just…give up. Justin had made it a competition. He had to win. Didn’t he? And, anyway, he had a duty to fight for it now, if only because doing otherwise would mean leaving Nance to deal with Justin for the foreseeable future.

  So he picked up the phone, and typed out, “I’m in.”

  Nancy sent him a row of emojis – grinning faces and clapping hands, and even confetti. Then, she added, “You won’t regret it.”

  He snorted, and typed out, “Of course I will.”

  “Your optimism is as endearing as ever,” she returned with a kissing emoji.

  He rolled his eyes but smiled too. He could practically hear the teasing tone through her words.

  Another message popped up. “Alright, here we go. I’ll let you know how it goes as soon as the meeting’s over.”

  Alfred set the phone aside and turned back to his screen. He still had a lot of work ahead of him, and he wanted to wrap it up before he went home. So he settled into the spreadsheet he’d been examining.

  He just found his place again when a voice sounded at his door. “Well, it’s the hour of reckoning, eh?”

  He cringed. The voice, of course, belonged to Justin, who was his neighbor just down the hall. He was standing there, smiling smarmily. Alfred berated himself for leaving his door open. Rookie mistake. “What?”

  “One o’clock. That’s the meeting time, right? You know, the morale committee meeting?”

  “Is it?” Alfred asked, feigning nonchalance.

  Justin laughed. “I just wanted to say, whatever happens, it’s been fun, Freddie.”

  “Alfred. You know I don’t do nicknames.”

  “Campaigning, I mean.”

  Alfred raised an eyebrow. “Campaigning?”

  The other man shrugged. “Sure. We don’t all have girlfriends on the committee.” This was said in a pointed tone, but followed up with a smile. “Gotta make my own case, right?”

  Alfred shook his head. “It’s just a party planning committee, Justin. Not the presidency.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong.”

  “Actually, I’m really not. It’s definitely not the presidency.”

  “Obviously. I mean, it’s not ‘just’ anything. That’s the difference between you and me, Freddo: you see inside the box. But me? I don’t just want to see outside it. I want to ask why there’s even a box there at all.”

  Alfred blinked, trying to sort through the metaphor. Finally, he shook his head to rid his mind of it. “Right. Well –”

  “Which is what I said in my statement. The one I emailed everyone on the committee. We need innovation. We don’t need more of the same. We need the kind of thinking that asks, ‘what box?’”

  “Great. Well, it’s out of our hands now. We’ll find out soon enough –”

  “I know. I just – well, you know, I just want you to know, whatever happens, I have no hard feelings at all, okay?”

  “It’s just a party planning committee, Justin…”

  The other man waggled a finger at him. “No ‘just.’”

  “What I mean is, of course it’s not a problem. Whoever the committee chooses, they choose.”

  “Exactly. We’re still buds.”

  Alfred forced a half smile. “Right. Buds.”

  Justin nodded, and smiled in the same smarmy way. “Good. Now, may the best man win.”

  “It’s not a contest.”

  The other man shrugged. “I mean, it is.”

  “It’s not.”

  “But…it is.”

  They might have gone on had not their phones both sounded off at that precise moment. “Gotta run, Freddo,” Justin said.

  “Alfred,” the taxman said, shutting his door after his coworker.

  The noise had been a blaring klaxon, which was about the most unpleasant sound his phone could make. Still, Alfred didn’t mind. It meant two things, both of which he appreciated. The first and most obvious was, of course, that it got Justin out of his office. The second, and even better point, was that it signaled something big was happening. He’d been paged, and that almost never happened; but when it did, it meant something urgent, high profile, or both.

  Alfred thumbed into his locked phone and brought up the paging application. The message had been sent by a junior analyst on behalf of Special Agent Dixon. “SA Dixon requesting priority assistance.” There was a ten-digit number listed after the message for callback.

  Alfred could hear the high-pitched beeps of Justin’s phone as he began to dial. Justin had about three button presses on him. But the taxman knew something his colleague didn’t, thanks to Nance. As the IT team lead, whose job it was to oversee the interoffice telephony systems, she knew what each three-digit prefix translated to for an internal number. Dixon’s prefix was one of the most widely used in their local branch – 825. Which translated to a 7, internally. He didn’t know why it had been mapped that way. Neither did Nance; it had been setup before she got there.

  But he knew that he could drop the area code and swap a 7 for the 825. Then he could dial the last four digits of the number and reach the same line the pager indicated. But unlike Justin, who had likely dialed the number on his screen, he’d finish dialing first, and his call wouldn’t have to leave their internal system at all. Which meant, if all went well, he’d reach Dixon a second or two before the other man.

  Alfred raced through the numbers and held his breath as the line rang. A second later, someone barked into the receiver, “Dixon.”

  “Favero, responding to your page.”

  “Good. I need someone to suit up and come with me, and Rodriguez is out today.” Rodriguez was the other special agent who worked permanently out of their branch. “You interested?”

  At the same time, Justin’s speaker phone shrieked out a ringing sound, so loud it was audible through
the walls. Alfred shook his head, wondering how the other man wasn’t deaf already. To the special agent, though, he said, “Yessir. On my way.”

  Justin’s phone was still ringing as Alfred raced down the hall. He understood now why it seemed so loud: Justin hadn’t bothered to close his door. So he went in the other direction, the long way around, so he could bypass the other man’s open door.

  Still, he reached Dixon’s office in good time. The special agent glanced him over from head to toe, and then nodded; not in an excited way, but more like he was resigned, as if he hadn’t expected much more than someone with a pulse, and his expectation hadn’t been disappointed in either direction. “Alfred, right?”

  The taxman nodded, a little miffed, if he was honest, that it had to be confirmed at all. He and Dixon had worked together for years. Though their work rarely brought them in close contact, the MarvelousCon case had taken weeks to wrap up, and they’d worked together throughout. Surely that warranted remembering his name.

  “Right. Well, the mission’s simple. We’ve got a warrant to retrieve some computers and documents. I’m taking point. You’re there to make sure no one gets the drop on me.” Dixon pointed to a Kevlar vest on his desk. “We’re not expecting trouble, but Caspersen won’t let me take any of you guys into the field without one of those. So put it on.”

  Alfred did as he was bid, but he peppered the other man in questions. Where were they going? What were the documents? What was the case?

  Dixon seemed annoyed. “Look, Favero, you’re not working the case. I need someone to go with me, is all. You’re someone. So put the vest on, and let’s get to work. Okay? I’ll fill in the details on the way.”

  Alfred had no particular love of the special agents. They tended to be dismissive of analysts. They were the guys with the guns, after all; and analysts like Alfred were just, in their vernacular, the number crunchers. The taxman had his own opinions about field monkeys, and who – between an analyst and a field monkey – did the real work of the IRS. But, of course, he kept those thoughts to himself. Just like he swallowed his annoyance in the moment. “Right. But, uh, don’t I get a gun? Since we’re going into danger and all?”

  Dixon laughed. “I’m up for retirement in two months, Favero. I don’t plan to get fired because I put a gun in some paper pusher’s hands, and he killed people. No offense. But you’re not going into combat. You don’t need a gun.”

  “But I need a bulletproof vest?”

  “That’s Caspersen’s call. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t bother.”

  Alfred frowned at the man, glad that it wasn’t up to him. But Dixon didn’t seem to notice. He just urged, “Come on. I want to get this done so I can be out of here by three.”

  Then they headed outside, to a huge black SUV. It looked brand new. It looked like it probably cost as much as Alfred’s house. It had been parked, obnoxiously, right in front of the entrance. Which, the taxman was quite sure, violated all kinds of fire and safety codes.

  Still, he found himself glancing at the special agent, in his expensive black suit and polished leather shoes, and then at his own, far humbler business casual. In his mind’s eye, he pictured medieval knights riding into battle, and he felt he knew a little of what their poor squires must have felt in comparison to those great men.

  Then, he shrugged the feeling aside. Dixon might have been an agent of the law, and a member of the most important branch of law enforcement at that; but he was also a prat. An overdressed one at that.

  They climbed into the vehicle. There were so many switches and controls it looked more like a cockpit than an SUV interior. Dixon played with a few of the switches, and Alfred started as lights he hadn’t even noticed began to flash, and a siren blared out.

  Now, the special agent flashed a grin. “Let’s go.”

  If Dixon had ever passed a driving school, Alfred sincerely hoped they’d lost their accreditation. Because the man drove like an absolute maniac, weaving through traffic, blaring his horn at other vehicles – and even pedestrians. More than once as he whipped through the busy streets, he had to go from a forty or fifty mile an hour speed – where the posted speed was twenty-miles an hour – to a dead stop.

  Alfred was pretty sure he’d have whiplash before the day was out. Still, he held on tight to his seat, hoped like heck they’d live through the trip, and tried to attend to the other man’s words.

  They were going to raid the office of an associate of the governor’s: a man called Fred Donaldson, who currently ran half a dozen campaign-related LLC’s and PAC’s. He’d run dozens of additional PAC’s over the years, unofficially supporting various candidates – candidates who paid handsomely for minor services from his permanent businesses.

  He was, Alfred learned, a big name in political circles, but in a behind-the-scenes kind of way. “He’s the guy you go to if you need to win a campaign, and you’ve got a lot of money,” the special agent said. “Whether you need dirt – real or otherwise – on your opponent, or ads for your campaign – or ads that have no official link to your campaign. You go buy signs for five thousand times the going rate from this guy, and all of a sudden he spins up a super PAC that runs ads calling your opponent a Satanist.”

  Alfred shook his head grimly. It was the unholy grail of sleaze: politics and tax fraud. He found himself forgiving Dixon’s behavior and driving, though, as he listened. A prat he might be, but he was a prat doing God’s work. He was taking bad men off the street and making the world a little bit less awful.

  “So,” Dixon was saying, “you see why you don’t need a gun. This guy is as white collar as it gets. He’s not going to gun you down.”

  Alfred nodded. The odds of that did seem increasingly unlikely.

  “I just need someone to make sure we don’t miss anything. And your file looked pretty good.” Dixon and Alfred frowned at the same time, though for different reasons.

  Alfred was taking serious umbrage with the qualifier. His file didn’t look pretty good. It looked damned good. Which was saying a lot, since Alfred, in general, detested the use of such vulgarity. But in the particular, he felt it was truly merited.

  Dixon seemed to be frowning in concentration though. “I think we worked together on a case, actually, didn’t we? You, me, and the cute chick from IT? Nance, I think her name is?”

  Alfred frowned at him. “On the MarvelousCon case.”

  Dixon barked out a laugh. “That’s right. You were the one dressed up in pointy ears.”

  “It’s cosplay, actually. I was Spock.”

  “And she had spots or something, right?”

  This was said in an appreciative fashion that Alfred didn’t much care for. “You know, our cosplay really had nothing to do with the case.”

  The other man grinned. “Maybe not. But I remember the spots.” He glanced over at Alfred, taking his eyes off the road for a perilously long time. “You two were a thing for a while, right?”

  “She’s my fiancée.”

  Now, for the first time, Dixon looked impressed by Alfred. “No kidding? Nice.”

  “Anyway…” the taxman said, deciding he didn’t like Special Agent Dixon after all, “you need me to help you find the relevant documents?”

  “Right. It’s a straightforward mission: get in, grab the files, get out. You just follow my lead. I’ll do all the talking, okay?”

  That ought to go over well, he thought sourly. Aloud, though, he said, “Knock yourself out.”

  They reached Donaldson’s offices about two minutes later, and squealed to a halt outside the front doors, siren blaring away. Alfred had the idea that a stealthier approach might have proved more beneficial since Dixon was worried about them shredding documents or deleting files. Why announce yourself, and let the bad guys get a head start on evidence disposal?

  But Dixon was calling the shots, as he’d made abundantly clear. So Alfred tried to mimic his manic energy as he leaped out of the vehicle and raced up the steps of the nondescript office building, bad
ge in hand.

  They burst into the lobby. Dixon waved his badge in front of a terrified receptionist’s face and screamed out his credentials. “Fred Donaldson: where is he?”

  “Up-upstairs. In the executive suite,” she stammered out. “But what’s-what’s this all about?”

  “How do we get up there?”

  “The elevator. And then, Mr. Donaldson needs to buzz you in.”

  Dixon fixed her with a hard stare. “You can’t do that, Miss…” He glanced at her name plate. “Gloria?”

  “Well, yes, but –”

  He slapped his badge on the reception counter in front of her, and the sound echoed through the space. “Ma’am, this is an IRS investigation. We have a warrant to search these premises. Now, are you going to help us, or are you going to obstruct the IRS?”

  The woman went white as a sheet and stammered out her apologies. Of course she would help them. She was a good, taxpaying citizen. She’d never obstruct the IRS. Of course not.

  Dixon nodded, and retrieved his badge. “Good girl. That’s what I thought.”

  The fact that she was not a girl, and hadn’t been for a decade and a half, didn’t seem to make any never mind to Dixon. Alfred wasn’t sure if he was deliberately being patronizing, or if he’d gotten to that stage in his life where he just passively considered everyone under thirty a kid. Either way, it sounded patronizing as hell, and he flashed an apologetic smile the woman’s way as they passed.

  “And remember,” Dixon called over his shoulder, “no calls to Donaldson. That would definitely be interference.”

  “Yessir. Of course. Not a word.”

  They stepped into the elevator and rode in silence to the third and top story. Dixon opened his jacket, revealing a holster and sidearm underneath. “Just in case,” he said, adding with a grin. “Anyway, I like to let them see it. Tends to make them more…cooperative. The white collars, anyway.”

  They stepped out into a swanky reception room, and an unmanned reception desk. That struck Alfred as peculiar. The tax cheat owned his own building. Why would he have a receptionist downstairs, but not one outside his executive suite? Surely, he could afford it; and surely, he’d want a last guardian to turn away the unwashed masses if they got to his door.