Time To Hunt

by David Archer

  When they got to the house and went inside, Sarah set the food on the table and dug out plates and silverware, then told the men they could dish up their own. She made a plate for herself and carried it into the living room, plopping herself on the couch.

  Neil grinned at Noah and made himself a plate, and Noah followed suit. They followed Sarah into the living room, but Neil set down his plate and went back into the kitchen to bring them each a bottle of root beer. “Root beer is the only soda pop that goes with chicken,” he said. “Nothing else tastes right, not to me.”

  “You won’t get any argument from me,” Sarah said, twisting off the top and taking a swallow. She leaned herself gently against Noah, who had sat down beside her.

  Noah picked up the remote and turned on the television, and quickly found a movie that appealed to them all. They watched it as they ate, and then found another one when it was over. For that evening, the mission and everything else were forgotten as they simply relaxed together.

  Noah got up quietly the next morning, intending to let Sarah stay in bed and get some sleep. She woke, however, while he was in the shower and was sitting up when he came out.

  “Do you have any idea,” she began, “just how hot you are when you walk out of the shower like that?”

  Noah looked down at himself, then back up her. “In a towel?” he asked.

  She nodded, grinning. “Yep,” she said. “In a towel.” She suddenly jumped up off the bed and snatched at the towel, stealing it away and leaving him standing naked in the bedroom. “Of course, that’s something of an improvement,” she said, the grin turning into a smile.

  Noah took her face in his hands and kissed her, then turned and started getting dressed. “I need to go see Morgan,” he said, “but I promise to make it up to you later. Would you mind to go make some coffee, since you’re already up?”

  She snapped him with the towel and ran out of the bedroom, her tongue between her teeth as she laughed. Noah stared after her for a moment, then continued dressing. By the time he got out to the kitchen a few minutes later, she already had a cup poured for him and Neil was sitting at the table with one of his own.

  “New development,” Neil said. “I woke up this morning to a message from Molly. She says Wally’s people dismantled that little bomb in a high-pressure chamber yesterday, and it turns out the explosive in it wasn’t a whole lot more powerful than a firecracker. It still would’ve probably killed you, because it was right next to a major artery, but it wasn’t anything special as far as explosives go.”

  “I guess that’s something,” Noah said.

  “Yeah, but that wasn’t all. Remember how Monique told you that it had some kind of receiver built in, something she could send a code to, in order to set it off?”

  “Sure,” Noah said. “What about it?”

  “It was one of ours. The same detonator chip we’re using in the phone cases. She could send a signal through any cell tower, anywhere, and it would’ve gone off.”

  Noah looked at him for a moment. “Ours were developed recently by Wally’s people,” Noah said. “That means she’s almost certainly got somebody inside R&D.”

  Neil nodded sadly. “That’s how it looks,” he said. “And we have absolutely no idea who it could be. She may already know that it’s been removed from your arm.”

  “In which case, she’s going to know I’m working against her and will want me dead.”

  “Oh, geez,” Sarah said. “Can’t we ever get a break?”

  “Don’t get upset yet,” Noah said. “We don’t know for sure that she knows anything.”

  “She knew we were going back to Neverland,” Neil said. “She knew you were going out to R&D to pick up the phones. Do you really think there’s much chance she didn’t have somebody there watching what was going on with you?”

  “Probably not, I grant you,” Noah replied. “I just don’t see any sense in anticipating a problem until we are certain that it really does exist. I’ll keep an eye out for anything that seems amiss, but all we can do at this point is hope for the best and wait to see what happens.”

  Sarah looked up at him. “I’ll be glad when Marco gets here,” she said. “He can help watch your back, if nothing else.”

  Noah nodded. “He’s supposed to call me this morning, and I’m going to pitch Morgan on letting me bring him in. If I can, I’ll try to keep him with me all the time.” He took a drink of his coffee. “While I’m gone, get your own guns out. I don’t want anybody coming through that door that you don’t know. If somebody tries, shoot first and then call me. I’ll handle it.”

  Neil got up and went to his bedroom, returning a moment later with his own machine pistol and Sarah’s Beretta. He handed her the pistol, and she quickly checked its magazine and then chambered a round.

  “Trust me,” she said. “Nobody is getting in who shouldn’t.”

  They talked for a few more minutes, and then Noah headed toward the door. Sarah grabbed the chance for another kiss, and then Noah returned to the car, fired it up, and was out the driveway only a minute later.

  When he pulled up at Morgan’s house, he popped open the trunk and motioned for one of the security guys to come over. “Grab that box,” he said, “and follow me.” The man nodded and did as he was told, and Noah led him up the stairs and onto the porch. He knocked on the door and smiled when Marlene opened it for him.

  She returned the smile. “Oh, my goodness, it’s about time you got back,” she said. “I swear, Jimmy seems to think you’re one of the best things ever happened to him.” She glanced at the man holding the box. “If that’s the stuff you went to get, he says to just take it into his office and he’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Sure thing,” Noah said, and he motioned for the man to follow him through the hallways. The office door was standing open, so he told the guy to set the box down on the floor and then go back to what he was doing.

  Morgan came in a moment later and clapped Noah on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Rex,” he said. He pointed at the box. “That them?”

  Noah bent down and opened the flaps, took out one of the new phones, and handed it to Morgan, then pulled his own out of his pocket. “I went ahead and set one up for me. I hope that’s okay. They work just like any other smartphone, so everybody should be able to handle them.”

  Morgan was grinning from ear to ear as he took the new phone out of its box and began looking it over. “This is actually pretty nice,” he said. “Delphine? Is that a new brand?”

  “Not really,” Noah said. “Wally said they went out of business a few years ago, and his company bought the last of their inventory of encrypted phones. These weren’t actually available to the general public—they were for government and police, that sort of thing—but he was able to buy them when they shut down. That’s why I could get them so cheap.”

  Morgan nodded. “How do we get them turned on?”

  “They’re already set up for Artel, so all we have to do is take them to any Artel store. It only takes a few minutes to turn them on and copy the phone number from your old phone, and it even keeps all your contacts and such.”

  “Then let’s get busy,” Morgan said. “I’ll start calling everybody to come and get their new phone, and they can run by the store out by Walmart and get it activated. The sooner we have this security, the sooner I’m gonna like it.”

  The big man sat down behind his desk and took out his current phone, then started making calls. Forney and his daytime security team were already present at the house, so they came to get theirs only a few minutes later. Noah explained how to take them to the Artel store and have the technicians there activate them.

  “Looks a lot like the one I’ve got now,” Forney said.

  “There’s a lot of similarities,” Noah said. “I think the Delphine company may have copied one like yours. I can tell you they work great, though. I already got mine turned on.”

  “And once we’ve got them all working,” Morgan said, “nob
ody can listen in on the calls we make to each other. Just make sure your boys know to be careful what they say when they call home or talk to anybody that doesn’t have one of these. We don’t need any feds getting any recordings of stuff they shouldn’t know, know what I mean?”

  “Don’t worry, Jimmy,” Forney said with a grin, hooking a thumb at Noah. “Rex already read me the riot act about that, and I’ve been doing the same thing to my guys ever since. We’ll make sure nobody screws it up, won’t we, Rex?”

  “Damn straight,” Noah said.

  Forney took an extra phone for Ralph and then gathered up his men and the boy to go and get them activated. A couple of other men had shown up by then, and Noah went through the explanation again, and then again a few minutes later when the next group, with some of the women, arrived. As he handed over each phone, Noah adjusted his sunglasses and photographed each person.

  It was almost eight thirty by the time all of the phones were passed out, with the exception of the ones that would go to the evening and night-security men. Morgan said he would have someone see to those later.

  The two of them were talking about Noah’s idea for enhancing the liquor business when his phone rang. He took it out and looked at it. He recognized Marco’s number but deliberately put a slightly confused expression on his face as he answered.

  “Hello?”

  Marco’s voice boomed through the speaker loud enough for Morgan to hear it across the desk. “That be Rex over dere? Hey, man, it be Aubrey! Aubrey LeBlanc, you remember me?”

  Noah let a smile spread across his face, as Morgan cast him a quizzical look. Marco’s Cajun accent was enough to make anybody curious.

  “Aubrey,” Noah said. “Yeah, it’s Rex. How you been, man?”

  “I’ve been out dat bad place goin’ tree weeks now,” Marco said loudly. “I call de man whose number you gave me, and he tell me this be your phone number. What you doing, now? You stay out of trouble, no?”

  Noah chuckled. “Yeah, for the most part,” he said. “I live in Arkansas, now. Where are you?”

  “Ah, I be in Baton Rouge. I come see my sister, it do been a long time. I spend a few days, den I call dat man, I say tell me where is Rex, and he give me dis number. I will come see you, yes?”

  “Aubrey, hold on a minute,” Noah said. He muted the phone and looked at Morgan. “Jimmy, I know I’m new here and all that, but do you think you might have a place for a good friend of mine? We were in Beaumont together, and I got to know him when I was in the hole. He’s our kind of people, as long as you don’t mind a Cajun.”

  Morgan looked at Noah for a long moment, then nodded his head. “Tell him to come on,” he said. “If you vouch for him, that’s good enough for me. Where would you suggest we put him?”

  Noah turned his grin into a vicious one. “You said something about making me an enforcer,” he said. “Aubrey LeBlanc is the kind of man I’d want watching my back. He saved my ass a couple of times when we were out for rec, when some of the gangbangers tried to jump on me. Between the two of us, we took down seven of them. Even the COs were impressed.”

  Morgan gave him a single nod. “You realize I’ll be holding you responsible for him, right? Okay, then, he’s all yours. Tell him two grand a week, but make sure he understands he may have to pull a trigger sometimes.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Noah said. He turned back to the phone and reactivated the microphone. “Aubrey? You want a job? Kinda like the job you had before you got jammed up—interested?”

  There was quiet on the line for a moment, as “Aubrey” seemed to think it over. “I be working wit you?”

  “Yep, you sure will. Good pay, and not much to worry about. I fell into something good, here, and I could use you. How soon can you get here?”

  “You tell me where I come,” Marco said, “I be dere tonight! We gon’ be havin’ fun, yes?”

  Noah laughed. “You bet,” he said. He told Marco to come to Berryville and call when he arrived, and had to hold the phone away from his ear when Marco let out a Cajun “Oh, yez!”

  He ended the call and put the phone back into his pocket. “Aubrey’s one of the few men in the world I think is tougher than I am,” he said to Morgan, “but he seems to think the same about me. He’ll always have my back, which means he’s always got yours.”

  “Sounds good,” Morgan said. “Now, let’s get back on your trucker buddy.”

  Noah grinned. “Matt’s out on a run for the next couple of days, but he called me back last night. I gave him kind of a vague notion of what I’m thinking, didn’t want to say too much over the phone, but he’s definitely interested. He’ll be back at his place sometime in the next day or so, and then we can really talk about it.”

  “You’re pretty sure he’ll play ball? If we can get quality liquor by the truckload, it’ll be worth spending the money to set up a warehouse.”

  “He will,” Noah said. “After he got out, he and I kept in touch. I think I told you I almost went to work for him after I got out, right? I already knew his company was doing this kind of thing, but I was blown away when I saw just how big his operation really is. He’s got a couple hundred trucks, and I bet twenty of them are always running hot trailers. I’d guess he could get us six or eight loads a week.”

  Morgan played with a calculator on his desk for a couple of minutes, then whistled. “If we could average thirty loads a month, that could be a clear profit of close to seventy million a year. Add that to what we make on the legitimate liquor sales, it’ll probably get close to eighty or eighty-five million. That ain’t nothing to sneeze at, Rex. You put this deal together, I’ll cut you in for five percent.”

  Noah’s eyebrows shot up, and he smiled. “Five percent? Geez, Jimmy, that’s like four million dollars a year. For that kind of money, I may have to come up with a few more good ideas.”

  The two of them laughed together. “I’ll be ready to hear them if you do,” Morgan said. “Like I told you, I think you’re exactly the kind of guy I’ve been looking for for a long time. You’re smart, you’re not afraid to do what has to be done, and you’ve already got some connections of your own. A guy like you can live real good, here, if you don’t get too big for your britches.”

  Noah waved a hand in dismissal. “No chance of that,” he said. “I’m not that great a businessman. The last thing in the world I’d ever want to do is try to run an operation even a tenth as big as this one. I know damn well I’d mess up and find myself right back in Bloody Beaumont, and that’s the last thing I ever want. Me and Angie want to have kids of our own someday, and it just wouldn’t work out for their daddy to be in the joint.”

  Morgan stared into his eyes for a moment, then smiled. “You stick with me, Rex,” he said. “You’ll go farther than you ever dreamed you could.” He picked up his new phone and waved it at Noah. “Let’s go get my phone turned on, okay?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  As they left the Artel store an hour later, Morgan directed Noah to another building in town. “This is where Heather works,” he said.

  Noah parked the car in front of the little building that was marked only by a sign that read “Happy Maids.” He looked at it for a moment, then turned to Morgan. “A cleaning service?”

  Morgan laughed. “Not exactly,” he said. “We do have plenty of girls that do cleaning, but a lot of these maids probably make more messes than they ever clean up. Most of their clientele are, let’s just say, single men. They don’t have a wife to clean house, but they also don’t have one for other things, and that’s where Heather and the girls come in. The men like it because all their neighbors see is a car with a Happy Maids sign pull up in front of the house and some pretty girl gets out and carries a bucket full of cleaning supplies to the front door. It’s not really that big a secret, but everybody pretends it is. This is the main office.”

  He got out of the car, and Noah followed him into the building. He had seen Heather earlier in the morning, when she came to the house to pic
k up her new phone, and she gave both of them a big smile when she looked up from her desk to see them.

  “Jimmy,” she said. “And Rex, right? To what do I owe the pleasure this morning?”

  “I’m just showing Rex around,” Morgan said. “He’s turned out to be a pretty bright guy, and I want him to get a good idea of everything I’m into. He’s already come up with a couple of good ideas, like those phones we passed out this morning. The more he knows about what we do, the better the ideas he can come up with.”

  Heather turned her brightest smile on and aimed it at Noah. “Well, awesome,” she said. “What would you like to know?”

  Noah gave her a grin. “Well, I think I have a fair idea of what you do,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s not a business I’ve ever been involved with. Are there any particular problems that you run into?”

  The pretty blonde made a nonchalant shrug. “Not a lot of them,” she said. “Every once in a while one of the clients gets a little rough with one of the girls, or maybe forgets to mention that he doesn’t have any money when she shows up. In either case we usually ask Jimmy to send someone out to visit the guy, and that seems to handle it. Of course, we never service them again.”

  “Okay,” Noah said. “Have any of the girls been seriously injured?”

  “Well, Jill got her jaw broken a couple months ago, and another girl got her arm broken once. Usually it’s just a few bruises, though, nothing a little makeup can’t cover.”

  Noah nodded. “How do you find out about these injuries? Is it after everything is already over, or do they have a way to let you know something is going wrong at the time?”

  Heather looked at him blankly for a moment. “Well, it’s after,” she said. “I mean, we don’t exactly have a way to watch what’s going on inside the client’s house, right?”

  “Of course not,” Noah said, “but each of the girls should have some way to call for help in a hurry if they need it.” He turned to Morgan. “I’m thinking of something like a panic button, on a necklace, maybe. I’m sure I can find a way to get something like that, so all the girl would have to do is squeeze it hard, and it would show up on the computer here in the office that she was in trouble. If Heather had a man who could go to the rescue, it might keep things from getting out of hand.”