by Jeff Siebold
“Perhaps you’ll be more forthcoming with our friends from the FBI,” said Zeke. Kimmy smiled at Jobare Worthington and nodded.
Jobare said nothing, but his expression went from smug to cautious.
“I’m sure they’ll be by to visit you in a day or two,” said Zeke.
No response from Jobare.
Zeke threw the phone back on the couch, next to Jobare. “We’ll let ourselves out,” he said.
* * *
Deputy Chief O’Malley shook his head.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” he said.
“There’s a connection between Worthington and Hanson,” said Zeke, jumping ahead.
“Looks like it. Roy doesn’t work for anyone except Freddy Hanson,” O’Malley said.
“That could be the link between the school and the Student Loan fraud,” said Zeke. “Someone in the school has to release the funds at some point. At Raleigh it could be Jobare, a Dean, or it could be Paul Richardson, Vice President of Finance.”
“Yes. You think Jobare tried to call for muscle when you barged in on him?”
“Seems right. His ego is the size of Cambridge. I imagine he was both surprised and annoyed that we walked right in. Calling Calhoun was a logical reaction, like siccing his dog or dialing 911.”
“He’s a prize,” said Kimmy.
“Not uncommon in this town,” said O’Malley. “The big ego, I mean.”
“So, do you think that Freddy Hanson is behind the Student Loan fraud?” asked Zeke, guiding the conversation.
“Doubt it,” said O’Malley, shaking his head. “He’s not organized enough. I guess there could be another explanation.”
“He could be aware of it peripherally, I suppose,” said Zeke. “Maybe he lets others run the show in return for a cut. It’s a very sophisticated scam, and it’s being done in his territory.”
“That sounds reasonable,” said O’Malley. “I could see that. Maybe he supplies the local muscle, protection for a piece of the action.”
“So, we need to chat with Freddy Hanson next, I suppose,” Zeke said.
“Do what you want,” said O’Malley. “But be careful of that group. They’d just as soon kill you as talk with you. And they seem to know how to dispose of the bodies.”
* * *
Susan stood at the hotel window, looking down on the Charles River. She knew that her own window of opportunity would be small, and that her accuracy would have to be almost perfect. It didn’t bother her.
After the Mara’s had failed in their attempt to kill Zeke and Kimmy, Benito Diaz had communicated with the Boston mobster, Freddy Hanson, clearing the East Coast action. Then Diaz had dispatched Susan. She considered Hanson an amateur, and Susan insisted that Diaz keep her identity private. She didn’t want or need local backup. She was more comfortable working solo, fending for herself, even in unfamiliar surroundings.
The plan had come to her quickly when she realized this Zeke Traynor would continue his audits at Raleigh University, as Jobare Worthington had told Freddy Hanson, and Hanson had shared with Diaz. She was certain that she could find a moment to kill him. A moment would be all she needed.
The trickiest part would be the escape, as always. She decided to avoid traffic, so she planned for an early afternoon killing, well before the Boston rush hour. Jobare had also provided Traynor’s temporary working location in the Administration Building, in the Finance Department’s conference room.
Susan entered the building and signed in with the security Guard. Then she walked the floor of the Finance Department Thursday afternoon after confirming that Traynor wasn’t in the building. She committed the building’s floor plan to memory and found, in a casual way, the restroom and breakroom locations.
She checked out the aging security guard, who was sitting at his lobby post. Then she casually attached a small video camera to the wall near the women’s room door, pointing it across the hall toward the entry door to the Finance Office. The camera sent video via 4G and was linked to an app on her cell phone.
Outside, she circled the building on the sidewalk and noticed the electrical panel and utilities access points. The fire alarm system was next to them in a padlocked metal box.
She took out her cell phone and dialed one of the administration offices listed on the building’s lobby directory. She made an appointment for the following afternoon at two fifteen PM. By then, she planned to be on her way to Rhode Island. But the appointment would give her credibility, a reason to be in the building if she were stopped or questioned.
Having finished her preparations, Susan returned to her hotel room. She sat on the bed for a moment. Then she dialed a number on her cell phone.
“Hello?” asked a male voice.
“You know who this is,” she said. “Are you available?”
“I am, coincidentally,” said Jonathan. “I can get out for a little while.”
* * *
At one fifteen on Friday afternoon, Susan stepped into the Administration Building along with a small group of women returning from their lunch break. Wearing a visitor’s badge, she passed the security guard’s desk and walked to a door marked Finance Department. Across the hall from the door were men’s and women’s restrooms, their doors recessed in an alcove. Through the glass door, Susan visually confirmed that Zeke was in the Finance Conference room, and then she ducked into a stall in the women’s restroom to wait.
* * *
“Do you need anything, Mr. Traynor?” asked Cheryl.
“No, I’m good, Cheryl,” Zeke said. There had been a time of chaos after Dr. Richardson’s arrest, but no one seemed to have put Zeke and Richardson together, so he continued with the faux audit, planning to finish the show this week.
Cheryl lingered in the doorway for a moment.
“You’re wrapping it up?” she asked.
“I am,” said Zeke, and he turned his attention to her and gave her a smile.
“I thought we might get a coffee or something,” she continued, leaving the invitation hanging.
“Sure,” said Zeke. “Let me just finish this up and I can take a break. Say thirty minutes?”
“OK, great,” she said. Cheryl smiled and started back to her desk.
At that moment, all the lights in the building went off, and simultaneously the burglar alarm and fire alarm began sounding. Zeke immediately took his handgun and flashlight from his briefcase and slid down to the floor near the conference table.
In fact, Zeke had decided to spend most of Friday in the Finance Office in order to provide an easy target for the assassin. The loss of power, combined with the sounding alarms, was an obvious prelude to an attack.
* * *
From inside the women’s restroom, Susan waited the ten seconds until the emergency backup power kicked on, then checked her phone again. The wide-angle camera she’d planted just outside the restroom was positioned to monitor the entire hallway, including the door to the Finance Office. She watched patiently while several administrative people and some students walked down the hall briskly toward the outside exit door.
A few moments later, the office door opened and Zeke stepped out, accompanied by a younger blonde woman carrying a laptop computer. They turned toward the same outside exit door, away from Susan, and walked down the hall.
Got him, Susan thought.
She eased out of the restroom and looked around as if confused while smoothing her skirt. She was wearing a box cut dress that was designed to make her look more matronly and blend in with the academic theme of the campus. Her hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail.
The explosives seem to have worked, she thought. Before entering the building, Susan had attached two small charges to the building walls. One was designed to interrupt the power at the service entrance, and the other set off the alarms.
Susan stepped into the hall and walked briskly toward the exit door. Outside, she looked around at the gathering crowd. Most were standing in small groups, away from the building, watchi
ng and chatting.
Then Susan walked closer to where Zeke was waiting and stood about six feet behind him and to his left, in a group of people. From an outside pocket, she took a small syringe filled with a clear liquid and concealed it in her right hand.
The liquid was sulfuric acid taken from a twelve-volt car battery. Sulphuric acid loves water, Susan thought. And we’re all 70% water. The acid unites with water molecules in organic substances and decomposes them completely. She knew that the effect of this liquid on the human body is burning heat and destruction of any tissues it encounters. Susan smiled.
Susan automatically repositioned the syringe horizontally across her palm with the needle toward her little finger, and closed her hand. With this grip she could strike a downward blow to the neck or shoulders, or a more subtle jab to the arm or torso. Her thumb rested on the plunger. The needle was sturdy, made of surgical grade stainless steel and was unlikely to break from the vial. She gripped it tightly.
Zeke was talking on his cell phone as Susan stepped forward as if to pass him and swung her arm easily to make contact. The blow, aimed for the side of his neck, travelled about half way to its target and stopped.
Susan, who had looked away casually, thinking about her escape, was taken by surprise and quickly refocused her hand holding the syringe. Wrapped around her wrist with a painful grip were Kimmy’s strong hands.
“What…” she stuttered, a question on her face, immediately feigning innocence. Kimmy twisted smartly and suddenly Susan’s arm was locked behind her, high between her shoulder blades. The sudden pain caused her to drop the needle.
“No, stop,” she said loudly as the needle fell to the ground. “I’m diabetic. That’s my insulin. I need it.”
When Zeke turned and joined Kimmy, Susan was flat on the ground, her wrists secured with steel handcuffs. Kimmy knelt with one knee on the woman’s ear to keep her in place while they searched her pockets. Within a minute, a dozen Cambridge police officers surrounded the small group, their weapons drawn.
“Hands up,” said the ranking officer. “Put your hands up.”
Zeke and Kimmy remained kneeling, but lifted their hands to waist height.
“We’re law enforcement,” said Kimmy. “This woman is a killer.” She pointed to her Federal ID, now hanging from her breast pocket.
The officer in charge, still pointing his gun at them, signaled to another officer who stepped closer and eased the ID packet from her shirt pocket. He backed away and handed the ID to the ranking officer, who looked at it and said, “OK, at ease, men.” Then to Zeke he said, “We’ve been standing by. O’Malley at BPD told us what to watch for.”
“Thank you,” said Kimmy.
Zeke slowly extracted his Federal ID and showed it to the cop, who nodded.
“We’ll take care of this one. You two come with us,” said the officer, and he nodded to two of his men who circled behind Zeke and Kimmy and took possession of the restrained woman.
Chapter 15
“What do you mean, she escaped?” asked Kimmy in a voice louder than was necessary. The female police officer who had delivered the news looked at her feet in sudden embarrassment, then rallied and returned her gaze to Zeke.
“You’re kidding,” said Zeke.
They had been in another area of the Cambridge PD building, being interviewed separately by two sets of detectives. Once their affiliation with Clive Greene and The Agency had been confirmed, the interviewers had visibly relaxed. Their statements were taken and they were ushered into a breakroom, waiting to be released.
Kimmy, sitting at a small table, a cup of black tea in front of her, stood abruptly and bumped the table, sloshing some of the tea over the rim of the cup. “How long ago?” she asked.
“It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes,” said the officer. Her nametag read “Branson.”
“What happened?” asked Zeke, shaking his head.
“Her attorney showed up,” said Officer Branson. “A woman. She seemed to know that the perp was here and insisted on seeing her. I don’t know if she’d ever made her phone call…”
“And?” asked Kimmy.
“And the officers let her talk with the attorney,” started Branson.
“Why? What was the rush?” Kimmy asked, a bit more aggressively.
“I wasn’t there, but the officers in charge thought it would be OK. They put them in an interview room.” Then she added, “We don’t get very many violent crimes in this station. This is Cambridge, not South Boston.”
“How’d she escape?” asked Zeke.
“Switched clothes with the attorney,” said Officer Branson. “She took the briefcase and just walked out of the precinct.” Branson wasn’t looking at either of them, now.
“That must have been planned,” said Zeke. “It was too quick. What do you know about the attorney?”
“Blonde woman, about the same age and the same look as the perp. She took the perp’s clothing and handcuffs and put them on and sat in the interview room quietly until one of our guys went in to get her. Then she said she’d been threatened, that the perp told her she’d have her family killed if she didn’t help her escape.”
“You still have the attorney in custody?” asked Zeke.
“Yep.”
“You’ve arrested her for aiding and abetting?” asked Zeke.
“Yep. And as an accessory after the fact.”
“Has anyone gone after the killer?” asked Kimmy, getting loud again.
“Yes, right away, we’ve got guys all over the streets looking for her,” said Branson.
* * *
“Yes?” asked the deep voice on the other end of the phone call.
“Benny, this is your Boston connection,” said Susan. “This is a burner phone but we’re not secure.”
“Then why did you call?” he asked simply.
“I need your help,” she admitted. “I’m on the street.”
“You’re out. Good. I will call you back in a minute.” He hung up.
He’s switching to a burner, too, thought Susan. She waited thirty seconds, and then her phone rang.
“Yes?” she asked.
“This is about as good as we can do,” said Benito Diaz. “Don’t use names.”
“OK. You are aware of where I was?”
“Yes, of course. We sent our friend to see you,” said Diaz.
“Thank you,” said Susan.
“Did she equip you?” he asked.
“Yes, money, credit card and I.D. I bought this phone.”
Benito Diaz waited.
“Can you call and get me a ride?” Susan asked.
“I’ll call an Uber for you,” he said. “Be looking for him downtown. He’ll call you directly to arrange the pickup.”
Susan knew that the Uber Benito Diaz was referring to would be someone in Freddy Hanson’s organization. “Very good, thank you,” she said.
* * *
“Thank you for coming to get me,” said Susan politely. “I would like a ride to Providence.”
The man behind the wheel nodded sharply and said, “About an hour and a half. Do you need to stop, first?” He looked at her in the mirror.
Susan shook her head slightly. She had bought and changed into some light jogging gear and had her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, held back with a rubber band. Her fluorescent green running shoes set off her black and green top and black tights, and she was wearing no makeup. She carried a small backpack, almost purse size, with nylon strings for her arms.
“Where do you want me to drop you?” asked the driver.
She hesitated, used to sharing as little information as possible. But this was different. “The airport,” she replied.
“Which airline?”
“No, General Aviation,” she said. “It’s a private plane.”
The driver shrugged and turned his attention to the road. He was a large, swarthy looking man, dressed in dark colors and wearing his shirt out, over his belt. He wore dark sun
glasses and a Red Sox baseball cap. Susan had never seen him before.
Twenty minutes into the drive, the driver said, “So you’re the killer, huh?”
She looked at him, thinking, What a breech of protocol! But she said nothing, as if she hadn’t heard the question.
He looked back at her, in the rear view mirror, but she was looking out the side window.
“How’d you get a job like that?” He pushed the subject.
Susan rolled her eyes to herself, but said nothing. She had, in fact, achieved the position inadvertently, almost by accident.
When she didn’t answer he looked away and said, “Bitch,” under his breath.
Susan wasn’t overly attracted to men. She had married young, and she had chosen poorly. Her husband, Manny, came from humble beginnings. His father was a petty thief in Cuba until 1980, when Castro emptied the prisons and sent the Mariel boat lift north to Florida. His mother had worked in a cigar factory, packaging Cuban Cigars for export.
They had all escaped the island with about 135,000 other Marielitos and at first had assimilated into Miami’s Cuban community along with Santeria followers, criminals, and the mentally ill, mixed in with honest citizens. Manny’s mother was killed when the boat she was crossing on capsized, only a few miles from the Florida Keys.
Manny’s father, Javier, had been on a different boat with the boy. Once ashore, he quickly found his way to the Cuban community in Miami and was hired as an enforcer and collector by some of his former Cuban prison acquaintances. But mostly he drank rum and played dominoes in the park.
A few years later, Manny’s father moved himself and his boy to join the Cuban community in Chicago. There had been a position that opened up with the Chicago mob, and it was offered to Javier.
The position was actually with a relative of the gangster Paul Ricca, a first cousin twice removed to the mobster. Ricca had been fond of Cuba in his time, escaping from Naples, Italy in 1920 and arriving in New York by way of Cuba. He had a history of running Cuban whiskey to Chicago during prohibition, and Ricca went on to be an important Capo in the U.S. Mafia.
