Rising Phoenix

by Kyle Mills

  Dear Sir or Madam:

  I have enclosed an ad that I would like placed on a full page in Section A on February 3. I have also enclosed a cashier’s check for the amount quoted to me by your advertising department.

  The amount of the check should, I hope, be enough to convince you that this is not a hoax.

  Sincerely,

  CDFS

  He stuffed each envelope with a copy of his letter and a copy of the ad, careful not to touch the paper with his fingers. He mentally thanked FedEx for its self-sealing envelope—the FBI was doing amazing things with saliva these days.

  He opened the front door carefully, scanning the street. Fortunately, this section of Baltimore housed almost no Hispanics. A Mexican drug enforcer would stand out like a man in a tuxedo. Not spotting anyone who looked like they were from much farther south than D.C., he stepped out onto the street and set the alarm. His eyes continued their slow sweeps of the neighborhood. The fact that no one had tried to knock down the warehouse with machine guns was a good sign. Maybe Swenson was killed after all. The thought of his old friend’s bullet-riddled corpse lying on a dilapidated airstrip in Mexico was sad, but not as sad as the thought of his own bullet-ridden corpse lying next to a dilapidated warehouse in Baltimore.

  He glanced at his watch as he pulled his truck out into the quiet street.

  Four thirty. Just in time for the fucking rush hour. Maybe the aggravation of the Beltway would be enough to get his mind off Mexico.

  The traffic had been even worse than he expected because of a fender bender that left two middle-aged men fistfighting in an overgrown grass median.

  Instead of getting his mind off his problems, the cramped confines of the truck and mindlessness of driving had focused his thoughts into an ever-changing and increasingly morbid collage.

  It was almost eight o’clock when Hobart pulled back into his parking space in front of the warehouse. The three FedEx packages were now irretrievable, locked in a drop-off box near the Capitol building.

  The street was as he had left it. The group of children playing ball in the alley alongside the warehouse were still there, though the bright winter sun had been replaced by shadowy streetlights.

  The warehouse wasn’t as he had left it.

  The perimeter security was on, but the interior systems had been disabled. Hobart shut down the door alarm and moved quickly inside, pushing the door shut with his foot, and drawing his gun out of sight of the people on the street. Something else had changed. What was it?

  He had left the lights on, as they were now. The furniture all looked untouched. Then it hit him—there was a quiet, almost imperceptible, hum coming from the office. He vividly remembered shutting off the computer after using it.

  Hobart moved silently across the floor and darted into the office, his .45 held out directly in front of him and his finger already squeezing gently on the trigger. No one. He walked quickly around the desk. The computer screen glowed a soft gray.

  THE PASSWORD IS INCORRECT. WORD CANNOT OPEN THE DOCUMENT

  C:WINWORDADLET.DOC

  Someone had been trying to access the letter that he had just written to the newspapers. Hobart flipped the switch on the computer’s side and walked back to the door of the office. The outer room was still empty and quiet. He slipped through it and down the hall toward the warehouse, peering into the empty bathroom as he passed. The door to the warehouse was open, and he heard the unmistakable scraping of furniture being moved—as though someone was searching for something.

  He stood motionless for a moment, back pressed firmly to the decaying brick wall beside the open door. It couldn’t be the cops—no way—he hadn’t done anything yet. The Mexicans? How could they have bypassed his security?

  No point speculating when the answer was fifteen feet away. He jumped through the doorway and leveled his pistol at the head of a man wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a large box. The man dropped the box while Hobart was still in motion. The sound of breaking glass was followed by the strong smell of beer.

  “Jesus, John. Don’t shoot,” the man cried. He sounded like he had cotton balls in his mouth.

  Hobart didn’t instantly recognize the soft, round face before him, but the voice was unmistakable. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked, sliding the gun back into its holster under his arm.

  Robert Swenson pulled off his sunglasses, revealing black circles around red eyes. His cheeks bulged comically. “Pretty nice, huh?” He bent and collected a few unbroken beer bottles from the open top of the box. “You haven’t been keeping the ’fridge stocked.”

  “Did you do it?” Hobart said, ignoring Swenson’s comment.

  “Why yes, I’m fine. Thanks for asking. Yeah, it’s done. Shit should hit the streets in a week or two.”

  Hobart sighed heavily, feeling the week’s anxieties melt away and the burning in his stomach fade with them. He took the beers from his partner’s hand and walked back to the office, sitting in the chair in front of the desk. Swenson took his usual place behind it.

  “Doesn’t look like things went too great for you, either,” Swenson said, pointing to Hobart’s swollen nose. “Did you get the job done?”

  “Yup. And the ads went out in FedEx today.”

  “I figured that’s what the file ADLET was.” He pointed to the blank computer screen. “Couldn’t get in though—didn’t know what your password was.”

  Hobart pointed to the beers on the desk. Swenson grabbed them and put them in the refrigerator, pulling out the last two cold ones and handing one across the desk.

  “So where the hell have you been?” Hobart asked.

  “Fucking bad luck’s all. I was too close to the airstrip and got spotted. Some guy taking a piss where he shouldn’t have been, you know. Anyway, they kicked my ass good—thought I was DEA.” He took a pull on his beer, shaking his head at the memory. “They kept me in a back room in the hangar I told you about for a few days. To make a long story short, they were waiting for their boss to give the okay to put a hole in my head.”

  “Did he?”

  Swenson smiled mischievously. “You’re gonna love this. So the boss shows up. We talk for a couple of minutes and I stick with my story about wanting to charter a plane. By the end of our conversation, I’m pretty sure I’m a goner. Then he quotes a Bible passage to me—kind of out of the blue, you know. I guess that was supposed to be my Christian burial. Anyway, I recognize the quote from one of Blake’s sermons—you know how good my memory is for useless shit—and I cite it. So that leads to a big conversation about God and the Bible. Turns out this guy’s some kind of combination murderer/dealer/Christian soldier. So we talk Jesus for about another hour and he just lets me go. Actually, he didn’t only let me go, he made his soldiers apologize to me and take me back to my hotel.”

  His story finished, Swenson leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk. “So what’s with the nose?”

  Hobart related his adventure with the drunk guards on the truck, leaving out the part about lying in the tainted kerosene.

  Swenson laughed loudly, seeming to take perverse pleasure in the image of his ever-serious partner getting pissed on. “We’re a couple of sorry old farts, aren’t we? All we have to do is fool a bunch of drunk dumb-shits with second grade educations, and we both get caught and beat up.” His laughter faded into a quiet giggle. “Thank God, it’s over.”

  “You said it,” Hobart replied, holding his beer up. His partner leaned forward, and the bottles clinked quietly as they touched together.

  The Reverend Simon Blake padded down the stairs in the new slippers that his daughter had bought him for Christmas. They were a bit small, but he could never bear the thought of taking back anything she bought him. As soon as she forgot about them, they would be relegated to the box at the top of his closet. They would make a nice addition to the ugly ties, useless electronic gadgets, and one very large belt buckle stored there. Erica insisted that the children pick out his gifts themselves
.

  A cold blast of air tried to blow his robe apart as he opened the front door, but the belt tied across his ample belly managed to hold. He trotted out onto the frost-covered porch, retrieved two newspapers, and rushed back to the house. The sun was peeking up over the trees at the end of his property, quickly turning the frost into gently quivering dew.

  Back in the kitchen, Blake poured a healthy slug of skim milk into a bowl of low-fat granola. A look of distaste spread across his lips as he watched the individual grains bob up and down in the white liquid. This was the substitute for bacon and eggs that his wife had devised to halt the progression of his waistline. No way to start the day, as far as he was concerned.

  The Baltimore Sun and Washington Post lay in front of him on the table, wrapped in damp plastic bags. The house was dead silent. He’d had the same ritual for years. Getting up a half an hour before the rest of the family to read always seemed to put his day into perspective. He knew that there wasn’t much time before pandemonium struck, so he pulled the Post out of its bag and carefully stripped it of its rubber band.

  As he smoothed the paper out on the damp table next to him, his hand passed over the boldface type announcing the top story of the day.

  ORGANIZATION THREATENS U.S.

  NARCOTICS SUPPLY.

  His emotions ran away from him for a moment, starting with excitement and ending, inexplicably, in despair. He had managed to put the entire situation out of his mind over the last few months and now it all came flooding back. Seeing it in black and white, sprawled across the front page of the Post, made the whole thing uncomfortably real. He smoothed out the paper one last time and began reading.

  Toward the end of the article, he was feeling a little better. It seemed that the press hadn’t gotten ahold of any information that his ex-security chief didn’t want them to have. Blake nurtured a healthy fear of the tenacity of the press, as did all television evangelists. The story had also described how serious the drug problem was, and that this may be an effective way to correct it. Overall, a more balanced piece than he had expected.

  Blake’s reflections were interrupted by the sound of small feet pounding down the stairs on their way to the kitchen. He quickly folded the paper back up and pushed it to the center of the table, as if it were some girlie magazine that he was hiding from his parents. Realizing what he had just done, he shook his head silently. He just wasn’t cut out for this kind of work.

  14

  Washington, D.C.,

  February 7

  Thomas Sherman gathered up a stack of folders from his desk and tucked them securely under his arm. He paused on his way out to catch the tail end of a news report on the television nestled in a bookcase next to his desk. The channel was perpetually tuned to CNN—a station that was becoming more and more a staple in the diet of FBI and CIA. When they weren’t caught up in something trivial, CNN had its nose in everything. More evidence of the superiority of free enterprise over government agencies, as far as he was concerned. Profit, it seemed, was the great motivator of man.

  When the screen faded into a commercial for Teflon pans, he clicked the TV off and continued for the door. He should have been running a tape on the report—it dealt directly with his top priority of the day. The problem was that he had never learned to record on the complex VCR built into the TV—despite his daughter’s diligent tutelage.

  Sherman rushed down the drab hall, taking a hard right into the last office suite. He smiled at the Director’s secretary as he charged through the outer office. She smiled back. “They’re all in there, Tom.”

  Punctuality was not what had propelled his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Bureau to become its second in command. Sometimes he wondered what had propelled it. His soft voice and grandfatherly demeanor didn’t fit the image of the take-charge FBI man. Mark Beamon delighted in introducing him as a hat maker, insisting that Sherman had became the associate director only by some bizarre twist of fate.

  He closed the door quietly behind him, confirming uncomfortably that he indeed was the last to arrive. Director Calahan sat behind his large desk, framed by two American flags. Across from him sat Frank Richter, associate deputy director in charge of investigations, and Eric Toleman, ADD in charge of administration. The chair between them was empty, and Sherman rushed across the thick carpet to take it.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, narrowly averting dropping all of his papers on the floor as he sat.

  “No problem, Tom, we know you’re a busy man,” the Director replied with a sarcastic edge to his voice. It was well known that he didn’t like to be kept waiting.

  Sherman had learned to dread these meetings. Calahan had become Director almost two years ago and liked to have his hands in everything. That, in and of itself, was not a problem. Sherman had been critical of the previous Director for his lack of involvement in day-to-day administration. The problem arose when Calahan had decided on his first day that his fifteen years on the appellate bench, and subsequent appointment to the FBI, made him the country’s number one law enforcement expert. But he had never bothered to learn the first thing about the operation of the organization he now commanded. That, combined with his comically overinflated ego, made him a dangerous man. It was common for him to ask questions that a first-year agent could answer; but if any of his executives appeared pedantic in their reply, he would throw one of the tantrums that had become legend at the Bureau.

  Sherman stretched his long legs out as far as they would go without hitting the desk in front of him. The three executive agents were seated in a straight line in front of the Director’s desk, like schoolboys in the principal’s office—a position that they had become accustomed to over the last couple of years, and one that was obviously designed to give Calahan the psychological edge.

  “I didn’t call this meeting, Frank did,” Calahan announced. “You wanted to talk about this drug poisoning business?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. I was going to call a meeting last night, but I thought it would be better to come in with a few more facts.” He shuffled the papers on his lap until he was comfortable that they were in the proper order.

  “It looks like the CDFS is going to make good on its threat. We have reports of three suspected poisonings from hospitals across the country. Let me stress that these aren’t confirmed victims. They do have symptoms that are consistent with poisoning, though, and the hospital staff has established that they are drug users. None have died yet, but all three are terminal and not expected to live through the week.” He paused to see if anyone had comments.

  “That’s why I was late,” said Sherman. “I was watching a report on this on CNN.”

  “Yeah, it looks like the press has picked up on one of the three, and they’re all over the TV with it. It’s been a slow news month.”

  “Do we know anything about the people poisoned?” Sherman asked.

  “Not yet. I’ve got our guys running them down. We really just got the word last night. I should have a hell of a lot more tomorrow.”

  Calahan cut in. He seemed to have a formula to calculate how long he would allow a conversation to go on without his input. “Where are they from?”

  Richter shuffled through his well-ordered notes. ’Two from Miami, one from New York.”

  “And the cashier’s checks?”

  “We’re working on it, but nothing so far,” Richter replied vaguely. It had been irrefutably proven that giving Calahan too many details would set him to suggesting endless, and painfully obvious, investigative avenues.

  “So have you done anything but sit around with your thumb up your ass, Frank?” Calahan’s voice rose a notch.

  Sherman cut in, rescuing his subordinate. ’Director Calahan, there really wasn’t anything to investigate until last night. Frank’s as on top of it as anyone could be.”

  Calahan looked as though he was going to lash out, but then seemed to think better of it.

  Richter continued, effectively veiling his anger. “Sir, this
is pretty high-profile and it crosses the jurisdictions between us, DEA, and the local police. I suggest that we form an interdepartmental task force to handle it.”

  Calahan thought for a moment, playing absently with the handle on the front drawer of his desk. “And who would you suggest that we put in charge of this task force?”

  “I was thinking of Dave Schupman—he’s a hell of a good investigator.”

  Tom Sherman squirmed in his chair and suppressed a laugh. It came out sounding like he was trying to clear his sinuses. Calahan’s eyes moved to him. “I take it you disagree, Tom?”

  “Uh, yes, sir.” He turned to face Richter, feeling a little guilty about his lack of self-control. “Look, Frank, Dave’s a great investigator but he comes off like an MIT computer nerd. Christ, last time I saw him he was wearing a pocket protector.”

  “Actually, I think Dave is an MIT computer nerd,” Toleman said, speaking for the first time in the meeting. He looked around him for confirmation.

  Sherman ignored the comment and continued. “I think we all understand why Frank suggested Dave. I think we also know who we should put in charge of the investigation.”

  Richter’s eyes narrowed. “Good thinking, Tom. Maybe he can just beat the information out of a few dying junkies.”

  “That charge was bullshit, Frank, and you know it,” Sherman snapped back.

  The Director broke in again. “Who are we talking about?”

  Sherman and Richter had locked eyes and looked like they were in telepathic communication. Toleman answered the question. “Uh, I think they’re talking about Mark Beamon, sir.”

  A look of disbelief crept across Calahan’s face. Sherman winced. He would have liked to have introduced the idea a little more gently.

  “Is that true, Tom? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  Sherman nodded, getting ready to speak, but Richter cut in before he could open his mouth.

  “Sir, Beamon’s uncontrollable—he’s only been in Houston for a few weeks and he’s already gotten the SAC there involved in a gunfight. A goddam gunfight! I can’t be responsible for his actions if we bring him back.”