First Deadly Conspiracy Box Set

by Roger Stelljes

  Mac moved quickly towards Alt, his gun pointed at him the entire time. The assassin was slumped back against the bumper of the car, blood oozing through his white dress shirt, the assault rifle lying by his feet.

  With his gun still pointed, Mac approached Alt and kicked the rifle away. The blood was dark, coming from the area of the heart. The sirens in the background would not come soon enough for him. The assassin was still conscious, but his breathing was labored. His head was drooping, but his eyes were looking up at Mac.

  • • • • •

  The rifle was by his feet, but, while his mind told his arms to move, they wouldn’t. Looking down at his chest, he saw the blood flowing through his shirt. It was dark purple, from the heart. Alt could barely get his breath now. It wouldn’t be long.

  The assassin looked up to see McRyan approaching him, gun pointed straight at him. He kicked the rifle away. “How did you know we were coming?” McRyan asked.

  Alt smirked, beaten by some Irish flatfoot kid. McRyan asked again, louder, kicking the inside of his right leg, “How did you know we were coming?”

  Alt was fading now, things started to blur.

  • • • • •

  “How did you know we were coming?” Mac shouted a third time, but there was no answer. Alt’s chest stopped heaving, his breathing gave out, and his head fell to the left, resting against the bumper on the car. Mac checked for a pulse. The assassin was dead.

  Mac winced in pain. He’d been hit on the top of his left shoulder, where the vest provided little protection. You won’t be lifting weights any time soon, he thought, although it didn’t look too bad, a little blood; it was worse than a graze, more like he was just nicked good. Lich and Riley were walking gingerly toward him, weapons drawn, although there was no need now. He looked beyond them to see his shot up Explorer. Cripes, what a day.

  They all walked towards the driver of the car Alt had intended to hijack. She was shaking and crying. Lich opened the back door to her car and helped her sit down. Officers were coming now from both the bottom and top of the ramp. He turned to his friends. They had just saved his life, and he thanked them. “Took you guys long enough.”

  “Hey, better late than never, boyo,” Lich replied.

  “Yeah, and nice driving too,” Mac replied as he walked to his now totaled SUV.

  “Christ Almighty,” Riley hooted. “You save the guy’s life, and he bitches about his precious SUV.”

  Mac smirked as he grabbed a turtleneck from the back compartment. Guess the trip up north was out of the question. As he fashioned a sling for his left arm, he reached into the front seat, moved the now deflated airbag from the steering wheel and grabbed his cell phone, wanting to call Sally. “Dick, could the airbag even deploy against your girth?”

  “Fuck you,” Lich replied, rubbing his knee. They all shared a pained smile and small laugh. They’d survived.

  “Tell you one thing that wasn’t a joke,” Mac said. “They knew we were coming. I tried to ask Alt how they knew, but …”

  “Yeah, well we still may have someone who can tell us,” Riles responded.

  “Guess who survived our little shootout?” Lich added.

  “Who?” Mac asked.

  Riley grinned, “Want another shot at Ted Lindsay?”

  Chapter Forty-One

  “I know who tipped them off.”

  Mac was transported to United Hospital. His wound on the top of his left shoulder required thirteen stitches. He wouldn’t be able to use his arm for a week or two. The Emergency Room doctor told him to take it easy, keep his arm in a sling, and he wrote a prescription for pain medication and ordered him to start a physical therapy program in a week or so, once the wound had healed.

  Rockford was going to be fine, although he would be laid up for a while. He was raging about the shootout. “Find the mother-fucker who tipped those assholes off,” he said at least a half dozen times.

  Two CIRT officers were in surgery and would be for several hours. The doctors were hopeful, but they both had been hit hard. Several others had been wounded, and the ER was a busy place. Having seen all of his fellow officers lying around with multiple wounds, Mac didn’t feel too bad about his little hit to the shoulder.

  Paddy offered them a ride back to the Department of Public Safety Building. As they walked to Paddy’s cruiser, Mac pulled out his cell phone, and cleared the last call, the one Sally had made while they were driving downtown a few hours earlier. She answered on the first ring. She was calm on the other end, but Mac could hear the relief in her voice.

  “You won’t believe what we have been finding!” she said excitedly.

  “What?”

  “I’ll show you when you get here. But one thing I will tell you is that those guys at PTA had electronic surveillance on both your place and mine.”

  “What? You gotta be shittin’ me.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when you get here.”

  Mac was pissed again. Well, the boys at PTA wouldn’t be bugging any more places. Mac was sure of that. They pulled into the parking garage and the chief and Peters were waiting for them.

  “I sure am glad to see you boys in one piece,” the chief said, shaking each of their hands. “Well done. Well done.” He took a long, concerned look at Mac in his sling. “Boyo, you sure you should be here?”

  “I’ll be fine, Chief,” Mac replied, holding up a vial of pain medication. “Where’s Lindsay?”

  “We’ve got him in an interview room, waiting for you. I figure you guys have more than earned the first shot at him. But first, why don’t you see what we’ve found.”

  They took a waiting elevator up to the chief’s office. When they entered, Sally saw Mac in the sling and came to him. She touched him lightly on the left arm and looked him in the eye and gave him a little smile. Mac smiled back, his look telling her he was okay.

  “Let me show you what we’ve found,” she said, taking him by the right arm. A long folding table had been brought in. The documents from the Cross file were spread out onto the table.

  “They’ve been watching you guys for a while,” she said to Mac, Riley, and Lich. “When the police searched the PTA building, we found this room down in the bottom of the parking garage. They had surveillance equipment, computers, listening devices, you name it, and they were watching, especially Mac, and even me,” Sally said to everyone. “We found a few guys down there who were part of the operation. We have them in custody. They’ve also given us the names and aliases of a few others. The department, the state police, and the FBI have that information, and we’re on the lookout for all of them.”

  “Holy cow,” Riles replied, a look of amazement on his face.

  “Yeah, pretty amazing what they were up to. But they had good reason to be watching. They were up to some nasty stuff with this Cross business.” She laid it out for everyone. Cross had been an operation run out of a facility in West Virginia. Lindsay, Alt, and company were selling arms, ammunition, communications equipment, and other military hardware out the backdoor. The FBI was already looking at the log, and it appeared the hardware had been sold to groups who weren’t exactly friends of the United States.

  “They made millions on this stuff,” Sally said. “It looks like they shut it down around the time of the September 11th attacks.”

  “This file is what Landy Stephens gave to Jones then?” Lich asked waving to the documents on the table.

  “We think so,” Sally replied. “Jones either wouldn’t play ball with them, or they didn’t give her the chance too.”

  “So, they took her out,” Riles replied.

  “Yeah,” Mac added. “But before they could, she shared this information with Claire Daniels, so she had to go too.”

  “Did they kill Senator Johnson?” Lich asked.

  “Yup. We found a computer guy down in that little room, and he’s singing. Says they killed Jones, Daniels, and the senator. He also worked the surveillance system at Victory Ramp so we couldn’t
see that Alt guy shoot Knapp.”

  “The senator was just a patsy in all this, then, huh?” Lich asked.

  “Yes,” Sally replied. “What a plan. They kill Jones, making it look like the work of Knapp. They kill Daniels and pin it on the senator. Before the senator can clear his name, they kill him and make it look like a suicide. They kill Knapp before we can talk to him, thinking he’ll never have the chance to deny he killed Jones.”

  “Except Mac found this file and that DVD system at Daniels’s place, and we got ‘em. Hell if you weren’t onto it all along,” the chief replied, a smile on his face. “Your dad would have been proud today, Mac, very proud.”

  “Thanks, Chief,” Mac replied quietly, trying to keep his emotions in check.

  “So, are the feds going to come in and louse this up, prosecute these guys for espionage or something?” Lich asked.

  “We’ll work all that out,” Flanagan replied. “You boys don’t worry about that stuff. Ms. Kennedy and I will handle that.”

  “There’s still one thing we don’t know,” Mac said. “These bastards knew we were coming. I want to go see Lindsay and find out how.”

  “Have at him, boys,” the chief replied.

  • • • • •

  Ted Lindsay was sitting in a cinder block interview room. There were no windows, just a bright overhead light. He was sitting in a metal chair, his right arm handcuffed to the table. He was still in his dress suit, but it was rumpled now, with blood spattered on his lapels and white dress shirt. His tie was off kilter. He had a fat lip and bruising over his eyes and along the left side of his face.

  Captain Peters joined the three of them in the interview room, carrying a plastic bag that contained Lindsay’s personal affects. There was a wallet, watch, keys, and his cell phone.

  Mac sat in the center of the table, Lich and Riley on either side of him. Peters stood behind them. Mac thought back to the interview with Lindsay from a week before, when the bastard had a smirk on his face and answers for everything.

  “Tables have turned here a little bit, haven’t they, Mr. Lindsay?” Mac quipped.

  Lindsay didn’t respond.

  “We’ve got you, at a minimum, for the murders of Claire Daniels, Jamie Jones, Senator Mason Johnson, and Dirk Knapp—and those are just the ones we know about. So we have you for that. And the feds?” Mac shook his head, taunting. “They’re not real happy with you right now. They’re going to want to spend a lot of time with you. I doubt we’ll have any objection to spending the rest of your life at the federal pen in Marion. Selling your country out with that Cross business—not too good for you there, Teddy boy,” Mac said in a semi-mocking tone. Lich and Riley just stared at Lindsay.

  “Lawyer,” was Lindsay’s response.

  Mac grabbed for the plastic bag of belongings while Peters jumped in.”Later. First you’re going to tell us how you knew we were coming.”

  “Lawyer.”

  “No!” Riley howled. “Tell us who tipped you off.”

  “Lawyer.”

  Lich snorted. “Boys, he looks like he was roughed up riding around in the van today, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” Riles responded. Peters nodded. They all moved around to Lindsay’s side of the table.

  “I don’t think anyone would notice if we added a few more bruises.”

  Fear overtook Lindsay’s face. He pulled at his handcuffed arm, trying to get away. It wouldn’t be a fair fight.

  Mac ignored them and looked at the last call made on Lindsay’s cell phone, 11:34 a.m., just before they left for the PTA building. The number was familiar to him. He’d seen it somewhere. He sat back in his chair, looking at the number, and ran it around in his head. He pulled out his own cell phone, pressed menu, and looked at the previous calls made on his phone. A smile creased his face.

  “Boys,” Mac said.

  They ignored him or didn’t hear him, moving in on Lindsay.

  “BOYS!”

  They stopped and looked back at him, annoyed, fists still raised. “What?” Peters asked.

  “I know who tipped them off.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “You have the right to remain silent.”

  Chief Flanagan and Sally joined Mac, Riley, Lich, and Peters on the ride over to the Ramsey County Courthouse. A squad car was leading in front of them and two were behind. They pulled up onto the curb and filed out of the van. The chief led them through the doors inside, where the crowd that was milling around stopped what they were doing to watch. Given the day’s events, Flanagan and the rest of them were immediately recognized.

  They took the elevator up to the tenth floor and the district attorney’s office. Sally led them through and past the reception desk. The receptionist started to say something, but then just watched them go by.

  Sally walked them right to Helen Anderson’s office. Anderson was at her desk, on the phone when they barged in. She looked up to see them. Then held up her hand for them to wait while she finished her call, oblivious to what was happening. Mac walked over to her phone and cut the call off.

  Anderson looked up at him, astonished, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Let me see your cell phone,” Mac replied coldly.

  “What?”

  Lich, Riley, and Peters moved to take position around Anderson. Mac asked again, tersely, “Let me see your cell phone.”

  “Why?”

  “LET ME SEE IT!”

  Anderson cowered back into her chair, looked to her purse on the credenza behind her desk, and pointed weakly.

  Mac rifled through the purse, finding her phone. He hit menu and looked at the call record. There was Lindsay’s cell phone number, as well as his own from earlier in the day. He turned to her.

  “Is your cell phone number,” he said, reading the number on her phone.

  “Yes,” she replied quietly.

  “Sally called you earlier when we were coming downtown today, letting you know what we’d found.”

  “So?”

  Mac produced Lindsay’s phone from his pocket and held it so she could see it. “This is Ted Lindsay’s cell phone. Let me show you who he called at 11:34 a.m. this morning.” He showed Anderson the number. The district attorney slumped back in her chair, knowing she’d just been nailed.

  The chief took over. He probably hadn’t slapped the bracelets on anyone in years, but he remembered Miranda, “Helen Anderson, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney … and you’re going to need a good one.”

  • • • • •

  Mac plopped himself down on the couch in the den at Sally’s place. She was on the phone, still working.

  It had been a long day that was supposed to have been the start of a little mini-vacation for them. That was out of the question now. There would be tons of follow-up work to do. Sally was going to be swamped with the prosecution of Lindsay and the remaining PTA people who’d been working in their little unit. Some were still at large. The FBI, Homeland Security, and the CIA were on the case as well. They seemed confident they would find all of them. Just in case, two squads were parked out in front of the house.

  His cell phone had been going berserk. He finally shut it off after he had a chance to speak with his mom, sisters, Uncle Shamus, and various other family members. He didn’t want to be at home, knowing the media would be calling him.

  He took his pain medication. His shoulder was sore, and the sling would be an annoyance in the days to come. Putting on a clean shirt had been a five-minute ordeal that he might not have accomplished without Sally’s help. What Mac really wanted was to have a beer, but it wouldn’t mix well with the meds. Sally made him some apple cider, and that wasn’t too bad. He reached for the TV remote.

  All of the local stations were doing special reports regarding the events of the day. A lot of issues had been resolved and the department came out looking pretty good. They were up again
st professionals, with resources Mac could hardly imagine, yet those PTA professionals had been beat by a little bunch of locals. Mac’s name was coming up quite a bit, but he was unavailable for comment. That’s the way he would like it to stay, but the chief ordered all of them down to a press conference that was to be held the next morning, no exceptions.

  The two CIRT guys were out of surgery and remained in serious condition. Riley went back down to the hospital, and word was the doctors were optimistic they would make it. Damn Helen Anderson. She was getting hers on the news now, and she likely would be doing some time. Turns out she’d been dating Lindsay and feeding him information. She thought Lindsay would help her get to the Senate.

  Mac flipped to the cable news networks. They were covering the story as well. PTA was a nationally known company, and Senator Johnson was a national figure. Those issues were being covered, debated, and bloviated about on all the talk shows. Lyman Hisle had called Sally to thank her for the heads up. He was able to get with the board and Minnesota’s congressional delegation. PTA would take a hit, but the politicos thought they would be able to limit the damage and save most of the government contracts. There was nothing faulty about PTA’s products, just some of its leadership.

  Mac had heard enough about the day and flipped over to Minnesota Sports Channel. The Wild were on, a good diversion.

  He thought about his dad and wondered what he would have thought of the day’s events. Somehow, Mac knew the old man would be proud.

  Sally finally came in, having changed into black cotton sweat pants and one of Mac’s Golden Gopher sweatshirts. She leaned in and kissed him lightly. Then carefully she sat to his right side so he could put his arm around her. She carefully cuddled up against his chest. They watched the game in silence.

  “Sorry about our vacation,” Mac finally said, trying to lighten the mood a little. It didn’t work.