“He claims he doesn’t know anything,” said Method. “The Lilly bitch takes the same line.”
Mondragon was ever reluctant to order his minions to kill someone. The eighty-four thousand deaths the flooding had caused and the thousands more killed by the Colombian bombing sorties were coincidental to achieving larger goals, and Erin had gloried in none of that unfortunate gore. As far as he knew, Kenneth Greeley had been a loyal soldier in his cause; sending Method after him could well bring other complications.
What, for starters, would Taylor and Harris think? Would they become frightened and perhaps alert the government when Greeley turned up dead? On the other hand, he could not allow Greeley and his girlfriend to keep telling secrets to this talk show host. It occurred to Mondragon as he listened to Method rant that he really did not need to make a decision in this instance; Method had already made the choice for him, and Greeley’s death would also be incidental to the larger course of events. Once the other conspirators got wind of this, he could tell Taylor and Harris that this was Method’s doing.
“Do what you think best,” Mondragon told Method, and the colonel was gone from the other end of the line before Erin could have said anything more.
Mondragon put his chin down to his chest and made a single circuit of his office in deep thought. The bewildered contractor he had been negotiating with before Method called sat in the tiny, straight-backed chair in front of Mondragon’s desk and waited until Erin returned.
At the end of his lap about the room Mondragon seated himself in his elevated and very comfortable chair and said, “So, Mr. Anderin, I think we can proceed with your proposal, with one tiny alteration I am sure you will not even notice.”
LXXVII
12/02/10 23:50 CST
For three days Bob Mathers had watched from the small grove of sycamore and ash trees four hundred meters east of Kenneth Greeley’s house outside Alexander City, Alabama. On the last day of November he had found a hairdresser in Talladega who, in return for five thousand dollars, had been willing to call a talk show host pretending to be someone named Lilly, and she had imparted all manner of information concerning a conspiracy to blow up dams on the Colorado River. That had set out the goat; now he was waiting for the tiger to come.
Twice a day Bob made a supply and bathroom run into town. The rest of the time he had sat in his simple blind and endured the cold rain that had fallen nonstop since he arrived in the Heart of Dixie state. The day before, a Wednesday, had been an uneventful day in the rural vista Bob commanded from his hiding place in the grove. The rain had kept the locals out of the stubble fields, allowing Bob lots of occasions to retreat to the rear of the grove, where there was a dirt track on which he had parked his pick-up.
He was inside his truck out of the wet when a tall, older man possessing an athletic build that belied his age arrived in front of Greeley’s home in a blue Honda sedan. Bob had raced back to his blind only to see the back of the tall man’s head as he entered Greeley’s front door. Felix Collins had provided Bob only one ancient photograph from Method’s high school yearbook; the glimpse Bob had was not enough to tell him if this was the mysterious colonel. Using his binoculars, Bob had taken down the license plates and the name of the car’s rental company.
The tall man had stayed for less than ten minutes inside Greely’s farm house; he was wearing dark glasses and had a cap pulled down low on his forehead, which also obscured Bob’s view of him as the stranger left the house. Now, late at night, the same tall, angular man in a different rental car had driven to a point a hundred yards north of Greeley’s home. The driver turned off his headlights and engine and cruised to a silent stop that no one within the sleeping farmhouse would have noticed.
Bob lost track of the tall man in the darkness until he strode into the glow of the single yard light attached to a pole in front of Greeley’s house; Bob could see that the tall man carried an object in his right hand, something that had a long, narrow end the stranger kept pointed toward the ground. The tall man swiftly broke a glass pane on Greeley’s front door and reached inside to undo the locks and let himself inside.
Bob considered charging toward the house, his gun drawn, and making a citizen’s arrest, when the tall man emerged outside. Better judgment told him he could not reach the yard in time. Were this indeed Colonel Method from the computer file, he would be more than Bob’s match in a shoot-out in the dark.
Bob chose to run back into the grove and to his truck. He drove onto Alabama Highway 63, which two miles later emptied him onto US-280, the main road north into Birmingham. The largest local airport and rental car facilities lay in that city. Bob made the risky guess that the tall man would flee in that direction.
The former deputy sheriff pulled onto the shoulder a half mile down the road from where he could watch the traffic flow past. This being a weeknight and almost twelve o’clock, there was little for him to watch. A Volkswagen van, a couple SUVs and nine tractor trailers sped past in the eleven minutes he waited.
Mathers finally decided that he had made the wrong choice. Method must have gone south in the direction of Auburn or southwest toward Montgomery. Bob made an illegal u-turn on the highway and drove back the way he had come. A quick foray to his hiding place in the grove showed him that the tall man’s car was gone and presumably had taken another route from the Alexander City area. As the town of some thirteen thousand inhabitants was too big for him to search by himself, Bob stopped at a small store and made some phone calls that might give him some clue where the tall man was headed.
“If you had to catch a plane,” he asked the young boy in dirty overalls behind the store counter, “where would you go around here?”
“Montgomery or Birmingham, either one,” said the boy. “Both are hub ports, sort of. The big hub is in Atlanta.”
“You mean you can catch a flight into Atlanta from either city?”
The boy had to weigh the question before he answered. “Yeah, into Atlanta,” he said. “Then onto other big cities.”
Bob had been holding a phone book in which he hoped to find the number of a rental car company. He put the book down when he realized he had no idea what office in what city to call. He instead dialed Felix Collins in California.
“Can you get into the data bank of National Rental Car company and find a car for me?” Bob asked. “I don’t know the city he got it from. I do have the license plate number.”
“I’ll save you the trouble of waiting for me to find something,” said Felix. “You should’ve listened to me when I told you about the colonel. This Method guy is big league; there’s no way he’d rent a car under his own name. He’ll drop the car off and be gone before I could get back to you. He’d kill your ass dead if you ever got close to him, anyhow.”
“Can you at least find me another photograph of the guy?” asked Bob. “A high school picture of a sixty-seven year old man doesn’t cut it.”
“Forget it,” said Felix. “I looked. He didn’t even have his picture taken in college. I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to get rid of his old high school yearbooks. Get your ears cleaned out, Mr. Ex-officer. Leave this one be. He’s way too scary. He’s crazy good at what he does, and he’s got a short fuse. You hear me?”
Upon hanging up Bob wondered if he should dial 911 and inform the local police that a murder had been committed at the Greeley home or let someone else find the body.
LXXVIII
12/06/10 09:21 PST
“When I told you you can call me at my office,” said Mondragon, “I didn’t mean every day. I only now got off the phone with a reporter from some silly tabloid; he wanted to know if I was a part of an anti-government conspiracy. That fool, or someone just like him, could be watching me right now.”
“The talk show host I told you about got another e-mail,” said Colonel Method, speaking from a pay phone along the side of Interstate 80 in Grand Island, Nebraska. “From a party in Wisconsin. Repeat: Wisconsin. Who do we know in Wisconsin?”
“That little coward Harris!” barked Method. “He and the traitor Greeley became very close when they were in Venezuela. Greeley bought a silly airplane from him.”
“Speaking of Greeley,” interjected Mondragon, “I am rather uneasy about what you did down south, my friend. He was not a particular danger.”
“I followed operational procedure,” said Method, “as set down by you, my commander-in-chief. I did no less when the two operatives tried to escape Montecual, or when the Indian became an inconvenience.”
Mondragon had not had his second cup of coffee that morning. He hardly felt like having a conversation with a psychopath at that delicate hour when he should have been studying the midday stock reports from Wall Street.
“That’s very well, very well,” he said. “You must appreciate that I and John and, for that matter, young Harris, have ordinary lives to lead. We aren’t living underground somewhere in the American West, not that I’m condemning your mode of living, you understand. A reporter or a federal agent knows where they can find us, don’t you see? A great disadvantage for us, really. I think, therefore, perhaps, you should lay low for a time, Panther, my friend. I think definitely you should stay away from Ed Harris.”
“He’s obviously the one talking,” persisted Method. “He talks to the FBI, and you’ll be wishing I dealt with him as I did with Mr. Greeley.”
Mondragon wished the colonel was taking Prozac like everyone else in Twenty-First Century America. Erin had read in the newspaper that morning of grade schools forcing psycho-tropic drugs onto fourth grade would-be killers who had displayed potentially anti-social tendencies. He regretted he could not sign Method up for a similar program.
“You must promise me, your commander-in-chief, as you insist on calling me, that you will stay out of Wisconsin,” he said to Method, making himself sound as soothing as a psychiatrist speaking to a client. “Someone might be watching him,” he warned, although he strongly doubted anyone was spying on Harris.
“If he further compromises our post-operation mission,” said Method, “I will have to take the necessary actions.”
“What does that mean?” asked Mondragon, understanding at once what Method had in mind. “Method, rather Panther? Don’t hang up! Damn!” he swore as the other end of the line went dead.
Method had clearly become the loosest cannon in an artillery battery Mandragon had hoped was long retired from combat. Here was a man without a known address, having no living relative or any other connection to the future other than the preparation he made for his next mission. He knew how to kill others with mechanical efficiency and was roaming about the nation only too delighted to demonstrate his skills on anyone he thought might be betraying him.
Worse still, Method was becoming more frightening, and hence more powerful, than Mondragon was. Look, thought Mondragon, at the senseless murder of poor Greeley and the pathetic trailer park woman named Lilly old Greeley happened to have in bed with him when Method came to call. Ed Harris had to have already learned of the crime. Despite the alcoholic fog John Taylor dwelt in, he too would read of the grizzly tale and perhaps become so scared he would run to the police for protection.
Being a much deeper and less paranoid thinker than Method, Erin was able to sense the presence of another player in the game. Mondragon reasoned that the happily semi-retired Greeley had no motive to leak secrets. Neither did Harris, who had avenged his father and gained new wealth for himself. Mondragon’s security men watched John Taylor day and night. So who was this phantom who knew too much?
Erin Mondragon paced the blue and white Italian tiles on the floor of his office balcony and considered both the identity of this new nemesis, and how to neutralize the colonel. He had made two complete circuits of the office floor before he concluded the phantom making these embarrassing leaks and the colonel were one and the same.
Who else could have known so much and also felt safe regardless of what outsiders knew? The only question, Mondragon decided, was what sort of payoff was the old military man angling for.
LXXIX
12/06/10 11:22 PST
“Yes, it’s very shocking,” agreed Mondragon, stifling a yawn. Note to self, he thought: send girl home earlier tonight. I need more sleep.
“Why did you kill Kenneth?” asked Harris, speaking on his home telephone. “He never did anything to you.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” said Mondragon. “That man... is that a cell phone?” he asked when he heard a crackle on the line. “People can eavesdrop on cell phone conversations without the use of an electronic bug.”
“I understand about cell phones,” said the engineer. “This is a protected conventional outlet.”
“You can never be too careful,” said Mondragon. “Greeley was Method’s doing. Taylor and I had nothing to do with it. That’s why I called you, Ed. You have to be on the outlook for him. Do you have a bodyguard? I think perhaps you should consider hiring someone.”
“I’m considering leaving Oshkosh for a while,” decided Ed. “When you get that maniac under control again, or you kill him, I’ll get back to you.”
“That’s not a wise choice,” said Mondragon, but Harris was gone before he could say why it was not wise.
This too, thought Mondragon, was out of his hands. If Ed thought he could play hide and seek with Method, then that was his business. He, Erin Mondragon, needed to think of something else. His masseuse had told him some new age methods of concentration, yet thinking for Mondragon meant pacing the floor and forcefully beating the ideas around until something sensible emerged from the carnage. He considered the individuals he and his confederates had dealt with in the past six years and guessed who among them knew enough of their operation to be leaking secrets.
“Mrs. Avery,” he called to his secretary over the speaker phone, “please have my security people in my office at, oh, say three-twenty-one-ish.”
After a catered lunch of fresh Nova Scotian salmon and cream cheese, followed by a butterscotch mousse washed down by a bottle of white Riesling from a winery he owned, Mondragon made some purchases on the market and conducted the rest of his daily routine, while he tried to concentrate on things other than the identity of his unknown opponent. When 3:21 PM rolled around he made the beefy men in his security team sit in folding chairs too small for them and addressed them in short, simple sentences a third grade teacher might use while speaking to a class of not very bright eight-year-olds.
“I want you to think, gentlemen,” he told them as he strode around them and they wrenched their thick necks to follow him. “Did someone suspicious ever speak to Mr. Taylor while you were watching over him? This could have happened at any time. Perhaps when you went to the bathroom. Mind you, I’m not blaming anyone. I’m sure this was an accident, if it happened. David,” he said and a large man twitched the side of his face in response, “let’s start with you. Could Mr. Taylor have spoken to someone he shouldn’t have, while you were following him, I mean?”
Mondragon’s security men knew nothing of the attacks on the dams. They knew only that when John Taylor was in his cups they were supposed to keep him away from strangers. Most of them had become security guards after they failed numerous times to pass the police academy’s entrance exam. That aside, none of them was so stupid he thought he could disappoint Mr. Mondragon and remain in good health for very long. Certainly none of them was going to confess right to the boss’s face that he had failed to protect Taylor. David set the pattern for each of their responses to Mondragon’s question.
“No way, Mr. M.,” said Dave. “I can hold my bodily fluids for sixteen straight hours if I have to. I never let Mr. Taylor out of my sight.”
“Thank you for sharing that with the group, David,” said Mondragon. “Tony, how about you?”
Tony assured Mondragon and God above he had hovered over Taylor like the angel of death each time he drew the assignment.
“On the Twenty-sec
ond of October, according to my records,” drawled Mondragon, “you, Anthony, began following Mr. Taylor for two straight days. Reggie was sick, and you did not have relief.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tony. “I stayed awake and right on his ass...I mean I kept, like, my eye on him. I drank protein supplement and peed in a cup.”
“I hope you never got the can of liquid protein and the cup confused,” said Erin.
The other security men in turn swore they had eyes like hawks and bladders as big as those in whales. Then Mondragon came around to Trey, the man Bob Mathers had drugged in the Blue Horn.
“I never left him, Mr. Mondragon,” he said as perspiration ran down his pants legs.
“You’re positive?”
“I’ll take a lie detector test,” said Trey, and he blinked because Mondragon had turned on his heels and was looking straight into Trey’s eyes.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Mondragon.
He interrogated the other men and dismissed the entire host within the space of four minutes. As the group was filing out the door, Mondragon called Trey back into the room.
“Is there something else you wished to tell me, Trey?” Mondragon asked after the others were gone. “Something you did not wish to say in front of your co-workers?”
Trey’s face turned ashen, exactly as the third grade’s very dumbest student’s face would do when the teacher called him to the blackboard. “I contacted those two men you asked me about,” he said.
“Carnie Rogers and his friend Mr. Paterson?” said Mondragon.
“Yeah. I mean, yes, sir.”
Erin had expected more. Carnie was the man whose name he had kept on the ancient match book in his desk drawer. He did not need Trey to tell him anything about them. Carnie had already been in touch, in the secretive, roundabout way men of his ilk use.
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