Rising Spirit

by Wayne Stinnett

  I laughed. “Not hardly. “‘We have fought in every clime and place’ isn’t just a line from the hymn.”

  “Ah, that’s right. You were a Marine.”

  I let the were slide. “Twenty years,” I replied. “So, yeah, I’ve lived and worked in much colder places.”

  “So, what is it that has you so happy this morning?”

  “Stuart Lane is out of the picture,” I said. “Like you saw and heard in that video I showed you, Pritchard sent him to Miami to kill the woman who was with Kamren Steele when he was murdered. And as I mentioned, that woman is my ex-wife, and she’s staying with my daughter and her family. Lane went there to kill them. He failed. So, yeah, that makes me happy.”

  The judge gave me a sideways glance as he led the way toward the restaurant’s entrance but said nothing. He didn’t need to; I knew what the question was that he didn’t want to ask.

  “My people were all over Lane before he even got close to the house. You might say that he’s been kidnapped. But I say he’s sitting on ice until I get back.”

  A black Ford sedan pulled in and parked next to my truck. The judge and I waited by the restaurant door. It was still five minutes before it would open, but inside, I could see a young woman look up and step out from behind a counter while still talking to another woman. Their body language showed that the younger woman was in charge.

  Sheena Mason got out of the government-issued car. At least it didn’t have government tags, and the big sedan looked a lot like the judge’s car.

  Sheena stepped up onto the porch with her hand extended and a big smile on her face. “It’s been too long, Jesse. How are you, Judge?”

  “I’m well,” he said hurriedly. “That’s my niece coming to the door. How shall I introduce you?”

  “Stretch and Marsha,” Sheena said. Then she smiled at me. “I was a big fan of the Brady Bunch when I was a kid.”

  The door opened and Ollie hugged the young woman, who opened it before turning to us. “This is my niece Carolyn. Carolyn, these are my friends, Marsha and Stretch.”

  “Pleased to meet you both,” Carolyn said. “Y’all come in out of the cold. I have your usual table set up, Uncle Ollie, and the coffee is just about ready.”

  I studied Sheena as I held the door. She hadn’t changed much. Her blond hair was cut shorter, just over the collar of her jacket. She still had all the same dangerous curves and her blue eyes sparkled. There was just the hint of faint lines forming at the corners of her eyes. My grandmother had called them laugh lines. Mam had a lot of laugh lines.

  Carolyn led the way to a table near a corner. It was close enough to a roaring fire in the fireplace to feel the warmth, but far enough away that it wasn’t too hot. She left us with three menus and said she’d be back with coffee. The judge shrugged out of his long coat and draped it over the chair next to him.

  “You said you were from Pittsburgh,” I said to Ollie.

  “So, how do I have relatives in Virginia?” Ollie asked as he sat down. “My sister was much younger than me. She and her husband moved here when Carolyn was a toddler. When she was a teenager, I was already retired and the kids moved away. That was when I lost my sister and Carolyn lost her parents. They were both killed in a wreck. So, Josie and I moved down here, rather than make her pull up stakes at such a terrible time in her life.” He cleared his throat.

  “So, you’re chasing drug manufacturers now, huh?” Sheena said, sitting in the chair opposite the judge and against the wall.

  Ollie smiled as I sat down across from him. It dawned on me that there was a coat rack right behind him. Something I was sure he was aware of. He’d intentionally claimed both chairs on one side of the table. It might have been an act of dominance, his being a judge, or a tactical move, to sit across from whomever he talked with. But the smile told me he just wanted me to sit next to Sheena.

  “What’s the biggest LSD bust you’ve ever heard of?” I asked her, getting straight to the point.

  “Last year, the DEA raided a facility in Kansas,” she replied. “They seized almost two hundred thousand tabs of blotter acid.”

  “How much liquid would that be?”

  “About three gallons,” the judge replied.

  “How do you know this?” I asked him with a grin.

  Ollie shrugged. “I remember numbers,” he replied. “And have a way with them. I’ve been practicing or judging law for nearly half a century, son. In that time, there isn’t much I haven’t seen or heard. Most people don’t think of a drop as a unit of measure, but it is. Or it was until the early nineteenth century. Sure, the volume of a drop is different for different liquids, depending on all kinds of variables, but the difference is very small. Most liquids are about seventy-five thousand drops per gallon. So, two hundred thousand drops would be close to three gallons.”

  I looked into Sheena’s eyes. “These guys plan to make fifty gallons. They’ve already produced almost a tenth of that.”

  “Do you have any idea what liquid LSD sells for?” Sheena asked, her curiosity obviously piqued.

  “Over a hundred grand a gallon,” I replied. “They have a buyer for the first twenty gallons, at two million dollars.”

  I heard the door open, though it was out of sight in the general store section, and then I heard Carolyn greet someone. After a moment, two men followed her into the dining area and sat down at a table across the room. They made a point of not looking in our direction, which I found odd. Sheena was a strikingly beautiful woman.

  I leaned forward. “Ollie, do you know those men?”

  He held the menu up in front of his face as if reading it and whispered, “I’ve seen them around, and I know they own farms on the north side of the valley, but I don’t know them.”

  I kept my voice low. “I made sure that Pritchard knew we’d be meeting here.” Then I turned to Sheena. “They think you’re part of my crew and I’m a Florida smug druggler.”

  She grinned at the play on words. “What do you need?”

  “You and another agent,” I replied. “In a heavy-duty van, with a briefcase full of money, at Pritchard’s place at sunrise on Monday.”

  “How much money?” she asked, just as my phone pinged again.

  I looked down at it, then smiled at Sheena. “A hundred thousand.”

  “In twenty-four hours?” she said. “That’s gonna be difficult.”

  “Too difficult for the girl who sent a congressman to prison and is about to make the biggest LSD bust in history?”

  She smiled back and pulled her own phone out. Her fingers flew across the miniature keyboard for a moment, then she put it away. “Consider it done.”

  “The man facing this way keeps looking at us,” Ollie said, his mouth barely moving.

  Sheena and I had our backs to the men. I was sure they wanted a clear view of Sheena so they could describe her to Pritchard. The restrooms were just beyond where the two men sat.

  “Sheena, I think they need a better look at you,” I said. “Why don’t you go powder your nose or something.”

  She gave me a nasty look as she rose from her seat and took her jacket off. She laid it across the back of her chair, bent over and whispered in my ear. “You know damned well that I don’t wear makeup.”

  Turning my head slightly as she walked away, I knew there was zero chance the two men could ignore her. She wore tight-fitting black slacks and a turtleneck that hugged her ample figure.

  “They got a good look,” Ollie said, as Carolyn brought three mugs and a steaming pot of dark brown coffee.

  “This is from Kona, Hawaii,” she said, as she poured it into the three mugs. “It’s called Volcano Estate. You need a minute before I take your order?”

  “Yes, just give us a minute,” Ollie said. “Until the young lady returns.”

  When Carolyn left, the judge glanced toward the restroo
ms. “You said Lane was “on ice.” What exactly does that mean?”

  “He wasn’t harmed,” I replied honestly. “My friends are sitting on him until I return. Then I’ll personally decide what to do with him.”

  “And you’re no longer with Homeland?”

  “Not exactly,” I replied. “Besides charter fishing, I’m partners in a security firm that contracts for a large private corporation that is funded by the federal government.”

  It wasn’t a complete lie. Armstrong Research did contract us from time to time, and they did receive some funding and occasional special requests, via the Department of the Interior, but the organization of men and women who ran it had more wealth than many countries.

  That seemed to appease him.

  When I heard the restroom door open, I glanced back and saw Sheena approaching the men’s table as she typed something on her phone. They were both looking at her, but not at her face.

  “Okay,” she said, as she sat back down. “They both got a good look. One even took my picture as I came out of the lady’s room. Perverts.”

  “That’s good,” I said, as I took a sip of the strong Hawaiian coffee. It was delicious. “That means they probably work for Pritchard.”

  “I took their picture, too,” she said. “I just sent it to Craig. He’ll run facial recognition on them.”

  I sent a quick message to Chyrel as Carolyn returned to our table. The waitress I’d seen her talking with through the door went over to the two men’s table.

  “Decided on breakfast?” Carolyn asked.

  We placed our orders and she hurried off.

  “Craig texted me back,” Sheena whispered.

  “Y’all are still together?” I asked.

  Sheena had been partnered with an agent by the name of Craig Allen ten years ago. He was a few years older than her, but she was the senior partner.

  “Yes,” she replied. “We work well together. He said that the van wasn’t a problem, but it being a Sunday, getting that much money together might be difficult.”

  “If you had it in the form of a wire transfer, can he find a place to cash it?”

  “Well, yeah,” she replied. “But who has that kind of money just lying around?”

  I pulled my phone out and opened my banking app. “Where do I send it?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  I grinned at her. “You should know I don’t kid.”

  She removed a card from her wallet and handed it to me. “This is Craig’s email address.”

  It took a few minutes to navigate the website, then I stuck the phone back in my pocket. “Tell Craig he’s got mail.”

  “That’s a lot of money to put on the line, son,” the judge said.

  I shrugged. “I know I’ll get it back.”

  Carolyn brought our food as Sheena typed away on her phone. Then the three of us dug in. While we ate, I outlined a simple plan that involved the FBI and Virginia State Police picking up all the turd fondlers at the same time on Monday. Before we were half finished, the two men, having had nothing but a cup of coffee, got up and walked out, leaving us alone in the dining room.

  My phone chimed and I picked it up to find a message from Chyrel. I read it and looked over at Sheena. “One of those guys’ names is Keith Reed.”

  Her phone beeped and she looked at the screen. Then she looked up at me bewildered. “How’d you know that?”

  I shrugged. “I guess our facial recognition program is faster than yours.”

  “But you would have had to… Did you hack my email?”

  “Craig’s,” I said with a grin. “You gave it to me.”

  “I could arrest you for that,” she said, then smiled. “It was that woman Chyrel Koshinski, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Craig said she was good, and that’s a lot coming from him.”

  “Where are you staying?” the judge asked me, as he wiped his mouth and placed the napkin on his empty plate.

  “I was at the Stonewall Jackson,” I replied. “That’s where I followed Doctor Brown to last night. He and his assistant are staying there.”

  “You should both go back there,” he said. “It’s a nice place.”

  “Why?” Sheena asked.

  “Those two men left,” he replied, then nodded toward the window. “But they parked at the store right over there.”

  I followed his gaze. “The silver Chevy?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “They’ve been there longer than necessary for a convenience store.”

  “And you think they’re going to follow us?” I asked.

  The old judge nodded somberly. “Wouldn’t you?”

  My phone chimed an incoming message. I pulled it out and looked at the screen. “This is from Pritchard,” I said. “Giving me a price that he wants me to pay for his LSD.”

  “What’s it say?” Ollie asked, as I opened the message.

  “He wants fifty thousand per gallon,” I replied, as I typed in a short reply. “He says he’ll have four gallons by Monday.”

  I hit the Send button and looked from the judge to Sheena. “I just countered with half that or no deal.”

  The judge left the parking lot before me and Sheena. We waited until he’d passed the convenience store before I started the truck. Reed and the other man in the car parked at the store didn’t move, but as soon as I started to pull out of my parking spot, I saw vapor from their exhaust.

  When we passed the store, the car pulled out behind another truck that was behind us. Sheena had left her sedan at the restaurant and rode with me in the rental truck. Craig would be on his way with the van before noon, and he’d bring another agent to pick up her car and take it to the hotel.

  “I’m worried about Judge Whitaker,” Sheena said, as we drove slowly north into town.

  I nodded in agreement. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Ollie had taken the same route but was now well ahead of us and out of sight. We rode in silence for a block.

  “Are they still back there?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Two cars back.”

  “You should call the judge and tell him to come to the hotel, as well.”

  At the next light, I pulled Ollie’s number up and called him.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Downtown,” I replied. “We think it might be a good idea for you to join us at the hotel, Ollie.”

  “Then get it in gear, son. I’ve been here for five minutes and was about to call you. I got three rooms, one for each of us—all adjoining.”

  I grinned over at Sheena as the light turned green.

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said, then ended the call.

  “What?” Sheena asked.

  “He’s already at the hotel waiting for us.”

  It only took a few minutes to reach the Stonewall Jackson. I’d been right about my earlier weather prediction. The clouds were low and gray, and there was an occasional snowflake that landed on the windshield, then melted instantly on the heated glass.

  I pulled into the parking lot and drove straight back to the corner where I’d parked the night before. Sheena and I got out of the truck. We were both carrying tactical-style backpacks and slung them over our shoulders as we hurried toward the entrance. The temperature seemed colder than it had been since I’d left earlier, and I was eager to get inside. I’d experienced cold weather before, but not in a long time. I guess my blood had thinned since cold-weather survival training in Fort Drum, New York.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Reed’s car drive into the lot and turn down the first parking fairway. The car pulled into a spot and the two men remained inside as we went through the main hotel entrance.

  I spotted Ollie and stopped Sheena. “Take the judge on up. We have adjoining ro
oms. I’m going to stay down here for a minute to see if they come inside.”

  Sheena strode across the lobby to where Ollie was sitting, a small overnight bag at his feet, and they quickly moved toward the elevator.

  I headed into the small breakfast restaurant, where I could see outside. I knew the windows were tinted and the two men couldn’t see in. They just sat in their car.

  “Would you like a table?” a frumpy, middle-aged waitress asked.

  The car outside backed out of the parking spot and headed toward the exit.

  “No, thanks,” I said, watching the car turn right, headed out of town. “Just three coffees, please. To go.”

  While I waited, I texted the judge for the room number. When I got there, I had to juggle the three hot paper cups to knock on the door. A shadow passed over the peep hole, then the door opened. Sheena stood inside, her jacket removed and an empty shoulder holster under her left arm. In her right hand was a Glock 23, aimed down at the floor. The .40 caliber handgun was standard issue to most agents in the FBI, though some opted for the slightly larger G22. I knew that any agent who failed pistol qualification with either of those was issued a Model 19 or 17, which had slightly longer barrel lengths. The 23 in Sheena’s hands told me that she knew how to use it. FBI range coaches were some of the best marksmanship instructors on the planet.

  “Expecting trouble?” I asked, walking past her into the room.

  “Always,” she replied, holstering the Glock.

  I placed two of the coffees on the table and checked out the window. “They sat in the parking lot for a minute, then left.”

  The judge was sharp; the room had an excellent view of the parking area and the approach road. The door to the adjoining room was ajar and I could hear him whistling a tune. A moment later, he stepped through the door.

  “Were you planning to not go home?” I asked. “I noticed your bag.”

  “No,” he replied. “I always keep a couple of changes of clothes, a spare robe, and other necessities in the trunk, just in case I spill something. Josie always insisted I make a neat impression.”