“It’s me… yeah… Listen, I need you to take six of your best men down da coast for a little while. You’re going to help dat guy with some security at his three places… No, should be routine stuff. Dat other guy, da one you had da beef with, he ain’t around no more. When you get dere, call da guy. He’ll make the arrangements. It’s on his tab, but I want you to take da right guys with you. No broads, no booze, no gambling. All business. And I want your guys to make nice with him, chat him up and be friendly, but remember dey work for me… Yeah, I been hearin’ a lotta stuff too, and I want to know what’s going on down there.”
After his conversation with Roselli, Donatello Carbonari found himself in a funk, staring absently out his office window. He was usually over-confident to a fault, but getting grilled by "the boys" up in Brooklyn drove him crazy. If anybody dared to call him Donnie again, he’d cap one in their ear. God, he hated that name!
Finally, he picked up the telephone and almost punched Van Gries’s extension number through the other side of the dial. “How much are we wiring up to Brooklyn tonight?” Carbonari demanded to know, without any preliminaries or social niceties.
“Tonight?” Van Gries asked, surprised by the suddenness of the question and the angry tone in Carbonari’s voice. He rustled some papers on his desk, as if he was looking for a report, trying to sidestep the question. “It has been a bad week, you know.”
“It’s been a freakin’ bad year, Martijn, so stop bullshitting me!”
“I understand, Donatello, but occupancy’s down, we had some unusual losses at the tables, and there’s no holiday weekend this month…”
“I know the goddamn problems; give me the goddamn number!”
“All right! I can do six million, maybe six and a half if I really stretch things.”
“It’s got to be eight and a quarter.”
“Jesus!” Van Gries answered as he spun around in his chair and faced the window. He cupped his hand over the receiver and said, “You know we don’t have that kind of free cash, not with the taxes coming up and all the rest.”
“You aren’t hearing me,” Carbonari fumed. “I need to send those bastards eight and a quarter. If I don’t, Brooklyn’s gonna crap all over me, and then they’re gonna come down here and crap all over you. You get the picture?”
“Yes, and it’s not a very pretty one,” Van Gries told him as he realized where this conversation was headed.
“Do what you did last time.”
“And what I did a couple of times before that. Now you want even more. If I take another two million out of the tax reserve and escrow accounts, we’re going to be light by over nine million by the end of the next quarter. What do I do then?”
“Then you take it from someplace else! Hey, didn’t Detroit and New Orleans just send us some new investment money for that addition I pitched them for Tuscany Towers? How much was that? Three million? Use that.”
Van Gries was quiet for a moment. “You know, your people were the ones who invented the Ponzi scheme in the first place. One of these days, they’re gonna wake up and realize what we’re doing down here.”
“Bullshit! This town’s gone through bad times before. You wouldn’t believe all the tricks my father and grandfather used to pull. Talk about creative accounting. But it’ll come back, it always does,” Carbonari said, lying even to himself. “And if they do wake up, at least it won’t be tomorrow. So, unless you got a better idea, do what I told you.”
Martijn wanted to keep arguing, but he found himself holding a dead telephone. Carbonari had hung up on him. As the Dutchman well knew, the problem wasn’t just the tax escrows or Detroit, or New Orleans. The problem was he had also skimmed over ten million for himself, and the skimming was beginning to trip over the skimming.
The Geeks were sprawled on the living room floor, with Patsy Evans lying on the floor next to Jimmy, feeding him Doritos. Jimmy and Ronald were doing a duet, banging away on the keyboard of the new laptops Linda had bought them. From the intense expressions on their faces, they weren’t having much success. Bob had come in some twenty minutes before, and sat at the dining room table with Ace and Linda, drinking coffee and observing Jimmy and Ronald much as one might watch some rare species in the zoo. As they watched, Ronald began to furiously scratch the top of his head, in some nervous release of energy.
“How are the new machines working out?” Bob finally asked.
That was when Jimmy and Ronald looked up and saw the three adults watching them.
“Oh, I didn’t see you guys come in,” Jimmy began to explain, and then changed direction. “The new machines are supremely 'radacious,' Mr. B., but I’m glad you’re here. I hate to admit this, but we seem to have encountered a significant problem. Last night, our first attempts to penetrate their system failed. The deeper we probed, trying to get into the important financial areas you said you wanted…”
“Penetrate… the deeper he probed… I bet Patsy loves it when he talks dirty like that, don’t ya think?” Linda whispered.
“…the more we run into some very clever firewalls,” Jimmy continued, either not hearing the snickers or not caring. “Ordinarily, we would push on, but you said you didn’t want to trigger any alarms.”
Ace looked down at them, took another sip of coffee, and asked, “Don’t I remember something about a middle-of-the-class, MIT derb, and how you’d scorch his butt so bad, he’d have to dunk it in the Charles River to cool off… Did I get that about right?”
“Well, yeah, but he cheated,” Ronald quickly answered.
“He cheated?” Bob coughed, almost spilling what was left of his coffee into his lap.
“It’s really quite simple,” Jimmy bristled. “There’s no way a clunk from MIT could have designed a sophisticated data security system like this. He had to have outsourced it. All we need to do is figure out who he went to.”
“Aren’t there like a bazillion software shops up and down Route 128?” Ace asked.
“Chock full of still more MIT derbs, building still more firewalls?” Bob added.
“Firewalls?” Ace quickly sat up. “I’ve got my Barrett out in the trunk. Point me in the right direction, and I’ll punch a bunch of holes through that wall in no time.”
The two Geeks looked at each other, open-mouthed, wondering who invited the Neanderthal to the party.
“He’s only joking guys,” Bob laughed. “But he could. Anyway, keep at it, we have no choice. Linda and I are going down this afternoon and picking up the boat. We should be back after dark. It’s big and fast, and should give us a closer base to operate from than sitting down here at the Holiday Inn.”
“You gonna park it in the Bimini Bay marina?” Koz asked.
“No, there’s another marina on the south side of the little harbor, a small one, but we can watch the Bimini Bay from there. Anyway, we’ll reconvene on the boat later.”
As the group broke up, Bob motioned for Ace and Dorothy to come closer. “We need a set of building plans for the Bimini Bay.”
“The architects are never going to let you see the plans,” Ace told him, “but the city might. Dorothy and I will go over to the City Building Department. We’ll pretend we have a job over at the hotel. My father was an electrical contractor, and I can still talk the game.”
“See if you can get a look at them this afternoon, while we’re gone. Oh, one other thing. Hey, Jimmy, unhand the young maiden and come here a minute,” Bob called to him.
“Maiden?” Linda looked away and snickered. “You gotta be kidding.”
“Just trying to get the boy’s attention,” Bob replied as Jimmy walked over. “You too, Ace. It seems to me that almost everyone going into the hotel or casino uses the parking garage or the front doors, right? Is there some way we could rig a couple of video cameras over there, so we could monitor them back here?”
“Or, can we tap into theirs?” Jimmy suggested.
Ace shrugged. “Putting up a set of our own would take a lot of time and be hard to
pull off without being noticed. But there’s nothing particularly special about their equipment. The cameras are probably hardwired into junction boxes, and I assume the junction boxes feed into their servers and in turn into their computers. If we pirated the feed… but where would we get power?”
Jimmy thought about the problem for a minute. “The junction boxes must have power. We could tap their line with a modem, a small one.”
“But would it be strong enough to get a signal to the marina?” Ace asked.
“No way,” Jimmy thought some more, “but we could park a car in the garage and a second one at the south corner of the parking lot with a couple of big signal boosters in their trunks. We could power them with a car battery and a transformer. Then, the signal would reach.”
“Okay. It’s worth a try. Thanks, Jimmy,” Bob said. “Ace, see if you can get it done this afternoon. We need to know what’s going on over there.”
“Roger that. I’ll get on it as soon as we get back from the city with the plans. They might give me some ideas on how to bootleg a signal.”
“One other thing, when Linda and I get back with the boat, we’ll need to post a watch, 24-7. It has a flying bridge up top. That’s the highest spot on the boat and will provide 360-degree visibility.”
“I assume you only want our guys, and put them on two-hour shifts?”
“That’s what I thought. One man per shift should do. Add me and Ernie to the rotation, but leave the Geeks and the girls out. You can put Lonzo and Chester in, but only on the day shift. They’ll need some sleep when they get back from cleaning, but they can cover the morning and early afternoon.”
“Not having seen the marina, I assume we’ll be most vulnerable after dark.”
“I took a look. The dock is reasonably lit.”
“But the water won’t be,” Ace told him. “We’ll put some rifles, handguns, grenades, and flares up on the bridge.”
“Good idea. And I saw a set of Zeiss binoculars on the boat inventory, so the guys on watch can scan the buildings and keep an eye on the Bimini Bay marina from time to time.”
“Will do.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It took an hour and a half to drive the fifty miles from Atlantic City to Cape May at the far southern tip of the New Jersey coast. Rather than head west and take the fast Garden State Parkway south, Bob opted for the much slower and more scenic coast road that wound through the laid-back beach communities from Atlantic City through Ocean City, Strathmere, Avalon, Stone Harbor, and Wildwood, to Cape May at the far tip of the narrow island where the Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean met. Known for its beaches, colorful Victorian gingerbread houses, and boat marinas, it provided a wonderful emotional break for them.
“I don’t want to leave,” Linda said as they looped through the small town.
“We can come back after Atlantic City is finished. Looks like it would be a great place to unwind.” Bob drove the full length of Washington Street before he checked his GPS and headed to the boat marina. He pulled into a visitor’s space in front of the office and followed Linda inside, where a friendly young receptionist greeted them.
“Is Mr. Marble here?” Bob asked her.
“Sam’s down on Pier 6 giving the final check to one of the rentals.”
“My name’s Bob Burke, he said to meet him here at…”
“That’s where he is, on your boat. You can go on down, and I’ll get the papers ready.”
They walked through the busy boatyard and found the sign to Pier 6, where they tied up the larger yachts and sailboats.
“What’s the name of ours?” Linda asked.
“The Enchantress.”
“Oh, great name! They must’ve known I was coming.”
“No doubt about it. There it is, parked over there,” he said as he pointed to a huge, sleek white yacht moored in Slip 9.
Linda’s mouth fell open and she stopped in her tracks as she looked at the boat from the bow to the stern. “Holy crap! Are you kidding me?”
“Well, I thought we needed something with some size and speed.”
“You couldn’t talk the Navy out of a battleship?”
“Oh, it’s big, but it’s not that big. It’s a Ferrenti 750 — that means it’s seventy-five feet long — and Italian. It’s the Maserati of motor yachts, so powerful it purrs.”
“It’s a boat, Burke! I purr, the boat doesn’t.”
“It comes with every bell and whistle you could want, from two big diesel engines to a hot tub on the upper deck.”
“A hot tub? On the upper deck? Margaritas and baby oil in the sun?” She looked up in awe as they approached the big boat. “Maybe you have a point after all.”
“I knew you’d like that, but more important to me is the CRRC on the aft deck.”
“The what?”
“A Combat Rubber Raiding Craft, that’s what the military calls them. It’s a rubber life raft with a big outboard motor. I figure we can use it to scoot across to the Bimini Bay if we need to. The military ones are black, of course, and this one’s white.”
“I’ll bet they call it a white rubber life raft down here.”
He stared at her for a moment. “But that takes all the fun out of it.”
“That boat is huge!” she said as they got closer. “Are you going to be able to handle it?”
Just then, a short, barrel-chested man in a white shirt leaned over the upper railing and called down to them, “Mister Burke? Hey, I’m Sam Marble, come on up, and I’ll show you around this sweet beauty.”
“Should I take my shoes off? Cover my head?” Linda whispered.
Bob ignored her, walked across the gangplank and shook hands with Marble. “Did you get the check and the rest of the papers you wanted from my attorney in Chicago?” Bob asked.
“Sure did, and the insurance and corporate guarantees checked out just fine. But before you take off in this thing, I thought I should take a few minutes and show you around,” Marble said as he led them up to the flying bridge. “Normally, a boat like this goes out with a professional crew of three. You didn’t ask us to provide any hired help, and that concerns me a little. This ain’t no bass boat you haul out to the lake on Saturday morning. It’s a Ferrenti, sleek, fast, maneuverable, and she can run at thirty knots all day long.”
“Is that fast?” Linda asked.
“Fast? Yes, that’s fast, very fast,” Marble warned. “Are you two sure you can handle something like this?”
“We’ll be fine, Mr. Marble. I’ve driven my share of big boats and fast ones,” Bob smiled, “as have the half dozen friends of mine who are going out with us.”
“Navy?” Marble asked.
“Something like that,” he looked at him and smiled. “Together, there isn’t much that flies or floats that we haven’t taken out.” He looked around and concluded that the Ferrenti was even better than he expected. The windows in the lounges and cabins were tinted black, so passengers could look out, but no one could look in. The dining room and galley could easily sit ten and the four cabins up front, plus the crew quarters, were more than adequate for the number of people he wanted to have on board. “Besides, I’m taking it up to Atlantic City this afternoon, where it will remain for perhaps a week as a base for my friends to enjoy the casinos. I’m not sure if we’ll be going very far after that until we come back here. I left the keys to our rental car in your office.”
“No problem. You have the boat rented for two weeks. If you decide that’s too long, just give me a call and we’ll drive your car up and pick up the boat.”
“Or, my wife and I might decide it’s not nearly long enough, dump the rest of them and work our way down the coast by ourselves.”
Linda beamed as Marble said, “Whatever floats your boat, as they say. Just let me know and we can work something out.”
“Linda, why don’t you take the car back to that supermarket we passed and stock up on food for the guys,” he told her as he took out his wallet and pulled out five one-
hundred dollar bills.
“We’ve already stocked the galley with some snacks and drinks to get you going. It sounds like you’ll be loading up with a lot more, so let me send my maintenance man Ernesto to the store with your wife. He can carry things, while I walk you around the engines, navigational equipment, and communications gear. It’s pretty complicated stuff.”
Bob handed him one of his Toler TeleCom corporate business cards. “Don’t worry, that stuff’s in my wheelhouse. And if I don’t understand it, I’ll have a couple of techies with me, who will.”
It took almost an hour for Sam Marble to show Bob through the complex machinery in engine room, and for Linda to stow the last of the food, booze, and beer in the galley and the two bars. Finally, Bob and Linda waved goodbye as Charlie walked down the pier to his office.
Bob looked at his watch and saw it was only 4:30 p.m. “Well, it’s a little early, but we could go ahead and head back north,” he told Linda. “My plan was not to get there until dark. You want to go ashore and get something to eat before we leave?”
“I have a much better plan,” she said as she grabbed his arm and pulled him down the stairs, through the lounge and galley, and toward the cabins. “We don’t need to go out. The boat’s stocked with enough food for a week, but you’re not going to believe this master stateroom. They even have a mirror on the ceiling, Robert. A mirror! And I haven’t had you alone for some quality time in days.”
“Quality time? Is that what they’re calling it now?”
She glanced up at him. “I can hurt you, you know.”
Bob finally sat up and looked out the large, oblong porthole next to the bed. The shadows were beginning to lengthen around the harbor. He bent down and gave her a kiss and attempted to pull away without much success. “Linda, dearest,” he gave her another kiss and pleaded. “The sun will be down in about a half an hour, and I don’t trust myself with all that navigational equipment yet. I’d like to be out of the harbor and into open water while we still have some daylight to work by.”
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