The Cassandra Conspiracy

by Rick Bajackson

  After checking to see that he had everything, Payton left the office and headed back to the garage. He backed out of his parking place and drove up the ramp onto the street. A few minutes later, he was back on the Jones Falls Expressway headed out of town.

  As he wheeled the car through the downtown traffic, Payton reflected on the happenings of the past few days. Whatever was going down, it was definitely a big‑time operation. Wingate was spending millions to have this person killed, which meant that tens of millions, if not billions, of dollars were at stake. Whatever Wingate’s intended victim was doing, it obviously put the financier’s business empire in jeopardy. But why kill Grover Albright? That didn’t make any sense.

  In spite of the pieces he had put together so far, Payton was without the proof he needed to go to the authorities. In his obscurity he, and therefore Janet, had been safe–or so he thought. The events of the past few days had shattered any idea he had that Wingate wasn’t on to them.

  How Wingate had found out that Payton had taken an unwanted interest in him, he didn’t know. Besides, it didn’t make any difference. He’d been caught sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted into matters that did not concern him. And Charles Wingate was not about to let bygones be bygones. They were in imminent danger.

  His ruminations brought him back to his current, and most pressing problem: if they had bugged his Baltimore office, then the house wasn’t safe either. Depending upon when they did it, they either knew very little or a hell of a lot about what Payton's plans were. He had to find out for sure.

  . . . . . .

  When he got back to the farm, Payton parked the car in the garage and went inside. He found Janet still at work on the computer. Before she could utter a word, Payton placed his index finger across his lips. Then he motioned her outside.

  Taking Janet by the arm, they walked toward the pasture. Payton didn’t say a word until they were far enough from the house for their conversation not to be overheard. “We’ve got problems. One of Wingate’s men tailed me all the way to Baltimore.”

  Before he could tell her the rest, Janet cut in. “Maybe it’s a coincidence. I’m sure Wingate’s got business in Baltimore. After all, it’s the closest large city,” she said, seemingly trying to convince herself more than Payton.

  “There’s more. When I was leaving the office, I ran into the building’s maintenance supervisor. He told me the telephone company had been in to work on my phones. The only problem is I never called for phone service. They had to be Wingate’s people.”

  “Maybe it was the telephone company. They might have mixed up your name with someone else’s. That’s probably what happened. It’s nothing.”

  “I don’t believe the phone company screwed up. Wingate’s people know we’re on to them and they’re taking precautions.”

  “Precautions?” Janet asked, suddenly flustered.

  Payton wanted to sugar‑coat the final bit of news, but words failed him. “Janet, I’m sure Wingate had my office phones bugged. I think the phones here may also have been tapped.”

  Payton saw the panic on Janet’s face as the gravity of their situation sank in.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “First, we’re going to check out the phones,” Payton said. “Come on. I’ll need your help. Just don’t say anything until we’re sure–one way or the other.”

  Unfortunately, Payton had no idea how to determine whether the house was bugged other than what he’d seen on television. But he did know that you didn’t go tearing things apart if you suspected that someone was listening to your every move.

  He needed something to drown out any noise he might make. Payton's eyes descended on an old AM-FM radio. Flipping it on, he adjusted the volume. Ted’s aunt’s taste had been for country music, and Payton wondered what Wingate’s listeners would think when they heard the strains of Kenny Rogers. He cranked the volume up louder.

  Step two, where to begin? The telephone instruments were the obvious starting point. Anyone wanting to keep close tabs on someone else would invariably tap the phones. They went out back and walked around the outside the house until Payton found where the electric service entered the house. Beneath the wires by a good three feet was another cable–the telephone line.

  “There’s the phone line,” Payton said. “It looks as if they go through the foundation and into the basement.”

  With Janet in tow, he went back inside and down the cellar steps and over to the window near where he had seen the wires. He found the phone cable, and then followed it over to a black phenolic terminal strip.

  From what appeared to be twenty distinct wires, two were in use. Each wire terminated to a screw connector on the strip. A second, multi-conductor cable consisting of several color-coded wires went from the strip and snaked its way up the wall and into the overhead. The bundle of wires had to be the ones that ran throughout the house. Carefully, he checked the strip, but found nothing to arouse his suspicions.

  In a whisper, Payton said, “Everything seems normal here.” Janet nodded.

  Payton turned off the basement lights and went back upstairs.

  When he got to the kitchen phone, he whispered again. “Hold down the hook switch. There’s no sense in alerting Wingate’s people to the fact that we’ve become suspicious, and a phone off the hook will definitely raise a flag.”

  The phone went silent. Then he unscrewed the cover from the mouthpiece. Payton shook the phone until the microphone element fell out into his hand.

  He knew that he was no expert on the internal workings of the modern phone, and the only way that he was going to spot a bug would be if it stood out from the rest of the phone’s innards. The element looked normal–no suspicious devices wired to the microphone. Putting the microphone aside, he checked the rest of the receiver. It looked clean. Payton reassembled the mouthpiece then performed the same inspection on the earphone. Nothing there either. Strike two.

  Janet tugged at his sleeve. “Maybe they only got your office phones.”

  “I doubt it,” Steve replied.

  There were only two phones in the house: the kitchen phone and the extension in the bedroom Janet had been using. Payton walked up the steps and into the room. Just as he had done before, he turned the radio on the nightstand on.

  Once he was satisfied with the impromptu concert he was giving to any surreptitious listeners, he unplugged the telephone from the modular jack and began removing the mouthpiece. As was the case with the kitchen phone, Payton found nothing out of the ordinary.

  “See, I told you,” Janet said. Her voice had regained some of its assuredness.

  Payton shrugged, and then began reassembling the phone. When he was done, he plugged it back into the wall, and started out of the room. At the doorway he stopped, and looked around again. For some reason his sixth sense, the one that always stopped him before he made a fool out of himself in court, caused him to pause. His gaze fell on the wall jack. It would be almost as easy to bug the phones at the jack as in the telephone.

  “Wait here,” he whispered in Janet’s ear.

  Payton went back downstairs and out to the car. He opened the trunk and took out a small slotted-head screwdriver from his duffel bag. Then he returned to the bedroom and removed the small screw holding the jack’s faceplate to the wall. With that done, he detached the two retaining screws holding the jack to the wall.

  All the while, Janet stood behind him, watching intently as he disassembled the telephone jack. Finally, Payton eased the jack with its cluster of wires from the wall. With the jack clear, Payton rotated it gently. He wanted to be careful that he didn’t twist or break the thin wires that went from the back of the module into the wall.

  In addition to the telephone wires, there was something else attached to the jack–something alien. It was a small black module, approximately two inches in length by an inch in width and a half inch in height. Two wires emerged from the black resin, and were connected across the same terminals as the
telephone. A chill ran down Payton's spine.

  Payton looked over his shoulder. Janet’s eyes grew wide. Payton saw the panic on Janet’s face as the gravity of their situation sank in. The thin veil of anonymity that they had relied on for protection had been stripped away.

  Careful not to change any connections or the manner in which the jack fastened to the wall, Payton reassembled the unit.

  As he finished replacing the last of the screws, Payton's hands began to shake. Payton motioned for Janet to follow, then walked down the stairs and out the kitchen door.

  As soon as they were yards from the house, Steve asked, “What do you think?”

  Janet shook her head. “Ever hear of an infinity bug?”

  Somewhere he had read about a tap called the infinity bug. “Doesn’t it allow the user to monitor telephone conversations as well as pick up anything said in the room?”

  Janet nodded. “Unless I miss my guess, that’s what’s in the wall outlet. All Wingate would have to do would be to call the house, and before the telephone rang, send a special tone across the telephone lines. The tone would signal the tapped phone, preventing it from ringing. At the same time, the caller could listen in on any conversation taking place within twenty feet of the tapped phone.”

  “Did you use the phone today?”

  “Oh, God. I called about the Shangri-La this morning!”

  “Calm down. I’m not sure it makes any difference. If you’re right about the bug, then Wingate’s been privy to everything we’ve said in the damned bedroom!

  Janet grimaced, her hands clenched tightly. “Damn it, Steve! Every word that we said to each other each time that we made love is sitting on Wingate’s tape recorder. Entertainment for some pervert.” Janet looked aghast.

  “True, but that’s not our most serious problem. What we said or didn’t say in bed may be embarrassing, but it’s not dangerous. We’ve got to assume that everything we said about Wingate planning a murder, Shangri‑La, the money, the date, everything may have been taped,” he said bleakly.

  “May have. . . what do you mean?”

  “Depending when Wingate’s people planted the bug, he may or may not know the extent of our interest.”

  “You mean if the bug’s recent, he may not have heard us talk about the murder plot?” Janet asked hopefully.

  “Up until this morning when you checked on the Shangri‑La. Once he hears that you spent the morning calling all over the place, trying to find out about the Shangri‑La, that’ll be it. He’d have to be an idiot not to tie your calls and his plans together.”

  Janet’s worst fears had suddenly come to life, growing in front of her eyes like some horrible monster. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re getting out of here. I’ve got to meet Mark in London next week. We’re clearing out as fast as we can.”

  “How are we going to accomplish that without getting spotted? They’ll be watching us.”

  “Oh, they’re watching the farm, but I expect they’ll only have one car keeping an eye on things.”

  “Only one?”

  “Because Wingate’s people will rely on the bugs to alert them to any thing we’re planning. As far as they know, we’re unaware of the bugs. I think it’s time we dish out what the professional intelligence people call disinformation.” A rudimentary plan began to take shape in his mind.

  “First, we won’t signal our move at all. To our eavesdroppers, it’ll seem like a typical night. We’ll have dinner and do everything we normally do. Sometime before dawn, the men watching the house are going to get real tired. Most likely, only one of them is going to be awake. That’s when we’ll make our move. You’ll take the Jag.” explained Payton.

  “I’ll use the pickup. You’ll only be able to use the parking lights until you get to the road. I’ll follow your tail-lights up the driveway, but I’ll wait until you pull out. When you get to the end of the driveway, tap the brakes twice. That’ll alert me that you’re ready to go.

  Don’t wait too long once you get there. The guys watching us will most likely be slow in reacting, but that doesn’t mean that we can take any chances. They should be more than a little surprised when, they suddenly see the Jaguar pull out onto the road. Unless they’re on their toes, they’ll panic when they realize what’s going on. You’ll have to try to put as much distance between you and them as you can. The car’s fast and even if worse comes to worse, you can outrun them.”

  Payton was still piecing his plans together as he went along. “When they come after you, I’ll cut them off. Once I’ve taken care of them, I’ll meet you at the phone booth, the one at the I83 ramp.”

  “Wait a minute...” Janet said interrupting him. “That’s too dangerous. Isn’t there another way–something else we could do?”

  “We don’t have a choice.” Payton wanted to shift Janet’s attention away from using the pickup as a diversion.

  “What happens after you run them off the road?” Janet asked, unwilling to be deterred so easily.

  “If Wingate’s men had orders to kill us, they would have done it by now. We’re sitting ducks here. They could drive in, shoot us, and leave. I’m counting on the fact that these guys won’t be watching for the pickup. If I’m wrong and something happens to me, go to the police. You won’t have any other options,” Payton replied emphatically.

  They sat quietly as the gravity of their situation sunk in.

  CHAPTER 21

  October 18th

  John Grant had taken a seat in the corner of the restaurant facing the door. His selection of the table, and its relative position with respect to the rest of the place, was automatic. Or if not automatic, then at least instinctive.

  He had to sit in the corner where he knew his back was covered, and where he had a commanding view of the entrance. It wasn’t that Grant thought that he was in any kind of danger. He wasn’t. But over the years, he had learned never to let his guard down. An error now portended increased carelessness, which was something he couldn’t afford. At first he had to make a point to pay particular attention to the little details that could make the difference in his survival. Later they became second nature, like brushing your teeth or walking the dog.

  Grant’s reflections were interrupted as CNN flashed the breaking news across the black and white television in the far corner of the room. “The President will be leaving this afternoon for Camp David to work on his revised economic plan. To date, President Varrick has managed to keep a tight lid on the new program. Speculation abounds throughout the Capital as to what radical changes and new legislation the President has in mind.”

  As the reporter went on, John Grant finished breakfast and walked out to his car. A few minutes later he was on I70, heading west. Grant followed the same route to the Catoctin National Forest he had taken the last time. When he got off the multilane highway near Frederick, he stopped at the western Maryland town’s largest shopping center. He went into the grocery store, and picked up enough staples to last him three days in the woods.

  When he got back to the Jeep, Grant removed a Forestry Service map from his knapsack. The map pinpointed every fire watchtower in Catoctin National Forest, including the one he had recently found.

  He checked the route to the tower one more time. Then he folded the map, placed it into the waterproof nylon map case, and got back into the Jeep. He continued up Maryland Route 15 toward Thurmont, but this time didn’t get off at the east-west Route 77. Instead, he followed Route 15 north about three quarters of a mile and exited onto Route 550, skirting the northern edge of the national forest.

  He had charted his route twice before. When he got to the road that led to the derelict motel, he eased off onto the shoulder and stopped the car. The old driveway was a mosaic of cracks, clumps of grass, and loose stones.

  It led back to an abandoned motel that hadn’t seen any visitors for years except possibly some amorous local teenagers. A substantial chain, bolted to a concrete-filled steel pipe set into the grou
nd and moored to a concrete pad, provided a modicum of security. The other end of the chain fastened to a metal ring welded to a second steel post at the far side of the drive.

  During his last trip, Grant had taken the time to hacksaw off the original lock and replace it with a duplicate manufactured by the same company. If anyone had ventured upon the site before Grant’s return trip, they would think that their key simply didn’t work. On the other hand, if Grant returned to find that his key didn’t open the lock, he’d know the road wasn’t secure.

  Grant’s key worked, and the lock opened with a snap. He dropped the chain, and then drove the Jeep through the entrance. Before driving to the spot where he’d leave the car, he re‑secured the chain and lock.

  After making sure that the car was far enough off the road for it not to be noticed, he opened the tailgate and began to sort out his equipment. His knapsack contained all the basics he’d need on the trail, including a basic first aid kit, candle, fire starters, waterproof matches, nylon cord, a single edged razor blade, dextrose cubes, energy bars, salt packets, hunting knife, compass, and flashlight. He also carried a camouflage PVC poncho for use on the trail, and a canteen.

  A down sleeping bag would shelter him during the cold nights. Grant had checked the weekend weather forecast, and the next few days were supposed to be sunny, the nights clear and cold. He removed the food that he’d recently bought, packing it into the remaining space in his pack. It was all edible right from the can, and Grant wasn’t planning any fires.

  His supplies taken care of, he removed his Docksiders along with his socks. In their place he pulled on a pair of olive drab boot socks over which he added his Timberland hiking boots.

  Before putting on a heavy wool sweater, Grant strapped on his shoulder holster. The holster held his Smith & Wesson Model 469 nine-millimeter handgun, upside down with the grip angled near the front of his chest.