by Kyle Mills
Beamon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thanks, Barry. And while you’re at it, could you throw in a carton of Marlboros?”
“I thought you rolled your own,” he said, pulling down the carton and laying it on top of the beers.
“Oh, I did. But I think I might be needing them faster than I can roll ‘em for a while.”
Beamon sat in his car and ceremoniously bent his credit cards back and forth until the pieces littered the floorboard. He stared at the brightly colored shards of plastic lying at his feet and thought about what they represented.
What could the church hope to gain by getting their lackeys to screw with the credit of an FBI executive? In the long run, nothing but trouble. So why expose themselves and their tactics so blatantly? He could only come up with one answer—that he was right about their plans for Jennifer.
They just needed to distract him for the next two weeks. At the end of that time, when Jennifer’s body was being used to help prop up one of their new cathedrals, the church would use its money and influence to silence any report of their attacks on him. At worst they would make a quiet statement apologizing for their overzealous members’ treatment of him, knowing full well that at that point he wouldn’t have a prayer of connecting them to Jennifer or her parents.
37
BEAMON STOOD OUTSIDE THE DOOR OF HIS condo and gently twisted the doorknob again. He vividly remembered locking it when he’d left that morning and now there it was, unlocked.
He looked over his shoulder at the front windows of the condo occupied by the guardian angel the church had so thoughtfully provided him. As usual, it was dark. There was just enough light reflecting off the snow, though, to see that the curtain was propped back enough for someone to see out. He could almost feel the crosshairs tickling his forehead.
Beamon pulled his gun from its holster and slipped into his living room as quietly as the ice- encrusted door would allow. The battalions of well- armed Holy Rollers that he expected to find weren’t there. The room was empty.
As he worked his way across the living room, he noticed a strange hum coming from his bedroom and froze. The sound was undoubtedly mechanical in origin. Some kind of a booby trap?
He considered backing his way out of the condo and catling for backup, but decided against it. What if it was nothing? He didn’t need to give Layman any more ammunition regarding his alleged paranoia.
He paused for a moment with his back a couple of inches from the wall next to the door to his bedroom and then spun smoothly into the opening.
The man standing by his bed didn’t seem to notice Beamon’s arrival and continued examining pieces of his disassembled phone, looking up at the screen of an open laptop computer every few seconds.
“You’re clear here, Mark,” the man said as Beamon holstered his sidearm.
He hadn’t laid eyes on Jack Goldman in more than five years. The decade hadn’t been kind to the old man. His white hair had thinned considerably, revealing wrinkles across his scalp that made it look like it was a size too big for his skull. The thickness of his glasses seemed to have more than doubled and now looked too heavy to be propped up by the gnarled nose beneath them. The lenses distorted light so badly that the middle of Goldman’s head seemed to flow like liquid when he moved.
“Mr. Goldman,” Beamon groaned. “What’re you doing here?”
The old man turned away and began collecting the parts of the phone scattered across the bed. “What the hell’s it look like I’m doing, boy? I’m sweeping your house. And I’d thank you to use a more grateful tone with me. I normally charge two thousand dollars.” He paused. “Plus expenses.”
The phone was about ninety percent reassembled when it started to ring, but Goldman was having trouble timing the tremors in his hands efficiently enough to plug the cord back in. Beamon walked over to him and tried to offer a hand, but was stopped short when Goldman grabbed his cane and hit him across the shins with it.
“Jesus Christ,” Beamon howled, bending over and grabbing the leg that had taken the brunt of the impact. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Don’t think I can put a phone back together? I’ve been taking phones apart and putting them back together since …”
Beamon hobbled back out into the living room and out of range of Goldman’s voice in time to grab the phone in the kitchen. “Yeah, hello,” he said, sitting down on a stool and continuing to rub his shin.
“Is this Mark Beamon?” The voice was lightly accented. “This is Hans Volker at the German Embassy.”
“Hans! An unexpected pleasure. How are you?”
“Mark. Thank God. I’m fine, but how are you? I’ve been hearing some very disturbing things.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of that lately. What exactly are you hearing?”
Volker’s voice was a bit hesitant. “I have to have your word that what I’m about to tell you is just between us, Mark.”
“Sure, Hans. Just between us.”
“We have a few well-placed … informants inside the Church of the Evolution. You suspected as much, I’m sure, but you can see how this kind of, uh, monitoring, if it became public, could be very embarrassing to us.”
“Like I said, Hans. Just between us.”
“Your investigation of the church is generating quite a lot of interest, Mark. Quite a lot. My sources tell me that the church is convinced that you believe they’re involved in the kidnapping of Jennifer Davis. They are very concerned about this, and about your continued efforts to penetrate the outer layers of their organization.”
Beamon grunted into the phone. He wasn’t happy about how public this all seemed to be getting, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about it now.
“Frankly, Mark, I’m becoming concerned about your safety.”
“How so? “
Volker cleared his throat nervously. “The church has a significant number of weapons in its arsenal to deter this kind of inquiry. They’ve made quite an art of keeping their business private. But you probably already know that.”
“Sticks and stones, Hans.”
“It goes further than that, Mark. It’s come to our attention that the church may have formed a security force that could be used for violence against people who aren’t persuaded by their normal methods.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’m not,” Volker admitted. “It’s hearsay, really. I’m concerned that if they’ve already guessed that you won’t succumb to their normal techniques, and if this group actually exists, you could be in physical danger.”
Beamon walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. “I appreciate the warning, Hans. Believe me, I’m doing everything I can to protect myself …”
“One more thing, Mark. I believe you know a man named Jacob Layman?”
“He’s my boss. The SAC Phoenix.”
“There’s some very circumstantial evidence that the church may have influenced Mr. Layman’s appointment to that position.”
Beamon gave the beer bottle’s cap a hard twist and tossed it in the sink. He’d already considered that possibility. Layman had final authority over the office covering the Kneissians’ back yard. And it was Layman who was so desperately against the investigation into the church.
“I appreciate the heads-up, Hans. Anything else you can teil me?” Beamon said, watching the stooped form of his latest problem as it hobbled into the living room.
“To get out of town for a while?”
“Can’t do that.”
“Well, then I’ll tell you to be careful. And that I’ll do whatever I can for you. Do you still have my number?”
“I keep it right here, close to my heart.”
“Good luck, Mark.”
Beamon caught him before he hung up. “Hey! Hans!”
“Yes?”
“Answer a question for me. What long-distance service do you use?”
There was a pause over the phone. “Um, AT&T, I think. I’m ho
nestly not sure.”
“So you just pick up the phone and dial—no codes or anything.”
“I just pick up the phone and dial. Why do you ask?”
“Just something I’ve been working on. Nothing important. Thanks again, Hans.”
Beamon hung up the phone and chewed at his lower lip. This was going to get ugly. He could feel it coming.
“What’s with the cane, Mr. Goldman? You actually need it or is it just a weapon?”
“Sprained my ankle skydiving,” the old man grumbled.
Beamon laughed. As best as he could remember, he’d never heard Goldman say something funny. At least not on purpose.
“What’re you laughing about, boy?”
Beamon looked down at the old man’s ankle and then at his cold expression. “You’re serious? What the hell were you doing skydiving?”
Goldman shrugged, causing the hump growing between his shoulders to rise and fall. “Never did it before. It was stupid, though.”
“Stupid?”
“They jump right on either side of you,” Goldman said in a disgusted tone. “Don’t let you make your own decisions.”
“When to pull the cord?”
Goldman shook his head. “I just turned ninety, Mark. It’s whether to pull the cord now.”
Beamon almost laughed again, but something told him that the old man was serious. He decided to change the subject. “What’d you come up with on Vericomm?”
“Is that the long-distance company you were asking about? Never heard of them.”
“It’s a holding company. They’re called Nicke- LineAZ around here.”
Goldman hobbled over to the sofa and leaned against the arm. “Okay, sure. They’re NickeLineNY in New York.”
“Do you use them?” Beamon asked. He’d never really considered it, but Goldman—the top man in corporate eavesdropping countermeasures—would be an obvious target.
“I get offers every now and again, but I ain’t never found a good reason to actually pay for longdistance service.”
“So have you had time to research my question? Is it possible?”
“For a small carrier to listen in on long distance? Probably not for a standard company. They rent phone lines from the big boys, like AT&T, but calls just go through whatever line is available at the time. But the kind of company you describe is IP based—IP stands for Internet Protocol. That type of system compresses analog signals and routes them through the Internet. It’d be expensive and hardware- intensive as all hell, but a company like that could listen in on calls.”
Beamon remembered the devastating losses taken by NickeLine and the fact that they owned far more equipment than they should. It looked like he was right again, but he was having a hard time getting his arm around exactly what that meant.
What did Sara know? Goddamn near everything about everything, he guessed. And another interesting question—who could he trust? Even if Jake Layman wasn’t a Kneissian, what had he said over a long-distance line that they could use to persuade him of the righteousness of Kneiss’s God? He was starting to get a clearer picture of the Church’s vaunted investment record, though. Half the corporate executives in the U.S. were probably NickeLine patrons.
Beamon looked down at the old man and took another pull from the beer bottle. What was he going to do with him? Trying to cut loose from him was pointless, jack Goldman did whatever the hell he wanted. And right now, he wanted to be involved in this case.
“Who we after, anyway?” Goldman said.
Beamon figured there was no way he was going to get rid of him, so he might as well make the best of it. He really was the best in the world. “The Church of the Evolution, Mr. Goldman. I think they’re involved in the Jennifer Davis kidnapping.”
“The Kneissians? Those goddamn weirdos? Christ. I say we return the favor.”
“The favor?” Beamon said.
“I’ll show those assholes a thing or two about bugging phones. We’ll be able to hear ‘em taking a dump when I get through with ‘em.”
Beamon held his hand up. “There’s no way I’m going to get a court order for a tap, Mr. Goldman. So we’re gonna have to forget that.”
“Court order? What the hell’s wrong with you? Show a little initiative.”
There was a knock at the door, and Beamon slid off the stool and started across the living room. “I’m still an FBI agent, sir. No illegal wiretaps.”
Beamon started opening the door but stopped halfway and squeezed through the opening. “Carrie!” he said loudly, trying to drown out Goldman’s voice.
“If Hoover was still alive, I’d have wires so far up those guys’ asses, they’d chip a tooth on ‘em when they ate!”
“How are you?”
She looked at the door. “What was that?”
“What? Oh, my uncle. He’s up for a visit. A brief visit. He’s a little crazy—excuse me, I didn’t mean to say ‘crazy.’ Older’n God, you know? Worked on the construction of the Roman aqueducts.”
She smiled. Beautifully. “Can I meet him?”
Beamon shook his head a little too violently. “Not decent. Never wears pants. Something about letting his legs breathe.”
She smirked and took one last suspicious look at the door. “I haven’t seen you since we had dinner. Are you avoiding me?”
“No,” Beamon said firmly. “I am definitely not avoiding you. In fact, I was planning on coming over to see you tonight, but …” He thumbed at the door. “Hadn’t really expected company.”
He reached behind him for the knob. “I’m going to take Uncle Jack to where he’s staying and then I’ll be back. You’ll be up for a few hours, won’t you?”
“He’s not staying with you?”
“Uh, doesn’t want to. Hates my place. And he’s not really that crazy about me, either,”
She turned and began walking toward the stairs. “If it’s past eight, don’t ring the bell. Emory’ll be asleep.”
38
THAT HAD BEEN UNPLEASANT.
For a few minutes there, Beamon had thought he was going to have to pry those bony old fingers off his sofa with a crowbar. But if it had come to that, he would have. He had enough problems without that crotchety old SOB limping around his apartment. There was just so much he could take,
Goldman had given him the silent treatment through their entire search for an apartment complex that offered furnished units by the day. He hadn’t spoken a single word when Beamon had lugged his equipment into the dingy interior of the only place they could find. Goldman had barely perked up when Beamon, overwhelmed by guilt, had invited him to be in on his meeting with Ernie Waverly tomorrow.
Beamon hung his parka next to the door and walked across the living room to his answering machine. He grabbed the bottle of wine he’d purchased earlier that evening while the tape rewound.
“Mr. Beamon. This is Terry Bland calling from the Oklahoma office.” The hiss of the tape couldn’t disguise the nervousness in Bland’s voice. “I checked on that flight plan to Turkey again like you asked. There is, I repeat, is a record of that flight plan being filed last month—for January fifteenth … I’m really sorry, Mr. Beamon. I don’t know how we made that error. Normally we get it right the first time. Let me know if you need anything else … Again, I apologize for the error and hope it doesn’t cause you any problems.”
Beamon made a mental note to call that kid when all this was over and tell him it wasn’t his fault.
The machine beeped loudly and a somewhat garbled voice faded in. “Mark! Ken Hirayami here. I don’t know how you called it, but you were right, goddamn you. There is a record of Albert Kneiss’s visa in Turkey. He arrived January sixteenth and is apparently still there. I’ll send you your fifty goddamn bucks when you call me and tell me what’s going on. I’ve got some Turkish friends who would love to know how you found a glitch in what they thought was a pretty good system.”
Beamon sighed loudly and headed for the front door, bottle of wine tucked securel
y under his arm. In forty-eight hours, the church was two for two on Kneiss’s imaginary trip to Turkey. Beamon had hoped they wouldn’t have the juice to falsify the records at all, but had reasonably expected they’d get to the FAA and fail in Turkey. The arms of the church seemed to be looking longer and longer, he reflected as he walked down the stairs outside his condo and rapped quietly on Carrie Johnstone’s door.
She opened it a crack and then slipped outside. “Emory fell asleep on the couch,” she explained.
Beamon handed her the wine, and she looked at the label with an expression somewhere between gratitude and surprise. Obviously, she’d expected less from a Pabst Blue Ribbon drinker.
“How about Tuesday?” Beamon said, realizing that the question didn’t make much sense after it had already escaped from his mouth.
“Tuesday, what?”
“Dinner. I thought we could go out.”
Beamon felt the knot in his stomach, started by his theory on Jennifer Davis’s impending doom, tighten at the thought of his dinner with Carrie. He had to distance himself from her until he got this church thing straightened out—there was just no other way. The tough part was doing it without: A) making it sound like a blowoff, B) making it sound like he was the kind of guy who couldn’t commit to a goldfish, or C) making it seem that FBI agents were just too much trouble to seriously consider having a relationship with.
“Sounds great. Pick me up at seven.” She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the mouth, then disappeared back into her apartment.
Beamon stood there for a moment, stunned by the kiss. The clean, vaguely tropical scent of her hair still hung in the air, cinching down the knot a little tighter.
He cursed the church under his breath for their timing as he started back to his apartment. Couldn’t Kneiss have done his messiah act and died last year? Before he’d moved in above the most spectacular woman he’d ever met?
Spectacular or not, though, he had to figure out a way to get rid of her for a while and hope she’d come back to him when all this was over. That is, if Sara Renslier saw fit to leave anything for her to come back to.
