by Marvin Wolf
Will said, “I’ll ask General Davis to fix me a chopper and I’ll go up to Huntsville with the bills and make the case that they should have one of their experts check the bills while I wait. That can’t take long.”
Ash said, “That’s good. At least we’d have a federal rap to hang on anyone we scoop up.”
Will said, “Including anybody with enough juice to skate on a state charge. Like maybe a judge.”
Chelmin said, “How soon can you leave, Will?”
Chapter 52
By 0945 hours Will had signed for $7200 in hundred-dollar notes, changed into a flight suit, and conducted a thorough pre-flight inspection of his Lakota. After a quick phone conversation with the weather wizards, he lifted off from Cairn Field, climbed to 6,500 feet, and set his course for 350 degrees magnetic. About 40 minutes later, approaching Montgomery’s eastern suburbs, he notified the civilian airport tower and was directed to descend to 1,500 feet as he flew across that airport’s landing traffic pattern.
Will did much the same half an hour later while threading his way through Birmingham’s airspace. A little past noon, he set down on a visitor’s pad at Redstone Army Airfield, just west of Huntsville. After a quick stop in the terminal restroom to shed his flight suit and don a suit, dress shirt, and tie, he summoned an Uber car.
At 1244 hours he was buzzed into the Secret Service Field Office in a nondescript downtown office building. A pretty, dark-haired woman of perhaps fifty was behind the reception desk. She swallowed the mouthful of tuna salad that she was chewing and smiled at Will.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“Special Agent Spaulding, Army CID,” he said, holding up his badge in one hand and his credentials in the other.
“My God, your boss called only a half hour ago. Do you people have a Gulfstream or something?”
Will laughed. “No, ma’am. Fort Rucker is the Army’s center for helicopter warfare. We have hundreds of helicopters, all sizes, but no Gulfstream jets that I’m aware of. I came up in a helicopter that cruises at a little over 130 knots, or close to 150 miles per hour. It’s a two-hour flight to Redstone Field and a twenty-minute cab ride here.”
The woman nodded. “Your boss, Agent....”
“Chelmin. Rudy Chelmin.”
“Agent Chelmin said you had some hundreds that you wanted us to examine? Possible counterfeit?”
“Yes.”
“This is a small field office. All of our agents are at lunch. Have you eaten, Agent Spaulding?”
“Uh, no.”
“There’s an excellent Chinese place around the corner,” she said. “You might even find a Secret Service agent or three there.”
Will hesitated, thinking.
“When you come out of this building, turn right and walk to the corner. Then turn left and cross the street—it’s four or five doors down.”
“I’ll be back,” said Will, turning to leave.
“Wait!”
Will stopped and looked back.
“I can sign for that currency. if you’d care to leave it,” said the woman.
“Thanks, but I’ll hang on to it for now,” he said.
§
Will took the stairs down three flights and stepped into the late winter sunshine. Across the street were a big sporting goods store, a consumer finance office, a shoe store, and a cafeteria. He turned right and walked to the corner and looked to his left. The Chinese place was across the street to his left. As he approached the restaurant, he saw its name: Szechuan Heat. His heart skipped a beat.
Ten steps and three seconds later he pushed the restaurant door open to see an almost full house. In the far corner were three fit men in business suits. One had a cell phone to his ear, and when he caught Will’s eye, he waved, then beckoned for him to come over.
“You’re Spaulding?” asked the man, who was clearly the eldest of the trio.
Will opened his coat to show the badge on his belt.
The man nearest him got to his feet and extended his hand. “Miles Hennessy,” he said, and as they shook hands, the second man was on his feet and reaching for Will’s hand. “Frank Bourassa,” he said.
“I’m Charles Lockwood, the ASAC,” said the third man. “Have a seat.”
Will moved to his right and took the unoccupied chair.
Lockwood said, “We just ordered a bunch of food—more than enough for all. Join us?”
Will smiled. “Sure. The food here is okay?”
Bourassa said, “Best Chinese this side of Hong Kong.”
A moment later a waiter pushed a cart alongside the table and began moving steaming platters of food to a lazy Susan in the middle of the table.
Lockwood said, “Would you bring our friend a plate and some silverware?”
The waiter, a short, thin man in his middle years, turned a gap-toothed smile on Will. “New special agent?”
Will nodded. “Agent Spaulding. Good to meet you.”
“You come next time, ask for Mister Yang,” he said in a thick accent.
Will said, “You’re from Yunnan?”
Yang’s face changed. “You know Yunnan? I born Kunming!”
“Famous city,” Will said.
“You come next time, we talk,” said Wang. He nodded to the other agents and pushed the cart away.
Hennessy said, “How’d you know he was from Yunnan? We’ve been coming here for two years and that’s the most he’s ever said to anyone.”
Will said, “Long story. My partner at Fort Rucker, Special Agent Shapiro, grew up in China—parents worked for USAID—and their amah was also named Yang. Very common name in that province.”
A busboy appeared with a plate and silverware wrapped in a linen napkin. For the next several minutes all four men occupied themselves with the business of moving food from serving dishes to their plates and then to their mouth.
With a show of reluctance, Lockwood pushed his plate away and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “So, I understand that you brought us some century notes to check out?”
“That’s right. How does it work—can you do that in the office, or do you have to send them to your lab?”
“We can tell with almost a hundred percent certainty if they’re counterfeit. If so, we send them to the lab for analysis so they can try to learn where they came from.”
“So I could leave here in a couple hours and know if they’re good fakes or the real deal.”
Lockwood nodded. “For sure. How many did you bring us?”
“Seventy-two notes.”
“And how did you come by them?”
“We’re working a murder case—an Army dependent—and the trail led us to her son’s grandmother, who we like for the murder because she wanted custody of the boy.”
“Excuse me,” said Lockwood. “You mean her mother-in-law?”
Will shook his head, no. “She and the boy’s father never married. So technically, no.”
Bourassa said, “So where did the money come from?”
“This was something of a coincidence. We’re also working a missing person case, and on the chance that our missing person might have been involved with a crowd of poker players at the Officer’s Club, we sent an agent to play poker there. As it happens, that’s how he put himself through college, so he cleaned up. Then he was invited to another game, a $1,000 buy-in. That game turned out to be in a covert casino in Dothan’s high-rent district—the grandmother’s house. Our agent came back with those bills, his winnings plus his initial buy-in.”
Bourassa said, “So he converted his cash, presumably clean money, to chips, played and won, and when he left the casino exchanged the chips for those notes?”
Will said. “Right. So $2,000 of that is his own money.”
Lockwood said, “If they’re queer, he loses it all. Too bad.”
Will nodded. “What I figured. We’re kind of hoping that there’s at least one counterfeit bill in the batch because that would allow you guys to bust the place, and that might give us
somebody who can finger the grandmother for the murder.”
Lockwood shared a tiny scowl. “It would take more than a couple of queer bills for us to mount that kind of operation. More likely, one of us would just go talk to those people.”
Will shook his head. “That’s unlikely. The place is a fortress, with local and outside security, and at least one deputy sheriff on their payroll. If you walk up to the front door and knock, Mrs. Richardson will invite you in for coffee, lay some smooth Southern hospitality on you, and ask you to come back with a search warrant. By the time you do that, the people you want are gone. You’d have to come in through the alley garage, and that is an underground entrance. According to our agent, it’s fortified. My bet is that they don’t open for business until 2000 hours, and if you came before then or after maybe 0400 you’d find a room with card tables, no people, and no money.”
Lockwood frowned. “Let’s see if any of your cash is counterfeit before we start planning an operation.”
Will said, “Main reason I’m here is that a few months ago, your office asked all law enforcement in south Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida to submit all counterfeit hundreds. So what do you have going on?”
The three agents shared glances around the room.
Lockwood said, “We can’t tell you much—it’s need-to-know. I can say that we’ve seen a steady trickle of counterfeits from the Gulf coast, mostly from legal casinos. So we think somebody is wholesaling these. We work counterfeiting cases just like you would a drug investigation: Nab the little fish and get them to give us the bigger fish until we get to the people who make them or are at the top of the distribution chain.”
Will said, “So let’s go back to your office and find out what I’ve got.”
Chapter 53
A little before 1400 hours, Sheriff Taliaferro called Ash.
“We’ve got another missing person,” she said. “We found his car about an hour ago, at the McDonalds about a quarter mile from the Walmart where Sharon Coe was last seen. It was wiped clean, just like hers.”
Ash said, “What’s his name?”
“Walter Christopher Collins, age 48. Retired Army sergeant, Maintence manager in a car dealership. Lives in Dothan.”
“Do you have any other information—where he was last seen, a photo, anything?”
“Went out to play poker about 10:00 o’clock, two nights ago. Never came back.”
“You got this from who—the wife?”
“She says that he plays cards about twice a month, usually on a weekday night.”
“Sheriff, did she say where he played poker? A casino?”
“Says she doesn’t know. She’s here, in my waiting room, if you and Spaulding want to talk to her.”
“Spaulding is away. I’ll bring someone else—give me half an hour.”
“I’ll be waiting,” said Sheriff Taliaferro, and hung up.
§
Colonel Moffett waved Chelmin to a chair and sat back.
“What can I do for you today, Rudy?”
“Traffic cams. Do you have any?”
“Used to have two, on an experimental basis, but all it told us was that 99.99 percent of all our drive-ons were military or authorized civilians. So we gave ‘em back.”
Chelmin looked thoughtful. “What about the tiny percentage that was not military or authorized civilians?”
“I think the total number was four. One was a lost motorist looking for directions. One was a known bootlegger—but by the time we ID’d his tag, he had come and gone. The other two had mud or something partly obscuring their plates. We ran ‘em down, or rather the State of Alabama did, but nothing came of it.
“Why do you ask about traffic cams?”
Chelmin summarized what had happened with the two SUVs with tracking devices. “We wonder if they have counterfeit stickers or stolen plates?”
“Let me look into this. Maybe we could borrow a few cameras from the Alabama Department of Transportation.”
“Thanks, Colonel. One more thing: How many ways could a vehicle without a sticker drive on the base?”
“You mean, unmanned vehicular entrances?”
Chelmin nodded. “Exactly.”
Moffett said, “Three ways into the base on a paved road. We have barriers on those roads, but they are usually not manned, and it’s possible to drive around the barrier. There are several unpaved roads or trails. Once you’re on the base, you’d need a vehicle with four-wheel drive and high road clearance.”
Chelmin said, “Something like a big SUV or a Humvee, you mean?”
Moffett nodded. “Sonofabitch,” he said. “We’re more than ninety square miles. About two-thirds are forested, with landing pads and small airstrips. Nobody would pay any attention to a Humvee on one of those trails or dirt roads.”
Chelmin got to his feet. “Let me know if you decide to change things up any, Colonel.”
Moffett stood up. “Always a pleasure, Rudy.”
Chapter 54
Agent Lockwood placed the hundred dollar bill on a table under a giant magnifying glass and switched on a pair of bright lights positioned on either side of it. He peered at it intently for several seconds, then opened a drawer in the desk beneath the magnifying table, took out a hundred dollar note sheathed in clear plastic, then laid it carefully on the table next to the other bill.
Abruptly he stood up. “Take a look, Spaulding. Look carefully at the top bill—yours. Look at the clock in the tower in the center—compare it with the other note.”
Will bent to look through the magnifier. After half a minute, he straightened up. “I can’t see any difference.”
“Look at the bottom bill again. I will tell you that this is genuine, and the one above, yours, is a wonderfully detailed fake. Perfect except for one flaw. Look at the clock again, on both bills, and tell me what you see.”
Will bent over again and studied both bills for more than a minute. Then he straightened and shook his head. “I don’t see any difference between them.”
Lockwood laughed. “Same paper. Printed just like the genuine article—on two presses, intaglio and offset. But the clock on the counterfeit bill has an extra vertical line in the Roman Numeral for three o’clock.”
Will said, “No way.”
“Take another look. Find 3:00 on the clock.”
Again Will bent over the magnifier. “Got it.”
“Now count the number of vertical lines in the numeral.”
Will bent closer, then gasped. “Four thin lines, not three!”
“That extra line is the engraver’s signature.”
Will shook his head. “I’d never have noticed that in a million years. How did you know?”
Lockwood offered a grim smile. “Because I know who made this. Not his name, but where he works. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of these notes in circulation, mostly in Europe, Asia, and Africa.”
Will said, “If you know who made it, and you know where he lives, why don’t you arrest him?”
“He prints these in the Pyongsong Trademark Printing Factory. That’s in North Korea.”
Will scratched his head. “I hope that’s a joke?”
Lockwood turned a dead serious face to Will. “No joke. North Korea has almost no natural resources to speak of. A little coal, some iron, and other minerals. Not much level land suitable for farming—they can’t even feed their people! Some hydroelectric dams for electricity, but not near enough for the whole country. If they can’t afford to import oil or coal to burn for electricity, where do they get the funds to build atomic bombs and long-range missiles?”
“By printing counterfeit hundreds?”
“By the carload. And then smuggling them into their embassies and consulates in diplomatic pouches, and in almost every country where they have diplomatic relations. North Korean embassy officials pass them on the local economy, exchange the phony bills for genuine dollars, British pounds, euros, Hong Kong dollars, Japanese yen—whatever the h
ost country uses. When they get caught, and some have been nabbed, they have diplomatic immunity. They return to the worker’s paradise. And, they work with Chinese gangs to smuggle them into countries where they have no diplomatic relations. The Chinese often conceal them in shipping containers, hidden inside legit wares.”
“How do they get these bills into the US?”
Lockwood chuckled. “Got any idea how many Chinese shipping containers arrive in US ports every day?”
Will shook his head. “Thousands?”
“Tens of thousands. So where do most of the queer notes come in? My bet would be through New Orleans or Miami—big port operations that handle thousands of Chinese containers every day.”
Will nodded his understanding.
“Now let me check the rest of these bills, and we’ll go from there. There’s fresh coffee in the break room, and maybe a few cookies—if Bourassa didn’t eat them all.”
§
An hour later, wearing a grim smile, Lockwood found Will in the break room talking to Ash on his cell phone.
Will said, “Seven o’clock—does that work for you? Okay—see you then. Come hungry.”
Will broke the phone connection and looked at Lockwood.
“Tell me,” he said.
Lockwood handed Will a signed receipt for seventy-one, hundred-dollar notes, and a $100 bill.
“Your notes are queer,” he said. “All but one. And that makes this the largest counterfeit recovery by this office, ever, and from any Secret Service field office in the last twelve years.”
Will smiled. “So my agent loses $2,000, and you get a good performance review and maybe a promotion.”
“Sorry about your agent’s money. Maybe I can pry a reward out of my bosses. No promises.”
Will nodded. “Appreciate the effort. Now what?”
“You got room on your chopper for one of my agents?”
“Sure. Just one?”
“For now. I want him on the ground to scope out that casino. He’ll talk to your guy, maybe take a look-see. Meanwhile, I’m leaving Hennessy here to hold down the fort, and I’m driving to Montgomery to brief my supervisor and ask for a task force. I want every available agent in the Southeast. That will take a couple of days, at least.”
