“Well, there’s more. This was two days ago.” Around the bed, all jackets had been removed and the five white men appeared to be weary of their interrogations. The U.S. Attorney held a legal pad and spoke down to the witness/patient. “Now, Mr. Patterson, on August the fifth of last year, a writer by the name of Nelson Kerr was murdered on Camino Island, Florida. Were you involved in any way?”
A painful pause, then a weak and scratchy “Yes.”
“Did you kill Nelson Kerr?”
“No.”
“Did your partner, Karen Sharbonnet?”
“Yes.”
“And this was in the middle of a major hurricane, right?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Kerr died from multiple blunt-force wounds to the head, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what weapon was used?”
“Yes.” A long pause, then his lawyer leaned down to within inches of the man’s mouth. Patterson groaned and mumbled something. The lawyer whispered to the U.S. Attorney, who then asked, “The murder weapon was a golf club?”
“Yes.”
Bob Cobb couldn’t help but chuckle. “That son of a bitch,” he said.
“Beg your pardon,” Baskin said.
“That kid figured it out the day after the murder. A long story. I’ll explain later, or not. Doesn’t matter.”
Back to the interrogation. The U.S. Attorney asked the witness, “How much were you and Karen Sharbonnet paid to murder Nelson Kerr?”
Another painful pause, then a soft “Four.”
“Four million?”
“Yes.”
“And you split the money equally?”
“Yes.”
“Who paid the money?”
A pause. His lawyer leaned down again and strained to listen. Patterson grunted and the lawyer stood and whispered to the U.S. Attorney, who then asked, “You were paid by a broker?”
“Yes.”
“And who is this broker?”
The lawyer whispered again, and the U.S. Attorney asked, “Is the name of the broker a Mr. Matthew Dunn?”
“Yes.”
At that point the witness shut down and his interrogators backed off. A doctor stepped forward and whispered to him, then waved them all away. The screen went blank.
Agent Baskin said, “That was it for the day. He’s good for about twenty minutes. We found Matthew Dunn and have him under surveillance. A real character. Background in arms trafficking, drugs, even worked as a mercenary in Syria. A bad dude, but we’ll catch him soon enough. You want to see your girl?”
“I do.”
“A caution. She has no idea that Patterson is even alive. We assume she thinks she finished him off in the woods and she’s playing a real tough-girl game right now.”
“Let’s go.”
They walked down one flight to the second floor and stopped at a door that two agents were guarding. Baskin opened the door and motioned for Bob to step inside. Have a go.
Karen Sharbonnet was seated in a metal chair on one side of a wire mesh partition that did not rise to the ceiling. Her left hand was cuffed to a chain bound to the chair. Bob sat across from her and gave her a smile, one she did not return.
He said, “So, how you doing, babe? Looks like they finally caught you.”
She shrugged as if she could not have cared less.
“We had some fun, didn’t we. One long weekend. Or do you remember?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What a crusher. We spent the weekend in bed, at my place, had a ball, and you don’t remember?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I guess you’re such a whore you can’t remember all your boys, right?”
She shrugged again, smiled, nothing would faze her.
“The last time I saw you, you were running away, running down the sidewalk in a Category 4 hurricane, barely able to stand up, like a crazy woman. I yelled and yelled and finally said to hell with you. Woman must be crazy. I didn’t know you were headed to Nelson’s. You know he called me, said you were at his place, said you were acting crazy, and I said no surprise there. Bitch is crazy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s because you’re a professional with ice in your veins. And you know, even in bed there was something distant about you. No complaints, mind you, but something was never right. You know they found your fingerprints in Nelson’s condo?”
“Nelson who?”
The wall behind Bob was plain white drywall, or so it seemed. A section of it was a hidden screen, and behind the screen were three cameras aimed at Karen Sharbonnet’s face. Every twitch and blink was being analyzed by their experts. Every movement of her eyes and the muscles across her forehead and around her mouth. She was ice. Her hands were frozen. Her breathing calm. Her expression never changed. At the thoroughly unexpected sight of Bob, she had registered nothing.
Until.
“You whacked him with a seven iron?” Bob asked, incredulously.
A slight parting of the lips, as if she needed a bit of air. A slight hardening of the eyes, as if shocked. Then she narrowed her eyes and two wrinkles appeared at the top of her nose. Then she shook it all off with a smile and said, “You must be the crazy one.”
“I’ve never argued that, but I’m not crazy enough to kill and not stupid enough to get caught. Look, babe, I’ll see you soon. They’ll extradite you back to Florida, the scene of the crime, and put your cute little redheaded ass on trial. And I’ll be there, in the courtroom, watching, eager to testify against you. I can’t wait. My buddy Nelson deserves a little justice and I’m more than happy to help.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bob stood, walked to the door, and left the room.
Matthew Dunn lived in a rented one-bedroom condo in a glass tower near the Vegas Strip. Forty-eight hours of surveillance revealed a rather laid-back approach that included a long walk each afternoon to the Belaggio where he played blackjack at ten dollars a hand while sipping cheap scotch. His background was far more interesting. He’d been booted from the Marines for insubordination, then hired by a private U.S. mercenary gang to do dirty work in Iraq. He’d survived two years in a Syrian jail for smuggling guns. He’d been indicted in New Orleans for importing cocaine, but somehow walked. He’d spent three years in a federal prison for an insurance scam, and a week after being paroled landed a five-million-dollar defense contract to supply orange juice to U.S. troops. Somewhere along the way he took up killing for profit and became a go-to guy for high-end contracts. A raid with warrants on his bank accounts revealed little—less than $20,000. The FBI assumed he preferred cash and foreign banks. Monitoring his laptop and listening to his cell phone, the FBI became concerned when he booked a flight to Mexico City. He was arrested without incident at McCarran International and put in isolation at the Clark County Detention Center.
Eighteen days after breaking his neck, Rick Patterson finally died in the ICU at a Cincinnati hospital. He was forty-four, single, had never married, and had little family to speak of. A brother had him cremated and his remains sent by FedEx to a mausoleum in Seattle for “future purposes.” There were gaps in his background, but the best guess was that he and Karen Sharbonnet met twenty-one years earlier while on duty in East Africa. Their paths crossed several times and both spent years in Afghanistan and Iraq. They certainly never married and there was no evidence of any serious relationship, other than the business one that led to his death. Attempts to find money were futile. Like others in his shadowy world, he apparently preferred cash and offshore accounts.
Karen was not informed of his death, and the FBI assumed she still believed he died in the woods where she left him. She was in protective custody with no access to newspapers or the Internet. When she was informed that she was being held for the capital murders of Linda Higginbotham, Jason Jordan, Nelson Kerr, and a plastic surgeon in Wisconsin, she calmly asked for a lawyer.
After signing the preliminary plea agreement hammered out by F. Max Darden, Sid Shennault went to work prowling through the financial records of Grattin Health. Since he had implemented the systems and upgraded them over the years, it was easy work. Within forty-eight hours he was sending F. Max encrypted emails with financial info so rich and detailed, Agent Ross Mayfield and his task force were soon drooling. Flaxacill was indeed a cheap drug. Grattin spent, on average, eighty million a year for it, paid through a web of offshore companies and accounts to the same trade broker in Singapore, who, of course, eventually forwarded the loot to the lab in Fujian Province.
The treasure trove of documents soon became an avalanche as Sid sold his company’s soul to impress his new handlers and, hopefully, squeeze them for an even better deal. After the first leak he became a traitor, and once a traitor there was no turning back. After seventy-two hours, he had buried the FBI with more raw data than they could process, all of it wonderfully admissible in a court of law.
Then, the squeeze. F. Max called Agent Ross Mayfield and requested a one-on-one meeting. They met in a fancy bar near Darden’s office late in the afternoon. F. Max ordered red wine; Mayfield, on duty, stayed with coffee. As soon as the drinks arrived, F. Max got to the point. “We want immunity, complete and unrestricted immunity. No indictment, no arrest, nothing. Sid walks away free and clear.”
Mayfield shook his head. “We’ve had this conversation.”
“We have. But there’s more to the story. What if Sid can deliver the goods on all of Ken Reed’s offshore accounts and properties? He has over half a billion stashed in banks from here to New Zealand and Sid can provide the details. He can also deliver the toys—the homes, yachts, airplanes.”
“I’m listening.”
“Think of the litigation when this goes down. Tens of thousands of lawsuits against the company. Reed will pull a Trump, file for bankruptcy and hide behind the courts for protection. But what if the plaintiffs and their hungry lawyers have access to his hidden fortune? Sounds like justice to me. Reed ends up broke, bankrupt, in jail for the rest of his life. Sid can deliver, but only with immunity.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Ross. Look at the trainload of delicious gossip Sid’s already delivered. You guys can’t process it fast enough, right? He knows what he’s doing and he wants to do more, but at a price. What’s the benefit of indicting him and ruining his name?”
Mayfield smiled and nodded and glanced around. He liked it—that much was obvious. “What about the Nelson Kerr matter?”
“Nothing. Not a dime. Sid is convinced Reed did a one-off and paid for the job through some other account, or maybe cash. He kept it far away from the company. He’s not that stupid.”
Mayfield glanced at his watch and said, “It’s five after five. Quitting time. Order me a beer while I take a leak.”
The beer arrived before Mayfield returned. He took a gulp and said, “I’m in. I’ll call Washington tonight and get it done.” He offered a hand and F. Max squeezed it.
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in mid-May, Bruce was at home on the veranda enjoying the sounds of water splashing on his tin roof and dripping into his pool, and he was reading, off and on, when he wasn’t napping. He should have been at the store but there was even less traffic with rain than on normal days. More and more he found the place, and the business, depressing. Noelle had fled the island and was shopping for antiques in New Orleans.
He heard the distant noise from his cheap phone, a rare sound. Once he realized what it was he scrambled into the kitchen and grabbed it.
Dane said, “Hello, Bruce. Got a minute?”
“Of course. Why else would I answer this phone?”
“Something’s happening. I’m at home in Houston and I’m safe. Ken’s planning to leave in the morning, taking a long trip, to Rio I believe. I’ve checked my sources and verified as much as I can. Listen carefully.”
“Do I need a pen?”
“No. Just listen. He plans to leave Houston Hobby at nine in the morning on his Falcon 900, land in Tyler, Texas, just long enough to fetch his girlfriend, who’ll drive from Dallas. Then they’re off. Not sure but it looks and smells like the big getaway. Can you notify the FBI?”
“Of course. And you’re sure you’ll be safe?”
“He’s not worried about me right now. He feels the noose and he’s acting strange. Please notify the Feds.”
Bruce called Bob Cobb and demanded that they meet immediately at a beach dive, one that did not exist before Leo. Bob called Agent Van Cleve in Jacksonville and relayed the message.
At 8:00 the following morning, Ken Reed rode in his chauffeured SUV to the general aviation terminal at Hobby International and boarded his Falcon 900. He was the only passenger bound for Tyler, Texas. The jet took off at 9:01 for the thirty-minute flight. Once Reed was in the air, a small army of FBI agents and technicians entered the lobby of a nondescript twenty-story office building in south central Houston. They cordoned off the top four floors and hustled all employees into three different conference rooms. They confiscated all cell phones and laptops and threatened arrests if anyone breathed too loud. The employees were terrified and some of the women wept.
In Tyler, Ken’s girlfriend was hustled to the Falcon by an assistant, who disappeared, leaving the two alone on the jet. The pilots waited for clearance to taxi and take off. Ken attempted to call his secretary but there was no answer. He called assistants and lieutenants—no one answered.
He made the mistake of calling his wife, and when Dane answered he said he was being called away by urgent business.
“Where you headed, Ken?” she asked coolly.
“Washington, then New York. Could be gone a few days.”
“That so? Traveling alone?”
“Afraid so.”
“Look, Ken. Not sure how to break this to you but the party’s over. You’re not gonna make it to Rio, and that little cookie you’ve got with you is going back home to her mommy. You’re not taking off and you’ve had your last ride in that cute little Falcon. The Feds are about to confiscate all your toys, girls included. See you in court.”
She ended the call with a laugh.
Ken cursed and looked out a window just as three black SUVs pulled alongside his airplane, each with those pesky blue lights flashing on their dashboards.