Illicit Intent, page 6
Her first order of business was to clean house. She fired anyone in upper management she suspected would undermine her efforts. She had been made to feel inadequate by blue-blooded men her whole life, and it was time for a little payback. She fired men who had gotten their jobs in strategic moves or bartered deals or personal favors—men with given names like “Granger” and “Henderson” and surnames from the passenger manifest of the Mayflower. She promoted people who were forward-thinking and results-oriented. She chose employees with the same qualities she looked for in her lovers: young, ambitious, and malleable.
With her team in place and her personal trainer warming her bed, she was almost ready to begin overhauling the company. Restoring it to the indomitable force it had been when her great grandfather, John Reardon, had started Reardon Import and Export in 1942. The country was at war back then. John Reardon was lucky in that his greed happened to align with the good guys. That was not always the case. The man wasn’t loyal to red, white, and blue; he was loyal to green. He supplied US troops, shipping everything from medical supplies to tanks. Then, for nearly three decades, he shipped anything that needed to be transported without care or conscience. His upbringing in the Irish mob had taught him a thing or two, but for the most part, he kept his own hands clean.
From John, the company had been passed down to his son Eoghan Reardon, Elizabeth’s grandfather, and from Eoghan to his daughter Imogen’s husband, Win Brewer. Elizabeth’s father, Edwin “Win” Howard Brewer, IV was a golf course CEO of the worst sort. He took over the company twelve years ago after serving as President since his marriage to Eoghan Reardon’s only child, Imogen. He changed the name under the guise of merging his family’s own flailing Brewer Manufacturing with Reardon Import and Export. As far as Elizabeth could tell, that was the extent of his accomplishments. He bled the company dry, allowing his board-member buddies to pad expense accounts, and even, she realized as she’d examined the books, embezzle. When she brought the evidence of gross mismanagement to her grandfather, Eoghan, he arranged for the “retirement” of Win Brewer without incident. Elizabeth was next in line, and she intended to tap into her Irish mob DNA to restore Brewer Reardon to its former glory. By any means necessary.
Elizabeth spun away from her glass desk to look out over Boston Harbor. In a way, she was grateful for her sycophant, patrician father. The reason her Irish ancestors had fought so hard was that they saw what was possible. Elizabeth saw what was possible, what her father had squandered, and she meant to rebuild it. She welcomed the challenge. On the legitimate side, she was plugged into a gold mine. The one thing the biggest companies in the world all had in common: the need for shipping. The other side of the business, the darker side, was just gravy.
Things were clipping along nicely, allowing her to focus her efforts on her other project. Lucrative, yes, but not in any real way. She was quite simply going to restore her birthright.
The early morning call from Monsieur Reynard informing her that the package had been delayed did not trouble her. Elizabeth rightly assumed that Reynard had taken his sobriquet from the crafty fox of lore, and, over the years, he had lived up to it. She would let him handle whatever problem had cropped up with his mysterious delivery. For now.
New York City
April 17
Reynard’s man, Caleb Cain, sat on the park bench trying to focus on his tattered copy of The Andromeda Strain and not how much the curly wig itched. He settled the glasses on the prosthetic nose and brushed the muffin crumbs from his scrubs. Doctors rarely wore scrubs outside the hospital for sanitary reasons, but when people saw a guy in a park wearing scrubs, they immediately thought medical professional: the presence reassuring and above suspicion.
Calliope Garland had been playing with her dog for over an hour. The animal was flawlessly obedient and greeted passing strangers with a wag of her stubby tail and her front paws down, ready to play. The dog was friendly. Good to know.
Calliope had done some yoga and some tai chi. She played fetch with the dog and joined some guys tossing a frisbee. She turned cartwheels in the grass, and, Caleb surmised, hunted for a four-leaf-clover while the dog lolled in the shade. She’d seemed oblivious to the leering glances of passersby and was polite but dismissive of anyone brave enough to approach her.
She was currently standing in line at a vendor cart. The suited man behind her in line gestured to the overcast sky and Calliope turned around to make polite small talk. Caleb felt the crawl in his gut. He glanced around, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Pedestrians moved at a steady flow. Traffic inched along. When he returned his gaze to the vendor cart Calliope was paying for a bottled water, but the guy in the suit was gone. Had he gotten in line just to hit on her? Caleb stifled a chuckle. He had certainly gone to greater extremes himself to talk to a beautiful woman than simply following her to a hot dog cart.
He watched Calliope finish her water and give the last few inches to her dog. Then she tossed the bottle in the recycle bin and headed for home. Caleb made a notation of the time and duration of the walk in the back of his novel, waited a few minutes, then took another route to her home to continue his reconnoiter.
As he emerged from the park, Caleb saw the same suited man standing on the corner, scrolling through his phone. A moment later a blacked-out SUV pulled up and the man climbed in the passenger seat. He surmised it was the FBI or some other federal agency. Interesting. Also not surprising. From what Caleb understood of the situation at Gentrify Capital Partners, a lot of people had a reason, billions of reasons, to be interested in Calliope Garland.
New York City
April 17
Nathan Bishop sat behind his desk in his rarely-used New York office at Knightsgrove-Bishop. Although he had spun off this security arm of the defense contractor and moved their base of operations to South Carolina, Nathan still sat on the board of the company his family had founded and reluctantly maintained a presence. It took a lot to drag Nathan away from his wife, Emily, and their twin sons, Jack and Charlie.
Emily had been his next-door neighbor years ago. When she was eight, she had been abducted in a twisted revenge plot aimed at her father. She had been rescued but subsequently vanished from his life. When Nathan finally crossed paths with her again, fifteen years later, their destiny awaited. There had never been anyone else for either of them. A sense of sanguine satisfaction washed over him and tilted his lips. He spun the simple platinum wedding band on his finger. He now dedicated his career to providing resolution to those who had missing loved ones. Cases were mounting, but this strange situation with his wife Emily’s friend, Calliope Garland, bore looking into.
Chat had texted him from the car last night to apprise him of their status during the kidnapping op and that they had picked up an unexpected passenger. Nathan wouldn’t have thought much of it, but Chat’s final words got his attention: Something feels off. After years of both friendship and combat beside Chat, Nathan knew two things: one, Chat was a master of understatement, and two, if Chat had a feeling about something, don’t ignore it.
Most of the Bishop Security team knew Calliope through Emily. Calliope had told Emily’s abduction story to the world via The Harlem Sentry where both women worked. The sheer scope of the malfeasance Calliope was now investigating at Gentrify Capital could potentially put her in someone’s crosshairs. Nathan, for Emily’s peace of mind, was going to make sure that didn’t happen.
A soft knock on the doorjamb roused Nathan from his thoughts, and he glanced up to see Bishop Security operative Leo “Ren” Jameson and Ren’s former SEAL teammate Camilo “JJ” Canto. They had served on different squads, but the men knew and liked each other. Ren, short for Renaissance Man, had been Nathan’s go-to guy since their Navy days. With an eidetic memory and a list of interests that ranged from Sanskrit to neuroscience to contemporary art, Ren had a knowledge base that was as detailed as it was broad. Cam, on the other hand, operated on pure primal instinct. Ren could determine the background of a contact: the significance of his cultural heritage, the price of his suit, and the nuances of his body language. Cam could detect if he was a rat. The pair would make a good team. That was if Cam wanted the job. He had been a non-official cover, or NOC, officer, doing deep-cover, dark-ops for the CIA Special Activities Center/Special Operations Group (SAC/SOG) since leaving the Navy, and while Bishop Security had their fair share of excitement, it was nowhere near the level of intensity Cam was used to.
Nathan waved them in with polished confidence and extended his hand to Cam. “Welcome to the team.”
“Wow. Shortest job interview I’ve ever had.”
Nathan laughed. “What am I going to do? Ask about your experience? Half of it I know, and the other half you can’t tell me.”
“You have a point.”
“Ready to walk among the living?”
“God, yes. My poor mother was going to have a heart attack from worry. At least here I can see her more and, you know, use my real name…maybe meet a nice girl.”
Ren couldn’t let that slide. “You’ve met plenty, JJ.”
Cam’s nickname, JJ, was short for el Jefe de Joder, the boss of fuck. Their former teammate, Remy, coined it one night when Cam had entered a bar in Marrakech and left with a woman on each arm in under ten minutes. Remy had tipped back in his chair, and in his molasses-thick Louisiana accent said to no one in particular, “That boy is wilder than a fifth ace. The undisputed boss of fuck.” Tox had taken to Google translate and come up with the Spanish phrase. No matter how many times Cam had told them the Spanish wasn’t right, the initials stuck.
Cam clarified, “I said nice.”
“We’ll start you off with a relatively easy assignment.” Nathan looked up from his desk, spotted Steady, and waved him into the room. “Steady, good, I want you for this as well. End of the month, the UN is hosting a summit on art and antiquities smuggling. The former Prime Minister of Portugal is scheduled to attend.”
“Clemente Acosta?” Ren leaned forward in his chair.
Nathan lifted a hand to quell Ren’s unspoken protest. “I know you’ve been part of his detail in the past, but he’s such an easy client to work with, it’s a perfect assignment for Cam to cut his teeth. I’m going to bring Herc Reynolds in on this too.”
“Who’s Herc Reynolds?” Cam asked.
“Former marine sniper. He’s already down in South Carolina at the new HQ. He helped out on the Dario Sava case.” Nathan’s expression was impassive, but he methodically straightened items on his desk in an attempt to quell the inner turmoil Sava’s name still elicited. The arms dealer had been dead for over a year but he and Emily would bear the scars of his treachery forever. Steady’s exclamation brought Nathan back to the present.
“Dibs.”
Ren rested an ankle on the opposite thigh and scowled at Steady. “You can’t call dibs. This isn’t third grade. Plus, I’m in the middle of a chess game with the guy.”
“Children.” Nathan knocked on his desk. “I haven’t even received confirmation from his office that he’s actually attending.” He clarified for Cam. “He’s a fierce advocate for National ownership of artifacts as well as an art collector and apparently everyone’s favorite assignment. There’s a lot going on this month, Ren. I need you for something else. Steady, you’re on Acosta’s detail.”
Steady pumped his fist by his side just as Twitch barreled through the door with Tox hot on her heels.
“Things at Gentrify Capital have gotten weird.” Twitch parked in her usual spot at Nathan’s small conference table and booted up her laptop. Tox flopped onto the leather couch and listened as Twitch explained what had made her jump from her digital command center and sprint to Nathan’s office.
“A friend of mine at the SEC gave me the heads up.”
Nathan didn’t know if “a friend of mine” was a euphemism for some less-than-legal digital snooping, or if Twitch actually had a confidante at the agency.
“Last night at just before 11 pm, someone tried to download sensitive information from the Gentrify server and triggered a massive data wipe. All sensitive transactional data and account information was deleted.”
“What?” Nathan’s shout of disbelief had the other three men looking up. “That’s impossible. A financial firm’s transactional history can’t just be deleted.”
“Correct,” Twitch agreed. “The SEC and government oversight entities have records, but anything Gentrify hid from the government or falsified…” Twitch made a little “poof” motion with her hands. “Except, of course, for any data that was transferred before triggering the scorched earth response in the server.”
The realization occurred to Tox so suddenly it felt like he said the words before he thought them. “Calliope. She was there last night. Ran into me as she was tearing out of the building. She was snooping for her news story.”
“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.” Twitch was tapping her nose. “She had access to Van Gent’s computer and she was poking around for information last night. That’s most likely the only place to access the files that would trigger the failsafe. Looks like Phipps had some dangerous secrets.”
“Let’s talk this through.” Nathan steepled his hands, elbows on his desk.
“Yes, let’s,” Tox repeated. “Because something doesn’t add up. Calliope saw Phipps Van Gent last night. She was there late, and she said he came barreling in wasted, telling her some story about a high-stakes poker game in Vegas. She gave me this little plastic cylinder that he had given to her. It was supposed to have contained a valuable painting, but he got scammed. She said he passed out in the middle of the story.”
“So, hypothetically,” Ren picked up the ball, “Calliope was in Van Gent’s office stealing information for The Harlem Sentry and unwittingly dropping a nuke on the system while her boss was sitting right there, drunk off his ass and blabbering.”
“Hypothetically,” Twitch confirmed.
“Your girl is in a heap of trouble, hermano.” Cam had obviously heard about Tox’s interest. Tox rolled his eyes. These guys gossiped like middle schoolers. “If she’s the only one with that financial information, everyone from the feds to the mob will be after her.”
“Not to mention every disgruntled client,” Nathan added as he flipped through the paper file Twitch had compiled on Phipps. “This guy is a piece of work. Everything he quote-unquote owns is leveraged or stolen or faked.”
“Big hat, no ranch,” Tox nodded.
“Looks like he goes from wealth hub to wealth hub, pays out a big return to a few strategic people, then scams the rest of his clients.”
“Classic Ponzi scheme,” Ren added.
“How is he not in jail?” Twitch asked, shaking her head at the screen.
Ren fielded the question. “He’s operated in different countries. Interpol has more pressing issues than a glorified conman. Plus the laws in most countries aren’t up to speed on cybercrime. Don’t get me started on international law. Get your car stolen? The cops handle it. Get your pension stolen...” Ren finished the sentence with a shrug.
“You gotta have balls as big as church bells to pull something like this. I mean this isn’t some two-bit operation.” Tox shook his head.
“And no conscience at all,” Cam added.
“How is this guy still breathing?” Nathan continued to page through the file.
“He’s not.”
That got everyone’s attention. Twitch was absorbed in the new information on her screen. “EMS got a 911 call at 6:27 this morning from an unidentified caller at Gentrify Capital. Phipps Van Gent was pronounced dead at the scene. GSW. Detective Pete Brigger filed the initial report. No details as of yet.”
“Pete’s a good cop. Anything on time of death?” Tox asked.
“Nothing yet, but the report says the 911 caller, probably a cleaning person, entered the room because of a smell.”
“That doesn’t really help. All kinds of bad smells come out of dead guys from the get-go,” Cam commented absently.
“Twitch can you get anything from building security?”
“Already tried. Looks like the building surveillance has been removed from the server. Cops must not want anyone taking a peek or messing with it.”
“Which means there’s something interesting on it,” Ren surmised.
“We need to get Calliope locked down. Even if she doesn’t have the files, which I think is likely, people will assume she does.” Tox stood.
Twitch pulled out her phone. “I’ll text her and see what’s up.”
Before she could type the first word, Tox was out the door.
New York City
April 17
Calliope stood at her open refrigerator with the phone to her ear and downed a bottled water. Her morning trip to the park with Coco had been uneventful, and she had embraced the chilly spring morning as they did their thing. They didn’t have a set routine. Today it was frisbee and people watching. Tomorrow might be squirrel-chasing and puddle-splashing—whatever the day brought. She scratched Coco behind her ears and pondered her stepfather’s question.
“I don’t have a clue. Europe would be fun.”
“Be nice to have you close by,” he said.
“I’ll miss New York. I love my house.”
“Keep it. You can visit, or maybe you’ll return one day.”
“Maybe.” She wouldn’t. “Give mom my love.”
“We’re taking the Calypso out for a couple of days. Lost at sea, just the two of us,” he said.
Calliope rolled her eyes. Her parents and their perpetual honeymoon.
“And the staff.”
He chuckled. “We love you hummingbird.”
“Love you too, dad.”
She felt his pleasure at the moniker. He ended the call with his usual sign off. “Seja sábio.” Be wise.
