[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel (38 page)

“What? I didn’t do anything to her.”

“The police will have a different opinion. And you ran away.” Scarface shook his head. “But I can make it better for you.”

“How?”

“It is not easy to take care of these things in France. But once you are on the ship, then—poof.” He snapped his fingers.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Well, if that is your attitude.” He took out his cell phone. “I remember the police number, eight—”

“How much is it going to cost?”

“For?” He didn’t play the naïve innocent too well; it was too much against type.

“To get me out of this,” I said. “What do I pay you?”

“Pay? Nothing. You just do a little favor for me. Nothing that will even bother you.” Scarface rose. “Your passport and papers are on the dresser. Your bags are packed. Another bag will meet you at the dock. Do not be late for the ship, or I cannot say what might happen.”

(V)

I glanced at my watch. The ship was due to leave its pier in an hour.

My bags were packed, and at least as far as I could tell, in good shape. That was more than I could say for my head—it felt like I’d been kicked by a bull. Among the papers on the top of the dresser was one showing that my room had been paid in full. There was a boarding pass for the ship, made out to the name Timothy Leary. The passport was in the same name.

At least my new friends had a sense of humor. My real passport was missing, obviously another incentive toward cooperating.

Downstairs, the last of the guests who’d been waiting for the cruise ship were finishing up breakfast. I went directly outside, where a row of taxis was waiting at the curb. Ten minutes later, I walked out along the pier where the
Bon Voyage
was waiting and made my way to the covered gangplank.

Naval history buffs will recognize Toulon harbor as the place where the French fleet scuttled itself in November 1942, after Hitler decided he could no longer trust Vichy France. The Americans had invaded Africa at the beginning of the month, and when French Africa went over meekly to the Allies, Hitler had reason to worry that the ships in Toulon and environs might follow. The German 7th Panzer Division was tasked with charging into the port and seizing the fleet.
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As the armor swarmed the streets and dock area, the French seamen went to work, holding off the tanks with their guns long enough to destroy some seventy-seven ships, including three battleships and seven cruisers.

Strange to count blowing up your own ships as one of the great victories of a war, but that’s the way it went for the French in World War II.

The ghosts of the old ships haunted the foggy harbor as I went up the gangplank, poking my rosewood cane between the boards. A rather distinguished-looking sailor met me about halfway up and grabbed my bag. Two more large and much younger porters swooped in behind me, practically curtsying as they escorted me onto the ship. My name—Leary—was quickly found on the manifest, and another member of the crew, this one a woman, appeared at my right hand and helped me find my way to my cabin.

“The rest of your baggage arrived earlier,” said the woman. “It is in your cabin.”

“I’m so glad it made it,” I told her.

*   *   *

I inspected my new baggage after she left. There were some clothes, a couple of souvenirs, a stuffed bear—and a lifetime supply of synthetic codeine, along with enough fake Viagra to triple the birth rate of a small African nation.

And just in case I was thinking of throwing them overboard, Scarface knocked on my door about two minutes after I unzippered the bag. He was alone, though I’m sure at least one of his goons was nearby. He’d changed from white to a trendy striped polo and khakis; I liked the other style better.

“I am so glad you make it aboard,” he told me. “As for your instructions—all you must do is enjoy your voyage. Eat, drink, play your shuffleboard.”

“What about these extra bags?”

“Nothing should happen to them. When you are ready to disembark, the porter will come. You say nothing.”

“Customs.”

“I will worry about customs. I am taking this cruise myself. To relax.” His grin was crooked—evidently his mother had never warned him to floss. “At the terminal you can go home. You will have your proper passport. It will be as if nothing happened.”

“The girl?”

He waved his hand. “Taken care of.”

“What if I don’t cooperate?” I said.

“The ocean is a very wide and deep place,” he said. “If the suitcases you are bringing are molested, it will be very, very bad for you. Enjoy your cruise.”

*   *   *

This was how the network was getting their drugs to the United States: pushing them across in small batches, mixed in with luggage belonging to people you’d never expect. My bag included a set of prescriptions. According to the documentation, I was carrying exactly enough painkillers for myself and my wife to last a year—exactly the amount the prescriptions said. The same was true for the sexual “enhancer.” The worst a customs agent could do was confiscate the drugs for further investigation.

I had no way of knowing how many of my fellow passengers had been blackmailed as I was. But there were a lot of anxious glances around the swimming pool that afternoon.

(VI)

While I was enjoying unusually balmy weather in the Atlantic, Trace and the boys were keeping tabs on Granny’s operation. Day One, Day Two, and Day Three—all went by without much out of the ordinary, at least if you assume an octogenarian running a drug business is ordinary. Worried about tipping Granny off, and with two men already inside the organization, the task force had a very light surveillance plan: they had taken over a house near the highway that covered the only road into the development, and from there could keep track of the traffic in and out. Granny’s phone lines were also tapped, and everything she did on the computer was duplicated at the task force headquarters—which meant that Shunt was seeing it as well.

We were worried that if the task force moved in, Scarface and whoever else was connected to him might pull the plug, making it difficult for us to get more information. The fact that Scarface was on the ship made me hope we might be in for a bonanza—maybe he would stay in the United States and contact Veep. I located his cabin and set up some bugging devices the first night out of port. He was arrogant, though not entirely stupid—the cabin wasn’t guarded, but it was also devoid of any electronic devices. If Granny were busted, he’d be on his guard even more.

I didn’t trust the task force enough to alert them to what was going on. Given that their e-mails indicated they were trying to gather information about “Hoboken Harry” (apparently my new
nom de druggee
), I decided we would hold off on that risk until there was no other option.

*   *   *

Up in New York, Danny and the rest of the surveillance operation continued to watch Veep. They, too, had a run of boring days. As far as they could tell, Veep didn’t contact our friend Mr. Magoo, let alone the smuggling ring or Granny. And aside from that one adventure on the subway, he didn’t stray out of his routine.

Which apparently led Junior to ask himself, What would Dad do in this situation?

The answer he came up with was break into Veep’s New York City apartment.

Not a bad answer, except that he didn’t bother to tell Danny. And his timing could have been a lot better.

Veep’s condo unit was on the nineteenth floor of a thirty-seven-floor high-rise on the East Side of Manhattan. Junior realized that Veep would have had all sorts of security precautions. So the first thing Junior did was turn up the heat. Literally.

The building was equipped with thermostats that could be adjusted online—a little factoid Shunt had uncovered during a routine Google search, when a
New York Times
real estate story about the building and its $8 million units popped up. Junior put his computer skills to use, hacking into the thermostat interface and setting the temp in Veep’s apartment up to ninety. Unfortunately for the other residents of the building, the programming dictated that he interfere with all the thermostats on the particular code block pertaining to that building; otherwise, the change would have been noticed by anyone running a diagnostic.
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The building maintenance staff called for assistance about two hours later, after repeated efforts failed to lower the temperature. Junior showed up within ten minutes, double-parking his step-van in front of the building. He went in carrying a pair of toolboxes and whistling a tune.

One of the maintenance people and a security goon met him in the lobby and accompanied him to the first thermostat, tucked into a frond-filled alcove near the elevator. It took him about ten minutes to set up his diagnostic laptop and get the face of the thermostat off.

“Blew out a circuit,” he told the maintenance person after pretending to run a few checks. “You have a power surge in the building?”

The man gave the answer all New York maintenance people are trained to give:
Dunno.

“Let’s spot-check another,” said Junior. “Take me up to floor eighteen.”

“Why eighteen?” asked the security goon.

“Because it’s in the middle. You have to balance air-conditioning systems or they don’t work. The velocity of the air as it comes through the system is equal to the coefficient of the squared diameter of the passage. It’s actually a principle of physics. One of the Newtonian laws of air velocity.”

“They’re all separate units,” said the maintenance man.

“Precisely.” Junior was in fine BS form. “The differential between the various floors is evened out at the mid-state. If we go back to Sir Isaac Newton.”

“Just fix the damn thing,” snapped the security goon. “And make it quick. More people will be home soon. They’re going to be pissed.”

They went up to the eighteenth floor via the service elevator. It happened that the nanny and her two charges here were home; Junior insisted that the rambunctious three- and four-year-olds be kept out of his way as he checked each room for airflow. The security goon was happy to help out—the nanny was extremely good-looking—and with the maintenance man working as a gofer, Junior quickly completed his true mission—planting bugs in the ventilation system under each room of the apartment above.

Veep might discover the bugs if he swept his apartment with a bug detector. But the fact that there were two kids’ bedrooms below him, each equipped with a baby monitor, would confuse even the most sophisticated devices.

Junior hadn’t known for sure that there were monitors in the apartment. He’d chosen it because bugging Veep’s condo would be too obvious, and the shafts here were close enough to pick up most conversations above anyway. But when he saw them he realized luck was running strong in his direction. He used his iPhone to reset the thermostats, fiddled with the one in the apartment, and, after a few not-so-discreet glimpses of the nanny and her prodigious endowments, decided his job was finished.

“Should work now,” he told the maintenance man. “Should we go?”

“About time you’re done,” said the security goon, who nonetheless had a difficult time tearing himself away from the apartment.

They went down through the main elevator. Junior was feeling pretty good about himself, and practically floated into the hallway—until he looked through the double glass doors at the front of the foyer and saw a small van pulling up behind his.

He had neglected to phone the actual air-conditioning company and cancel the emergency call. This ordinarily wouldn’t have been a problem in New York City, where typically no tradesman answers an emergency call in less than forty-eight hours. But somehow Murphy had stepped in and managed to find the one conscientious service company in the five boroughs, and then canceled a series of other calls nearby, freeing the serviceman.

Junior decided his best bet was to hustle past the doorman and intercept the technician. He put his head down and his feet moving, gathering steam as he went. He pushed through the first set of doors and went at the outer set with his back, waving good-bye in a smooth dance that would have made Fred Astaire proud.

As poetic as the move might have been, it also meant that he didn’t see the man coming into the building until he had bowled him over. And when Junior reached down to help him up, he realized it wasn’t the serviceman at all—it was Veep.

“Watch where you’re going,” stuttered Veep.

Junior let go of his hand and turned quickly—too quickly, as he bumped into the legitimate serviceman, who was portly enough to bounce Junior to the curb.

“Don’t I know you?” said Veep.

“Just a problem with the lobby thermostat,” said Junior to the other tradesman, scurrying to his truck. “All done.”

Veep took a couple of steps toward him, trying to get a better view. Junior hopped in his truck and pulled away. He headed down the block, running the light and barely missing a cab before getting far enough away that he could relax.

Or at least think he could.

*   *   *

“What have you been up to on your afternoon off?” Danny asked Junior when he reported to him an hour later.

“I decided to take a little initiative,” said Junior.

“By bugging Veep’s condo?”

“Actually, the unit just below.” Junior was so proud of himself he practically sang. “He won’t be able to find the bugs.”

Danny pulled over his iPad and brought up a media player. He tapped the arrow, and a hushed voice began playing over the static. It had been computer-enhanced, but it was still a little difficult to hear.

“I’m pretty sure I’m being followed. We may have to go scorched earth.”

Danny hit pause.

“Veep,” said Junior.

Danny nodded. “Why would he think he’s being followed?”

“I don’t know. I’m not following him. I mean, you took me off. I’ve been working the mike.”

“And bugging his apartment.” Danny slid his finger along the timeline at the bottom of the file window, until he located a section later on. He hit Play again.

“I need a Class One scan of my apartment and office,” said Veep’s voice.