“Let me get this straight, Mister LeSade,” he said, as if catching on to the joke. “You want to open a checking account in both of your names. Then, you want to open a savings account, also in both of your names. And then, you want to transfer one hundred million dollars split equally into each of the accounts?” He grinned, his bald head damp and red with nervous tension and sweat.
“Correct,” Tommy said.
“That’s right,” Lisa agreed.
“And where will these funds be coming from?”
Tommy handed him a slip of paper with an account number and a bank web address. Bishop typed the address and number into the computer on his desk. When the banking form appeared on his screen he typed in the account number in the appropriate space, then leaned back to wait. His expression was becoming more and more tense by the second. He was thinking that perhaps this wasn’t a joke after all.
Then, he paled noticeably. He became nervous and very serious in an attempt to cover it up. The one hundred million dollars was a mere drop in the bucket compared to what was in the account he was looking into. There were literally billions of dollars in the account.
When the transfer was complete he turned back to Tommy and Lisa. He had mostly regained his composure. He was a banker, after all! He was used to dealing with large sums of money on a daily basis. Today he had set a new personal record in the amount he had handled in one transaction. From hundreds of thousands he had moved into the hundreds of millions!
This is one very rich man, he thought, as he turned around, smiled quickly, nervously, and looked into the four eyes that were watching him. “Of course I will have to report this transfer to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service,” Bishop said, raising his eyebrows a little.
“Of course,” Tommy answered.
He didn’t care. He had covered his bases from here to Sunday. It would take anyone, except him, forever, to trace the money through the system. He would be surprised if they checked any farther than the bank it had just been transferred from.
“At this time your account is available. I will have your temporary checks available within minutes. If you will excuse me for a minute, I’ll see to it,” he said, rolling his chair back and standing, then scurried from the office.
“I don’t understand why people get so nervous about large amounts of money. It’s just paper,” Tommy said softly, looking over at Lisa.
“He probably makes a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year in this bank. At his current salary he would be long dead before he earned a tenth of the interest on that amount of money. How did you expect him to act?” Lisa scolded him quietly. “You should be ashamed, Tommy LeSade!”
“Ashamed for what? I wasn’t born rich. I didn’t inherit the money. I stole it, the same as Hawk and Cramer did. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a little late for that, now. The difference is that I’m giving most of it away to people who need it far worse than I do. That eases my conscience a little. It’s all new to me, too. And it doesn’t make me nervous and giddy. I understand it’s just a tool to use.”
“That may be true, but you have it. And just think of the size of your tool compared to his,” Lisa said with all seriousness, then began to glow red as realization sank in about her choice of metaphors.
“That is purely genetic, Lisa,” he laughed. “It has nothing to do with the size of our bank accounts,” he added, smugly.
She swatted him on the shoulder, he ducked playfully. She turned beet red and hit him again. He laughed out loud, as Bishop returned and sat behind his desk. He eyed them suspiciously, but remained serious.
“I will need for you to sign these forms for the savings account. And these forms for the checking account; for signature verification,” he said, laying several forms in front of them. They began signing the forms.
Tommy stopped and looked up, “Mister Bishop, we are going to be married in the next few weeks. How will that affect our joint account?”
“No problem there. Once you are married, Lisa will have to complete new signature cards. As a matter of fact she can complete it now, if you like,” he said, looking at Lisa.
“I’ll wait.” Lisa said. “I want it to be one hundred percent legal when I start signing my name as Lisa LeSade. It’ll be no trouble to stop by and take care of it.”
“As you wish,” Bishop smiled, thinking it didn’t matter to him. His bank was in possession of Tommy’s one hundred million dollars. So nothing needed to be rushed now.
When Tommy completed signing his name five times to the signature card he handed his stack of forms back to Bishop.
Bishop then accepted Lisa’s and said, “Well, that’s everything, I believe. Welcome to our bank,” he added, standing up and offering his hand to Tommy. “My door is open to you any time. Feel free to just drop in and chat, if for no other reason.”
“Thank you, Mister Bishop,” Tommy said, taking Bishop’s hand and shaking it sincerely, then watched as Lisa did the same.
“These are your temporary checks,” he said handing them a small booklet of checks. “I hope to see a lot of them passing through our small establishment,” he smiled.
“There will be a few,” Tommy promised, then he and Lisa shook hands with Bishop again and he walked them to the front door.
As they walked down the sidewalk toward their car, Bishop was back at his desk hard at work as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred in his sleepy little establishment. He looked up from his task as they passed and waved. He waved back.
When they arrived home, they were surprised to see a strange car parked in front of their house. As they pulled into the driveway and got out, two very beautiful women got out of the strange car and came toward them.
“Mister Tommy LeSade?” the golden one asked, offering her hand.
“Yes, I’m Tommy LeSade. What can I do for you?”
“I’m Special Agent Borne with the FBI. This is my partner Special Agent Jackson. We’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind, sir.” Sandy said as she and Melissa showed their badges and identification.
“Sure, ask away,” Tommy replied.
“Could we go inside, please? It would be more private and comfortable. This may take a while,” Melissa asked.
“No problem,” Tommy replied, leading the women inside.
“Can I offer you some coffee, or soda? I even have tea,” Lisa asked, as the women sat on the sofa and Tommy sat in his Easy Boy recliner.
“Coffee would be great,” Sandy answered for both of them.
“What’s this all about?” Tommy asked, as Lisa left to get the coffee. All she had to do was pour it. Tommy insisted that there always be a fresh pot of coffee sitting under the Mr. Coffee coffee machine.
“Sir, do you know, or have you ever known a man by the name of Niles Cramer? He was CIA in Iraq in 2003,” Melissa asked.
“What about him?”
Sandy saw by Tommy’s expression of pure loathing that there was a connection here.
“I find it hard to believe that you two are FBI agents,” Tommy smiled, across at them.
“Why is that, Mister LeSade?”
“You are both entirely too beautiful. You should be models, instead.”
“Thank you for your compliment, Mister LeSade, but I assure you we are who and what we say we are,” Melissa replied, thinking she could fall in love with a man as honest and open as Tommy LeSade. She realized that Sandy hadn’t been exaggerating in the office yesterday about him being every woman’s ‘dream man’.
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Tommy said. “Now, what about Niles Cramer?” he finished, looking openly at the two women. He noticed the one name Sandy began to squirm and show him glances up her loose, short skirt.
He noticed she wasn’t wearing any panties. She was coming on to him, he decided. ‘Too late, Lass,’ he thought, but continued to look anyway. He supposed it was male nature.
“What can you tell us about him?”
Melissa asked, uncrossing her long beautiful legs as he looked at her.
He received a very clear and beautiful look at her nudeness, too. He was going to enjoy this interview, he decided. Both women smiled at him innocently.
“Where would you like for me to start?” he asked as Lisa came back into the room with a tray of coffee.
“How about at the beginning?” Sandy asked, turning professional again when Lisa entered the room and handed her a steaming cup of coffee.
“Would you like cream or sugar?” she asked them.
“No sugar, but we both just love cream,” Melissa smiled, licking her lips, and then glanced at Tommy when Lisa offered Sandy the carafe of cream.
Tommy smiled, then began talking, letting his mind travel back in time. He talked for nearly thirty minutes, ending with his belief that Cramer had killed Lindsey in order to stop her investigating him further.
“It seems he may have reason to harm you further, Mister LeSade. If given the chance,” Sandy said.
“I’m sure he would - if he got the chance. But, he’s still safe in Pakistan as far as I know,” he said, tossing a little bait out at them.
“We have reason to believe that he is actually hunting you as we speak,” Sandy said, looking seriously into Tommy’s eyes.
“Why do you believe that?”
“Four days ago he called a friend of ours in Washington D.C., actually Quantico, Virginia, asking about your last known address. He led her to believe you two were old friends, who, over the years, had lost contact. He wanted, so he claimed, to renew your old friendship.”
“We were never friends,” Tommy said firmly. “Make no mistake about that.”
“It doesn’t sound like it, after what he did to you, twice,” Melissa said, doe eyed.
“Mister LeSade, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us so candidly about this. We will place surveillance around the area for the next few days to keep a watch for Cramer. We’re sure he’s going to find you here. One of the addresses on his list was this one. It’s the farthest from DC. So, will probably be his last stop,” Sandy said as she stood, giving him one more good long look up her skirt.
Luckily, Lisa was looking worriedly at Tommy. Had she been looking at the women, FBI’ess or no FBI’ess, she would have been on her in a flash.
Tommy smiled inwardly at the look up the skirt, but internally he was grim, he knew that his killing wasn’t over, after all.
“It has been a pleasure,” Melissa said, and then when Tommy looked over at her, she stood, giving him another good long look up her own skirt. Again Lisa was staring fixedly at him.
“It has indeed been a pleasure, I assure you,” he said as he stood to escort the two women to the door.
At the door both women turned and winked at him with a smile. They extended their hands to him and he took them one at a time and found them warm and delicate.
“Anytime you want us, we’re here for you Mister LeSade,” Sandy assured him.
“I’ll keep that in mind, ladies. But, can we drop the ‘mister’, just call me Tommy. I’m much more comfortable with informality and after what we’ve shared; I feel we’re old friends.”
“Then you must call us Sandy and Melissa.”
“Deal,” he replied.
“Well Tommy, we’ll be seeing you around, then,” Melissa said, and then she and Sandy turned and swayed seductively to their car.
He watched them all the way. As they drove off he closed the door and turned his mind back to Lisa. The two FBI’esses were history. “Lisa?” Tommy called as he walked from room to room.
“In the bedroom,” she answered.
“You know, I never did collect my prize the other day.”
“You collected your prize many, many times, Tommy!” she laughed.
“Those times weren’t really the ‘prize’ though,” he argued, kissing her neck and earlobes, loving the fragrance of her perfume and shampoo.
He thought the perfume may be ‘Wild Musk’, his favorite.
“I hope you never collect your prize, Tommy,” she said softly as she began to overheat.
Tommy picked her up in his arms. “Me too,” he whispered as he lay her down gently on the bed, then lay down beside her and gathered her into his arms.
* * * * *
Cramer arrived in Tulsa at two o’clock in the morning. He found a motel room for a week and slept until noon the following day. By one o’clock in the afternoon he was sitting in a restaurant eating lunch. By three o’clock he was sitting in a bar drinking beer and talking to first one person then another. He was a good judge of character. By five o’clock he was talking to a man about handguns and rifles. By seven o’clock he was paying the man five hundred dollars for a scoped .30-.30 Winchester, lever action rifle; not his favorite choice for a sniper rifle, but he figured it would kill Tommy LeSade just as dead as the best sniper rifle in the world.
He spent a few hours the next day in the country around a town named Chouteau zeroing in the scope. It wasn’t far off at a hundred yards, which is about what he figured his shot would be.
By noon he was driving south on Highway 82 headed for Tahlequah and one last Tommy LeSade. Unbeknownst to him Kalief Goldman was making the same connection in Tel Aviv, Israel, concerning one Tommy LeSade in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
As Cramer entered the outskirts of Tahlequah and drove past the Indian hospital, then past the university Kalief was boarding a plane for the United States. He would be in Tahlequah in less than twenty-four hours.
Cramer stopped at a restaurant for lunch and then began driving around town searching for West Cherokee and house number 406, where he hoped to find Tommy LeSade and convince him it was in his best interest, and the best interest of his loved ones, to return him his money immediately.
By two o’clock he was cruising past the house for the second time in an hour; first one way, then the other. He had seen no activity around the house and there was no vehicle in the driveway, but the garage door was closed, he noted.
In a custom van with tinted windows a block away, Special Agent Fredrick Wright took note of the new Lincoln that had passed for the second time in an hour. He wrote down the license plate number and called it in. Within five minutes he knew the car had been rented in Washington, D.C. by Niles Cramer. He notified the other four agents in the area assigned to the detail and they began to watch the Lincoln closely. There was nothing more they could do. Cramer hadn’t broken any laws, yet.
As Cramer cruised by the house for the second time he decided to come back to the house after dark. He figured the occupants would be home by ten. He planned to watch them for a day or so and get to know them by sight. Unless the man who lived here was the Tommy LeSade he intended to kill.
If there was a wife or kids, he could take one, or both, as bargaining chips, to make LeSade either return his money, or at least exchange himself for them. Then, he could make Tommy do as he wished.
Cramer drove to a motel on the outskirts of Muskogee and took a room for three days, with an option to extend his stay if need be. He ate supper at a local restaurant and returned to the motel for a few hours.
At eight o’clock he drove back to Tahlequah to do a little surveillance work. He had to be sure before he acted. Grabbing the wrong person would gain him nothing at all. He had to know he had the right Tommy LeSade.
He didn’t want to kill an innocent person unless that person got in the way. If that happened they were fair game in any game of war. And this was a game of war! Plain and simple.
Five minutes after Cramer had driven past Tommy’s house for the second time, an FBI agent was knocking on his door to let him know that Cramer had been spotted in the area. Tommy had thanked him for the update and offered him and his partners coffee, then said good night.
As he closed the door he felt his adrenaline begin to flow as it had in Iraq. His heart seemed to be beating slightly harder. He seemed to be more aware of his surroundings. He even sensed himsel
f more profoundly as he walked back through the house to the bedroom. It was as if he was ‘more there’, more solidly fixed in the present. More Alive!
“Lisa, they spotted Cramer driving past the house about ten minutes ago. Be alert. Stay away from the windows. There’s no telling what he may do. Or try,” he told her calmly, as he slid the closet door back.
Inside, stored on the top shelf was his Army issue Colt .45 Model 1911. He slid the clip into the grip and jacked a round into the chamber, then placed the weapon on safe. He walked back through the house to the living room.
He went to the computer and activated the security system. Instantly several views of the house and yard appeared on four monitors. The images began to move as the strategically placed cameras began to sweep the house and yard.
Movement sensors would sense any movement large enough to be a human being and instantly sound an alarm. One of the cameras in that sector would instantly lock onto the movement and follow it as it neared. The image would be locked on the monitor and that sector would be flooded by a blinding brilliant light that would incapacitate the intruder until he could be subdued and apprehended. If another movement alarm sounded, two of the cameras would self release from the first alarm and lock on to the second alarm. They would be met there by two additional cameras programmed to monitor that area. Their images would be displayed on one of the other screens in four sections.
If multiple alarms sounded, each camera would monitor its assigned area. The four computer monitors would then be shared by eight cameras on split screens. As the moving object, or objects, advanced across the yard the cameras would follow all the way to the house, then the internal cameras and alarms would take over.
Tommy sat in his chair and began to watch the inactivity of his surrounding yard and house. Absolutely nothing moved on the full color screens, not a bird, a stray cat or dog. Not even a moth headed for the light. He wasn’t even sure there were insects in his yard. Even though the views were crystal clear, it seemed he was looking at the house and yard through four paneless windows. It was eerie, in a sense.
* * * * *
Sandy Borne and Melissa Jackson had been spending a lot of time together since that first night. They were quickly becoming inseparable. The day following their interview with Tommy they were still talking about their free-shots they had each given him in his living room. They found discussing their memories enhanced their own desire for each other.