If that was true, why was William dragged out of his car at gun point by a masked man. A man that he did not know. A man that Paul Silverstein knew as Sam.
FORTY-EIGHT
Secret Service Agent Delia Williams lived in a rich downtown Philadelphia high rise. She happened to be up late reading a fashion rag. That was what her vacation had become. A two week journey through the Land of Boredom. She was startled to hear the sound of her telephone ringing at one a.m. The caller would not be from her job. It would be a sad thing if it was a deadly family emergency.
She sipped her cocoa and cleared her throat before she picked up the receiver.
“Don’t we sound awake for one in the morning?” the caller asked. He added, “Good morning.”
“I’m sorry, but you have the wrong number,” Delia said and figured she had intercepted the call of a gentleman with his eye set on a late night booty call.
“Oh, I have the right number. Your number,” the caller replied.
Delia slammed the telephone down.
The caller was pissed.
He re-dialed the agent.
“Delia Williams. Secret Service six years. I know who the hell you are!” The caller said angrily and then chuckled.
That grabbed her attention. She did not have her phone tapped, but could record the call. She raced to the living room and pressed record on her answering machine.
“What do you want, sir?” she asked.
“For you to do your job,” the man said. He spoke English. His accent was Italian.
“And, what might that be?” She asked sardonically. She grabbed her cell phone and dialed her house phone. Her phone beeped and she told the man to hold and clicked over before he could protest. She hung up her cell phone and when she clicked over, she dialed in her partner, Jared William. She told him to mute his phone and then clicked back over to the anonymous caller. “Sir, are you there?” She asked coolly.
“I am,” he said. “I bet there’s a third party on this call, too. Hi Jared. I won’t keep you two. One of your cases has been reopened. I mean broken wide open like a virgin. It would behoove you to get a handle on the case before the suspect spirals further out of control. Again!”
“And who might that be?” Jared asked, acknowledging his presence. His voice leaked contempt.
“Save the sarcasm, Jared, my boy. Your man Justice Lorenzo is currently on the loose in LA and very wanted by the LAPD. Only they know him as William Fortune.”
Both agents were jolted to life. Stunned by the comment. The caller would be laughing hysterically had he saw the dropped jaw of Jared and the furrowed brow of Delia. Delia shrank into her sofa, and her mind raced wildly trying to pull together the possible theories that could make the caller’s revelation gospel.
The caller asked, “Hello, are you there?”
Jared replied, “Sure we are. Who’s our source of information? How do we know that this is not a hoax?”
“I have Delia’s home number. Would a man go through that much to play a hoax? Hell no! I’m a confident informant. You guys love those, right?” The caller asked through laughter. “Contact a Detective Rocky Bowman of the LAPD. He can fill you in. I am sure he has the facts by now.”
FORTY-NINE
It promised to be a windy, unruly day. Thermostats were reading about 60-degrees. Sam was moist with sweat. The salt-laced perspiration left dried salt blotches scattered on his face.
That would not prevent him from skipping along the sidewalk to a gangster tune blaring in his head. Not Tupac. Real gangster, like the Godfather score. In the mid-dawn silence, only the rhythm of his heart could be heard thumping.
From the opposite side of the street, he watched the three-story home that housed his target. A believer of the adage “the early bird gets the worm,” he had known that now would be the perfect time to handle his business.
Sam traipsed across the street and lifted the latch on the gate surrounding the home. He made his way up the walk, stepped up five steps and was on the porch. He approached the lovely front door. He turned the door knob. Locked. No problem. He had a trusting locksmith set to gain access to any house. Even 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. After all, that was a house, just painted white.
The door crept ajar relatively easy. Sam slipped in. He wore a jumpsuit that hid the Glock holstered on his waist. He stood stealthily in the vestibule. Running water could be heard from the kitchen. Coffee, he thought. She was helping herself to a wake-up. Boy, was she about to be awakened.
He watched her shadow march across the dining room wall toward the living room. Her long hair was swept across her face. Her vibrant bronze complexion glowed. A pink robe enveloped her svelte body. Good thing. Sam could not stand to be aroused. The rollers curled around her locks had bounced wildly as she skated to the staircase and proceeded up the steps holding on to the railing. Too bad she had no idea Sam was kneeled in her vestibule scanning her every move through the small opening in the door.
She landed on the second floor hallway, and he swung open the vestibule door and casually strolled to the kitchen. There was not one creak from the hardwood floor. He had been assured that since this was not his first time in the home. In the kitchen, he moved one of the six table chairs and scooted under the table. His presence was masked by the floor length table skirt. How long she waited to greet her visitor was her prerogative, but the two of them would talk. The conversation would be brief, though. The look on her face after he exposed himself would be priceless. The skully that he slipped on his head contained a miniature camera that would capture the dumb look on her face. He planned to watch it repeatedly.
When he finished with her, he would bet that no clues would remain for the police to call her death anything but a cold case. The police would also know they were not investigating a sexual deviant one-nighter gon’ bonkers. The murder would scream deliberate and not random. The police would be bogged with more questions than answers. The detective looking to unravel the mystery of a lifetime would get a stab at it that morning. Tomorrow. Or maybe the next. Who knew when they would find the body? The killer would have a faultless performance and would be long gone after they found Secret Service Agent Nyoka LaCroix dead.
FIFTY
It was said that patience is the catalyst to lashing out perfect revenge. There had to be some truth to that. Nothing was better than the look of flabbergast on the face of someone doled the most surprising revenge upon—especially when they’ve forgotten all about one. Secret Service Agent’s Jared Williams and Delia Williams blood boiled with the idea of revenge as they flew across America to confront the thief that had blown them off four years earlier.
They were reluctantly willing to let bygones be bygones under the premise that Justice Lorenzo was dead. With a confirmation from the LAPD that he was alive along with their previous anonymous tip, they needed confirmation. They wanted unquestionable proof that he was alive and living well. But photos of Justice Lorenzo in a hotel with one of their own taken that same month could not be ignored. Prints from the nefarious thief could not be ignored either, especially considering they had been lifted from the VCR of a Mailbox Etc. crime scene.
Up all night reading William Fortune novels was quite unnerving and telling. If they had learned anything about the illusive Justice Lorenzo, then they had better have their A-game with them aboard non-stop flight to LAX.
They learned more about Justice Lorenzo by reading the Fortune novels, and their thirst to capture him heightened. Justice had had to have amassed a bankroll the size of Russia, which they could not wait to confiscate.
To the agents’ estimation, Justice was no longer an identity thief, but a murderer. How or what prompted him to kill could not be explained? None of the books used to profile suspects would have had Justice Lorenzo capable of stomping on an ant. Federal agents were genetically designed to feel that their pride had been wounded by the thug. Especially, considering they had realized that he had committed murder in New York City four years earli
er. To date, neither the NYPD nor the NY FBI Office had been able to figure out whose body had been burned. They believed it was Justice’s and that was obviously incorrect. Jared had a hunch on who the body belonged to. The one person connected to Justice that was never found and believed to be Justice’s killer: Mr. Harry “Amir” Dijonette.
FIFTY-ONE
On the second floor, Sam heard Nyoka’s padded feet moving across the floor. Water ran and flowed through the drain pipe that ran through the kitchen. He hoped that she brushed her teeth. That would be pleasant. He hated morning breath. The water stopped and he heard slippers moving along the floor boards to the stairs. The front door opened. Thirty-seconds later it closed. Her slippered feet were in the kitchen seconds later.
He heard her slam the newspaper onto the kitchen table. She read the headline and murmured, “Why don’t they just close the borders? To hell with the immigrants!”
Damn, Sam thought. She does not have to be so heartless.
She moved to the cupboard and pulled her favorite Washington Wizards coffee mug from a shelf. She ran hot water from the faucet over it and then poured herself a mug of coffee. The running water masked the sound of Sam coming from under the table. He sat at the head of the table and when she turned around to face the table, she instinctively hurled the mug at the intruder. She then began to scream bloody murder, as she ran toward the back door.
What a fine debut he had made. She had acted more boldly than expected, though. Sam lodged a bullet into her thigh. “And where the hell are you going?” That was an urgent request for her silence. All of her dirty secrets flashed across her face. Fright was also there as he slammed her face into the back door. She landed on the floor and held her leg, rocking and wincing uncontrollably. Her face became wet with tears.
Sam used his jacket sleeve to mop the hot coffee from his face. He looked into her eyes and it screamed anger. His sadistic stare had answered the initial question she had asked herself when she had first saw him: Will I be the one to die? Or murder?
“Now that really wasn’t nice. I apologize, though, for the shot. You were screaming and I did not come here to hear you scream. That could have been more fatal,” Sam said. He added, “Much more!”
Nyoka looked at him bizarrely. She had no clue what was going on, nor who was in her home. Why was this strange man in her kitchen interrupting her morning routine? Now that she had been shot, she was petrified. She prayed that a neighbor heard her agonizing scream. Someone had to, she thought.
The shooter walked over to her and grabbed three of the rollers on her hair. He dragged her to the table as one of her legs dragged deadly on the tiled floor. The other one shuffled along in the direction that he pulled her. He sat her in a kitchen chair. He then tossed a kitchen towel into her face and told her to tie it around her wound to stop the pool of blood from thickening at her feet.
“I have my purse up stairs,” she said like a volunteer. “Percocet and Xanax in the medicine cabinet.
He ignored her and took a sheet of paper from his pocket along with a pen. He pushed the items in front of her and said, “That’s a nice offer, but one that I can refuse. I’m sure there is much more money in an account in Luxembourg and now that you have changed the password I am going to need that password!”
“I do not know what you’re talking about.”
Sam slapped her with enough force to collapse the table when her head slammed into it. “Listen, bitch, you should know all of your accomplices before you agree to squirrel the man who had been paying you off to betray the country in which you swore to uphold the protection of the US President and others,” he hissed at her. “Don’t look at me crazily. Do you think that this plan was truly hatched in the fashion that you were told? Everybody is my puppet and I am cleaning up my mess, starting with you. Now what is the fucking password?”
“I do not know it,” she replied somberly, recalling how she was approached to turn her back on Justice for $250,000.
“Tell me something. I am begging you to tell me anything. That would be the best thing to do, Nyoka.”
She paused to think about her response. Sam gently and casually placed his Glock on her forehead and she suddenly knew what happened to the password. “I don’t have it. I never did.”
“Good, I was just checking to be sure that my instructions were followed to the letter and you didn’t know,” he said and then proffered a shot to the back of her head that left a cavernous hole. A peephole that he looked through sadistically. When he looked up he saw the Metropolitan PD police lights flashing as her head retired on the table.
* * *
Three blocks away, the killer hopped into an unattractive Ford Escort. He slipped off the jump suit. Underneath he wore an attractive business suit. From under the skull cap long, black hair flowed out. The killer drove North on I-95 so that he could get out of Washington, D.C. and head to Baltimore, MD. He was en route to the airport.
At the airport, he parked in the long term parking section. He packed the bloody clothes into a duffle bag and abandoned the Ford. Before he boarded the shuttle bus to the airplane terminal, he abandoned the duffle bag a few feet from the Ford.
At terminal B, Sam boarded a non-stop flight to LA. He had business to finish.
PART 3
FIFTY-TWO
When Lundin opened her eyes after a horrible night’s sleep, it was 7 a.m. She envisioned a normal day. Her body felt tired, but she was alert. That was normal. The feeling was nothing a mug of cappuccino from the kitchen could not cure. She planned her next five minutes meticulously. She threw the comforter from her and glanced at the television.
On the television screen was a photo of her husband in a box. The reporter called her husband the conniving man that raped and destroyed the country’s economy to the loud tune of ten million dollars, feigned his own death, and lived for four years under the successful mask of William Fortune. She couldn’t believe how confused the media was. She turned the channel and there was William again. Her husband was the top story. The crème-de-la-crème of that day’s media. It was official that William was at the apex of American pop culture.
She had not heard from William all night. Possibly he was in danger, or simply hiding. She would do what was necessary to continue her life with William Fortune. She lay back down and cupped her hands over her face. Today was definitely not a normal day, by any means.
Her cell phone rang and she recognized the ring tone as an instant message and she reacted.
* * *
Lundin sat in her Rendezvous and concentrated on the text that she had received. She wanted to know why William had instant messaged her versus calling so that she could hear his voice.
Never before had she been so afraid for William. During the nineteen months that they had cohabited, he had come home every night at normal hours. She knew the times that he didn’t. Those were the times that he was out of town doing research for a novel.
She gave her vehicle life and drove off. Where she was headed was unknown to her, but she would drive until she received further instructions from her husband. She drove up to Wilshire Boulevard and made a left onto it. Cars ebbed fiercely and she joined the rush hour-rush to nowhere.
No matter what she tried to do, her thoughts returned to William. She struggled to regain normalcy in her thought process. Knowing that William was wanted for committing a plethora of felonies and was known to the LAPD as armed and dangerous had hindered her from gathering her composure. LAPD had a reputation as solid as John Gotti’s for forcing victim’s loved ones to grieve for a loss of life.
Lundin kept driving past Lacienega. Past Crenshaw. Past Western. The northbound on-ramp to the 110 Freeway was approaching. She texted William and he responded as planned. The reply was that she had been followed and that she would have to abide by his new instructions to avoid capture from the men pursuing her. They were government agents, but he had no way of knowing if they were legit or not.
* * *
B
ustling Robertson Boulevard began to come to life as night faded into day. No longer under the guise of the darkness, the Secret Service had to reposition themselves to avoid detection. Having bugged Lundin’s truck, they were aware that she would lead them to their suspect, especially when they had a car tailing her. They hoped that William found his way into their dragnet soon. The arrest would be for every identity theft agent in the country.
FIFTY-THREE
Delia did not sleep, but Jared slept during the flight to Los Angeles. It was nine a.m. when the airplane landed onto a LAX runway. By the time the agents entered the terminal; they were met by the local Secret Service boys and escorted to the headquarters.
LAPD Detective Rocky Bowman awaited them in a command room. Bowman’s legs were perfectly parallel to the metal chair that he sat in. He looked like a wheelchair-bound soldier. He shifted through a thick sheaf of papers and looked restless. He undoubtedly needed sleep, but that was not an option.
The Secret Service guys from Philadelphia walked into the room as if they owned the place and that irritated Bowman. He held out his hand and introduced himself. Jared placed a leather binder on the table along with several folders that were held together by a rubber band.
“Have one,” Bowman said. They both picked up folders of the evidence without speaking and opened them up. Bowman searched their faces for emotion. There was none.