He used the second telephone to dial a local number, frowning as he stood there, naked, waiting for his party to respond. Four rings and counting. Damn it all, if he was out—
“Who’s this?” said the gruff, familiar voice. “Turn on the scrambler.”
“Right.”
As Lasser spoke, he reached down with his free hand, pressed a button on the flat face of the chunky telephone. At once, a green light glowed to tell him that the scrambling device was functional, no defects in the hardware, no third party tapped into the line. A winking red would tell him they had company, while steady amber pointed to a technical malfunction jeopardizing the integrity of conversation on the unit.
Green was cool.
The static whisper in his ear dissolved as Tilton switched his own scanner on and closed the circuit. They could both speak freely now, assuming there were no bugs in the room itself—and Lasser swept the whole house daily to ensure precisely that.
“You there?” asked Tilton.
“Yes.”
“It’s early.”
“We’ve got trouble.”
“Tell me.”
Lasser spelled it out in simple terms, no frills. His strong right arm was less concerned with motives than with, method. How was always more important than the abstract why.
“It should be simple,” Lasser said when he had finished ticking off the list of names, addresses and descriptions for his chief of physical security. “The undertaker’s sitting tight, scared shitless, waiting for instructions.”
“Good.”
“As for the others…well, just do the best you can, but get it done.”
“No problem,” Tilton said. “I’m clear to use the drones?”
“Nobody’s given me instructions to the contrary,” said Lasser. “Hell, it’s what they’re meant for.”
“Right. Okay.”
“I’ll talk to you again when you have something to report.”
“Affirmative,” said Tilton, breaking the connection.
Lasser switched his scrambler off, then cradled the receiver. It was done—his part, at any rate. The delegation of authority presumed a modicum of trust, and Tilton had not failed him yet.
He felt a stirring in his loins and knew it was the warm excitement of a brand-new hunt. He missed the trigger-pulling days sometimes, but it was safer this way. He could have his cake and eat it, too.
The thought of sweets brought Debbie back to mind, and Lasser walked back to the bedroom, smiling in the darkness as he pulled the covers back, exposing her.
“Hey, babe, wake up. I brought you something.”
Garrick Tilton read the list of names once more, as if he might learn something of his quarry from the letters scratched on paper. He gave up the exercise when nothing happened.
So he wasn’t psychic. Screw it.
Illinois, Nevada, Florida.
Ideally Tilton would have liked to catch them all together, but solutions seldom came that easily in life. At least the targets weren’t professionals. An undertaker, an old woman and a fat cat who believed his worry days were over.
Guess again.
The one thing Tilton knew for sure was that a mess you left behind would catch up with you someday, when you least expected it, and fuck you up. He took great pains to clean up as he went along, no loose ends dangling that could mutate into snares and trap him somewhere down the line. Even if that meant burying a one-time business partner or a former friend. Garrick Tilton’s loyalty was restricted to himself and those who paid his salary right now, this minute. If he got a better offer, and the risks were not extreme, he had no problem switching sides, exchanging masters. Anyone who didn’t like it could be dealt with swiftly and decisively.
The best thing, he decided, was to deal, with the most distant targets first. That meant the undertaker, then the woman, shooting for the fat cat last of all. Surveillance would be simple, making sure he didn’t bolt or spill his guts before the drones caught up with him. They could be finished with the whole list in a day, if Tilton got a move on, sending out his troops.
Okay.
The drones were testy sometimes, when they had to take a briefing at peculiar hours, but they always came around. It was the breeding, Tilton thought, and smiled.
Sometimes it helped to keep things in the family.
He wondered idly if the Feds were making any progress, and the question made him think, in turn, of the escape fund he had started building up the day he took his present job. A true professional was never taken absolutely by surprise. He always had some kind of fallback option waiting, just in case the game unraveled on him and his sponsors started bailing out.
The one thing Garrick Tilton wouldn’t do for money was play scapegoat for a bunch of self-important bastards who regarded him as nothing but a button man. He had experienced enough shit back in school, then in the military, finally on the streets, to know that only suckers went down with a sinking ship.
Things hadn’t come to that point yet, weren’t even close, if he believed what Lasser had to say, but Tilton wasn’t taking any chances, either. He could always sniff the wind himself, see which way it was blowing, smell the pigs before they moved in close enough to bag him.
What could Lasser and the others do if he bailed out one day and let them take the heat? Complain to the authorities that their chief executioner had left no forwarding address?
Get real.
They couldn’t say a fucking thing about the work he’d done for them, without admitting guilt themselves. Plea bargains would be risky, since the Feds were more inclined to deal with trigger men to nab their sponsors than the other way around.
And if the day came when he thought that someone on the team had sold him out…well, Garrick Tilton always paid his debts, with interest. In the meantime, though, he had a job to do. Nevada, Illinois, then Florida. He was excited, thinking of it.
It was time to call the drones.
Chapter 7
Dr. Smith had handled Remo’s urgent query from his office at Folcroft Sanitarium. It was a relatively simple matter to pursue Eugenix Corporation through computer records, with his access to the IRS and other federal databases paying off. Unfortunately there, was only so much to report about a company that had dissolved in 1984.
Eugenix had its roots in Delaware, a state renowned for incorporation statutes that allowed residents of other states and nations to employ a local lawyer, rent a post box to fulfill the residency guidelines and cash in on tax breaks they might otherwise have been unable to achieve. All strictly legal, and it brought the Diamond State sufficient revenue to make the laws worthwhile. In fact, an estimated seventy percent of corporations “based” in Delaware did little or no business there, aside from filing annual reports and keeping up on legal fees.
Eugenix Corporation had been chartered in July of 1961, four years before the scam with Thomas Hardy in Nevada. Under “Goals and Purposes,” the officers in charge had listed “education” and “genetic research,” in that order.
Could mean anything, Remo had said when he spoke to the CURE director. It could also mean nothing.
Smith had explained to Remo something about one law that governed corporations: they could claim most anything when making application for a charter, and it made no difference in the long run. Fine points like, an argument for tax exemption would be argued elsewhere, with the state and federal agencies in charge of revenue. The Ku Klux Klan was chartered as a “benevolent fraternal order,” and for those who bought that nonsense, there were still some hefty pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge available for purchase any time they chose to lay their money down.