“Does he speak English?” Jake asked her.
“Not a word,” she said smiling.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said you were an old college friend. You wanted to see my homeland, where I spent much of my youth. He’s very happy. They don’t see Americans here.”
“That could be a problem. You’ll have to tell him not to mention us to the people in town.”
“I didn’t think about that,” she said. “Problem is, most of the town probably saw us come here.”
17
The drive from sunny Central Oregon had gradually turned to sprinkles and then to a steady downpour by the time agents Fisher and Harris had reached Eugene.
An Oregon Highway Patrol officer, sitting among the thick forest on a side road, had spotted the white Trooper with California plates five miles east of Springfield and had followed it at a distance into Eugene, where they had turned it over to an unmarked police unit. That car had followed the Trooper to the western edge of town to the home of James Patterson, an old college friend of Cliff Johansen. An office worker for the Agency’s Eugene office had delivered a brown Ford Taurus to the agents, taking the Chevy Blazer in return.
The two of them sat now in the Taurus two blocks down from Patterson’s house in a subdivision of newer homes watching the driveway through a rain-smeared windshield.
“What are we doing?” Harris asked, running her hands through her hair to remove as much rain as she could. “You see, this is why I live across the mountains.”
Fisher’s eyes remained on the white Trooper. “I thought you were from Seattle originally. Should be used to this shit.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she said. “Now what?”
“Now we wait.”
Fisher’s cell phone jangled a familiar song from the 80s, so he quickly flipped it open and said, “Fisher.” He listened carefully for some time. Then he said “Thanks,” and slammed it shut. He looked across at Harris, who had a quizzical expression. “What?”
“Barry Manilow?” she said, smiling.
“I’ve been trying to change it for weeks. Do you want to know what Portland has to say?”
“Yes, please.”
“Cliff got a large transfer of money from a Cayman account.”
“How much?”
“Half a mil.”
She let out a little whistle. “Let’s go. We’ve got him.”
“Maybe. But the money disappeared.”
She looked confused. “What?”
“The money was there, and then it wasn’t. They say it was split into pieces and sent elsewhere.”
“How many pieces?”
“At least a hundred.”
“That’s proof enough,” she said. “He’s trying to hide it.”
“Right. We can get him on tax evasion a little over a year from now when he fails to report the income. But first we’d have to find it and put all the pieces back together again. Damn it!” He shook his head and stared at the rain hitting the windshield.
“I thought he wasn’t this smart,” she said.
“I never said that. I said he had left a trail…not a huge trail, though. I guessed he was in it for the sex. Now I’m not so sure. But he is a brilliant programmer. There’s no doubt about that.”
“So, where will the money end up?”
He shrugged. “I would transfer it into another currency or buy up gold. Maybe bonds. Have it held in Europe.”
“The Swiss are out. I’d guess Luxemburg or Liechtenstein. They’re less obvious.”
He smiled. “Or he could have it routed right back into the same bank in the Caymans. Regardless, they’ll track it down.”
Harris leaned forward to wipe the windshield where fog had built up. “I say we haul his ass in. Let me take a shot at that geek.”
“We have nothing on him officially.”
“Bullshit! The guy takes off from work for two days without mentioning it to his boss. We know someone transferred some data for at least thirty seconds. Then we have Cliff taking half a million bucks and trying to hide the money. Damn. That’s more probable cause than we had on Walker.”
“True. But with Walker we at least knew who was paying him. We need to know who this Asian woman works for, otherwise we have nothing.”
“Great. Then let me have her alone for a while.”
He smiled with that thought, his eyes penetrating the rain and focused on the Trooper.
Inside James Patterson’s house, Cliff sat at the kitchen counter watching his old friend make hamburger’s on the stove.
“This is one helluva surprise, Cliff,” Patterson said, his attention on his cooking. “Man, I wish you had called. I only have a couple of beers in the house. Shit, we can head on down and pick up some Steelhead. Just like old times. You sure she doesn’t want a burger? Man, you gotta put some meat on her bones.” He glanced back around looking for Li. “Where’d she go?”
“She’s probably doing some Tai Chi in the bedroom,” Cliff said.
Patterson reached down and shook his substantial belly. “She can have some of this shit.” Then he flipped the burgers and plopped a thick piece of cheese on each. Cliff’s old friend leaned toward him. “How’d you meet such a hottie?” he whispered.
“She came to our work to teach a few Tai Chi lessons. Management thought we’d be more productive if we were more relaxed. We kind of hit it off, so she gave me her card and said to come to lessons. Turns out she lived and taught on the east bay close to me.”
“One thing leads to the next,” Patterson said. “You dog. You always did have a thing for Asian chicks. Not that ya got any.” He turned and pulled the burgers from the pan, setting them gingerly onto buns. “No fries. Just chips.”
He turned and put the plate down in front of his friend. After a few minutes of silent munching, the food was devoured.
“How do you like working at home?” Cliff asked him.
“It’s cool. As you know, you can do websites anywhere. Makes it nice when old college buds show up outta the blue.” He smiled broadly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, man. My bad.”
“No problemo. But I expect all the sordid details.”
Cliff smiled, but his smirk quickly changed as he saw Li enter the room.
She had an automatic pistol with a silencer pointed at his head.
18
Colonel Powers shuffled across the frozen sidewalk toward the command post. The snow from the night before had mostly blown in strips of one-foot drifts every ten feet. A young airman was just finishing clearing a path.
“Sorry it’s taking so long, Sir,” the airman said. “The snow blower blew a belt yesterday. I’ll have it fixed by the end of the day.”
“No problem, John. Looks good.” The colonel entered the building and approached a check point with two security police behind a locked cage. Everything at this base was low tech from first glance and would have to be upgraded before it became operational again. For now, though, it would have to do, the colonel thought. It was more important to make sure the new technology, including the upgraded software, worked as advertised. And, he knew, security was much easier to maintain when he knew every person on a first-name basis.
“Hey, guys,” the colonel said, pulling his entry badge and I.D. card from inside his parka. “If John slips on the ice out there, you make sure to haul his ass inside. Fifteen minutes out there without moving and he’s dead.”
“You got it, Sir,” said the sergeant in charge. “Sir, you don’t have to show us those. We know who you are.”
“My orders,” Colonel Powers said. “No one enters without proper I.D., entry badge, and they have to be on the list.”