Side by Side

17

Clayton Able’s top-opening valise was so jam-packed with file folders he had trouble at first prying enough of them out to free the stack. He piled the entire stack on the bed, opened one of the folders, and started flipping photographs faceup on the coverlet like playing cards.

The first picture Clayton flipped was that of a thin individual wearing an expensive suit and carrying an overnight bag. The shot had obviously been taken in an airport and, based on the angle, by a fixed security camera.

“This is from airport surveillance yesterday,” Clayton told Winter and Alexa. “A little out of focus for my taste, but it’s been blown up and had gone through a couple of generations before I acquired it. The face triggered some flags in the NSA mainframe. They sent the information to another computer at the Homeland Security center, and because of the location of the individual involved, my friends plucked it out of the stacks. Thank God for biometrics.”

“Nice suit,” Winter said.

“Serge Sarnov.” Clayton tapped the photo with his finger. “He works for Intermat Ltd., an investment firm with principal offices in L.A., New York, London, Paris, Moscow, and with smaller and unlisted offices in cities not known for political stability or ethical behavior.”

“Russian mob?” Winter asked, frowning.

“Mobs,” Alexa answered.

“You know him?” Winter asked her.

“I’ve been briefed already,” she intoned. “This one’s for you.”

“A dozen mobs united by a need to move and launder large sums of money safely. The firm, Intermat, is made up of the leadership of each group, with the president selected by them from among themselves. Just like the Pope’s selection by a vote of fellow cardinals. There are at least ten major criminal organizations with links to the firm. Once they put their funds in Intermat’s accounts, the money is as safe as it would be in a bank. Intermat invests the pooled currency in deals that promise a healthy profit, and all members share equally in the profits.”

“And if our government is aware of this, how does this firm stay in business?” Winter asked.

Clayton took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled. “Isn’t a poisonous snake in a glass case less dangerous than one running around the house loose?” he asked. “Serge Sarnov runs Intermat’s department of policy enforcement. Ex-GRU, where he specialized in handling tricky state problems. This picture was taken last night at Douglas International Airport, a few miles from here.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the wind,” Clayton said. “You should keep an eye out for him.”

“He’s involved in the kidnapping?”

Clayton shrugged. “Not directly, but he has a stake in its success.”

“And his connection to the Dockerys?” Winter pressed, growing low on patience.

The next picture was of a man who stood shaking Sarnov’s hand in the airport’s baggage area. A third shot showed the second man putting Sarnov’s bags in the back of a dark Tahoe. The pictures were all taken from different security cameras.

“Here is the connection. Lt. Maxwell T. Randall, twenty-seven. Ex-Special Forces. Randall is one of Colonel Bryce’s associates-served with him the last two years Bryce was active military. You don’t want to mess with either of these men. The government is actively pursuing them and they are connected to continuing investigations beyond this. If you tangle with these two, the consequences could be unpleasant no matter the outcome of the meeting, if you get my drift.”

“If they don’t bother me, I won’t bother them back,” Winter said, seriously. “What’s Sarnov’s involvement with Bryce?”

“Intermat was dealing for the weapons that Bryce’s arrest short-circuited. Bryce is the only one who knows where the shipment is. The only other man who may have known is a dead undercover agent who got killed before he could pass the intelligence to his handlers. The firm has millions invested in the shipment Bryce has. They won’t walk away from it.”

Alexa said, “Bryce had to have figured that if he told Intermat where the container was before they sprung him, he’d either do life, get the needle, or the firm would kill him to keep him from talking.”

“So, if Sarnov didn’t do it, who grabbed the Dockerys?” Winter asked. “Randall?”

Clayton sucked loudly on his Falcon pipe. “Randall was in Atlanta when the Dockerys were snatched. M.I. ran the voice of the person who phoned Judge Fondren after the snatch for a matching print. They got one the FBI had filed as that of an unidentified female doing business with a local syndicate.”

“At the Bureau, we call them the Cornpone Mafia,” Alexa told Winter. “They are made up of small southern groups that are hooked up to a larger syndicate based in Kansas City.”

“That female voice has showed up several times on taps on people doing business with this local bunch,” Clayton said. “This one is a particularly challenging one. Stanley Smoot, who goes by ‘Peanut,’ is at the top. Peanut pays the best legal firm in the region a healthy retainer, and they have managed to extricate him from every crime he’s been charged with over the past twenty years. He’s street-smart, a classic psychopathic personality, and he keeps his books in his head. His lawyer of record is Ross Laughlin, the senior partner at Price, Courtney, Laughlin, Vance and Associates. Of interest is that Ross Laughlin also happens to be Colonel Hunter Bryce’s attorney. Laughlin’s firm has fifty top attorneys in Washington, D.C., ninety-seven in Charlotte, and seventy in Miami. The old boy has some very impressive connections.”

“Ross Laughlin knows everybody in Washington worth knowing, and contributes to all of the right people of both parties,” Alexa said.

“Got a picture of Peanut Smoot?” Winter asked.

Clayton found one in a second file folder and put it beside the one of Randall.

Winter studied it.

“Should be easy to spot,” Alexa said.

“Peanut’s family has been involved in criminal enterprises as far back as records go. He’s got a rap sheet goes back to his teens, but like I said, last twenty years he’s been golden. He is the highest up the chain anybody’s charted, and I’d say he is the top guy. Peanut’s crew deals in hijacking, running untaxed cigarettes, prostitution, selling stolen firearms up North to gangbangers, extortion, car theft and chop shops, insurance fraud, loan-sharking, pawnshops, stolen credit cards, gambling, counterfeit sporting-event tickets. Not sure what the connection to Colonel Bryce is. Maybe Peanut does business with him or maybe he was just hired to do the heavy lifting on this kidnapping. But the Smoots took the Dockerys. The woman’s voice is all the connection you need. The voice belongs to one of their own, and it shares definite regional accentual similarities with the rest of the clan. A female, probably mid-twenties to early thirties, who wears dentures, is all the description I have. Called the judge from a pay phone outside a convenience store on Central Boulevard. Her voice has never been caught except on pay phones and disposable cells.”

“And Laughlin is the connection,” Winter said.

“No proof of that,” Alexa said. “Big risk for a man at his social, economic, and professional level.”

Winter frowned but held back comment. Of course Laughlin was the connection between Bryce, the Smoots, and Intermat. He couldn’t believe Alexa questioned it. An attorney being a crook wasn’t a stretch in Winter’s mind. The more powerful he was, the more above reproach he felt, the easier it would be to go bad. A man like that could see himself as smarter than anyone in law enforcement and feel bulletproof.

“How large is the Smoot crew?” he asked.

Alexa said, “Peanut’s crew is made up of fifty to sixty uncles, aunts, cousins, even his own children. It’s a tribe that settled in the forties in remote northern South Carolina, about an hour from here.”

“Will they kill the Dockerys personally?” Winter asked.

Clayton nodded. “Killing a woman and child would be easy money.”

“Then we have to get to the Smoots,” Winter said.

“They’re our starting place,” Alexa agreed.

“I’ll put together a field file for you with all the appropriate intel on the Smoots,” Clayton said.

Winter stared at Peanut’s wide-apart almond-shaped eyes, the smug arrogant smile belonging to a man who’d enjoyed a long successful run.

Winter knew that he and Peanut would meet sooner rather than later.