Side by Side

8

With his perfect white hair, bushy brows, his neatly trimmed mustache and perfect nails, attorney Ross Laughlin looked like an actor playing a distinguished senator. He wore a three-thousand-dollar Brioni suit, a three-hundred-dollar custom-made silk dress shirt, an Armani tie and thousand-dollar British shoes sewn especially for his feet. A massive gold signet ring bearing his family crest encircled his ring finger, and a platinum Rolex President wrapped his wrist. The attorney sat on the chilled steel chair and placed his briefcase to his right side on the tabletop, which was marred with graffiti. Popping open the briefcase, he removed the crocodile-skin notebook and opened it. Taking his Faber-Castell ink pen from his inside coat pocket, he uncapped it and started scribbling on the thick paper.

When Colonel Hunter Bryce was led into the room by two jail guards, Laughlin was busily making notes. Only when the guards exited the room did Laughlin look up at the middle-aged man built like a gladiator in his prime.

“Colonel,” he said.

“Ross,” Bryce said, running a hand over the gray stubble on his head.

Laughlin turned his eyes to look out through the security glass panel, and saw that the guards out in the hallway were not paying any particular attention to the prisoner and his attorney. The room had no audio or video surveillance because it was strictly for client-attorney conferences, which made it every bit as secure as the confessional.

“Sarnov is in town,” Laughlin told Bryce. “I am meeting with him this afternoon. Max is keeping him company.” Max Randall was Bryce’s right-hand man and his official representative until he was free. Max got Bryce’s orders through Laughlin.

“Sarnov should be in a good mood,” Bryce observed. “He’s two days away from taking delivery on his merchandise.”

“I doubt his mood could be described as good. His employers don’t like being held over a barrel, and after blaming you, I am sure they hold Serge somewhat responsible for the deal.”

Bryce shrugged. “If they weren’t over that barrel, I would be facing a life sentence, and they would not have a steady supply of the merchandise in the years to come.” As he spoke, Bryce cracked the knuckles on his powerful hands one by one.

Laughlin kept his expression flat as he scribbled gibberish on the lined paper with his ludicrously expensive pen. “Over a barrel” was a euphemism for the fact that Colonel Bryce had taken a three-million-dollar advance from a consortium of predominantly Russian criminal organizations on a nine-million-dollar total payment for a container of military weaponry. Bryce’s inconvenient arrest for stabbing an undercover agent to death had put the deal in limbo because Colonel Bryce had refused to divulge the location of the weapons to the Russians until he was free of the murder charge. It was a dangerous gambit, but Bryce had always juggled deadly situations like a clown kept tennis balls aloft. The man had nerves of tempered steel.

“It is a dangerous game you’ve been playing, Hunter,” Laughlin reminded him. “For me, if not for you.”

“Was playing,” Bryce corrected. “After Monday all will be forgiven and we’ll be slamming back vodkas with them. You’ll forgive me, won’t you, Ross?”

“Your holding out on Intermat has put me in a very precarious position with good and valued clients,” Laughlin said. “You put me between them and the potential loss of their money, and that is a very dangerous place.”

“Your past business with them is nothing compared to the deals we will do in the future,” Colonel Bryce said smugly. His eyes radiated total confidence.

Laughlin had done ten million the past year with Intermat in hijacked cigarettes, more than that in pure grain alcohol furnished by a distillery, and they were expanding into new avenues of revenue. Eventually the Russians would take the whole operation, but by then Laughlin would be ready to retire.

“I’m just a middleman in your dealing with the Russians,” Laughlin reminded the colonel. “I am getting too small a cut for the degree of danger.”

“Being a middleman has its rewards. And its risks,” Bryce said, smiling. “They may not like being over this barrel, but they see into the future and the barrels of gold that await.”

“They are like Colombian drug lords without the reputation for the drug lords’ compassion.”

“So, what about the pair?” Bryce asked.

“Locked away,” the lawyer answered.

“You trust them to properly handle the disposal?” Bryce asked. “Them” referred to the Smoots. “Randall should be doing it.”

“They are highly proficient at making things disappear,” Laughlin said. “I suspect they enjoy it. And Randall can be connected to you. The Smoots, with one exception, are expendable and totally ignorant of my involvement.”

An image of Peanut Smoot’s children formed in Ross Laughlin’s mind. It was a chilling portrait. The attorney couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be at their mercy.

If it weren’t for the enormous stakes, Ross Laughlin would certainly have felt very sorry for Lucy Dockery and her child.