King and Maxwell

CHAPTER 53

MICHELLE SAT IN THE PASSENGER seat of the car staring down at her phone.

Sean was in the driver’s seat. It was a vehicle they had borrowed from a friend. They had stayed the night at a motel, paying in cash.

“And?” he asked expectantly, looking at her.

“Edgar came through. The plates on Wingo’s car belong to a vehicle that was impounded by the D.C. cops about a month ago.”

“He stole the plates off it to replace the ones on his. Probably a rental. He’s using a fake ID and didn’t want anyone to be able to trace it back and blow his cover.”

“That’s right,” said Michelle absently. “He’s probably only got one ID and a credit card pack based on that. That gets blown, he’s out of resources.”

“What about the other vehicle?”

“Registered to a Vista Trading Group, LLC, based in D.C. Their office is over off L Street, Northwest.”

“And what do we know about Vista Trading Group?”

“Consultants in the defense contracting arena. They operate in lots of countries but they seem to have a specialty in the Middle East.”

“Special enough to steal a billion euros?” asked Sean.

“Maybe.”

“Connection to Heron Air Service?”

“Nothing mentioned on the site.”

“Did you dig deeper on Heron?”

“They’re a private charter service. They’ve got ten aircraft. All have the capability to fly across the pond and then beyond with a jet fuel fill-up.”

“And the guy driving?”

“No clue. His photo wasn’t on any screen page. The president of Vista is someone named Alan Grant. His bio’s on here. Late thirties. Family man. Former military. MBA[39] from Wharton.” She held up her phone. “Here’s his picture. Nice-looking guy.”

Sean glanced at it. “But no picture of the guy in the car we saw?”

She shook her head. “Nothing on Vista’s website. And Heron didn’t have a site, which seems odd.”

“Well, if he is involved in this, his mug shot will soon be posted in lots of places.”

“How do we hit Vista?”

“Tricky because some of them might have already seen us. So my usual plan of hitting them head-on is probably out.”

“We can establish an op post and see what falls out.”

“Or we can do some digging on this Grant guy. Background, business associates. What he’s done in the past. You said he was former military?”

She nodded. “Doesn’t say where or what on the bio, though.”

“The Pentagon keeps meticulous records. I can check on that discreetly.”

“So, they took the money why?”

“Well, a billion in cash has its own built-in motive, doesn’t it?”

“But what about the blogger that dropped the bombshell on the money being funneled to Muslim rebels?”

“That does make it more complicated, I grant you.”

“The White House is taking it on the chin. I don’t think this is just about stealing money, Sean.”

“Maybe we should follow up with the blogger. What was his name again?”

“George Carlton. Address in Reston. But you said he might be lying low.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to dig deep. But if he’s getting his info from a source, we need to find that source. And the most direct way to do that is to get to Carlton.”

“Do you want me to get Edgar to dig into Grant and Vista?”

“Do you think he will? He got in trouble last time.”

Michelle looked at him. “I think he will if we both ask him.”

“Both of us. Why?”

“He looks up to you, Sean.”

“He’s six foot nine. He doesn’t look up to anyone except NBA centers.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m surprised Bunting will let us near him after what happened.”

“Well, we saved Edgar’s life. And Edgar is a very special and good person. He will never forget that.”

Sean glanced out the window. “Okay. Call him and see if he has time to meet. Maybe we can very discreetly involve him in this. But he needs to understand he can leave no trail. I don’t want Bunting jumping down my throat again.”

“Well, we have the president behind us now. That trumps DoD and Peter Bunting, doesn’t it?”

He smiled. “Good point.”

“Let’s just make sure we’re not followed.”

He put the car in drive while Michelle made the call to Edgar.

Two hours later they were staring across at Edgar Roy, who sat opposite them at an outdoor café many miles from where he labored on behalf of the U.S. government.

“We’re sorry about what happened before, Edgar,” began Michelle.

“Mr. Bunting was very upset,” said Edgar as he stared off. “I don’t like it when people scream like that.”

“Me either,” chimed in Sean. “And we appreciate your running down those plates for us. I hope Mr. Bunting doesn’t find out about that.”

“Mr. Bunting is very smart. But he’s not that smart,” replied Edgar.

“Meaning you covered your tracks well?” said Michelle.

“I like helping you both,” said Edgar. “I know you’re trying to help other people. Just like you helped me.”

Sean glanced at Michelle. “That’s right, Edgar. And we wouldn’t come to you unless we really needed the kind of help you can provide. It’s important. We’re actually working for the president of the United States on this.”

“Then I’m sure Mr. Bunting will have no problem at all with me helping you. What do you need?”

They explained about Vista Trading Group and Alan Grant.

Michelle added, “Really, all you can find out about the company and the man.”

“He’s mixed up in all this?” asked Edgar.

“We suspect he might be,” corrected Michelle.

“I can get to work on this today.”

“What about the Wall?” asked Sean.

“Maintenance issues, so I have some spare time.”

“A break from saving the world?” said Michelle, smiling.

“What?” said Edgar, looking at her strangely.

“It was just a little joke,” said Michelle, looking embarrassed.

“Oh, okay,” said Edgar, and he attempted a smile. “But it will probably take some time.”

Sean said, “That’s okay. We have some leads to follow up at the Pentagon. Whatever you find you can just email to us.”

“Do you have good encryption on your end?” asked Edgar.

“Uh, password-protected,” he replied.

“Your password is oh-five-oh-eight. That’s not very strong.”

A stunned Sean said, “How did you know my password?”

“It’s your date of birth backward. I got it on the third try when I hacked you a while back. I would have gotten it on the second attempt, but I didn’t think you would be so obvious.”

“Why did you hack me?”

“I didn’t know you as well back then. I didn’t know if you were my friend or not. I never hack my friends.”

“So did you hack Michelle too?” he asked.

Edgar glanced at Michelle. “No.”

“Why not?” demanded Sean.

“I knew right away that Ms. Maxwell was my friend.”

“Thanks, Edgar,” said Michelle, giving Sean a poke in the ribs with her elbow.

“I’ll change my password to something stronger,” groused Sean.

“All right. But don’t simply add your year of birth. That’s not good enough.”

Sean’s expression made clear that was precisely what he was planning to do.

“What exactly would you suggest then?” he asked in an exasperated tone.

“Random numbers and letters, uppercase/lowercase-sensitive, that do not correlate to any of your personal data in any way. Thirty-character minimum. And don’t write it down anywhere.”

Sean looked dumbstruck. “Great, but how exactly am I supposed to remember thirty random characters without writing it down, which sort of defeats the whole super-duper secret code thing?”

Edgar looked perplexed. “You can’t remember thirty random characters?”

“No, I can’t,” snapped Sean.

Michelle chimed in, “He’s older, Edgar. Losing brain cells at a daily rate you can’t even imagine.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Edgar somberly. “Then, if you really must, you can cut it to twenty-five characters but no less than that,” he suggested.

“Thanks,” said Sean curtly. “I’ll get right on it.”