Miranda Vaughn Mystery 01.00 - Chasing the Dollar (20 page)

"
Hey, Matt. We had a complication, so we're heading to the airport early."

I wadded up the paper bag and napkins from breakfast and looked for a garbage can. Seeing none, I tossed the trash into the back of the Jeep while Jake listened to Matt Reese on the other end of the phone call.

"No. Absolutely not. It's too dangerous."

I studied him, his tense jaw, his furrowed brow. His lips tightened, and he turned on the speaker on the phone.

"—If there's a chance to get this wrapped up now, I think we should do it," Matt said.

Jake shook his head.
"Matt, listen. We've got trouble following us now. Just get us on a plane and get us out. Freeze the funds from the States. Send down reinforcements later. But I've got a citizen here who has been targeted. I'm getting her out."

The line was silent, and I froze at the dark tone in Jake
's voice. When Matt replied, the tension in his voice carried across the cellular connection.

"
That won't work," Matt said.

"
Why not?" I asked.

"
Uh, Miss Vaughn?" He sounded flustered to hear my voice.

"
Yes, it's me. Why won't you be able to freeze the funds from there? I can bring you the flash drive. It has all the information."

"
Because this is a narrow window of opportunity. If what Jake has told me is accurate, this is a small crack in the organization. They've screwed up, and that hasn't happened before. If we don't jump on their mistake now, we won't have that chance again."

I glanced at Jake who shook his head slowly.

"Miss Vaughn, how much money is in the accounts?" Matt asked.

"
I have no way of knowing for sure, but the spreadsheets indicate that there could be anything from a few thousand dollars to a few million in the two accounts that are in my name," I said. "The information is out of date, though. It's at least three weeks old, and there could be others who have access to the account list. Or they could bribe someone to get access. A lot of money has flowed through the different accounts, and there's a pattern, so some of the transfers might be automatic."

"
They've already found you once, at the marina. If they're that desperate to get the drive, they need it," Matt said. "I think there may be more money there than you think."

For the first time, Matt Reese and I were on the same page.

"Look, I can't get a plane to you until early afternoon at the soonest. Maybe one p.m., if we're lucky. You've got time to get to the bank, do this, and then get to the airport. If you run into trouble, call my contact at the embassy."

Jake rubbed his forehead.
"I don't like this plan."

"
You don't have to like it, but it's your job, Barnes. Miranda, are you okay with this?"

"
Yes. As long as the money goes to the Sahara Fund investors."

"
It will," he said. "Bring that drive back with you. I need that. If it's what you say it is, it will be crucial to convicting those involved and shutting down the entire network. Can you do that?"

"
I've protected it so far," I said, glancing back at the duffel bag on the back seat where I'd tucked it into an inside pocket.

"
Jake, take me off speaker."

Jake grabbed the phone, and Matt
's side of the conversation was lost to me. Jake made a few monosyllabic responses and disconnected. He stared straight ahead, the hand gripping the phone resting on his knee.

"
Does Matt trust me now?" I asked.

He turned to me.
"No. Not even a little. But he wants this case under his belt."

"
Why did you change your mind about going to the bank?"

"
I didn't. This is a stupid idea. But it's not my call now."

He pulled the door shut and reached for his seat belt, so I did the same. He started the Jeep, gripped the steering wheel tightly, and steered us out of the dirt lot and onto the road.

"Can I ask why you called Matt Reese in the first place? Back when we were in Macau, I mean."

He was quiet for a few moments then glanced at me.
"I thought you were up to something."

I looked away, the deep green scenery outside my window blurring as my eyes filled with tears. Of course he had assumed that. Hadn
't everyone? At least everyone with a gun and a badge. I blinked away the stinging tears and turned back to the road in time to see a sign indicating a turn to Belize City.

Jake navigated the turn, and the road widened. We
'd be in the city shortly after the bank opened, I estimated studying the map in my lap. Then I'd do my part to help Jake and Matt take down the scheme.

And then? I really didn
't want to think about that. I'd been pinning my hopes on starting over, but was that even possible?

We pulled up to the bank, and Jake parked the Jeep on the street near a corner. The bank was in the middle of the block. It stood out from the surrounding buildings, a newer and more modern construction amidst its squat stuccoed neighbors.

Jake turned off the engine and leaned toward me.

"
You remember the account number?"

I nodded.
"I just go in and transfer the money there?"

"
That's all. Are you all right?"

"
Sure, yeah." My stomach was a jumbled mass of nerves, but I squared my shoulders and swallowed hard. "I can do it."

Just walk into the largest bank in the country and transfer millions of dollars that didn
't belong to me.

No problem.

I slid to the door and opened it, stepping out onto the sidewalk. Then I leaned back in. "You're going to be here when I come out, right?"

He smiled, and my heart fluttered, ever hopeful.

"I'm not leaving without you."

I shut the door and turned to the bank. The sight of the armed guard in front of the wide double doors nearly caused my heart to stop. Instead, I pasted a smile on my face and walked into the lobby, trying to project confidence, despite the fact that I could still feel my shoes squishing slightly from my impromptu swim yesterday.

The reception desk at the front of the bank was marble and brass, while the woman behind it seemed made of plastic.

"
Hello, I need to access my accounts," I said.

The woman, probably in her mid-twenties and yet to see a bad hair day, looked me up and down and then raised her chin several centimeters.

"
Un momento
,
por favor
," she said.

She walked away, her three-inch heels clicking on the marble floor. Minutes passed in the silent lobby, the only sound was the echo of blood rushing through my veins as my blood pressure skyrocketed. Finally, the receptionist returned with a tall, thin man in a suit.

"
Buenas dias
, I am Hector Tomás, accounts manager. How may I help you?"

"
Good afternoon, my name is Miranda Vaughn. I have a couple accounts with the bank. I need to transfer some funds from my accounts."

Señor
Tomás tilted his head slightly, regarded me with a guarded expression, and he nodded politely. "Ah, yes, Miss Vaughn. Of course, follow me."

He led me through the bank, which was unlike a community bank. There was no counter where tellers stood to help customers. Instead, there was a long room with seating areas next to dark wooden desks. They were separated by low walls topped with tropical plants. Most of the desks had an employee at them, but only a few had customers in front of them.

"Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?" he asked with a smile.

"
No, thank you."

"
I expected to see you yesterday," he said.

My heart pounded so loudly I wouldn
't be surprised if he heard it. I made a noncommittal sound and kept my gaze straight ahead.
Señor
Tomás led me to a desk at the end of the room and pulled out a chair for me. He settled into his chair and leaned forward across the desk.

"
You wish to transfer some funds?" he said, his softly accented voice low in the quiet room.

"
Yes, from two accounts. I'd like to transfer the balance and then close the accounts," I said, withdrawing my passport, which still felt slightly damp at the center where the pages were bound together. I hoped he didn't notice that as I passed it to him.

"
Thank you, Miss Vaughn," he said, turning to the computer and typing in my name. "Yes, yes, I see you have two linked accounts with us. That should make it easier to transfer the funds. We'll only have to do one transfer."

"
Will you be able to transfer the funds today?"

He nodded.
"Yes, we can do that. Provided you have the account number for the receiving bank account."

I took a piece of paper from the man
's desk and the pen he offered and wrote the twenty-two digit code on it. He gave me an unsettled look as he took the paper and then turned back to the computer.

He typed in some additional information and then gave me an odd look.

"I'm afraid this account does not have any funds in it, Miss Vaughn," he said.

My heart skipped a beat, but I nodded, trying to appear calm.
"Yes, that's why I want to close it. Can you check the other account, please?"

Señor
Tomás turned back to the screen and typed in more commands. My thoughts were a whirled mess of worries. If there weren't any funds to transfer, this adventure to Belize was all for nothing. Maybe we should have gone directly to the airport and jumped on the first flight out of the country.

Señor
Tomás looked up, his face stricken. His eyes widened, and his mouth moved without making a sound. The pen slipped from his fingers onto the desk.

"
You wish to transfer all of it, Miss Vaughn?" the bank manager asked.

"
Yes."

He paled visibly and reached up to his collar as if he were choking.

"All one hundred eighty-six million dollars?"

Did he say one hundred eighty-six million?
My instinct was to gasp, but I merely smiled and reminded my body to keep breathing, my heart to keep beating.
A hundred and eighty-six million dollars? That must be a mistake.

"
I mean, when you called a few days ago, I was happy to do the housekeeping you requested on the other accounts,"
Señor
Tomás said, his voice dropping even lower in volume. "But I—I mean, I didn't know you were closing the accounts."

My head spun, but I kept a neutral expression and nodded.
"There was a change in plans."

He swallowed.
"I see."

His pen trembled in his hand as he copied down the exact figure from his computer screen.

$186,009,886.22, U.S. dollars.

I exhaled slowly and tried to slow my racing pulse. That was far more than I thought there
'd be, and it sounded like Katrina had called ahead to make that happen. The thought of that much money was hard to wrap my head around, and I'd worked in finance and had overseen the transfer of huge sums before. But that had been expected at an investment house, and it was just digits on a computer screen or a page. This was different. I was taking this from some really bad people.

Señor
Tomás turned back to the computer, and a bead of sweat ran down the right side of his face, despite the air-conditioned climate in the bank. "Where are we transferring this to, ma'am?"

I reached up and retrieved the paper with the government account number on it, then slid the paper back toward me. With a slightly shaky hand, I took a pen from the holder on the desk.

"There's been another slight change in plans," I said.

I kept my head down as I walked out of the bank, hurrying to the Jeep at the curb. There was no reason to rush, but I couldn't shake the feeling that
Señor
Tomás might chase after me to get back the money I'd just moved. This was drug money, or it was from the sales of illegal weapons, or lord knows what. And the people who had earned it with their crimes would want it back.

Was Dylan
's plan to move it to keep the scheme operating? Bill had said he was taking just enough to get by in his new life, a chance he never got to take. Well, there had been plenty in the accounts to go around—if the cartel or the mob or whoever was laundering the cash under my name was in the mood to share. Which was highly unlikely.

"
Everything go all right?" Jake asked as I climbed in and fastened my seatbelt.

"
How fast can we get out of Belize?"

He looked over his shoulder for a break in the flow of traffic to pull away from the curb. My gaze followed his and lit on the hulking black SUV pulling up to the bank. There was something sinister about the deep tint of the windows and the way it parked in a fire zone. As we approached the corner, I saw
Señor
Tomás hurry out of the bank and talk to a man in the passenger seat. He gestured in an agitated manner, and then the car pulled back into traffic.

"
Uh, oh." I whirled back around in my seat.

Jake looked at me.
"What?"

The back window of the Jeep exploded, and I screamed, leaning forward as far as the seatbelt would allow me. Jake steered the car around traffic and accelerated, weaving through the heavy morning traffic.

"Are you okay?"

I nodded, but I was definitely not okay. I hadn
't had a good night's sleep in many days. I had been shot at far too many times. And I just transferred one hundred eighty-six million dollars that belonged, it seemed, to the angry SUV driver behind us. I was as far from okay as I'd ever been.

Jake reached into the center console and pulled out his cell phone, which he pressed into my hand.
"Hit redial."

I did as he asked, and he took the phone back while still driving like a maniac.

"We're coming in!" he yelled into the phone and then took a corner on two wheels. I could do nothing but hang on to the dashboard and the armrest.

The SUV was driving on the shoulder of the highway that Jake pulled onto, gaining on us, sending cars careering off onto the side of the road to get out of the way.

"What the hell happened in there?"

"
I transferred the money. I closed the accounts."

Jake swerved to avoid a slow-moving truck, and we found ourselves in the wrong lane, facing oncoming traffic. I put my hand over my eyes.

"Oh God! Oh God!"

Then the car swerved, and we were back in the right lane, speeding past a different
Belize City than we'd just been in. This was a dirtier, lower-rent version, basically a strip of salvage yards, auto mechanics, and second-hand tire sales lining the four-lane road.

"
Where are we going?"

"
We're not messing around anymore," he said, coaxing a little more speed out of the four-cylinder engine. It wasn't going to be enough to outpace the hulking SUV behind us weaving effortlessly through the traffic.

"
Are we going to the U.S. Embassy?" I asked. The thought of a phalanx of Marines was very comforting.

"
No, the embassy's an hour away in Belmopan."

We zipped around a flatbed truck, passing it on the right-hand shoulder of the road.

"Then where?"

Wind from the shattered back window whipped my hair around my face.

"There's a consulate branch nearby," Jake said, his face grim. "Hold on."

I was already holding on to everything I could, so I just braced myself, unsure what was coming next. Instead of pulling back on the road in front of the flatbed truck, Jake whipped the wheel to the right, sending us through a dirt lot. The Jeep bounced and managed to stay upright, and the wheels connected with pavement on the other side of the lot, sending us jetting forward on a narrow paved road.

Behind us, I could only see a cloud of dust between us and the highway. I kept watch, waiting for the SUV to emerge from the cloud, but the road curved, and we were into the trees, blocking my view of the highway we just left.

Jake took several more turns, and then we were back on a main road, speeding toward a row of concrete buildings. I looked in both directions and saw a black SUV ahead of us and pointed it out to Jake.

He nodded, merging behind a tractor-trailer that kept us hidden from the SUV. We were tailgating the trailer so close that I could see the cobwebs on the dusty bumper dancing in the wind. I gripped the armrest and pressed my foot into the floorboard, as if that could slow us and keep us from plowing into the back of the rig.

We traveled for about a mile, Jake
's eyes focused on the truck in front of us while I looked around, trying to keep the SUV in sight whenever the road had a slight curve. Finally, Jake backed off, and I breathed a sigh. He yanked the wheel to the left, sending me into the passenger side door with a thump. The sound of tires squealing filled the air, and I looked up to see a truck bearing down on my side.

Even more alarming was the SUV making an abrupt U-turn behind it.

"Hurry! Hurry!" I screamed at Jake.

The Jeep leapt forward, the sound of an infuriated truck driver
's horn fading as we raced down a side street.

"
We're close," Jake said. "Keep an eye on them."

I turned and saw a man hanging out of the passenger side, a gun in his hand. A large, semi-automatic gun.

"Gun!"

The spray hit the back of the Jeep and took out the side view mirror near me.

"Get down!" Jake yelled. I ducked and put my arms over my head.

The Jeep swerved again and seemed to be floating as we left the road. I looked up as we landed with a hard jolt, my head jerking back against the headrest. We slid into a parking lot lined with nondescript white vehicles, coming to rest near a gate that opened slowly as we approached.

As soon as it was open the few feet needed, Jake accelerated, guiding the Jeep into a secure parking lot. I leaned back and breathed in, taking in great gulps of air.

"
Are you hit?" he asked, turning to me, putting his hand on my shoulder.

I shook my head and felt a few small pieces of glass fall from my hair. He parked the car near the building, and three men ran toward us down a short covered walkway. Two were in fatigues, the other in a suit, his tie flapping as he ran.

Jake came around and helped me out of the car. My knees nearly buckled as I got a good look at the bullet holes in the Jeep and the broken windows and the side-view mirror hanging by a knot of wires. This was no way to repay Klaus and Gerta for their hospitality.

"
Special Agent Barnes, I presume," the man in a suit said, hurrying toward us. He ushered us toward the door. "Please come inside. We'll take care of this."

Jake put his arm around me as we walked quickly up the walkway, sliding doors opening as we approached, letting out a blast of air-conditioning into the humid jungle climate. The doors closed behind us with a quiet click, and I started shivering, whether from the cold or the adrenaline, I wasn
't sure.

"
I'm Chris Jenkins, chief of staff to the ambassador," the man said, shaking Jake's hand, then mine.

"
Thank you for your help, Mr. Jenkins," Jake said. "And for the directions. We wouldn't have made it if we stayed on the main roads."

"
Call me Chris, please," he said, watching us with concern. "Miss Vaughn, are you all right?"

I tried to smile, but my lips were still trembling.

"Let's get you something to drink. Some tea? Something stronger?"

The ambassador
's chief of staff leaned toward me, concerned. He was young for such a responsible position, maybe in his mid-thirties. His light brown hair was thinning, and his wire-rimmed glasses made him look like a professor, rather than a diplomat.

"
Tea would be nice," I said, my voice weak.

Jake still kept his arm around me as we walked deeper into the two-story building. It looked like any government office building, but was fortified with thick glass windows and a solid iron fence surrounding the building.

"Where are we?" I asked Jake, and Chris Jenkins turned and smiled.

"
It's a small consulate office," he said. "The embassy is in the capitol, Belmopan, which is inland about an hour and a half from here."

He swiped an electronic card past a sensor and then opened a door leading to a wide carpeted hallway.

"Belize City is the largest population center in the country, however, so we have a satellite office here."

He swiped the card again at the elevator, and the doors opened quietly. We got in and took it to the upper floor, where it opened into another identical hall. Chris led us past several doors and into a bright, sunny office. He motioned to a sitting area, and Jake and I sat on a plush settee facing the mahogany desk.

Chris excused himself and went through another door, leaving it ajar and speaking in a low murmur to someone there. He returned and sat in an upholstered chair across a low coffee table from us.

"
I've ordered some refreshments," he said, leaning forward in his chair. "Tell me what's going on."

Jake frowned.
"We got ambushed outside the bank."

The way Jake jumped to that part of the story made me think they
'd spoken before.

"
Were you able to transfer the money?"

I looked to Jake. How much had he shared? Jake nodded, taking my hand.
"Yes, Miranda moved the funds and closed the accounts."

Chris nodded, looking troubled.
"Well, you clearly angered the wrong people."

"
Cartel?" Jake asked.

Chris nodded again.
"The bank manager probably alerted them that their money was leaving the country."

There was a soft knock on the door, and Chris stood and let in a young woman bearing a tray. We were silent as she set it up on the coffee table and then left, closing the door behind her. Once she was gone, Chris poured the tea and began talking again.

"Belize is a safe country, comparatively," he said, offering me sugar, which I declined. "Unfortunately, the cartels don't respect borders in their own clashes. We get some spillover violence from the traffickers."

I sipped my tea and tried to stop my hands from shaking.

"I can assure you, the ambassador has been notified of what's going on," Chris said, giving me a gentle smile. "You're safe here."

Nodding, I tried another smile with a little more success.

"We're arranging your transportation back to the States," he said.

"
Thank you," Jake said. He sat next to me, and I could feel the tension roll off his body in waves.

Chris stood and walked back to the phone. As I watched him cross in front of the large wooden desk, my gaze fell on the nameplate perched on the desk.

Christopher A. Jenkins
,
Chief of Staff
.

Seeing his full name written out jogged my memory, and my mouth went dry. The tea suddenly tasted like diesel. I had seen that name. It was on several of the accounts listed on the spreadsheet.

My teacup clacked noisily as I tried to set it back on the saucer. I choked, and Jake patted my back. Through watering eyes, I looked back at the man at the desk. Was he a victim of identity theft, like me? Or was he involved in the money-laundering scheme, too?

Chris looked concerned as I caught my breath, but I smiled and waved to indicate I was okay. I was anything but okay. My heart was pounding, and my palms started to sweat.

"What's wrong?" Jake asked, but I just shook my head. I couldn't say anything, not with him standing just feet away.

Chris picked up the phone and punched in a few numbers.
"Yes, I have them in my office. They're safe."

He smiled as he hung up the phone.

"Are you hungry? Do you wish to change clothes? What can we do to make you comfortable while you're waiting? I can have an officer bring your bags in," he said.

His tone was friendly and sincere, and I wondered if it was merely a coincidence. Christopher Jenkins wasn
't an uncommon name. Or maybe he didn't know his name was on accounts being used by the cartels. I tried to tell myself that I was being paranoid, but it wasn't working. The hair on the back of my neck was on end.

There was another knock, this time at the door that Chris had used earlier when he
'd ordered the tea.