Authors: RANDY SINGER
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Sherwood replied. “If I’m blackmailing Jason Noble, I’m doing a pitiful job of it.”
Jason was in his office, printing off e-mails and pulling together the documents he would need to present to the U.S. Attorney. He was supposed to be at Brad’s office by 2 p.m.
In the conference room down the hall, Andrew Lassiter was doing the same thing. When Jason had told him he was spilling the beans on Justice Inc., Lassiter had wanted to help. “I can testify about all the data they collected on employees,” he told Jason. “I know for a fact they were checking your e-mails, tapping your phones, and all that.”
At first, Jason hadn’t wanted to involve anyone other than himself. But Lassiter insisted, and Jason had to admit that his friend could provide a lot of corroborating evidence. Jason called Brad, who saw no downside in bringing Lassiter along.
As he organized his evidence, Jason was consumed with thoughts about the fallout from his decision. What would happen to his dad? Detective Corey? What would LeRon’s father say? How could Jason face him?
“Jason!”
It was Andrew’s voice from the conference room, shattering the silence, startling Jason. It was followed by the sounds of a scuffle and another muffled shout.
Jason grabbed his gun and bolted from his office, sprinting toward the conference room. When he turned the corner in the hallway, he stopped in his tracks. A large man with a ball cap and light blond hair had taken Lassiter hostage and was using him as a shield, holding a gun to his temple. The big man’s hand was covering Lassiter’s mouth.
“One more step and I shoot,” he said to Jason.
Before Jason could react, he felt a blow to the back of his head. There was a flash of color, a kaleidoscope of sparks… and this time Jason’s world went dark.
Jason drifted in and out of the fog. Stray thoughts and nightmares tumbled together through the cobwebs of his mind. He heard voices at the end of a long tunnel and felt the intense pain of a pounding headache radiating from the back of his skull. His head felt like someone had it in a vise and was screwing it tighter and tighter as Jason regained consciousness. His mouth was dry as cotton.
He felt something sting his cheek. Once. Twice. He flinched. Another slap.
“Wake up, Boy Wonder.”
He realized he was sitting in a chair. He blinked a few times into the darkness, trying to clear his head. Somebody pointed a bright light into his eyes—some kind of spotlight? He squinted and slit his eyes—a flashlight.
He felt the sting of the next slap on his cheek, a hard shot with an open palm, and he shook his head. He tried to retaliate, but his wrists were handcuffed together in front of him. As he tried to stand up, a strong arm shot out and jammed him back into his seat. He couldn’t yell—they had stuffed something in his mouth; he could feel fabric on his tongue. A rag, maybe, held in place with some kind of tape wrapped around the back of his head.
“Welcome back to reality,” a deep voice said. “Unfortunately for you, reality sucks.”
Jason squinted to get his bearings. He was in an auditorium. A theater? It was dark except for the light shining directly in his eyes. He could make out the shadows of two figures behind the flashlight.
He felt a gun barrel at the back of his skull.
“That’s enough,” someone said. “He’s awake.” It was a softer voice. The person who had just spoken took the flashlight from the first man and placed it on the floor. He knelt in front of Jason.
Andrew?
Jason stared at him, and Andrew Lassiter stared back, blinking. “I never meant for it to turn out like this,” he said.
Robert Sherwood parried questions from Agent Billingsley for nearly thirty minutes, a battle of wits between a brilliant CEO and a savvy investigator. The one thing Billingsley had that Sherwood did not was time. And patience.
Sherwood had clients to call. Fires to put out. His entire business plan was imploding.
“Turn that thing off,” he said, motioning to the recorder.
Billingsley leaned forward and switched off the device.
“Our corporation is a highly sophisticated research firm that provides advice to a number of clients,” Sherwood said in a condescending tone. He would try to keep it simple so Billingsley wouldn’t glaze over with the technical details. “We have a state-of-the-art system for analyzing potential jury verdicts in big cases like the Crawford case. It’s complicated, but the heart of the system is a mock trial we conduct using three different jury panels, all designed to reflect the characteristics of the jurors on the actual case.” Sherwood paused. “Are you following all this?”
“You might want to slow down a little,” Billingsley said sarcastically. “FBI agents can be a little thick.”
Sherwood frowned at the gamesmanship. “Last Thursday evening we heard from our three jury panels. They all came back with a defense verdict based on what we thought the evidence in the Crawford case would be. Over the weekend, we advised our clients, most of them hedge fund managers, that it was our considered opinion that the stocks of gun manufacturers like MD Firearms would not be damaged by this verdict. In fact, we anticipated that a defense verdict would boost the stocks higher.”
Sherwood watched closely as Billingsley processed the information. The agent showed no reaction.
“Today, of course, the final witness for the defense imploded, the case went south, and we look like idiots.” Sherwood leaned forward on his desk. “If the plaintiff gets a verdict in this case, and I suspect he will, our firm might never recover.” He paused, again giving the FBI agent time to process the information.
“So I would appreciate it, Agent Billingsly, if you would get out of my office and find out who’s been blackmailing Jason Noble. I’ve got a few ideas of my own, and I can promise you this—whoever it is had better pray that you find him first.”
“You were supposed to go along with the program,” Andrew Lassiter said, the words clipped with emotion. “This wasn’t about
you
; it was about getting back at
them.
Sherwood took everything, Jason. He took my entire life’s work.”
Jason stared at Lassiter, trying to comprehend the man’s betrayal. He tried to ignore the jackhammer that seemed to be pounding away at the back of his head.
There has to be some way out.
There were three men here, as far as Jason knew. Lassiter, a guy behind Jason holding a gun to his head, and a third man—larger and stronger than Lassiter—the man who had slapped Jason awake.
“Let’s get on with it,” that man said to Lassiter. It was a familiar voice. A New York accent. Hispanic. “He’s not your priest, and we don’t need your confession.”
Jason’s eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, and he could finally make out the big man’s features. It was the first time Jason could ever remember seeing him smile.
Rafael Johansen.
“That’s right, Boy Wonder,” Rafael said. “I guess I’m a mercenary. Although Sherwood never offered me a share of the profits like the mad professor here.” He inched a little closer, and Jason leaned back. “You sure screwed things up with your Johnny-Be-Good routine. Now things have gotten a little complicated.”
Jason was still processing his surroundings. He seemed to be in the first row of the second section of a movie theater, about ten rows or so away from the screen. They undoubtedly intended to kill him—why else would they be brazen enough to show their faces?
Unless Andrew Lassiter had a sudden change of heart, Jason was a dead man. And for some reason, coming to terms with that indisputable fact took away some of his terror.
Courage comes when you have nothing left to lose.
He quickly decided things could only get worse. The one advantage he had right now might be the element of surprise.
Jason bolted up and twisted, swinging his handcuffed fists toward the gunman behind him. He whiffed. Rafael was instantly on him, pile-driving him into the cement floor. Rafael’s weight landed on Jason’s shoulder, and he screamed into the gag. He nearly blacked out a second time as Rafael hauled him to his feet and threw him back into the chair.
“You’re trying my patience, boy,” Rafael said, catching his breath.
The other man had moved in front of Jason now, a few feet away, pointing the gun at Jason’s forehead. He was another bodybuilder, a private security guard who worked with Rafael. Jason recognized the ponytail.
Toward the front of the auditorium, Jason thought he heard a muffled scream. They weren’t alone? His mind raced through the possibilities. The most likely scenario was also the one that Jason dreaded the most.
“We’ll deal with you in a minute,” Rafael yelled over his shoulder.
“Go easy on him,” Andrew sputtered.
Rafael laughed and turned toward Andrew, who had stepped a few feet away. “Go easy on him,” Rafael repeated, mocking his coconspirator. “We’re going to kill him, genius.”
“No, we’re not,” Andrew said. “I’ve been thinking this through.”
Though it was hard for Jason to see Andrew in the shadows, his voice had a desperate edge to it. Maybe he was starting to understand the monster he had unleashed. “We don’t need to risk murder charges. I’ve got a better way.”
“There is no other way,” insisted Rafael. “Let’s get it over with.”
He turned the flashlight on Andrew, and for the first time Jason noticed that his friend was wearing plastic gloves. In his right hand, he was holding Jason’s MD-45.
“I’ve already set them up,” Andrew said, his voice trembling now, his words coming out in a torrent. “The offshore investment companies I created to short the gun companies’ stocks have Jason’s and Kelly’s fingerprints all over them. I used their BlackBerry accounts to exchange e-mails about their conspiracy. We can drug them both, let them live, dump them outside the country. Everyone will assume they gamed the system and—”
“That’s not the plan,” Rafael said matter-of-factly. “Too many loose ends.”
“They can’t come back, because the police will be looking for them. We go to the cops first—”
Rafael shook his head, determined. “That’s not the plan.”
“If these two ever come back to the country, nobody will believe—”
“Shut up.”
The room went silent as Rafael shone the flashlight directly in Lassiter’s eyes. Andrew stared back at Rafael for a long moment—his eyes blinking, the neck twitching, every feature on his face reflecting his tortured conscience. He took a step back, raised the gun, and pointed it at Rafael and his ponytailed partner, back and forth, his arms trembling.
The man with the ponytail kept his gun trained on Jason. Rafael made no move for his own gun, tucked into the waist of his jeans.
Instead, he calmly took a few steps toward Andrew. “Pull the trigger,” Rafael taunted. “Let’s see if the genius has any guts.”
Andrew stiffened his arms, his face contorted. “Stop,” he said, but Rafael took another step. Andrew took a half step back. “Stop.”
Rafael just kept coming.
Andrew closed his eyes, flinched, and squeezed the trigger.
When nothing happened, Rafael reached for his own gun and smiled. “It always amazes me how dumb you genius types can be. Or maybe I just never told you that Jason’s gun has a safety lock that’s only released by his fingerprints.”
A look of sheer terror filled Andrew’s eyes. He dropped the gun and held his hands in front of him, as if to push the larger man away. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can get us out of this. Nobody has to die!”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” There was a smug grin on Rafael’s face, then a flash from the barrel of his gun, and a bullet ripped through Andrew Lassiter’s eye socket. He was blown backward, landing lifelessly on the row of seats behind him, his mouth open in midscream, blood trickling from the hole in his head.
Jason gagged and felt vomit rising in his throat. He heard another muffled scream from the front row.
The man with the ponytail stared at Lassiter’s lifeless body. “What the—?” He turned on Rafael. “Are you crazy?”
This brought another smile to Rafael’s face. “Tony. How long have you known me? Eight years? Nine?” Rafael put his gun back in the waist of his jeans. “I’ve got a plan, Tony. You know I don’t like loose ends.”
“But this is nuts,” Tony protested. “Out of control.”
“Think about it,” Rafael said. “Lassiter’s plan had a big problem. When you frame somebody, it’s got to be airtight. But if these two lawyers were going to fix the case, set up offshore companies to bet on the stocks and then run off with the money, why wouldn’t they wait until a few weeks after the verdict when the spotlight on them was gone? Why would they disappear while the jury was still deliberating, guaranteeing there would be a national manhunt for them? It doesn’t make sense.”
Tony shrugged. “I don’t know. But we’ve still got the same problem.”
“Not anymore.” Rafael smiled at the brilliance of what he was about to share. “Because now we’ve got three people missing. We make it look like the lawyers and Lassiter were all in the scam together. Lassiter gets greedy, anxious, whatever… jumps the gun, so to speak, and kills both lawyers. The police find the bodies of Jason and Kelly and a gun with Lassiter’s fingerprints. The money and Lassiter disappear forever.”
Even without seeing Tony’s face, Jason could sense the big man relaxing.
“See what I’m saying?” Rafael asked.
“Maybe,” said Tony, his voice still a little unsure. “But we shoulda talked about that first.”
The next part must have been planned in advance, because the men didn’t say a word as they pulled Jason from his seat and dragged him to the front of the theater. They pushed him into a seat a few chairs down from Kelly and cuffed Jason’s right wrist to the armrest.
In the shadows, Jason exchanged a glance with Kelly. She had a look of fierce determination.