"Callahan," a bored voice answered.
"Toby," Burke said, "this is somebody from your deep, dark past."
"I don't play guessing games. Who the hell is it?"
Same old Toby, Burke thought. Blunt and to the point. "Don't give me that bullshit," he said. "You played as many guessing games around old J. Edgar's office as any of us. It's Burke Hill."
"Burke Hill. You sonofabitch, I wouldn't have thought of you for twenty dollars. I figured you'd been blown away by now. Let's see, last I heard, you had disappeared while the Bureau was trying to nail your ass to a cross. They did some pretty shitty things back in those days, didn't they?"
"I can vouch for that."
"So what the hell happened to you?"
"I went up to Alaska and knocked around the oil fields for awhile. The last few years I've been living up in the Great Smoky Mountains."
"Mountains, huh? Sounds boring. Are you in town? What are you up to now?"
"No, I'm calling long distance. What I'm up to is a bit complicated. Let's just say I've been doing some work for one of those, quote, government agencies, unquote. Do you remember a guy named Cameron Quinn calling you the middle of last month, asking about a phone call from Singapore to an unlisted number there?"
"Sure, I remember him. Boston Irishman. With State Department Security. I checked him out."
Burke chuckled. "Sorry to disabuse you. I guess it just shows you can't believe too much you hear these days. Cameron Quinn wasn't calling from the State Department. He was calling from Langley."
"Langley? The CIA?"
"You said it, not me."
"What the hell gives, Burke? It was a call to the private line of a senior vice president of the company. Matter of fact, he's probably going to be president soon."
"Robert Jeffries?" Burke said with interest.
"Right, Jeffries. Only Jeffries was attending a business meeting in Hawaii the day in question."
"So I understand. Was he in Lahaina, perhaps?"
There was a pause, and Callahan replied guardedly, "How the hell did you know that?"
"It ties in with some other things. Look, Toby, could Jeffries have set up his phone to forward calls to his hotel in Lahaina?"
"Sure. We have a very sophisticated system here. It uses a small portable programmer. He could have called in and programmed it to forward only calls from certain numbers, during specified hours. What's so important about that damned call from Singapore? We've got operations all around the world."
"Sorry, that's the part I can't talk about. As our leaders are wont to say, it's classified."
His theory had checked out. He had no more doubts about Jeffries. As Cam had suggested, Jeffries was the key to solving the puzzle. But a key was of no value whatever unless you had access to it.
"Listen, buddy, Jeffries is a large canine," Toby said. "You know what I mean? He's got connections in high places. I'd advise you to go slow about crossing swords with him."
"Thanks for the advice," Burke said. "All I need now is a little more info on him. Like where is he at present?"
"Sorry, it's against company policy to give out information on employees except for governmental inquiries. You say you're working for a government agency, apparently the CIA, though I'm sure you'd deny it if I asked. But you want me to take all that on blind faith?"
"I stand by what I said, Toby. Look, I'm not implying that Jeffries has done anything wrong. I just need to check out a few details."
Callahan was a cop's cop, the son of a legendary policeman on the Philadelphia force. He had worked a couple of years in the Philly department himself while winding up studies toward his law degree. Joining the Bureau at twenty-four, he had served in several field offices before being picked for Hoover's "Goon Squad." He was a tough, "by-the-book" agent, and his disagreement with the Director's penchant for sweeping potential embarrassments under the rug eventually earned him Hoover's wrath and banishment to the boondocks. Though he had been returned to good graces after Hoover's death, his reputation for independence had kept him from drawing a Special Agent in Charge assignment. He finished out the last part of his thirty years as a hard-nosed, demanding instructor of new agents.
A square-jawed, true-blue American, Toby had no sooner taken his retirement than he was offered the position of Director of Security for Rush Communications. His responsibilities included both physical security of the firm's far-flung facilities and communications security. The latter dealt with illegal or unauthorized use or interference with the company's telephone, radio and TV transmissions, including those involving its microwave and satellite operations.
The FBI career paths of Toby Callahan and Burke Hill had crossed on a number of occasions, and Toby had always been impressed with Burke's natural talent and his dedication to the job. He could sympathize with the way Burke had been treated by the Bureau. And though he felt it necessary to maintain his hard-as-nails image, he had no doubt that if Burke Hill said he was working for the government, that was it.
"Okay," said Toby, "I'll stick my neck out. But you'd damned better not be giving me a bunch of crap. And make sure you're ultra discreet with what I tell you. Robert Jeffries is currently on a four-week vacation with his family. I happen to know they're in Acapulco."
"When did he leave?"
"Let's see, it was a Thursday, would have been the third Thursday in May. He flies his own airplane. He's a former Air Force pilot. They were to fly down to New Orleans in his Cherokee Lance and take a commercial flight from there."
"Any idea where they're staying in Acapulco?"
"According to his secretary, the Princess. Anything else?" He was becoming a bit testy.
"You wouldn't happen to know the tail number of his Cherokee, by chance?"
Callahan's voice exploded over the line. "Hell, no, I don't know the damned tail number. I know it's blue and I think I've said too much already."
"I swear I won't breathe a word of it, especially where I heard it," Burke said. "You've been a great help, Toby. What I do for a living, or did before I got into this deal, is work as a nature photographer in the mountains. I'll send you some of my high-priced prints."
"Something to clutter my walls with. You always were a photography nut, weren't you? Just don't call asking any more questions about the guy who'll soon have the power to fire my ass. Okay?"
"It's a deal, Toby. See you around."
Burke’s next call was to his mountain neighbors, Ben and Hargis Oakes. One was as thin as a fence rail, the other with the build, strength and refinement of a Brahma bull. They had a farm next to his modest plot, with a big enough tobacco allotment to eke out a living in the harsh, demanding environment of the foothills. They had agreed to keep an eye on his place while he was away.
Clannish high school dropouts, the Oakes boys stayed close to the mountains they knew best. It was almost like they had an umbilical cord that kept them tethered to the area. Occasionally they ventured out as far as the small rural community of Cosby, once the moonshine capital of East Tennessee, or on to the county seat at Newport. They purposely avoided the man-made clutter of nearby Gatlinburg and its bumper-to-bumper tourists.
"How's everything going?" Burke asked when he got Hargis Oakes on the line.