After work, Dennis made a pit stop at Harrigan’s, his old stomping ground down from his precinct. Jack Flanagan was there, in his usual booth.
“Saints preserve us! If it isn’t Dennis Mallory come all the way from retirement to hobnob with the working stiffs.”
“Semiretired, you old leather-pounder,” Dennis said as he patted Jack on the shoulder and slid into the booth.
“Semi?”
“Picked up a little job on my days off.”
Jack stopped mid-swallow, “Hey, wait, you’re off everyday.”
“See how bad I need your help.”
“What’s this going to cost me?”
“Not a thing, just a little time … and maybe a phone call or two, some lab time. Nothing much.”
“What kind of job?” Jack asked suspiciously.
“Now keep this under your hat, will ya?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Yeah, around the rim of that glass.”
“If I remember correctly, you threw back a few with the best of them, old friend.”
“I made a deal with some big shot named Miles Taggert who runs a computer company. Seems he’s been getting some threats and with what’s happening lately, let’s just say he wants a little added protection.”
“So are you working for him?”
“Security consultant. Ain’t too bad. Got Benton and Davis and those guys full-time jobs bird-dogging him twenty-four/seven. I get to play with all the new gadgets and what I say goes. Pretty good deal overall.”
“So what are you pulling in from this?”
“Oh, we got a trade deal of sorts going.”
Dennis reached into his sport coat pocket and produced a second threat letter that Taggert received earlier that morning. He handed the evidence, now sealed in a plastic bag, to Jack. “Could you run this through forensics?”
“Fan mail from some flounder?” Jack said, invoking an old cartoon line.
“Huh?”
“Forget it, Bullwinkle. What are we looking for?”
“Unfortunately, it’s been touched by Taggert, but only him.” He placed a fingerprint card in front of Jack. “Here’s Taggert’s set. I just tightened the mail handling so this won’t happen again. I’m hoping to find the perpetrator’s latent print. Also do a run on the paper, the writing, anything you can offer.”
“Give me two days. I’ll send it in as one of my sleeping cases.”
“Thanks, Jack.”
“How’s the wife?”
“Not so good. They found a thing in her head that could… that could take her away from me.”
“Ah, Jesus, Dennis. Cynthia’s a saint, a regular saint. She don’t deserve that, not after all she’s been through. How’s she taking it?”
“She’s got more balls than you, me, and the whole squad put together. But that’s the trade deal. I got this billionaire to pull all kinds of strings to get her some of that real top-shelf medical treatment. All I got to do is make sure his secret admirer never gets any closer than this letter.”
“I’ll run it first thing in the morning. Tell Cynthia that Joanie’s and my thoughts and prayers are with her.”
“Your piece is cut,” Wally informed Carly with cold indifference.
“What do you mean?”
“I got two packages and three talking heads on the chemical factory in Long Island. You’re bumped.”
“But Wally, don’t you see? This is exactly the perfect segue into my piece. What did that factory make?”
“Chemicals that help eggheads make black holes. Or so the propaganda goes.”
“Exactly. That’s science, Wally, and my story is about how the number one science man is investigating. It’s the perfect sidebar.”
“Sidebar is a print term. In TV we call that …er… well, I don’t remember. Okay, cut it down to three minutes and I’ll slot you in before we go to the heads. But it better be good and you better have the scoop of all time!”
“Thanks, Wally; you won’t be sorry.”
“Famous last words,” Wally said to her departing, wiggling backside as he picked up his phone. “Jennie, tell Dave the talking heads are cut back three minutes and tell video tape to expect a roll-in from Carly. Three minutes.”
Carly went to the pressroom and called her cousin, Harry.
“AT&T long lines,” the unemotional voice at the other end spoke.
“Harry Edmonds, please,” Carly requested as she pulled out her cell phone.
“Test, Edmonds,” Harry said from his testers desk in what they called the NOC in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“Harry, Carly. How are you doing, cousin?”
“Not as good as you I see, cuz. Saw you on the news last night. Wooo hooo!”
“You did! Cool, ain’t it?”
“You always were the coolest, even when you were spooning out smashed Cheez Doodles from the bottom of your Coca Cola.”
“You know, if you forget that, I promise to forget you wet your pants when I jumped out of the closet in your room that night.”
“You scared me to death!”
“So wanna do me a favor?”
“What do you need, kiddo?”
“If I told you a phone number, could you tell me who it belongs to?”
“Sure; it’s called a reverse directory.”
“What if it’s a cell phone?”
“Well, I got a friend over in Wireless that can maybe give me a location down to a cell.”
“Good. I’ll call you at about 4 o’clock.”
“Hey Carly, is this for a news story?”
“No, I had dinner with a guy last night. I just want to check to see that he is where he said he was going to be.” She little white lied with a lascivious lilt in her voice.
“Oh, okay, I got it.”
“Thanks, Harry; talk to you later.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Secret Service agents had surreptitiously visited the facility the day before and made their quiet plans. No one, except the head of security and the CEO, were aware of their true identities and mission. Local hospitals were stocked with Type AB blood. Major overpasses were identified and would be manned along the route. People along that route would momentarily be inconvenienced as their cell phones dropped calls. A new, high-tech addition to the “bubble.” The reason for this security was because the president was here. He had come to this remote Virginia facility to witness the top secret testing of a revolutionary new weapon in the war on drugs. The head of the White House security detail referred to all the president’s mobile security needs as the “bubble.” It was an unseen sphere of security in which the Commander-in-Chief traveled.
Hiccock was driven to the secluded location by the Secret Service. He had to pass through a magnetometer and have his White House I.D. card swiped through a portable scanner. The resident ordered him in attendance to get an unbiased assessment and explanation of the science behind the satellite-based defoliant. Hiccock was briefed only four hours earlier. From what he gathered, the device worked from 100 miles up in space. It could bathe up to 200 acres with protoplasm-inhibiting beta rays. Once it was positioned into geo-synchronous orbit over a target country, it could wither and brown that nation’s vegetation. The farmers on the ground would never suspect anything more than blight or Hot Soil.