'When I was chief justice I made a hundred and fifty thousand.'
'I made a hundred and forty. Some of those professional bureaucrats make more than that. Plus, he's not married.'
'That's a problem.'
'Yeah, but let's keep pushing. He's got a big job, which means he's got a big boss, lots of colleagues, typical Washington hotshot. We'll find a pressure point somewhere.'
'What the hell,' Finn said.
What the hell, indeed. What was there to lose? So what if they pushed a little too hard, and Mr. Al got scared or got mad and decided to throw the letters away?You can't lose what you don't have.
Serious money was being made here. It was not a time to be timid. Their aggressive tactics were producing. spectacular results. The mail was growing each week, as was their offshore account. Their scam was foolproof because their pen pals lived double lives. Their victims had no one to complain to.
Negotiations were quick because the market was ripe. It was still winter in Jacksonville, and because the nights were chilly and the ocean was too cool to swim in, the busy season was a month away. There were hundreds of small rentals available along Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach, including one almost directly across the street from Trevor. A man from Boston offered $600 cash for two months, and the real estate agent snatched it. The place was furnished with odds and ends no flea market would handle. The old shag carpet was well worn and emitted a permanent musty smell. It was perfect.
The renter's first chore was to cover the windows. Three of them faced the street and looked across to Trevor's, and during the first few hours of surveillance it became obvious how few clients came and went. There was so little business over there! When work surfaced it was usually done by the secretary, Jan, who also read a lot of magazines.
Others quietly moved into the rental, men and women with old suitcases and large duffel bags filled with electronic wizardry. The fragile furnishings were shoved to the rear of the cottage, and the front rooms were quickly filled with screens and monitors and listening devices of a dozen varieties.
Trevor himself would make an interesting case study for third-year law students. He arrived around 9 A.M., and spent the first hour reading newspapers. His morning client seemed to always arrive at tenthirty, and after an exhaustive half-hour conference he was ready for lunch, always at Pete's Bar and Grill. He carried a phone with him, to prove his importance to the bartenders there, and he usually, made two or three unnecessary calls to other lawyers. He called his bookie a lot.
Then he walked back to his office, past the rental where the CIA monitored every step, back to his desk where it was time for a nap. He came to life around three, and hit it hard for two hours. By then he needed another longneck from Pete's.
The second time they followed him to Trumble, he left the prison after an hour and returned to his office about 6 P.M. While he was having dinner in an oyster bar on Atlantic Boulevard, alone, an agent entered his office and found his old briefcase. In it were five letters from Percy and Ricky.
The commander of the silent army in and around Neptune Beach was a man named Klockner, the best Teddy had in the field of domestic street spying. Klockner had been instructed to intercept all mail flowing through the law office.
When Trevor went straight home after leaving the oyster bar, the five letters were taken across the street to the rental, where they were opened, copied, then resealed and replaced in Trevor's briefcase. None of the five was for Al Konyers.
At Langley, Deville read the five letters as they came off the fax. They were examined by two handwriting experts who agreed that Percy and Ricky were not the same people. Using samples taken from their court files, it was determined, without much effort, that Percy was really former justice Finn Yarber, and that Ricky was former US. District Judge Hadee Beech.
Ricky's address was the Aladdin North box at the Neptune Beach post office. Percy, to their surprise, used a postal box in Atlantic Beach, one rented to an outfit called Laurel Ridge.
SEVENTEEN
For his next visit to Langley, the first in three weeks, the candidate arrived in a caravan of shiny black vans, all going too fast but who would complain. They were cleared and waved onward, deeper into the complex, until they roared to a collective stop near a very convenient door where all sorts of grim-faced, thick-necked young men were waiting. Lake rode the wave into the building, losing escorts a she went until finally he arrived not at the usual bunker but in Mr. Ivlaynard's formal office, with a view of a small forest. Everyone else was left at the door. Alone, the two great men shook hands warmly and actually appeared happy to see one another.
Important things first. 'Congratulations on Virginia.' Teddy said.
Lake shrugged as if he wasn't sure. 'Thank you, in more ways than one.'
'It's a very impressive win, Mr. Lake.' Teddy said. 'Governor Tarry worked hard there for a year. Two months ago he had commitments from every precinct captain in the state. He looked unbeatable. Now, Ithink he's fading fast. It's often a disadvantage to be the front-runner early in the race.'
'Momentum is a strange animal in politics,' Lake observed wisely.
'Cash is even stranger. Right now, Governor Tarry can't find a dime because you've got it all. Money follows momentum.'
'I'm sure I'll say this many times, Mr. Maynard, but, well, thanks. You've given me an opportunity I'd hardly dreamed of.'
'Are you having any fun?'
'Not yet. If we win, the fun will come later.'
'The fun starts next Tuesday, Mr. Lake, with big Super Tuesday. New York, California, Massachusetts, Ohio, Georgia, Missouri, Maryland, Maine, Connecticut, all in one day. Almost six hundred delegates!' Teddy's eyes were dancing as if he could almost count the votes. 'And you're ahead in every state, Mr. Lake. Can you believe it?'
'No, I cannot.'
'It's true.You're neck and neck in Maine, for some damned reason, and it's close in California, but you're going to win big next Tuesday'
'If you believe the polls,' Lake said, as if he didn't trust them himself. Fact was, like every candidate, Lake was addicted to the polls. He was actually gaining in California, a state with 140,000 defense workers.
'Oh, I believe them. And I believe that a landslide is coming on little Super Tuesday. They love you down South, Mr. Lake. They love guns and tough talk and such, and right now they're falling in love with Aaron Lake. Next Tuesday will be fun, but the following Tuesday will be a romp.'
Teddy Maynard was predicting a romp, and Lake couldn't help but smile. His polls showed the same trends, but it just sounded better coming from Teddy. He lifted a sheet of paper and read the latest polling data ¤om around the country. Lake was ahead by at least five points in every state.
They reveled in their momentum for a few minutes, then Teddy turned serious. 'There's something you should know,' he said, and the smile was gone. He flipped a page and glanced at some notes. 'Two nights ago, in the Khyber Pass in the mountains of Afghanistan, a Russian long-range missile with nuclear warheads was moved by truck into Pakistan. It Ўs now en route to Iran, where it will be used for God knows what. The missile has a range of three thousand miles, and the capability of delivering four nuclear bombs. The price was about thirty million dollars US., cash up fiont paid by the Iranians through a bank in Luxembourg. It's still there, in an account believed to be controlled by Natty Chenkov's people.'
'I thought he was stockpiling, not selling.'
'He needs cash, and he's getting it. In fact, he's probably the only man we know who's collecting it faster than you:'
Teddy didn't do humor well, but Lake laughed out of politeness anyway.
'Is the missile operational?' Lake asked.
'We think so. It originated from a collection of silos near Kiev, and we believe it's of a recent make and model.
