Chapter 15: Reconnaissance

Present Day

Days 5 - 10

St. Kitts, The Caribbean

Before leaving Little Rock, Sean drove to the nearest Walmart and bought a handful of prepaid Visa cards, each preloaded with five-hundred dollars. He bought five thousand in Visa cards and carried fifteen thousand in cash in his pockets and the bottom of his carry-on bag; the rest of the money he left with Janice. There were no direct flights from Little Rock to St. Kitts. He used one of the Visa cards to buy a ticket with stops in Charlotte and Miami. It would take all day and into the night to get through the flights and layovers. Fourteen hours after getting to the airport, he got off the plane at Basseterre on St. Kitts.

Once he arrived at the airport in Basseterre, he took a taxi to the nearby Marriott St. Kitts. It was a lovely resort, well suited to the tourist trade, and Sean would have loved to have taken Janice there for a vacation, but this was business. He needed a place to stay for a few days while he prepared to return to the States; an American staying at a resort was less conspicuous than an American staying in town.

The next morning, he took a cab into Basseterre and was dropped off at the local branch of the Republic Bank. St. Kitts was a major financial center in the Caribbean, but many of the banks didn’t handle people, they only handled financial institutions. Republic had branches and safe deposit boxes and checking and savings accounts. Sean kept up just enough activity to keep the accounts alive. Now he needed to prepare to return to the United States a different man.

Wilson Taylor of St. Kitts went into the Fort Street branch and cashed in the remaining pre-paid Visa cards, depositing the money, and ordering up a new Visa card. Rather than wait the standard two-week delay for free shipping, he paid for the expedited delivery and was promised his card in two days. From Fort Street, Bart Jackson of Grenada went to the Bird Rock branch and ordered up a new Visa card. Finally, Franklin Holloway of St. Lucia took the ferry to Charlestown in Nevis, to order a final credit card and pick up several thousand dollars in cash. Then Sean went back to Basseterre. He would take a couple of days to buy some new clothing and luggage and prepare for the trip back to the United States. Then he would make the round-robin trip again to retrieve the credit cards. After that he would fly to Washington. It was time to do some final reconnaissance.

Present Day

Days 10 - 14

Alexandria, Virginia

Part of Sean Williams’ travel plan was to hide in plain sight. As long as Balustre didn’t know who they were looking for, he should be able to move about openly. He had three complete document packages from the Caribbean, each of which had different looks. Bart Jackson of Grenada had a trim but full beard, and his passport photo showed that. Franklin Holloway of St. Lucia, on the other hand, had trimmed his beard to a mustache and goatee before his passport photo was taken, and Wilson Taylor of St. Kitts had a clean-shaven photo on his passport. Those packages he was sure would stand up to scrutiny since he had created them on his own when he was building a possible escape package from Balustre.

He also had the document packages he had received from Ed Bonaventure, Sean Williams, Jonathan Craig, William Foxworth, and George Cummings. Those he was nervous about using; if Bonaventure had been grabbed and interrogated, he could have been forced to give up the names of any identification he had provided to Travis Scott. He might not learn that until he used one of the IDs and was captured himself.

Bart Jackson arrived in Washington late in the afternoon. The morning flight from Basseterre to Miami had been business class; the early afternoon flight from Miami to Reagan was first class. From Baggage Claim he headed to the car rental line to pick up the Buick he had reserved. Jackson was going to be his high-end persona, and from Reagan he drove to the Hyatt Regency near Capitol Hill. Foxworth would be more midscale and the low end was going to be Cummings. Hopefully, nobody was going to be following him around.

After checking in and unpacking, Jackson needed to do some research. He needed weapons, an item difficult to obtain in the Caribbean and even more difficult to smuggle through Customs to the United States. Fortunately for his sake, guns were ludicrously easy to purchase in the United States. Jackson could have driven to West Virginia to buy whatever he needed, but that might trigger some alarms when using a foreign driver’s license. Instead, he researched private gun sales and gun shows. By the end of the next day, he had driven down to Richmond and purchased everything he could imagine needing, including a pair of Beretta 92s and a complete M-21 sniper rifle system, along with extra magazines and plenty of ammunition and several different style holsters.

The next morning it was show time, he thought to himself. He found Jefferson Hollings’ address on the Internet and took an Uber there after breakfast. Hollings’ office was in a building along with a bunch of other lawyers on Fairfax Drive. Jackson was dressed in one of the suits he had bought in St. Kitts, the better to wear a shoulder holster with. As he got out of the car, he looked around. Nobody seemed to be waiting for him.

He went into the building and asked for Hollings’ office at the front desk. A bored receptionist passed him through without even asking his name, and Jackson took the elevator to the third floor. A directory on the wall pointed him towards the left hallway, and he found Hollings’ name on the second door on the left. He knocked and went inside. A secretary looked up at him from her desk. “Welcome to Hollings and Keisher. How can we help you?”

“I’d like to see Mister Hollings if I could.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Sorry, but no. This is something that just came up.”

“Well, I can ask, but I’m not sure if he can see you. Your name, please?”

Jackson didn’t say anything, but he opened a notepad and printed on it, ‘Don’t say anything, but let him know that Travis Scott is here about Edward Bonaventure.’ Then he put his finger to his lips and smiled. The secretary stared at the strange note and was on the verge of saying something when Bart sshhed her and handed her the note. “Take that into Mister Hollings, please.” Mystified, she stood and took the note around a corner.

Jackson positioned himself so that if somebody unpleasant returned he would have an extra split-second to respond. He also brought his right hand to the inside of his suit coat where it was within easy reach of his pistol. It proved unnecessary; the secretary returned with a strange smile and said, “Mister Hollings will be happy to see you.”

Jackson followed the secretary, who introduced him to the lawyer. Hollings was African-American, looked to be in his late thirties, and seemed to be of average height and weight. “Thank you for seeing me, Mister Hollings.”

“Thank you, Alicia,” he said to the secretary, and then turned back to Jackson. “Welcome. Mister Scott? Could I ask for some identification, please? This is a touch strange, so if you could, please?”

Jackson nodded and smiled. “Understood.” He pulled out his wallet and retrieved the driver’s license for Travis Scott. He handed it over and said, “It’s not the greatest picture, and I grew the beard since then, but it’s me.”

Hollings looked at it briefly and glanced at Jackson, and then smiled and handed it back. “This whole thing has been a bit weird. I normally handle real estate.”

“Mister Conway, we have a contact,” said a young woman into her headset. She had been flagged when the bug that had been planted in the lawyer’s office heard the name ‘Travis Scott’. The remote microphone fed directly to a computer that listened to telephone conversations and had an artificial intelligence program linked to the NSA’s ECHELON system.

Conway received the message on his encrypted smartphone. “Specify, please.”

“The system picked up the name ‘Travis Scott’ at the Hollings office. A playback of the pickup indicates that Travis Scott is present in the office.”

“Thank you. Now, contact Team Four and give them the address. They are to isolate and detain Scott.”

“What about the lawyer?”

“Good thinking. Him, too.”

“Yes, sir.” She broke the link and hit the key to contact Team Four.

“How did Ed contact you? Do you know?”

Hollings shrugged. “No idea. For all I know he threw darts at a dartboard. Still, though unusual, what he asked wasn’t difficult.”

“Which was?”

“He came to see me a couple of months ago and gave me a packet. He told me that if he sent me a text message, to open the packet and follow the directions, which were to simply make a phone call. After that, I was just to wait until somebody named Travis Scott contacted me. I was then to hand him the remaining package.”

“You’re right. That is kind of odd. Did he say why?”

The response was a shake of the head. “No, though he did say that if nobody contacted him in six months, to throw the package away and forget about it. What is going on, Mister Scott?”

“I really don’t know. Could I see the package, please?”

“Sure.” Hollings stood up and went to a file cabinet. He pulled out a drawer and retrieved a manila envelope. “The original note he gave me is inside.”

Jackson opened the envelope and found it contained the original note and a second smaller envelope. The first note specified what Hollings had already told him, that if he received a specific text message, he was to call the Everest County Sheriff’s Department and ask for the Undersheriff, and then to tell him that Travis Scott was in danger. Then, if Scott showed inside of six months, to give him the package. He pulled out the inner envelope and opened it. Inside was another note, a page with some computer codes, and five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.