Chapter 20: Breaking the Case

Special Agent in Charge Dominique Spencer is a different person when she lets her hair down, and dinner with her and Doreen was an interesting affair to say the least. Apparently the two had met on Spencer's first case in Vegas some twenty-five years before. Spencer had been transferred away a couple years later, but the two had kept in touch. Doreen became one of Spencer's experts of choice in matters involving insurance companies. They had had a bit of a falling out five years earlier after Spencer had returned to head up the local Bureau office, and Doreen's husband — Theo — had been caught up in one of her investigations. In the end Theo had been cleared of any involvement, and — while Doreen knew Spencer was just doing her job — it put a strain on the relationship. When Theo died — and Doreen had discovered she was buried in debt — Spencer had done some side investigations into Theo's gambling debts to make sure there was nothing funny going on, but the debts were legit and legal, and there was nothing that could be done about it. When Doreen berated herself for not paying better attention to their finances, Spencer had been there to remind her that in all the time she had been married to Theo, she had never had to worry about it. Her faith and trust had been founded in love, and there was nothing she could do to change it, so why worry about it?

After dinner I was introduced to a game called Parcheesi. I quickly discovered that 'a friendly game of Parcheesi' is as much of a contradiction as 'a friendly game of Sorry'. Neither is a game you should play with people you don't like.

"Ouch," Spencer said when Christine picked off two of her pieces in one roll. "So, Christine, you're David's secretary. How is he to work for?"

"I'll let you know if he ever makes me start doing actual work. So far I think I've answered two phone calls, the first one was you, and the only reason I got that one was he left his phone on the table, and I beat him to it. I think he hired me out of guilt."

She went on to explain how we had met and the resulting problems with her Flight Captain.

"Shopping? He asked you to take him shopping? Well, I have to say that's one of the more original pickup lines I've ever heard."

"That's what was so weird," Christine said. "He really wasn't trying to pick me up. Looking back, I have to admit he was really trying to be a gentleman about the whole thing, and he really did need help shopping. His existing wardrobe was straight out of high school, jeans, t-shirts ... I think he had like, one, collared shirt."

"I'm a low maintenance guy," I protested. It was apparent that Spencer was using the evening to get more details about me, but there wasn't much I could do to stop it that wouldn't make her want to dig harder, and it wasn't like Christine was going to be able to tell her much. I picked off one of Christine's pieces that was poised to move into her 'home.'

"Hey!" she whined, and then picked up the thread of the conversation again. "Right, low maintenance ... I'd told him that since it was his first trip to Vegas, he should make it special and stay somewhere nice. He ended up at the Bellagio..."

"Well, that certainly qualifies as nice," Doreen interjected.

"Wait, it gets better," Christine said. "Somewhere along the line he decided he didn't want to be inconvenienced waiting for me to catch a ride over from the Airport Ramada, so he booked me a room there as well, which totally threw me." She shook her head. "Oh, and of course he didn't tell me where we were staying, just that he had booked me a room at the same hotel, so we wouldn't lose the travel time back and forth, and then — just as he finishes telling me this — we step out of the terminal, and there is this limo driver holding a sign with my name on it. And that was an adventure in itself! Can you believe it was his first time in a limousine?"

She went on to tell them about the rest of the evening, leaving out any details about us being naked in the tub together or the adventures after the show, all the way to me dropping her off at the airport when I could have just as easily said goodbye at the hotel.

"And then he actually called me. Can you believe it, a guy that actually calls when he says he's going to? Anyway, I guess he heard something in my voice because he made me tell him about what had happened with Captain Hardwick. Next thing I know, I've been called into HR so they can get my side of the story. That started the ball rolling, and now, well, here I am, being paid to chase my dream, and meeting the most interesting people. I mean, who would have ever thought I'd be having pot roast — which was fabulous by the way, Doreen — and playing Parcheesi with the head of the Vegas FBI?"

"Well, if there is one thing I have learned, Christine, it's that life is full of interesting surprises," Spencer said. "David's apparently more than most. I assume he told you about our first meeting?"

"No, not really. He just told me he had to go by the local Bureau office."

"This sounds interesting," Doreen said. "What happened?"

"Apparently one of David's more mysterious contacts — or clients, I'm not really sure which — has ties very high up in one of the darker closets of Washington. In the classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, he discovers a couple of people from another closet organization — one somehow tied up with the Department of Justice — following someone he's interested in. The two gentlemen in question end up handcuffed together in their own car over at Freedom Park, and — before I even have a chance to figure out what is going on — I get a phone call telling me to expect David here, and that he has something for me relating to the case. A little later in the morning your boss waltzes into my office with a trunk full of assault weapons. They had been removed from the car that the aforementioned agents from the Department of Justice were found in. They were being cute, you see; they handcuffed the agents inside the car and left the keys on the hood. Funny, unless the wrong person gets the keys and steals a bunch of weapons out of the trunk."

"You have got to be kidding me," Doreen said. "You mean to tell me someone kidnapped two spooks while they were on surveillance, knocked them out, tied them up in their own car and left them for lord knows who to find; but they were worried the weapons may fall into the wrong hands, so they took them out and gave them to David to bring to you?"

"They didn't actually give them to me," I said. "They stuck them in the trunk of the car and then called and told me to take them to her. According to Dominique, there was a bunch of other stuff in the agent's trunk as well, but whoever it was kept the rest as a fee for keeping the agents alive — something about whoever they were watching being bait. They seemed to think the agent's lives were in danger if they got caught."

"Once I found out who the bait was for, I had to agree with them," Dominique said. "I wanted to talk to you about that as well, David; sometime before I leave tonight." She looked at her watch. "Which better be soon because I have to go to work in the morning. In case I forget to tell you later, Doreen, thank you for having me over. We have to do this again soon."

"Yes, we do," Doreen said. "It's been far too long."

When we finished the game, Dominique stood up and stuck out her hand to Christine.

"Christine, it was nice to meet you. Good luck with flight school, and be careful around this guy; he attracts trouble like a clean car attracts pigeons. David, why don't you walk me out?"

"My pleasure," I said. I had a pretty good idea what was about to happen, and I wasn't disappointed.

"Malcolm, what the hell are you doing?" she demanded when we got to her car. "You know who you're dealing with here, what she's capable of ... How can you risk Christine like this?"

"I knew that's what you were going to say," I said. "There's been no sight of her since her last little stunt, and — considering how it turned out — I don't know that she'll try anything like that again. Christine is a complication I hadn't planned on. Is she at risk? Yes, and I considered getting her an apartment somewhere else, but I can keep a much better eye on her here, and I would know a lot sooner if anyone tried anything funny. Considering everything that's happened lately, I decided I'd rather protect her myself than rescue her; I don't know how many more times I can get lucky."

"What do you mean?" I gave her a look and she said, "Never mind."

"Way to go, moron," Jamie said.

She was right, but it was too late to take it back. I shook Spencer's hand and she left.

Paul was involved. He hadn't taken the painting, but he had provided the details on the security system. Curiously, they didn't need the bypass code. Jamie and I were both interested in that, but — first things first. It took a little work, but we finally got the story out of him. All it took was a well crafted dream of being hauled into FBI headquarters and threatened with spending a very long time in Federal lockup. An especially scary punishment for someone like Paul — pretty boys are very popular in places like that.

Paul was being blackmailed, and the painting was the payoff.

Sometime back in July, Paul had received a set of photographs showing a younger Mr. Ceres with a much younger boy; one who looked like he could have been underage.

There was the expected note claiming possession of the original negatives... , (Negatives? How old were these shots?) ... and, of course, the obligatory threat to expose Mr. Ceres if they didn't get what they wanted.

"Why now?" Jamie asked. "Those shots are years old, why wait until now?"

"Good question" I said. "Maybe they were waiting for him to get the painting and get comfortable with it? Or maybe they were waiting for someone vulnerable enough to threaten. He's doing it to protect Ceres."

"Yeah, I got that, thanks," she said. "Something still doesn't feel right. How could you get shots like that without him noticing? I mean you can see the flash. Those were taken up close, and he knew they were being taken. And he had to be, what, at least ten — maybe fifteen — years younger when they were taken?"

"Want to see if he remembers who took them?" I asked.

"I thought you'd never ask."

That's when things really got messy; Ceres had sent the photos. Apparently he was finding himself more and more in love with Paul, and he needed to make sure that the young man's affection wasn't really affectation. He needed to be sure before he gave his heart away. I guess I couldn't blame him; he was a pretty high-profile target. As for the photos, the 'boy' in the pictures had been a twenty-three year old escort who lived in Prague, and Ceres could prove it. He had hired a thief to steal the painting. The reason he was selling his beautiful estate was that he wanted to retire, and he had a huge plantation in Costa Rica already set up to receive him. He had taken his company public seven years prior, and now the other stockholders were buying him out. The only question that had been nagging at him lately was whether Paul was coming with him. He needed to be sure, thus the test.

That put me in a really serious bind. Ceres had never met the thief — all contact had been handled via secure email — but that didn't matter. Ceres knew where the painting was; it had been shipped to Costa Rica the very next day and was already hanging in the entryway to Casa de Retirement, right above the antique Steinway Concert Grand. Ceres had paid the thief two hundred thousand to get it there. The only question now was how to get it back.

"Steal it," Allison suggested as we were talking the situation over with Bob later that night. "Shouldn't be that complicated. Bridge Ceres, get the layout and details on whatever security he has, and steal it back."

"Allison, it's not that simple," I said. "I can't just pop in out of nowhere and steal a million dollar painting."

"Yeah, you can," she pointed out.

"And you don't think that's going to raise a giant red flag somewhere? What if Rod heard about it? It's bad enough he's worried about me going dark on him."

"Jimmy," she admonished me. "Compared to foolproof assassin, I think he could live with cat burglar."

"No," Bob said, shaking his head, "he couldn't. Jimmy's right, he'd still see it as criminal behavior — a start on the slippery slope — and he'd be worried about it escalating into other areas. Pick a category; they couldn't catch you, couldn't prove it was you, but he would know, and — eventually — he would feel bound by his principles to stop you any way he could, even if it meant exposing you." He turned to me, "But that's not what's bothering you, is it?"

"What do you mean?" Allison asked.

"What's bothering your brother are his own principles. Ceres is defrauding his insurance company for a million dollars. Regardless of his motives, it's still a major crime, and Jimmy is struggling with what to do about it."

"Oh," she said softly. "I hadn't thought about that."

"Maybe you should talk to Rebecca on this one," Bob said.

As usual, talking to these two helped clear my mind.

"No," I said. "I already know what I need to do. I have to turn him in. I was just worried I was doing it for the wrong reason."

"Building your business?" Allison asked.

I just nodded, studying the pattern in the rug.

"There's nothing wrong with that Jimmy," Bob said. "It's the right thing to do, the fact that that is the image you want for you company is just a bonus. Why don't you want to talk to Rebecca?"

"It's not that I don't want to talk to her," I said. I shook my head and looked up from staring at empty space. "So how do I get the painting back without it looking like it vanished into thin air?"

"Talk to an expert," Bob suggested. "Find a thief who specialized in high end art. I'm sure Rebecca could get you a name of someone in prison."

"Better yet," Allison said. "If you're going to go to the FBI, maybe you should ask Rod instead; just be upfront and tell him why you need it. It might help him deal with what you can do if there's no body at the end of the trail."

"She's got a point there," Bob agreed. "If you present it to him as recovering stolen property, he may see it in a better light. I personally think he'll still consider the negative ramifications, but it's a start. If nothing else, it should buy you a little time until you figure out how to deal with him permanently." He made a face. "Is it just me, or did that come out sounding really bad?"

He got a chuckle from both of us for that one.

"It's okay, Bob," Allison assured him. "We know what you meant."

Following Bob's suggestion, I called Rod and told him I needed to consult with a high end Art thief for information on recovering a stolen painting. Allison was right; he was more than happy to be doing something with me that didn't involve anyone dying. He gave me the name, picture, and background information, of a guy doing time for a string of high-end burglaries. Apparently he had been set up by a client who had been caught with a painting he had stolen. Just like with Ceres, they had never met. The entire transaction had been handled through secure email and cash transfers to a numbered account, but — when they had caught him with the piece — the man had cut a deal with the Feds to catch the thief, and well, here he was. They offered him a deal if he would help them catch someone else, but in this case the 'someone else' was an art-loving drug lord. Prison sucked, but it beat a permanent residence six feet underground.

I set the dream up as if the Feds had a different deal for him, meeting him in a small room at the prison to go over the file. You can learn a lot working with professionals. It turned out that the painting vanishing into thin air was exactly what was needed. It was what professionals strove for. In this case, results were all that mattered, no one needed to know how it was done. He set up the whole thing for me. We went over the layout of the house, the security involved, which — according to what I got from Ceres — wasn't much actually since the local police weren't likely to help you anyway. He pointed me to a series of websites...

Wow, talk about a subculture! Wading through the posts and trying to decipher the cryptic message strings was tough. Many of the strings dealt with specialized equipment that was available for a wide variety of activities. I learned a lot about 'climbing' and 'preserving the natural environment'. Gee, I wonder what they could mean by that? It was all carefully couched in terms that could be interpreted as innocent activities; there were many that were clearly job offers, but it was all couched in language that could just as easily have been legitimate employment. I made note of a few different websites for future reference, and — at Jamie's suggestion — ordered two sets of highly custom lock-picks. She was right; being handcuffed and helpless in the back of a van was not an experience I was interested in repeating.

I also talked to Rod about my personal struggle with the situation.

"Thank you for coming to me, Jimmy," He said. "I understand your dilemma. This is an issue that we all struggle with, but for our society to survive we have to have boundaries, lines that we don't cross. Sometimes those lines get blurry and people stray. It's our job to steer them back on course. If you're really concerned, talk to Ceres; let him know you found the painting, take him a picture of it or something. Get him to turn himself in — not to the police but to the insurance company — explain what he did and why. Trust me, they've heard stranger stories. They may insist on prosecuting, but I don't see a jury giving Ceres any serious time over it. He may do some jail time, but I think if he shows remorse, admits that he made a mistake, and offers restitution, they'll probably go easy on him. But I have to warn you, getting personally involved like this would seriously damage your reputation in the recovery business."

"Thanks Rod," I said. "Should I get Spencer involved?"

"It couldn't hurt," he said. "If nothing else, she'll want to make sure he can't change his mind and run, and it will go a long way toward building her trust in you."

"I'm not sure how close I want to get to her," I said. "She's already suspicious about what happened with Kurtz. Plus I had to warn her that the Black Queen may be coming to town looking for me. She had mentioned keeping an eye on me, and I'd told her she may be putting her agents in danger if she did. And then when she confronted me about putting Christine in harm's way by letting her stay with me, I made a stupid comment about preferring to protect her rather than rescue her. I'm not sure what kind of reaction that's going to get, but I'd already told her about rescuing Brandy, and that — rather than show up in Vegas — Henslith had gone after more innocents."

"Dominique Spencer has a reputation for tenacity," he said, "and she has access to the official records, so she'll know the truth about what happened with your parents. Speaking of that, we've confirmed what we all pretty much assumed from the beginning. Those guys that had your parents were mercenaries. Considering neither of them was blindfolded, I'd have to say they had no intention of leaving them alive. If someone hadn't gotten there..."

He let the thought hang there before moving on.

"Now, there is no way to connect you to that, but — considering all the unanswered questions surrounding the whole event — at the very least she's going to be suspicious about the kind of people you deal with. Namely: your involvement with Hampton's mysterious source."

There wasn't really anything to say, so I thanked him, shook his hand, and left. I was planning on heading home, but at the last moment I felt a tug, and I found myself in Allison's glade instead. I couldn't help but think that it had been a long time since we'd been here — especially when I found her sitting on the same blanket we had used the first time she had brought me here, over a year before. It looked so familiar — her sitting there reading a textbook — there was only one thing missing...

The empty place in my heart — the place where Shannon still lived — ached a little at the sight.

I realized suddenly that Allison was looking at me and tried to put on a happier face.

"It's okay," she said. "I know what you're thinking. I half expect her to walk out of the bushes any second myself." She let out a big sigh and continued. "I was thinking about the painting, and it may not be as simple as we realized. I don't know if you'll be able to take it with you when you transition."

I had actually thought about this myself and figured it would be okay, but I wanted to hear her ideas on the subject. "What makes you say that?"

"Cute," she said, giving me a look. "Like you hadn't already been thinking about it. Let me guess, you're thinking you moved that gun around the ship?"

"Exactly what I was thinking," I admitted, nodding my head.

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "I thought of that too, but then I started looking for problems. Jimmy, what if size makes a difference?"

"I thought you always told me size didn't matter?" I teased.

"True," she said with a smile, "but my experience is limited; therefore my conclusion may be erroneous. However, since we're talking about moving a rather large and exceedingly expensive piece of artwork — as opposed to an item that fits in your hand or pocket — I thought maybe we should be a little more careful. You'd hate to find out the hard way by arriving at your destination with half a painting, wouldn't you?"

Ouch!

"Yeah, that would kind of suck. So when you say size, you're thinking physical dimension may be more important than mass?"

"I'm not saying anything one way or the other. I'm just saying we need to consider it before we take the chance."

She reached in the picnic basket and pulled out her trusty tablet computer. You know, the kind where you could actually write and draw on the screen if you wanted to.

"Look here," she said, turning it so I could see. She drew a stick figure. "Let's say this is you..." She drew what looked like a cartoon force field around me. Now let's say that's your energy field. Holding a gun in your hand, the whole thing is encompassed by the field. If what you are doing is moving your energy field — or even just items that you are connected to or concentrating on within the field — the gun moves with you because it's entirely within the field. Do you have something lying around the apartment you can experiment with? A broom or stick? One of those foam noodle-thingies from the pool maybe?"

"I'm sure I can come up with something," I said.

"Okay, just don't use anything you can't afford to lose. Start out holding whatever you're using as close to your body as possible, then hold it so one end sticks out away from you. I expect you'll find out that it really does matter, and mass may play more of a role than we understand as well, so we'll have to try different types of things. For most of what you did you moved in short, fast hops — all relatively close to one another — but you were still very weak when it was over. It could be that both sets of characteristics may come into play, so let's try to be as thorough and methodical as we can in testing it out, okay? I don't want to skip steps and have something come back and bite me later."

"Don't say it," I warned Jamie.

"Wouldn't dream of it," she said, but I could feel the smile. "So when are we going to play with all this?"

"I don't know," I said.

"You know, Jamie," Allison said. "It would be a lot easier — not to mention more polite — if you just came out."

Jamie stepped out sheepishly and said, "I'm sorry, I just don't think about it. I know it sounds weird, but..."

"But you don't like being out," Allison said. "Unless you've actually got something to do — be it work or play. It's okay, Jamie, I understand. It just makes it difficult to talk sometimes, and — believe it or not — we do value your opinion." She gave her a wink and added, "Not to mention you're serious eye-candy. So whenever possible — if there's no one around that doesn't know about you — I'd appreciate it if I could see you."

"Oh, you are so sweet!" Jamie said, kneeling down and hugging her sister.

"It's the company I keep," Allison said. "Meanwhile, we need to figure out when to do this. I've got classes until 3:30 local time, and I think it would be best if we kept anyone from seeing what's happening. I also don't want mom and dad to know about this new trick of yours, so we're really limited on both time and space. There's a beach not far from here; I'll go down after it gets dark, and — if no one is around — we can do it there."

"Okay, but bring a blanket," Jamie said.

Allison and I both rolled our eyes. I went out and bought a half dozen long skinny pieces of foam. My first thought was to cut one into various shorter lengths and work our way up, but Allison vetoed that idea.

"No, I have other things I want to try, and — if I'm right — we won't need to cut them up. Now, the first thing I want to try..."

"Uh, excuse me," Jamie said. "I hate to be the voice of paranoia here, but — even though it's dark and all — isn't a beach a little public for this kind of thing? I mean, Allison made it pretty clear that this is 'eyes-only Top Secret' stuff we're playing with. I don't want to have to kill anyone just because they happened to decide to take a walk on the beach and saw you magically appear out of nowhere."

"I can't believe I didn't think of that," Allison said, shaking her head. "I'm so used to 'the beach' being your beach — where no one can get to us no matter what..." She stepped close, grabbed Jamie by the face with both hands and planted a big wet kiss right on her lips. "Nice catch, sis! Keep up the good work! So where do we go then? My room isn't big enough, and I don't want to risk mom and dad seeing you, either."

"How about if I just have Walter patrol the beach and warn us if anyone is getting close?" I suggested.

"Oooh! Great idea!" Allison said. "There's something I've been meaning to ask him anyway. Walter!"

A few moments later there was a polite knock before the door opened and Walter walked in.

"You called, Milady? Is something amiss?"

"No, Walter, everything is fine; thank you for coming so promptly. We're not taking you away from anything important are we? You weren't reading to Amy?"

"Why yes, actually we were reading, but she had just decided to end the lesson early."

That was an interesting coincidence, and I was half surprised when Allison didn't pursue it.

"Good," Allison said. "I wanted to ask you about something. The night you three rescued me; Jimmy said the boat was rigged to blow up and he panicked when we were trapped in the cabin and it was filling up. Just before he passed out, he said he caught an image of the cabana but he blacked out before he could get us there. We all woke up in a hospital in Tahiti but no one knows how we got there, I was wondering — since you were there too — if you remembered anything."

The look on Walter's face was not encouraging.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking at me quizzically. "I have no knowledge of events beyond our exiting the vessel. I remember the image of the beach, but then you were gone and I was once more in the glade we originally departed from. I assumed that you had decided that you had no further need for me, and released me while you tended your sister. A hospital you say? That is most confusing — and disturbing."

"Actually — according to witnesses — we appeared somewhere in the water and the first they saw of us was me walking up out of the ocean carrying Allison. They called an ambulance when I collapsed and they took us to the hospital. But I don't remember how we got out of the ship, let alone to an island three or four thousand miles away. We were hoping you could shed some light on the subject.

"I am sorry, My Lord," he said. "I fear I cannot help you."

"Don't worry about it," Allison said. "I'm just glad it turned out the way it did, regardless of how you managed to do it. Now then, Walter; I need you to play sentry for a while..."

Everything went fine for the first two tests; just a couple quick steps, into and out of dreamspace.

Holding the foam vertically in front of me, or even out horizontally across my chest and along my outstretched arms was fine, but I got a real shock when I held it out in front of me by one end. I arrived on the beach with about three feet of foam in my hands. It then occurred to me that I had moved through too quickly to see where the problem had occurred. I suspected it was on the way in, not on the way out of dreamspace, but I wouldn't know for sure until I found the other end. Moving back to the patio, I found the other end lying on the deck, and I was really glad she had suggested testing the limits of this particular gift. I would have been devastated to arrive back at the apartment and discover I had destroyed a masterpiece of art. I picked it up and took it to the beach to show Allison.