Chapter 10

Monday. Ten o'clock in the morning in Houston, Texas. A parking structure next to a bank.

Greg and his team waited on the second floor. Except Al. Al was the spotter on the first floor. He wore civilian clothes. The seven-man team was in place. Ready.

Soon, Carson's driver would pull a vehicle into the garage and park. He'd select the open parking place closest to the stairwell. All the ground floor spaces were occupied.

The men on the second floor wore desert camouflage gear over body armor. Boonie hats covered their heads. The hat brims drooped down over their eyes. Paint streaked their faces, not so they couldn't be seen, but instead, so they couldn't be easily recognized.

"Target vehicle approaching," Greg heard his spotter's voice in his ear. The spotter spoke Arabic. All team members spoke the language. All team members also wore communication equipment. "Target's vehicle will be the next car to enter the garage," the spotter added.

"Remove the cone barriers," Greg said into a microphone in front of his chin.

They'd saved Carson's driver a parking place.

Larry picked up the cones and carried them to one side of the parking space. Then he walked quickly, but didn't hurry, to a car parked next to the stairway door and dropped out of sight.

"Stairwell clear," Dwayne said as he stepped through the stairwell door. He dropped behind a car across the driveway from the vehicle where Larry crouched.

Carson and his men would be careful. They carried beaucoup money with them, money that if lost could cost them their lives. Besides being careful, if they were also smart, one bodyguard would leave the vehicle after it was parked and walk to the stairwell. He'd check for threats, and if there were none, he'd motion an all clear to the other bodyguard, who was also the driver. The driver would exit the car, look around and listen. If he saw a moving vehicle or heard one, he'd wait. When it was clear, he'd open Carson's door, and Carson would step out, carrying a bag of some sort that contained the money. The driver would guard against an attack from the rear on the driveway. The other bodyguard would do the same at the front at the stairwell while Carson, carrying the bag of money, would quickly move to the stairwell.

Dwayne and Larry's assignment was the bodyguard who checked the stairwell. John and Gary would handle the driver. Greg saved Carson for himself. Frank would assist him. Each man carried a standard Army issue M4 carbine. The weapons were loaded with a 20-round box magazine. They were cocked and locked and set for semi-automatic fire.

Carson's vehicle entered the second floor and drove slowly toward the stairwell. The driver guided the car into the saved parking spot.

They were neither smart nor careful. The bodyguard hopped out and opened a back door. At the same time, the driver stepped from the vehicle. Carson, with the bag in hand, started walking toward the stairwell. His men walked with him. They were laughing about something.

"Now," Greg said into the mike in front of his face.

Six men suddenly surrounded and leveled rifles on Carson and his bodyguards. Then the six men rushed them, yelling as they moved toward them. The shock of the sudden, noisy attack rooted Carson and his men to the driveway.

"Down!" Greg shouted. "On the concrete, or you're dead."

The bodyguard started to reach for a gun in a holster under his jacket.

"Don't do it," Dwayne yelled. "On the ground! Now!"

Simultaneously, Gary swung the butt of his rifle into the driver's kidney. "Down! Now!"

The driver groaned and fell to the concrete.

At the same time, Larry jabbed the bodyguard in the face with his rifle. "Down!"

Greg grabbed Carson and threw him face down on the trunk of a car. Frank shoved his rifle in Carson's neck. "Don't move," Frank shouted.

Using flex cuffs, Greg bound Carson's wrists behind his back, lifted him from the trunk, and Frank slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth. Greg frisked Carson and tossed his pistol under a parked car. Greg didn't worry about leaving fingerprints. The team members wore surgical gloves.

Greg looked around. The bodyguard and driver were lying on the concrete driveway face down, bound and gagged.

Frank opened the trunk of the vehicle parked next to Carson's car, unceremoniously picked Carson up, dropped him inside the compartment, and slammed the trunk lid. Greg tossed the bag of money on the floor in the backseat, and then sat in the passenger seat. Frank backed the vehicle out of the parking space.

Greg wiped the camo paint off his face and tossed the rag to Frank.

"We got lucky," Greg said. "No witnesses."

Once the operation started, witness or no witness arriving from the stairwell or from a car driving through the parking structure, they would have completed the mission. A possible witness was the one risk they couldn't eliminate.

After dragging the bound and gagged bodyguard and driver between two parked cars, the other four men got in another vehicle and followed Frank out of the garage, paying the cashier as they left.

Aware of the video camera at the cashier's booth, they all pulled down the brims on their boonie hats and averted their faces to avoid being recognized later if anyone viewed the videotape. Frank and Greg turned left. The other vehicle turned right. They'd switched to stolen license plates on the vehicles earlier. When Frank was certain he wasn't being following, he turned right and drove to the safe house they'd rented.

Once in the garage with the garage door closed, Frank opened the trunk and lifted Carson to his feet.

Greg stepped forward, grabbed Carson by the head, and whispered in Carson's ear. "For Robyn, you creep."

With a mighty heave, Greg pulled with one hand and pushed with the other until he heard a loud snap. Greg let go, and Carson's dead body crumpled to the garage floor. The neck was twisted at an odd angle.

Frank helped Greg put the body in a black, plastic body bag. Greg zipped it closed. He checked the time. 10:53.

Seven minutes later, a horn honked outside. Frank opened the garage door, and a hearse drove in. The driver didn't leave the vehicle.

Frank opened the rear door and pulled out a wooden coffin on rails. He opened the lid, and Frank and Greg muscled Carson's body inside the coffin. Greg closed the lid and slid the coffin back inside the hearse.

Frank opened the garage door again, and the hearse backed out. Frank closed the door. Greg reached in the backseat and removed the bag of money.

"The boss said I had to make the body disappear," Greg said. "I figured nothing could beat a crematorium for disappearing a body. Let's go remove our expenses and the bonuses for the men. What's left we'll drop off at that shelter for battered women on the way to the airport."

Frank nodded.

Greg flipped open a cell phone and dialed.

"It's clear. You can come in now," he said. He had not wanted anyone witnessing what he did to Carson or how he'd disposed of the body. Except Frank. Greg trusted Frank with his life. He could probably trust the other members of his team, but probably didn't cut it.

Greg set the heavy bag on the kitchen table. Fifty, sixty pounds, Greg figured. He opened the bag.

"Oh, shit. We might have a problem, Frank."

"What?" Frank said.

"If we left two or three million dollars at that shelter for battered women, the donation would cause a media feeding frenzy. A connection could be made. The robbery motive might be discounted."

Frank looked in the bag. "Jesus," he breathed.

"The men are on the way. It's not likely, but one of them could get greedy." He pulled out a bundle of $100 bills wrapped in a narrow strip of paper. He quickly counted the number of bills in the bundle. "Fifty. Three bundles per man. $5,000 for the second half and final payday for the job plus a $10,000 bonus."

He made five stacks, three bundles high, closed the bag and carried it to a closet in a bedroom. It didn't feel that much lighter.

Al arrived first. He'd driven a car parked on the street. But the other team members followed him within minutes. Greg paid them, including the unexpected bonus, and they left happy men.

Then Greg made another call. "Ready for pickup," he said and hung up. Turning to Frank, he said, "While we're waiting for Ralph to pick up the weapons and equipment, I'm going to take a shower."

"Go ahead," Frank said, "I'll handle Ralph."

"Give him a $5,000 bonus. That's one bundle."

"Gotcha."

After dressing, Greg heard water running and assumed Frank was taking a shower, so he pulled out the bag. Greg remembered from somewhere that $1,000,000 in $100 bills weighed about 22 pounds. Why he remembered the fact, he couldn't say. He'd estimated the weight of the bag at fifty to sixty pounds before paying the men. A quick count of the remaining bundles indicated the bag had originally contained $3,000,000.

Frank walked into the room and saw the money dumped on the table. He grinned and said, "Tempting, huh?"

"Not really, but this much money does present a problem for us."

"Call the boss. He'll know what to do about it."

"Ah, hell, Frank, I don't want to bother him with this. So far on this mission we've spent about $80,000, not including what we paid the men today. Half of the $80,000 went to the crematorium. With what we paid the men, and after paying back the boss, we'll have approximately $2,840,000 left over. We'll leave $40,000 on the shelter's doorstep, anonymously, but between us guys, the donation will be in Sable's name. That might attract the local media's attention, but it won't go national, and won't cause a media feeding frenzy. It won't be connected to Carson and compromise the robbery motive. I want to give you a $100,000 bonus, and I'll pay myself the same."

"Uh-uh, double your bonus. You planned and led the mission," Frank said.

Greg nodded. "We'll dribble the rest of the money out to charities in the Phoenix area over time. Other cities when we travel occasionally. We'll give a healthy chunk of it to the Disabled American Veterans, and another chunk of it to the Children for Fallen Soldiers Relief Fund. We'll make good use of the money."

"Put $50,000 in an account for Ginny's education," Frank said.

"Uh-uh, the boss has already set up a trust fund for her education. Pablo's, too."

Frank chuckled. "The boss, he's something else again, huh?"

"That he is, Frank. That he is."

Early Monday evening, I was in my studio painting. David had driven Sable and Ginny to the airport to meet Greg and Frank.

After Leah left me the first time, I'd actually captured my emotions in my first successful painting, the emotions involved with grief. Loni had said she felt grief when she gazed at the painting, said she couldn't live with the painting because it would make her depressed. I lived with the painting because I lived with my grief, but time passing had taken the edge off my grief, dulled it to disappointment. Could I portray disappointment?

I tried; I failed. I didn't truly feel disappointed. I felt adrift, cast loose without an anchor, floating without purpose. I didn't have a clue about how I could create feeling adrift in a painting.

Could I paint love?

I set the failed painting against the wall. I'd cover it with a fresh coat of white gesso later. Then I put a new canvas on the easel, a large canvas, five-feet wide by seven-feet tall.

What color best represents love? What forms combined with what colors and textures could evoke the feeling of love when viewed by an art lover? I'd read somewhere that about 4,000 years ago the Egyptians built healing temples of light. They bathed a patient with specific colors of light to produce different effects. I'd also read about a recent experiment that demonstrated that a blindfolded person would experience physiological reactions under different colored rays. The scientists claimed that the skin "saw" in Technicolor.

Hogwash? Maybe. True art evokes emotion. Art involves color. And what is color? Color, I knew, was a form of visible light. Color was electromagnetic energy, and visual color was only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. I also knew that brain waves were part of the spectrum. My success with Grief came from my brain, my emotions.

Forget the scientific approach, I told myself. A scientific colorist, you're not. You're a painter, an artist.

An emotional, amateur artist, I added.

Feel! Let your love for Leah wash over you and feel the emotion. Saturate your entire body with love.

I stood relaxed, my feet spread slightly for easy balance. Then I closed my eyes and concentrated. Not on mental images. I searched for sensations, the elusive sensations of love, the most complex emotion mankind can experience.

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Paul Phenomenon

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