Old Growth & Ivy (The Spook Hills Trilogy Book 1) (28 page)

"Heading northwest, up by the
town cemetery."

"Follow.  No closer than a
mile and more if the road opens up or goes straight.  Watch the
screen.  Signal could weaken out where you are."

"Turning left."

"Hang back.  There aren't
many houses here according to Google maps."

"There's like nothing here but
dirt roads and some trees that are barely a step up from sage brush."

They watched the progress of the red
dot over Google maps.

"He turned right onto a
washed-out, long driveway." 

"Stop and hold.  Pull you
hat down low on your face.  Get out, head to the opposite side of the road
from the house and make as if you are taking a leak.  Do not look at the
house.  They might have some long distance surveillance gear."

They heard the pickup door open and
then slam.

A couple of minutes passed.  The
door opened and shut again.

"Had you on mute.  Leak
done."

They exchanged a look and shook their
heads -- only Moll would have actually taken the leak.

"Drive straight on.  Do not
pursue him.  Do not even turn your head towards that driveway." 

"Roger."

"Go about the right speed for the
road.  When you can, get back to a highway."

"Okay." 

"What's at the apartment?"

"In Santa Fe?"

"Yeah."

"Goodwill clothes -- that's
it.  Got the creds, roscoe, laptop, surveillance gear, duffel and the
three eyes with me."

"Three eyes?"

"IPod, iPad and iPhone."

Steve laughed.  "Perfect.
 Drive to the Albuquerque airport.  Grab a flight out to Seattle and
have the Bureau office there verify that no trackers are on any of your
electronic devices.  Buy some new clothes and leave the Goodwill ones in
the trash.  Once you know your gear is clean, get back as soon as you
can.  Great work, Moll!  We'll get an agent to empty out your
apartment and sell off the pickup.  Call when you board at
Albuquerque."

"Got it, Chief.  Can't wait
to bunk down again in Fred's trailer.  Never thought a trailer would sound
good to me.  More as the trip progresses."

Steve ended the call and placed his
hands on his keyboard.  "Let's get back to work," he said
calmly, although inside he was jumping up and down with excitement over finding
a location for one or more of the brothers.

"But Steve," Ivy protested,
"When do we move in?"

"When we can prove this is the
perp we’re after."

"What more do we need?"

"Think about it.  We have a
theory.  We have hunches.  We are seeing links.  We need
definitive proof before we move in."

"What if we can't get more
proof?"

"Ivy, what if we are wrong? 
We would risk harassing or even shooting innocent people.  We can’t do
that.  We don't do it.  I want these clowns at least as much as you
do.  However, we must have a solid case.  We might be the Spook Hills
gang, but we're still FBI, not some renegade vigilantes."

Ivy glanced over at Mathew and then at
Brian.  Mathew nodded. Brian shrugged and nodded too.

"I get it," Ivy replied
reluctantly.   Then she smiled at Steve, appreciating that his stance
was one reason she loved him.  He personified those three words in the FBI
seal and motto -- Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity.  She so wanted him to
send a SWAT team in that day and have it done and over.   However he
was right -- innocent until proven guilty.

"I'm going to find the name of
the property owner," interjected Brian.

"I’ll review those interrogation
sessions again from Operation Spook Hills.  We have to find a way to make
one of those guys crack," Mathew said.

"Is it possible . . 
.?" Ivy began tentatively and then stopped.

"What?"  Steve said a
trifle impatiently.

"Nothing."

"Ivy, remember -- no wrong
questions and no bad ideas.  Half-baked ones, maybe.  But that is why
we work together -- to take ideas as far as they will go."

"What if those guys from
Operation Spook Hills are telling the truth?"

"That they have no idea who paid
them for the job?"

Ivy nodded.  "Are there
rings of thugs that are organized and paid by central dispatch?"

"What makes you think
that?"  Steve moved away from his laptop where he had started working
and scooted over to her in his rolling chair.  The air was becoming
chillier in the barn and Steve had on one of the striped turtlenecks and fleece
tops they bought the first long weekend they spent together.  To Ivy, he
was sending out delightfully masculine vibes.  She was amazed that at 63,
feelings of desire could spring up just looking at Steve.  She had to
struggle to bring her mind back to their conversation.

“Ivy?”

"Oh, uh, the Cruisers.  Like
a fleet of limos.  Lined up for the next job."

"You think each contract fee is
so large as to cover a new Cruiser for as many times as they wreck them?"

 "Too far-fetched,
huh?"

"Too damn perfect. 
Mathew," he said scooting back to his own work area.

"Get info on large sales of black
Toyota
FJ
Cruisers.  On it, Chief." 
Mathew said without raising his head.

"Kruiser Killers," Steve
muttered.  "National network or maybe west coast.  I'll get a
run on cases in the last two years where the perp drove a black
FJ
Cruiser."

"Might want to check fleet
sales," Ivy ventured.

Mathew shifted his eyes over to her
and rolled them. "On it.  What are you doing?"

"Checking carjacking rates on
FJ
Cruisers," Ivy responded quickly. "All
colors.  They could always repaint them."

Ivy saw Steve do his classic one
eyebrow raise at Mathew and they gave a little nod to each other that confirmed
she was adding value in their research work.  Ivy focused on her laptop,
determined to find something useful to further their case against Astuto.

***

While Steve kept his cool on the
outside, inside he was brimming with exhilaration now that they found a likely
location for Astuto.  Brian's research yielded ownership information on
three adjoining blocks of property near Madrid totaling about 500 acres, including
one with a house on it and one with an entrance to a defunct coalmine. 
Maybe the three Fuentes planned to retire there, with each brother having his
own plot of land.  Steve found the existence of the mine interesting as an
escape passage or a storage area.  He checked online resources and found
that the town of Madrid had a thirty square mile coal-rich area that petered
out over 100 years ago.  Lead and turquoise were also mined in the
area. 

A company named
CCE
Mining Interests owned those three blocks of land with the same style
fictitious names of officers as were used in the money laundering.  They
were getting warmer, but they still needed some definitive tie of the Fuentes
brothers to the
CCE
ventures or the money laundering
companies or the drug operations.  Steve wanted several solid links as
hard proof that would hold up in court.  He hoped the photograph match
turned out positive.

Brian started looking for maps of the
mineshafts and tunnels to see where they might run on the properties.  The
mines could supply one or more back doors for Astuto.   Steve was
pleased with Brian's initiative and deductive thinking.  He was happy too
with Moll's work trailing the man who was likely one of the twins.  He
stayed cool and should not have drawn attention to himself.  Steve looked
around the room.  He had a great team to work with -- they had honed their
skills until they were best of the best.

Steve was pleased with Ivy's work
too.  She had moved them onto a new line of thinking about the hired
killers that Astuto had sent after them.  Her mind worked differently than
theirs.  She was equally logical, yet she sometimes saw different
possibilities.  He was glad she was part of the team and not solely
because he loved her.

On Sunday, Steve, Ivy, Brian, Moll and
Mathew took a much-needed short break and went over to the nearby Domaine
Drouhin vineyard for a wine tasting.  There in the tasting room helping
with the guests and pouring wine was the dark-haired young woman Mathew had
seen that one day on a bicycle.  She wore a simple red dress and a
cardigan sweater -- to his mind she looked both classic and classy. 
Mathew talked with her for a time until the tasting area became so busy she had
to return to work.  This time he was close enough to see that she wore a
wedding ring.  It turned out she was the niece of a neighboring vineyard
owner and had what Mathew could only call an arrogant drunk of a husband who
was there drinking wine.  They lived in California where he was a professor
at UCLA, but they were up for a long weekend to celebrate her uncle's
birthday.  When she was in the area, she helped at various
vineyards. 

Finding this attractive woman only to
discover she was not available was maddening to Mathew.  He sensed that
under her demure demeanor, she was intelligent, caring and hardworking. 
Her name was Callie Straun, but born Callie Lindquist.  Her uncle was the
man who steered them to the land that was now Spook Hills.  Something
about her resonated with Mathew.  She had a darling little girl of about
8, with the same long dark shiny hair.  If only Callie were divorced or
even separated, he would pursue her.  He told himself to be encouraged at
finding her since it might mean he could find someone else equally attractive to
him. 

Mathew turned his attention to a
nearby conversation where Steve was talking with the vineyard tasting room
staff.  He heard Steve mention the nuances of the 2010 Laurene wine, but
noting how young it was.  He asked about the types of barrels used, what
percentage of them were new, what types of yeasts went into in the fermentation
and numerous other questions.  Most of that information was on their
website, but Steve was trying learn what more he could at the
event.    

Steve's great mind remained like a sponge
-- he retained every fact he learned about wines, how they were processed and
what the growing conditions were for the grapes (even, if he could get it, the
original source of the vines).  He kept a quick index of specific
characteristics of vineyards, their wines and critical attributes in an Excel
spreadsheet, which he planned one day to turn into a wine-tracking
database.  At some point Mathew knew that Steve would distill all the data
he was collecting into patterns and the creative side would find a way to take
that information and make it productive. 

Ivy fit in wherever she went simply by
smiling in her charming way.  Moll and Brian moved from group to group,
trying to find out if any of the younger women were single.  So much kept
going on hold, while they tried to solve the case of the Fuentes
brothers.  Ivy and Steve's marriage, Brian and Moll's business startup and
his finding a social life each had a lower priority as they tried to progress
their case.  The situation frustrated the hell out of each of them. 
When the five of them were standing together again, he decided to introduce the
topic of where he would live.

"I'm thinking about buying a
condo in the Pearl District so I can start a social life this winter," he
said by way of introduction.

Steve experienced a pang of
regret.  "I thought you would live at Spook Hills for a time."

"I will most of the time but as
soon as this case is resolved, I need to get busy searching for my
Ivy."  He raised his glass to her.  Steve nodded in understanding.

Brian turned to Ivy and asked a bit
apprehensively, "What are your plans for the Portland house?"

"When you and Moll move out, it
will go on the market."

"What if we want to stay?"
he asked quickly.  “Would you sell it to us?  Maybe Mathew will want
a share of it too."

"I would take a share in that
house," Mathew said eagerly.  "Having healed there, it feels
like a real home to me.  Be a great alternative to a condo."

Moll was nodding.  "We'll
buy whatever you don't want of your stuff, though I may need to trade out that
single bed I've been snoozing solo in.  Hopefully soon, I will have
someone to rub along with now and then."

Ivy was a bit dumbfounded by the offer
on her house.  She knew the men were waiting for an answer.  She
glanced at Steve.  He kept his expression neutral.  The decision was
hers.  "Sure.  Great solution.  We'll work out a
deal.  I do want some things from there.  I have a list."

The three younger men laughed and
Mathew said, "Of course you do."

"What do you mean?" 
Ivy asked perplexedly.

"You couldn't be involved with
the Big Guy and not have lists.  Disorganization, sloppiness, and
carelessness are simply not tolerated.  However I suspect you had those
licked before you met Steve.”

Ivy nodded and held out her
hand.  "Com'on, let's make the house sale official."

They did a four way shake on the
deal.  Mathew felt that for the first couple of months, Steve and Ivy
should have the new house at Spook Hills to themselves.  He would move
back to the vineyard by spring and use the Portland place as a pied à terre on
weekends or whenever.  The house's proximity to both uptown and downtown
Portland would give him easy access to gathering places for attractive women
between 25 and 40.  Brian and Moll were eager to help in the search, which
meant they wanted to find dates for themselves.  They had already
identified a few possible venues like the Art Museum where a Museum after Hours
series provided a gathering place for professionals interested in supporting
the arts.  That was as good a place to start as any and likely better than
most for the three of them.

Mathew wished he could have Steve's
luck – by chance meet the woman for him.  He was so fortunate to have
found Ivy, as if the magic between them drew them to together at that point in
their lives.  Sure beat the bar scene, but then Steve did his share of
that earlier in his life.  Even with the rocky road Ivy and Steve were
bouncing down because of the Fuentes, their love continued to deepen and become
stronger as their knowledge of each other expanded. 

Mathew thought of Ivy as one in a
million and maybe even one in ten or a hundred million.   She was so
right for Steve -- kind enough to spoil him, yet intriguing enough to keep him
fascinated by her.  The miracle was that she loved him.  Steve was
changing because of his relationship with Ivy and was becoming more balanced,
more fun and more overtly caring.   Mathew glanced across the wine
tasting room at the woman named Callie Straun, his eyes meeting hers for a
moment.  She smiled and for that moment he stood transfixed as if they
were the only two people in the room. 

***

The following Tuesday, Steve violated
his own rule by taking a stroll alone up to the little walnut grove.  It
was right before lunch and he needed to think.  They were getting close to
moving against Astuto, but he wanted multiple definitive links that would
stand-up in trial when it came to that.  Based on the photographic
evidence, they could arrest whichever twin it was as he traveled into or out of
the country the next time he used a known false passport, but that would still
leave one to two brothers free.  Steve's goal was to catch at least two of
the brothers together, preferably at that house near Madrid, New Mexico. 

The agent sent to pick up Moll's
things and sell off the pickup reported that it did not appear as if anything
had been disturbed.  The agent scanned the apartment and the truck for
bugs and tracking devices.  They came up clean.  Steve hoped that
meant their surveillance went undetected.

Mathew found about twelve companies
that were buying or leasing black
FJ
Cruisers, but
three were rental companies, which they ruled out for now.  Eight of
remaining nine were likely legit companies, using the Cruisers for
construction, tour guiding, and local rentals.  One was more
interesting.  That company operated out of Miami and Los Angeles and could
be one of Astuto's own companies, judging by its name and officers.  Steve
was sending one of the retired agents who helped with Operation Spook Hills to
do local research and surveillance.

Steve let his gaze wander down the
rows of young vines, now dropping their leaves for winter, enjoying the orderly
way they contoured with the curve of the hill.  His gazed at the coastal
range of low mountains in the distance.  How could they link the Fuentes
factually to the shootings, the drugs, the money laundering and all those bogus
companies?  Collectively, they had to be smarter than the Fuentes. 
 The brothers were clever, but not insuperable.  Maybe they needed a
big map of everything they had or suspected on the Fuentes to make the
connections.  What did Mathew say the other day, one of his many Latin
expressions?  Steve turned to walk back down to the house, searching his
memory.  Oh yes, it was
Causa Latet, Vis
est
Notissima,
The Cause is Hidden, but its Force is well Known.

Steve discovered that right after he
retired, his boss had the request terminated that obtained electronic copies of
the bank account transactions on the suspected Fuentes money laundering
accounts.  After conferring with the Chief, the request was reinstated
that morning, with the data now flowing directly to Steve through secure bank
data sites.  The Chief found it interesting that Steve's old boss had so
quickly cutoff the flow of the records to the FBI.  Steve planned to add
any new transactions to an historic copy of the database that contained the
transactions up to the point when the data stopped coming in.  Brian and
Moll were using the software they developed for their nascent business to comb
through the bank data, trying to find new patterns.  They found multiple
short bursts of activity, showing that the Fuentes were still doing money
laundering, but in a random way.  The money involved was transferred to
countries where the banks can refuse to cooperate in supplying their records
during investigations, most notably Ecuador, Turkey, Algeria and
Ethiopia. 

On a daily basis, they were reviewing
long distance surveillance photos on the house where the Fuentes brother
went.  Other than his departure two days later, no one showed up, except
that several times a week, a FEDEX or UPS truck made its way up the rough
driveway to the front door.  Unfortunately the driver left whatever
package or packages were to be delivered inside of a Spanish-style portico,
which blocked views from a satellite shot of whoever opened the door to collect
the package.  They requested delivery information from FEDEX and UPS for
the last five years to trace the sources of the packages.  Steve saw this
as a fertile endeavor since it might be one of the ways that the Fuentes moved
cash money.

Even though they were traveling to
visit one of their prospective clients, Brian and Moll were already building
the database to house and analyze the UPS/FEDEX delivery information, beating
Steve to it.  Instead of making him feel useless, he took pride in their
resourcefulness.  Before he departed, Brian had obtained available records
of the mines in the area of the Fuentes properties.  Ivy took over doing
additional research.  As he walked back into the barn, she looked over at
him.

"Steve," she said, pushing
herself upright in her chair.  "Is it possible that that the Fuentes
created an underground bank where they are stashing cash?"

Steve nodded.  That thought had
occurred to him as well.

"I'm researching how to determine
if the mine shafts and tunnels are still intact.  Maybe we can use
geological soundings to check for hollow spaces."

"Interesting thought.  We
would have to be careful not to draw any attention to the area, but we also
might be able to use the tunnels to enter Astuto's house, trapping him."

"Won't he have security and
explosive devices in place?"

"Likely.  We’ll need a
specialized team skilled in counter-surveillance.  Do more research on the
geological soundings and then let's talk again."

Ivy squared her shoulders and went
back to staring at her laptop.  Geological soundings were definitely a
learning experience for her.  Movies and TV did such a compressed
portrayal of FBI work.  They failed to provide a picture of how tedious it
is, how much time the research takes, how many roadblocks are in the way, and
how many false paths ate up time.  Movies only concentrated on the high
points, squashing all the action into what seems like a few short days. 
Since they were limiting how much they tapped into resources at the Bureau,
their work was particularly slow going.  Ivy was trying to understand how
to trace mineshafts and tunnels with technology that was outside her base of
expertise.  Databases, analytical applications, and audit systems were all
things she understood.  However, seismic soundings and the use of robotic
technology to map out mineshafts were new to her. 

She felt so fortunate to see Steve in
this role.  He was a great leader with many natural management skills in
his repertoire.  He gave each member of the team a good deal of
leeway.  He challenged each of them while suiting the tasks to their
talents, like letting Brian and Moll run with the data analysis and putting Ivy
and Mathew on research.