Chapter 35
His heart beating trip-hammer fast, Jack headed for the conference room, where he had to try three times before he could open the thinner of the two packages. He heaved a mighty sigh as he looked at all the exquisite credentials Bert and Sparrow had managed to get for him and the guys, and Maggie, too. He laughed out loud when he read Sparrow’s note, which said, Whip these babies out and you are golden. What really set him off on a laughing jag was a picture of a golden, happy face behind a set of bars. He looked for his own set of credentials. He was for now Special Agent Anthony Lupine. Ted was Special Agent Andrew Molnar, Espinosa was Special Agent Raoul Samoza, Dennis was Special Agent Donald Ryder, and Maggie was Special Agent Lucinda Collins. There were no credentials for Harry because everyone had agreed that an Asian might be too easily remembered, and Harry’s picture had been in the papers too often, given his martial arts prowess and worldwide reputation in the field.
Jack eyed the second delivery, which wasn’t a soft-sided package but a hard cardboard box. He knew what was in it, but his jaw still dropped in awe as he slid his pocketknife through the heavy tape. Five guns. All Glocks. Disassembled, and wrapped in some kind of mystery packaging to thwart the scanners at FedEx, he surmised. The gun of choice for the fibbies. No ammunition. That was okay; they absolutely were not going to shoot anyone. At least not today. The guns were just for show.
He pried at the special packing and saw the shoulder holsters on the bottom of the box. The holsters looked old, worn, and real. He guessed it was true what he’d heard: If you had the money, you could get anything in Vegas. He supposed it was all in knowing the right people, or knowing people who knew the right people. Anything for a price.
It took Jack exactly fourteen minutes to assemble the Glocks. “Good to go, baby, good to go,” he muttered happily under his breath.
Because he had nothing else to do at the moment, Jack picked up one of the holsters and tried it on. He shoved the gun into it and practiced his draw. He was familiar with guns, had gone to the shooting range hundreds of times when he was an assistant district attorney. He’d always qualified. Thank God he had never had to draw on anyone. He also had a license to carry a gun in his real life but not as Special Agent Anthony Lupine.
Aha, the boys had slipped up. Nah. Not Sparrow. He rummaged in the box and found the licenses in an envelope that was stuck to the bottom of the plastic filler. The envelope read, Just in case. “Sorry I doubted you, Sparrow,” he muttered.
And then he remembered what he hadn’t been able to remember before: Andover’s launch after the New Year with its new rheumatoid arthritis medicine. Why or what it meant in the scheme of things he had no idea. Beaucoup bucks for the Andover coffers and the three owners for sure. But why was he even thinking or worrying about that? When he couldn’t come up with an answer, he shelved the thought as he had before. Sooner or later, it would come to him. If not, then it wasn’t an important consideration as far as their plans were concerned.
Just as Jack started to look down at his watch, a gift from Nikki years ago, one of those watches that did everything but scramble eggs, in his opinion, his phone rang. Snowden. He picked it up, listened briefly, and hung up. Now he knew the importance of that new product launch.
Looking again at his watch, he was shocked to see that it was already three minutes shy of the noon hour. Working on those numbers had taken a lot longer than he’d thought. He was aware suddenly of how quiet it was, with only the sound of Cyrus chomping on a huge bone that was guaranteed to clean his teeth. That had to mean the alleyway had been cleared by Harry’s people.
His stomach growling, Jack headed for the kitchen. He whistled for Cyrus, who came on the run. The shepherd waited a moment to see if his master would reach for the leash, which meant a sedate walk, or no leash, which meant a free-for-all run up and down the alley.
Jacket on, zipped up, and a heavy scarf wrapped around his neck, Jack opened the back door. No leash. Cyrus whizzed past the open door and tore down the alley, barking shrilly. Jack huddled in the doorway, hands jammed in his pockets as he stomped his feet up and down. It had to be only twenty degrees out there, he thought. He stood it as long as he could before he whistled to Cyrus to cut it short, just as the Post van and Dennis’s Humvee appeared at the security gates. The minute the door to the van slid open, he could smell the garlic. They were going to dine on Italian.
When Dennis emerged from the Humvee, he was struggling with plastic-wrapped suits on hangers. Jack held the door open for him. Ted emerged from the van, carrying two shopping bags, and Espinosa carried the food. Maggie had her own shopping bag and a box of some sort. “Everything okay? No problems?”
“Good to go,” Ted said, hustling through the doorway. The others agreed. Jack heaved a sigh of relief.
Ninety minutes later, lunch was over, the cleanup completed, Cyrus had been walked, and everyone was dressed for what Jack called the coming festivities. Jack had told them about Avery Snowden’s call and the resulting change of plans. Now the only thing left to do before the trip to Andover Pharmaceuticals was for Espinosa to apply some of Alexis’s tricks to alter their appearances.
“I’m not liking any of this right now,” Dennis complained. “When Murphy’s Law kicks in, plans go down the tubes.” His tone went from whining to accusatory when he said, “You said, Jack, that Mr. Snowden said all was good, and we were on schedule for visiting the three Andovers tomorrow. Tomorrow, not today. I’m not liking this one little bit,” he said.
Jack sighed. He was used to plans going awry, as were the others. “Yes, I did say that because that’s what Avery told me when I called him earlier. But that was hours ago. When he called ninety minutes ago to say that Otto was leaving tomorrow morning for New Mexico to talk to some people about the new drug, he called me immediately. As you all know, he has some kind of equipment in place that allows him to pick up all phone conversations in Otto’s house, and those of the other siblings as well. He’s on top of things. Had he not had his equipment in place, and we went out there tomorrow, we’d be up the old proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle. Tell me you understand what I just said, Dennis.”
Dennis yanked at his blue-and-white-striped tie. “I’m not stupid; I understand. I just said I didn’t like it. Improvising at the eleventh hour is never good. Don’t forget to factor in that wacky weatherman’s prediction for snow later today. We have miles to drive, and after the snatches, we still have to head out to Pinewood. That’s another long haul.”
“Thank God the van has good new snow tires,” Maggie said as she stared at her reflection in the glass of the wall oven. “I hope you aren’t wimping out, Dennis, and expecting us to cancel. We adapt. That’s spelled a-d-a-p-t. I hate wimps.”
Dennis flushed a rosy pink, but he didn’t say another word.
Jack eyed Maggie and Dennis and was satisfied with what he was seeing. He stood still and suffered through Espinosa’s filling in his cheeks, adding latex to his chin to make it longer, and narrowing his nose with the same latex. While his hair wasn’t high and tight, it was a good crew cut and didn’t need anything done to it.
“You guys got all the electronic stuff secure,” Ted said. “Remember now, you can mumble or talk as the case may be, either into your lapels or the cuffs of your sleeves. The sound is muffled but still good. You should probably leave now because under normal conditions it’s a forty-five-minute drive to Andover, but with the weather and the roads, I’m thinking more like an hour and fifteen minutes, maybe more,” Ted said. “I’m sorry that you’re going to be hitting Andover earlier than we intended, but that’s unavoidable with Otto’s change in plans. And with the snatches today and not tomorrow, there’s less time for something to go wrong based as a result of the Andover raid.”
“It’s going to take us that long to get back here, too, so you guys be ready to roll the minute we get back. Watch Cyrus for me,” Jack said.
Maggie looked around, winked at Ted, then focused on Jack. “Let’s do it!”