David Rosenfelt - Airtight

The house was on a secluded street, which was understating the case. It wasn’t really a street in the normally accepted sense; it was an estate with no other houses within a quarter of a mile. Tommy parked outside the property, and they walked towards where they were told the house would be, though it couldn’t be seen from there.

It was a long walk, and only when they got close did the lights from the house pierce the total darkness. It was certainly not a hardship for Tommy, who was in extraordinary physical shape, even though he was carrying a bag that weighed the equivalent of two bowling balls.

The house looked massive, triggering a vague childhood recollection of his parents taking him to Virginia to see where Thomas Jefferson lived. Tommy remembered seeing the slave quarters on the property, and thinking that Jefferson must have been an asshole.

Lights were on in the house, so Tommy assumed that people were home. He had no idea if Richard Carlton was there or not, and it didn’t matter to Tommy at all.

The guesthouse was off to the left, and that was where Tommy headed. It was dark and hard to see; the sky was cloudy and moonlight was almost nonexistent. Tommy was sorry that he didn’t bring his night vision glasses, but it wasn’t a big deal either way. He could see well enough to know that he had never lived in a house as nice as this guesthouse.

But those days were in the past. In six months he’d be living in a palace or, better yet, in a suite at the Bellagio.

The windows on the main floor were unlocked, as Tommy expected they would be. He opened one and climbed inside, signaling Frankie to stay outside and watch for intruders. Tommy did not wear gloves, and was not concerned about fingerprints.

Once inside, he entered an interior room and took out his small flashlight, shining it into the bag he was carrying. He emptied the contents, and spent the next twenty minutes positioning the explosives strategically around the house.

The army training had served him well; Tommy operated with an expertise that was instinctive, and a complete confidence that he was doing things correctly. The fact that there was no basement in the house made it easier, though only marginally.

Once he was finished, he did a check of his work, to make sure everything was in good condition. There was no hurry; he was not going to be detected. The only reason for moving quickly was that there was a basketball game on television later that night that he was anxious to see. He had a bet on the game, for an amount of money that in the future he wouldn’t be wasting his time on.

Tommy left through the front door, closing it and all the windows behind him. He didn’t want there to be anywhere for the air to escape, though that was just him being more cautious than necessary. He took pride in his work, and even though there was no chance of failure, he still wanted to do it exactly right.

“All good?” Frankie asked softly once Tommy was outside.

“All good.”

Thirty feet in front of the guesthouse, they stopped and Tommy took out the remaining items in the bag that he was carrying. They were a can of red paint and a brush, and he slowly and methodically painted letters on the driveway. It was difficult because of the darkness and the small light given off by the flashlight.

Once he was finished, he took his time to make sure the message was legible.

You will not hurt our children.

Satisfied with his work, Tommy took the now empty bag with him. He jogged back to the street, not because he was fearful of being caught but simply so he could get to his television and basketball game sooner. Frankie, not being a basketball fan, was not pleased, but since Tommy had the keys to the car, he was obliged to jog as well.

Once in the car, they drove about a half a mile, and then stopped. It would be close enough to confirm that the operation was a success, but far enough to ensure an easy getaway.

Tommy opened the window and dialed a number on his cell phone. Within two seconds of his pressing the last digit, he saw the flash of light in the distance, and then heard the explosion.

“All good?” Frankie asked.

“All good.”

If Richard Carlton was going to have guests any time soon, they’d be staying in a hotel.

Michael Oliver had a very important job.

It didn’t make him famous; it didn’t make him stand out at all. He could walk down the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma, as he did every day on the way to and from work, and never be recognized.

Oliver was chief engineer of Hanson Oil and Gas. They didn’t have traditional titles there, but if they did, he probably would have been a Senior Vice President, or maybe an Executive Vice President. Which made him pretty high up the ladder.

But his significance was even greater than it appeared. As the head of a very small department, Oliver’s job was to analyze land for its potential to provide energy, be it oil or natural gas. Once this was completed, a cost-benefit analysis was done to determine how expensive it would be to extract that energy, versus how much it could be sold for.

Hanson was a middle level player in the industry, but it still had a market capitalization of over six billion dollars. It didn’t get that big by making mistakes, and Michael Oliver was the mistake preventer in chief.

When Oliver gave the go-ahead on a find, Hanson literally would take it to the bank. And if Oliver said the potential was not there, they did not go near it.

It was Oliver who personally did the analysis of the land near Brayton. It was he who determined that the shale was porous enough to yield natural gas and that it was set in a formation that could be harvested efficiently and very profitably. And it was he who estimated the immense amount of energy that could be derived.

For doing this, he was very well paid. But now, by simply putting another set of diagrams in an envelope and sending them off, he would have taken the final step towards ensuring he would get far more money than that.

So he put them in the envelope, and then drove an hour and fifteen minutes to a UPS store in Stillwater. He sent the package under an assumed name; it was the first illegal act he had ever committed, and he was not about to take any chances. It was why he did not simply e-mail the diagrams; e-mails lasted forever, and could not be shredded.

Oliver was not recognized in Stillwater, just as he was not recognized in Tulsa. But that didn’t make him any less important. And what he had just done, simply sending that package, had been the most significant act of a very significant life.

“Nothing has changed,” Barone said. “Overtime expected, vacations postponed, until we wrap this up.”

I had requested that he call the meeting, and he didn’t hesitate. There had been a letdown in effort on the case; cops have a tendency to stop focusing on a case when they believe it’s been solved and the bad guy killed.

Detective Johnny Pagan asked the obvious question. “Wrap what up?”

“The Brennan murder,” Barone said. “We want to nail Gallagher on the facts, not just because he pulled a gun on Luke. Shit, you know how many times I’ve wanted to shoot Luke?”

“What about the bloody clothes, and the DNA?” Pagan asked.

Barone hesitated for a second, so I jumped in. “It’s evidence, significant evidence, but it’s not everything. There’s a huge amount of attention focused on this case; we need to be right, and we need to demonstrate it beyond any doubt. So the Captain wants to handle it as if it’s going to trial, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Nobody in the room except Emmit had any idea what the hell was going on, but nor did they want to question it any further. They would work on the case, that’s their job, and the opportunity to get some overtime was just an added plus.