Mike Lawson - Dead on Arrival

He left the main house and strolled to the converted carriage house where he stored his cars. Which should he drive: the Porsche, the Jag, or the Mercedes SUV? The Porsche, he decided. It was too lovely a day to drive anything other than a convertible. He drove slowly down the long driveway toward the main entrance to his property, admiring his yard as he drove, and then waited patiently for the gates to open. Oliver Lincoln was a patient man.

He found a phone booth on the beach, one that wouldn’t be too noisy, one where he could watch lovely young women walk by in their swimwear. At precisely eleven-thirty he made the call.

The client began speaking as soon as he answered the phone, before even confirming that it was Lincoln calling. Not only was that rude, it was also rather rash. The odds were high that Lincoln was the caller, but it was also possible someone could have dialed the number by mistake.

‘We may have a problem,’ the client said.

‘Really,’ Lincoln said, but he doubted that was the case. On the other hand, the client was not given to panic.

‘There’s a man,’ the client said. ‘He’s some sort of investigator who works for Congress. I’m not sure who he works for specifically, but he’s not a cop and he’s not very high up the food chain. However, he’s taken an abnormal interest in the … the recent events.’

‘Such as?’ Lincoln said.

‘He’s talked to the DEA twice about that idiot Cray.’

‘So?’ Lincoln said. ‘Cray is dead and the FBI — according to your sources — are happy with the explanation for his fingerprint.’

‘That may be, but I don’t like the fact that he’s asking questions at all.’

‘Is there anything else?’

‘Yes, he was the one who found the Capitol policeman’s body. He apparently went to his home to question him.’

‘But since the policeman’s dead, I still don’t see that we have a problem,’ Lincoln said.

‘He was also in Key West,’ the client said.

‘Oh,’ Lincoln said.

‘Yeah, I thought that might get your attention.’

‘What was he doing here?’ Lincoln said.

‘I don’t know. My source at Homeland Security just said he was down there.’

‘Why was he at Homeland Security?’

‘He was asking about the man from New York.’

The client meant Youseff Khalid, the man who had tried to hijack the shuttle from LaGuardia.

Lincoln didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he asked, ‘Is there something you want me to do, or is this call simply informational?’

‘I want you to do something. I don’t like this man’s … persistence. And there’s something else. I found out he was involved in wrapping up an espionage ring on the West Coast a while ago, but I couldn’t get any details on what his role was. His name was mentioned only once in the press; then it disappeared like he was never there. What I’m saying is, this guy might be some kind of heavy hitter and I can’t take that chance.’

‘But what do you want me to do exactly ?’ Lincoln said.

‘Neutralize him in some way. Incapacitate him. I don’t care what you do, but do something to stop his meddling.’

‘I’m not sure that’s wise,’ Lincoln said. ‘You said he works for Congress. If somebody in the House assigned him to investigate, and if something were to happen to him, that could cause complications. All you have so far is a man without a badge asking questions, but he’s not getting any answers other than those we want the public to have.’

‘I don’t want to take the chance, not at this point,’ the client said. ‘Do something.’

Lincoln could refuse, but to refuse would reduce his income. ‘I think it’s going to take about two hundred thousand to do what you want done,’ he said.

‘That’s fine,’ the client said.

That was the one thing Lincoln liked about the client: there was never any quibbling over money.

Their trips to the refinery at night were the most dangerous.

During the day, there were cars and people about, and trucks and vans were constantly moving around the area. A boy walking his dog in the open field on the west side of the plant wasn’t particularly noteworthy, provided the boy didn’t get too close to the perimeter fence. And a vehicle parked for a few minutes at some spot in which a man in a baseball cap appeared to be studying a road map or adding water to the radiator wasn’t likely to give cause for alarm if the vehicle didn’t stay there too long.

But at night it was different. The businesses closest to the refinery were mostly industrial, plants that manufactured things like tires and cardboard boxes and sheet metal, and most of these industries were open only during the day. The nearest restaurants and retail stores and homes were approximately two miles away, so there were few reasons for people to be in the vicinity of the refinery at night.

And on this trip the boy needed to walk the perimeter of the plant.

They were completing the final phase of their prepar ations. They needed to find a point of entry and then the safest route to the tanks and pipes containing the hydrofluoric acid. The refinery was well lit in some places, with huge overhead lights that shined down onto pumps and control stations that housed meters and valves. But other locations throughout the plant were less well lit because there was normally no need for people to go into these areas at night.

The perimeter of the plant was similarly well illuminated, particularly near the entry gates, and lights were placed every fifty yards or so along the top of the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the plant, but there were many places along the perimeter where the lights didn’t overlap. So the boy had been given two tasks: find the best place to enter the plant and find a route through the plant to the hydrofluoric acid tanks that was mostly in the dark.

The refinery worked three shifts a day. They would plant the devices on the graveyard shift, which began at 11 P.M. and ended at 7 A.M. There were only about ten workers on this shift. He had read that these workers maintained the equipment, and their primary duty was to ensure, when the main work-force came to work the next day, that the refinery was fully functional and ready to operate. And he had seen only two guards on the graveyard shift, two middle-aged men who sat in a shack near the refinery’s main entrance.

The graveyard shift. He liked that name.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Eddie Kolowski said, and pulled his glove back on. Every time he took off a glove to get a smoke, his damn fingers almost froze.

Before they’d assigned the new guy to their shift, when it had just been him and Billy in the shack, this job hadn’t been too bad. He and Billy would sit there bullshitting, listening to the radio, nodding off when it suited them — and if he felt like taking a little nip, he’d take a little nip. But now they had the new guy, a little Mormon shit. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, he didn’t cuss. Eddie just hated the son of a bitch.

They were supposed to walk around the plant on a continuous basis, one guy always outside walking, while the other guy stayed in the shack to man the phones. In the summer, that wasn’t so bad, but in the winter, when it was colder than shit out, when the damn wind just came screaming off the lake, him and Billy said, Fuck that shit. No way were they going to freeze their asses off, walking outside. But now with this new guy, they were afraid he’d rat them out if they didn’t follow the procedure; he looked like the type that would. They figured after a couple of months he’d either quit — most young guys didn’t last too long — or he’d figure out that there wasn’t much point in just walking around in the dark, but for a little while they’d have to pretend they were playing the game.