Second Contact Read online

  “Ed MacCarron. Pleased to meet you.” MacCarron looked around. “It's crowded in here tonight. You're sure I'm not intruding?”

  “Not at all,” said Becker. “As a matter of fact, you're the reason I'm here.”

  “Me?” said MacCarron.

  “You're the Lieutenant Edward MacCarron who's stationed at Great Lakes, aren't you?”

  “That's right.”

  “Then I might be able to do you a favor,” said Becker.

  “Oh?” MacCarron studied him closely. “Is this official business, Major?”

  “In an unofficial kind of way,” replied Becker. “What are you drinking?”

  “Vodka and tonic.”

  “My treat.”

  “Thanks,” said MacCarron, increasingly uneasy. “What does the space service want with me?”

  “The space service couldn't care less about you, Ed,” replied Becker. “Relax. You stand to make a good deal of money.”

  “I do?”

  Becker nodded. “My client is a young woman who's stationed at Fort Dix.”

  “She's in the service?”

  Becker nodded. “Comes from a good military family,” he continued. “Her father's a colonel, and her brother's a lieutenant.”

  “Okay, she's a pillar of virtue,” said MacCarron. “So what?”

  “So she's pregnant.”

  “I hope you don't think you can get away with coming in here and accusing me of—” began MacCarron heatedly.

  “Nobody's accusing you of anything,” said Becker reassuringly. “Believe me. The guy who got her pregnant could buy both of us with his pin money.”

  “Then what is this all about?” demanded MacCarron.

  “I'm her family's attorney,” said Becker. “The guy who did this to her made certain commitments in writing. He has chosen not to honor them. Do you begin to understand?”

  “I understand,” said MacCarron. “What I don't understand is what all this has to do with me.”

  “I've been told on very good authority that you know the father,” said Becker, leaning forward confidentially. “I've got five hundred dollars for you if you'll put me together with him for five minutes.”

  “Five hundred, just to talk to him?”

  “That's just a drop in the bucket compared to what I'm going to sue his ass for.”

  “Why pay me at all?” asked MacCarron suspiciously. “Why not just go to his commanding officer and demand an audience?”

  “I'll be honest with you,” replied Becker. “I traced the son of a bitch to Great Lakes, and now I've lost him. I can't find him in the barracks or on any of the duty rosters, and nobody there has been any help at all.”

  “So what makes you think I can help?”

  “I was tipped by someone who wants his name kept out of it.”

  “Five hundred, you say?”

  “Right.”

  “In cash?”

  Becker nodded. “Tax free.”

  MacCarron shrugged. “So who's the proud papa?”

  “Lieutenant Samuel Benares.”

  MacCarron frowned. “Samuel Benares? I don't know any—” Suddenly he put on a poker face. “Oh, yeah, sure—Sam Benares.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah, I know him.”

  “Well, like I said, there's five hundred in it for you if you can get me in to see him long enough for me to ask him a few questions.”

  “That might be a little difficult,” said MacCarron.

  “That's why I'm not asking you to do it for free.”

  “There are probably a dozen guys named Sam Benares in the service,” said MacCarron carefully. “How do you know this is the right one?”

  “He told the girl he was being transferred to Illinois,” said Becker confidently. “I've got the right man.”

  “But if you're wrong ... “ persisted MacCarron.

  “Then I'll keep looking until I find him. But that won't be necessary—this is the man I want.”

  “If you're wrong, what about the five hundred?”

  “That's yours, win, lose or draw. When we finally nail this bastard, I'm suing his ass for three million.”

  “That much?” asked MacCarron, impressed.

  “He's worth it.”

  “That's a lot of money,” said MacCarron. He paused uncomfortably. “Could you maybe manage a thousand for me?”

  “If I can see him within 24 hours.”

  “The money's on the front end?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I've got to make some arrangements first. How about tomorrow morning?”

  “Name the time.”

  “Nine o'clock sharp.”

  “Where should I meet you?” asked Becker.

  “Right here. It'll probably work better if we go in together.”

  “Sounds good. Nine o'clock at the bar.”

  “In front of the building. It doesn't open until noon.”

  Becker nodded.

  “Okay,” said MacCarron, getting to his feet. “If you'll excuse me, I've got some arrangements to make.” He shook Becker's hand. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Right.”

  “And remember to bring the money.”

  Becker nodded, and MacCarron began making his way toward the front door.

  “How did it go?” asked Jaimie, returning to the table and sitting down opposite Becker.

  “We're in,” said Becker. “Or, at least, I'm in.” He paused. “And I'll need a thousand dollars instead of five hundred.”

  She smiled. “You're awfully generous with my money, Counselor.”

  “If I thought it was yours, I'd be a lot more careful with it,” he replied. “Can you get it before nine in the morning?”

  “No problem,” she said, getting up, “I think we'd better get back to the hotel and get a good night's sleep. There's every possibility that one of us is going to need it.”

  “Relax,” said Becker. “We're on the last lap. Once I talk to Montoya, I'll have enough on those bastards that they'll have to put Jennings away without a trial.”

  “You really think so, Counselor?” she asked.

  “Of course. Don't you?”

  “Ask me tomorrow,” said Jaimie.

  “I'm asking you now.”

  “Has it occurred to you, Counselor, that we've come awfully far awfully easy?”

  “Easy?” laughed Becker. “My God, Jaimie—without your help I'd still be making meaningless threats to Jim Magnussen.”

  “It's not that,” she said.

  “Then what?”

  “You told me that the army had three computer experts as good as me, remember?”

  “So?”

  “So if this is such a big scandal, why didn't one of them hide the data on Montoya?”

  “One of them probably did.”

  She shook her head. “It wasn't that hard to find.”

  “Then maybe they're keeping it in a small circle of intimates, and none of your experts qualified.”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Why do you think it was so easy?”

  “I wish I knew,” said Jaimie.

  9.

  Jaimie was busily trying to track down all of Chief Medical Officer Gillette's secret bank accounts when Becker finally left the hotel.

  He flagged down a cab and arrived at The Destroyer just before nine o'clock. MacCarron was already there, waiting for him and looking nervous.

  “Good morning,” said Becker pleasantly.

  “Morning,” replied MacCarron.

  “Is it all set?”

  MacCarron nodded.

  Becker handed him an envelope with ten hundred-dollar bills in it. Jaimie had gone out at seven in the morning and returned with it an hour later; he hadn't asked her where the money had come from.

  MacCarron peeked into the envelope, then slipped it into his pocket.

  “All right,” he said. “Let's go.”

  He led Becker to a military car, unlocked it, waited unti
l they were both seated, and then headed off to the base.

  “You seem edgy,” noted Becker.

  “This may not be as easy as it seemed last night,” responded MacCarron.

  “Oh?” said Becker, sounding surprised.

  “Yeah.”

  “What else has Benares done?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But—”

  “Look,” said MacCarron harshly, “you don't need to know anything about it. Just keep quiet when we get there and let me do the talking.”

  “Whatever you say,” replied Becker.

  They drove the next few minutes in silence, and then MacCarron spoke again.

  “If it should turn out that this isn't the Sam Benares you're looking for, what will you do next?”

  “Keep looking.”

  “If I can hunt up another Sam Benares at Fort Sheridan or some other location, do I get another finder's fee?”

  “If this isn't our man.”

  MacCarron grunted, and shortly thereafter they entered the Great Lakes Naval Base. He drove past a long row of barracks and a handful of administration buildings, and finally pulled up to a large building that was badly in need of a coat of paint. He parked in a space that was labelled Reserved For Officers.

  “Remember to keep your mouth shut,” said MacCarron tensely as they got out of the car and walked up to the main entrance.

  MacCarron showed his pass to the young officer at the front door, and introduced Becker as a visiting security officer who was taking a brief tour of the entire base.

  The officer nodded his approval, and the two men stepped into the large, well-scrubbed lobby.

  “Follow me,” said MacCarron, heading off to his left, “and try to look as if you belong here.”

  Becker fell into step behind him, and a moment later MacCarron was loudly explaining the security devices that had been installed in the bank of public elevators. Finally they edged down to the service elevator, and MacCarron led him into it, still pointing out various features. Then the door slid shut and they began ascending to the sixth floor.

  “Hi, Charlie,” said MacCarron to the armed guard who confronted them when the emerged from the elevator.

  “Good morning, sir. Is this the officer you mentioned to me last night?”

  MacCarron nodded. “This is Major Max Smith, who's here to study our security methods.”

  “Okay,” responded Charlie, his eyes darting up and down the long corridor, “but I strongly suggest that Major Smith not waste any time. My replacement's due in about twenty minutes.”

  “We'll be back in five,” MacCarron promised him. “Ten at the outside.”

  The young guard frisked Becker quickly, then saluted and stood aside. “You may pass, sir.”

  MacCarron and Becker both returned the salute and rode the corridor to the corner of the building, where MacCarron stepped onto the floor and Becker followed suit. They turned left and walked past two heavily-guarded rooms, saluting as they passed, then turned left again and walked halfway down yet another corridor before they entered an unnumbered room which had no armed guards in front of it.

  “Here he is,” said MacCarron.

  An obviously Hispanic patient was sitting up in his bed, reading a magazine.

  “This is the guy?” he asked.

  MacCarron nodded.

  “Tell you what,” said the patient, handing him an envelope. “Why don't you cash this across the street? By the time you get back, I think we'll be have solved our little problem.”

  “You're sure you'll be okay?” asked MacCarron.

  The patient grinned. “Do I look like a father-to-be?”

  MacCarron shrugged and left the room. Becker waited until the door slid shut behind him and then approached the bed.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Major,” said the patient, “but my name isn't really Sam Benares.”

  “That's okay,” said Becker, pulling up a chair. “Mine isn't Max Smith.”

  The patient frowned. “What's going on here?”

  “I am a major and I am a lawyer, but my name's Maxwell Becker, and I'm representing Captain Wilbur Jennings at his murder trial. Does the name mean anything to you?”

  “Of course it does.”

  “You are Lieutenant Anthony Montoya, late of the Theodore Roosevelt, aren't you?”

  “Yeah, that's me,” said Montoya.

  “I want to ask you a couple of questions about the Roosevelt.”

  “Sure, why not?” said Montoya with a shrug.

  “Nobody has told you not to speak to me?” asked Becker, surprised.

  “Major, I never heard your name before, until you announced yourself.”

  Becker frowned. “Nobody has told you not to discuss the Jennings case?”

  “That's right.”

  “Then what are you doing on the security level of the hospital?”

  Montoya stared directly at Becker. “Meaning no disrespect, I don't think that's any of your business, Major.”

  Becker, aware of the press of time, elected not to debate the point. “All right,” he said. “First question: did Jennings ever mention to you and to a Lieutenant Mallardi that crewmen Greenberg and Provost were acting strangely?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Did he offer any conclusions or suggestions as to why they were behaving so oddly?”

  Montoya shook his head. “No, he just mentioned it in passing. In fact, I had totally put it out of my mind until he went crazy and killed them.”

  “You didn't follow it up?”

  “I didn't have to,” said Montoya. “I knew why they were acting that way.”

  Becker cleared his throat. “You really should have an attorney present for my next question, but I'm going to have to ask it anyway.”

  Montoya looked amused. “Here it comes.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Go ahead and ask your question, Major. I have a feeling that you know a lot more than you're supposed to know.”

  “How deeply involved with the Roosevelt's drug ring were you?”

  Montoya laughed aloud. “Well, that's a new one!”

  “You haven't answered my question.”

  “I was deeply involved—but not in the way you think.”

  “Then perhaps you'll enlighten me.”

  Montoya opened a drawer of his nightstand and withdrew a wallet. He opened it and handed it to Becker.

  “You're a member of the space service's Internal Security Division?” said Becker, surprised.

  “That's right, Major.”

  Becker frowned in confusion. “It doesn't say anything about this on your dossier.”

  “It does if you know where to look for it,” said Montoya. “It's not the kind of thing we're anxious to make public.”

  “What's the story about the drugs?”

  “Does this have a direct bearing on Jennings’ defense?” asked Montoya.

  “If it didn't, I wouldn't be asking,” replied Becker, grateful for the question and keenly aware that their conversation was probably being monitored.

  “I don't know if I can talk about it.”

  “There are a couple things I need to know.”

  “Tell you what,” said Montoya after a moment's consideration. “As long as you you've found out on your own that there was a drug ring, I'll give you whatever you want on deep background. But in exchange for my cooperation, you will never subpoena me or identify me as a source.”

  “I may have to.”

  “I don't know how you discovered this, Major, but we're not ready to go public with this yet.”

  “Who is 'we'?

  “Do we have a deal?”

  “No.”

  “Then I've got nothing to say.”

  Becker stared at him for a long moment, and finally nodded. “Okay. You've got all the answers—I guess we'll have to play by your rules.”

  “You might as well,” said Montoya. “The military will never let you get me into court until they're re
ady.”

  “Ready for what?”

  Montoya lowered his voice confidentially, despite the fact that the door was closed. “Large stores of narcotics—and I mean large—were turning up missing from Bethesda for the past two years, and we suspected Gillette was at the center of it. As we began closing in, he applied for deep space duty and got assigned to the Roosevelt. We couldn't stop him without tipping our hand too soon, so we had to let him go. We kept his replacement under surveillance, and I was put aboard the Roosevelt to keep an eye on him.”

  “And?” said Becker.

  “Major, I could hardly believe my eyes! Half the crew was stoned from the moment we took off. I've put together a pretty good case against Gillette and Mallardi—and I had one against Greenberg and Provost, too, until the Captain went mad and killed them—but what happened aboard the Roosevelt is small potatoes compared to what's going on back at Bethesda, at least in terms of the quantity of drugs involved, so the service is keeping me on ice until we've got our bigger case ready to go. No sense warning Gillette's people if we don't have to.”

  “So they're not hiding you from Jennings!” said Becker. “They're just keeping you tucked away until they've broken the drug ring.”

  “Right.”

  “But why did they let Gillette go back into deep space?”

  “It's as good a place as any to keep him until we've identified every person in the ring.” He paused. “This is going to be the biggest drug case in the history of the military, and we're making sure that everything's in its place before we finally go to court.”

  Becker paused, trying to assimilate all that he had been told. Finally he turned his attention back to Montoya. “You've been here in the hospital since the Roosevelt landed?”

  “No, I was on leave until a few weeks ago. I really did have the flu, and it gave them a great opportunity to hide me. They took advantage of it, too—I haven't seen or spoken to anyone except MacCarron and a couple of my fellow patients for more than a week. Then, two days ago, they moved me here after someone in the drug ring made a threat on my life.” He grimaced. “It's a pain in the ass, being stuck here like this. For all I know, the President's been assassinated and we're at war.”

  “He's alive and we're at peace,” Becker assured him with a smile.

  “Well, that's comforting, anyway,” replied Montoya dryly. He paused. “Is MacCarron going to get to keep the money?”

  Becker nodded.