The Infinite League Page 2

  He was a bit more muscular than he was four years ago, but no less unattractive. Maybe it was that consistent leer on his face, or the fact that his breath reeked of cheap cigars, or his ridiculous ratty hairstyle that looks like the type of mullet a meth-head would adopt.

  “Well, if it ain’t me favorite rosspot,” he said, favoring me with an unrequested wink and a flamboyant wave of his hand. “Please, step into my boudoir, Officer Watts.”

  “A boudoir is a woman’s private sitting room, you dumb shit,” I explained to him as I walked past, while giving him just enough eye contact to remind him who was in charge here. “Are we ready to do this thing?”

  “Always ready for a pint and a scuttle,” he told me. “What sort of mischief is we playing at tonight, Officer Watts?”

  I’ve asked him twice not to refer to me as officer. He knows I’ve been dismissed from the force, and he’s just saying it to get under my skin. It’s his petty revenge tactic for spending three years in prison---because of a female officer, no less. You’d think the money he’s making would be enticement enough to behave.

  “Stop causing trouble, Eamon,” said a new voice from the other side of the apartment. “She may not be a cop anymore, but I’m sure she could get your probation revoked.”

  “And if I can’t, I know Sadaf could swim into your police records and add a few interesting felony violations,” I added. “Then we’ll talk about mischief.”

  Sadaf Sayegh. She’s been a friend of mine for several years now, and she’s also one of the most brilliant computer hackers I’ve ever met. She’s a beautiful young Muslim woman from the small Middle East country of Habindaque, and probably one of the sweetest souls I’ve ever met. Considering everything she’s endured in her home country, I have no idea how she manages to retain that big heart of hers.

  She wore a lovely purple hijab trimmed with gold stripes around her head, and a conservative but dark set of pants that allowed her to run in. Normally she preferred to wear a robe, but she’s smartly dressed for the job ahead.

  “Let’s not be getting nasty, girls,” Eamon finally said with a wave of surrender. “We’re just here to make some money.”

  “It’s not just about the money,” I reminded him quickly. “Don’t forget about that. This is about making the world a better place.”

  “The money is just going to be a happy fringe benefit,” Sadaf pointed out, as she slid her laptop computer into a leather satchel. “There’s a lot of friends and family I could feed with twelve thousand dollars.”

  “And I have some strippers what’s needing some college tuition,” Eamon nodded. “Who’s the target tonight?”

  “Sam Fleckmore,” I said firmly. “He owns a property in Rittenhouse Square. Eamon is going to quietly break into his home, Sadaf is going to hack into his personal computer, and then we’ll all wait for him to come home so I can have a quiet conversation with him.”

  Eamon knew the plan, this wasn’t the first time we had operated this scam together. But he didn’t know the target was Sam Fleckmore.

  “Moving up in the world, aren’t you girlie?”

  Anything that could cause Eamon Flanagan, two-time convicted felon and world class sadistic prick, to stop in his tracks and stare at me in astonishment, was a genuine moment to savor. This was going to be an interesting night.

  2

  A Little Bit of Justice

  Tuesday, April 29 – 7:00 p.m.

  Samuel Lymon Fleckmore started off as a used car dealer from Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. I remember when he was just a badly dressed jerk with a string of annoying billboards and television ads. He owned a small apartment that happened to be the final holdout property barring the way from a large development project planned for that suburb. The clever bastard ended up selling it to the developers for six million dollars. That’s five times what he paid for it ten years ago.

  After that, life just kept getting sunnier for ol’ Sam. His dealership expanded to a few more branches, and he eventually bought an apartment complex of his own to manage. It’s the American dream, and some people are just born to thrive in the rapids.

  The trouble with having too much money is you’re tempted to start believing little things like laws and ethics somehow don’t apply to you anymore. Now true, given the sort of activities I’ve gotten myself involved in since leaving the force, I might not be the best one to give lectures on laws and ethics. But there’s definitely a line.

  The gated community where he lived was actually the easiest part to sneak into. Eamon had gleefully suggested that we should just break the guard’s nose, and leave him hog-tied in his station for the fifteen minutes it would probably take for us to get our job done. I suggested the less noisy option, involving a fake call about a suspicious character on the north side of the community. When the rent-a-cop left his station, it was easy for me to run up to the guard station and open the gates. We proceeded to the south side of the neighborhood, where Fleckmore resided.

  The sun was just starting to go down for the night, which is exactly what I planned for. It might seem counter-intuitive to break in to someone’s apartment during the daylight hours, but people generally seem less suspicious of strangers walking around in full view. It’s the strangers sneaking around in the dark that get people nervous.

  I had studied the layout of the community over the last few weeks, and my lovely hacker friend was able to get some aerial reconnaissance from a drone that I had picked up recently. We knew that Fleckmore’s neighbors were out of the state for the week, and we could park our car in their driveway. The shrubs separating their property would hide our vehicle, and our mark would think it was safe to enter his home.

  Just like the last couple of adventures that we’ve been on, Eamon had lived up to his reputation. He had what looked like a small radio in his hand, which was actually a nifty little device that had cost him nearly two grand.

  “It does a replay attack,” he mentioned proudly, as he activated it outside Fleckmore’s door. “It copies the alarm signal and sends them back to the source. It sends a false signal, see? Makes the alarm totally unreliable.”

  “You bragged about it on the last job,” I snapped at him, looking around the complex nervously. “Quit running your mouth and get it open.”

  Once the alarm system had been defeated, it was easy for me to pick the lock. It would have been easy to just smash the door in and grab the specific item, of course. What I was after would take just about two minutes to find, and we could have been on our way.

  But for what I wanted from this man, I had to see him face to face. Signs of forced entry would have made that impossible.

  Fleckmore did have a wife, but they had been estranged for some time. He typically got home every night at seven on the dot. That gave us a comfortable thirty minutes for Sadaf to find his personal computer, hack into his personal accounts, encrypted files and bank records, and make a complete back-up copy of everything on his computer.

  He was a man of consistent routine, and he arrived at his home right on schedule. Sadaf, also a woman with reliable habits, finished her job in ten minutes. There was enough time for us all to have a snack from the lavishly stocked refrigerator.

  I had everyone in their places when they arrived. Eamon was positioned behind the foyer, ready to provide back up if our target decided to get uncooperative. Sadaf would remain safely in the bedroom until I deemed it safe for her to join us.

  Sadaf was surprised that he didn’t have any security cameras inside his own office. But it made sense, considering what we knew about him. If I had his particular tastes in entertainment, I probably wouldn’t want a record of it coming back to bite me in the ass, either.

  By the time he arrived, the sun had set and the corners of the apartment were obscured in darkness. He strolled into the house, sifting through a handful of bills and magazines, blindly unaware of anything amiss. I was standing perfectly still by the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, unnoticed for the
first few seconds. In those ticks of the clock, I studied him for the first time up close. He was shorter than me, but a lot of men are. I’m 5’ 11, and I usually hate how intimidated most guys are by my height. Sometimes though, it just rocks.

  When he reached for the light switch, just a few feet from my position, that’s when he saw me smiling at him. He reached for something in his pocket. I really don’t like getting shot at, so I slammed the flat of my palm against his sweaty little forehead and shoved the full force of my arm behind the blow. I felt an aching throbbing in my elbow, which told me that I jammed my arm again when I hit him. But seeing him topple on the ground like a pudgy little clown was worth the pain.

  I was about to give the order to Eamon to make his appearance, but he was already way ahead of me. He saw that Fleckmore was reaching for something inside his jacket pocket, and the Irish thug was already on top of him, reaching to disarm him. Nothing in my reconnaissance suggested that Fleckmore carried a weapon, and he didn’t particularly have any enemies that made him feel concerned for his safety. As it turned out, it wasn’t a gun.

  “What sort of man carries around a bottle of mace?” I asked him. “That’s seriously lame, man.”

  “You could have given me a concussion, you bitch!”

  I was about to say something in reply, but Eamon quickly reached down to the fat man’s knees, lifted his leg up, and flipped him on his back. It knocked the wind out of him, preventing him from making any further biting remarks.

  “Sadaf, have you finished your work honey?”

  On cue, my hacker walked out of the bedroom, smoothing out the wrinkles on her sleeves as she walked. “Everything’s secure. We’re done here, boss.”

  “You people are seriously fucked in the head,” he promised us, wiping the blood from his forehead. “I’ve got cameras all over this house, and there’s security cameras on every block of this neighborhood. The three of you are stupid enough to wander in here without masks? If you guys are smart, you’re going to walk right out of here and run for your lives! If you leave out of here right now, maybe I’ll forget I ever saw your ugly faces!”

  It was a fair amount of bluffing, honestly. It might have worked on a less experienced crew. But as soon as he finished his huffing, that’s when I started laughing. The other two followed suit, as if we’d all just heard the funniest joke in years.

  “You don’t have security cameras in your house,” I told him. “You’re a slimy paranoid shit, you wouldn’t dare have them installed. And the camera covering this street was quietly removed for a maintenance problem this morning.”

  “I might have had something to do with that,” Sadaf admitted to him with a guilty grin. “I’ve been naughty.”

  “But not as naughty as you’ve been,” I continued. “You’ve been looking at things you’re not supposed to be looking at, haven’t you? Now sit still, be a good boy, and listen closely. Or I’ll have my big friend reach into your trousers and tear your little salesman off.”

  He looked cornered, and he desperately searched for a way out. I won’t lie…watching him squirm was actually a highlight of the visit. “My wife is going to be home any minute,” he warned us.

  Eamon was standing in front of him now, holding an object that he had found on the mantel of his chimney. It was a cone-shaped award made of glass and metal, with the words Stonecraft Auto Dealership of the Year inscribed in the base.

  “This is a nice trophy,” he commented dryly, thumping it against the palm of his hand.

  “Thank you,” Fleckmore whispered, watching him carefully. The award was heavy and solid, and if Eamon had a mind to swing it at Fleckmore’s head, it would crack his skull open.

  “You’re wife hates your guts, and she hasn’t been in your home in quite a spell,” Eamon pointed out. “If you interrupt the boss one more time, I’m going to shove this pointy piece of shit award right up your mushy ass. Now sit down and shut the fuck up.”

  Now that we had his attention, Fleckmore slowly made his way to the couch, nervously shifting his gaze among the three of us. By now, he knew this was more than just a random home invasion. We knew his name, we knew about his wife, and we knew what security he did and didn’t have. Right now, he was hoping that’s all we knew.

  “You don’t have to hurt me,” he said miserably, fearfully watching Eamon as he opened his mouth. “I’ve got some money if that’s what you’re after.”

  “I know,” I told him, making myself comfortable on the nearby love seat. “We’ve seen your accounts, they’re very attractive.”

  “You have just over $140,000 in your account,” Sadaf announced, referring to a list of information on her computer. “There’s another $830,000 in your private accounts in the Cayman Islands, which is probably not being properly taxed.”

  “Is this what you people do?” He stood to his feet, and his voice was raised just slightly louder than I was comfortable with. Eamon gripped the trophy a bit tighter, and our mark wisely lowered his voice and returned to his seated position. “You go into someone’s home and force them to give over their life’s savings?”

  “I’m not taking your life’s savings, you stubby little prick,” I informed him, barely looking at the man. On the coffee table was a manila folder, and I slid it closer to him. “We just want twenty large transferred to my offshore account. You’ll find the account written on the folder, if you don’t mind.”

  He looked at the account number, shaking his head in disbelief. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why go through all this trouble for twenty thousand dollars? You obviously know I’ve got a lot more. That can’t be all you want.”

  “Maybe he is smarter than he looks,” Sadaf laughed.

  “First of all, don’t think of it as a robbery,” I suggested helpfully. “Think of it as a fine. For the crime of being a bottom-feeding inhuman

  piece of vomit. Open the folder, you asshole.”

  He did. Any normal person, any person with a soul, any other person would go pale at the sight of the pictures sitting in the folder. In truth, Samuel Fleckmore didn’t look very happy when he saw the pictures, There were images and images of children. Undressed. Fearful. Crying. Scarred. Touched by adult hands in sickening ways that no child should ever be subjected to. They weren’t the first time he had seen any of them.

  “You look like you’re about to throw up,” I told him. “I wish I could say it’s because you find those images as reprehensible as I do. But the sad truth is, the only reason you’re feeling that guilty, queasy knot in your soul is because you know where we found those images.”

  “An entire library of this filth,” Sadaf spat at him accusingly. “All on your computer, hidden by walls of encryption that took me about five minutes to break through.”

  “So yes, you’re right,” I continued, watching the papers drop from his fingers into a pile of evidence at his feet. “It’s not just the money I want. We’re also taking your computer. You know, to keep you honest.”

  “But also because we want to find your supplier,” Eamon explained. “The sick son of a bitch who’s making these video files and images for assholes like you.”

  “Half of the money is being divided between the three of us,” I told him. “The other half is going to be donated to RAINN.”

  “The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network needs that money more than you do,” said Sadaf. “Now, this is your only chance. Tell us who sold you those images. If we like your answer, maybe we won’t hand this computer over to the FBI.”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed quickly, shaking his hands wildly. “I never met the suppliers personally!”

  “He’s lying,” Eamon decided, flashing me a grin that even I found a bit unsettling. “You said if he lied, I could slice his balls off!”

  I never suggested anything of the sort, but it was a creative touch. “He’s not lying. Whoever put together this slide show would be trying to stay nice and anonymous.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Sada
f reported, tucking the laptop under her arm. “All the bread crumbs are here on the computer. Give me a few hours, I’m sure I can find out where this garbage came from.”

  “I think we’re done here,” I decided. “Right after we get our money.”

  “The silly bastard is on the phone, Emily,” Sadaf noticed as we began to drive away from his home. “He’s looking fairly agitated.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I told you we should have killed him,” Eamon lectured me, angrily leaning back in his seat. “What if one of those kids had been your son?”

  “We’re not killing anyone, you asshole,” I reminded him for the twentieth time. “Deep down, I’m still a cop, okay?”

  When we jumped into my car, I made certain to drive away from his house so he wouldn’t be able to get a good look at my ride. But in the few seconds that his front window was in view, he was clearly screaming into his phone.

  “He wouldn’t call the police, right?” Sadaf decided, with absolutely no certainty in her voice. “He wants to avoid the humiliation.”

  “We’re not out of this yet,” I grimly reminded her. “If the police pull us over, he’ll get his computer back and have it cleaned out before we’re even booked. Let’s not take any chances.”

  I was hoping that the wild goose chase we’d sent the security guard at the front gate was still keeping him preoccupied, but that was nearly an hour ago.

  As I feared, the guard was back at his station. I could see from a few blocks away that he had been on his phone. Nothing about this looked good.

  “Any chance at all that phone call wasn’t to Barney Fife there?” Eamon wondered out loud.

  Generally, when a resident is leaving a gated community, the guard simply gives him a wave and lifts the gate. In this case, he had walked out of the guard house, and was giving me a pretty clear gesture that he wanted me to come to a halt.

  Eamon, who was sitting in the passenger seat, put his large hand on my knee and gently squeezed. “I just want you to know that when they take us in, I’m telling them you kidnapped me.”