“Sometimes good lawyers are worth whatever you pay them,” Stone said, with a little reproval in his voice.
“Oh, I know that, and I don’t question either the quality of their work or what I paid them. I just don’t think they ever realized who they were dealing with in Gino’s case—nor did I, for that matter.”
“A good contract covers legalities,” Stone said. “It’s difficult to predict illegalities, though every attorney tries to. Has Bellini committed any criminal act that you know of?”
“I suspect so,” Meg replied. “I suspect that he’s planted little bombs in our software that can be triggered whenever he likes.”
“Have you caught him at it?”
“My people can’t even find the bombs, let alone prove that he put them there. I think what he’s doing is using a password that he set up some time ago to get into the programs and set off the bombs. And now, because of the deal I’ve made with him, he has the current passwords necessary to do that—the aforementioned keys to the kingdom. He knew the demonstration to the Steele board was coming up and how important that would be to the company’s success, and he’s managed to turn that into fifteen million dollars in his pocket.”
“Will there be other opportunities for him to do that?”
“Oh, yes. We’ll be turning over our prototypes and our software to the State of California and the U.S. government soon, and it’s critical that we get certification from both, otherwise we won’t be able to go into production and do large-scale fleet testing of the vehicles. I’ll tell you this, Stone, in the strictest confidence—last night I was thinking of trying to find someone to kill the man.”
“Whoa,” Stone said. “Even if that were successful, like the bribe you paid, it would create more problems for you than it would solve.”
“My brain tells me that, but my gut wants him dead,” she said.
“Let me explain how this would go,” Stone said. “First of all, you’d have to find a contract killer, a hit man. Do you know someone who might know someone who does that?”
She laughed. “The only person I know who might know someone like that is Gino Bellini.”
Stone laughed. “What happens when someone like you tries to find someone like that is that you have to deal with criminals, people who can’t be trusted, no matter how much money they are being offered. Often, these people are already snitches for one or more police officers or FBI agents. They’re out on parole, maybe, and they want to endear themselves to the people who have the power to send them back to prison. You’d find yourself handing over money in an alley or a bar somewhere to an officer of the law, who will then arrest you and charge you with conspiracy to murder. It’s a losing game.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I should just lure Gino into a back alley and shoot him myself,” she said. “Then I wouldn’t have to trust anybody, and I’d save a lot of money.”
“And you would almost certainly spend the rest of your life in prison.”
“Why? I’m smart, why couldn’t I get away with it?”
“You’re talking to a former homicide detective, and I can tell you from experience that there are so many ways to make mistakes and so many techniques available to the police for finding those mistakes that you’d have very little chance of success. All it takes is one little mistake, and you’re done. The best you could hope for is to hire the world’s most expensive defense lawyer who might, somehow, win at trial and get you off. You’d spend more than you’ve already given Bellini on your defense, then his wife would bring a civil suit against you for wrongful death, which you could easily lose, and for the rest of your life, at least half the people who know and love you would believe that you’re a murderer, and that would be hard to live with.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Meg said disconsolately.
“Ask O. J. Simpson,” Stone said.
The autopilot turned the yacht toward the last waypoint and, ahead, low islands came into sight.
10
Gino Bellini switched off his laptop. “There,” he said, “Miss Meg is up and running again. For the moment, at least.”
“Have you given up on just killing her outright?” Veronica asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Gino replied. “Dirty Joe is still on the hunt in Key West.”
“That didn’t go so well last time—we had to run for it.”
“I’ve instructed him to wait until he has a shot in some out-of-the-way spot, where the police can’t be all over him in a minute.”
“You’re going to let her do her demonstration to the Steele board?”
“Of course. I want her to have the illusion of progress, until I can hit her again. Or until Dirty Joe can.”
“Who is Dirty Joe? You haven’t told me anything about him.”
“Joe Cross. We did some time together in a California reform school when we were just kids, and we kept in touch. We called him Dirty Joe even then, because there was nothing he wouldn’t do for money. When I was at Stanford he dealt marijuana on campus. When I was in Silicon Valley, he upped his game to cocaine, which was the propellant of choice there in those days. On the side, he’d do hits, and he always got away with it. He sort of retired to the Keys, living up in Islamorada, but he’s always receptive to the opportunity for fast cash.”
“And you think he can handle this?”
“He hasn’t done a day of time since reform school, and that record was expunged when he was twenty-one, so he’s on nobody’s list of suspects, which is usually the problem when you want somebody hit. The police look at the record first.”
“But he hit the wrong person in Key West. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“It was a windy day, and that was as close as he could get. If we’re patient, Dirty Joe will come through, and Meg’s inferiors will be a lot easier to deal with.”
* * *
—
DIRTY JOE CROSS and his girlfriend, Jane Jillian, known to her friends as Jungle Jane, sat back a mile or so in their offshore boat, a thirty-six-footer with three large outboards clamped to the stern, and Joe watched through his binoculars as the blue Hinckley rounded Fort Jefferson and picked up a mooring in the little harbor. “They’re down for the night,” Joe said, “and the light’s going. We’re not going to get a shot at them before tomorrow morning. We got anything to eat aboard?”
“No problem,” Jane replied. “If you want fresh fish, I’ll catch you something for supper.”
“Good idea,” he said. “Snapper, maybe?”
“Whatever the sea yields,” she replied. “If you want to get picky, find yourself a fish restaurant. The nearest one is about seventy miles away.”
“I’ll eat whatever you put in front of me,” Joe said.
* * *
—
THE HARBOR was empty of other boats, and Stone was glad of it. “Dino, Viv, and I were out here last Christmas,” he said to Meg.
“Tell me about the fort,” Meg asked.
“It was built sometime before the Civil War, and during the war it was used as a prison for Union deserters. The only reason a lot of people ever heard of it was when there was a yellow fever epidemic on the island, and Dr. Samuel Mudd was imprisoned here for the crime of aiding and abetting John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Booth had broken his leg when he jumped from Lincoln’s box to the stage at Ford’s Theatre, and he fled into Maryland, where he stopped at Dr. Mudd’s house for help along the road south. Mudd knew Booth but treated him anyway and didn’t report him until the following day. As a result, he was convicted along with the other conspirators and sentenced to life in prison.
“He was sent to Fort Jefferson, and while he was here yellow fever broke out, and Mudd heroically saved many lives, for which he was eventually pardoned by the President.”
“I hope there’s no yellow fever now,” Meg said.
“Nope, it’s now a national park.”
They had a drink, and Dino and Viv grilled steaks for dinner.
* * *
—