Chapter 18 Roger
Chapter eighteen
Roger
Once Harper and I finish our meals and the appetizers for Jessie and Elijah have been devoured, I bring over the last plate that’s still covered. I set it down on the coffee table and remove the silver dome, watching Harper’s eyes alight with joy when the sweet treat underneath is revealed.
“You ordered chocolate-covered strawberries!” she exclaims. Harper kisses my cheek when I sit down beside her. “Thank you for this. I was only half-joking when I said I needed chocolate.”
“Roger’s the sweetest,” Jessie says, waiting for Harper to choose a berry. Although there’s more than enough to go around, everyone present knows that I ordered these with Harper in mind.
Elijah scowls playfully, “You mean the second sweetest, right?”
“Yeah. Sure. That’s what I meant. Roger’s the second sweetest man, Harper. I got the first, and Elijah will never let me forget it,” she winks.
Elijah leans back in his chair, satisfied. “Not even when we’re old and gray.”
I clutch my heart and act as if I’m wounded. “There’s nothing wrong with a little gray.”
“I’m partial to it,” Harper admits as she picks up a large berry sitting on a silver doily. She gestures toward the plate. “Please, help yourselves.”
I walk over to the closet where we have been storing our additional equipment, and the floorboard squeaks louder than it had before. “The board is getting looser. I’ll really do need to call maintenance to come and fix that before it becomes a trip hazard.”
I retrieve the scanning device from the bag and run it over the areas where Simms and Monroe had been. When there aren’t any beeps, I turn the scanner off and set it on the table. Jessie reaches for a delectable berry as she says, “I thought you already cleared this room?”
I shift in my seat and glance at the door. “I did, but I wouldn’t put it past Agent Simms or Monroe to have planted a listening device when I was in the bedroom calling the two of you and ordering lunch.”
I go on to tell them the conversation Harper and I had with the agents, bringing Jessie and Elijah up to speed. Elijah asks, “How much are we planning on sharing with them? From all accounts, it doesn’t sound like you trust them.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust them,” I say. “It’s that when Harper mentioned them tapping her phone and emails, they didn’t deny it.”
Jessie and Harper narrow their eyes at me since they both know me well enough to know that I’m not telling them everything. Harper rests her hand on my leg and asks, “What aren’t you saying, Roger? What do you know that we don’t?”
“It’s just a hunch and nothing more,” I say.
“I trust your hunches more than most people’s facts, Roger,” Jessie says. “Sharing is caring, so spill it.”
“Director Whitman is positive that Robert and Eloise are involved in a nefarious plot. To do what, I’m not sure.
However, if Whitman has agents monitoring Harper’s communication, they likely suspect that her parents will contact her or that she’s somehow involved.
Agent Monroe’s parting remark about ‘one less Finnegan to deal with’ drives that point home. ”
Harper sits up, her back ramrod straight and her body vibrating with agitation.
“It may be worse than that. While Roger was ordering lunch, Agent Simms all but accused Shining Knight of operating outside of the law. It’s not us that doesn’t trust them.
It’s the other way around. We need to be very careful moving forward. ”
Jessie bobs her head in agreement. “We should route everything through Ethan and Ben. It’s their company that’s in jeopardy if we misstep.”
I agree and call Ethan, putting him on speaker. His son, Xander, is laughing and giggling in the background when he answers. “Hey, Roger, give me a second to go to my office. It will be a little quieter.”
I chuckle. “A child’s laughter is one of the best sounds in the world, but I understand that it can be distracting during a phone call.”
“Don’t I know it,” Ethan replies. I listen as a door opens and closes, the laughter becoming muted. “Xander is watching an episode of VeggieTales. He loves Larry the Cucumber and can’t get enough of him. But enough about that. I doubt my son’s television habits are why you called.”
I spend the next ten minutes detailing Agent Simms’ and Agent Monroe’s visit as well as Monroe’s hostility toward Harper. “When Harper threatened to resign, Monroe welcomed it with open arms. He practically dared her to do it.”
Ethan is silent for a moment, but he’s taking time to mull over the information. “We should continue to share information with the FBI, but I agree that it should be funneled through Ben and me first. A single point of contact will make things easier for all of us. Harper?”
“I’m here,” she says, leaning closer to the phone.
“Should you decide to leave the FBI, it won’t be without job opportunities available to you. We’ll be more than happy to have you join Shining Knight,” Ethan tells her.
Harper sneaks a peek at me, not sure how I feel about the offer.
I give her a ten-mile smile so that she knows I fully support the idea should she choose to accept.
No doubt we will discuss it later when it’s just the two of us.
She rubs the back of her neck and relaxes some.
“Thank you, Ethan. That means the world to me.”
“You’re family, Harper. We take care of our own.
Speaking of taking care of people, Carter and Leanna have informed me that Carlos and Mrs. Gutierrez accepted the offer of relocation for the entire family and medical care for her youngest child.
In exchange, Carlos will cooperate and tell us what he knows.
After Carlos came home in the early hours this morning, he packed a bag and was ready to run just as Carter and Leanna arrived.
He said he’d share what he knew once his family was safe and warned us that it wasn’t going to be much.
They should be arriving at the airfield shortly and up here before midnight. ”
I sag in relief. “That’s good news.”
“Indeed, it is,” Ethan says. “The ladies are going with a team to prepare the safe house as we speak and decorate it for Christmas. My wife even made sure to take the platinum card to go shopping for clothes and gifts for the family. Uprooting one’s life is hard enough, but to do it at Christmas can be rough, especially for the kids. ”
“Do you have anything new for us on your end, Ethan?” Elijah asks.
“Actually, I do. There was another remote login on Finnegan’s computer less than an hour ago, and Jerry traced it to a coffee shop in Marathon.
A different coffee shop than before. That’s going to make tracking whoever it is more difficult for Jaxon if they keep bouncing around to different locations.
The good news is that both attempts are in the same town, which means the person is staying local.
I’ll be sending Jaxon additional help, so hopefully, we’ll catch a break. ”
“Do you think it’s my father?” Harper asks.
“Yes,” Ethan says bluntly. “Although we can’t say that with one hundred percent certainty.
Jerry is adding a program that will log the keystrokes so that we can get into the encrypted file and see what’s in it.
We’ll have to wait until there is another login attempt and pray that they access that particular file. ”
We chat for a few more minutes, and Ethan leaves us with one last parting gift before signing off.
“As soon as Carter gets Leanna settled in, he’ll be returning to Florida to assist Jaxon.
They will install cameras at every coffee shop in town and monitor from a safe location.
It could be a few days before there is anything of note, but I expect it to yield results. ”
“Hopefully, they are the positive kind.” I hit the end call button on the phone and turn toward what’s left of the team. “With a man down and Harper getting shot with a tranquilizer dart, we need to be extremely cautious moving forward.”
“What do you want us to do now, Roger?” Jessie asks. “With the FBI crawling around, it’s highly unlikely that the crew on the charter boat will be making any pickups anytime soon. If they’re smart, they’ll lay low until all this blows over.”
Elijah rubs his chin, pondering his wife’s statement.
“I don’t know. If I had a timeline I needed to keep, I may be willing to take additional risks.
However, it’s not as if one can just go down the street and get 40 or so pounds of weapons-grade uranium.
Here’s what I can’t figure out. Whitman sent down agents to arrest the crew and confiscate the uranium.
They let the kids go because they didn’t have any proof, yet not a single agent thought to bring radiation detection equipment or even protective clothing or gloves. ”
Harper cocks her head and then defends Whitman’s actions.
“There wasn’t time. As it was, if the kids hadn’t been knocked out and taken hours to recover, the boat would have docked before the agents arrived.
The time it would have taken to check out special equipment like that would have negated any chance of catching the crew in the act.
They were already on their way here when the uranium was being stolen. ”
Jessie heads toward our kitchen and starts rifling through cabinets. “Back to my question. What’s the game plan for tonight? I vote for pulling up the cameras and watching the video feeds. Until Carlos gives us something to go on, there’s not much else we can do.”
“We can go and question the crew,” I suggest.
Elijah waggles his eyebrows. “Or we can take out that sweet boat you have moored out back.”
“Yes! You have microwave popcorn!” Jessie shouts. She holds up two cellophane-wrapped packages and waves them around. “The crew should be out on a charter right now, so movie time it is! Cue up the cameras, Roger!”
Harper grins and shakes her head at Jessie’s antics.
Giving in, I open the laptop and mirror the screen on the television.
As appealing as going for a boat ride is, the idea of Harper out in the open and being a target makes my insides quiver.
One of the best ways to keep her safe is to stay inside.
I won’t be able to keep her sequestered for long, but I can get away with it for tonight.
I have nine camera feeds up in a grid: the seven from the boat and each one from the shuttle buses. The two buses running have tourists on board and are operating normally, so I make their frames smaller than the ones from the charter.
Leaning back and getting comfortable, I place my arm on the back of the couch, hoping that Harper will take it as an invitation to nestle herself against my side. She does, and I hide my smile when she makes herself comfortable and props her feet up on the coffee table.
“Aww. You guys are so cute getting all cozy,” Jessie says, handing Harper a bowl of popcorn. Jessie plops down at the other end of the sofa and props her feet on Elijah’s lap. He happens to be sitting in a chair, automatically making him Jessie’s personal footstool.
We watch the crew as they go about their day, helping tourists with their snorkel gear and passing out rum punch to those who chose to stay aboard. I turn up the volume, but not much can be heard over the music playing through the speakers.
It’s half an hour later when the crew begins the return to shore, and Jessie points to the smaller screen with footage from the shuttle bus.
“Isn’t that the resort owner riding in the front seat?
Mr. uh…uh…Mr. Hagan.” She reaches for the resort booklet inside the end table drawer.
Finding what she’s looking for, she shows us his picture and says, “I was close. His name is Thomas Hogan. Hmm, I wonder why he’s heading toward the excursion center. ”
“He warned the crew that he would be keeping an eye on them. Maybe he’s keeping his promise,” Harper replies.
The four of us watch Thomas exit the shuttle bus, but we don’t see him again until the charter pulls up to the dock. I switch the camera feed to bring up the one that faces the deck of the boat and turn up the volume.
Thomas waits at the end of the pier until all the tourists have disembarked.
Then, he makes his way onto the boat, struggling to keep his balance as it rocks back and forth.
He waves over the captain of the vessel and then glances around to ensure no one is within listening distance.
“Jordan, we have a change in plans,” he says in a tone low enough that our device barely picks it up.
Thomas hands Jordan a slip of paper. “I need you and your crew to go to the resort at Big Pine Key tomorrow night. I have a boat there that just finished getting repairs that you can use to go to those coordinates.”
Jordan shakes his head. “We almost got caught last night, Mr. Hogan. If the package hadn’t been stolen, we would all be sitting in a jail cell right now. The FBI was here! The Feds!”
“Keep your voice down,” Thomas chastises. “The Feds are crawling all over this resort, but I have seven more resorts between here and Miami, along with numerous charter businesses. I need you for this job, Jordan. You know how to keep a level head.”
“I’m out. You didn’t tell me we were picking up a box of uranium. I looked it up on the internet when I got home and found out it’s used for nuclear bombs. I didn’t sign up for that.”
“I didn’t know, Jordan. I swear. But I’ve been informed that the theft was planned because the buyer knew that the FBI was on the way. We’re cleared to pick up one last package and ten more people, and then we’ll be done,” Thomas says.
Jordan paces around the deck, and the rest of his crew waits for him at the bow of the boat. They appear to be nervous but are waiting patiently for any news. “It’s just not worth it, Mr. Hogan.”
“I’ll pay you triple for this last job. You and your entire crew. This is important, and if it doesn’t happen, we’re as good as dead.”
Jordan’s face drains of color, and he instantly looks like a walking corpse. “One more, and then my crew and I are done. Can we expect to be robbed again?”
Thomas frowns. “I don’t know, but if it happens, just go with the flow. Don’t fight them.”
Thomas leaves, and Jordan’s shoulders sag under the weight of the task placed upon him. He opens up the sheet of paper with the coordinates written on it.
“Zoom in and freeze the frame!” Jessie shouts, retrieving the phone from her pocket and opening the “notes” application on her phone. Read me the coordinates!”
I enhance the image and read the numbers out loud, “24.0001770, -82.7364630. The time reads 2330. I guess we know when and where we’ll be tomorrow night.”