Chapter 52

Chapter 52—Meeting four

6:05 p.m., Thursday, December 29

James stopped and stood staring in the direction of the strange vehicle. Jerry noticed his hesitation, so he also turned to check it out. “Recognize that car?” James asked.
“Can’t say that I do,” Jerry replied, squinting in an effort to get a more focused look. The two men just stood at the doorway, waiting to see who emerged. Finally, after nearly a minute, Steve jumped out, tossing his cell on the seat, and closing the car door. He looked in their direction as he started walking toward the cottage, but he did not call out to them.
“Steve, nice ride,” Jerry said to him as he approached. The car was obviously a rental, or a loaner. There was nothing wrong with driving a three-year-old Chevy Malibu, but it was a major step down from his brand new Range Rover. Steve heard his friend’s teasing, but he did not respond. James still had the wand in his hand, so he headed over to intercept Steve a dozen feet from the door. “What’s with the car?” he asked.
“Some jerk stole my Range Rover,” Steve said, as James ran the wand over his body. “It was parked in the ramp at my apartment, and everything. The alarm was set. And some bastard got it anyway.”
“What did the cops say?” James asked.
“They took a report. Is there something else that they do? … I guess it just goes to show that there still is crime in New York—Rudy didn’t bust them all.”
“Did they get anything else?” James inquired. “Did you have anything in the car that could be incriminating? … for any of us?”
“No, certainly not,” Steve answered. “I did have a notebook in there, but there was nothing on it?”
“Nothing on it? … Or nothing not erased on it?” Jerry asked.
“Nothing about these meetings, there or erased,” Steve said. “I haven’t logged anything regarding the meetings after we started them.”
“What sort of stuff was on it?” James asked.
“No names, nothing like that,” Steve said. “I did have a general outline of a time frame relating to the upcoming event, but no specifics. I never go on line with that notebook, for that very reason. Anybody can get hacked.”
“Tell me the sort of ‘offline’ that you did have on it,” James said, as he completed clearing Steve. All three of the men then entered the cottage, and closed the door.
“After Reg, and his buddy, you know, Mr. Sunshine, threatened me last week, I decided that I would do well to get my game plan together. Few people do, but Handler scares the hell out of me. I wanted to have my stuff ready when I needed it.”
“And you had some of that stuff on your notebook?” James asked.
“Yea, but some stupid car thief will never figure out what it was, even if he got past my password,” Steve said.
“That wasn’t some stupid car thief, Steve, that was a targeted hit on your car,” James informed him.
“There were no names, no specifics—only code words that only I would understand,” Steve said. “Nothing could be proven.”
“Not in a court of law,” James said, “but the Russians, Mossad or the CIA would decipher it in no time. … That is a problem.”
“You’re making too much out of this,” Steve said, not willing to admit that there could be a security breach, with his notebook at the center of it.
“No, I’m not.” James said, “whoever stole your computer has a pretty good idea that something major is going down, and they know that it involves you, and they know who your friends are. …We have to bring Al up to speed on this. We will all be scrutinized from now on, if we haven’t been already. Jerry ran into a Mossad spook one hour ago. Could be related. We’re going to have to address this at the meeting. Guess we should be happy Handler isn’t here tonight.”
“Hell, he’s probably the one who stole my car,” Steve said. “I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“That actually is a possibility,” James agreed. “But I think he knows he’s got your attention. The odds are that it was pulled off by an intelligence agency—ours or someone else’s.”
“How can we tell who is behind it?” Jerry asked.
“Oh, we’ll find out eventually … when it suits their purpose,” James said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Jerry said. “I’ve heard that it usually takes weeks or months to process any data like this. Those guys are so deep in bureaucracy—just like the rest of DC.”
“You could be right about that,” James agreed, after thinking about it for a moment. “Except, whatever is viewed as a priority gets done immediately. We can’t count on weeks, or even days.
“Well, I still think it was a garden variety car thief,” Steve said. “If my notebook was the main target, they would have smashed the window, and grabbed it. But they stole the whole vehicle. I think it was a run-of-the-mill theft of a car. It’s probably in some chop shop getting cut up for parts, and my computer is in a dumpster.”
“Hope you’re right,” James said. “But I think we have to consider the possibility that we have had a significant breech, and deal with it accordingly.”
“How does that work?” Jerry asked.
“Well, for one thing, I think we are going to have to suspend our meetings,” James said confidently. “We will see what Al thinks about it, but I see no other recourse. We were going to have only four of them anyway, according to Allison. Probably that’s why.”
“Reg is going to have a few choice words about this,” Steve said, obviously not excited about having to deal with his nemesis about a possible loss of information.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” James said matter-of-factly. “But we have to lay it all out, regardless of the consequences.”
Just then, there was a loud knock at the door.