In the Blink of An Eye by Jerry Baggett (ebook reader for surface pro TXT) 📕

doing. So, put up or shut up. The information will be gone within hours. I could care less about this, in the whole scheme of things.”

“What do you mean by the scheme of things?”

“You ask too many questions and you can’t make a decision. Hook me up with a decision maker.”

“OK, so what do you suggest as a nominal fee for this first bit of information? I could be buying a pig in a poke.”

“We can start with one thousand. You can put that small amount on your expense account.”

He said, “I’m passing the phone back to my assistant. She’ll work out the details with you.”

Dan yelled from his desk outside, “Pick-up on line three, boss. The sheriff’s holding to talk with you.”

Hunt said, “Morning, Sheriff Dickson. Thank you for that Bahamas call.”

“You got that, did you?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure about what to make of it, yet. Any thoughts?”

“Could be a gold coated brick. Somehow, I think it’s much more than that. I’ve something else you’ll want to know. We had a call this morning from Doctor Steven Peyton, on Catalina Island. He had a break-in last night. The perps tore open the drug cabinets without finding much. Here’s the odd part. A three-hundred-pound rotting hog was left, gutted, in his office. What the hell do you make of that?”

Hunt chuckled. “You’re not pissing on my boots, are you, Sheriff? Let me think about that for a minute.”

Both men had a short laugh. “He said it was going to take a week to get the smell out of his office. His patients had to be spread out to other docs and some were referred to the hospital in Long Beach.”

“That sounds like something Harvey Marino would do. He’s out to get Peyton’s nurse, Samantha Brooks, and her friend, Commander Dick McGowin. He also wants Grant Davis. We have Grant tucked away out of harm. You already know about everything that’s been going on with those three.”

“That’s our thinking, also. One of the deputies in Long Beach screwed up at that Target fiasco, or we may have had an apprehension.”

“So I’m told, Sheriff. We have Marino and Hempel on the run. It’s a matter of time, now, until they stumble and we close in. We’ve made so many arrests of low-level dealers working out of his clubs, they’re on the verge of collapse. Placing cuffs on addicts and pushers in and around the premises makes his clientele nervous.”

“It’s understandable, Kevin. You’re obviously gathering additional evidence every day from those arrests. This Bahama Island money laundering could be the break you’ve been looking for.”

Hunt was quiet for a moment. “There’s a high probability Marino will attempt to flee through the Bahamas or Mexico. We know he has contacts in several countries in our hemisphere, maybe even beyond. We’re getting alerts out across the entire area.”

“The outcome’s pretty much predictable. You’ll net the big fish pretty soon and end this thing.”

“Yeah. Let’s talk about those three civilians for a moment, Sheriff. All three have been tremendous in their efforts to assist our investigation. I would consider it a personal favor if you’d ask your deputies to keep an eye out for strangers on the island. Marino has hired thugs on their trail wherever they seem to go. It’s a small island and I can’t have our people there without special justification.”

“The locals here think highly of Samantha. There’s something else on my mind, Kevin. The shooting, out on East Hamilton Road. Where Marino’s hired toughs caught up with McGowin and Brooks. Apparently, the shooters never lost sight of those two and fired multiple shots into their car from an automatic weapon, driving them off the road and into a fish pond. A bad slip-up for law enforcement. I question McGowin’s story. He claims he shot the shooter through the head with his 9mm handgun. A handgun against a combat weapon. That doesn’t seem credible to me.”

Hunt said, “You don’t believe him? I do. His record shows remarkable skill with weapons. He’s an ex-combat marine officer, with special training. He served in combat as a marine before becoming a fighter pilot.”

Chapter 40

“Boss, you should buy a lotto ticket.” Margie waved a fax copy in front of Hunt. “Looks like your investment paid off. You gotta see this to believe it. Look at the names next to those account numbers.”

He looked at the paper, then back at his assistant. “This could be better than the jackpot, if it pans out. We’d better move carefully with it. There’s big money involved and people we care about. The two males have millions in their account, the nurse, only fifty thousand dollars. This information came to us too easy. It has my antenna quivering.”

He scratched his chin and looked back and forth between Margie and the fax. “I’m taking this to the top. Get the Atlanta office on the phone. I want an agent sent to the Bahamas for a first-hand look at the official paperwork on these accounts. After that, get on the phone with the Bahamian bank and let them know we’re flying our agent out today and we expect full cooperation, regarding those account numbers. We can’t wait on this one. If they give you any trouble tell them all we’re looking for is verification of ID. Let them know we’ll turn it over to the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI if they don’t cooperate. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to have them work with us.” He slapped the desk with his hand. “I don’t believe the nurse is really involved in this. The dollars involved are minimal, compared to the other two. The doctor checked out clean, but the damned amount of money involved makes the evidence more credible. No one would put up that kind of money for a false trail.”

Margie stared at him. “You