The main phone rang again. He snapped the receiver to his bulldog face.
"Brull."
"Ballard from the New York office here, Mr. Brull. I was the Folcroft auditor."
"Go ahead."
"We have Harold W Smith's last three years' 1040s here."
"How do they look to you?"
"Average."
"Do better than that."
"Well, they're absolutely average."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything falls within the statistical average. Deductions. Charitable contributions. Investments."
"Perfectly?"
"Yes."
"So perfect it could be designed not to trip a red flag?"
"Well, yes."
"I knew it. He's dirty."
"Sir?"
"Use your head. Nobody's returns come up perfectly average, year after year. It's statisically impossible. Smith has been filing stealth returns configured to foil IRS radar."
"I never heard of stealth returns."
"That's why you're a fucking G-12 and I'm an assistant commissioner. Now, messenger those returns to Folcroft. I want to eyeball them myself."
"Yes, Mr. Brull."
Brull hung up and found himself staring at the blank red telephone again. What the hell could it mean? He looked around for a wall jack, found none and shoved the red telephone aside.
That's when he saw the amber line.
At first it looked like a reflection on the black glass desktop, except it wasn't a reflection. There was no amber light source in the office. Only the overhead fluorescents.
The vertical amber line floated under the black glass of the desktop like a smoldering wire.
Reaching out to touch the slick surface, Big Dick Brull froze. Ghostly lines of white symbols sprang into life under his hovering fingers. A keyboard. But there were no keys. Only the letters glowing in rows just under the black glass like metal shavings in ice.
Brull touched one experimentally. The letter A. It flashed white-hot under his touch.
Nothing happened. Just the flash. When he withdrew his hands, the keyboard symbols darkened into obscurity.
It was a touch-sensitive keyboard. No question. Capacity type. The keyboard had activated when his hand disturbed the magnetic field surrounding it. And the amber line could only be generated by a hidden computer screen. You got a line just like that if you turned on your monitor without booting up the system.
But who had turned on the screen?
"That damn black button!"
Brull reached under the desk and hit the hidden button. The amber line went away. He hit it again. It returned.
"Folcroft is not what it's supposed to be," Big Dick Brull chortled in a low, gleeful voice. Then his face contracted into a muscular knot. "But what the fuck is it?"
Chapter 26
Remo Williams pulled his sedan off into the woods well short of the Folcroft gate and let it coast, engine off, down to the lapping waters of Long Island Sound.
He got out, opened up the hood and pulled the spark plugs, hiding them in the hollow of a tree.
Let the IRS try and seize it now, he thought as he went down to the water and let it take his body.
Remo swam through the darkness, wide of land and low to the silty ocean floor where no one could possibly spot him. Air bubbles seeped from his parted mouth in ones and twos so tiny that when they reached the surface they would be mistaken for fish exhalations.
Using his inner compass as a guide, Remo veered toward shore again, exactly where his senses told him Folcroft would be.
A beer can floated down from above, and the faint pressure waves riding ahead of it made Remo bob out of the way.
He looked up. Against the moonlight, four wedge shapes bobbed. DEA Cigarette boats.
Remo continued on.
Another beer can blooped into the water and tumbled slowly into his field of vision. That decided Remo.
Twisting like a porpoise, he redirected his momentum upward, zeroing in on the boat directly above. One hand took hold of the propeller, steadying the boat and himself. With his right index finger, Remo peppered the sleek fiberglass hull with neat round holes.
The boat began taking on water.
Remo went on to the next.
He sank all four DEA boats in as much time as it would take to pop open a six-pack of Coors and returned to the water.
The hoarse cursing of the DEA stakeout team came through the cold water. The burbling of the boats going down drowned out the the shouting.
While their feet were kicking in an attempt to tread water, Remo slipped up on them and began nipping at their heels with his hard fingers.