The room had a quiet buzz from the equipment and the soft clicking of fingers on keyboards. The only light in the room came from the computer monitors spread across work surfaces, which wrapped around the outer wall of the room and formed an island in the middle of it. Jack stood a couple of steps inside the door, waiting for somebody to notice him. Nobody even looked up so he walked over to one of the faces glowing in front of a huge monitor and looked over the shoulder of the operator. ESPN’s website was up in one of the windows. “How are the Twins doing?” Jack asked.
The computer operator’s head jerked slightly to the left towards Jack’s voice. “If you’re a betting man, bet against them.”
Jack looked around the room and settled his eyes back on the sports fan. “Who can tell me how we’re doing with the Governor case and the accident with Special Agent Fruen?” He threw in the “Special Agent” to get this guy’s attention and the attention of anybody else listening. He wanted to make it known how he felt about the agents pounding the pavement versus these guys pounding their keyboards.
The man in the chair spun it around to face Jack. “And who are you?”
“Special Agent Jack Miller. Can you tell me who you are?”
“Sure thing.”
Jack stared at the man, waiting for an answer. He wasn’t going to ask again. He looked at the computer screen again and some papers on the desk. The man had been working on some spreadsheets; game stats were on the papers. He looked at the man again. The corners of his mouth had turned up into the smallest of smiles.
“OK, Sure Thing, can you tell me where things are at with our investigation or are you just looking for those sure thing bets.”
“Well, Jack, we’ve been busy down here. What do you want first?”
“Let’s take them all in order.” Jack sat on the edge of the table, keeping his elevated status over the man in the chair. “Bank videos, mask, Agent Fruen’s credit cards, and his accident and cell phone call.”
“Bank videos, that’s Goose’s assignment. The guy over there with the red hair.” Jack looked in the direction that Sure Thing had nodded. The blob of curly red hair glowed with the reflection from the computer monitor.
“The Governor is a man, five foot ten inches tall. He’s right handed. The coat he was wearing was nice, but too big for him. Trying to make him look bigger than he is. One hundred sixty-five pounds.”
“That’s it? I could get most of that.” Jack looked across the room at Goose.
“And he prefers boxers.”
Jack looked at the Sure Thing with a grin and raised his eyebrows.
“OK, that’s his guess, but if I was a betting man I’d bet boxers.” Sure Thing spun around in his chair, fiddled with the mouse, and brought up two pictures on his computer monitor of the Governor in his mask. “I’m sure you know this already too. This mask is good. It fits well and the likeness isn’t perfect but it’s very close. If you got a glimpse of him on the street or in the car next to you on the road you might think it was the governor.” Sure Thing got up from his chair and walked a few steps. He returned with a glossy printout of what was on the screen, gave it to Jack, and sat back down. “That’s for you.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Take this too.”
Jack looked at the scrap of paper with a name on it.
“That guy’s the best in the business. He’s at the Guthrie. With his contacts and a little digging, he can probably find out who made the mask. You can get there tonight?”
Jack nodded as he looked at the picture in his hand. Sure Thing had been talking a mile a minute and wasn’t slowing down. Jack was afraid to interrupt him and throw him off track. Sure Thing reached under his worktable, brought out a bottle of Mountain Dew, and twisted the cap to open it, releasing the carbonated gas.
“You want one?”
Jack shook his head.
“I’ll leave him a message that you’re coming. Make sure he’ll talk to you.” Sure Thing took a big swig of the green soda, put the bottle on the table, and belched out of the corner of his mouth. “OK, what was next?” He answered his own question without waiting for Jack to answer. “Credit cards. I gave that to Squeaky.”
Jack looked around the room, trying to guess who Squeaky was. Everybody was still staring at computer monitors and typing.
Sure Thing called out, “Hey, Squeaky!” A hand popped up from behind the monitor across the aisle, flipping them off.
“What do you want, asshole?” The origin of the nickname Squeaky became apparent as the voice carried around the room, a combination of the voice somebody gets after breathing helium and the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard.
Jack looked at Sure Thing and tilted his head at the sound, like a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle. “Asshole?”
“She loves me.” He waved his hand through the air. “Come here, my love!”
Squeaky pulled herself away from her station and walked over. She was about four foot, eight inches tall, barefoot, and had an unlit cigarette tucked behind her ear. She sat down in the chair next to Sure Thing, spun herself in a circle on its swivel, and asked, nodding at Jack on the next revolution, “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Jack. He’s here to find out about Agent Fruen’s cards and finances.”
Squeaky jammed her feet to the ground to stop the gyrations of the chair. She slowly positioned herself to face Jack, leaned forward, and with a new, serious look on her face asked, “Who did he piss off?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m hoping you guys can help me with,” Jack said.
“Whoever it is, I definitely wouldn’t want that person for my enemy. Fruen’s money is gone; his credit rating is annihilated. Whoever did it was good. They covered everything; his credit cards, credit rating, checking account, savings account, the couple of investments he had. It was all done in a very short time frame yesterday morning. Smells Russian to me, but that’s all I’ve got is a smell. Nothing obvious, no signature, no point of origin for the request that leads me to who did this. But, it smells Russian. It was clean, quick, somebody who really knew what they were doing. We’ve seen something similar before. Coders have a signature, a style, an accent, like with any language. This is Russian. They were after Fruen and didn’t bother to leave a false trail.”
Jack looked at Sure Thing. “Still doesn’t tell me a lot, does it?”
“I think it confirms that it’s all tied together. The Governor is smart and connected to some people that know how to get things done in the world of finance and technology. He is able to, or knows people who are able to, get into the systems of the banks and related financial institutions discreetly, but he’s still going in to banks physically for something.”
Sure Thing nodded at Squeaky. “And if she says it smells Russian, it’s probably Russian mob. Woman’s intuition. Something you and I don’t have.”
“That’s something, I guess. Let me think about it,” Jack said. “Thanks, Squeaky. You done or still turning over rocks?”
Squeaky got up. “I’m still turning over rocks. There’s always something out there hiding, I just haven’t found it yet.” She left and returned to her workstation.
“If there’s something out there, she’ll find it,” Sure Thing said to Jack. “Just be glad she’s on our side.” He spun his chair around and faced his monitor; his right hand moved the mouse around, waking up the computer from its screen-saving mode. “Come here. We’ve got one last thing to discuss.”
Jack pushed himself up from the edge of the table to look over the sports fan’s shoulder. A map of Minneapolis was depicted showing the region around the Uptown area lakes; Lake of the Isles, Calhoun, and Harriet.
Sure Thing touched the screen with his finger. “This is approximately the location of the accident. Let me walk you through this. Agent Fruen’s phone was tied into a tower located here. We’ve contacted the cell phone company the incoming call was made from. The tower it was communicating through was the same one. Which means the call was made from the same area. That corroborates Agent Fruen’s story.”
“Did you have to do that?” Jack asked.
“Just dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. That’s just the beginning. The phone is still on and it’s still in the same area.”
Jack leaned forward. “Where is it?”
“Right here,” he pointed out the location on the map.
“I was just in that neighborhood.”
“It’s a few blocks from the accident. I doubt the Governor is still there. Looks like he just cut off of Lake Street and dumped the phone. The van’s out getting the exact location right now and a tactical team is there just in case The Governor is still around.”
“Tell them not to touch it.” Jack took a step for the door, turned back, and said, “Come on. Let’s go.”