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  Garrett Lawrence smiled as he continued past. “Hey, Mya. That’s a great skirt.”

  Mya was startled to the point of uncharacteristic silence. But as Lawrence disappeared around the corner, she picked up her water bottle and followed him. He was hanging his jacket up carefully on a contoured wooden hanger behind his door when she got to his office. He sat down behind the desk and pretended not to notice her.

  Mya stood at the door, staring at him.

  Ever so casually, he looked up as if just noticing her. “What’s up?”

  “You know what’s up Garrett. My temper is up, that’s what.”

  He leaned back in the leather chair. “Why, what’s the matter?”

  “You know damn well why. You grabbed my ass when you walked past the water cooler. And don’t think I’m not aware that you’ve groped some of the other women in the office.”

  He paused, looking at something on his cell phone before putting it down. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. If I brushed past you just now, I apologize. You can’t say it was anything more than that. Accidents happen.”

  She considered this for a moment. She set her water bottle down on the desk, and smoothed her skirt before replying.

  “Okay, Garrett, fair enough. I won’t pursue this any further. But before you brush past me again, I want you to think about something. There are a lot of accidents that can happen in an office like this. Why, on your desk alone you have a stapler, a letter opener, and a computer that makes you vulnerable to all kinds of cyber threats. Dunn might be alerted to the fact that you’ve downloaded a bunch of particularly nasty porn on your agency laptop. Or someone might accidentally drop something hallucinogenic into your coffee. I don’t get mad, I get even—with interest. Do we understand each other?”

  Lawrence’s eyes narrowed briefly. “I’m really busy, Mya. I have to review this focus group topline report before a meeting in fifteen minutes. So if you don’t mind…” he gestured toward his door.

  “Oh, this report?” Mya replied, reaching for it. As she lifted it she knocked over her water bottle, and the contents gushed out onto Lawrence’s smartphone. He shrieked and grabbed it too late.

  “My, what a terrible accident,” she said. She tossed the report into the center of the puddle on his desk, then turned and walked out.

  Sexual harassment was nothing new in the industry or at the agency for that matter. Put a few hundred people in a high pressure, high stakes environment and behavioral boundaries were bound to be crossed. Some of her coworkers thrived on flaunting and flirting. One rapacious woman drew stick figures on the inside of her sliding keyboard drawer for every college intern she had seduced—male and female.

  Mya wasn’t the type to overlook a stray hand. She had decided a long time ago that sexual politics wouldn’t be in her job description. It was difficult enough to achieve what she had without somebody spreading rumors that she’d slept her way up the ladder. But for the moment she decided not to bother Dunn with the incident.

  The rest of her morning was filled with a meeting about an Alternate Reality Game that the agency was proposing for a fashion client. ARGs were not new, but they were still less expected than traditional media. The client, Zealot Jeans, had a small budget compared to the big players. That spending disparity meant they had to multiply the bang of every buck. Which was why DB&T was recommending the game.

  What the agency’s strategic planners and creative people were proposing was risky: very little traditional media buying, replaced by an almost total reliance on word-of-mouth and viral messaging.

  It would all start with a small piece of paper inside the back pocket of every other pair of Zealot jeans sold. This piece of paper, about the size of a fortune cookie, would contain a scrambled message “alztyreo lilw eb dderewra.”

  The curious would recognize it as an anagram. A few minutes of effort would yield the message “zealotry will be rewarded.”

  Next came a leap of faith. Anyone typing www.zealotrywillberewarded.com into their web browser would arrive at a website dedicated to zealots throughout history. Enough time spent on the site would uncover an Easter egg in the biography of Nicolas Chauvin—the soldier whose fanatical devotion to Napoleon resulted in the coining of the word chauvinism.

  The game would play out in the virtual and real worlds, with clues becoming more and more difficult to fathom. The trick was to manage the game so that a progressively smaller group reached the next level. These players could report their progress to followers online, who would then live vicariously through them. As opposed to traditional advertising, which was renowned for assuming its target audience was stupid, the game assumed its target audience was highly intelligent and resourceful.

  Ultimately the first person to crack the final phase of the game would receive a trip to a private island with eleven friends. There they would enjoy a week of unparalleled luxury as guests of Jean Zélat, the flamboyant founder of Zealot jeans. The stay would include gourmet meals, an unlimited supply of the finest wines and cocktails, every type of sport imaginable, and a private concert by The Victims of Fashion, an indie band coming off a four-Grammy year.

  To maintain the secrecy and integrity of the game, no one person in the agency had knowledge of all the phases. Only Jean Zélat and Peter Dunn knew how it would play out. Mya’s only concern was that the clues achieve the right balance of difficulty and accessibility. She relayed her concern to the team.

  “That note in the pocket of the jeans to start things off…maybe it should say ‘Inspected by 416’ in bold type on the front, so the anagram isn’t so obvious.”

  The team agreed that they would keep a close eye on how easily the clues were being solved and whether they were spreading virally over the web. Other prizing was also proposed at various stages.

  “I think even the delivery of the prizing should be mysterious and cool,” said Arlo Mcphee, the lead creative.

  “How so?” Mya asked.

  “Like the first twenty people who solve a particular stage get a pair of Z jeans. But not through some anonymous voucher. I say we hire a really fucking hot chick to show up at the player’s address in the middle of the night. She’s dressed in a tight black trench coat and gives the player a pair of jeans, then disappears without a word.”

  “I like it,” Mya said. “Let’s start casting for the role. Even though the budget’s tight, I’d like to bring someone in from abroad—maybe from an eastern European country. That could bring an exotic look to the role.”

  The group agreed to start budgeting and scheduling all the phases, then split into smaller tactical teams to attend to their various responsibilities. Mya went to Dunn’s office to give him an update in person, even though he would be copied on the meeting’s agenda and decisions via email.

  8

  Sandovan and Mitchell spent half a day interviewing the neighbors of the truck driver whose hand had been found at the scene of the explosion. The profile they got from everyone they asked was the same: quiet guy, not social but never rude, and always coming and going at odd hours.

  Mitchell spoke with an elderly woman who lived across the street. “Could you describe any of the people who came around to his place?”

  The woman paused. “I don’t think I ever saw them. Young people today all drive those cars with the blacked out windows, and they don’t get out to ring the bell—they just text people from the car. They don’t even turn down that loud music. You can feel it like thunder. I don’t even think it’s music. It’s just young men talking…fuck this and motherfucker that! There’s not enough soap in the world to wash their mouths out.”

  Sandovan laughed, “Ain’t that the truth, ma’am. Would you recognize any of the cars?”

  She shook her head, “My Alvin drove a Buick. And it rode just as smooth as silk pajamas. But I don’t know any of these new foreign cars. Besides, they do all kinds of things to them. They bolt wings on the back, and put all that chrome stuff on them, and I’ve even seen w
heels that keep going around when the car is stopped! What’s the sense in that? The only thing they have in common with a regular person’s car is the license plate.”

  Mitchell nodded, “And I don’t suppose you’d remember any of those?”

  She looked at him with scorn. “I may be old, but I’m not a dullard, young man. The one car that came around the most had a personalized plate that was hard to forget. It said ‘2HOT4U.’ I was out getting the mail one day, and I saw it clear as day.”

  Sandovan and Mitchell looked at each other and smiled. This kind of routine work was all about catching the break.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bannister. You remember anything else, you give us a call,” said Sandovan, giving her his card.

  They walked back to the car. Mitchell got in the passenger side. “You drive, I’ll run the plate.”

  Sandovan was still chuckling. “Dunno if I’ve ever heard a woman that old say ‘motherfucker.’”

  Mitchell entered the license plate 2HOT4U into the law enforcement information network. It came back with a name and address. En route to the house they stopped at a drive-thru for a burger.

  “I’m thinking of getting a new pitching wedge,” Sandovan said through a mouthful of beef, bacon, and onion rings.

  “No kidding. I might need one too,” Mitchell replied.

  “Why, you just got a new one last year.”

  “I was thinking of bronzing the one that I used to hit Tewks in the nuts.”

  Sandovan choked on his burger, then coughed for a minute, trying to regain control.

  “Thanks, asshole. You could at least wait until I’m finished chewing.”

  “You’re always chewing, fatso. At least I didn’t wait till you had a mouthful of root beer. Remember that time you made me spew soda all over the windshield? Garza down in vehicle services said that he needed to use the crime scene cleaner with the enzymes to get the stuff out of the dash.”

  “Whatever. I know you; you’ll keep that wedge in your bag. But my grooves are worn out. I want to get one of those laser-milled wedges.”

  “I dunno. Sounds like a bit of a gimmick to me.”

  They argued about golf gear until the burgers and drinks were gone, then got a couple of coffees to go and drove east to the neighborhood where the owner of the personalized plate lived. It was an older part of town, slowly being gentrified with architecturally egotistical in-fills.

  They pulled to the curb and parked. Mitchell knocked at the door of the home address they had pulled from the database. It was a neatly kept bungalow with clusters of day lilies, campanula, and delphinium on either side of the front steps. A woman peered through the window. Sandovan badged her and said loud enough so she could hear through the glass, “Detectives, just looking for Rammi Vargas.”

  The woman in the window came to the door and opened it. She wiped her right hand on her apron. “Rammi’s not here. He moved out about four months ago.”

  Mitchell smiled at her. “Any idea where he is? He’s not in trouble. We’re just looking for friends of a guy who was killed in an explosion earlier this week, and his name came up.”

  The woman glanced at Mitchell. Then back at Sandovan. “I saw that on the news. They said it was a bomb. Rammi wouldn’t know someone like that.”

  Sandovan spoke softly, “I’m sure you’re right. Are you his mother?”

  She nodded.

  “Mrs. Vargas, could we get a recent photo of Rammi and an address. We’re working off a DMV photo. I’m sure it doesn’t do him justice, right?” He held up the photo so she could see.

  She hesitated, then invited them in.

  “Oh my God!” Sandovan exclaimed. “Do I smell butter tarts?”

  Mrs. Vargas gave a shy smile. “Yes, I just pulled them out of the oven. I volunteer at the special needs school down the block, and tomorrow we’re having a bake sale. It’s all for fundraising, otherwise I’d offer you one.”

  Sandovan reached for his wallet. “You know, my mother used to make butter tarts, and these smell just like them. I’ll buy a couple off you? Twenty bucks?”

  She went into the kitchen, put two on a plate, and brought it to him. “Normally I would say twenty dollars is too much, but the school really needs the money, so thank you.”

  Mitchell watched Sandovan take a bite of the first butter tart and close his eyes in pleasure. “Okay, now you’ve got me curious. I’ll take one for ten bucks if you can spare it,” he said.

  She took one from the pan and brought it to him. Mitchell took a bite and savored the still-warm pastry. He waited a moment, then looked up with a serious expression. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Vargas, you’ll have to come with us.”

  She looked at them, astonished. “But why? I have so much to do.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. You need to come down to the station and bring these with you.”

  Her features softened as she comprehended, and she looked down, blushing.

  “I learned to bake when I was at home with Rammi’s younger brother Steven. He was born with the umbilical cord around his neck. He didn’t get enough oxygen, and he required constant care. I spent the first four years of his life at home. I started to bake just to take my mind off things. Then we found out about the school. It was expensive to send him. But they made him so happy. They do such good work. My husband couldn’t take the stress. He left us and moved away. I’ve supported the school every possible way I could.”

  Sandovan and Mitchell looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Sandovan pulled out a notepad and wrote a name and number on it. “Mrs. Vargas, this is the phone number for a place we like to go, Emilio’s on Twenty-Second Avenue off the Broadhurst. If you call him and say that Mitchell and Sandovan would love it if he’d stock your butter tarts, he’ll have one of his guys come by every Monday morning to take three dozen. You’ll have to negotiate the price with him. And to be honest, he’s a cheap bastard if you’ll pardon the expression. But think of it as a weekly fundraiser. We know lots of guys who would love to help. Especially if it involves pastries.”

  She took the note and put it in her apron pocket. “Thank you. I’ve heard of this Emilio’s place. It’s a bit of an institution, isn’t it? That’s very kind. Let me take your plates, and I’ll get you a photo of Rammi and the address of his apartment.”

  9

  The Colonel looked around the table at his men. There were seven of them. He gave them the sort of scrutiny an officer gives his most elite unit. Respectful, yet not at all sentimental. These men had all killed for him. Three, including Luis, had saved his life. All would take a bullet for him without hesitation. And truth be told, he would do the same for them. He laid out his plan on a smartboard in front of them.

  “Drug growing houses have to look benign on the outside so the neighbors suspect nothing. Therefore the exterior security measures are all discreet. Hidden surveillance cameras are possible. The doors and windows may also be live-wired. But most of the security is inside the house. Staircases can be booby-trapped with nails that blend into the carpet.”

  “Or breakaway steps,” Hector interjected.

  “Correct. And under the breakaway steps there is usually another nasty surprise, yes?”

  The men nodded.

  The Colonel continued, “Pit bulls are common, sometimes with their vocal cords cut so you won’t hear them until they are at your throat. Improvised explosive devices aren’t part of the usual rigor, but we can’t rule them out, so watch for tripwires that may trigger shotguns or grenades.”

  Andre, the Colonel’s sniper, spoke up. “Excuse me, sir, how will we gain entrance to the grow houses and have enough time to remove the spoils?”

  The Colonel smiled. “Excellent question, Andre. That is why Barros procured the two high-capacity cargo vans,” he said, motioning to a stocky man in the corner with grease on his hands. “He’s going to make some modifications to them which will help in our cause.”

  In addition to being a weapons expert like all the other men, Barros
was the Colonel’s chief motor pool mechanic. If something had an engine, Barros could make it work. He could tear down a motor with a set of tools small enough to fit in a daypack.

  The Colonel had leased a city auto body shop in receivership. It would serve as their base of operations. The owner’s office was where he was holding this briefing. One of the service bays had been equipped with military style bunks. The others were occupied by the vans Barros had purchased. The vehicles were actually two surplus Tactical Trucks, not unlike what SWAT teams used to deploy to emergency situations. Barros had modified the engines for maximum power.

  The Colonel continued the briefing. “Barros has had dozens of different decals created to create a variety of aliases for the vans. We can pull up to the grow houses posing as the gas company, cable company, telephone, or even electronics delivery. There are moving company decals, vinyl siding, as well as a dry cleaners.”

  Barros added, “But my favorite is the exterminators.”

  He continued over the laughter of the other men. “The decals are all of the quick-print variety, so they can be applied quickly and stripped off just as easily. The only down side is that they are not durable, but we shouldn’t need any one alias for more than twenty-four hours.”

  The Colonel began to talk tactics. “The first few houses should be the easiest. No one will be expecting us. Often the houses are left unattended. The growers only drop in to monitor the lighting, to use fertilizers, or to weed out the male plants because they inhibit budding. We will pull up to the house, use the thermal imagers to ascertain whether there is anyone there, then go in as delivery men or maintenance workers. Once we’re in, we will cut the marijuana plants and stuff them into garbage bags. Even in the larger grow operations, where there are a thousand plants or more, we should be able to be in and out in minutes.”

  Hector piped up. “Sir, I believe we also need to anticipate what this criminal organization will do as your plans become apparent to them.”

  The Colonel went to a new page of the tactical presentation. “Yes, Hector, that is when we will need to exercise more caution. By Diego’s calculations,” he gestured to another member of the team who was huddled over a laptop, “we will require the proceeds from thirty-five of these houses to finance the return to our country and the weapons necessary to stage the coup. Terence gave us the addresses of seventy-one of them before he expired. Naturally, the more grow operations we assault, the more stringent the protective measures will become. The leader, Otis Gaverill, is known as a vindictive man, so we will need to install some additional security systems for our base here.”