Collision Course

Chapter 4

He tossed the unlit cigar into the ashtray in the limo. Five years ago, the doctors said he had to stop smoking but he couldn't quite give up the taste and aroma of the cigars he loved so much. Old habits died hard. Besides, the older he got, the more he clung to his pleasures.

Frank, the limo driver, opened the door and stood aside for him to exit.

Bennett heaved his stocky figure out of the vehicle and swallowed a sigh as he straightened to his full height of five foot ten. A light breeze caught a few strands of dark brown hair, still thick despite his age, although threads of silver were now woven into it. Light brown eyes watched the world from a bulldog face, a face that alarmed people when his anger surfaced. Many had kidded him it reflected the tenacity he exhibited in everything he did. He made no pretense of being anything but ugly. Fortunately, the people he did business with didn't care what he looked like. As for women, when he wanted one, he paid for her. He'd long ago accepted the pattern his life had become.

"I shouldn't be more than a half hour," Bennett told his driver.

"Very good. I'll be waiting."

Bennett took his key cards out, swiped one in the slot by the elevator and punched the button for his floor. When the doors swooshed open, he headed directly for his office suite, unlocking the door and entering his private area. All the while he was in Bahrain and on the flight back, he'd tried to remember if he'd locked the secure phone away.

He'd left for this trip in such a f*****g hurry. Emergency, he'd been told. Come now. Had he locked the damn thing away before leaving work the night before? An unpleasant feeling niggled at him the entire time he was gone. He had to check before he did anything else, hoping it was safely tucked away and no bad news awaited him. Too many irons were sizzling in the fire and the trip had taken longer than expected. He was tired, his digestion upset by the strange foods he'd forced into it and he had a fatigue headache he couldn't seem to get rid of.

Maybe I'm getting too old for this.

Unfortunately his "business partners" didn't consider retirement an option, unless it was the permanent kind. So he'd continue to play the game, add to his massive fortune and hope to find a way to ease out of it before too long.

The first thing he saw was the phone sitting out in plain sight. f**k! Damn, damn, damn. How could he have been so careless? He turned it over with hands not quite steady and entered a code into the special keypad on the bottom. Then he pressed a tiny button and waited for the built-in recorder to play his messages, praying there was nothing on it out of the ordinary. His partners would kill him over something so stupid. The first three messages were inconsequential, updates on the arms deal he'd arranged the previous week. The fourth one, however, froze him in place. Not a message but a recorded conversation. As he listened, a combination of dread and anger surged through him, wiping away his fatigue with one swoop.

Pressing the button again, he replayed it. And yet again, having a difficult time, believing what he heard. Trey Haggerty had answered the phone. He recognized his voice. And of all the people for him to speak to, Hassan El-Salaki was one of the worst. What had the Arab been thinking, blurting out information without verifying the person on the other end?

Because you assured him no one would ever answer that phone but you.

Shit!

Then he spotted the report he'd requested sitting on his desk. Left where he'd told Trey to put it. And probably at the exact moment the phone rang. People answered calls automatically, right? Without thinking?

He used the office phone to call down to the guard in the lobby to confirm his suspicions. There might have been other people working late, but none who had a key to his office.

"Yes, Mr. Bennett?"

"Can you tell me the last person to sign out last night and what time he put down?" he demanded.

"Mr. Haggerty," the guard answered. "At one forty-five."

Exactly what I thought.

Damn!

"Thanks, Henry."

He sat down in his chair and closed his eyes, trying to get the gut-wrenching anger under control. The situation was not just bad, it was disastrous. He had hired Trey Haggerty for his smarts, his intellect, his excellent instincts. Bennett wouldn't let what he'd heard go without asking a lot of questions. He feared Trey wouldn't ask him about it, but would instead try to dig around on his own.

How should he play it?

He could wait until Trey came to work at his usual time and see if he said anything. If he could read a difference in the man's attitude.

Don't be stupid. Of course it will be different.

Or he could call him at home, maybe catch him off guard. No, he wanted to see Trey in front of him. Wanted to find out if he'd contacted anyone about what he'd heard. Then Bennett would have to dispose of him, an action that gave him great sorrow.

Fuck.

As he sat there trying to determine the best course of action, the private phone rang again. He picked it up, well aware of who the person was on the other end and what he'd have to say.

"Talk," he said.

"Bennett?"

"It's me." At El-Salaki's gruff, hostile voice, his hand tightened on the receiver. "Who did you expect?"

"One can never tell since a stranger answered your phone earlier. Can you explain how such a thing happened?"

Bennett fished a cigar from his drawer, his version of a pacifier, and clamped it between his teeth. "And perhaps you can explain why you launched into your diatribe before making certain who you were talking to."

"Don't throw this on me," the man growled. "You assured me the phone was secure."

"It is usually locked away but I have standing orders if it's out, no one is to touch it."

"Apparently your orders to your staff mean little," El-Salaki growled. "Now we've piqued someone's curiosity. Fix it."

Bennett sighed. He knew all too well what El-Salaki meant. Eliminate Haggerty. He'd known it from the moment he heard the recording. His executive VP had stumbled into something he shouldn't have and now he had to be removed. Made to disappear.

"Did you hear me?" El-Salaki asked. "We are about to close on our biggest deal yet. We can't afford to have anyone asking questions." A pause. "If it's a problem for you, I can always take care of the problem myself."

"No." Bennett shouted the word. He didn't need El-Salaki's thugs involved in his business. He lowered his voice. "Thank you, but no. We don't want a lot of questions. I'll handle it."

"By tomorrow," El-Salaki said. "Call me when it's done."

Bennett replaced the receiver and leaned back in his chair. He sat in deep thought for a long moment, chewing on the unlit cigar. Then he punched another number into his cell phone. A sleep-fogged voice answered.

"Wake up, Holland," Bennett told the man. "I have an assignment for you and Price." He rattled off Trey's address and explained the situation. "Go into the house quietly, take the man and bring him to me at my home. Call me when you have him."

Now to lay a trail. Something logical. He hadn't gotten to where he was in life without developing the ability of misdirection. He hated the thought of eliminating Trey, a bright young man and a real asset. But in Bennett's quest for bigger and better prizes, people had become disposable units. And each time it became easier.

The last vice president who'd stumbled into the real purpose of BGE had been "removed" with a carefully staged auto accident. Haggerty's "removal" had to be much different.

He called down to the guard again. "Henry, when Mr. Haggerty left, did he indicate where he was headed? Home, perhaps?"

"No, sir. It seemed to me at that hour he'd be headed there. Is there a problem?"

"No. No problem. But something important came up, and I need to talk to him. I've tried him at home and on his cell and don't get an answer on either. I thought he might have mentioned something to you."

A white lie but the guard would never know.

"Not a word. He did seem somewhat distracted, though. Hope everything's all right."

"I'm sure it is. No doubt he left me a note and I haven't discovered it yet."

Next he went to Trey's office, booted up his computer and logged into his email. Easy enough. All the company emails were basically the same except for the first initial and last name. He sent a quick message to himself.

Charles,

Something interesting came up while you were gone I thought was too good to pass up. Remember the South American company we were interested in? I think we can steal it. I'm going to check it out before someone else gets wind of the opportunity. Back to you shortly.

TJH

He hit Send then powered down the computer. Tomorrow he'd distribute a memo to the appropriate people, repeating what was in the email. Get the word out so people wouldn't wonder about Trey's absence. Because there was no question the man would be absent.

Locking everything up, he rode the elevator down to the garage, climbed in the limo and told Frank to take him home. Once there, he divested himself of his business clothes and put on his favorite silk pajamas. Pouring himself two fingers of bourbon, he sat down in his den to wait. He'd finished half the drink when the call came in. He looked at his watch. An hour and a half had passed, not half enough time to accomplish what he wanted.

He ran everything through his mind, sad that the life of a promising young man would be cut short. Sick at the thought of it. Disgusted he'd brought himself to a situation like this. Afraid not to follow through and have everything he'd built crumble beneath him because of one stupid phone call.

"Boss?" Leo Holland's voice sounded defensive.

Not a good sign.

"Do you have him?" Bennett asked.

"Uh, boss, he wasn't there."

"What?" He sat up straight, the drink sloshing over his hand. An unfamiliar feeling ran through him, tightening his gut. "What do you mean he wasn't there?"

"Just what I said. We were careful going into the house. Price disabled his security system. Everything seems in place. His clothes are still there, but he's gone, and so is his car."

Shit.

What a f*****g mess. The goddamn phone. The complicated electronic security he'd had installed in his office interfered with mobile phones or he'd have used one instead. But he insisted the people who had the number use it only in case of emergency when they couldn't contact him on a cell. He didn't consider the problem with the p*****t anywhere near that category. El-Salaki had been impatient as usual, no doubt prompted by Serrano. Maybe they'd tried to reach him at the exact moment he'd had no reception. Now the hot-tempered Mexican was demanding information at once.

Still, Bennett couldn't blame anyone but himself. He'd just been in such a damn hurry and had left the office with only thoughts of looming trouble on his mind. The emergency turned out to be nothing, a waste of his time, and his haste had caused him to make a huge mistake.

Well, talk about fiction becoming reality. He'd created an email to explain Haggerty's absence once Bennett took care of him. Now the man had disappeared for real. f**k and double f**k. Bennett made himself take deep breaths. He needed a new plan. Think! What to do next? He was uncomfortable telling El-Salaki Trey Haggerty had gone missing and he had no idea where to find him.

"All right," he said at last. "Give me a few minutes to figure things out and I'll call you back."

Yes, Charles. Use your brain.

Wherever the man was he'd need money. And transportation. So his greatest opportunity would come when the banks opened in the morning. They couldn't cover every branch. Too many men would have to be activated and he'd be calling attention to something he wanted to bury.

Every Bennett executive drove a company car and each one, unknown to them, had a tracking device similar to a Lo-Jack. Paranoid, maybe, but better than getting caught with his pants down.

He checked the time on his watch. After six. Picking up the phone he dialed a number and listened to it ring in a small house on the other side of the city. In a soundproofed room filled with massive electronics, sat a man he paid an ungodly sum of money to handle the accounts that tracked his under-the-counter activities and monitored various other things for him.

When a voice answered, he opened a file in his desk drawer and read the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) of the car Trey Bennett drove.

"Activate the tracker," he ordered. "I'll wait."

He chewed on the unlit cigar until the man on the other end read off information to him. Then he asked the man to get into Trey Haggerty's personnel files. Everyone was paid by direct deposit so the name of his bank would be there.

"Now check for all branches of his bank in the area you've identified." Bennett checked his watch again. After eight thirty. Time seemed to be disappearing on him.

When he had the information he needed, he disconnected and called Price again.

"All right. Take this down," he ordered. "He'll be on the move, so get your asses over there and try to find him. I think the better move would be to wait for him when he goes in to withdraw money. He'll need cash so he'll stop there first. Get him and don't let him slip through your fingers again."