Deadly Pursuit by Michael Prescott Read Free Book Online

modest L-shaped complex, Consolidated Silver & Gold Investors, Inc., had the largest office but the smallest sign. It was not meant to attract customers off the street.
    A clamor of voices calling out buy and sell orders assaulted him as he stepped into the boiler room. The impression of frantic activity, like everything else about the operation, was a scam, a cheat; there was no mob of traders here, merely a tape loop playing sounds of a busy commodities exchange over four speakers bolted to the walls. A corny ruse, but it kept his salesmen wired while they worked the phones, and it served well as background noise during the pitch.
    Jack paused just inside the doorway and surveyed his kingdom. Gray short-nap carpet, painted plywood walls, extension cords stretched along the baseboards. Half a dozen cheap metal desks and swivel chairs flanked by wastebaskets filled with old newspapers and takeout food containers. The wide front windows had been covered with Venetian blinds, now partially open to let in stripes of sun that complemented the frosty glare of fluorescent panels.
    Three of his four men—he only hired men; women couldn’t sell; it was an article of faith with him—were already on the phones, pressing hard for the first deal of the day. They greeted him with smiles and waves, and kept talking. The smiles were genuine; his men respected him and liked him. Behind his back, but sometimes within earshot, they called him The Master.
    Jack poured himself a mug of coffee, then sat at his desk in a rear corner, away from the glare of the windows. He wondered, not for the first time, what his men would think of him if they knew how he spent his weekends.
    Perhaps they would despise him for it. But he didn’t think so. There was an undercurrent of boiling violence beneath the average scam artist’s smooth exterior.
    He would never know for certain, but he liked to believe that if his men did learn the truth about him, they would respect The Master that much more.

 
     
     
    5
     
    Jack Dance’s arrival at his place of business was observed and recorded by four FBI technicians in a green van parked across the street. Video and still cameras captured his brief walk to the office door. The same cameras, their telephoto lenses focused on the front windows, caught glimpses of him through gaps in the Venetian blinds. Only once he sat at his desk, away from the windows, was he lost to sight.
    “He’s in there,” the camera operator said. “If he follows his routine, he won’t come out till noon.”
    The communications technician radioed a transmission on a VHF band. The signal was unscrambled, necessitating a coded message.
    “Weather Central, this is Tracking Post A. Storm front has moved in.”
    Peter Lovejoy’s voice crackled over the technician’s earplug: “Continue monitoring the system’s progress. We’re placing additional resources at your disposal.”
    * * *
    Jack’s first call of the day was to a Mr. Pavel Zykmund of Downey. Mr. Zykmund’s name had come from a mailing list, one of several Jack had purchased from publishers of religious magazines and investment newsletters with conservative leanings. He’d found that people with an apocalyptic outlook and a distrust of paper money were more likely to put their faith in precious metals as a hedge against society’s collapse.
    A gruff male voice edged with a strong Eastern European accent answered on the fourth ring. “Service.” Electric tools whirred in the background.
    “Pavel?”
    “This is me.”
    “Hey, Pavel, how you doing? This is Dave Michaels over at Consolidated.”
    “Consolidated?”
    “Consolidated Silver and Gold Investors. Listen, man, I’m sorry it’s been so long since I talked with you, but I’ve gotten kind of backlogged here. You know how it is.”
    Dance had never spoken with Zykmund before. Faking a previous relationship was the first key part of the pitch.
    * * *
    In the alley behind the strip mall, a red Camaro eased to