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“A few weeks ago. Was it you?”
“Not me, and not my client. This just came up.”
“What came up? Exactly?”
Ax hesitated, wondering how much to tell them. What the hey, he had zero anyway. “My client got a phone call.”
“From someone asking about Sergeant Jacks, you mean?”
“No, Major, a call
to
my client,
from
the late Sergeant Jacks.”
“Damn,” Tubbs said softly.
“How certain is your client that it actually was Jacks?” Polito asked.
“Not very. But you don't seem very surprised that a guy who supposedly died in a training accident six years ago is suddenly ringing folks up. Why is that?”
Again the two men exchanged a glance. “It's ... complicated,” Polito said. “Can we talk off the record?”
“Fine by me, unless it conflicts with my client's interests.”
“I see no reason why it should. Sergeant Jacks didn't die in a training accident.”
“Surprise, surprise. What did happen to him?”
“He was ... working undercover for the military police. The case involved black-market weapons sales. There was an explosion. Sergeant Jacks was killed.”
“Really?” Ax said, chewing it over. “The only problem with that story is that Bobby Jacks wasn't an MP. His MOS was for materiel. So why would a supply sergeant be working undercover for the MPs?”
“You're ex-military?” Tubbs asked. “It's not in your records.”
“Marines,” Ax said. “Enlisted underage, served most of a hitch in the Corps before they found out how old I was and booted me. But two years in the Marines can be a long damn time. So let me make an educated guess. Since Jacks wasn't a cop, I'm betting he got caught selling arms on the black market. Then the MPs offered him a deal. If he set up his buyers, he could maybe save his own ass. Something like that?”
“Something like it,” Polito admitted.
“What went wrong?”
“Jacks arranged to deliver a couple of cases of M16s and five kilos of C-4 explosives. He met the buyers at a deserted warehouse in Colón. The MPs were preparing to move in when there was some kind of an explosion. Whole place went up.
Boom!
No survivors.”
“Did they identify Bobby Jacks's body?”
“What body?” Tubbs snorted. “Five keys of C-4? The blast flattened half a city block. All they found were bloody grease spots. No way to tell who was what. Nobody could survive a blast like that.”
“Doesn't seem like it,” Ax agreed. “Do they know what triggered it? C-4 doesn't usually go off by itself.”
“No way to be sure. Place was totaled.”
“Yeah, I bet it was.” Ax nodded.
“And because it was an undercover operation, you can see why we'd prefer to keep it quiet,” Polito said, rising. “So if there's nothing else, Mr. Axton...?”
“Just one last question,” Ax said. “You said Jacks delivered the goods to a warehouse? So I assume his contacts were supposed to bring enough cash to pay him off, right?”
“Possibly.” Polito nodded warily.
“How much are we talking about?”
“We aren't certain of the exact—”
“Ballpark, then. How much money was involved?”
“Roughly two hundred thousand, American,” Polito admitted.
“And afterward, how much of that money did you find?”
