Читать книгу: «Doomsday Conquest», страница 5

From behind his dark Blues Brothers sunglasses, Jacobs watched the Russian scowl, looking him up and down as if he were some sideshow freak. Jacobs crossed one pajama-wrapped leg in white silk over the other, smoothed out the robe in matching color and fabric, brushing a fleck of tobacco off the Playboy bunny monogram on his left breast. Believing he could feel the steam building in the Russian’s primitive brain, sure Rustov’s blood pressure was ready to shoot off the monitor, he turned to Cleopatra, his companion. He watched her with an approving eye, as the striking Asian beauty slinked up to the couch to deliver him another brandy.

“Thank you, my dear,” Jacobs said, twirling the drink in his snifter, then patting the seat beside him. And he thought Rustov would erupt as she dropped her luscious flesh, barely concealed in the leopard-skin one-piece, bottom thrust his way, snuggling close to genius, all purrs and caresses. Breathing in her exquisite fragrance, he felt the stirring of heat in his loins, then the guttural bark of his Russian visitor soured the rising mood.

“There is a limit to our generosity and a bottom to our money pit. Explain yourself now, Comrade Jacobs.”

Jacobs took his smoking pipe, tamped down a fresh snootful of tobacco. “Six million million miles,” he said, smiling. “Three hundred thousand kilometers or 186,000 miles per second. Mass, force, space and time.”

“You find this amusing, comrade?”

“The first was the measure of a light-year. The second was the speed of light. The third is part of an equation whereby I explain how to shrink mass, while heating a hydrogen core for controlled bursts of a thermonuclear explosion that would allow for travel at and beyond light speed.”

“You are trying my patience to its limits.”

“So I see.” Jacobs puffed, sipped his drink. He took the remote box, snapped on a James Bond movie behind the Russian thug, wondering if he could replicate or refine one of Q’s high-tech toys, but saw the scene and already knew that he had. If he hadn’t, he knew the Russians wouldn’t be here now, waiting on him, hand and foot, frothing at the mouth, impatient to get on with business, surely entertaining violent fantasies of what they’d like to do to him if he weren’t regarded as the Holy Grail to their superiors.

“What you see, Comrade Rustov,” he said, speaking now in fluent Russian, “as a typical Stealth fighter jet is, in fact, the war bird of the future, created by my own hand, and for which your country came to me and agreed to my demands in order to—one—not only engineer a version of Lightning Bat, but—two—deliver to you my considerable expertise in likewise building weapons and weapons systems that far surpass your incomprehension of me and my creation. What you failed to understand and thus give me a chance to become immortalized beyond the likes of Albert Einstein is that Lightning Bat was one, perhaps two, steps away from being able to send man into deep space at the speed of light through my sweat and labor. Which requires nuclear propulsion, of which I installed in Lightning Bat and was in the process of designing for a prototype spacecraft.”

“You are talking much but telling me nothing of what I wish to know.”

“Ah, I see. You think I throw you a crumb with those computer printouts on the table. You want to know where the good stuff is kept.” Jacobs tapped the side of his head. “Nearly all of the treasures of the mysteries of the universe, comrade, are locked safely away in here. Regarding my continued health and happiness, I will lead you to all pertinent documents and data in due course. After, of course, I have enjoyed what was agreed upon as one week of R and R in Las Vegas. That leaves me at present with three days to suffer your scowling and barbs and demands.”

Rustov leaned forward, an edge to his voice. “You may feel genius should be granted all the perks and privileges it demands, while we, the common peasants should bow and scrape before you, but I would be very careful how you speak to me, Comrade Jacobs. Your continued happiness is really of no great concern to me.”

Jacobs blew smoke across the table. “It damn well better be, Comrade Rustov. Your life depends on just how happy I am.” Jacobs watched the gunsel, thinking he could almost read his mind as his thug’s brain churned over at the rate of drying concrete, searching for some response that would save face.

“Three more days, then it is I who will dictate the agenda.”

“Until then…if you would be so kind as to order up some breakfast for myself and Cleopatra. Eggs over easy, I like my bacon juicy with fat, not irradiated to shoe leather as it was yesterday. Make sure they understand that. If I discover you are cutting budget costs by stiffing room service on the tip, I will be most unhappy.”

Rustov chuckled as he stood. “Perhaps you are unaware, believing myself and my men only your ignorant lackeys. While you sleep with your whores, we cracked the mainframe on your laptop.”

Jacobs felt his heart flutter. “That was most unwise, since you should treat my privacy like you would my happiness.”

“We know about the Web sites, your e-mails to your former colleagues in my country. Should you not deliver as promised, we believe they have sufficient expertise to assist us.”

“Sufficient, in this case, will not cut it, Comrade Rustov. Further, you seem to forget I worked at Compound Zero-159-A, and that these former colleagues of mine could not complete work I left unfinished when the money dried up. Now. Are you going to respect my privacy and see to my continued happiness, likewise see to it that my pockets are deep when I leave for the casinos or do I contact your superiors and tell them the deal is off? And inform them it is because you are uncooperative cheapskate with a considerable chip on his shoulder?”

Rustov smiled, bobbed his head. “We will continue the arrangement, Comrade Jacobs, as you wish. Only bear this in mind as a gambler. When your marker is called in, you had best pony up.”

“The threat implying it’s a big desert out there?”

Jacobs watched Rustov, the baboon wearing his stupid grin, as he turned and walked for the foyer, barking at his four gunslingers to fall in. Grateful when he was alone, he draped an arm over Cleopatra, pulled her closer, and said, “I certainly hope that little bit of unpleasantness didn’t ruin your mood, my dear.”

“YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE IT easy on the liquor, Slim, while we’re sailing along at a hundred miles an hour and five hundred feet off the ground?”

“The name’s Rupert, son. And I don’t care what that tin badge you flashed me sayin’ you’re with the Justice Department, this is my plane, and I been flying since you were but a mere itch in your daddy’s sac. And unless you wanna arrest me for FWI and land this bird yourself, you might want to lose that nasty attitude of yours—Mr. G-Man—sir.”

Carl “Ironman” Lyons was in a foul mood as it was. It was never a happy day when he was snatched off R and R, duty calling or not. No, it wasn’t so much he was being bosom-nuzzled by a beautiful dancer way more than half his age when he got the call from the Farm to put his pants on, as it was the hangover now pulsing wardrums through a swollen brain that was sorely tempting his sand-papered tongue to mollify the old prairie buzzard for a shot of whiskey if only to help pull shot nerves together. At the moment, fear of flying took on a whole new meaning for the leader of Able Team.

As if flinging his scowl an invisible middle finger, the old-timer lifted the bottle and took another haul, then took his free hand off the wheel and lit a smoke. Lyons looked over his shoulder, found Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz had a half-cocked grin aimed at the old geezer.

“My buddy thinks you’re a real hoot, Rupe,” Lyons growled.

“That a fact? Well, he wants to do some back-seat flying I ain’t opposed to helpin’ him step out the door neither. And I don’t believe in carryin’ parachutes when I hit the friendly skies.”

“You’re a real piece of work, Rupe, a real dinosaur, but I kinda like your style,” Lyons said, faced front, and began scanning the prairie through his field glasses.

“That’s Ru-pert, Mr. G-Man. You want I should smack you upside your hard head?”

“I’d rather spare myself the shame of getting brained by a guy four times my senior.”

“You need to lose that smart mouth, you know that, sonny?”

“I’m working on it, one day at a time, you know. Just keep heading northeast toward Gladstone. And try and hold her a little steady before I start tasting my nuts.”

Lyons left Rupert to muttering and bouncing the bird between pulls of Wild Turkey. Schwarz, he knew, was getting the video cam ready to start filming whatever it was they were there to see. Destruction of private property, presumably, with a classified military-aerospace installation to the east responsible for the mayhem that was being kept buried in the closet. Plan of attack? he thought. Soon enough he figured to encounter the flying cavalry once old Rupert breached restricted airspace, only Rupert didn’t know that yet. To say they were off to a less than auspicious start, with Pol gallivanting around Las Vegas with some war pal turned private dick…

How the Farm had even found Badland Tours on the map to begin with was a nagging mystery that only fueled the fire in his brain. The closest post to any sign of civilization in Slope County in southwestern North Dakota, the Gulfstream had landed at Rupert Baynard’s private airfield, as arranged by the Farm. That was if Lyons could even call a graveyard of rust bucket twin engine Pipers and Cessnas and gutted choppers an airport. They had ditched their gear in a backroom at what Lyons figured passed for his home-office, doling out enough cash for both a week’s room and board and Rupert’s skills as a pilot, and Lyons would bet the old buzzard wasn’t even FAA-certified.

The plane itself resembled an old Dakota C-47, Lyons recalling four or five bullet holes he’d seen scarring the portside fuselage before he climbed a ladder that nearly buckled under his boots. Beyond that, the bucket of bolts shook and shimmied, and from what Lyons could tell there was nothing but blue skies, no wind blowing across the prairie below that should find the craft damn near bucking like a gored bull. Not only that, but it felt as though his seat wasn’t fully bolted down, seeming to list to starboard when he shifted his weight, and the port radial engine mounted in nacelles belched black smoke when Rupert cut back on the speed even a hair. If that wasn’t bad enough, Lyons saw that a few of the instrument gauges didn’t even work, the glass coverings cracked.

“I’ll be damned. That’s Cam Decker’s spread, or what’s left of it. What in the…”

What was left, Lyons saw, was charred ruins, as they flew over a few dozen carcasses, impossible to tell if they were horse or cattle, burned as they were beyond recognition. Rupert began spouting off his anger and outrage in a string of four-, ten- and twelve-letter expletives directed primarily at the new breed of Washington bluebelly, stating he knew the government was testing out new weapons in the area and was sure they were to blame for what happened to the Decker ranch. Which left Lyons somewhat amazed and wondering that he’d even agreed to the Farm’s request to allow two special agents from the United States Department of Justice to violate his airspace and claim his digs as a temporary base, though a sizable cash contribution to Badland Tours was clearly the acceptable peace pipe.

“You have any clue as to what happened out here last night, Rupert?” Lyons asked.

“I live alone, I ain’t got no TV, no radio. My closest neighbor is old Cam and his wife. Since you people got my phone number somehow, I’m thinking about disconnecting that.”

Lyons scoured the black lake of destruction for any sign of life, but found none. “You might want to make that ‘was’ your closest neighbor.”

“Was? You telling me you think they’re dead?”

“Agent Schlitz?” Lyons called over his shoulder, using Schwarz’s handle of Special Agent Henry Schlitz. “You get any of that?”

“What wasn’t jumping off the lens when Rupert hit all that turbulence.”

“That wasn’t no damn turbulence!”

“Hey,” Lyons rasped at Schwarz, “didn’t you hear the man say he doesn’t like smart-asses?”

Schwarz flashed the Able Team leader a wry grin. “My humble apologies.”

“I did hear somethin’ about strange explosions when I was at the diner this morning.”

“And?”

“And nothin’. Seems these skies have been swarming with black helicopters all night long, or so I heard. Someone even said a whole town near here was blown to smithereens, but it don’t seem no one cares to confirm that rumor.”

“An entire town, you’re telling me, gets wiped off the map and nobody goes to check on their neighbors?”

“Got the area cordoned off, way I hear it. Military keeping everyone gets too close away, and at the barrels of machine guns.”

Lyons spotted the red butte, the flat vista of brown mesa rising just beyond. A few more miles, according to the Farm’s intelligence, and they’d hit the restricted airspace of Eagle Nebula. As they were soaring over the mesa and Lyons spotted all the sat dishes bubbling the rooftop of a low-lying but massive concrete installation, ringed around the compass by razor wire, it dawned on Rupert he’d been duped.

“Hey! This is restricted airspace!”

He was cutting the wheel when Lyons ordered, “Keep it straight and stick to our scheduled course.”

“The hell you say! That place, I heard, has antiaircraft cannon! You want we should get blown out of the sky?”

“Nobody’s going to blow us out of the sky.”

“No, sir.”

“I’m paying for this ride, Rupert, and this badge and gun,” Lyons said, patting the bulge beneath his black windbreaker where the .357 Magnum Colt Python was shouldered, “state that as an agent of the United States government I can go wherever I damn well please whenever I damn well want because I am duly authorized to do just that.”

“You gonna pull that piece on me, mister? You gonna shoot me? Can you fly this bird?”

“I’m asking you to cooperate.”

Rupert grumbled through clenched teeth, but stayed the course. They weren’t but another two hundred yards closer when the Black Hawk gunship seemed to drop straight down from the sky, about a quarter mile, dead ahead. Rupert began cursing when the gunship hovered in a holding pattern, swinging around so the M-60 door gunner had a clear line of fire.

“We’ve got two more bogeys, gentlemen,” Lyons heard Schwarz inform him. “And their door gunners look like they’ve got itchy trigger fingers.”

Sure enough, Lyons found they were blocked in by two more Black Hawks, port and starboard, M-60s looking so close he could spit on them.

“You piloting the aircraft!” a disembodied voice boomed from what Lyons knew was a loudspeaker. “You are in restricted airspace of the United States government! You will land the craft immediately or we will force you down! Wave, if you understand!”

Lyons watched as Rupert waved at them with a middle finger. “I don’t think that was too smart, Rupert. By forcing us down they don’t mean a gentle escort with a ticker tape parade waiting on the ground.”

“All right, all right. I don’t know what the hell I let you get me into, but if I lose my plane on account of—”

“Relax and do what they tell you. Just get us on the ground in one piece,” Lyons said.

As Rupert waved he understood, minus the bird this time, Lyons reached behind, grabbed the nylon safety harness. As he tugged forward he heard fabric tear, and came back with a hand full of shreds which he displayed to Rupert with a scowl, reconsidering that fat swig of Wild Turkey.

CHAPTER FIVE

Colonel Boris Rustov was no man’s flunky, genius or whatever. He was Spetsnaz, first and last, and as such he knew the word alone was enough to send ice walking down the spines of adversarial warriors the world over.

Nothing less than the heart of a lion, he knew, the balls of a bull elephant could fashion a Spetsnaz commando.

Thus it was a source of stung pride, more or less, that found a warrior of his vaunted and stature viewed by a pampered, self-indulgent think-tank as a monkey to his organ grinding. Perhaps he was touted by the GRU as a genius who—if he was so inclined to believe the propaganda—could propel their country light-years ahead in both high-tech weapons and its space program, leave the competition to choke in the afterburning dust of what Moscow hoped was a new-and-improved version of Lightning Bat, but Rustov knew something Jacobs did not.

Secrecy and duplicity was the way of the Russian, after all.

Yes, the Israeli national had been granted an advance of two million U.S. dollars, though Rustov had informed him only half that much was presently available in the coffers—to be doled out as he saw fit—and to much squawking, flapping of arms and threats that fell on deaf ears, though the man clearly didn’t want to bite the hand that fed his vices. And yes, much to his own burning chagrin, the smug bastard was to be catered to, every whim indulged, no matter how obscene or distasteful, no matter how dangerous to the task at hand if he became sloppy drunk, made a spectacle of himself in the casinos, or was rousted by security at the blackjack table for counting cards.

Three more nights, he thought, and the arrogant worm would see the gravy train slide to a screeching halt.

Boris Rustov was under orders to torture the esteemed Dr. Jacobs if he didn’t fully cooperate after the allotted R and R.

First, extract the vital information his country sought, or the whereabouts to whatever key documents he had stashed, and Rustov was sure he could crack the egghead with a mere backhand slap or two across his arrogant face. After that, it would be up to him how he chose to dispose of the problem. And the mere notion he might end up having his way with Jacobs, deciding on how long he would prolong the man’s suffering before killing him in any number of gruesome and dehumanizing ways…

It fairly made his mouth water in anticipation.

“If you want me to stay, that will be another five hundred dollars. Per hour. Two thousand if you want me for the whole day.”

He caught the whore staring at him in the mirror, curled up under satin sheets, hugging them tight to her supple figure. Pulling on his trousers, he felt her eyes wander the length of torso cut by far more than rippling sinew. For a moment, he allowed her to stare at flesh that looked more armor than muscle, wonder in perhaps fear and awe at the sight of so many scars and the dead purpled flesh of bullet wounds from so many distant battlefields so many lifetimes ago. Slipping the black turtleneck over his head, he realized she was asking him to decide how much he enjoyed her company, though judging the uncertainty in her eyes figured she’d rather return to the safety of urban cowboys or johns in suits who used her while tasting parole from nagging wives, squalling brood and the drudgery of suburban life.

He snapped on his watch. “Why not.”

“Why not, what? One hour, or the whole day, sport?”

Diplomatic immunity, he considered, came catered with plenty of its own perks and privileges. Weapons, for one critical matter, the heavy artillery housed under the very roof of his adjoining suite, with caches for ready access in sedan rentals. As for circumventing the normal channels—arranged with inside assistance from the American State Department—he and his fifteen commandos had carte blanche to carry concealed weapons. Breaking laws, though perhaps short of mass murder, was another star in the plus column. And by dangling the sore issue of dwindling funds over the greedy swine’s head, outright lying about the other million, there was thus plenty left to skim for his own joy and happiness.

He peeled off two thousand in hundreds, U.S., flipped the wad on the bed, noting how closely she watched him shove the rest of the currency back into his pants pocket.

“Typical American whore,” he muttered in his native tongue.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Russian, comrade. But that didn’t sound very nice.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

She retreated deeper inside her silken shroud when he pinned her surly look in the mirror, thinking he’d just as soon kill her, take back his money and use her body again. He was heading for the door to his master bedroom, slipping into his shoulder rigging, when he heard the knock. A check of his watch, twisting the knob, and he knew by now the Israeli swine would be in the casino, the Asian call girl on his arm while he played the high roller. It was a little soon, and he’d capitulated by handing off forty thousand for the good doctor’s buyin stake, so he couldn’t imagine he should be whining for more money, or just yet.

He found Vladimir Kruchenov on the other side, the chiseled hawk face looking dark with concern.

“My apologies for disturbing you, Comrade Colonel,” he said, using Russian as prior the order when an important or critical matter needed to be discussed. “But the desk called me as you had requested them to do if someone came asking about our guest.”

Rustov listened to the details. It was just this moment he had been on war footing for since arriving in Las Vegas. Apparently, Jacobs had been tracked down. From the description his lieutenant gave him, it hardly bespoke of a consummate professional. Cheap white sports jacket. Cheap white shoes, looked like they just fell off the shelf at a discount store. Wrinkled aloha shirt with half-naked island girls, flamingos and palm trees. Black sunglasses, profiling and cracking wise, or like he was Hollywood royalty incognito. Reeking, so the deskman further stated, of whiskey fumes and smoking like a dragon wherever he spread his sunshine. Rustov had the picture.

Only he knew what sort of individual guarded the lair of the Eagle Nebula, and was the interloper coming to them, disguised as a low-rolling bum better suited for a grind joint up the Strip…

A clever ruse? One professional, easy enough to single out if the description held up, luring them into an ambush? Whichever it was, it was time for one side to either raise or fold their hand, as the good doctor might say.

He told Kruchenov to alert the others, wait for him in the living room. “I will be gone for a while,” he told his playmate, opening the top drawer of his dresser, then fishing the sandwich bag out of his briefcase.

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.” He tossed the bag on the bed, disgusted by her as the sight of all that white powder instantly changed her from surly bitch to demure cat. “I know how much is in there, and I expect to get my money’s worth out of you between that ounce-and-one-quarter and my two thousand. Be here when I return.”

“No problem, comrade. I’ll just entertain myself.”

“I’m sure you will,” he snarled, shutting the door behind to leave her either wondering what he just said or how long she could ride the Russian Gravy Train.

ROSARIO BLANCANALES had no problem admitting he was a gambler, but the risks he undertook were worlds apart from the frenzy of the gaming pits he’d seen since his boots touched down at McCarran International. As an Able Team commando and Stony Man warrior, he put his life on the line each time he waded into the blood-soaked trenches where he battled the enemies of national security, or defended the right to pursue life, liberty and happiness wherever humankind wished to live in peace, but were devoured by the cannibalistic forces of terrorism, despotism, organized crime and all the criminal ills that fell in between to spread a cancer of misery and despair.

What he did was a matter of honor, duty and principle.

No lust for more money than to suit basic needs, carry his own weight. No limelight in which to take a bow before adoring throngs. No worldly gain of any sort for placing his head on the chopping block, other than perhaps the occasional curt acknowledgment of a job well done—he was only human, after all—by comrades and colleagues who undertook either the same risks or were committed to the same task behind the front lines. Here in Vegas, around the clock, though, in something like thirty-two casinos rising or plopped down along the seven-mile stretch they called the Strip, with a million or more souls, he’d heard, crammed into the downtown arena at any given time that was designed for 300,000 capacity, the air wherever he trod was hypercharged with the electricity of raw greed.

And this was the fastest growing city in America.

It was the start of his second full day in Vegas and already he had a bellyful of the human appetite to grab more, and often just for the sake of grabbing while hinging it all on a wing and a prayer. Also known as the Politician for his ability to reach into the hearts and minds of friend and foe alike, he found his thoughts troubled that so many came here to spend so much of what they really couldn’t afford to lose, in reality short-changing responsibilities and commitments elsewhere. On the other end of that tainted rainbow, the few who could squander so much and not miss it in their never-ending quest for more were either blind or didn’t care that a huge, sweltering chunk of humanity worried whether or not they would eat that day.

Welcome to the human race, he supposed. Viva Las Vegas. How long this bout of quasi-depression would last, he couldn’t say, but reckoned his dark mood had more to do with his current stint than feeling as if he was some alien from outer space that just stepped off the Mothership on the South Lawn.

Walking out of the coffee shop with his five-dollar cup of java—having been promptly and curtly informed when wandering into one of the casino’s restaurants in search of a breakfast buffet that he needed at least a six-month reservation in advance just to eat and had to be a guest of the hotel—he bottom-lined the difference between himself and the madness he found swarming everywhere he set foot. Grateful, but sad at the same time for all those racing around here to chase a vapor, he was keenly aware a truly elite few knew what he did, why, and who he really was.

After a check of his watch, wondering what was keeping his Vietnam pal turned private investigator, he gave his opulent surroundings a search, grabbing a piece of marbled turf as the early morning throngs swept past. The Bellagio, he had to admit, was light-years from any grind joint where he and his buddy were holed up at the Stardust, farther north up the Strip. A man could get lost in here, he figured, the hotel-casino more like a cathedral where he needed a day-long tour guide just to get his bearings. What with its boasting of showrooms, numerous restaurants, shopping mall, sprawling casino, botanical gardens, it also came advertised hanging thirteen original Picassos somewhere in all this ostentatious gaming basilica, the sum total of all this grandeur billed by the bigshots, he figured, as the crown jewel of Vegas. Out front, there was even a man-made lake with Italian village theme park, complete with dancing fountains…

If he felt way out of his league, at least in terms of being a warrior with simple needs and solid contentment for what was real and honest, then he was reasonably certain his Nam buddy believed he had arrived, that the Bellagio was built expressly with one Eddie Parker in mind.

And there it was, he thought, another dagger thrust into his grim mood, twisting to open his bleeding soul a little more, this time in regards to his friend.

Blancanales looked down the wide-open space of corridor he believed led to the front desk. It was a hodgepodge of humanity swirling around him in all this glittering acreage, as he searched for his former Black Beret pal. Cowboys and business suits, blue-haired retirees, Japanese and German tour groups, giddy on the high alone of being in Vegas. James Bond pretenders in tuxedos marched for the gaming pits with drink in hand and well-heeled women on the arm, often in lockstep beside the Bermuda shorts, espresso and sandals crowd. All told, it was a melting pot of class, culture and attire, clear the bottom line was the size of bankrolls and not wardrobe.

And there he came, a rolling neon sign spouting a smoke stack that fairly parted the sea of humanity. Blancanales noticed a little extra bounce in the white-shoed step, but couldn’t be certain if that meant good news in their quest or the first of many double whiskeys to mark the new day in a town that never slept.

Sad, he thought, recalling a young soldier, an eighteen-year-old kid scared to death like the rest of them back then, but finding the warrior stuff it took to fight and survive, as compared to what he saw now, a lifetime later down the winding road of life. Where it went wrong for Eddie he couldn’t say, but he was a full-blown alcoholic now, teetering on the edge of self-evisceration. It might have started with that “Dear Eddie” letter from his high-school sweetheart who wrote to tell him she was marrying his best friend while he was knee-deep in blood, leeches and rats, as worried as hell when Charlie might come screaming out of the jungle any second, AK blazing. Or it could have begun with something far more insidious, far uglier that scarred the souls of a lot of men from that war.

For whatever the reasons Parker’s life had clearly gone into the toilet. Between two divorces, getting “retired” from the Chicago police force, he had then relocated to North Dakota. There, supposedly, he’d run his own private investigation agency—Parker Probes—claiming he drummed up most of his business using his own Web site on the Internet, but alluded to some trouble with Uncle Sam, and Blancanales could add two and two on that score. As for the current client in question, Parker told him she was a lonely lady friend whose husband was a philandering “bigshot rocket geek,” as his buddy so stated with all the compassion of a hovering buzzard licking its beak while its meal breathed its last.