Read Online Scarcity (Jack Randall #3) by Randall Wood - Free Book Online Page A

of pants, too long, but close enough for her to wear. She dug into the box and checked every corner, but that was all she found.
    Gathering the items, she stood and walked to the bathroom. At least she could wash the smell of sweat and fear and vomit from her skin. Her belly was full, and she would soon be clean and could maybe, for a moment, not feel like a caged animal.
    Maybe.
    •      •      •
    Lenny watched through the glass as the lawyer spoke with his new client. The conversation was slow and often interrupted by the oxygen mask. Lenny kept waiting for the man to choke and drop dead, but his wish was never granted. He smiled and waved when Oscar indicated him with a bony finger through the glass. The lawyer followed the gesture and offered a toothy grin to Lenny.
    “Smug little bastard, isn’t he?” the current Federal Marshal guarding the door commented.
    “Yes. That he is,” Lenny agreed.
    “It’s almost like he doesn’t believe that he’s caught.”
    “He doesn’t. He and his kind know how screwed up our justice system is here. He thinks he can beat this and walk away. They all do. They’ve been buying judges and lawyers and politicians their whole lives. He thinks that he can throw some money at the right people, threaten a few others, and this will all go away. He may be right. His little finger pointing gesture was just another veiled threat. Pretty soon that lawyer will try to come out here, in his million dollar suit and fake teeth, and threaten me with all kinds of legal action. He doesn’t care, as long as he gets paid. But I got a little surprise for him.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Patience, grasshopper.”
    •      •      •
    A few hours later Lenny sat across from Jack in his office at the FBI. They both had their feet up on the desk.
    “So he’s talking?” Jack asked.
    “He’s singing loud. We’ve been arresting people by the droves. We have names of dealers, wholesalers, pilots, boatmen, guards, drivers, mules, lab men . . . you name it. Tunnel locations, ship’s names, money launderers. We’ve got a grand jury working extra shifts, and the FBI and DEA have every interrogator they have pounding them with questions. Everyone gets the when, where, why, how, and from whom they moved or produced the drugs. The tree has a lot of branches, but the key is Angel. Without him it would all be hearsay. He ties all the others to Hernandez. The transcripts are going to be in the tens of thousands of pages. We may have to cut down some more trees.”
    “Excellent. I understand Oscar has a new lawyer?”
    “Yeah, the Attorney General felt he deserved expert council, so he called Gordon Liebowitz and asked him to serve. He jumped at it. Flew down in his private jet and met with Hernandez this afternoon. It didn’t take long.”
    “I know him. He represented the Mob bosses I dealt with a few years back. He’s slick. We’ll have to watch him carefully.”
    “The key will be how the jury comes to view Hernandez. When you look at him, he looks like your ordinary forty-something male. I mean he’s even less threatening. He’s short, he’s got a belly on him, and he’s going bald. On top of all that, he’s going to die of heart failure soon if he doesn’t get a transplant. That’s going to garner some sympathy right there. Not to mention he’s up against the entire U.S government. Americans love an underdog. How do we convince twelve good men that he’s the Spanish Al Capone? And if we do, how do we keep them from being too scared to find him guilty? We’re going to present evidence of murder, extortion, assassination of government officials, human trafficking, drug production, and smuggling. This guy had an airliner blown up just to kill three people! He had a soccer player killed for missing a goal in the World Cup! If anybody deserves to rot in hell, it’s him. If the jurors aren’t scared after hearing all of that, then they’re too stupid to be