Caffrey Flashback

Chapter 19: The Blue Box

Enscombe estate on Long Island. Thursday afternoon. February 26, 2004.

Mozzie delivered another water disguised as Scotch on the rocks to Neal in the Enscombe dining area. Lunch had ended and the "initiation event" had started. To Mozzie it looked like speed dating for job seekers. Neal and George remained at their table, visited by a constant stream of people. At first they were Highbury employees, offering advice on Nick Halden's resume or asking mock interview questions. The next group to drop by the table were members of Highbury who talked to "Nick" about their companies and described jobs that might be a good fit for him. A few were there to speak to George, and some of them also stopped to talk to job seekers at other tables.

Mozzie sighed as he listened to a perky young woman describe the joys of account management. Convincing clients to give you more money was such a great set up for a con, and she was sucking all the life out of it. Corporations were merely legitimized criminal operations, turning employees into unthinking drones who took money from equally unthinking masses. Faceless companies appropriated the conman's art form and made it boring. He rolled his eyes as he took an order for a strawberry daiquiri. What a waste of rum.

All of the workers at Enscombe received a list of clients expected each day, with photos, and were expected to greet visitors by name. Neal was the only new client on today's list. Several expected visitors had cancelled, due to the sinkhole blocking the main road into the area. The extra hour added to the round trip had deterred some people from making the drive. It had made Neal late getting here, but the initiation event was going to be shorter than planned due to the smaller number of participants. Mozzie estimated it would be about fifteen minutes before Neal met with Frank Churchill.

Plenty of time to search his office, as Frank was currently in the dining area flirting with Jane Fairfax. If Mozzie had time, he'd try to help her see that she could do much better than a man who thought a light beer was the ideal drink. Some people had no imagination.

The suits had given him a bug to plant in Frank's office, to serve as a backup in case anything happened to Neal's watch. Mozzie placed it under the mahogany desk top. "Testing," he said. "The rain forest weeps for the illegal logging that likely brought you this hiding place."

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"Who is this guy?" asked Graham Winslow, who was assigned to listen to the bug Mozzie placed while Henry listened to the feed from Neal's watch.

"Paranoid criminal genius with a warped social conscience," Henry said. "And a friend of Neal's."

"What have we got?" asked Peter, who had been giving an update to Hughes.

"Neal's still networking," said Henry. "Mozzie planted the bug."

"Now he's searching Churchill's office," Graham added.

"He was supposed to plant the bug and get out of there. If he abandons his post as bartender he'll raise suspicion."

"He's found something," Graham said. "They store the drugs in a cabinet in the office."

"Let's hear it," said Peter, pressing the button that put the office bug on speaker.

"Same drug name and manufacturer, but two types of packaging. Some are in a red box and some are in blue," Mozzie was saying.

"What does the color signify?" Peter asked.

"I don't know," Henry said. "It was more than a year ago when I did my research. At that time there was only one version of the drug, and it was packaged in red. I don't get it. If they came up with a revised formula, I should have seen something about it in the industry journals."