The Touch

Tijuana Mexico

Troy: "Good morning, sir; my name is Troy Manolo. I hope I'm speaking with George Wanner."

George: "This is George; how can I help you, Troy?"

Troy: "George, your neighborhood, Shade Gardens, is switching trash contractors. Did your homeowners association tell you about it in December?"

George: I don't re...

Troy: "Your normal trash day is tomorrow, right?"

George: "Yes."

Troy: "When we pick up your trash tomorrow, we will leave a new can that will fit the lifters on our trucks. The can is larger than your current can, so we will only have to pick it up every other week instead of weekly. This will save your homeowners association about $5000.00 a year. We are also going to dispose of your old can."

George: So I will only take the trash out every other week?

Troy: "Yes, Your neighbor Chuck Glovis is very excited about that."

Troy: "When we drop off your can and collect the old one, do you want us to ring your bell and collect a $50.00 deposit and disposal fee for the old one? We can knock on your door to take fifty in cash or take a credit card right now, so you won't have to wait around."

George: "My wife has a dental appointment tomorrow, I'll pay you now please."

In three hours, the team called all three hundred houses in Shade Gardens, a suburb of Scottsdale, Arizona. 75% of the respondents paid by credit card, 5% decided to pay by cash, and the other 20% were unreachable. The team then passed the credit card numbers and other information to the supervisor, who put the information on a PDF and sent it higher up the food chain. Within one hour, a team in the Baltic Sea area drained all the available credit from each account.  

No cans would be delivered tomorrow and none would be picked up. 

This scam had a shelf life of less than forty-eight hours and would be stopped as the internet allowed it to be exposed. The take was expected to be close to 1.5 million dollars in forty-eight hours.

When the team was done with Shade Gardens, they focused on the next target, a development in a suburb of Nashville, Tennesee.

By the close of business on this day, the team had stolen close to $700,000.00, and each member of the seven-person team was paid $3000.00 in cash as they walked out the door.

As he was handed his stack of cash in small denominations, Troy thanked Frisco, the boss, for the opportunity. "Troy, your percentages continue to shine. You have a touch, brother. Thank you!" "See you tomorrow."

He and the rest of the team walked a short distance to a bus that carried Americans over the San Diego border crossing so they could go home.

As he walked from the bus stop to his rental car, Thomas Allston, undercover as Troy Manolo, could not believe how easy it was to cherry-pick this cash.

2 Weeks Ago On The Coast Of New England

All I can tell you is that I'm working an undercover job that requires me to be away for an unknown amount of time. Initially, I'll be able to contact you daily at night, but that may change. Are you okay watching our four-legged boy and keeping him happy? "Oh yeah, I'll be in California."

Eve thought about this for a half second and calculated that Natalie Leuze was now in New York and coming home to Maine by the weekend.

"Tango and I will be fine, and I'll make sure he gets his 0430 beach time."

"You know that's his favorite, Evie; I appreciate it."

We are cooking something special tonight. I'm screwing up what is my version of Mongolian Beef, and of course, Eve is cooking the rice perfectly. We are drinking large glasses of wine while the smarty speaker plays a medley of jump blues music, which is almost one hundred years old. 

This will be my first undercover job that takes me far away since Eve and I have been together. I hope she can handle nights alone, taking care of Tango, and, most of all, not having any contact for long periods of time. 

It will be important that my real life and the life of my cover do not intersect because I will be observed, then vetted, and perhaps promoted. 

All of that is better than being dead. The game is large, international, and sanctioned by a foreign government with a ruthless, nasty reputation.

I don't know how to convey to Evie that my silence may keep us both alive and that she will need patience, trust, and silence about what I am up to, where I am, etc.

We went over for the tenth time, where I kept a spare Glock. I gave her twenty thousand dollars to keep the house bills current, Tango in treats, and whatever else Eve wanted.

I'm nervous about this job because of who chose me for it and who is paying the bill.

Later in the evening, Eve and I held each other and laughed at my major mistake in serving dinner. It almost became an emergency DoorDash evening, but we each had too much wine and ate the beef anyway.

We made love but were both distant from each other. I think about the job, and Eve, I don't know what. If I had asked her, she would have said, "I'm fine." 

You know what that means.

3 Weeks Ago - An office in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

I met Wallace Q. Hughes when my trailer home got ventilated by Middle Eastern Terrorists. He was one of dozens of people who questioned me on that scary day. Since then, I know that he spoke with Eve. I know that I have been in Wallace's periphery as my name popped up here and there in a few things the FBI was working.

My best friend Ben Mason, who is in love with an FBI agent, set this meeting today. Ben had gotten into a discussion with Wallace at a dinner party that Lisa Tanaka needed to attend, and they were speaking about the FBI hiring consultants. 

Wallace intimated that he could not find any good help these days and that a backlog of investigations needed consultants who could immerse themselves in business situations for short to medium lengths of time.

Wallace heard Ben mention my name, and apparently, he laughed. The FBI was still unsure whether I was a good guy. In my opinion, the list of recent situations where I have encountered the FBI is impressive.

The Tanner case in New Hampshire with Gerry Tanner's computer.

Three Arab Terrorists who also worked at the NSA shot at my house.

Being sighted at a still top-secret base in New Hampshire that may or may not be Chinese.

Ben kept telling Wallace that Thomas Allston "Immerses" for a living.

I'm in a small conference room rented for today when Wallace enters, and I stand to shake his hand. This one will be an old-school minor pissing contest that goes like this. Wallace and I immediately match each other death grip to death grip. 

I turn him a little to the left as we look each other in the eyes. It's a Blue On Blue festival as we grip and size each other up. Wallace is big, but in my mind, I know I could drop him if I had to. I'm guessing an Air Force past and a law degree. 

I see a good man and a cautious man in one. 

A person who rises to the rank he's at at such a young age has to dip his toe in the water before committing to a dive.

We talked for three hours, and I got the call two days later.

By the way, I like Wallace even though he was Air Force.