the unlikely event anyone ever knocked on their door in Mystic. Of course, Rachel’s high school didn’t have a yearbook picture of her. She hadn’t graduated.
In Birmingham, Rachel lived in one of the new apartment buildings downtown. It had a doorman, so no one could knock on her door without warning. And according to Rachel’s cover, she traveled frequently to California and Europe, which gave her an excuse for not being there.
The story wasn’t perfect—no cover was perfect—but it was solid. If Sullivan got close enough to crack it, the FBI should know in time.
* * *
The cover was only the beginning.
Next Rebecca, aka Rachel, had to find a way to get close to Sullivan, an impossible job without help from the inside. But the FBI had a cooperator, Kevin Boone. Boone was a senior vice president at BankAlabama with an unfortunate fondness for pictures of naked five-year-olds. Boone’s vices didn’t extend offline, as far as the bureau could tell, so he was a safe bet for a delayed sentencing. As safe as a guy who liked kiddie porn could be, anyway.
Boone had offered to testify against Sullivan. But Boone didn’t have the details on Sullivan’s schemes. Besides, a jury would never convict Sullivan on Boone’s testimony alone, not once it knew the charges Boone faced. Jurors tended not to believe child pornographers.
Northern District of Alabama prosecutors were reluctant to make a deal with Boone, but Smith convinced them that Boone offered unique access to Draymond Sullivan. Sullivan and Boone had known each other twenty-five years. BankAlabama had financed several deals for Sullivan. If Boone vouched for Rachel Townsend, Sullivan would listen.
Finally, prosecutors agreed to allow Boone to plead guilty to a sealed indictment. He received no promise of a reduced sentence. Instead, the government merely agreed to wait on his sentencing hearing as long as he was helpful on GULFSTREAM.
The sentencing delay made sense. If the guilty plea became public, Boone’s value as a cooperator would vanish. Sullivan would figure Boone had flipped and suspect anyone Boone brought to him. Meanwhile, the delay gave Boone the strongest possible incentive to sell Rachel’s story. If the operation went south and the FBI pulled the plug, Boone would find himself headed to the nearest US Penitentiary. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pictures.
From the start, Fred Smith made sure Boone knew he was responsible for Rebecca’s safety. Any of them good ol’ boys even breathes on her, you will spend the rest of your life in prison. Won’t be one of those fun prisons, neither. No administrative segregation no matter how much you beg. And I personally will tell BoP to make sure everybody knows what you’re in for. You understand?
Boone understood.
* * *
Thus, Rachel Townsend became a high-net-worth client of BankAlabama. Thus, Boone helped her buy a pair of fleabag apartment buildings in Clanton, halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery.
Draymond Sullivan, who liked government rent checks, had rolled up Section 8–eligible apartments in the area for years. Sullivan was interested in his new competition, especially when Boone told him she was “a hottie from New York.” He invited her to coffee in Montgomery. “Nobody knows more about land down here than me. Let me help you out.”
Rachel wore her lipstick a shade redder than Rebecca, her perfume a spritz heavier, her blouse unbuttoned lower. Low enough to persuade Draymond to talk to her breasts instead of her face, so the microphone in her bra could pick up his voice more clearly.
The microphone was black, fingertip-sized. A two-inch wire connected it to a memory chip smaller than a dime. Two days before, she had brought bras to the office so that Walter, a surveillance technician on loan from the Atlanta office, could sew tiny pockets into their fabric. “Better to use your own undergarments, you’ll feel more comfortable.” Walter was fussy, fiftyish, with a crew cut and a round stomach. Undergarments sounded exactly right coming from him. In another era he would have been called a confirmed bachelor.
“What if he searches me?”
Walter tucked the microphone and chip into the black cotton of her bra—and they vanished. Even Rebecca could hardly see them. “Why would he? It’s not transmitting, just recording to the chip. So no signal, only current. Even professionals have a hard time spotting these.”
* * *
Their first couple of meetings felt like duds to Rebecca. Sullivan didn’t pay much attention to her body or her story. Mostly he talked about himself, his apartment buildings and strip malls