3 - Buffalo Mountain: Ike Schwartz Mystery 3 Read Online Free

mahogany desk and glared at the half-dozen men standing across from him. Tom Phillips stood in the back of the hastily assembled group of men. From that vantage point he could just make out, in the reflected image made by the desk’s glass top, that Crisp had missed a spot on one of his chins when he shaved that morning. Tom blinked and suppressed a smile. He was not a stake holder in this one. His head would not be one to roll if things turned out badly. He just handled logistics, the HR guy, so to speak. As soon as this crowd developed their plan, he’d find the manpower to staff it. He only needed to hear the problem, listen to some likely responses, and he could begin his own planning.
    “We go to enormous expense to get the guy and now he’s lost—Lost!”
    Crisp’s voice gained a few decibels as the silence on the other side of the desk continued. “You boys have forty-eight hours to find him and get him back or there’ll be one hell of a shuffling of assignments around here.”
    “Sir,” Palmer said. Palmer was senior and at less risk than the others in the room. “The problem we have, as you no doubt know, is the nature of Kamarov’s situation. If we bring in the wrong people, some of what he’s up to will invariably leak and…” He swept the room with a worried look. He didn’t have to say anything else.
    Tom frowned. What in the devil was going on here? “Ah, sir, Mr. Crisp, perhaps I had better step out. This sounds like a NTK and I don’t need, or, for that matter, want to know,” he said.
    “Yes, you’re right. Thank you, Phillips. You will be called in later. The rest of you, except Palmer and Kevin, step out. We’ll call you when we need you.”
    The last words Tom heard as the door swished shut sounded like… the Agency .

Chapter 4
    “It’s no business of mine,” Sam said, “but why are we heading south in your Chevelle instead of a cruiser?”
    Whaite smiled and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “She needs a good run. Clear out all the carbon. A show car like this one doesn’t get any real road time and it tends to gum up. Besides, we are moving into a different jurisdiction and I thought it might be a good idea not to attract attention to ourselves.”
    “And you think this candy-apple red car with the gutted muffler won’t attract attention?”
    “Hey, we’re going to Floyd, NASCAR heaven, we’ll fit right in.”
    “You think?”
    “I grew up in that part of the world. I still have relatives all over the area. Trust me.”
    Floyd County, Virginia, lies south and east of Roanoke, and, if you can find the right plot of land, offers a wonderful view of Buffalo Mountain. The surrounding community is rural, green, forested, and populated with the usual mix of young and old, professionals and tradesmen, and a somewhat higher percentage of retirees, particularly former government workers.
    Whaite said he figured to make a quiet survey of the area, and perhaps establish how their John Doe was connected. It would be the best place to start, he thought. Sam wondered how that would even be possible—two out-of-town deputies in a noisy street rod—but it was Whaite’s backyard and he ought to know. Besides, he also said he knew a place where they served killer ribs. It would be time for lunch soon and then she could look forward to several hours of chat with the local police, residents, and folks Whaite said “knew things.”
    ***
    Ike had expected worse. His previous brushes with the faculty at Callend College had ended in verbal chaos. Except for a brief attempt at cop baiting by Everitt Barstow, a chemist and, as far as Ike was concerned, a twit, the meeting went well. Most of the attendees understood the difficulty of replacing the lost revenues subsequent to removal to New York of the renowned Dillon Art collection from the storage facility. They also understood that the facility was essentially useless for anything short of what Ike had arranged. He had been