THE BRIDGE TO CARACAS (Volume 1 of The King Trilogy)

CHAPTER 41

Alone in her cream nightgown, Karen stood facing the expansive windows in the living room of her penthouse. She cradled her coffee mug with both hands, sipping it slowly while surveying the city below. At least three inches of snow had fallen on Toronto during the night, causing enormous traffic jams in the morning's rush hour. The clouds had broken enough to allow the morning's sun to melt the snow covering the concrete ledge above the window. Water droplets sparkled as they fell.

When the phone rang, she hurried to the kitchen.

"I just wanted to tell you I love you and miss you."

Karen smiled, thrilled to hear Mike's voice. "Me too you," she said.

"I want you to phone me at my office from a pay phone at exactly four-thirty. Will you do that?"

"Sure."

"Good. I can't live another day without being with you."

"Don't tell me about it, King. Do something about it."

Servito chuckled when he read the police press release. He was surprised to learn that Dianne's body had been found so soon, but delighted to read that the trail was cold. According to the release, the police had not been able to determine any motive for the shooting and did not have any leads.

The loud slamming of a number of car doors outside the farmhouse made him rush to the window. One car blocked the entrance to the lane, while two other cars had stopped in the parking area. Five men, dressed in dark suits and overcoats, approached the front door. Servito raced to lock both the front and back doors, managing to complete this task just before he heard a loud knock on the front door. He spread the curtains covering the window in the door and stared at his visitors.

The tallest of the men had closely shaven brown hair and dark sunglasses. "Are you James Servito?" he shouted.

"Who the hell wants to know?"

The man stepped forward and reached into his vest pocket, removing a badge that he slammed against the window. "My name is William Dare. I'm an inspector for Canada's Security Intelligence Service, and I have a warrant to search this premises. Would you open the door, please?"

Servito released the dead bolt and opened the door.

Dare waited until the last of his colleagues had entered before turning to Servito. "Are you James Servito?" he asked.

"Yup," Servito replied, glaring defiantly at Dare.

Dare removed a folded document from his vest pocket. He opened it and dangled it in front of Servito's nose. "Mr. Servito, we have sufficient reason to believe that you and your companies have been involved in unlawful activity. Accordingly, a warrant has been issued to search this premises and to seize whatever material we deem necessary to support that belief. I would very strongly advise you to cooperate with us in every way possible. If you do resist, you will do so at your peril. Is that understood, sir?"

Servito glared at the warrant, and then swatted it with a descending blow of his right hand. Before the paper hit the floor, three of the five men accompanying Dare had removed their pistols and were pointing them at Servito.

Dare calmly bent over and picked up the warrant. He folded it carefully and returned it to his vest pocket. "I'll say it again, Mr. Servito. If you resist, you will do so at your peril."

Servito feigned surrender by raising his hands, and the three agents returned their pistols to their shoulder holsters.

"Go ahead," Servito challenged. "You can search this place until hell freezes over, but you're not gonna find a damn thing. You better enjoy it, because this'll be the last time you'll ever be here. I'm gonna have a restraining order slapped on you so fast, you won't know what hit you."

Dare and his four agents proceeded to search the farmhouse from top to bottom. Dare and two others went directly to Servito's office while the remaining two searched the rest of the interior.

Servito stood near his office door and watched passively while the agents opened each of the drawers of his desk and searched through the contents. They proceeded to the drawers of his filing cabinets and sifted through numerous files.

Dare turned to Servito. "Mr. Servito, are you familiar with a company by the name of XG Petroleums?"

"Why?"

"We would like to confirm that at least one of your companies is supplying gasoline to that company."

"I can assure you that none of my companies is supplying gasoline to XG Petroleums," Servito replied. Technically he had told the truth. Reserve Oil, owned entirely by Karen, was currently supplying gasoline to XG.

After almost two hours, Dare and his agents had removed well over half of Servito's files and invoices from their drawers. They had stacked and bundled them on the floor and carted them to their cars. Dare faced Servito to announce his departure. "Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Servito. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. We'll return your files as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you should require the use of any of the files that we've removed, please contact me at this address in Toronto." He handed his card to Servito.

Servito crumpled the card and hurled it to the floor. "Fuck you!" he hissed with a defiant sneer. He knew the feds would take months and spend a fortune chasing hundreds of dead end paper trails in the evaluation of his files and invoices. He had scrupulously filled his filing cabinets with thousands of dummy invoices issued by fictitious companies. In addition, he had papered his files with records of gasoline and tax payments from hundreds of fictitious customers. With the exception of sales by Reserve Oil to XG Petroleums, all of his real gasoline transactions had been completed in cash, which was substantially more difficult to trace than checks. Only one business relationship was accurately represented in the material seized by Dare's agents: Servito had deliberately seeded his files with copies of all the Reserve Oil invoices to XG Petroleum.