CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

 

 

MARY JO LOVED Jean’s idea for flushing Jack Kelsall out of his mansion. Having Jack return from the dead months early would be something, of that there would be no doubt.

But there were problems with the plan. It meant they needed someone to help them, an actor who needed a lot of money and who looked similar enough to Jack Kelsall to play the part. Granted, they were in New York with actors living in every third apartment, but they didn’t dare expose themselves to the actor, so he would have to be hired in a way that would never lead back to them.

And in a way that could never be traced in any fashion to the execution they were going to commit while he was at the gate.

The second problem was the time. They had less than ten months now. Mary Jo seldom worked under a ticking clock, so this bothered her. Both Jean and Susan said the same thing. Getting in a hurry made for sloppy work and none of them wanted that.

So they split up the tasks that were needed.

Susan would work on how to kill all the drones. With the drones down, that would allow all three of them to move into positions on three sides of the compound. Or at least get away after the shots.

They had located three ideal sniper positions. If the real Jack Kelsall stepped out of his mansion and into that compound open area in front of the main gate at any place, they could drop him.

One nice aspect of their plan was that Kelsall, or as they were starting to call him, the fake-Carson, had a morning exercise routine. He came out of his house every morning without prompting.

Jean’s task was to continue to search for any secondary ways in and out of that compound. Once they dropped the drones from the sky, they needed to make sure that the real Kelsall didn’t escape before their fake Kelsall arrived at the gate.

They still had to figure out the timing of everything, but they would do that once they reached California.

Mary Jo took on the task of setting up the dummy corporations and overseas accounts that would end up untraceable so that money and instructions could be sent to the actor.

And she was also charged with finding an actor close enough to Kelsall’s height and weight and age when Kelsall faked his death and killed his friend.

Three days later Susan had finished her work. The drones would not be a problem.

Jean had found three separate underground tunnels leaving the compound, but all three opened into the California trees close to the sniper positions they had already picked out. So that problem was easily solved as well.

Mary Jo had her task done as well as far as setting up the accounts for all three of them to transfer money into and to hire the actor.

Then she and Susan both went to work on the church finances, trying to figure out ways to hack into their accounts. All three of them had laughingly agreed that if they could take the fake church’s money as well as kill their fake leader, it would be a win for everyone involved.

It turned out that draining the church accounts would be a lot easier than any of them had expected. It seemed that over the years the fake Carson had gotten very lax at security in that area.

So finally, Mary Jo felt like they were ready, but for some reason still felt something was wrong.

And that night over dinner, when she said everything felt ready, both Jean and Susan nodded, but not with any enthusiasm.

“I think this is a great plan,” Susan said. “And I actually think it will work. But…”

“My problem exactly,” Jean said. “But…It feels like we are forgetting one major detail.”

Mary Jo looked at Jean, the woman she loved more than anything, and just started laughing.

“It seems,” Mary Jo said, “that we have come up with a great plan and there is something about it that bothers all of us. We need to figure out what that is because as old as the three of us are and as long as we have all been doing this, we would be damned foolish to ignore that feeling now.”

Jean nodded and then laughed. “First time I’ve been called old in a very long time.”

Mary Jo just smiled at her.

Susan laughed. “Let’s not start comparing ages and figure out what piece of this puzzle is missing.”

“We take their money,” Jean said, holding up one finger. “That will put the church out of business.”

“We kill the fake Caron, aka Kelsall,” Susan said, holding up two fingers.

“Nothing can be traced to any of us,” Jean said, adding a third finger to the tally.”

But as they talked Mary Jo knew at once where the problem was.

“We aren’t killing Kelsall,” Mary Jo said. “As far as the world is concerned, we are killing Carson White, the head of the church. The followers would still all believe that Kelsall will still be returning.”

Silence filled the kitchen. Only the faint noise of the city around them painted the background.

Mary Jo knew at once that she had found what had been bothering all of them. Sure, they were killing Kelsall, but only they knew it wasn’t Carson White.

And if they killed him like they had planned without anyone knowing the truth, it would set up Carson to be a martyr instead of a scam artist.

None of them wanted that to happen.

They wanted their targets dead.

Nothing more.