No Rules, Ridge King [the snowy day read aloud TXT] 📗

years—long before the IRS could put in measures to counteract the theft (if they ever got beyond the stage of talking about it).

Nine of the top ten cities in America where this fraud took place were in Florida, and Pozo was happy that he had teams in the top five. They were riding high.

It was crucial to file the fake returns in January before the real taxpayers filed their own returns, by which time it was too late. The IRS already would have sent out the fake refunds to the fraudsters. (An average taxpayer who might really be owed a $1,000 refund could be used by Pozo’s people to get a phony refund of $6,000 to $12,000—the IRS never checked before sending out the money to determine if filed returns were real or not. You could plug in any reasonable amount for a refund and they’d never check.)

It was so easy—last year Pozo’s team had used the same address to get over 2,000 refunds.  Another address was used to get over 5,000 refunds, either in the form of checks or prepaid debit cards. Every year they set up a hundred new addresses they used to get the booty.

Those Americans who waited till the deadline of April 15 to file their returns were the dumbest. He loved this type of taxpayer because his people had already got most of the money they were going to get by the end of February. People who filed late gave Pozo’s people more time to abandon the fake addresses they’d been using.

It would be so easy for the Americans to stop the fraud: make any able-bodied taxpayer appear in person to pick up his check. They could use the post office system for this purpose. Instantly saving billions. But no. Too inconvenient. The Americans? Go out of their way? They were rich. But they were stupid.

Pozo thought back again to Aponte. In a personal way, Pozo couldn’t really blame him for trying to feather his nest. Pozo himself was 65 now. They’d let him stay on till he was 70 at the Dirección de Inteligencia, at which time he’d be retired out of the system and sent back to his small village eighty miles south of Havana to end his days as a loyal Communist partisan. This gave him a full five years to feather his own nest so that he could make the jump to America permanently. The Castro regime would undergo great changes now that Raúl and Fidel were gone. Pozo didn’t want to be around to navigate his way through the inevitable power struggles—not to mention assassinations and grudge killings—that would ensue. No, he wanted his own golden parachute ready when the time came.

Pozo shook his head when he thought of the hapless Aponte. Had it been any of the other ten or fifteen accountants like Aponte he had on his team, he’d have driven the guy deep into the Everglades and put a bullet through his head.

But Aponte was different from the others. He was special to Pozo. Very special. Pozo had big plans for the chubby balding man with the bad comb-over.

Though he didn’t know it, Julio Aponte would be instrumental in Pozo’s plan over the next couple of years to make the Great Escape. But before that time came, he had to amass a great amount of money under the noses of his very loyal team members without them suspecting a thing.

Chapter 9

CAMP DAVID

“They told me no aides allowed in the room,” said Sam when he got off the phone with the White House.

“I should’ve stayed in Miami?” said Jack.

“No, you come with me by chopper to Camp David, but you don’t go into the meeting.”

“Who’s going to be there?”

“They’re not saying,” said Sam as he paced around the sitting room in his suite at the Willard, his hands deep in his pockets. “Let’s go.”

They went down and got into a limo that took them to the White House where they were escorted to a Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King chopper that, had the President been with them, would have been designated Marine One. But they were told the President had gone to Camp David ahead of them.

Once they climbed aboard, they were surprised to see Lord Ellsworth sitting there flanked by two White House aides.

“Well, surprise, surprise,” said Sam, yelling above the roar of the rotors as they powered up. “How are you, Harold?”

“Very good. I’m really looking forward to visiting Sofia down in Miami next week.”

“Yes, she’s looking forward to it. You’ll be flying down with Jack, yes?”

“Yes, along with Bedelia and Patricia, if they’re still planning to go.”

“They are,” Jack said. “As well as Matt Hawkins and his wife.”

“A very important vote for you to sway, Sam,” said the British ambassador.

“I’ve met with him twice, and Jack’s become a friend of his,” said Sam.

“But Matt won’t budge,” said Jack. “At least not yet.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing my nephew again,” said Ellsworth.

“Gargrave is anxious to show you a good time,” said Jack, knowing that Gargrave was bored to tears every time his uncle visited Miami.

It was a strange twist of fate that Jack would meet Gargrave when he was detached from the SEALs and sent as liaison to the Special Boat Service at nearly the same time Ellsworth was becoming friends with Sam and the Vaughans back in Washington.

As the chopper lifted off the White House lawn, everyone stopped talking and settled in for the short ride.

Ellsworth wondered that Jack might find it curious that the British ambassador was going to Camp David to sit in on an American political strategy session. But there was nothing to be done about it. If asked, he’d have to say everything discussed was confidential.

Once at Camp David, military escorts took Sam and Ellsworth to the meeting