does the amendment say?"
"It calls for 50,000 acres in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge to be reclassified and transferred into the Public Land System."
Mac remembered reading in law school about the Public Land System being an outgrowth of the Northwest Territory. He beamed. "Sneed's clever. He basically put government land up for sale. He's probably going to buy it. Or maybe he already did!"
Mac picked up his phone and called Carol. The voice on the other end said, "You need me, don't you?"
"Carol, you are indispensible."
"And desirable," She added.
"We'll leave that determination to Carl. We need you to research what happened to the 50,000 acres of Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. It was put into the Public Land System by none other than Senator Larry Sneed a little over three years ago. What happened to the land? Did anyone buy it or is it just sitting there?"
"Piece of cake. Anna and I are going shopping for shoes later. After that we'll be able to access those files through her office computer. You remember her boss, Representative Timothy Red Wolf. He's at home in South Dakota this week. I guess the oil fracking mania is traveling South. He's helping the governor educate land owners what fracking means to them."
"Great," Mac said. "Call us tomorrow about noon your time."
They both ended the call. Mac said to Ben. "Carol's on it!"
Senator Sneed's daughter, Jennifer Ariosto, sat in her DC office listening to her phone messages. The message from the escrow company caught her interest. She returned their call.
She connected with the escrow officer and was smiling at the news. She immediately pick up the phone to call her father. Then she sat back and wondered. Her recollections of daddy haunted her even today. She took a deep breath, repressed the memory and placed the call.
"Jennifer, how are you?" The Senator answered.
"Escrow called. The Refuse has been deeded. The final papers for our sale to Quon-Rong will be ready to sign tomorrow."
"That's good news. Locci's persuasive methods worked."
"Dad, I wanted to make a deal with an Indian tribe for the land. But your idea to use reclassified government land will make us a hundred times more money. Now, Wing and his people will relax and stop pressuring you."
"I'd better call Wing. He'll need to take a red-eye out from San Francisco to sign the papers. Set up the escrow signing for as late in the day tomorrow as possible."
"Will do. Bye." Jennifer ended this call. She dialed escrow's number and made the arrangements.
Sneed called Wing. He explained the escrow process to him. Wing acknowledged he was eager to sign the paperwork. Sneed ended the conversation with, "I'll send a government jet for you. See you tomorrow." And he did.
Chapter 23 Shoes Plus
At nine sharp Carol called Mac's cell. "Good morning, Carol," Mac answered.
"Good afternoon," Carol replied from DC. "You won't believe the cute red pumps Anna and I found yesterday. They're Diego di Lucca's on sale for $125. They were $155. Deal hah?"
"Such a deal," Mac couldn't help remembering Carol's dilemma over which dress to wear when she first met Carl Grandson. "They'll match the red dress you wore when you met Carl."
"You remembered! I think I'll wear that dress with my new Diego shoes tonight for dinner with my man!"
"The shoe frenzy didn't keep you from finding out about the land from Sneed's amendment, did it?" Mac refocused.
"That was too easy. Three clicks and we found that some offshore corporation called Depsands, Inc bought it. They immediately turned around and are selling it to a Chinese concern, the Quon-Rong Holding Group. The property has been in escrow for over a year. Seems to be a problem with BLM deeding the property to Depsands. Do you want me to keep snooping around?"
"Yes. I'll pass this on to Jimmy. Ben and I will work on it here, too. We still need to find out who Li Wing is. Talk with you soon."
"Don't forget to tell Kitiona about my new Diego di Lucca's. She'll be soooo jealous!"
"Right," Mac said and ended the call.
Ben said, "Are we investigating shoes now?"
"Not exactly. When Carol is excited about anything, she works twice as fast and gets things done in half the time. When we were in law school, she would be sluggish during test week. Then she'd buy some new clothes and blaze through our study notes. If it wasn't for adding to her wardrobe, she would have never been an A student!"
Ben philosophized. "Most of us are blessed with being able to focus, we just need to find the trigger to turn it on. Carol's trigger is buying clothes."
Mac did a quick Google search for Li Wing. "Can't locate this Wing character. There must be a thousand Wings in China and nothing on him in San Francisco."
Ben suggested, "Maybe we can trace Wing through the companies Carol identified. I'll ask Lacey to find out about Quon-Rong Holding Group. He's got the international connections to snoop around and without raising any red flags."
Mac added. "Quon-Rong is a group out of Beijing, China. From Google maps it looks like it's located on the Northwest outskirts of the city."
Ben speculated. "What if we send Kitiona to China. She could visit the Holding company's office and poke around."
"Good idea. We'll bounce that idea off her."
"If Depsands is offshore, it's probably in the Caribbean somewhere," Ben reflected.
"Let's see what Juan can dig up of them," Mac said. Those Florida millionaires deal in off-shore accounts all the time. I'll call Juan and you call Colonel Lacey. We need to get them on board with this information."
Ben nodded and they made the calls.
A few minutes later, Martha, Mac's secretary cracked the door and peaked in. "Jimmy's on line three," she announced.
Mac held up his index finger and mouthed "One minute." He ended his call with Juan and punched up line three.
"Busy boy," Jimmy replied to Mac's hi. "Were you Skyping Kitiona again?"
"No. I was talking to Juan. We have two corporations connected with the Refuse land. Juan and Lacey are digging into them as we speak. And we may have Kitiona take a China trip."
"There's no sign of Janelle here," Jimmy reported. "Wendy, her texting friend, has left town with a grossly modified face. The only thing for me to do is to monitor Locci and the Galaxy for guest senators. Maybe something will turn up!"
"Got it," Mac agreed. "You'll have more time to work on your b-ball game."
Jimmy smiled. Then he said in a serious tone. "I don't think Janelle's going to ever dance again."
"I think you're right. We need more details on the Quon-Rong Holding Group and the Depsands, Inc. companies
