The Fix

by David Baldacci

  “The land of deep mistrust in government.”

  “Well, can you blame us, when you pull shit like you’re pulling now?”

  “Don’t think that we don’t want to get to the truth, Decker. We do.”

  “So in order to do that you kick out an agency when they’re trying to solve a murder right on their doorstep? And you’re the one who said the outcome could be far worse than 9/11. What did you expect us to do with that? Sit on our hands and play nice?”

  “I see your argument, I really do.”

  “But that’s as far as you’ll go?”

  “Orders are orders. Don’t you have to follow orders?”

  “No,” Decker said bluntly. “Not if it goes against my instincts or my ethics.”

  “Then I don’t see you having a long career in the federal space.”

  “Then I’ll take that as a good thing.”

  “Are you always so cavalier about things?”

  “I do my job and let the chips fall.”

  “So you’re not into CYA?”

  “My butt is way too big to cover,” Decker replied.

  “You just want to get to the truth?”

  “Yeah. How about you?”

  “I already told you that we do.”

  “So what progress have you made?”

  She seemed surprised by the question. “It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “It sure as shit is, which is why I’m asking.”

  “I mean I can’t discuss it with you.”

  “Okay, then I’ll discuss it from my end. Berkshire has a secret past. A past where she came into a great deal of money. She bought a fancy-ass condo and car but she drove an old Honda to work. She used an old farmhouse as a switching spot for the cars. And maybe for other things too.”

  “I’m finding this highly interesting.”

  “So we have mystery behind Berkshire, or whoever she really is. And on the Dabney end we have a woman helping him clean out his safe deposit box after he sent a key to his daughter, presumably so she would open it after his death and the contents would provide answers. And you told us that Dabney allegedly sold secrets to pay for an alleged gambling habit. So we have mystery at that end. And a few mornings ago those twin mysteries met in the middle of Washington, D.C. with the result that two people died. So the question becomes why?”

  “Neatly summed up.”

  “Summaries are for idiots. Anybody can do them.”

  “You said ‘allegedly’ just now in referring to Dabney’s espionage and gambling habit.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s nothing alleged about it.”

  “Maybe to you, but not to me. All I have is your word for it. Not good enough.”

  She put the car back into drive and they pulled off. “You always this cooperative with a sister agency?”

  “Ironic, since I’ve seen zero cooperation from yours.”

  “Look, you’ve actually given me some valuable information. How can I return the favor?”

  “By making no objection to our working on the case.”

  She kept driving, turning down one road and then another. “How exactly would that work?” she asked.

  “That would exactly work with us investigating the case and finding the truth.”

  “You mean a joint investigation?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “I’ll have to think about it, talk to my superiors.”

  “Great. You can give me your answer tomorrow morning.”

  “You have no authority to give me directives.”

  “I see you do know where I live,” said Decker, as they pulled into the parking lot of the apartment building. “I can’t say that’s comforting.”

  “Friends close, enemies closer.”

  “I wouldn’t imagine I was either. Yet.”

  “You like this area? It’s still a little dicey.”

  “It’s growing on—”

  Brown had pulled her pistol and killed the engine. It was then that Decker saw what she already had seen. Two men were stuffing another man into the trunk of a car.

  Brown was out and sprinting toward them before Decker even got his car door open.

  “Federal agent, hands in the air!” she barked, her pistol pointed at the men.

  One ducked down behind the car. The other pulled a gun. Before he could turn and fire, Brown had dropped him with two bursts of her pistol.

  The next instant she was bowled over and pinned to the pavement by a huge weight.

  “What the—” she gasped.

  The rounds ripped through the air right above her.

  The man who had ducked down was firing from behind the car with an AK-47 assault rifle.

  Decker, who’d knocked Brown down when he saw the AK pointing her way, rolled off her, sprawled on his belly, took aim, and fired at various spots under the car. The scream told him that at least one of his rounds had hit the shooter in the ankle or foot.

  As the man fell beside the car grabbing his leg and screaming, Decker emptied his mag at the same narrow space separating the bottom of the car from the asphalt.

  The screams stopped.

  Brown and Decker leapt up. When they raced over and peered around the rear of the car, the man was no longer moving. There was blood all around him and the AK was lying next to him. As Decker knelt down next to him, the man remained still.

  Brown pointed to the entry wound on the side of the man’s head. “You got him in the leg, but this was the kill shot. Good aim,” she added coolly.

  “I wasn’t aiming, I was just trying to hit something on him,” said a pale Decker.

  “Well, better to be lucky than dead.”

  Decker rose and hurried to the open trunk of the car, where a bound Tomas Amaya was struggling to free himself. There was a gag over his mouth. Decker untied him and helped him out of the trunk.

  Amaya, breathing hard, swayed on his feet. Decker observed the purplish knot on the man’s forehead and said, “Sit down before you pass out.”

  At first Amaya seemed about to protest, but then he followed Decker’s instruction and sat down on the asphalt.

  Then something occurred to Decker. “Danny! Where’s Danny?”

  “He’s at a friend’s casa,” murmured Amaya. “He is…my hijo is okay.”

  “Who’s Danny?” asked Brown.

  “His eleven-year-old son.”

  Brown nodded and said, “You want to call this in?”

  Decker pulled out his phone and called Bogart. In one efficient minute he conveyed what had happened. “Can you call the locals in?”

  Bogart said, “Doing it right now. I’ll see you in thirty minutes. You sure you’re okay?”

  “We’re fine.”

  “We? You mean Jamison?”

  “No. Agent Brown is here with me.”

  “Right,” said a clearly puzzled Bogart. “Well, you can explain that all to me later.”

  Decker clicked off and looked at Brown. “Thanks for the assist.”

  “Jesus, Decker, you saved my life. I never saw the AK coming my way. If you hadn’t pushed me down, I’d be heading to the morgue too.”

  Decker looked down at Amaya. “Mr. Amaya, the police are on their way. You’re going to have to be prepared to tell them what’s going on.”

  Amaya said nothing, and he would not look at Decker.

  Frustrated, Decker glanced at Brown. “He’s not been very cooperative. Seems to be my lot in life,” he added.

  Before Brown could respond, Jamison, who had walked back from the restaurant, turned into the parking lot. When she saw what was going on, she raced forward and said, “Decker, what the hell is going on?”

  “Just another day in the neighborhood,” he said, becoming even paler. Then he abruptly started off toward the building.

  “Wait a minute, where are you going?” said Brown.

  Without turning around he said, “To throw up a cheeseburger.”

  CHAPTER
/>   22

  AMAYA REFUSED TO say anything to the police. “No entiendo, no entiendo,” he kept saying over and over. When they brought in an officer who spoke Spanish he just shut up altogether.

  The two dead men had no ID, but one of the cops thought he recognized the AK shooter.

  “Hired gun,” he said. “Rents out to lots of different gangs. Don’t think we’ll be able to run anything down there. Those guys do all cash and never face-to-face. Sometimes it’s just a phone call and the name of the target and a wad of bills or pills in a paper bag when the job’s done.”

  Bogart had arrived and was dealing with the locals. Decker, minus a burger in his gut, and Brown had given their statements.

  Bogart came over to where Brown was standing and said, “Surprised to see you here.”

  “Not as surprised as I was,” said Brown.

  “You going to be put on admin leave by DIA after this?” asked Bogart.

  “Hardly. Not how we operate. And besides, it was clear what happened. Any investigation would back up what we did.” She eyed Decker. “How about him? He discharged his weapon. Will this get him stuck behind a desk?”

  “Normally, yes. But he’s not a special agent. He was reinstated as a homicide detective in Burlington, Ohio, so he’s a sworn officer with arresting authority on loan, as it were, to the Bureau. So we’ll have to see.”

  “Right. Good old bureaucracies.”

  “I understand you wanted to talk to Decker about something. Anything that you can share with me?”

  Brown glanced at Decker as he walked over to them. “I don’t know, is there?”

  Decker said, “We talked about a joint effort to get to the truth.”

  “And I made no promises,” said Brown. “In fact, I said certain phone calls might be made that would draw a mandate from within the FBI for you to stand down.”

  Bogart raised his eyebrows as he glanced at Decker. “So we don’t seem to have made much progress.”

  Brown said, “I’ll think on all this, Agent Bogart. Decker saved my life tonight. I owe him. And I don’t like owing people.”

  And with that she walked to her car and drove off.

  Jamison, who had been standing in the background, hurried over and whirled on Decker. “So what the hell was all that about?”

  Decker took a step back. “What was what about?”

  “Why did she show up at the diner and want to talk to you? She’s obviously been following you.”

  “I know that.”

  Bogart said, “What did she say?”

  “She wanted to know if I was still working on the Berkshire case.”

  “And what did you tell her?”

  “Nothing that could be taken as a definitive answer to that question.”

  “So maybe she was on a fishing expedition?”

  “She seems to be a person who likes more rather than less intelligence,” Decker said slowly. “And I can’t fault her for that.”

  Jamison looked at him in disbelief. “That’s all you can come up with? If I had pulled something like that you would have cut me off at the knees. Why does she get special treatment?”

  Decker started to say something, but he stopped and said instead, “We need to get Danny.”

  Jamison’s features softened and she looked down. “Right.” She let out a rush of breath and with it her hostility seemed to fade. “Did Tomas tell you where he was?”

  “At a friend’s.”

  “I’ll go and ask him where. Then I’ll go get Danny.”

  After Jamison hurried off, Bogart said in a low voice to Decker, “We can’t go down that road. This is a local police problem.”

  Decker looked over at Jamison, who was heading into the building. “But it’s also Alex’s problem.” Decker paused and sighed. “Which means it’s my problem too.”

  Bogart gazed at him, apparently taken aback. “You going soft on me, Decker?”

  Decker put his hands in his pockets and didn’t answer.

  “What do you think this is about, anyway? Easy answer would be drugs. Smells like it.”

  “Could be. Amaya may not want to talk because he’s in deep.”

  “You mean dealing?” asked Bogart.

  “Somewhere along the supply chain. I know that world a lot better than the one I’m in right now. Dealers and street punks versus cabinet secretaries leaning on agency directors. It’s like a different planet.”

  “Not to worry. I’ve been in this world my entire working life, and sometimes it makes no sense to me either.” He paused. “So you think Amaya screwed up? Skimming maybe?”

  “Well, they didn’t come here tonight to give him a performance bonus.”

  “If he won’t cooperate there’s not a lot the cops can do.”

  “Then I’ll just have to make him cooperate.”

  “You think you have a way to do that?”

  “I think I have eleven of them,” replied Decker.

  “You mean the kid, Danny,” said Bogart. “Eleven years old.”

  “If I were the guys after Tomas, that would be my next target.”

  “You want me to ask the cops to put them in protection?”

  “We live in the building. We can keep an eye out.”

  “Look, I don’t need you and Jamison getting killed over this.”

  “I’m not looking to get killed over this either. But it sort of comes with the territory.”

  “You mean wearing the badge?”

  “No, being a fucking landlord, apparently.”

  * * *

  Decker ended up driving with Jamison to pick up Danny. The boy had paled when they showed up at the door of the friend’s house, but they quickly explained that his father was okay. Since the car was only a two-seater, Danny had to ride in Decker’s lap with the seat belt around both of them. Luckily, it wasn’t far to drive.

  “They came back,” said Danny nervously as they drove back. “Didn’t they? Those guys.”