Special Agent Tom Lange Box Set

by T. J. Brearton

  “I meant what I said today.”

  “I believe you.” She gave him a look that squeezed his heart, made him weak in the knees. “Is that gonna change, though? Or you’re going to spend the rest of your life trying to prove something? You gonna spend the rest of your life protecting yourself?”

  “I’m working on it. That’s gotta be — that’s gotta mean something.”

  She moved to the couch at last, sat back down. Maybe it did.

  * * *

  Around three in the morning, his eyes popped open. He was on the couch, Katie upstairs in his bed.

  He crept down the stairs, entered the garage, snapped on the light. Stood looking at the Durango a moment, then opened the rear doors. He pulled the first car seat out — this one was bigger, Olivia had used it — and set it aside, wrapping all the straps around it. Moved to the other side and unhooked Abigail’s, brought it out and set it beside the other.

  He stepped in front of the metal cabinet next, dialed the combination lock and popped it open. He kept his set of standard-duty body armor inside, plus a Remington 870 Shotgun, secured by a cable. The key was in another part of the garage and he retrieved it, unlocked the cable, took the gun out with its case, the shells, and loaded it all into the back of the Durango, slipping it beneath a removable panel. The shells were bird shot — 2 ¾” Federal Target Load 12 gauge. Birdshot was powerful but somewhat safer in a residential setting, since it typically wouldn’t blast through a plaster wall and come out the other side, injuring or killing some innocent bystander. But it had plenty of stopping power. Just in case he needed it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  TUESDAY

  He stood looking at Katie, asleep in his bed, as he buttoned his shirt. She stirred, opened her eyes. Flashed a smile at him, sat up, blinking, and pushed hair from her face. “This your new stalker routine? With that face . . .”

  “I need your help.”

  “I need coffee.”

  “It’s downstairs,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. The temperature was supposed to climb to 90, damn hot for February. He’d been awake since before six, watching the news without really seeing it, but that much he’d registered.

  “You sleep at all last night?” She swung her legs out of bed and dropped her head, rolled it around between her shoulders, getting out the kinks.

  “A little.” Finished with his shirt, he waited and watched as Katie lowered to the floor, started to stretch.

  “So what do you need?” she asked. It was hard to get a read on her; last night she’d asked him if he’d just needed a sounding board. He knew what she’d meant — she wanted to know if he actually saw her, cared about who she was.

  He did. But he needed her as a cop, too. It would have to be both, or nothing, this time at least.

  “We have to get into the Vasquez case,” he said. “I want to see everything on the car, how and why Vasquez went speeding into that truck.”

  On her back, she raised her right leg, grabbed herself around the quad muscle, and grunted as she pulled. “Not going to happen. Because it was Vasquez and Palumbo, everything is under the purview of vice narcotics, and those are open cases.”

  “Then we’re going to talk to head of CID. Give them a précis of the entire thing, but focus on the murder of Danny Coburn.”

  She dropped her leg, sat up and gave him a look, seeming to think about it. “Yeah, okay, if we come at it from the angle of Coburn’s murder, you might be able to get around some of the privilege.” Then she lay back down, raised her other leg. “But that could take days. Weeks.”

  He watched her a moment longer, wearing her yoga pants and one of his FSU t-shirts, then moved toward her, knelt down and suspended himself above her in a push-up position. She blinked up at him. “Don’t.”

  He eased off her and stood, headed for the door.

  She sat up and grabbed his leg before he got away. “Tom.”

  “Katie, I know what I’ve done. Do I have to say it?”

  “It might help.”

  She got to her feet beside him, put her hand on his arm. “I’ve lost people too, you know? Maybe not the same way you did — Nick was really the last person you had. But if you’re going to be with someone, if you’re going to have a relationship with them, keeping one foot out the door because you’re afraid they might leave you . . .”

  He crossed the room, on his way out.

  “We used to talk about Nick,” she said. “That was the whole thing. But then you . . . I don’t know. You’ve got this armor.”

  She was right behind him.

  “All of us, you know, we’re — we see it. We know you’re hurting. And now this thing with your application. Have you told them? Lauren would support you, I’m sure of it. Turnbull, too. And me. But it’s time, Tom, okay? Now’s the time.”

  He stopped in the doorway and looked over his shoulder at her. “Then help me get into the Vasquez case.”

  * * *

  Bob Mandi didn’t look surprised to see him.

  “Lange. Quite a day you had yesterday.” Mandi eyed the file Tom set on the desk, drew a hand across his perfectly scrubbed face and said, “What have we got?”

  “Printouts off Declan’s laptop. If you remember, there was supposed to be a hard drive wipe, but the wipe didn’t work. That’s what we’re supposed to think.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Someone left it with plenty of life in it.” Tom swept his hand over the file. “These are emails between Declan and a Palumbo subordinate, Ben Franco.”

  “And what will that give me?”

  “It’s supposed to support Declan’s video confession. That he was employed by Palumbo and Franco to sabotage Edgar Vasquez’s car.”

  Mandi looked at the file like it was his first headache of the day. “Lange, I’m focused on André Rapp. Everything has shifted. We’ve got the Tahoe, we’ve got the poison, we’ve got Rapp. Rapp was made to carry these things out — killing Hamer, Declan, and our own Coburn.”

  Tom shook his head. “This whole thing hinges on Rapp taking orders through texts and emails. Palumbo has beaten less than this before.”

  “No one has ever dared to flip on Palumbo,” Mandi said. “Rapp’s going to sing like a bird. I just got off the phone with his lawyer, and he’s going to confess to it all this afternoon.”

  “His lawyer . . .”

  “A PD, name is Jane Willem. Rapp’s going to plead guilty across the board, and we’re going to use his testimony, execute warrants on Franco and Palumbo as soon as possible.”

  Tom grabbed the file, held it up the space between them. “What if I told you Palumbo or Franco — neither of them ever had Rapp do anything? Or Declan?”

  Mandi sighed. “I’d say you’re letting this case get to you.”

  “Yeah, people tell me that.”

  “I don’t even want to ask where you got those bruises on your face . . .”

  “Then don’t.”

  He left.

  * * *

  Jack Vance was parked outside the Beachwood gate, and Tom stopped the Durango and got out. He found Vance inside the booth chatting with the security guard. The two semi-retirees were laughing like old friends, and Vance turned and gave Tom a big hearty handshake when he stepped into the small room. They said goodbye to the security guard and Vance followed Tom into the community, pulled in behind him in Tom’s driveway.

  “Nice guy,” Vance said about the security guard. “Good gig, too. I think I’m in. Maybe start next week.”

  “Excellent,” Tom said. He always felt mixed emotions around Vance, like he was a friend, but also an authority figure. “Want to come up?”

  “Got something cold to drink?”

  “Indeed I do.”

  Inside, Vance looked around, Tom thought he was checking for signs of Katie Mills. There were none — she’d cleaned the place up and left.

  Vance settled at the kitchen table as Tom served him up a beer, chose water for himself. After they wet their whis
tles, Vance smacked his lips and said, “So I had a nice talk with Charlie Moss.”

  Tom felt a rush. “You were able to track him down?”

  “Took a little bit, but yeah, I got him. Tom, he’s willing to come in. Give an official statement.”

  “What’s he saying, exactly?”

  Vance leaned back, looked out the kitchen window a moment, said, “Ernst told you he was friends with Glenn Moss.”

  “He did.”

  Vance nodded. “Charlie says his brother, Glenn, told him once about this guy from school, had kind of an edge to him, paranoid ideas.”

  “They were friends, though, right? Or weren’t they?”

  “Yeah. This Glenn seems like he was a real affable guy, got along with everybody; it was just a casual thing, he told Charlie he had a buddy, named Robert Ernst, and Ernst was a little off. So, I did some digging. Called up Hofstra.”

  “You just called up the school?”

  Vance smiled, the many lines in his old face rippling. “You got to know how to talk to people. How to treat them. Hey, I got just enough information so I could do a little more digging, and it turns out this Ernst guy has a past. Comes from quite a bit of money. I talked to some of my old pals in New York and there’s a story. Had a real cold childhood, parents estranged but never divorced, some weird situation where they stayed living together, kids growing up in some home like a mausoleum with their parents never speaking. Anyway, Ernst gets kicked out of one school before Hofstra — he was at Cornell.”

  “What did he do?”

  Vance shook his head. “That I couldn’t find out. Only that he was expelled. But Charlie — and this guy’s a real straight shooter in a crooked town — from what Glenn told Charlie about this guy, Ernst, he’s intense. They were friendly a bit at first, Glenn and Ernst, but then Glenn sort of went his own way, dropped out.”

  “He’d met Heather by then, is the story I got.”

  Vance took a sip of the beer, nodded his head. “Maybe so. Maybe so. But Ernst stayed in the school, graduated, got his law degree, passed the bar.”

  “And somewhere in there he was consulting, things like Brian Hamer’s Fourth Amendment case.”

  “Charlie said, you know, coming from Glenn, that Ernst was real anti-government. Had all these conspiracies going about what the government was doing. Deep black budget stuff.” Vance lifted his hands. “And he was ambitious as hell, turns out as this libertarian-type lawyer, and he even does some good work, some Clarence Darrow-level civil rights work, but, again, in his mind, there’s this ultra-dark, ultra-deep force he’s up against, and it’s everywhere. Glenn even told Charlie that Ernst once said he admired underground economies — mafias and gangs doing what they wanted, really flexing their liberty.”

  Vance took another drink, then set the bottle down, a light in his eyes, slight smile on his lips. “You’re giving me that look.”

  Tom was thinking about the secrecy in Vance’s own world, that he’d yet to disclose exactly the kind of work he’d done for the Air Force. So he asked, yet again.

  “I was a shirt,” Vance said at last.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “First shirt. That means I held special duty position, and had the responsibilities of a first sergeant. And so I served as a NCOIC, which is a Noncommissioned Officer in Charge. Satisfied?”

  Tom looked into the eyes of his older friend, said, “No,” and Vance laughed. But Tom got up from the table, pulled out his phone, his mind swinging to Heather Moss. “Okay, so Charlie knows Ernst has got some ideas about things, maybe he’s a bit dangerous . . . Does he try to warn her about this guy? I mean, have they been in communication?”

  “Not much. A couple phone calls here and there. I don’t think he thought enough about it, and this guy Ernst seemed to be helping her out.” Vance grew somber, finished his beer and watched as Tom keyed her number.

  Heather answered on the second ring and he did his best to sound casual, upbeat: “Hey, how you doing? How are the girls?”

  “They’re good, I’m good — how are you?”

  “Hanging in there. Did someone from the FBI get in touch?”

  “Your supervisor, Blythe, was around this morning, she had an agent with her, she had to be in her twenties. So . . .”

  “Good.” He flicked a look at Vance, who wore a serious expression. “You’re going to get through this, you know?”

  “Yeah . . . so you’re alright? How are things on your end?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m straight.”

  “Must feel some relief . . . I mean, from what Blythe told me, it sounds like this could be it for the guy you’ve been after. What do you call it — the smoking gun.” It sounded like she covered the phone a minute, spoke to one of her girls, then the line cleared. “I feel like I’m in one of those movies.” She sighed. “And I still have the hearing on Thursday. For the fleeing a crime.”

  “Your lawyer been in touch recently? What was his name?”

  “Robert. Yes. He was here this morning for a minute, and we’re going to go over what to expect at the hearing sometime tomorrow. I just . . . I just don’t know what to do with myself half the time. My life was so much about routines. I’ll be sitting there, doing something with the girls, and it’s like I’m a robot that’s lost all its programming.”

  Tom thought he could understand — soon he was apt to be without programming, too. No job — not with the FDLE, anyway. Then again, his work with the bureau had been bumpy to begin with. First case and he got knocked for a loop, sent to do therapy and work Governor Protection, now this — he’d yet to find a rhythm. Unless his rhythm was chaos.

  “Well, listen. I’d like to stop by say hello to you and the girls before this all, you know . . . Would that be alright?”

  “Of course. Be great to see you, Tom.”

  “Maybe tomorrow? Only — wait, you said your lawyer would be there, I don’t want to interrupt that. What time is he coming?”

  Tom felt sure Ernst had by now pulled the cameras, knowing that cops were going to start coming around, preparing Heather for her role in Palumbo’s takedown, and her entry into witness relocation. But it was still a gamble to talk to her — Ernst could still be watching some other way, maybe listening. He had to take the risk.

  “He said he’d be by at nine, after I’ve put the girls to bed.”

  “Alright. Well I’ll make my way over before then, okay?”

  “Sounds good.” She took a breath, let it out, and he could tell she was nervous.

  “Hey, I know this is a lot. I mean, that’s an understatement. This is your whole life. I just wanted to say, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh well, Tom, you didn’t . . .”

  “It’s not easy, getting moved around, things beyond your control, you know? I know what you’re going through.”

  She was quiet for a while, and he could hear the chirp of the girls in the background. Then she said in a soft voice, “Thank you.”

  “See you soon.”

  He hung up and looked at Vance. The old man gave the air a sniff, said, “So where do we want to pick up Charlie Moss? Tampa? You picking up the tab or is the FBI?”

  “I’ll pay,” said Tom.

  Vance got out his phone, preparing to make the call.

  “Hey . . .”

  Vance looked over.

  “After this, maybe we go into business together.”

  Vance returned his attention to searching his phone for Charlie Moss’s number, said, “I haven’t even got the security job yet. One day at a time, Tommy boy.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  WEDNESDAY

  When Charlie Moss arrived at the airport, Tom felt like he was smuggling in a celebrity. Not that Moss was ostentatious — he was dressed as a civilian in shorts and a t-shirt, though he had the brush cut and the thousand-yard stare of a military man. Tom met him in the baggage area, but Moss had nothing to claim, so they headed to the Durango.

  They were clearing the city, stre
tching out on highway 75, moving southerly at almost a hundred miles an hour when Moss said, “So how is she?”

  “She’s good.”

  Moss ran a hand over his jaw. Tom could see the resemblance to Glenn in the boxy chin, the hooded brow. Charlie Moss looked like he worked out — for a man nearing fifty, he was in good shape. “Heather always was a tough nut,” he said.

  They didn’t speak again until they got off on Imperial Parkway, headed into Bonita Springs, and Tom felt it was time to go over the plan again. The sun was getting low, a garret of clouds on the westerly horizon tinged salmon. “Alright,” Tom said. “The feds will have swept the house; Ernst had those cameras installed, but I’m going to just have a check myself. And I’ll give you the all-clear once I’ve prepped Heather.”

  “She has security, you said?”

  “Yes. One federal agent in the house, two outside.”

  “And they don’t know what’s going on.”

  “They’ve been aware that Everglades vice narcotics bureau was hacked, sensitive information on targets and civilian informants potentially stolen. They’ve been working with the VNB behind the scenes for weeks. So everything’s been on real tight lock down.”

  “But they’re dancing to Robert’s tune? They think this Palumbo guy was behind the hack?”

  “They do. But there’s the other hack that’s more important. For us.”

  “This Vasquez; his car.”

  “You got it. CID was working with vice narcotics when Vasquez died in the car wreck.”

  “How can you be sure what they found?”

  Tom gave Charlie Moss a quick glance. “I have my sources.”

  * * *

  It was almost full dark when they pulled up to Heather Moss’s house. Charlie seemed wistful, quietly staring across the street. “I haven’t seen Heather in person since Glenn’s funeral,” he said. “And I’ve been so busy . . .”

  Tom understood. Charlie felt regret he hadn’t been more in touch, and maybe that he hadn’t done more to keep Heather protected. “No one could’ve seen this coming,” Tom said, his mind tracing back to the guilt he’d felt the morning Heather was attacked.