“I’m not ignorant of what’s going on around me.” How could he be? He’d seen Victoria with his own eyes. “Just trying to make sense of it.”
The acting assistant director nodded slowly, his assessing gaze unwavering.
Sal continued on with his statement. What he saw, and what the two men at the house spoke about. Relief settled over him once again as he recalled what had happened. The realization Ally wasn’t there and having to race after her. Peter Tines. Vanessa. Both were dead now.
“Do you think Allyson was a target in all this?”
Sal considered the question.
The FBI agent said, “After all, they’re implicating her in the robberies now.”
“If that’s their intention, they’ve done it poorly. No one will believe she was part of it.”
“We might have if your team hadn’t retrieved her so quickly,” the agent pointed out. “Not to mention their intention was likely to keep that Vanessa woman’s secret from being revealed at that point.”
It had only come out because of Peter’s death.
“She was devastated that her friend betrayed her. Being used on top of also being lied to is something she’ll have to learn how to move on from.” Not to mention learning to trust her own judgment again.
The FBI agent wasn’t fooled by Sal’s loose tone. He sat back in his chair and studied Sal.
With that one comment he’d revealed his personal stake in this. He cared about her, much more than the simple concern of one colleague for another. Sal was concerned with what happened to her. Especially if Kennowich’s intention was to single her out.
Sal got them back on the point. “Whatever it is, this definitely doesn’t have to do with the robberies. At least not in its entirety.”
“You think there’s a larger plan at work?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Especially considering the drone attack—both with bullets and the simultaneous cyber breach. “Agent Sanchez is a good cop. I’m sure if there’s anything she can do, she’ll help. Same for my team.”
“Noted, and appreciated.” The acting assistant director shook his hand, and walked Sal back to the main office.
Allyson strode to meet him in the middle.
“You’re still here?”
“You said you wanted to talk.”
Sal was about to suggest they go somewhere else when the elevator doors opened behind her and a familiar face walked out.
Allyson must have read his expression. She spun around, reaching for her weapon as she moved. She didn’t draw it though.
Neither did he, though his fingers reached for it.
“Whoa. Easy.” The acting assistant director strode up to stand by them as Kennowich stopped and looked around.
An older agent approached him.
“I’m here to speak with the person in charge of this office.”
Sal reached for his phone and fired off a quick text to Talia, telling her Kennowich was there, asking if they should clone his phone.
Whether they did or not, Sal wanted to be in the room when Kennowich had this conversation with the acting assistant director.
Talia’s reply came quickly.
Turn on your Bluetooth.
As soon as he did, his phone blacked out. Then it started acting weird.
The man who’d interviewed Sal introduced himself to Kennowich, and they shook hands. “Let’s talk in my office.”
Only it wasn’t his office, it was Welvern’s. Was he gunning for his boss’s job while the man was in the hospital? He was recovering from a gunshot wound, sustained by sniper fire. Maybe this guy assumed Welvern wasn’t going to come back at all.
“Thank you.” Even Kennowich’s voice dripped wealth. The San Francisco businessman dressed in accordance with his net worth. Shined shoes that looked like Italian leather. A power suit. A silk tie and folded handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket. He wore a gold ring on his right pinkie finger, some kind of stone in the center of the signet.
What on earth had he been talking to Victoria about?
Sal strode over. “I’d like to be present.”
Maybe that conversation last night was what brought him here this morning. If it was, then Sal wanted to know everything this man was going to say about Victoria.
Kennowich flinched and spun to face Sal. He reared back, like Sal was bearing down on him, almost tripping over his fancy shoes.
Sal stopped short of the two men.
“Sir?” The acting assistant director stepped between them, his body turned so he could glance between Sal and Kennowich, now pale faced. “If you’d take a step back, Deputy Alvarez.”
Sal did so, just because it might get him in the room. Meanwhile, Kennowich continued to act like Sal was a threat to him.
Sal said, “Is there something I should know?”
“I’ll ascertain that.” The FBI agent waved him away toward the elevator. “Thank you, Deputy.” He led Kennowich to his office, dismissing Sal.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Kennowich say. “It’s just that the death of my employee has hit me so very hard.” He even glanced over his shoulder to look at Allyson. “And there are a group of federal agents harassing me and my business.”
Sal felt his eyebrows rise. His security guys abducted Allyson, but they were the ones harassing him? He heard Allyson’s intake of breath and saw out the corner of his eye that she had moved to storm after them.
Sal spun. He banded an arm around her waist and caught her to him, face to face. “Don’t.” He whispered the word in her ear. “Let the FBI do their jobs.”
“You really trust these guys?”
“I’m hoping Talia got us what we need for right now.”
His phone buzzed.
No, go. Someone is already accessing his phone.
“Great.” Sal shook his head. “We have nothing.”
Chapter 19
“You know that invading his personal device would be completely illegal, right?”
Sal shrugged as he followed her off the elevator outside the task force office. “We skirt a lot of gray areas. Victoria smooths over the ruffled feathers, if there are any. Besides, we didn’t get into Kennowich’s phone.”
She shot him a look.
“We have an arrangement that we established with a US attorney after we saved his daughter from human traffickers.” He shrugged like it had been no big deal, even though the look in his eyes said otherwise. “That gives us the leeway we wouldn’t have otherwise, and as recompense for his help, we prove it was a good bargain for him to make—just one look at our results shows that. Our conviction rate vs. that of other agencies? It’s sky high.”
Allyson wasn’t sure what to make of that, considering it sounded like an under-the-table deal had been made.
“I was surprised you didn’t slap me back there.” A small grin curled up the corners of his lips. “I thought you were going to fight me to Kennowich.”
“I thought about it.” She stood to the side while he punched in the code. “The man kidnapped me.” He pulled the door open and she followed him in, still speaking. “I wanted to scratch his eyes out just for that. I wasn’t even thinking about the rest of it.”
Haley blinked. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.” She turned back to her computer monitor, a tiny smile on her face.
Talia chuckled. “Right? Who knew.” She glanced sideways at Allyson. “Our friendly neighborhood ATF agent has hidden depths.”
Allyson stopped in the waiting area and folded her arms. “Don’t kidnap me and we won’t have a problem.”
“Yeah…” Dakota said from her seat at her desk. “We’re not going to make that promise.”
Because they might not be able to keep it? Allyson wanted to actually smile at her, but that was the last thing she would give Dakota. The woman might take it as an offer of friendship when Allyson much preferred this antagonistic push and pull. It gave her something to focus on instead of the crushing grief of b
etrayal and the lingering fear from the abduction.
“At least tell me you guys got something from hacking Kennowich’s phone.”
“It wasn’t a hack,” Talia countered. “I just copied everything on there since I couldn’t clone his device.”
Sal muttered something about not understanding women, and moved to his own desk. “Who else was in there?”
“No way to tell,” Talia said.
Allyson dragged a chair over from the waiting area and sat in the center of the aisle between all their desks. “What about the drone? Is there a way to prove that attack was Kennowich?”
Talia shrugged. “I’m not convinced it was him. At least not by what I’m seeing. Still, the fact he could get past our firewall at all means he hired someone serious to attack us. Someone maybe even better than me.”
Haley gasped.
Dakota chuckled, then said, “Yeah, right.”
Allyson said, “What about the hunt for the sniper?”
Dakota sobered. “The FBI hasn’t found him yet—or the friend Sal tied up.”
“So we’ve two men in the wind,” Allyson said. “No evidence as to where they’ve gone, and now Kennowich is complaining to the FBI about you guys. Is that everything?”
“We’re aware we need more leads.” Haley shifted in her chair.
“I’m just processing aloud.” Allyson raised both hands and showed Haley her palms. “Making sure I’ve got it all straight in my head.”
Talia rolled her chair to the edge of her desk and held out a cell phone. “New one, for you. All your contacts and everything from your old phone has been copied over.”
“Do I want to know how you did that?”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell. Isn’t that how it is?”
“Not as far as I know.”
Talia laughed and slid her chair back. “Fair enough.” She tapped a few keys on her computer. “Kennowich’s phone has mostly business stuff on it. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s ‘too’ clean. Like it’s been sanitized, just in case we got our hands on it. There’s nothing incriminating to find unless you count his taste in music.” She shuddered.
“So he knew we would look.”
“We?”
Allyson ignored Dakota’s question. “Which means he knows we’re expecting him to do something.”
“Which means,” Haley interjected, “that he’s probably not going to do anything.”
Dakota said, “Or what he’s planning is so covered no one will ever be able to trace it back to him.”
“That’s what I don’t get about my phone.” She turned to look at Sal, who had his head in his hand, watching her. How long had he been doing that? “Why leave it in that van? It connects the two things.”
“And leaves us with the stolen weapons, no other ties to Kennowich, and something that may or may not be in the works.”
She nodded, not liking how subdued he seemed. He was really bothered by the turn of events on this case, as though it hit him harder than he’d expected.
Allyson logged on to her work server from the phone Talia had given her, even though that probably gave the woman a back door into the ATF’s computer system. She pulled up the files for every theft—a copy of which had been provided to the FBI so they could continue the investigation. It would likely come back on her that she’d accessed them, but she made a note in the file log that she was reading over the information in case anyone called her on it.
She had nothing to hide.
If the thieves had covered their tracks thus far, that meant they knew what they were doing. Maybe they even had a way to sell the guns under the table. A buyer waiting? Vanessa had mentioned a threat, but it could just be the weapons sales. And yet, why would Kennowich, a man rich from his pharmaceutical company, want to get in the middle of petty weapons sales?
It made no sense. Unless he was broke or something, and looking for a quick score.
“What about Kennowich’s financials?” she asked Talia.
“That’s what I’m looking at,” Haley said. “And Niall went to California to do some boots-on-the-ground work. We’re trying to figure out if it’s all above board. There are a lot of subsidiaries and other parts of his business. It’s hard to straighten it all out, but it doesn’t look good. He seems to not have a lot of net worth, despite everything going on. He’s leveraged to the teeth and behind on payments right now.”
So he could be broke. They just didn’t know for certain yet if that was why he’d opted to rob gun stores. She chuckled at the idea the smug rich guy was actually bankrupt. There was some satisfaction in that thought. Sal glanced over at her, and they shared a smile.
“Guess you had to be there,” Dakota muttered.
Allyson looked around. No one else was smiling at them. She wasn’t part of their team, and she wouldn’t ever be. She had a connection with Sal, and that was it. She was only there now because she’d been dragged into their case by Vanessa.
These people were so confident in how they all felt about each other that they could bicker because it didn’t change that.
It wasn’t that the ATF had no camaraderie. It just had the normal amount. They were work friends who hung out on occasion after hours.
She probably needed some non-work friends, like at a book club. But when she’d done that before, they only wanted to read thrillers that sounded like overly-sensational versions of her day job. Or women’s fiction that made her want to fall asleep.
Allyson shifted in the chair to get comfortable for what would probably be an hour of reading case notes.
Maybe Kennowich would get an incriminating call. They could surveil him and see where he went. Who he met with.
Then there was that exchange earlier with Sal. How he said he had things to tell her, but still hadn’t.
Allyson’s email buzzed a notification on her new phone, along with an awful chime. She flinched, thinking she heard Dakota chuckle.
She read the email. “One of the guns stolen during the first gun store robbery was used in a shooting last night. They ran the bullet through our system and got a hit that connected the two. The guy rolled over on his friends.”
Sal said, “The source of the stolen weapons?”
She stood. “The ATF is going to go round up the buyers.”
. . .
There was a buzz in the air at the ATF office that Sal knew well. The second the elevator doors slid open, he dropped her hand and stepped into the hum of activity.
Not just because it would become clear something was happening. They weren’t dumb. They’d probably figured it out. However, she didn’t need her coworkers seeing her holding hands with him. There had been enough of that ribbing between the women at his office, bantering with Allyson while they worked on the case.
Daulton caught sight of them. “You’re not here.”
Allyson raised both hands. “I got the email. Did you bring them in?”
“Just the one guy.” Daulton motioned to the hallway at the end of the open plan office. Sal spotted a handcuffed suspect getting walked to where he knew the interrogation rooms were.
“Who is he?”
“Local gangbanger.” Daulton looked down at the tablet he held in one hand. “Couple of stints for breaking and entering. A grand theft auto charge from when he was a kid.”
“So he’s hooked onto a crew that’s organized.”
“Looks like it.”
Allyson said, “And we didn’t give this to the FBI?”
“We don’t know if it’s related yet.” He gave her a pointed look.
Allyson answered with a short nod.
The ATF wasn’t going to hand this guy over to the FBI until they knew for sure his arrest was connected to the gun store robberies. They wanted to hand over proof along with the suspect.
“Which means you are not here.”
“Copy that.” She turned to Sal. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” Sal watched her go.
“If this goes on much l
onger, she’ll have to be permanently attached to that task force of yours.”
He turned back to Daulton. “I’m not sure that’s a job she would take.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“You wanna get rid of Agent Sanchez?”
Daulton gave a short shake of his head. “I never thought that girl belonged here. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great agent. It just seems like she should be doing…more than what we do.” He shook his head again. “I’m not explaining it right.”
Sal waved him off. “I think I know what you mean.”
He’d seen something in Allyson as well. An indication that she didn’t belong here. Not in an exclusionary way. It was more like she could have…better than this. He’d just never thought that involved him before.
Did it now?
“I’ll let you guys listen in.” Daulton wandered off.
Allyson came back with two full mugs of coffee, and they headed to the viewing room where they’d be able to hear the suspected gun thief being questioned.
“… the streets.” The young man’s face was smooth, but his eyes were years older than his skin. A hard life, one that started young.
Sal figured he’d shudder if he heard about all the places this man had been. All the things he’d seen, and done.
Carl was the interviewing agent. “You got the guns from who?”
“A guy.” The young man flashed white teeth. “I didn’t get his business card.”
Carl pushed a photo across the table. “Know this guy?”
The young man peered at it. “Sure, I think he’s friends with my cousin.”
“I guess we’ll have to pay your cousin a visit, then. Let him know you shot his friend. Twice. And then left his body behind a dumpster.”
The young man swallowed. “Maybe it isn’t him.”
Carl said nothing.
“It was self defense. He was gonna kill me. My lawyer’s gonna prove it.”
Carl didn’t offer to call the young man’s lawyer, and the young man didn’t ask. “Where were you two nights ago, around eleven p.m.?”
“With my girl.”
“That something she can confirm for us? Assuming she wasn’t with you perpetrating a robbery on that gun store on the corner of Allumbaugh and Front Street.”
Fourth Day Page 16