by Rainer, Marc
“Good. Let me know when you hook up.”
August 9, 6:20 p.m.
From a chair in the back of his favorite restaurant in Georgetown, Jeffrey Ethan Trask, Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, looked around the room. His back was to a wall, as usual. No Jack McCall sneaking up from behind. I won’t make the Hickock mistake. Wild Bill violated his rule only once, and it killed him. He opened the filing cabinets in his mind and allowed the images and data to flow freely, waiting to settle on one in order to control the cacophony of his thoughts. The music being piped in was cycling through some late fifties hit parade and early sixties soft rock.
That music will do for now.
He had always found the songs to be a soothing way to focus when his mind wasn’t concentrating on a task at hand. He closed his eyes and challenged himself to name the next song in as few notes as possible. It took him just two. “It’s All in the Game.” Tommy Edwards’ biggest hit. Number one on the charts for six weeks in 1958. Lyrics by Carl Sigman, music by Charles G. Dawes, who happened to be vice-president under Silent Cal Coolidge. The only hit ever to be co-written by a vice president of the United States.
Trask smiled. His command of trivia had earned him many a t-shirt or free drink in bars scattered across the South while he was an Air Force JAG traveling prosecutor.
He was waiting for the next song to begin when he saw her enter from the street. He felt himself smiling. No trouble focusing now. She was still the most perfect thing in his life, the anchor in all the madness. Five-five and a nicely proportioned one-hundred-and-twenty pounds, dressed in black slacks and a teal blouse that perfectly set off her deep brown eyes. All the file cabinets in his head remained closed when she was with him. Lynn kissed him as he held her chair while she sat down.
She saw his fingers drumming on the table.
“What song is running through that fevered brain of yours?”
“My Girl. Temps.” He smiled.
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” She rolled her eyes.
“Whenever I see you,” he said. “How’s the new job?”
“Not bad, I guess. I’m going to have to get used to the support role and not being an active street agent.”
Trask smiled again and shook his head.
“What’s the big joke?” she asked.
“I’m going to have to get used to the idea that I’m married to an old retired woman.”
Lynn Preston had been a Special Agent with the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations. She had worked several long-term undercover operations, invariably resulting in perfect conviction rates and sending many military drug-dealers to spend hot summers and bitter winters at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Trask had met her at a base in Florida where she had done one of these undercover stints. That operation had generated dozens of courts-martial and a very strong mutual attraction. Trask had left the air force after fourteen years of active duty to become a federal prosecutor. Lynn had been reassigned to Andrews AFB, Maryland, and a chance meeting there on one of Trask’s monthly days as a JAG reservist had led to their marriage a few months later. She had stayed on active duty for the retirement, but left the moment her twenty years were up. She’d just landed a job with the FBI as an analyst.
“You forget that I enlisted when I was six,” she quipped.
“You look like that might be true.”
“Thanks, but I suspect you have a very biased opinion.”
“I admit the bias, but the opinion’s still accurate. Where’d they put you?”
“Your friend Bear has me working for him in the gang squad.”
“Good. He can keep all the young bucks in the Bureau from hitting on you.”
“Fat chance,” she said. She nodded to her left. “I think you’re the one who needs watching.”
Trask turned to see a little girl in a booster seat grinning at him from the adjacent table. She was only about sixteen months old, but she was smiling widely, showing off the few teeth she had managed to sprout. “What is it with you and babies?” Lynn asked. “You’re a baby magnet. Mostly little girls. They’re always smiling at you like that. I think they see some kind of halo around you and know that you’re here to protect them.”
Trask smiled back at the infant, who was beaming at him again.
“How old do they have to be before that stops?” Lynn asked.
“I’ve noticed that it drops off considerably after they hit twenty-five.”
“You’d be wearing this salad if we weren’t in public.”
Trask laughed. “After dinner, we can go home and I’ll show you how attractive I think you still are.”
She smiled again, but it faded quickly.
“I might have to leave Barry’s squad already.”
“Why is that? I thought he’d be a great boss to work for.”
“That’s not the problem.” She stabbed the fork into her salad before looking up again. “You are.”
“What?”
“Barry got a call from your boss just before I left work to meet you.”
“And what did smilin’ Bill Patrick say to stir this up?”
“Tim Wisniewski took a call yesterday and Dixon Carter picked it up at Homicide. The vic was an ambassador’s kid. Decapitated. Somebody threw his body out in front of his father’s embassy.”
“Which embassy?”
“El Salvador. Willie Sivella called Barry. Willie said he’d already talked to Patrick and that the case was going to be assigned to you.”
El Salvador, Trask mused. Decapitation. The signature of a political retaliation by the MS-13. I’d read that they were moving into the area. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, though. The new government was supposed to be more favorable to the gangs…
He looked back up at Lynn.
Focus, dummy. Don’t ever tune HER out.
“Great,” he said. “The case of the headless diplomatic dependent. What does that have to do with your squad assignment?”
“The murder’s probably gang-related; at least that’s the initial theory.”
Trask nodded as if the information were new to him.
“Barry had wanted me to work on gang intelligence stuff,” she continued. “He was worried that with you taking the case, it might conflict me out of the squad.”
“There’s no conflict of interest as long as you’re not a potential witness. I’d have to call the witnesses who wrote whatever you’re reading, not you. As long as you’re an analyst and not a witness to an event, no conflict.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep. Just make sure there’s a second set of eyes on everything you do. As long as I don’t have to call you to the stand, I don’t have to kick you off Bear’s squad.”
“Great!” She dug into her salad. “We can work together again, I can stay on the desk, and I don’t even have to talk to dumb-ass lawyers in court!”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“I didn’t mean you. Besides, I never thought of you as a lawyer.”
“Thanks again.”
“You know what I mean. You’re as much of a cop as I am. All the guys who’ve done cases with you say that. Plus, you’re a hell of a prosecutor, and you’re not bad at some other things.”
“Like what?” He prodded, arching his left eyebrow.
“Like showing me how attractive you think I still am. I plan to take you up on that offer when we get home.”
“I think this salad will be enough, then, don’t you?”
“Not so fast, Romeo,” she laughed. “You promised me a dinner, not an appetizer.”
“All right. Just chew fast.”
They were home in Waldorf, Maryland, two hours later. When Trask unlocked the front door to the split foyer, he could see the light on the answering machine blinking from the table at the bottom of the stairs. He pushed the message button, and after listening to the recording, complied with the instruction to call Ross Eastman.
“Thanks for getting back to me, Jeff,” the Un
ited States Attorney for the District of Columbia said. “Sorry to disturb you at home.”
“Not a problem.”
“You’ve heard about the murder of the ambassador’s kid, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“Commander Sivella called about it this morning, and Bill Patrick and I agreed the case should go to you, at least for now.”
“For now?”
“For now. The conclusion at the autopsy was that the killing was probably the result of a feud between Salvadoran street gangs. ‘Eighteen’ versus ‘thirteen,’ Sivella told me. Barrio 18 against MS-13. That being the case, it’s probably a drug-related murder, just with a lot of special interest from Main Justice. If it turns into something else, like a politically motivated hit on the ambassador’s family, you can expect the Office of International Affairs to take the case, or at least assign somebody to it. I spoke to them today, and they’re OK with us keeping it, for now.”
Wonderful, Trask thought. I bust my hump and some departmental weenie with no idea of how to walk into a real trial steps in at the last minute for some high-quality TV face time.
“I understand.”
“Just keep me informed so I can keep the Department informed,” Eastman said.
“Will do.”
“Good night, Jeff.”
“That sounded heavy.” Lynn came down the stairs, a glass of Diet Coke in her hand. She handed it to him.
“Yep. I’m afraid things are going to get goofy for a while. Thanks for the drink.”
“Let them get goofy tomorrow,” she said. “You’re going to concentrate on me tonight.”
He downed the glass in three large gulps.
August 9, 11:32 p.m.
The man with the eye patch looked up and nodded as two cases, each still bearing the bright stickers that identified them as diplomatic pouches, were brought into his room at the embassy compound.
“Gracias, Hugo.”
He handed Hugo a scrap of paper bearing a telephone number and pointed to one of the cases.
“Tell Marcos to take this one and make contact at this number. Keep one, sell five. Twenty-one thousand dollars each, not subject to negotiation. Bring the cash back to me in the same case.”
“Sí, Señor.”
After Hugo left, the man with the eye patch walked to the mirror above the sink in the bathroom and removed the patch, staring angrily with his good eye at the sunken socket and the scar stretching across it.
I have one eye left. It is all I need for shooting.
He replaced the patch and returned to the bedroom and the other case, a long, narrow one. A key from his pocket opened the lock. He began disassembling and oiling the weapon, a Knight’s Armament Company XM110 sniper rifle. When the weapon was properly reassembled, he mounted the laser scope, loaded the rifle, and returned it to its case.
At least we can thank the Americanos for providing this tool to help deal with the problems they have created for us. I think I’ll go hunting tonight.
He picked up the phone and pressed the intercom.
“Hugo, get the car ready. We leave after midnight.”
Chapter Three
August 10, 1:18 a.m.
The man with the eye patch watched the sidewalks carefully as the sedan with diplomatic plates rolled by the streetlights in Langley Park, Maryland. He was alert for the usual telltale signs: the flash of a sky-blue jacket, the sound of a familiar accent, the sight of a number or the letters he hated.
“There. Slow down, Hugo.”
From the backseat he pointed to a group of three young men standing in a parking lot beside an all-night convenience store. One was wearing a jacket bearing the logo and colors of the North Carolina Tarheels. It was three in the morning. No one else was on the street.
The driver stopped the car parallel to the targets, and the rear window rolled down. The man with the eye patch could hear them talking and recognized the speech patterns. He heard one of them mention soyapango, one of the neighborhoods in San Salvador that had produced the leftist guerrillas he had fought for so long.
“Get ready, Hugo.”
He leaned the flash suppressor of the rifle against the bottom of the rear window and fired. The wearer of the Carolina jacket was the first to fall, followed by the one who had mentioned soyapango. He was unable to get the next shot off before the third man ran to cover around the corner of the building. The sedan turned the corner and sped away. The man with the eye patch returned the rifle to its place in the concealed drawer under the rear seat. Once a few blocks had disappeared in the rearview mirror, the sedan slowed again, appearing to be nothing more than a chauffeur taking his VIP back to the embassy following a party.
August 10, 10:30 a.m.
The status hearing was a nuisance, but part of the job. A crack dealer had been arrested plying his wares in Anacostia, and due process had to duly proceed. The initial appearance was a hearing in which nothing ever happened, but Trask was required to attend. The complaint would be read, the not-guilty plea would be entered for the defendant because he had no attorney appointed yet, bond would be set because this guy was neither violent nor a flight risk. The only purpose of the whole drill was to start the clock for an indictment. Trask would have thirty days to get the case in front of the grand jury, or the complaint would be dismissed.
He was irritated a bit more than usual because the magistrate presiding over the hearing was even later than usual. The Honorable United States Magistrate Judge Kathryn Hightower was known for keeping attorneys waiting thirty minutes or more past the scheduled start of a hearing, but God save the unfortunate lawyer who counted on the usual judicial tardiness and was late himself. There were cameras in the courtroom that fed the images back into the judges’ chambers. An empty counsel chair at the appointed time was an invitation to a contempt hearing, and so Trask waited. While he waited, his mind began to work, as it always did when he was unoccupied. To the others in the courtroom—the court reporter, security officers, the defendant at the table—he appeared to be asleep.
The pictures floated through his head.
I’m outside the principal’s office. Third grade. Teacher doesn’t like me very much. Mom’s inside talking. I can hear them if I block out the other sounds. Talking about “attention deficits.” Saying maybe I should be on some kind of meds. Mom’s mad, says that if they knew how to really educate me, they wouldn’t have any trouble. I haven’t been any trouble. My homework’s always done. I do it in class, always finish before school is over. I can’t help it if I daydream after that. I hear what the teacher’s saying, I just look at other stuff, read other books while she’s talking. “Give my son one of your stupid zombie pills without my permission and I’ll sue you sideways.”
His eyes flickered open for a moment. Courtroom still quiet. No judge yet. He closed his eyes again.
Back at home now. “I know you’re being good, Jeff. Your grades are good, you do the work; they just don’t understand you like I do. You’re already a grade ahead of the others your age. We don’t want to move you ahead any faster right now. We just need to make a game of it, OK? Can you look at the teacher while she’s talking? Pretend to pay attention to her? If she thinks you’re listening to her…” I AM, Mom, but—“Yes, I know, but she doesn’t. You have to make it a game so she thinks you’re focusing on her, even if your mind is somewhere else at the time. It’s just a matter of appearances.” She kisses me on the head. “No pills for you. I promise.”
“All rise.”
Trask appeared to wake from his nap and stood respectfully as the magistrate entered the courtroom. He glanced down at his watch. She’s thirty-five minutes late today. Ten minutes late even according to MST, Magistrate Standard Time.
Trask left the federal courthouse following the hearing and decided to cut through Judiciary Square before heading back to the “Triple-nickle,” as most of the prosecutors referred to 555 4th Street, NW, the home of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and
his more than five hundred assistants. He stopped in front of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and quietly stared at two names etched into the marble. Images of both came flooding back into his mind. Robert Lassiter, his mentor and sponsor in the United States Attorney’s office. Detective Juan Ramirez, Dixon Carter’s partner.
“They were good men, Jeff.”
Trask turned to see Barry Doroz standing behind him. He acknowledged Doroz with a nod and turned back toward the Memorial.
“Yes, they were, Bear. I can’t help but think that my name might be on that wall instead of Bob Lassiter’s if he hadn’t signed the indictment on the Reid thing. It was really my case.”
“Yeah, and my name would be there if you hadn’t bean-balled that punk who was about to back-shoot me.”
Trask shrugged. The film running through his head changed for a moment to an afternoon over a year ago, a surveillance van screeching to a halt in front of the alleyway where the two armed rapists were dragging their screaming victim. He was with the others, bailing out of the van on the run, Dixon Carter taking a bullet in the thigh and Juan Ramirez kneeling over him, Doroz taking down one of the gunmen with a shoulder shot, but not seeing the other circling behind him. Trask’s lucky throw with a rock had made the shooter pull his shot. Doroz’ return fire had not missed.
“We all do our jobs, Jeff. Some of us get lucky and dodge the bullets; others don’t.”
Trask nodded, stopping the movie and returning it to its place in his mental archive. “Juan would have probably preferred a bullet, given the choice.” Trask looked at the name of Juan Ramirez etched into the wall of the Memorial. Demetrius Reid had ambushed Juan, knocked him unconscious and then killed him. They’d tracked Reid down and charged him with the murder. Reid had charged Trask during the trial and died in a struggle in the courtroom.
“You took care of Reid.” Doroz patted the younger man on the shoulder. “You read your e-mail today?”
“Not yet,” Trask replied. “I had a hearing first thing this morning. Never turned my PC on.”