by Rainer, Marc
“Let’s hope so,” Trask said. “Let’s get to work.”
In the kitchen of his hotel suite, the man with the eye patch slammed the lid of his laptop closed in disgust. “FOOLS!” he screamed. “A truce? A fucking truce!? ” He picked up his cell phone and growled after the ring tone stopped. “Hugo, get ready. We pay a visit to some old friends tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Tuesday, September 12, 5:40 p.m.
Lynn Trask drove south on Maryland Highway 5 toward Waldorf. She hadn’t really said anything to Jeff before leaving. She had left a short message on his office voicemail, knowing that he’d probably never check it. He’d stay in the task force bullpen or in the conference room until it dawned on him that it was past time to leave. The voicemail would cover her if he bothered to ask. He’d check her cubicle and see that her purse was gone, and then he’d figure it out.
He IS a freakin’ genius, after all. That’s why he’s right 99 percent of the time, and why he was asking questions about Armando’s killer again in front of the squad, even after I’d figured it out. GOD, he pisses me off sometimes, always analyzing, re-analyzing. Sometimes I think I married one of those Vulcans from Star Trek. Logic, logic, and more logic, with a memory like a damned computer. When he’s focused on something like this, I can’t break into his hard drive, even when I’m helping input data. I’m right about Armando’s murder, damn it. It all makes too much sense to be wrong. “Can’t afford to assume.” DAMMIT. He might as well have been cross-examining me on the witness stand. It’s not an assumption; it’s a solid inference based on proof.
She stopped at a shopping center when she reached the Saint Charles subdivision. Boo and Nikki were almost out of dog food. She picked up a forty-pound bag of the expensive stuff, and continued the debate with herself as she pushed the cart back to her car.
Calm down. You know he didn’t mean anything personal by asking everyone else about it. He probably agrees with you and doesn’t want it to look like he’s playing favorites. No, he’s really weighing other possibilities and letting the chips fall where they may, even with his own wife. It’s still not personal, though; he’s just doing his job, the one he’s so good at. That concentration will stay focused until he solves this, then he’ll be human again. GOD, he pisses me off sometimes. He’ll miss dinner for sure. He can find his own tonight.
She turned into the cul-de-sac marked Amwich Court and pulled into the driveway of the house at the end. Throwing the sack of dog food over her shoulder, she opened the door to the split-foyer entrance and headed downstairs. She filled the bowls and walked to the sliding glass doors, which opened onto the patio in back. She pulled one side open and paused at the screen door, seeing the two happy faces and wagging tails on the other side. She couldn’t help but smile and felt her mood improving.
“Hi, girls. Mama’s home. Ready for dinner?”
The low growl from Boo caught her by surprise.
“What’s the matter, Boo?”
She knew as she asked that she should turn to look behind her, but that realization came too late. A large gloved hand covered her face, and she had time for only one thought before she blacked out.
Chloroform!
“Embassy of El Salvador, Ms. Moreno speaking. How may I help you?”
Crawford opened the door to his car in the parking lot as she answered. He sat down in the driver’s seat but didn’t hit the ignition, not wanting to miss a word of the call. “Marissa, it’s Michael. Sorry I didn’t call earlier. We’ve been swamped and I was stuck in meetings until five minutes ago. Can I see you tonight?”
“Of course, my love. This night and every night. Your place or mine?”
“It should probably be mine tonight, if you don’t mind. I probably have a stack of bills waiting on me, and I’ll get evicted if I don’t pay some of them.”
“Not a problem,” she laughed. “I’ll see you soon.”
Trask slumped into the chair of his office at the Triple-nickle. His hope that the gang truce would buy them some time had not materialized. Patrick had called him in to tell him someone from Main Justice would be in the next Monday to conduct an “assistance visit” to see how things were progressing with the investigation. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Six days to solve all this mess. Guess I’ll be spending a lot more time in here in the near future. If they let me stay on, it’ll be as a second fiddle at best. Even more likely, they’ll use the attack on Lynn and me to disqualify us from the case. Lynn! I didn’t see her when I left. Nuts. He glanced at his watch. 6:00. Then he saw the red message light flashing on the desk phone. He picked up the receiver and hit the button.
“Hey, it’s me. I’m heading home to feed the dogs. OK, bye.”
Ugh-oh. Something’s wrong. I only get the curt ‘OK, bye,’ when she’s pissed about something. Better head out quick. He was halfway out the door when he saw the vest hanging on a peg on the wall. He’d ignored it lately, too hot and bulky. CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” started playing in his head. He grabbed the vest and headed for the parking garage.
She woke up slowly, still tasting the chloroform, but when she tried to lick her lips, they were taped shut. She leaned forward, but felt constrained. As she came to, she realized that her feet were bound. Her shoulders were pinned to the back of the chair, and she felt her wrists pinned together by the rope. She tried to feel the cords, hoping to recognize the knot, but she couldn’t move her hands normally.
My thumbs are tied together!
He stepped in front of her then. A huge, Hispanic man, grinning at her.
Not a grin, a fucking leer. What’s up, big boy? Planning to untie me and have your way with me before you finish me off? Give it a shot. I’ll take all the time I can get, and I’ll fight dirty as hell. You’re not wearing a mask, so I know you don’t want to leave me here alive.
She looked past him, trying to put a plan together. She saw the window on the far wall and recognized the curtains she’d hung around it.
I never really liked those. Need to replace them. She shook her head. Get with it, back to your senses. She blinked her eyes and concentrated. I’m still in the den. He’s got me facing away from the door. Where’s Jeff? Oh, God, don’t let that voicemail be the last words he ever hears from me.
The man looked at her, still smiling. His eyes dropped to her breasts. His hands moved to the buttons on her blouse, opening the first two. Then he stopped and stepped back.
Don’t stop there. I hate everything you just did more than you’ll ever know, but I need time now. What are you thinking about, you bastard? Jeff, where are you?
The man shook his head from side to side as he pulled a small caliber pistol from his belt and began screwing a silencer onto its barrel.
No, no! It can’t end like this. He’s more afraid of whoever it was who sent him to do this than he is horny. He has his orders, and they were to kill me. I’ve just lost all my time. Jeff, I’m so sorry.
The man stepped behind her, and she felt the silencer touch the back of her head. There was a gunshot; she felt an impact on the back of her head and felt herself falling.
Trask turned onto Maryland 5. He called her cell but got no answer.
I’m probably getting the silent treatment for whatever sin I committed.
The traffic was a little lighter than usual because he’d left the office late. He weaved in and out of traffic, earning more than one dirty look from his fellow commuters. Most federal employees don’t donate much time to the government; I wonder how many actually fudged five or ten minutes today. I’m lucky not to be in gridlock tonight.
He glanced down at the speedometer. I’ll risk ten over. If one of the county boys pulls me over, I’ll have him escort me home. He thought about calling the sheriff ’s office to have one of their units check on her, but decided not to waste a call on what was probably just a domestic tiff. Don’t want to cry wolf in case I really need ’em later.
He couldn’t get the Credence tune out of his he
ad. Oh, well, at least it’s not “Proud Mary.” Wish I had a nickel for every time that thing hit my radio. Way overplayed.
When he turned onto Saint Charles Parkway, the music suddenly stopped. Something’s wrong! Trask floored the accelerator, passing two cars with his horn blaring. He pulled in behind Lynn’s car, grabbed the Glock from the glove compartment, and bolted to the door. To his horror, it was unlocked and ajar. For a microsecond, he thought about the vest he’d left on the passenger floorboard.
Screw it! He pulled the Glock and flung the door back. He looked up the stairs toward the living room on the left. Nothing. Then he heard a whimper coming from the den down the stairs. He took the six steps in two strides and saw her. She was on the floor, tied to a chair, her back to him. There was a small pool of blood staining the carpet behind her head and spots of blood on the back of her blouse. The dogs were sitting beside her, Boo licking her face. Trask froze and heard himself calling her name. His legs failed him, and he dropped to his knees.
Crawford had expected her for dinner, but she was late. He was about to put her portion of the lasagna in the fridge when the doorbell finally rang.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I got stuck at work on a last-minute report that Rios wanted out tonight. He insisted that I stay late, even though I’d been invited to dinner at Tio Juan’s house. I had to call and cancel it.” Her nose caught the scent. “You made your lasagna for me? I love you, and I’m starved!” She kissed him and pulled him back toward the dining table.
Trask sat on the floor, numb and unable to move. Then he saw her legs twitch. In a flash he was dialing 911 and asking for an ambulance and police while he was untying her. When her hands were free, she ripped the tape from her mouth. She hugged him and started crying softly. She pointed to the pistol with the silencer lying on the floor almost hidden by the shadow of the couch.
“Is he gone? Is he gone?” she cried.
Trask instinctively pulled the Glock from his waistband and whirled around, expecting to see the attacker. The machetes sliced across his memory again. There was no one there this time. He turned back to her, checking her head, her back. “There’s blood here on the floor. Are you hurt? Were you shot? Cut?”
“No, just dizzy, and my head hurts. Chloroform, I think. I feel like I’m going to throw up.” She grabbed a wastebasket from beside the corner of the couch, and did.
“If this isn’t your blood, then…?”
“Check Boo,” she said. “I heard a shot, I felt something hit my head, and then the chair got knocked over. I hope he didn’t hit her. The dogs were outside when he grabbed me.”
Trask called the big dog over, and she walked to him without difficulty. He checked her all over and found no injuries. “She’s fine,” he said. He pointed toward what had been the sliding screen door to the patio. “That’s not.”
The frame of the door was bent inward, almost in half. The screen hung from the twisted aluminum in tatters.
Trask hugged the big dog’s neck. “It’s OK, Boo. I can fix that. Thanks to you, we don’t have to fix your Mom.” He heard sirens outside. “Here we go again. The neighbors are going to hate us.” He pointed to the bloodstain on the carpet. “We want them to cut that out and find out who it belonged to. I want ballistics on that pistol, too.” He looked around the room, and found the bullet hole in a corner, near the ceiling.
“USAA,” she said, laughing a little. “Our insurance company’s going to hate us, too.”
The medics came barreling down the stairs with a stretcher, freezing when they saw the Glock.
“Sorry, guys,” Trask said, returning it to his belt. He motioned toward Lynn. “She needs to be checked out.”
“I’m fine, Jeff,” she protested.
“You don’t know that. They need to do some blood work, find out how much of that gas you inhaled, and check out that bump on the back of your head,” he said.
They had her on the stretcher in a matter of seconds. He kissed her and told her he’d be at the hospital shortly, then she was gone, and he was alone for a moment. He started shaking and sobbing.
A Saint Charles County Deputy Sheriff was standing at the top of the stairs.
“Mister Trask? You all right?”
He nodded, still choking back the tears and rage. “Yeah,” he heard himself saying. “But I’m going to find out who did this, and he won’t be.”
Trask sat beside her bed at the hospital, watching her sleep. It was past midnight. The doctors had checked her out and said everything would be fine. A little more nausea, perhaps, until she got the rest of the crude anesthetic out of her system. The attacker hadn’t wanted to kill her with the drug, so it wasn’t a heavy dose. That’s what the pistol had been for. He shook his head. It’s not worth this. Nothing is worth this. He felt a large hand on his shoulder.
“How you holding up?” Bill Patrick asked.
Trask saw that Barry Doroz was standing behind Patrick.
“I’m OK, Bill. She was very lucky. Just a concussion, and the doc says it’ll just require some rest. As best I can put it together, our big dog came plowing through a sliding screen door just as the creep was about to put one in the back of her head, just like the defense counsel murders. The shooter turned toward Boo—our dog—but she got to his arm before he could get the gun trained on her. The shot went up into a corner of the room, and the gun went down to the floor after bouncing off the back of Lynn’s head. She went down, and the shooter ran away.” He shook his head. “I never should have let her leave the office by herself.”
“Apparently you didn’t, Jeff,” Doroz said. “You left her in the capable paws of that wolf you brought home. She is lucky, though. Much luckier than some others tonight.”
Trask looked up at him. “Who is it this time, Bear?”
“The Salvadoran ambassador and his wife. Both carved up like turkeys. MS-13 style. I just came from their house. Our friend Murphy showed up and started cussing me—and you—up and down. Blamed us for it, said we were incompetent, promised he would have us both off the case by morning. I guess your friend Rios is the new ambassador, for the moment at least.”
“Wonderful.” Trask looked back to Patrick. “How much time can you give me, Bill?”
“No longer than Monday.” Patrick thought for a minute. “I can leave you in place that long. We’ll have Eastman tell the guys at Main Justice that we realize that as victims, you and Lynn will be disqualified, and that they’ll need to bring our office in Northern Virginia or Maryland on board to take over the case. We’ll DQ our whole office on the conflict of interest, but tell Justice that we’ll just leave you there in the interim to run the transition. Sorry, but we’ve got no choice now.”
Trask nodded. “Understood. Thanks.”
“I’ve got two guys here to watch her room tonight, Jeff,” Doroz said. “What about you?”
“I’m going home, Bear. Like you said, I have a wolf and another dog, and I need to feed them. That process got interrupted by our friend with the silencer. Feel free to have the sheriff park a unit outside if he wants to, but I’m staying at the house tonight. Lynn’s sedated, and your boys are watching her door.”
“Get some sleep,” Patrick said, patting him on the shoulder again as he turned to leave.
Doroz waited until Patrick was gone. “Plan?” he asked.
“The first time, I think they came for me,” Trask said. “Whether they came for Lynn tonight or were trying to get to me through her, it doesn’t matter. My plan is to solve this mess in the next three or four days and take it down, then hand my successors a gift-wrapped, bulletproof package that even a moron couldn’t screw up at trial. This is personal now.”
“Normally, that doesn’t work very well.”
“I realize that, but I’m not normal.”
“Yeah,” Doroz chuckled. “I know. You OK to drive?”
Trask nodded soberly. “Absolutely.” He looked back at Lynn and kissed her on the forehead. Sleep well, Babe. You’re safer
here than at home for now. He squeezed her hand gently before he left the room, tears in his eyes.
The house was still being guarded when he got home. The Maryland State Police had processed the scene and left. Trask talked the deputies outside into limiting the sentries to two marked units, got them some coffee, then went into the house. He put the Glock back into a holster and pulled out the .45 from the headboard before loading two of its magazines with hollow-point rounds. More stopping power. The hell with the regs. He went to the bar and knocked back a stiff double of Crown Royal, then returned to the bedroom and lay down. Nikki jumped onto the bed and curled up at his feet. Boo sprawled across the doorway. The dogs were snoring in five minutes. Trask joined them in ten.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tuesday, September 12, 8:30 a.m.
“Any signs of forced entry?” Trask asked, looking over the crime scene photos spread across the conference table.
“Nope,” Doroz said. “Looked like whoever pulled this one walked in through the front door.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Trask said. “Their government signs a truce with the Maras and takes the heat off them—exactly what the gangs have been looking for—and the local chapter of this crew whacks the ambassador and his wife, leaving their calling cards carved into the corpses? Good way to bust the truce your bosses just agreed to, don’t you think?” He looked across the table at Crawford. “How’s your girlfriend, Mike?”
“Pretty messed up. She was supposed to eat dinner with the ambassador and his wife last night, but had to work late on something for Rios. She’s taking it hard. She was real close to the ambassador, called him her Tio, her uncle.”
“She have any ideas about this?” Doroz asked.
“Just that it’s the MS-13. Her cousin killed herself years ago after being gang raped by them. Marissa hates their guts.”
“We either have a rogue clique operating under their own set of rules, or someone who wants us to think they are,” Trask mused.