JT [02] Horns of the Devil

by Marc Rainer

  Pipes? Makes sense, I guess…It’s supposed to be a car wash, after all. Helluva lot of them, though. They could redo the plumbing in my whole subdivision with that much copper…What the hell?

  Carter felt the cell phone vibrating in the pouch on his belt. He always had it set to vibrate. Surveillances like this, court appearances, movies…all required silence. Judges hated it if your phone rang during a trial or hearing, and Carter hated it more when a cell gave away his position on a stakeout. He sank back down in his seat and answered the call.

  “Carter.”

  “Dix, turn your dome light off and don’t shoot me. I’m about to open your passenger door.”

  Carter turned to his right and saw the face looking over the edge of the passenger side window. He flipped the switch so the light would not activate, then nodded. Tim Wisniewski, dressed in black from head to foot and wearing a black stocking cap, climbed in and sank down into the reclined bucket seat.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Carter demanded. “And where’d you get that outfit? Ninjas-R-Us?”

  “I’m supposed to follow you around, partner. Orders of the triumvirate,” Wisniewski said.

  “The what?”

  “Your masters. Sivella, Doroz, and Trask.”

  “Never say ‘master’ to a black man.”

  “Sorry. Massa then.”

  “You’re asking for it tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Give it a rest. I’m half Pole, half Irish. If it weren’t for you black guys, I’d still be a member of two oppressed minorities myself. You ever hear the one about the Polish fighter pilots in World War II?”

  “You don’t expect me to tell a step-and-fetch-it joke after it, do you?”

  “Nope. Anyway, there were these three Polish fighter pilots stuck in a Warsaw ghetto, their planes had been blown to hell by the Blitzkrieg, and they’re sitting there in their little apartment feeling all depressed and guzzling vodka. They got drunk and figured they needed to whip somebody’s butt. They saw a rat run across the floor and into a rat hole, so they drew up a formal declaration of war on the rats, rolled it up, and crammed it into the rat hole. They figured they’d identified an enemy they could whip. By the next morning, two of ’em were POWs and the other one had a war bride.”

  Carter didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help laughing.

  “I know all the best Polish jokes,” Wisniewski said. “Just let me know when you’re ready for another one. What and who are we watching?”

  “I,” Carter corrected, “have been watching the local clique of MS-13 in their relocation efforts following the fiery demise of the deli they used to run. You should be watching the insides of your eyelids. I don’t recall inviting you.”

  “Like I said, the triumvirate commands, and I obey. No surveillance van tonight? Might be more comfortable.”

  “I wasn’t expecting company. How’d you know where to find me?”

  “Didn’t. I had to follow your ass out here. You don’t check your six very often do you? Traffic was awful light, and I’m sure you would have noticed my tail if you’d looked for one. I’m parked around the block.”

  “Great. Now I’m a Polish surveillance joke.”

  “That’s funny,” Wisniewski laughed. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

  He glanced over the window edge toward the car wash. The silhouettes of several men carrying lengths of copper tubing were outlined in front of a security light on the corner of the building.

  “What’s with all the pipe?”

  “At first I thought they might be refitting the car wash system,” Carter said. “But that’s way more than they need for that job.”

  “How’d you track these guys here?”

  “Lynn Trask did some research on the guy who was on paper for the deli. Ortega’s his name. He put in a claim with his insurance company after the fire. They smelled an inside arson job and called ATF. ATF had Ortega listed as an MS-13 member and called Barry Doroz. He had Lynn run some financial screens on Ortega, and she found out he’d just filed a purchase deed on this car wash. I heard them talking about it in Bear’s office, and I found the reports on Bear’s desk after they left today.”

  “So you snooped the boss’s office and assigned yourself some overtime?”

  Carter looked at him hard. “I decided to check it out on my own time.”

  “You’ve got some weird recreation hours.” Wisniewski glanced at his watch. “Two-thirty a.m.”

  “I’m a dangerous man. Haven’t you heard? You’re lucky you called before popping up at that door, otherwise I probably would have killed my second partner.”

  “You’re gonna be real dangerous if you never sleep. To everybody, including yourself. I’m more worried about becoming the partner who got ‘the best cop on the force’ killed than I am about getting whacked myself.”

  “I don’t need a damned babysitter, junior.”

  “Nope, but you need a partner, pops, so just let me do my job while you do yours. I could have snuck up on you and blown your ass away just now.”

  Carter kept his binoculars trained on the car wash.

  “You were following me in a black Dodge Charger. Nice wheels, so I assume they’re yours and not the department’s. Before you called my cell you’d been crouching beside the dumpster in the alley between this store and the Office Max for about ten minutes, and despite that wardrobe from The Guns of Navarone, your white face sticks out like a neon sign. Use some camouflage grease next time you want to hide in the hood. I was actually worried that I’d have to bail you out of some ambush, but you do pretty good surveillance for an Anglo from Santa Fe.”

  Wisniewski whistled. “Very impressive. What’s The Guns of Navarone?”

  “An excellent film. World War II period piece. Rent it sometime.”

  Carter shook his head in disbelief. Even more copper tubing was being offloaded. Wisniewski noticed the silhouettes, too.

  “That, my senior partner, is either going to be a very large marijuana grow, or they’re going to be counterfeiting pennies.”

  Carter nodded. “My conclusion as well.”

  He put the binoculars back in the case and started the car, leaving the lights off. He backed the Buick into the alley, circled around the end of the strip mall, and pulled up beside the Charger.

  “You’re lucky. The wheel covers and tires are still there. Follow me out, if you can.”

  Wisniewski followed as Carter pulled into a convenience store four blocks away. The Charger parked beside the Buick.

  “I need some coffee before I head home for my nap,” Carter said. “Get what you want. This one’s on me.”

  He poured a large cup of black coffee from the customer urn’s spigot and headed for the counter, nodding to the large black man behind it. “How’s things, Marv?”

  “Been better, been worse. Who’s the midnight skulker with you, Dix?” He nodded toward Wisniewski, who was approaching them.

  “New partner. I’ll get his stuff tonight.”

  Carter looked down at his wallet to pull out a bill. When he looked back at the counter, he saw his coffee, a coke, six individually wrapped condoms, and seven Tootsie Roll Pops.

  “You did say the usual, didn’t you?” Wisniewski asked.

  Carter arrived at his townhouse at 3:27 a.m. He poured a half glass of red wine to help himself fall asleep. The light on his answering machine was blinking. It was Melody, saying she was just calling to check on him, that she still cared about him and wanted to make sure he was all right.

  If you cared that much you’d still be here, Mel. You’d understand. I expect the divorce papers any day now. Hell, YOU left ME; I didn’t desert you. Maybe I ought to file the damn things myself and serve you with them…I miss you, Mel.

  He hit the delete button on the machine, which politely informed him that he had no more messages, and sank into the recliner facing the television without picking up the remote. He downed the last sip of the pinot noir, staring vacantly at the dark sc
reen.

  Six condoms and seven Tootsie Pops. What was the extra one for? Carter laughed out loud, remembering Marv’s face. “The usual.” The kid got me good with that one. Polish fighter pilots. Two POWs and a war bride.

  He laughed again, then immediately began sobbing. He stopped crying only when the wine and exhaustion finally numbed his mind. He spent the brief remainder of the darkness sleeping in the chair.

  Chapter Eight

  August 16, 8:30 a.m.

  “Good morning, Jeff,” Doroz said, looking up from a stack of papers on his desk.

  “For some of us. I just walked through your bullpen. Dix looks like shit.”

  “Yeah, I know. He and Tim pulled some late surveillance last night on the MS-13 clique’s new car wash. I didn’t OK it in advance, had to fill out the forms and back date ’em this morning so they can get paid for the OT. If I’d known about it beforehand, I’d have said, ‘Hell, no.’ I don’t think Carter’s been sleeping lately.”

  Trask sank into a chair facing the desk. “I thought you never wanted a supervisory job.”

  “Didn’t, and still don’t.” Doroz shoved the completed forms into his out basket. “It’s a pain in the ass, but they gave me the choice of running this squad, one of those antiterrorist jobs where I’d be chasing ghosts all day without ever putting the cuffs on ’em, or a desk at headquarters. This was the only option that left me doing active crim’ work.” He shoved a pile of forms from one side of the desk to the other, next to three other similar stacks. “I even hate being in this office. I usually hang out in the bullpen with the guys on the squad, or in the conference room.”

  Trask saw lines on Doroz’ face that he hadn’t noticed before.

  “I’m glad you’re around for this case, Bear.”

  “Thanks, but my brain’s so mushed out with all this paperwork, Dixon Carter’s still thinking rings around me with less than four hours sleep per night. I might get half a day of real work in between the department’s precious forms and holding the hand of whatever staff employee needs a father figure for a day.”

  Trask glanced out the door to see Lynn blowing him a kiss from her desk. Doroz followed his eyes and saw it, too.

  “At least you can handle that one for me.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” Trask said, chuckling.

  “She’s a hell of an analyst, Jeff. I point her and she takes off.”

  Trask nodded in agreement. “She was a hell of an agent, too.”

  “Too bad I can’t partner her up with Dixon Carter and have her kick his ass out of this depression. They won’t let me put analysts on the street.” Doroz waved at the door. “Shut that thing, will you?”

  Trask reached over and pushed the door shut. “What’s up?”

  “I think,” Doroz said, “that Dix and Tim didn’t go out together last night on that surveillance. They left here at about the same time—Dixon first, Tim a few minutes later—but I don’t think it’s like Tim to pull something like this surveillance without prior authorization and no backup.”

  “You’re right; it’s not,” Trask nodded. “Think he’s covering for Dix?”

  Doroz smiled. “Why don’t you take this job for me? It took you ten seconds to get where I got in thirty minutes, and you didn’t have to grill Tim like I did.”

  “Did Tim admit it?”

  “Hell, no. He’s playing the good and faithful junior partner. Said they met up after he parked his car at his house and then left together. They came up with the idea to stake out the car wash after dinner and just did it on a whim. They saw a bunch of pipe being unloaded and think that the Mara boys are starting a marijuana hydro-grow.”

  “Good, Bear. Let Tim try to pull Carter out of his funk. It might happen, once Dix starts trusting him.” Trask paused for a moment. “From what I’ve seen, despite his problems, he isn’t missing anything in this case.”

  “Right again.” Doroz rose from his chair and stared out the window. “That’s the other weird part about this. With the fatigue, which we can all see in his face, you’d think he’d be overlooking things, getting sloppy, but he’s not. It’s like having a damned detective savant around. None of his old humor, no life away from the job. Just a zombie version of Sherlock Holmes who looks like he could collapse at any second.”

  “You’re worried about what might happen if the lead starts flying again.”

  “Of course I am. If he doesn’t snap out of this pretty damned quickly, I’m going to have to send him back to Willie Sivella.”

  “You’ve talked to Dix about this?”

  “Sure. He says all the right things. He’s working on it, just needs time. I just don’t know how much more I can give him. Any suggestions?”

  “Give him the time that you can. I don’t have any magic wand to wave.”

  “We’ll ride the storm out a little longer, then. I just don’t want him or anyone else getting hurt in the process.”

  “Don’t say that to him.”

  “I don’t have to. He’s wearing Juan Ramirez around his neck like an albatross.” Doroz checked his watch. “It’s time for your lovely wife’s briefing. She took those ideas of yours and found some stuff.”

  They left the office and walked out into the bullpen, where Puddin’ Crawford, five other FBI agents, and four task force officers, including Carter and Wisniewski, were staring at their respective computer terminals behind low cubicle walls.

  “You ready, Lynn?” Doroz asked. When she nodded, he said, “Conference room, folks.”

  When they were assembled, Lynn pushed a button and the screen dropped again. Trask, standing at the back of the room, glanced at Mike Crawford to see if he resented being replaced.

  Nope. Looks like he’s glad to have a true analyst on the squad. Frees him up to be a full-time G-man again. Good.

  Lynn hit a key on a laptop, and the image of a prison flashed across the screen.

  “This is an assignment presented to me by our prosecutor,” she began.

  “Before you continue,” Doroz turned and faced the room, “I’d like to say something about that. Some of you guys, both agents and cops, have never worked a case with a prosecutor closely involved in the investigation process. It’s essential in a long-term conspiracy investigation to have a prosecutor on board early. It helps focus the investigation. When you have the best prosecutor in the district, a former military guy who’s a helluva tactician and not afraid to get his hands dirty, it’s a big advantage. I’ve worked with Jeff before, and so have Dix and Mike.”

  Mike? He must be serious about this, Trask thought. He’s using Puddin’s real name.

  “Jeff ’s also your co-supervisor as far as I’m concerned. When he tells you to do something, consider it an order from me. If you don’t like it, come see me and I’ll tell you to do it anyway. Questions?”

  There weren’t any.

  “Sorry for the interruption, Lynn.”

  Doroz took his seat. Trask caught the smile that Lynn flashed him before resuming.

  Thanks, I think, Bear. No pressure, as usual. He smiled back at Lynn. If I screw this up, babe, we’ll be canoeing out of a satellite office in Idaho.

  “This is La Esperanza,” she said pointing toward the screen, “the largest prison in El Salvador. It’s a prison from the outside, usually surrounded by the army and a lot of Salvadoran cops. Inside, the inmates often run the asylum. It used to be controlled inside the walls by members of the 18th Street gang, otherwise known as Barrio 18 or M-18.”

  She clicked forward to the next image, showing bloody bodies lined up against one of the prison walls.

  “This is following the prison riots of 2004, when 216 inmates were decapitated, hacked, shot to death, or burned by M-18 prisoners. The riots caused the ARENA government to spread the gang members throughout the country’s prison system. One of the results was a drastic reduction in the M-18 forces within La Esperanza, and the ranks of Mara Salvatrucha-13 members grew to the point where MS-13 now controls the priso
n population. We think the warden and other government officials equalized the gang ranks intentionally inside the prisons to punish M-18 for the riots. They increased the MS-13 population for ‘balance,’ but the pendulum has now swung too far in the other direction.

  “The MS-13 bosses inside the prison have their own cell phones and are in constant contact with their cliques throughout the hemisphere. They’re the smart ones, the ones who keep lower profiles. Their more violent soldiers and some of the mouthier leaders get transferred to a more maximum security prison at Zacatecoluca. They call it Zacatraz after our Alcatraz. Inmates there are kept pretty isolated. Our intel is that a lot of the Mara prisoners—both M-18 and MS-13—expected to be freed after the FMLN took the reins of the Salvadoran government, but they weren’t, and so the word may have been passed to the various MS-13 cliques to attack those who have betrayed them. That may be the motive behind the murder of the Salvadoran ambassador’s kid…”

  Trask held the door for her as she joined him in the parking lot. They’d driven to work together for once. He pulled the Jeep into traffic and headed southeast toward Waldorf.

  “So how’d I do, co-boss?”

  “Very nicely,” he said.

  “But I missed something?”

  “I don’t know that you did.” That did a fat lot of good. She knows you too well.

  “What did I miss?”

  Way to go, ace. She DID do a good job, but you had to have it perfect, and she feels that. Now she’s upset.

  “Lynn, it really was exceptional work—but I put my case hat on when you ask me case questions.”

  “OK, fair enough. What did I miss?”

  “You covered all of the journalism school basics very well except for one. The what, why, when, and how…you nailed all of those. I just didn’t get enough who.”

  “I said the ARENA government. I know you want some info on the eye patch character at the embassy. I’m working on that.”

  “You’re right. You did say the ARENA guys.” Let her figure it out. Be quiet for a minute.

  She was looking out her window now. “You wanted to know who in the ARENA government.”