JT [02] Horns of the Devil

by Marc Rainer

  “When you say ‘we’ do you mean…?” Doroz asked.

  “Yep, you and me, Bear. You’re a bullet-proof hero just trying to keep me under control, and if asked, you had no idea what I was doing, either.”

  “We have our assignments,” Doroz said, looking at the rest of the group.

  10:41 p.m.

  “Sorry. It’s been an insane day,” Crawford said, collapsing into the couch beside her.

  “Anyone see you leaving your place?”

  “I don’t think so.” She kissed him on the cheek.

  He took her hand. “It’s important that they don’t.”

  “Are you that ashamed of me?”

  “God, Marissa, there’s nothing I want more than to show you off in every restaurant, club, and concert in town. Every office party, charity ball, ballgame, everything. It’s just dangerous for you right now with all this going on, and we don’t know who all the players are yet.”

  “It’s the Maras. I have always hated them.”

  “I’m not fond of them either. Vicious crew. Can’t even join up without getting the hell beat out of you.”

  “That’s the easy initiation, the one the guys get.”

  “What?”

  “It’s worse for the girls. If a girl agrees to join them, she doesn’t get beat up for thirteen seconds, she gets raped by the six biggest guys in the gang.”

  Crawford paused, stunned. The question on his face was clear.

  “No,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “Not me. My little cousin, Carolina. They made her do it. She grabbed one of her father’s guns after it was over and shot herself. She was fifteen. I used to babysit her.”

  She started sobbing. He held her and kissed her forehead.

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “I know I must be careful for now,” she said wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I understand. And you must understand, I will do anything, help anyone, to erase the Maras. I know that’s what you are doing now. If you need anything from me, just ask.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  August 24, 9:10 a.m.

  “Who’d you pull in?” Trask asked, cradling the phone on his left shoulder while looking at his computer screen.

  “A past DEA station chief from San Salvador and a CIA field officer who was down there about five years ago,” Doroz said. “Actually they were in-country at about the same time. Both before the current regime took power, so their contacts were probably with the old ARENA government, but they were all I could find in the local area on short notice, and on the QT.”

  “I’m sure they’ll do for now. Thanks, Bear. When did you tell them I’d be there?”

  “Nine-thirty.”

  “Then I’ll be there at nine-thirty-five.”

  “We’ll see you then,” Doroz said, chuckling.

  Trask checked his e-mail for the fourth time, including his court docket, which remained conspicuously empty. Your only assignment, he reminded himself, is to solve about ten murders, keep from getting your US Attorney fired, and keep your own head, and Lynn’s, attached at the neck. He opened the e-copy of the homicide blotter—Sivella had agreed to put him on the distribution list—and scanned the list of the last three days’ violent deaths.

  Eight more autopsies for the MEs to do. Let’s see…I’ll be, somebody finally finished off Calvin Hart. It’s that time of year. He gets shot every fall. Bookies who don’t pay their bettors run that risk. Calvin always did better with basketball than football. Two dead in Anacostia; shot each other and died on the scene. One dead hooker. What’s this? An M-18 member whacked in Northeast?

  He jotted down the date and time—there was no name yet for the victim—and grabbed his briefcase before heading for the gang squad. As he passed through the bullpen on the way to the conference room, he dropped the note on Carter’s desk.

  “Pull that one for me, will you, Dix?”

  “Sure. I’m starting a collection. Tomorrow OK?”

  “Yeah. I won’t have time to read it today anyway.”

  “What’s the interest?”

  “M-18 victim, shot to death. May not be related, but I’m taking no chances.”

  Carter nodded.

  Doroz and the other two were waiting in the conference room. Trask made his apologies for being late as he closed the door and Doroz made the introductions. There was Steve McDonald from CIA, a stout man with gray eyes and matching hair in a badly fitting sport coat. Kevin Hall was from DEA: taller, leaner. His glasses gave him the look of a college professor, a prof wearing a blue and white camp shirt. Trask noted that they had positioned themselves on opposite sides of the conference table.

  “I have a problem, gentlemen,” Trask began. “I have a dead ambassador’s kid, several dead MS-13 troops, counting some on the Maryland side, at least one dead member of Barrio 18, and two dead defense attorneys who were scheduled to represent some other Mara Salvatrucha pawns who were probably on their way to plunk some 18ers when they got pulled over. I also have a State Department agent who, it is my strong belief, is not giving me the whole story about what’s going on.”

  “State pukes!” snorted McDonald at the exact same moment that Hall rolled his eyes skyward. Trask told himself there was at least one small piece of common ground between the two: their contempt for things officially diplomatic.

  “I know your agencies probably have different perspectives on what may be going down here,” Trask said. “I’d like them both. Who wants to start?”

  “I’ve seen the papers and thought some about this. I’ll give it a shot,” Hall said.

  “This should be good.” McDonald snorted again.

  “You can provide your own poisoned perspective when I’m done,” Hall replied, staring coldly across the table. He turned his eyes to Trask. “DEA’s mission, as you know, is to try and put a damper on dope flowing through Central America on its way to the US. My station worked El Salvador. We worked closely with our contacts in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua.”

  “Who was moving most of the dope while you were there?” Trask asked.

  “Who wasn’t?” Hall said. “Your MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, cartels from Colombia, Mexico, and Jamaica, Mr. McDonald’s buddies in the Salvadoran government…”

  McDonald snorted again.

  “Sounds like it was the accepted fundraising technique for everybody,” Trask said.

  “Exactly,” said McDonald. “So you picked a side.”

  “Not every side was in the business of using government death squads,” Hall snapped back.

  “Excuse me?” Trask asked.

  “We started noticing them back in 1980,” Hall said, “during the civil war down there. Four Maryknoll nuns were raped and murdered by some government guardsman. It caused a big stink up here that lasted for all of fifteen minutes. It was the ARENA group’s not-so-secret response to the leftist gangs. Pick ’em up off the street and have a few summary executions. The official policy from the government toward the gangs was something they called Super Mano Duro. It means ‘super-hard hand.’ The policy was to kill or imprison every gang member or associate they could find.”

  “It worked,” interjected McDonald. “You want death squads that like us and kill gangbangers, or communist death squads who hate us and shoot innocents?”

  “I’d prefer neither, of course,” Hall replied.

  “Dream on, Kevin,” McDonald said. “You always thought you could ride in on your white horse, clean up the drug trade, and everyone would love one another. Were you at Woodstock, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Continue, please, Mr. Hall.” Trask was playing referee.

  “The real nasty group was La Sombra Negra, The Black Shadow. Trained, I believe, with some help from our very own CIA.” He shot a look at McDonald. “Hitler would have loved them. Targeted assassinations of opposition leaders, gang members, church officials, anyone who posed a threat to the status quo, all justified in the name of reducing violence.”

  “The
Salvadorans put La Sombra Negra out of business in 1995,” McDonald interjected. “The ARENA government prosecuted them.”

  “A show trial to cover their tracks and get the international press off their backs,” Hall responded. “The killings slowed for a while, then picked back up again. Gang members were jerked off the street by guys in vans with darkened windows, found shot in isolated places. All killed in the fashion of tiros de gracia.”

  “Indulge me, please,” Trask said. “My high-school Spanish didn’t cover that phrase.”

  “Sorry. It means ‘shots of grace.’ The victims’ hands were tied behind their backs and each got a round in the back of the head: base of the skull. That and the way the hands were tied was the signature of La Sombra Negra.”

  “What was unique about the hands?” Trask asked, shooting a look at Doroz.

  “Man operates with his opposing thumbs,” McDonald responded. “The Black Shadow guys always bound the thumbs together to make sure the gangbangers couldn’t free themselves.”

  Trask opened his briefcase and pulled one of the crime scene photos from the case file marked “Murder of Attorney Darren Regan.” The print showed the lawyer’s hands bound behind his back. The thumbs were tightly bound together with two loops of the cord. He handed the photograph to McDonald. “Look familiar?”

  “Yes, it does.” McDonald passed the photo across the table to Hall.

  “How was this guy killed?” Hall asked.

  Trask pulled another photo out of the file. It was an autopsy photograph showing the entry wound low on the back of Regan’s head. He handed it to Hall.

  “Textbook,” Hall said. “A Sombra execution, or a damned good copy of one.” He passed the print to McDonald. “Can we at least agree on that?”

  “Yes,” McDonald said after a moment. “We can. Who was this guy?”

  “A local defense attorney assigned to represent one of the MS-13 types we arrested,”

  Doroz said.

  “Then you should know,” Hall said, “that in the early nineties, one of La Sombra Negra’s contributions to the Super Mano Duro was the murder of attorneys in San Salvador who tried to represent the Mara members in court.”

  “You’re not aware of any connection between the new government and the death squads, are you?” Trask asked.

  “No. They hate each other’s guts,” McDonald said. “Kinda like me and Hall.”

  Trask reached into the briefcase and pulled out the photo of the man with the eye patch. “Do either of you recognize him?”

  “No,” Hall said. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  McDonald paused. “The face seems familiar, but I can’t place him at the moment.”

  “Thanks for trying,” Trask said. “Can we agree, gentlemen, that whatever side of the debate you’re on regarding the relative merits of the conflict in El Salvador, we do not want death squads from either side prowling the streets in this country?”

  Both nodded.

  “Good. Then please keep this under your hats for now, but get back to me with anything else relevant that might come to mind.”

  Trask shook hands with them before Doroz escorted them out. When he returned, Doroz handed an envelope to Trask. It had been opened.

  “From Frank Wilkes,” Doroz said. “The ballistics on the murders of the two defense attorneys and the secretary. All killed by the same weapon. Smallcaliber handgun, probably using a silencer. He ran the rounds from the Langley Park and Georgia Avenue sniper shootings, too. Different sniper rifles. Same kind of ammo, but no matches with the rifling on the rounds.”

  “So we’re kind of batting .500 on the tests,” Trask said. “For now, on this case I’ll take that.”

  August 25

  At 1:47 a.m., a black male of less than medium height and much greater than medium weight opened the back door and stepped out of the Qwik Shine Car Wash. He nodded to the guards, who were now posted on the inside of the building, behind the steel door that had replaced the wooden one. He tossed the duffel bag into the rear of a dark blue Ford Explorer and backed away from the building to the left.

  Thank you very much, thought Dixon Carter as he peered through the binoculars, for backing toward me and for keeping the light above your license plate in working order. He jotted down the plate number, then activated the computer mounted on the dash of the Buick and ran the numbers. The screen blinked back at him about a second later, indicating the recorded registration data for the license plate. Yeah, I thought I recognized you, Peewee. We’ll have a talk tomorrow.

  Carter backed into the alley and headed home. After pulling the car into the garage, he retrieved the GPS from the shelf and returned it to the rear frame of the Buick. He walked inside and collapsed into the recliner. It was 3:30 a.m. before he fell asleep.

  He wished he hadn’t. The nightmare was there again, replaying the scene. Juan Ramirez standing on the stairs, saying, “I got this, Dix. Go rest your leg.”

  Carter twisted in the chair, reliving the pain in his leg from the healing gunshot wound. He had nodded to Juan and then left the townhome, leaving his partner to deal with the snitch they were moving to a safe house. There had been a couple of uniforms out front. He was home and in bed before they’d gone in to check on the delay. No Juan, no snitch. Just the suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and the badge tossed on the hallway floor like a piece of trash.

  He imagined the scene in the hallway after he left. Juan following procedure, following the snitch down the stairs. Reid had to have made his move at the bottom of the staircase, getting the jump on Ramirez. The Jamaican outweighed his partner by a good eighty pounds, and none of it was fat. One sucker punch would have done it. One sucker punch he could have prevented if he’d stayed.

  The dream shifted to the farm in Maryland. The dig. The duct tape wrapped around Juan’s head. His partner’s body in the same shallow grave with the snitch. Carter jerked awake and looked at his watch.

  Four-thirty.

  He got up and headed for the shower.

  Time to get ready for work.

  Chapter Fifteen

  August 26

  Trask sat on the right side of the pine-framed couch in the den, his feet on a matching ottoman. The History Channel, or the “Hitler Channel” as Lynn called it, droned at low volume on the TV across the room. It was a bit past midnight, and Lynn was in bed with Nikki asleep beside her. Trask had to lean a little to his right so his right hand could access the notepad that rested on the end table, since the massive head of Boowulf—her now official, veterinarian-registered name—lay squarely in the middle of his lap. She was snoring, so Trask bumped up the TV volume a notch with the remote.

  It had been a relatively calm day. The only real development had been a call from Chief Magistrate Judge Noble informing him that the remaining three defense attorneys from the MS-13 bust had all asked to withdraw from the case, not wishing to join the ranks of the newly dearly departed. Noble had granted their requests and told Trask that the court would be asking for volunteers from the defense bar to represent the five defendants. If there were no takers in the next couple of weeks, other appointments would be made by the court. Trask had assured Noble that they were running down every lead possible to prevent a further winnowing of the defense bar.

  He thought about the few pieces of his current jigsaw puzzle, the most suitable metaphor for almost every criminal case, especially homicides.

  He closed his eyes and made mental notes, cataloging the facts as he remembered them. He usually had no trouble doing this. The file cabinet in his head opened, and he pulled the images out of the files. He had trained himself to store them there, each page mentally photographed and recorded. The files spread across his mind, he returned to the puzzle.

  In the center, he usually started with a big splash of color. Fit all the blood-red pieces together so that the crime scene was complete. Then he started defining the rim, the limits of the case. He tried to weed out any false suspects so he wasn’t distracted by all
the collateral stuff. As the investigation team collected the various pieces, he could usually fit them together, and the whole picture would begin to take shape in his head, to make sense. A few pieces in one corner showing a motive, a few more showing the manner and cause of death, all hopefully leading to the final collection of pieces showing the killer. The big disadvantage with the process was that he was working without a box with a big, full color photo of the puzzle on the front showing the completed scene. He had to work from logic, from experience, sometimes from hunches.

  He had several problems with the current puzzle. First, he didn’t have one crime scene, he had several. He hadn’t even decided they all actually belonged in the same puzzle, although his gut told them that they did. Until that was determined, defining the limits of the case was impossible. Did he have one, self-contained murder case with the ambassador’s kid? Were the various gang shootings just part of a war between the Maras? Was the embassy murder only related to the other shootings through an MS-13 connection, if in fact the ambassador’s son had been killed by MS-13? Was MS-13 responsible for the murders of the defense lawyers, or was some Salvadoran vigilante group now operating in DC? It was if someone had burned the boxes and thrown thousands of pieces of several puzzles together in one pile.

  There was one thing of which he was certain. He didn’t have all the pieces yet, so there was no way of telling how related the cases were, how many distinct puzzles he was dealing with. He turned the page on his mental notepad so a fresh one appeared.

  The only two incidents that were now conclusively part of the same criminal scheme were the murders of Boydston, his secretary, and Darren Regan, the other defense counsel. They’d all been shot with the same gun. Trask drew a rectangle in one corner of the page and put all three victims’ names inside the box. He drew another box, writing inside it the names of the five defendants from the thwarted MS-13 shooting mission. He then drew a line connecting the two boxes, writing “possible” above the connector. The victims had represented the defendants, after all, and he found it unlikely to be a coincidence, given the way the victims had been executed.