by M. A. Lawson
Seeing that his boss was too angry to speak without spitting, Robert Meyer answered her question.
“Ms. Hamilton,” he said, “we have a couple of problems here.”
The impersonal Ms. Hamilton was to remind her that although he might have slept with her a few times, his primary allegiance was to the Department of Justice—and his career. But Kay knew that Robert Meyer was on her side.
“First,” Meyer said, “the media is aware that you helped Tito Olivera escape. They’re aware because we told them when we released your picture to keep you from crossing the border with Tito. The story, of course, immediately went national. ‘DEA Agent Helps Drug Czar Escape,’ that sort of thing. Right now the media doesn’t know that Tito’s dead, nor do they know what happened in Mexico, but we can’t contain this whole thing. There are going to be leaks, because too many people know most of what happened. So we’re going to have to tell the truth.” Meyer paused, then added, “Well, sort of the truth.”
The nameless lady from the State Department jumped in. “The headless body of Caesar Olivera and the bodies of two of his top people were found by the Mexican police at Rosarito Beach. Fortunately—although I suppose fortunately isn’t the right word—the body of Colonel Roman Quinterez of the Policía Federal and one of his men were also found in a bullet-riddled boat right off the beach. I’ve told the Mexican foreign ministry that Caesar Olivera kidnapped your daughter and that Colonel Quinterez helped you get her away from the Olivera cartel. And that’s all we know.
“The State Department’s biggest concern is the action taken by the Coast Guard to rescue you. The Mexican government doesn’t really care that Caesar’s dead, particularly as it appears, as you have told us, that it was a Mexican police officer who killed him. The Mexicans do care, however, about United States military forces entering their territorial waters. Countries are rather sensitive toward that sort of thing.
“The good news is that Mexico isn’t like the U.S. When the locals hear gunshots down there, they don’t rush outside with their video cameras and they don’t call the media—they’re afraid the cartels might kill them if they do. What all this means is that so far no one has reported seeing a U.S. Coast Guard vessel off Rosarito Beach at dawn three days ago firing a machine gun.”
“What if somebody does report it?” Kay asked.
“Then I’ll probably lie my ass off,” the State Department lady said. Kay was beginning to like her.
“What we’re going to do is tell an abridged version of the truth,” Robert Meyer said. “Stanley”—Meyer pointed at the dork with the bow tie—“is going to hold a short press conference tomorrow. He’s going to say that your daughter was kidnapped by the Olivera cartel and you took unauthorized action to free her, which included removing Tito from the brig at Pendleton. We’ll say that Tito was subsequently killed in an automobile accident but that your daughter was eventually freed thanks to the Mexican federal police, and that you’re no longer employed by the DEA. Stanley will also say that we have no direct knowledge of what happened in Mexico, that the U.S. government had absolutely no involvement with the death of Caesar Olivera, and that we can’t comment further as additional comments could affect ongoing DEA operations and put DEA personnel at risk. When the press starts to bombard Stanley with questions, he’ll repeat: I cannot comment further because blah, blah, blah, and then we’ll hope that some sort of financial or political or natural disaster occurs to give the press something else to think about. Fortunately, the press has the attention span of a flock of hummingbirds—and Stanley is very good at using a whole lot of words without actually saying anything.”
Stanley smiled modestly at this remark.
“What all this means,” Callahan said to Kay, finally resuming control of the meeting, “is that you keep your damn mouth shut. You don’t talk to the press. You don’t hire an agent. You don’t write your memoirs. If you do, I’m going to press charges against you, and my lawyers are good enough that there won’t be any goddamn jury nullification.”
Callahan didn’t seem to like her.
“I can live with that,” Kay said, “but why can’t I keep my job, get transferred to some other part of the country, maybe overseas? I mean, I know I—”
Barb Reynolds shook her head. “Sorry, Kay, you’re gone. If you keep your mouth shut like Mr. Callahan says, you’ll be allowed to resign. If you don’t resign, then I’ll fire you and you’ll have a hard time getting a job anywhere in law enforcement.”
“Okay,” Kay said. She’d known that keeping her job was a long shot. This was the best deal she was going to get.
Barb slid a couple pieces of paper across the table at her and said, “Sign those. Don’t bother reading them, because we’re not going to change the wording. I’ll get you copies later.”
Kay signed the papers and Barb passed them to Jim Davis; as the lowest-ranking bureaucrat in the room, he would make the copies. Everybody else stood up to leave. Robert Meyer’s eyes met hers and he smiled at her before he left, a sad sort of smile, the smile of an old lover saying he missed her—and Barb Reynolds noticed.
Barb turned to Kay and said, “Now, you and I need to go have a couple of cocktails.”
“What?” Kay said. “We’re celebrating?”
“Not exactly. Or maybe we are. Whatever the case, we’ve got a few other things to talk about. And I want a drink.”
—
They went to a bar a couple of blocks from the Federal Building, and Barb ordered them both Grey Goose martinis.
Barb looked great. She had short dark hair, the kind of cheekbones you saw on models, and green eyes that promised mystery, sex, and mischief. She was wearing a red St. John suit with a hemline that stopped an inch above her knees and clung to her butt. She was almost fifty, but she had the body of a thirty-year-old. Thanks to a face-lift and maybe a little Botox, she had the face of a forty-year-old.
When they sat down at the table, Kay noticed a good-looking, gray-haired guy at the bar—one of those California guys with a George Hamilton tan who probably drove a Porsche and considered eighteen holes a full day’s work. He was looking at Barb, and Barb noticed him looking, and gave him a smile Kay could only describe as seductive. She had always wondered if Barb was faithful to her marriage vows, but when it came to sex and morals, Kay was anything but sanctimonious.
Barb took a sip from her martini and said, “God, that tastes good. I might have to have a couple more of these.” She glanced over at the guy at the bar.
“What’s going to happen to that Coast Guard lieutenant?” Kay asked. “Is her career over, too?”
“Oh, hell no. The lieutenant didn’t tell you, but her mother happens to be a congresswoman from Maine, and Mama sits on the House Defense Appropriations Committee. The lieutenant’s going to get a very vague, very mildly worded official reprimand stuck in her file for what she did—and, simultaneously, pats on the back from a couple of admirals for saving your bacon. That lieutenant will be the Commandant of the Coast Guard one of these days.”
“How ’bout the marines? The guys whose car I stole? Are they going to end up doing time for a DUI homicide?”
“Again, the answer is: Hell, no. You gotta learn to have some faith in your government, Hamilton, and your government doesn’t want the marines in a courtroom talking about what happened. As your friend Mr. Meyer said, we want this whole thing to just fade away. Those marines, God protect ’em, will shortly be in Afghanistan.
“And speaking of Meyer, he’s the guy you have to thank for everything. He was the one able to talk some sense into Callahan. Do you have some sort of special relationship with Meyer?”
“Uh, no,” Kay said. “I just worked with him on a couple of cases when I first got here, but I don’t know him all that well.”
“Hmm,” Barb said, and Kay figured she was thinking, Liar, liar, pants on fire.
To change the
subject, Kay said, “Did the marines ever get their car back?”
“Yeah, they found it in Del Mar.”
“That’s good,” Kay said. “I’ll send them some money for new cell phones, and I’ve got to get some money to Rodney, too, because he’s never going to be getting his car back.”
“Rodney?”
“The other guy whose car I stole. I left it in Mexico.”
“Jesus. You’re a veritable one-woman crime wave.” Barb finished her first martini. Kay’s was only half gone, but Barb waved at the bartender and held up two fingers. She again glanced over at the gray-haired guy at the bar, and again they smiled at each other.
“I’ve tried to get ahold of Kevin Walker,” Kay said, “to thank him again and to see how he’s doing, but I can’t find him.”
“Walker is in a rehab place up north, near Sacramento. He’s doing fine. He’s also going to land on his feet. After he’s sober, he’ll be moving to Wyoming.”
“Wyoming?”
“Yeah. Walker has an uncle who’s been the sheriff of Sweetwater County for twenty-two years and is planning to retire in three years. The smart money is on Walker replacing his uncle.”
Kay could see the Marlboro Man as a county sheriff. “So everybody ends up okay but me,” she said. “Maybe Walker will offer me a job as a deputy in Shitwater County.”
“That’s Sweetwater, and quit feeling sorry for yourself. You’re lucky you’re not dead or in jail. And face it, Kay, you really weren’t going to go any higher in the DEA, even before this happened.”
“What do you mean? I was a great agent.”
“That’s the point. You were a great agent. But you were a lousy supervisor and a lousy bureaucrat.”
Kay started to object, but Barb said, “How’s your daughter doing?”
“She’s okay. She’s a tough kid. Smart as a whip, too.”
“Are you worried about Caesar’s guys coming after you and her?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think that’ll happen. They’re all too busy fighting over Caesar’s empire.”
“Still, it might be a good thing if you moved away from here.”
“My daughter still has two years to go in high school, and she’s in a good school right now.”
“They have good schools in Washington. In fact, I’m sure I can get Jessica into the school my boys went to.”
“Washington?”
“You see, even though you’re not supervisor material, you—”
“I don’t agree with that.”
“—you have other qualities. You’re quick on your feet, you’re brave, you’re tough, and you have a facility for languages. Well, there’s a certain organization in Washington who needs people with your talents, and I have some pull with this organization.”
“What are you talking about? CIA?”
“Not exactly. But I’m thinking by the time you go through training and get a couple more languages under your belt, Jessica will be out of high school and off to college.”
“Does this unnamed organization know what I did in Mexico?”
“You bet. I told them all about Mexico, and they love what you did down there. As far as they’re concerned, that was your job interview. They can hardly wait to meet you.”
Barb finished her second martini. Kay was still on her first.
“Now, I’d suggest you go home and tell your daughter you’re going to be moving to D.C., and in a day or two, you’ll get a phone call.”
Kay just sat there for a moment, unable to move, unable to believe how lucky she was. She hoped Jessica wouldn’t be too upset by having to move to Washington—she knew her daughter liked living in Southern California—but she also knew Jessica would understand and would want what was best for Kay’s career. Furthermore, it sounded like this unnamed agency that wasn’t “exactly” CIA could even be more fun than the DEA. She wondered if—
Barb gave her a tap on the hand. “Go on, honey. Get moving. Go home to your daughter.” Barb looked over at the gray-haired guy at the bar—he really was a hunk—showed him that her martini glass was empty, and made a little pout. “The grown-ups have things to do.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank the following people for their help on this novel:
Kaaren Netwig, Jessie Kanallakan, and Owen Kelly for helping me with and taking the time to read some of the Mexico scenes in the book. Any errors relating to Mexico, border crossings, Rosarito Beach, et cetera, are mine alone.
Linda Kirk for educating me on the nature of fifteen-year-old girls. I don’t have a daughter and never spent any time with teenage girls, and Linda spent over an hour talking to me about her daughter, Jessica, when her Jessica was fifteen. The Jessica in this novel is based—very loosely—on Linda’s real-life daughter, who is now a brilliant doctor.
Rodger Brown for letting me play with a real .32 caliber automatic like Kay uses in this book.
Judge James P. Donohue for taking so much time to educate me on federal warrants, the Patriot Act, and other legal matters. Any errors in the legal stuff also are mine alone.
George Steffen for introducing me to Steve Wolfe, and to Steve, who was a huge help in so far as educating me on Camp Pendleton when I made a research trip to San Diego.
James Barber, a friend and former boss. There’s a line in the book attributed to Caesar Olivera about good news delivered late just being a “pleasure delayed.” I paraphrased that line from a 1986 training paper Jim wrote regarding principles for managing Navy nuclear work. The paper is still in circulation today, twenty-eight years later.
Phoebe Pickering, Peter Grennen, Tony Davis, Aileen Boyle, and everyone else at Penguin/Blue Rider Press who participated in the production of this book. I particularly want to thank David Rosenthal, President of Blue Rider Press, for the wonderful job he did editing and improving the book, and especially for being willing to take a chance on this novel.
Finally, David Gernert, for all the effort he put into finding a home for this book. David, I don’t know what I’d do without you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. A. Lawson, a former senior civilian executive for the U.S. Navy, is a pseudonym for Mike Lawson, the author of eight novels in the Joe DeMarco series.