Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838)

by White, Linda J.

  27

  KIT LOOKED SHARPLY AT CHRIS. THEY’D BEEN MONITORING EVERY WORD. “Do we have enough? Can we move?” she asked him.

  Steve Gould was standing at a small window nearby. “Kit, who’s this?”

  She got up, set down her headphones, and joined him. She could see vehicles using only their parking lights approaching the other end of the building. Her heart began beating hard. “I don’t know!”

  “It looks like law enforcement.”

  “Roger … do you guys have anything going on tonight?”

  “Nothing that I know of.”

  Chris joined them at the window. Men dressed in dark clothes began tumbling out of a large truck. They were carrying rifles and wearing ballistic armor. “It’s either the sheriff’s office or the state police. Look at that! They’ve got a ram.”

  “We need to intercept them!” Kit said. “Jason! Do we have a common frequency with local law enforcement?” Before he could answer, they heard the boom-boom-boom of flashbangs.

  “Too late!” Chris said.

  When David and the two men heard the flashbangs, they all reacted, turning toward the noise. “Andele!” Cienfuegos said, cursing, and he headed for a nearby door.

  David followed. He didn’t have a choice. He knew that if he didn’t, Hector would simply shoot him … and enjoy doing it.

  As a door opened at the end of the room, Hector opened fire.

  “ERT—that’s the sheriff’s office,” Steve shouted, looking through binoculars.

  “Roger, call local dispatch. Tell them to stop the raid at C&R!” Kit shouted.

  “They’re coming out!” Steve said as a back door to the processing plant flew open and Cienfuegos ran out, followed by David and Lopez. The three men began sprinting across the parking lot, taking fire from men who had appeared at the door of the processing plant.

  Kit grabbed a shotgun. “Let’s go!”

  Chris stopped her. “No! You’ll be right in the line of fire!”

  “We have to help him!”

  “Let him run with them. We’ll follow.”

  “He’s right,” Steve said. “Stay here.”

  David ran out into the night, following Cienfuegos toward the woods. Hector ran right behind him. Once in the dark woods, David figured, he could lose them.

  But about one hundred feet from the building, David felt a burning blow to the back of his leg, the rush of red-hot lead tearing into his flesh. His whole body jerked and he cried out, fell to the ground and grabbed his leg. The night seemed to explode in a thousand orange and yellow shooting stars and the moon above turned blood red. Lost in pain, he felt himself being jerked to his feet, supported between Cienfuegos and Lopez, and thrust forward, into the forest.

  Watching from the house, the agents saw David fall.

  “He’s shot!” Chris said.

  Kit’s heart nearly exploded, and before either man could stop her, she was gone.

  Kit left the house just as Lopez and Cienfuegos picked up David and disappeared into the woods. She focused on that spot. Bullets whizzed from behind her, and somewhere in her mind, she heard Steve and Chris shouting, “FBI! FBI!” Still, she ran, her feet trying to find traction on the uneven ground. She jumped over a log and a branch whipped her face. She dodged tree trunks as underbrush snagged her legs. She thought she saw movement ahead, and then she didn’t. She raced on. Then her eyes saw a light—the dome light of a car. She ran faster, desperately, her breath jagged and sharp, and then, just as headlights split the night, she tripped. Fell. Her gun flew out of her hands and her face hit the dirt. She looked up just as a white Escalade spun gravel and tore off into the night. She clenched her fists, gripping dirt and leaves and twigs, and dropped her forehead to the ground. “Oh, God!” she cried out. “Oh, God!”

  Moments later, in shock and disbelief, Kit pushed up off the ground. She found her gun, and began retracing her steps back to the tomato processing plant, numb with fear. Pressing the button on her communicator, she said, “Chris, it was a white Escalade, late model. It was a backup! He had it stashed in the woods.”

  She heard no response. She broke into a half-run, tears blurring her vision.

  Steve Gould met her. “That was stupid! The dumbest move ever. You could have been shot! It’s bad enough to lose an informant, but you could have been killed!”

  Kit gritted her teeth.

  “Poor judgment! Very poor judgment.” Steve’s tongue-lashing continued as they jogged back to the clearing. His words fell on her shoulders like a whip. She was impulsive. Reckless. She’d put herself and ultimately Chris and him at risk, because they had to run out and get the ERT to stop firing in her direction. What was she thinking?

  Kit took his anger, absorbing it like a sponge. He didn’t understand. How could he understand?

  Chris met them at the clearing along with a sheriff’s deputy. “The sheriff’s office had a warrant for Lopez. He’s a major meth distributor.”

  Kit spoke. “So, let’s go. Who’s chasing the Escalade?” she asked.

  The deputy looked blank. “No one. We were told to stop the operation.”

  Kit’s temper flared. “Are you kidding?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “Did you establish a perimeter?”

  “Not in that direction,” the deputy responded.

  She fought for control. “All right, we have the GPS.” She grabbed her mike. “Jason, what’s David’s position?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t know. One GPS transmitter is in the parking lot … that’s the one in his truck, I guess, and the other one … the other one is about thirty yards from you, due north. Away from the building.”

  “Right where David fell,” Kit said, peering into the dark.

  “Hold on,” Chris said. He jogged across the grass and came back a minute later with David’s cell phone and a transmitter in his hand. “The cell phone must have pulled the transmitter off when he fell.”

  “So there’s no backup?” Steve Gould said.

  “We had a backup—two GPS trackers!”

  “That aren’t any good now!”

  Kit felt her face grow hot. She was a heartbeat away from saying something she’d regret later when Gould interjected, “Chris, you take over.”

  A flash of indignation poured through her. “Why?”

  “Impulsivity won’t cut it.”

  Kit narrowed her eyes. “I’m not impulsive. I object to your decision.”

  “You foolishly endangered your own life—and mine.”

  “You made the decision to run toward the ERT.”

  “Because you were running into their field of fire!”

  “He’d been shot!”

  “And you could have been killed.”

  “So no man has ever risked his life to save another?” Kit glared at him, her anger pounding in her head.

  Steve opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

  “She’s right, boss,” Chris said. “She really isn’t impulsive.”

  Kit’s throat tightened. She and Gould stood toe to toe, the air between them thick.

  “Every minute we spend arguing about it puts David’s life in greater danger,” Chris said. “I think she should keep the lead.”

  Steve shook his head and kicked a stone on the ground.

  “Sir, if I blow this, I’ll give you my creds and my badge,” Kit said.

  Steve looked at her as if calculating her worth. He shifted his jaw. “Fair enough.”

  “Thank you, sir.” And she shot a look of gratitude at Chris.

  David fought panic in the back of Cienfuegos’s Escalade. His leg felt warm with blood, his jeans were soaked. In the darkness, he could not see much, but from feeling his wound, he couldn’t detect any arterial bleeding. But it was like a fireball was burning under his skin. Had the bullet hit a nerve? It remained in his leg—he couldn’t find an exit wound. When he’d been shot in the shoulder it hadn’t hurt this much. What was going on?


  Stop the bleeding, David told himself. Don’t go into shock. Fight it.

  He saw an old T-shirt on the floor, ripped it into strips, and tightened the material around his leg. Meanwhile Cienfuegos and Lopez were arguing in Spanish, their words flying too fast for him to understand. He saw Cienfuegos take out his cell phone. He called someone, someone named Consuela. And Cienfuegos was giving her a list of things to bring, and David realized they were going to be meeting her somewhere, sometime. Maybe he could talk them into letting her take him to a hospital. The minute that thought entered his mind he rejected it. No way. They didn’t care about him that much and it would blow their position.

  Kit convened the agents and the leader of the sheriff’s ERT under a light outside the tomato processing plant.

  “So we have no one in pursuit and no way to track them.” She tightened her jaw, trying in vain to stop the trembling in her gut. She looked at the deputy. “We need to put out an APB for Cienfuegos’s car, a white Cadillac Escalade. There are three men together: Hector Lopez, Carlos Cienfuegos, and David Castillo. David’s our confidential informant. He took a shot in the leg as they left here.”

  “Where are they going?”

  “No clue. We have teams surveilling Cienfuegos’s house, and Lopez’s apartment and we have put them on alert.”

  “We need ground support watching these roads.” Kit pointed out four arterial roads that could provide a way of escape. “Can we get air support?”

  “I’ve requested our helicopter and Maryland State Police is responding from Salisbury as well,” Roger replied.

  “How about hospitals?”

  “There’s only one, in Salisbury.”

  “Emergency care centers?”

  Chris frowned. “Do you really think they’re going to get him medical care?”

  Kit grimaced and took a deep breath. “You’re right. Besides, if they did, they’d probably just go to one of Carlotta’s clients.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Chris, you have some of the suspects’ financial records. I need you to contact the banks where they have accounts. Let’s see if they use an ATM. Also, credit cards … track their credit cards.”

  A sheriff’s car, lights flashing, came down the road at a fast clip and pulled into the plant’s parking lot. The burly sheriff of Accomack County emerged and walked swiftly toward the group. His ERT leader had briefed him on the way over. “Who’s in charge?” he asked.

  Kit introduced herself.

  “This is a bad deal,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Who tipped you Lopez would be here?” Steve Gould asked.

  “A woman named Maria Salazar. We got her for dealing meth and she’s working a deal with the DA.”

  Maria? David’s friend? “What help can you give us, Sheriff?”

  “Everything I got. We want Lopez about as much as you want your man back.”

  “One more thing,” Kit said. “Give David’s cell phone to Jason, Chris. Maybe Cienfuegos or Lopez’s cell numbers are in there, and we can trace those.”

  “Gotcha.” Chris looked around. “Where are we going to set up?”

  “We’re ten minutes from the offsite. Let’s go back there.”

  At the speed Cienfuegos was traveling, every bump sent waves of nausea rolling through David’s belly. He could smell the blood, his own blood. His hands felt sticky with it.

  He leaned his head back and tried to think. What could he do? How could he get out of this? His cell phone! He reached for it, but the place on his belt where it should have been was empty.

  “Estacionate!” Lopez said, pointing to a bank. Cienfuegos jerked the car to the right and pulled into the parking lot.

  Cienfuegos turned and looked at David. “You have an ATM card?”

  “No.”

  But Cienfuegos didn’t believe him. “Where is your wallet?” he yelled. “Give me your wallet!”

  David pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. All it had in it was his fake driver’s license and a hundred dollars. Carlos took the money and threw the wallet back at him. Then he looked at Lopez. “Use your own card.”

  Seconds later, Lopez jumped back in the car. “$200,” he said. “Let’s go!”

  Cienfuegos took off again, and that’s when David realized they were headed north on Rt. 13, toward Maryland. There wasn’t a lot of traffic at 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday night. If only he saw a cop! Maybe he could signal him.

  He was freezing in the back of the car. Shaking. The two men up front were arguing again. David couldn’t follow the conversation. Once Lopez turned around and asked him something. He muttered something in answer, and Lopez gave up. Thank God, he gave up. Because all the Spanish had left David’s head.

  28

  KIT STOOD OVER THE TABLE AT THE OFFSITE, STARING AT THE MAP SPREAD out on it. Her mind was working quickly. She fought to keep her emotions under control. She knew she had to find Cienfuegos. David wouldn’t last forever with a gunshot wound. Maybe Carlos would dump him somewhere. Maybe he’d signal for help somehow. Maybe …

  They had to find him. “All right, so we have Rt. 13 running north and south and that’s covered, right, Roger?”

  “We’re getting people there now.”

  “They’re not in place yet?”

  “On the way.”

  “Is the chopper up?”

  Chris moved by at a fast clip, a paper in his hand. “The bank’s playing hardball. I’m going to meet one of the officers at the local bank site. He’s not happy about being rousted out of bed. I’ll call you if I get anything.”

  Kit nodded. “Right.”

  “What can I do?”

  Kit turned. Steve Gould was standing on her right. The anger had left his face. She thought quickly but before she could respond, her cell phone rang. One of the members of the surveillance squad at Cienfuegos’s house reported that the lights, which had been off, had come back on and there was activity inside the house. Kit clicked her phone off. “Steve, please go to Cienfuegos’s house. Something’s going on. Maybe he’ll show up there.”

  “Late model Cadillac Escalade?” he said.

  “Yes. White.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Here’s the address. It should come up on your GPS, but in case it doesn’t,” Kit scribbled directions on a sheet of paper, “here’s how to get there. I’ll call the squad,” she took the paper back out of his hand and jotted down a name and cell phone number, “and tell them you’re on the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  With both Steve and Chris gone, Kit felt a sense of relief. Now there was no one to look over her shoulder. Question her judgment. She stared at the map. “Jen!” she called out suddenly to one of the Norfolk agents.

  She came over.

  “I need you to go watch the shed at the live oak farm, right here … see it? If Lopez is running, he may try to retrieve his stash.”

  “Right.”

  “Take someone with you!”

  David had his eyes closed, fighting nausea and trying his best to withdraw from the fire consuming his leg. But when he felt Cienfuegos suddenly swing the SUV to the right, he had to look. Cienfuegos turned onto a small side road, accelerated, then swung left into a parking lot behind an auto parts store, where a green Suburban sat idling. Cienfuegos threw the Escalade into park and turned off the ignition. Lopez jumped out of the front seat, jerked opened the door next to David, and said, “Get out!”

  Get out? How? David’s right leg was immobile.

  He tried to use his arms to push himself out but Lopez reached in, grabbed him and pulled him out of the car. Eyes tearing with the pain, David planted his good leg, and lurched to a standing position, his vision darkening momentarily. Then he leaned against the Escalade.

  Cienfuegos came around to David’s side of the SUV and cursed when he saw the blood left on the white leather seats.

  “What are we doing?” David asked.

  “Changing cars. That woman, she saw us leave in this one.”

  Woman?
What woman? Kit? “Look,” David said, “why don’t you just leave me here? I’m just going to slow you down, man.”

  “He knows too much,” countered Hector.

  Before David could answer, they were interrupted by a woman’s voice: “Carlos, I want to go with you! You promised!” and before the sound of her voice registered in David’s mind, she rounded the vehicle. “David!” she exclaimed.

  He raised his head. Maria was standing in front of him. Maria! Her tiny white tank top barely brushed the top of her low-cut jeans and her hair curled around her shoulders in soft waves. But she had a look about her that was different, a hollow, haunted look. Something about her eyes.

  “You know him?” Cienfuegos said, his voice sharp.

  “Yes,” she replied, not taking her eyes off the wounded man.

  “How do you know Castillo?”

  Please, please, David’s eyes begged her. Don’t give me up. Sweat broke out on his neck.

  Maria pursed her lips.

  “Consuela!”

  Consuela? Her name was Consuela? David’s head spun.

  The woman he knew as Maria turned toward Cienfuegos. “I want to go with you.”

  Lopez grabbed her arm, squeezing so tightly his fingertips turned white. “How do you know him?”

  “You let me go!”

  Cienfuegos motioned with his hand, and Lopez released her. He looked at Consuela. “How do you know him? You tell me the truth or I leave you behind.”

  Consuela tossed her head. “His name is David O’Connor. And he’s a cop.”

  Half an hour went by—the most excruciating thirty minutes Kit could remember. But then Chris called. “OK, we have an ATM withdrawal by Lopez.”

  “Where?”

  “The Shore National Bank on Rt. 13 near New Church.”

  “They’re headed north, then.”

  “That’s my guess.”

  Kit clenched her fist. “I’ll tell the chopper.”

  “You want to go?”

  Did she ever. “Yes.”

  “Wait for me.”

  No sooner had she hung up with Chris than her phone rang again. This time it was Jen, the Norfolk agent watching the shed. “It was so dark and quiet,” the agent reported. “I decided to check the shed. It’s empty, Kit. Nothing there. Whatever stash it held is gone. Someone removed the lock, too.”