by Mike Lawson
“Sure,” Mahoney said, as if there were no big mystery whatsoever when it came to DeMarco. “He doesn’t work for me, at least not directly, and he’s not a member of my staff. It’s like his personnel file says. He’s a freelance lawyer the members call upon from time to time.”
What Mahoney had just said wasn’t exactly a lie. Other members of the House, as well as a few other people Mahoney knew, had used DeMarco’s services in the past—but on those occasions, Mahoney had lent DeMarco to those people. DeMarco was his guy.
“Called upon to do what?” Peyton asked. “Can you be more specific?”
Mahoney was on rocky ground here. He wasn’t about to tell Peyton that DeMarco was the one he sent to pick up cash from folks who didn’t want to be identified as contributors. Some legal nitpickers might conclude that the money DeMarco collected should be called bribes and not campaign contributions. And Mahoney could definitely not go into detail about some of the assignments he’d given DeMarco, assignments in which DeMarco had sometimes strayed over the thin, meandering line separating legal acts from criminal ones.
Mahoney said, “DeMarco’s kind of a troubleshooter who just comes in handy when there’s something going on that my staff can’t handle. Like a few months ago. There was this old lady up in Boston, one of my constituents, who was being screwed over by some developer. I asked DeMarco to look into that because I was running for reelection at the time, and my staff was completely tied up with the campaign.”
Mahoney didn’t tell Peyton that the developer ended up dead, killed by a Mexican drug cartel, and that DeMarco had had a hand it that.
“Another time,” Mahoney said, “a buddy of mine, a guy I served with in Vietnam, called me because his granddaughter was getting death threats. She’d learned a bunch of state politicians out in North Dakota were being bribed by a big energy company. I asked DeMarco to look into that one because the guy was a friend and because I didn’t want my staff traipsing off to North Dakota.”
That was another case where he couldn’t talk about what DeMarco had really done. He’d helped Mahoney’s war buddy get away with murder—a justified murder but still a murder.
Mahoney concluded with: “So, like I said, he’s done a few small jobs for me, but I don’t really know him all that well, not on a personal level.”
When Mahoney said this, he couldn’t help recalling the Last Supper story in the Bible, the part where Jesus tells Peter that before the cock crows he’ll deny three times that he knew him—which old Pete did. Not that DeMarco was Jesus Christ or Mahoney Saint Peter. At the moment, he felt like Judas.
So, feeling guilty, Mahoney added: “But I can tell you that he seems like a good guy, and I have a hard time believing he killed Canton. What motive would he have?”
Instead of answering the question, Peyton said, “Sir, why did you send a text message to DeMarco the night Congressman Canton was killed?”
Mahoney barely remembered DeMarco calling him the night Canton had died, talking about some text message. He’d been so drunk that he’d passed out on the couch when he got home after having dinner with a couple of guys from Boston, and when he got the phone call, he’d said that he didn’t know what DeMarco was talking about because he really hadn’t known.
“Agent, I never sent DeMarco a text message,” Mahoney said. “In fact, I’ve never sent a text message to anyone in my life. When I have something to say to people, I call them. And they always answer or call me back.” He said this to remind Peyton that he wasn’t some ordinary schmuck impressed by a guy with a badge.
“Congressman, we’ve seen the text. It was on DeMarco’s phone, which we examined after we arrested him. And we know it came from your phone.”
“Goddamnit, Peyton, I’m telling you I never sent him a text.” Mahoney was now truly alarmed and was making no attempt to hide the fact. “What did this text say?”
Peyton hesitated. “It said, ‘Go to your office immediately. Be there in fifteen minutes.’ “
“And what time did I send this text that I never sent?”
Peyton again hesitated, as if he were being asked to divulge classified information. “It was sent at nine thirty p.m. And about an hour later, DeMarco called you. Or I should say, he called the number that’s registered to your cell phone.”
“Well, I never sent that message, and as for DeMarco calling me…. Look, this is a little embarrassing, but the night Canton was killed I had dinner over at Old Ebbitt’s, and I had a lot to drink. My driver took me home right after the dinner, like maybe nine or so. I don’t remember the exact time. That night, after I got home, DeMarco called and asked me why I texted him. I was asleep when he called, and he woke me up and my brain was barely working. Anyway, I told him the same thing I’m telling you, that I didn’t send him a text and I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“I see,” Peyton said. But his tone of voice said, Sounds like bullshit to me—which pissed Mahoney off.
“Peyton, I’m telling you for the last time. I didn’t send that text. I don’t text. You need to seriously look into the possibility that someone hacked my phone.”
Peyton stared at him for a moment—as though he was eyeballing some lying scumbag criminal—before saying, “We’ll do that, sir.”
Mahoney didn’t believe him.
“And what motive would DeMarco have for killing Canton?” Mahoney asked for the second time.
This time Peyton answered the question. “Congressman, a hundred thousand dollars was transferred from a bank in the Caymans to DeMarco’s savings account the day Canton was killed. We don’t know who sent the money yet—I’m sure we’ll find out eventually—but it appears as if DeMarco was paid to kill Canton.”
Mahoney shook his big head. “I think DeMarco’s being framed for Canton’s murder.”
“I suppose that’s possible, sir, but in the twenty-five years I’ve been with the bureau I’m not aware of a single case where someone was framed for a crime. That only happens in movies.”
Mahoney almost said, Well, if it was a perfect frame, you wouldn’t have heard about it. But he could see he’d be wasting his breath. Peyton had already made up his mind that DeMarco was guilty.
Peyton rose and said, “Thank you for your time, Congressman.”
After Peyton left, Mahoney added two fingers of bourbon to his coffee cup. Before Peyton’s visit, he’d been worried about DeMarco—but now he was worried about himself. It was as if the FBI was trying to connect him to Canton’s death. His animosity toward Canton was public knowledge, so a case could be made that he had a motive for wanting Canton killed. And the FBI now knew that DeMarco had done a couple of jobs for him, because he’d just helpfully told Peyton about those jobs. So why not a murder? Then they had the damn text message supposedly from him to DeMarco, but even worse was the call DeMarco had made right after Canton was killed—like maybe a call that said, “I took care of the guy, boss.” The hundred grand that the FBI had traced to the Cayman bank was another potential problem. If someone could hack into his phone and make it look as if he’d texted DeMarco, maybe the hacker could make it look as if he—John Mahoney—had sent the money from the Caymans to DeMarco’s account.
DeMarco needed to be found innocent, or he might not be the only one going to prison. And even if Mahoney himself didn’t go to jail, this was the sort of scandal that would hang over him politically for years, with people always wondering if he’d paid to have Canton killed. He had no doubt whatsoever that any information the FBI had would be leaked to the media.
He had to get someone looking into this mess, and he could think of only one person for the job. He called her but got her voice mail. He said, “Hey, you need to call me back. Right away. It’s about DeMarco.”
He thought she’d call him back, because she liked DeMarco, but with her you could never be sure. She was so goddamn ornery and independent. Not to mention condescending and sanctimonious, when it came to him.
Mahoney sat for a moment, brood
ing, and something else occurred to him. There was one thing he could do for DeMarco; he owed him that much at least.
He called Mavis and said, “I need you to set up a meeting for me.”
The IHOP on the Jeff Davis Highway is about a mile from Ronald Reagan National Airport. Bob Anderson, sheriff of Alexandria, hurried into the restaurant, flustered because he was fifteen minutes late, thanks to a traffic accident he hadn’t been able to get around, even using lights and a siren. The road had been blocked like a clogged artery until the police could bring in a tow truck big enough to yank a bus out of the way.
Anderson had been told to dress in civilian clothes, and he’d opted for a suit, considering whom he was about to meet. But at first he didn’t see the man. He’d never met John Mahoney, but he knew what he looked like: a big guy, only five eleven but broad across the back and butt, a shock of pure white hair, and bright blue eyes. Maybe Mahoney was late, too.
He had no idea why Mahoney wanted to see him, but when a guy with Mahoney’s political clout calls and says he wants a meeting, you don’t ask questions and you don’t refuse—not if you’re a Democrat. And Bob Anderson was a Democrat—he was serving his second term as sheriff and would probably run for a third term—so he wasn’t about to ignore Mahoney. He just hoped Mahoney hadn’t gotten there before him and then left because he was late.
A man in a booth near the back of the restaurant, wearing a red Nationals baseball cap and a gray sweatshirt, raised his hand. It was Mahoney. Thank God.
Anderson rushed over to Mahoney’s table, and as he sat, he said, “I’m sorry I’m late, Congressman, there was a wreck on—”
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks for taking the time to see me, Sheriff.”
“Uh, sure, yeah, I was happy to. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
He noticed Mahoney didn’t seem very friendly, in fact he looked pretty serious, like something was bugging him—and Bob Anderson sure as hell hoped he wasn’t the cause of Mahoney’s annoyance.
“You got a guy in your jail named Joe DeMarco,” Mahoney said.
“Yes, sir.” DeMarco was the biggest name in his jail at the moment.
“I’ve never been in prison myself,” Mahoney said, “but you hear stories. Guys getting beat up, shanked, raped. That sort of thing.”
“I run a good jail, Congressman.”
“I’m sure you do, Bob. But I wanted to let you know something. If anything bad happens to DeMarco while he’s in your jail, I’m going to crucify you. You won’t be running for a third term; you won’t even finish your current term. And you won’t be able to get a job anywhere in law enforcement. Hell, you might not be able to get any job at all.”
Before Anderson could say anything, Mahoney said, “On the other hand, if DeMarco stays safe and healthy until his trial, I’m a guy who can help you. You’re a young man. What are you, about forty-five?”
“Forty-two, sir,”
“Then you might have political ambitions beyond being sheriff, and I can help you if you do. And if you want a third term, I know some guys who will contribute to your campaign and give you some advice to make sure you win. So, are we clear, Bob? I can be the best friend you’ve ever had, or I can be your worst nightmare.”
Anderson swallowed as if he was trying to get a baseball down his throat. “Yes, sir, we’re clear,” he said.
“Good,” Mahoney said. He rose from the table, gave Anderson a friendly pat on the shoulder, and said, “And this meeting never happened, Bob.”
12
Gravelly Point Park is on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, just off the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The main attraction of the park is that you can lie back on the grass and watch the planes taking off from Reagan National Airport. That is, they take off right over your head, folding up their wheels as they pass over you, and it’s a rush, particularly at night and if you are drunk or high, to have a 747 blowing by two hundred feet above you.
About the time Mahoney was threatening the Alexandria sheriff, two men were meeting for the first time in the park. They were sitting at a picnic table across from each other, and they made an odd couple. An observer’s initial impression might be a parolee meeting with his parole officer.
One of the men was Bill Brayden, a rather ordinary-looking white man wearing a suit and tie. He was fifty-four years old, clean-shaven, and had receding dark hair and a small potbelly. He was head of security for Spear Industries.
His companion, Hector Montoya, was the exact opposite of ordinary. He was thirty-two years old, his head was shaved, and he had a soul patch beneath his thin lower lip. He was wearing loose-fitting blue jeans, yellow Timberland work boots, and a sleeveless T-shirt. The most striking thing about Hector was his tattoos, which covered every inch of his body that Brayden could see: his arms, his hands, and the part of his chest visible above the top of the T-shirt were all covered with ink. Two blue snakes coiled around Montoya’s throat, the heads of the snakes meeting near his Adam’s apple, their mouths open, fangs dripping venom. On his arms were tattoos of skulls, red devils, nude women, wolves and tigers, and other animals that came purely from the tattoo artist’s imagination. Below his collarbone, in elaborate script, were the words Mara Salvatrucha. On the back of his neck, in heavy dark blue, was MS-13. He even had tattoos on his face: there were two lightning bolts near his right eye and three teardrops at the bottom of his left eye. According to urban legend, the teardrops indicated the number of people he’d killed.
Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is an international criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles and spread like a noxious weed through the Americas—North, South, and Central. It is involved in trafficking people, drugs, and weapons, and its members often serve as enforcers for Mexican drug cartels. Almost all MS-13 gangbangers are heavily tattooed, often with tattoos covering the entire face. (Compared with some, Hector Montoya’s face was practically a blank canvas.) There are estimated to be fifty thousand members worldwide and over ten thousand in the United States. MS-13 also had a strong presence in almost every prison in the country—which was the reason Bill Brayden was meeting with Hector.
Brayden had encountered MS-13 a few times while working for Sebastian Spear. In countries like Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, he quickly learned that the most pragmatic way to provide protection for Spear’s personnel—to keep them from being robbed, kidnapped, raped, and murdered—was to simply pay off the local criminals. As a result of his past dealings with the gang, he knew an MS-13 “executive” in Honduras. It was the Honduran who had provided Brayden with an introduction to Hector Montoya, the current leader of MS-13 in northern Virginia.
Brayden placed a paper bag on the picnic table, then sat there looking at Hector, saying nothing. He was thinking that Hector’s appearance hardly inspired confidence.
Finally Hector, tired of being stared at, said, “I don’t have all day, man. You wanna get to it? Guzman said you’d pay good money for something you wanted taken care of.”
Guzman was the Honduran.
“There’s twenty-five thousand in the bag,” Brayden said.
“Okay,” Hector said. “That’ll get you something. So what do you want?”
“There’s a man named Joe DeMarco in the Alexandria city jail,” Brayden said. “Do you know who I’m talking about?”
“I watch the news,” Montoya said.
“I want DeMarco dead,” Brayden said.
13
Sebastian Spear headed toward his office, and as he walked past her desk, Evelyn said, “Good morning, Sebastian.” She was the only one in the company who called him by his first name. “Your schedule for today is on your desk. Your first appointment is at nine.”
He didn’t respond; he didn’t even glance over at her. She might as well have been a potted plant. He entered his office, closing the door behind him. Sebastian Spear had never been one to waste time chatting with his secretary but he used to at least say good morning to her and ask how she was doing.
Each day when Evelyn Walker came to work she was surprised that she still had a job. For one thing, she was almost seventy years old. But the main thing was that she didn’t do much more than sit at her desk all day and occasionally answer the phone. She didn’t type Sebastian’s letters; all his correspondence was prepared by his lawyers or one of the vice presidents. She didn’t file papers, because everything was stored on the company’s servers. She rarely set up meetings for him or arranged his travel plans, because those things were also mostly handled by the VPs. The paper schedule she placed on his desk every morning was totally unnecessary, as it was also on his computer and all he had to do was tap a key to see it.
Evelyn suspected the only reason she was still employed was that Sebastian’s father had most likely made him promise not to fire her, but as soon as her social security maxed out she planned to quit. Not only was the job boring, but being around Sebastian now … it was like working for a corpse.
She’d been hired by George Spear, Sebastian’s father, when she was in her twenties, and she imagined she’d gotten the job because of the way she’d looked. She’d been a knockout when she was young. She’d even had a brief affair with George—back when she still had a waist. George Spear had been a rogue and a womanizer and a cutthroat businessman, but he’d been a human being, not a moneymaking robot like his son. He’d been fond of his employees—genuinely cared about them and enjoyed their company. When George was running the business, there’d been Christmas parties and picnics and outings to sporting events.