by Mike Lawson
Emma said, “I’m going to get a dog. Do you hear me? Your days are numbered.”
She knew she’d never get a dog.
As she stood there, hands on her hips, glaring at the squirrel, smarting with the humiliation of defeat, plan C came to her.
35
Bill Brayden couldn’t believe it.
MS-13 had failed three times to kill DeMarco.
This time he met with Hector in a Walmart parking lot. Hector parked his Trans Am so it was facing in the opposite direction from Brayden’s car, and by rolling down the driver’s-side windows they could talk without getting out of their vehicles.
As might be expected, Hector was embarrassed. He said, “I’m sorry, man. I don’t know what to tell you. My guys said they got to the hospital, expecting to see some fat-ass guard from the jail, but there were two other guys there. They looked like pros, like fuckin’ Secret Service or something. If they’d tried to take DeMarco out, these guys would have killed them. I mean, you didn’t tell me that DeMarco had private security.”
“I didn’t know he had private security,” Brayden said.
“Well, there you go,” Hector said, glad he was able to shift some of the blame to Brayden.
“So do you have a plan?” Brayden said.
“The best thing would be to wait until they move him back to the jail.”
“That won’t work. They’ll put him in isolation, they’ll have a platoon of guards watching him, and they’ll probably have some inmate nobody gives a shit about tasting his food. The sheriff who runs the jail was just put on administrative leave by the governor for failing to protect DeMarco, and the guy they’ve assigned to replace him won’t make the same mistakes. DeMarco will be protected better than the damn president until his trial.”
At that moment an overweight, young white woman with a crying, mixed-race little boy passed in front of Hector’s car. She was pushing the kid along, her hand squeezing the back of his thin neck, and Hector heard her say, “I’m telling you, Robbie, you don’t knock it off, I’m gonna just smack the shit out of you.”
Hector thought, Some women, they shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. Then he smiled.
To Brayden, he said, “I got an idea. And I got the perfect person for the job.”
Brayden decided he needed to tell Sebastian Spear where things stood, although so far Spear hadn’t asked for an update. Spear wasn’t known for his patience, but when he had to be patient he could be like a spider, willing to sit forever on the edge of its web waiting for a fly to entangle itself in the sticky mesh. In the four months that it had taken Brayden to set up Canton’s murder, Spear had never pushed him and only once had he asked what Brayden was doing, and then it was only a one-word question.
One day after a meeting, two months into the planning phase, while Brayden was still putting all the pieces in place, Spear had pulled him aside and said, “Canton?”
Thinking he wanted a detailed status report, Brayden had said, “Sir, it’s complicated, and the reason it’s taking so long is because I’m currently—”
Spear had said, “Fine. That’ll be all.” Apparently, he’d just wanted to know that Brayden was moving forward. He never asked another question, nor, as Brayden discovered, would he ever even thank him for the job he did.
Now, and whether Spear wanted to know or not, Brayden needed to tell him that Nikki Orlov had gone off the grid, and he didn’t know whether Orlov posed a danger. If Orlov was simply hiding because he was worried about being caught, that was fine. But if Orlov was talking to someone in law enforcement—well, not so fine.
Brayden also thought he should tell Spear about DeMarco, although DeMarco wasn’t as much of a concern as Orlov. The best thing would be for DeMarco to die as soon as possible, before his trial, but even if Hector failed to kill him, it still appeared as if Canton’s murder was going to be pinned on the poor bastard.
Brayden was beginning to wonder, however, whether Spear was becoming completely unhinged. Following the two-week meltdown after Jean Canton’s death, and after he gave the order to have Canton killed, Spear appeared to return to normal. Well, maybe not exactly normal; he hardly spoke, and he didn’t appear to be as engaged in the company as he used to be, which could be attributed to grief, but at least he showed up for work every day. But since Canton had been murdered, Brayden had heard reports of him acting bizarrely. One VP told him that Spear had shown up for a breakfast with a potential multimillion-dollar customer—a white-robed Saudi prince—unshaven, wearing a jogging suit. During the breakfast, he didn’t touch his food and then left abruptly, before the Saudi had even finished eating. Another VP had said that Spear was now missing meetings and briefings he normally would have attended, and when he did attend, he often wouldn’t say a word. It was as though his body was there, but his mind was on a different planet.
It was a good thing that Spear Industries had a stable of competent VPs.
Brayden walked into Spear’s outer office. His ancient secretary was at her desk, just sitting there. Normally she’d be yakking with a friend on the phone or reading a book or painting her nails. Why the woman still had a job, and what she did all day, was a mystery to everyone. But today she was just sitting, almost rigidly, and she looked upset.
“Is he in?” Brayden asked.
“Oh, yeah, he’s in,” she said. “In fact, he didn’t go home last night. I went in this morning to put his schedule on his desk like I always do, and he was lying on his drafting table, his hands on his chest. You know, like someone lying in a coffin. I wasn’t expecting him to be there, and it just scared the crap out of me when I saw him. Anyway, I asked him if he was all right, if he needed anything, and he didn’t move. If I hadn’t seen his foot sort of twitch, I would have thought he was dead.” Evelyn lowered her voice and said, “Mr. Brayden, he needs help.”
Brayden almost said No shit but didn’t. Instead, he opened the door to Spear’s office, wondering if he’d still be lying on the drafting table. He wasn’t.
Spear was in the chair behind his desk, looking down at an old .38 revolver, like the type cops carried fifty years ago. The pistol was sitting in the middle of his desk. Behind the revolver, standing up, spaced exactly one inch apart, were five bullets. Brayden was almost certain the revolver could hold six bullets, but because of the way the gun was oriented he couldn’t see if there was another bullet in the cylinder.
Was the crazy son of a bitch playing Russian roulette?
Brayden said, “Sir, are you all right?”
Talk about a stupid question.
Spear didn’t look at him. He wasn’t sure that Spear even knew he was in the room. He just continued to stare at the gun, seemingly fascinated by it, as if it was some alien artifact and he was trying to understand its function.
After standing there for what seemed an eternity, Brayden said, “Sir, why don’t I come back later. I can see you’re, uh, busy now.”
As he was leaving, he thought about telling Spear’s secretary that her boss was armed and possibly contemplating suicide but decided not to. Instead he said, “Mr. Spear told me that you should take the rest of the day off.”
“Sounds good to me,” Evelyn said, and grabbed her purse.
36
Emma was going to need at least two people to help her.
One of the people she could have called on was Neil, but she knew Neil was practically useless unless he was sitting in front of a computer. He wasn’t the least bit athletic, he was out of shape—he probably wouldn’t be able to walk a mile without collapsing—and she wasn’t sure he could even drive a car.
She considered her problem for a couple of moments and then called two women. Both were ex-military—one an ex-marine, the other ex-army. Their names were Pamela Stewart and Shandra Morgan. Both suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, having been victims of improvised explosive devices, Pamela in Iraq, Shandra in Afghanistan. They’d recovered completely from the physical injuries they’d sustained, but couldn�
�t get over the shock of seeing their friends killed and maimed. They had vivid, recurring flashbacks that were sometimes debilitating. They felt guilty to be alive when their platoon mates had died, even though they knew their guilt was irrational.
Emma had met them at Walter Reed. For the last five years she had been volunteering at the medical center, working with female wounded warriors, in particular women suffering from PTSD. The suicide rate among veterans was skyrocketing—one source reported that as many as twenty veterans committed suicide each day—and Emma felt compelled to do something. The veterans would return from war, become addicted to alcohol or painkillers, be unable to hold a job or deal with spouses and family members, and spiral downward like proud birds shot out of the sky. What Emma had been doing was attending support-group meetings, doing her best to help these young women recover and resume normal lives.
Shandra and Pamela, compared with some of the other women, were both doing relatively well. Their flashbacks occurred less often, and they attended AA meetings together and were no longer using alcohol. Both were taking classes at community colleges. Shandra wanted to be a teacher; Pamela was artistic and studying graphic design. But although they were improving, they lacked the confidence they’d had when they first enlisted.
Emma figured a little field exercise would be good for them, the perfect tonic to boost their morale.
Emma invited Pamela and Shandra to her home in McLean. She gave them glasses of iced tea, and they took seats at Emma’s patio table. Pamela, the artist, was impressed by the beauty of Emma’s backyard; Shandra was impressed by the size of it.
Emma told them about DeMarco’s case and her conclusion that DeMarco had been framed and that Sebastian Spear, Bill Brayden, and a Capitol cop, John Lynch, were the ones really responsible for Canton’s death. She told them that she knew that Lynch had a large amount of money hidden in his apartment and that he’d been communicating via a burner phone with someone at Spear Industries. When Shandra asked how she knew about the money and the phone, Emma said, “I can’t tell you that, but I know.”
“The problem,” Emma said, “is that I need to be able to prove that these men did what I suspect and I need to do it quickly, before they make another attempt on DeMarco’s life. Which is where you come in. I need some help.”
Emma told them what she had in mind—and both young women instantly perked up. They were thrilled to be asked to help and delighted to see that someone still had faith in them, even if they had little in themselves.
Emma said, “Tomorrow I want you to follow John Lynch.” She gave them Lynch’s address in Alexandria and told them that Lynch left for work about six a.m. She also gave them photos of Bill Brayden and Sebastian Spear that Neil had found online. “The main thing I want to know is if Lynch meets with either of these men.”
The truth was that Emma had no expectation whatsoever that Brayden or Spear would meet with Lynch. She was certain they wouldn’t go near Lynch. The other thing was, she didn’t really need Pamela and Shandra to follow Lynch. She gave them the job so they could get acclimated to the game and to increase their confidence. She told them to keep the tail loose and that if they lost Lynch it was okay; it was more important that he didn’t spot them tailing him.
To which Shandra said, “No way is this a-hole gonna spot us.”
“Roger that,” Pamela said—and she and Shandra stood up and high-fived, making Emma laugh.
While they were following Lynch, Emma said she planned to follow Bill Brayden. Emma suspected Brayden would be more likely to spot a tail than Lynch, but she didn’t say that. And Emma actually needed to follow Brayden because she planned to conduct a small experiment.
The next morning, while Shandra and Pamela were tailing Lynch, Emma was waiting outside Brayden’s upscale apartment building in Arlington. The building had an underground parking garage for the tenants, and a metal gate barred the entrance to the garage. Neil had obtained the license plate number of Brayden’s car and the make of the car, a 2016 Lexus. At six thirty the parking garage gate rolled up, and a black Lexus left the garage; Brayden was driving.
Brayden stopped at a Starbucks for morning coffee and a breakfast sandwich, then drove to Spear Industries headquarters in Reston. He parked his car in a spot with his name on it but then walked into the building so quickly that Emma wasn’t able to do what she wanted.
Emma waited all morning near the parking lot, but Brayden never left the building. At noon, he came out the front entrance and started walking in the direction of a nearby shopping mall.
Before Emma left her car, she attached an earpiece with a microphone to her iPhone, the ear-mic intended for hands-free phone use while driving. In this case, however, she wanted the ear-mic for a reason that had nothing to do with driving. She fell in a block behind Brayden.
Brayden entered the shopping mall and walked to a crowded food court and ordered lunch from a place selling Chinese food. He took a seat at a table for two and began to eat. Emma headed toward a table fifty or sixty feet from him, and on her way to the table, she scooped up a magazine that someone had left.
While Brayden was eating lunch, he pulled out his phone—a standard smartphone with a six- or seven-inch screen—and it looked to Emma as if he was checking his e-mail. Emma noted that he pulled the phone out of the right-hand front pocket of his pants.
Emma placed her phone on the table in front of her and punched in the number she’d found in the phone hidden in John Lynch’s ventilation duct. Before she hit the CALL button, she raised the magazine she’d grabbed and held it up so it was concealing the lower half of her face. When she punched CALL, she was too far away to hear a phone vibrating, but Brayden’s head snapped up as if he’d received an electrical shock. He reached into his suit coat and pulled out a second phone—a phone identical to the one Emma had found in Lynch’s apartment. He looked at the phone for a moment, and finally answered, saying, “Yes?”
Emma had no way to know that the burner phone Brayden was holding was not only the one he used to communicate with John Lynch, but also the phone he used to talk to Hector Montoya. He answered the phone when he saw he was getting a call from the 703 area code, thinking it might be Hector calling.
When Brayden answered, Emma, in a robotic voice, said, “Do you have credit card debt? Are your interest rates too high? If you do—”
She heard Brayden curse, and he hung up.
Up to this point, all Emma knew was that Lynch had called someone located at Spear Industries. But now she had what she needed: proof that John Lynch had been calling Bill Brayden.
But she wanted one more thing.
The next morning, Emma met with Pamela and Shandra at Neil’s office to hear what they’d learned after tailing John Lynch and to discuss the next step in Emma’s plan. Neil didn’t like strangers coming to his office, but he was too afraid of Emma to object.
The young women—both more animated than Emma could ever remember—reported that yesterday morning Lynch had left his apartment, taken a bus to the Braddock Road Metro station in Alexandria, caught the Metro, and got off at the Capitol South station in D.C. He wore civilian clothes during his commute and put on his uniform after he arrived at the Capitol. All day yesterday he had been assigned to the east entrance, the one across from the Library of Congress, and spent the day checking ID badges before folks walked through the metal detector.
“Boring fucking job,” Shandra said.
After work, his return trip home was the reverse of his morning commute. Before going home, however, he stopped at a bar called Rusty’s, about two blocks from his apartment. He had a couple of beers, ate a hamburger, had a couple more beers, then headed home.
“We got the impression,” Pamela said, “that this was his usual routine, to have dinner and a few after-work pops at this bar. The bartender knew him and BSed with him, and he chatted with a couple of the alkies sitting at the bar.”
“Very good,” Emma said. “Now here’s what we’re going to do n
ext.”
Emma told them her plan, and again they both looked absolutely thrilled to be part of it.
“Neil,” Emma said, “what I want you to do is teach these young women how to use a parabolic mic and video camera. After you’ve given them a briefing on the equipment and practiced here in your office, I want you to go outside and practice on people walking around Georgetown. I’ll meet you all back here at sixteen hundred hours.”
“What?” Neil said.
“Four o’clock, Neil,” Emma said. “Then the girls and I will head over to Alexandria.”
Emma’s plan was simple: She was going to panic Lynch into running to Brayden and, with the help of Shandra and Pamela, record their meeting. Then, with proof in hand that Lynch and Brayden knew each other, and a recording on which she was sure they would discuss Canton’s murder, she would present the evidence to Peyton. If she needed to, she would force Peyton—with some help from the president’s chief of staff—to get a warrant to search Lynch’s apartment. If Peyton didn’t find the money in the wall behind Lynch’s closet or the cell phone hidden in the ventilation duct, Emma would give the FBI a few pointers on how to conduct a proper search. The search, plus the recording, would certainly be enough for Peyton to arrest Lynch and force him to confess. And unlike illegally breaking into Lynch’s apartment, there was nothing illegal about her recording two men talking in a public place.
Yep, that was her simple plan.
What could possibly go wrong?
37
Anita Ramirez wasn’t exactly insane. On the other hand, she wasn’t exactly sane either.
She was nineteen—but looked older, thanks to an abnormal amount of wear and tear—and had been dating MS-13 gang members since she was thirteen. Almost all of Anita’s past romantic relationships had ended in bloodshed, and her ex-boyfriends were the ones who usually bled.