by Mike Lawson
As near as Hector Montoya could tell, Anita wasn’t afraid of anything. She’d been involved in one drive-by shooting, in which MS-13 had retaliated against a Vietnamese gang, and Anita had been one of the shooters, not the driver or a passive passenger. She was suspected—not by the cops but by Hector—of killing a witness who’d testified against her last boyfriend, a man now serving fifteen years in Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Virginia.
Hector met Anita at her mother’s house in Fairfax, where Anita was currently living, having been evicted from her last apartment. Anita told her mother to take Anita’s two-year-old son—a kid pretty much destined to end up behind bars—into the bedroom. Her mother immediately did so; she was terrified of her daughter.
Hector told Anita what he wanted her to do and how much she’d be paid. Knowing her competitive nature, he pointed out that nine male members of MS-13 had been given the job and all had failed. Was she interested?
“Fuck, yeah,” Anita said.
Brian Moore and Steve Chin were the two men Mike Leary had watching DeMarco on the midnight to eight a.m. shift.
When the elevator dinged they both tensed up, then relaxed when they saw it was the little Muslim nurse. The graveyard shift was aptly named, because between midnight and six a.m. the hospital was as quiet as a cemetery, unless one of the patients flatlined. The little Muslim nurse had shown up for the first time yesterday. Except for the blue head scarf, she was dressed like the other female nurses and aides they’d seen, in a floral-patterned top, white pants, and running shoes. Pinned to her top she had a hospital badge that identified her as Louise Anderson, LPN. Anderson wasn’t a Muslim-sounding name, and Brian and Steve figured it was her husband’s last name. She was wearing a wedding ring.
As she’d done the previous night, the Muslim nurse walked down the hall holding a clipboard, entering various rooms along the way—not all the rooms, just some of them—and she stayed inside the rooms for only a couple of minutes. Last night she’d checked on DeMarco, and when she did, Steve had watched her. She’d looked at the clipboard hanging on the end of DeMarco’s bed—the one that had the doctors’ orders on it—and studied it for a bit. She’d gone over to the box that showed DeMarco’s blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, and made sure everything was okay there. She’d checked to make sure the catheter bag was functioning the way it was supposed to and checked the IV bag on the stand to make sure that whatever was dripping into DeMarco was still dripping. When she’d left DeMarco’s room she’d smiled shyly at Brian and Steve but didn’t speak to them, then she’d headed for a room a couple of doors down the hall.
She did exactly the same thing tonight.
Anita Ramirez figured the hijab was a stroke of brilliance. She knew the men guarding DeMarco might be looking for Mexicans, but a brown-skinned woman wearing a head scarf … Well, she didn’t look like a Mexican. Or a terrorist, for that matter, not with the clothes she was wearing. She’d bought them after seeing how the nurses at the hospital dressed. She’d taken the ID badge from a white lab coat when the woman wearing it took the coat off in the cafeteria and went up to get her lunch. The fact that the woman had an Anglo-sounding name wasn’t a problem after Anita put on her mother’s wedding ring.
The problem was, she hadn’t yet figured out how to kill DeMarco with the two bodyguards watching. She’d noticed, however, that they hadn’t watched her as closely tonight as they had the first night she’d gone into DeMarco’s room. They were getting used to her.
38
Emma decided to confront John Lynch in Rusty’s, his local watering hole. She figured that in a public place he’d be less likely to do anything stupid—like shoot her.
Rusty’s was a typical neighborhood dive, frequented mostly by blue-collar workers and local alcoholics who preferred not to drink alone. There were fifteen stools in front of the bar, six booths with red Naugahyde seats, and three televisions over the bar, muted and permanently set to various ESPN stations. A short-order cook, who was quick and competent, made hamburgers and sandwiches. A balding man with a beer gut and anchor tattoos on his forearms tended the bar.
Lynch had arrived at Rusty’s fifteen minutes ago. Shandra was outside Spear Industries’ building in Reston waiting for Bill Brayden to appear. Pamela was parked outside the bar and would follow Lynch when he left.
Lynch was seated near the end of the bar, by the door, having his first after-work beer, watching a Nats game playing on one of the TVs over the bar. Emma was struck once again by Lynch’s appearance—the bald head, the porcine snout, the close-set eyes—and how clever it had been to frame DeMarco with a man who looked nothing like him. She also noted that Lynch seemed to be a contented man as he sat there sipping his beer, a man without a worry in the world. That would soon change.
Emma took a seat on the barstool next to him, and he looked over at her, clearly wondering why she’d decided to sit there when a dozen other barstools were empty.
The bartender hustled over and asked what Emma wanted. “Nothing for me,” she said. “I won’t be staying long. But bring John another beer.”
“You got it,” the bartender said.
Lynch said, “Do I know you?”
Emma said, “Good evening, John. How was your day?”
“My day was fine, but why are you buying me a drink?”
“Wait until the bartender brings your beer and I’ll tell you.”
The bartender placed another bottle of Bud in front of Lynch, and after he walked away, Lynch said, “So, who are you?”
“I’m the person who’s going to make sure that you spend the rest of your natural life in prison.”
“What? What in the hell are you talking about?”
Emma decided to tell Lynch the same thing that Olivia Prescott had told Nikki Orlov. She said, “I imagine they’ll send you to one of the supermaxes, like the one in Florence, Colorado. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. You’re locked in a cell twenty-three hours a day, the lights are always on, a surveillance camera is always watching you, and nobody speaks to you, not even the guards when they take you into the exercise yard. The average time it takes for someone to go insane is about five years, and you’ll be there until you die.”
“Goddamnit, what are you talking about?” Lynch said. He was growing agitated and appeared genuinely confused. But unless he’d committed some other crime, he had to know exactly what she was talking about.
“Lower your voice, John. You don’t want anyone here to know what you’ve done.”
“I haven’t done a damn thing,” Lynch said. “And I want to know—”
“Yes, you have, John. You killed Lyle Canton and helped frame Joe DeMarco for his murder.”
Lynch stood up, jabbed a finger at Emma’s face, and said, “Lady, you’re fucking crazy. Get the hell away from me.”
The bartender, seeing that Lynch was upset, said, “Everything okay, John?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Lynch said to the bartender. He obviously didn’t want the bartender to hear what they were talking about. It occurred to Emma that had Lynch been a more intelligent man he would have remained calm and let her continue to talk so he could learn more about what she knew. But he wasn’t an intelligent man; she knew that from his air force file.
He started to say something to Emma—probably to tell her again to get away from him—but before he could, she said, “I’ve seen the video footage from the Capitol surveillance cameras. You only made one mistake. In one of the shots you can see a portion of the right side of your jaw and your chin, your double chin. The FBI has image-enhancing techniques you can’t imagine, and all they need is one small part of your face to build a complete image and then, with a little help from me, they’ll match that image to you.”
Everything Emma had just said was a lie—but it sounded plausible.
Lynch, still standing, turned and looked over at the door, as if he were expecting FBI agents to walk in at any minute and arrest him. Or maybe he was wondering if he could
make it to the door before anyone could stop him. Whatever was going on in his head, he looked as if he was ready to bolt.
“Are you a cop? I want to see some ID.”
Emma could see no reason to answer his question, and the last thing she was going to do was identify herself. She said, “John, I’ll give you one chance and one chance only. Tell me, right now, who paid you to kill Canton. It’s the only way you’ll be able to get a deal to reduce your sentence.”
Lynch’s hands clenched into fists and his eyes narrowed, and Emma wondered if he was thinking about taking a swing at her. He didn’t. He hissed, “I’m telling you I don’t know what you’re talking about and I didn’t have a damn thing to do with Canton’s murder. You stay the hell away from me.” Then he turned and practically ran out of the bar.
Emma had achieved her goal: John Lynch in a state of panic.
39
As soon as Lynch was out the door, Emma turned off the small tape recorder in her shirt pocket—nothing Lynch had said was useful—and called Pamela.
“Do you have him?” she said.
“Yeah, I got him,” Pamela said. “He’s walking toward his apartment. He’s walking so fast he looks like a penguin.”
What Emma expected to happen next was that after Lynch got over the shock of his encounter with her, he’d remove the hidden cell phone from the ventilation duct in his apartment and set up a meeting with Brayden. People these days, unless they were complete fools, would never say more than a couple of words on a cell phone, especially if they knew that someone who might be in law enforcement considered them suspects.
Emma also suspected that Brayden must already be nervous because of Nikita Orlov. He obviously hadn’t shown up for work since the Russians had snatched him, and Brayden must be going crazy not knowing where Orlov was or why he couldn’t reach him. When Lynch called Brayden—and she was sure he would—she was certain that Brayden would want to meet with Lynch.
Emma left the bar and drove over to Lynch’s apartment, then went and sat with Pamela in her car to see what Lynch would do next. An hour later, Lynch was still inside his apartment.
Bill Brayden had left Spear Industries about the time Emma confronted Lynch in Rusty’s. He was now having dinner in a restaurant halfway between his office and his apartment in Arlington.
Shandra was sitting two tables away, having a Coke, pretending to study the menu.
A waitress had just placed Brayden’s dinner in front of him, when Shandra saw him reach into his suit coat and pull out a cell phone. He looked at the screen for a moment, as if he was checking the caller’s identity, then answered the phone.
“What are you doing calling me?” This was followed by a second of silence, and then Brayden saying, “Shut the hell up! I’ll get back to you.” Then, looking angry, Brayden disconnected the call.
Shandra texted Emma: Someone just called him. He only talked for a second. He looks REALLY pissed.
Emma texted back: Good. Stick with him.
Brayden sat without moving for ten minutes after he got the call, still holding the phone, looking pensive, ignoring his dinner. Finally, he typed a text message, then put the phone back in his pocket.
Shandra texted Emma: He just sent a text.
Emma texted back: Perfect.
Brayden stood up, tossed two twenties onto the table, and left the restaurant. Shandra waited a moment, then walked to the restaurant’s entrance and watched, through a window next to the door, Brayden walk rapidly to his car. As soon as he left the parking lot, she ran to her car and took off after him.
Shandra hadn’t felt so alive since Afghanistan.
By midnight, nothing had happened.
Bill Brayden was in his apartment.
Shandra was waiting outside Brayden’s apartment, near the exit from the building’s parking garage.
John Lynch was in his apartment.
Emma and Pamela were still sitting in Pamela’s car, waiting outside Lynch’s apartment. They’d run out of things to talk about two hours ago.
Emma had thought that Brayden would have wanted to meet with Lynch that night, but it appeared as if she’d been wrong. She wasn’t: five minutes after she had that thought, Lynch walked out of his building and down the street to where his car was parked.
Emma texted Shandra: Lynch is on the move. What’s Brayden doing?
Shandra texted: No sign of him. Still in his apartment, I guess.
Emma waited until Lynch disappeared from sight, then ran to her car, which was parked behind Pamela’s, and took off after Lynch with Pamela following her.
Emma wasn’t worried about losing Lynch. She doubted that he was the brightest candle in the candelabrum, but if he had any brains at all, he’d be concerned about someone following him to his meeting with Brayden. So what Emma had done that day—while Lynch was at work and while Neil had been teaching Pamela and Shandra how to use a video camera and a parabolic mic—was attach a GPS tracking device to the underside of Lynch’s car (something else the FBI would have needed a warrant to do). The tracking device was a magnetic black disk, about the diameter of a fifty-cent piece, and only a quarter of an inch thick. Emma had smeared the top of it with grease and dirt from the underside of Lynch’s car, and it looked as if it was part of the car’s frame and was almost invisible. What Emma was now doing was looking at a small monitor, one about the size of a Garmin GPS device, suction-cupped to her dashboard. It showed a moving red dot—John Lynch’s car.
Lynch made a number of what appeared to be random turns, but he was headed in a generally northwestward direction. Emma caught up with him at one point so she could actually see his car, then dropped back again and continued to track his progress with the GPS monitor. Finally Lynch stopped making arbitrary turns and got on Route 7, going in the direction of Arlington, where Brayden lived.
Emma called Shandra and asked, “What’s Brayden doing?”
“Nothing,” Shandra said. “No sign of him yet.”
Emma once again pulled up close enough to see Lynch’s taillights and watched him turn off Route 7 and onto George Mason Drive. Again she wondered if he could be headed to Brayden’s apartment in Arlington, but then Lynch turned right on Columbus Drive, drove another couple of blocks, and turned right again, on Chesterfield Road.
Not the way to Brayden’s place, Emma thought.
Then Lynch’s car—or the red dot representing his car—stopped moving. He’d pulled into a parking lot adjacent to Barcroft Park. Emma was familiar with Barcroft Park, because a stream called Four Mile Run flowed through the park and she sometimes jogged on the trail next to the stream.
Emma drove past the parking lot with Pamela following her. She saw Lynch’s car and could see him sitting in it. She called Shandra. “What’s Brayden’s status?”
“Still the same,” Shandra said. “No sign of him.”
Emma parked on Chesterfield Road, about three hundred yards from Lynch, and trained night-vision binoculars on his car. As she was doing this, Pamela parked behind her and joined Emma in her car.
“What’s he doing?” Pamela asked. “Why’s he just sitting there?”
“I’m hoping he’s waiting for Brayden,” Emma said.
A couple of moments later, Lynch got out of his car and walked out of the parking lot and over to a bus-stop bench where Chesterfield and Columbus intersected. Emma was certain he wasn’t waiting for a bus at one in the morning.
Emma said to Pamela, “I wonder if Brayden told him to wait at the bus stop and he’ll drive by and pick him up there.” But this was not what Emma had wanted. She’d wanted Brayden to talk to Lynch someplace out in the open, so any discussion they had could be recorded. Nonetheless, she had to be prepared in case Brayden—assuming he was coming—decided to speak to Lynch right where he was.
She thought for a second, then said to Pamela, “You see the woods?” Behind the bus stop was a heavily wooded area that was part of Barcroft Park.
“Yeah,” Pamela said.
“Leave your car here, circle around the parking lot so Lynch can’t see you, and make your way into the woods with the video camera and the parabolic mic. Take up a position where you have a clear line of sight to Lynch and get ready to record Brayden if he shows up.”
“Roger that,” Pamela said. Her eyes were gleaming with excitement.
Pamela returned to her car, grabbed the recording equipment, and began jogging toward the woods. She was almost invisible in the darkness, dressed all in black, with a black watch cap covering her blond hair. In less than a minute, she’d disappeared from Emma’s sight.
Emma’s phone vibrated. Shandra said, “Brayden is just pulling out of his parking garage.”
Yes! Emma said, “Don’t tail him. I don’t want to take the chance of him spotting you, and I know where he’s going. He’s headed to Barcroft Park, to a bus stop on the corner of Columbus and Chesterfield. Do you know where that is?”
“No,” Shandra said. “I’m from D.C., not the suburbs where rich white ladies live.”
Emma laughed. “Use your phone to locate the park. I’m parked about half a klick southeast of the bus stop, near the Claremont School.”
“Copy that,” Shandra said.
Brayden’s apartment in Arlington was about five miles from Barcroft Park, and Emma figured it would take him no more than ten minutes at this time of night to reach the bus stop.
She texted Pamela: Are you ready with the camera and the mic? Brayden will be here soon.
Pamela: I’m ready.
Almost exactly ten minutes later, Emma watched Brayden’s Lexus drive up and park next to the bus stop. She was still hoping that Brayden would get out of his car and speak to Lynch, so Pamela could record their conversation, but doubted that was going to happen. It seemed more likely that Lynch would join Brayden in his car, and they’d talk while Brayden was driving. If that happened, Emma would have video proof that Lynch had met with Brayden but wouldn’t be able to record what they said to each other.