Sotello: Detective, ex-FBI, ex-Secret Service (DeLeo's Action Thriller Singles Book 1)

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “Earl Delaney, as I live and breathe,” Sotello greeted him.

  “Hi Jim, long time no see. You have been a busy boy. We’ve got a pool going on, speculating about when you draw your last breath,” Delaney said, as Sotello laughed.

  “If any of you flakes want to bet some real money, head to head, just let me know. I’ll cover all the action against my longevity,” Sotello quipped.

  “I hope you’re right,” Delaney replied, “but even you have to be having doubts after last night.”

  “The worst is over buddy,” Sotello said, clapping a hand on the officer’s shoulder. “How’s my campaign manager doing? I hear the TV going.”

  “He’s been in there laughing, yelling, and cursing at the news programs since dawn,” Delaney informed him, gesturing at the door. “I think he’s ready to get released.”

  “I hope so. I need him,” Sotello said, opening the door. “I’ll see you on the way out. Maybe you better draw your piece.”

  “Hell, what good would that do. There’s probably an army of high tech assassins on their way over here right now, I won’t have a prayer against. The shorter your stay buddy, the better the chance I’ll see the sun come up again.”

  Sotello laughed appreciatively and went in. Phillips sat with his eyes glued to the television screen, as he pounded away on a laptop computer. He glanced over at Sotello, smiled, and gestured for him to have a seat. Sotello came over, pulling up a chair next to Phillips. His campaign manager was watching a cable news channel. The news anchor dissected every nuance of Sotello’s confrontation with the reporter, from the night before, who had insinuated his attempted house bombing had been a drug deal gone bad.

  When they broke for a commercial, Phillips turned to Sotello, his face lit up with excitement.

  “First off Jim,” Phillips said, “I am really sorry this business has become even more dangerous for you.”

  “I know that Adrian,” Sotello replied.

  “If I didn’t know better,” Phillips continued, “I would swear Darrin was behind this attack. It could not be going worse for Davis in the polls. Every news outlet, covering the state, except Fox, put a violent slant to everything you did. That includes outright musing over whether you could have prevented the attack, short of killing one of the men. The people love you though. Negatives on the street are now non-existent, except for a couple of the most radical La Raza supporters, who carefully avoid any responsibility, but claim your own speech rhetoric caused your predicament.”

  “I figured somehow I would be blamed for people wanting to blow me up. I see your point about how this may be a positive for me; but remember, if they had been successful, I would be dead, and the men responsible would have disappeared from sight, leaving the media to make up any story they wanted. I expect to have the opportunity to explain what happened; but I have only two words to say to anyone questioning my defending the house I live in, and those words are not thank you.”

  “Easy Jim,” Phillips said, holding up a hand. “Only the media is questioning your handling of the matter. The general public’s reaction goes from you should have wasted the other two while you had them there, to you should have tortured their bosses’ names out of them before the police arrived. Davis has been reduced to denying he had anything to do with it, and the most he has been able to get out in opposition to what you did, was a weak regret the incident ended in the death of a man. You should have seen his face when the crowd around the impromptu news conference erupted in boos when he said it.”

  “I have some nice news for you,” Sotello said, handing him his notepad. “The first two names and address are the two folks I would like running the campaign office. Mr. Randall and his wife have volunteered to do it. Some of my Spanish-speaking neighbors make up the rest of the names, and they want to work at the headquarters too. Can we get things going with the headquarters today? I told them you would call them if you did.”

  “They’ll be releasing me today,” Phillips nodded. “I will take care of it first thing, but at the rate you’re going, we won’t even need a headquarters.”

  “After all of this, the last thing I plan to do is take the election for granted,” Sotello said grinning. “Are you sure you will be okay getting out of here today?”

  “They will be throwing me out if I don’t leave on my own,” Phillips replied. “My phone in here rings constantly, and they don’t like the noise emanating from my room. Our favorite morning show wants another crack at you right away; and the Davis camp wants debates so bad, I think they’re ready to dress someone up like you to do one on their own.”

  “It will have to wait until next week,” Sotello said, shaking his head. “I have a client coming in tonight to handle with Craig. They will be leaving Saturday morning, and we have the barbeque on for Saturday afternoon. I can do the TV show Monday morning, and I’ll do the debates any time after.”

  “Can I set you up with some radio interviews on KSFO radio here in the Bay Area? They have a conservative talk format, and your stand on the immigration problem matches theirs pretty much right down the line. It will be good to stay in close touch with your conservative base.”

  “Sounds good,” Sotello agreed. “I love KSFO. I will do any interview they want. Do any of those type stations exist down in Southern California?”

  “I will look into it, and get you set up if there are,” Phillips answered.

  “Do you need a ride out of here?” Sotello asked. “I can stick around for a while and drive you home.”

  “No need,” Phillips said. “Darren is sending over a car, with a driver, equipped to prevent what happened to me. I will phone you from the headquarters.”

  “Well then,” Sotello said, standing to shake Phillips’ hand, “I will leave you to it, but don’t overdo this campaigning to the ruin of your health. We have them on the run.”

  “I’ll take it easy Jim, but you watch your back out there,” Phillips replied. “They should be finding out who put those guys up to the attempted bombing of your house real soon, and then we’ll be safe to get down to some heavy duty campaigning.”

  “I’m going over to the Castro Valley PD right now,” Sotello added. “As soon as I commiserate with them for a while, I will be heading back to the office to wait for Ellen and Craig. The kids and I will be going over our plans for the client from Taiwan, at the office for the rest of the afternoon, until Craig and I go to pick up the client at the airport. I will of course have the cell phone on at all times, so just give me a buzz if you need me.” Phillips waved at him, as Sotello eased through the door to the hallway. Sotello gave Delaney a little salute, and then began picking his way back to his car, signing autographs the whole way. By the time he reached his car, he could not believe how pumped up strangers around him had become. They held up fists in the air, cheered him, and best of all, he did not have a single heckler on his way out.

  It took him twenty minutes to arrive at the Castro Valley Police Department. The desk sergeant saw him coming, and elbowed a couple of the officers near him. They all ducked down, much to Sotello’s delight, as he cracked up watching them peer at him over the counter. He drew another good-natured crowd. Steve Pensley came out, and dispersed the crowd with one look. He put his arm around Sotello’s shoulders, and ushered him into his office.

  “I thought you would be gone by now,” Sotello observed. “I see I’m getting famous here in your precinct too.”

  “Oh yeah, we love you here,” Pensley said, moving behind his desk and sitting down. “Have a seat Jim.”

  Sotello sat down across from Pensley. “I only came by to see if you needed anymore in the way of a statement, or if you had anything on those guys I found redecorating my house.”

  “First off, if they’re in La Raza, they aren’t on the membership list. Secondly, they will not talk at all. They won’t even ask for a phone call. Interpol does have their fingerprints, and the news could be better. All three are mercenaries, but they received their training in the
ir home country: Mexico. They were recruited into the Federal Security Directorate from the army when Fernando…”

  “Barrios?” Sotello asked. “Those guys trained under Barrios?”

  “It gets better,” Pensley continued. “Some time in the late eighties, they left Mexico, and hired on under Pinochet in Chile. In the early nineties, they did some time in something in Honduras called…” Pensley glanced down at a paper on his desk.

  “Battalion 326, right?” Sotello sighed. “That’s quite a path from torturers to Honduran death squads. Those boys have been around the block.”

  “Interpol lost track of them after the blowup over all those kids getting wasted in the nineties,” Pensley said. “Hernandez, the Chief of the Honduran armed forces, refused to take any action against the Battalion, and covered for them.”

  “Hell, he was one of them. He took special ops training in the United States.” Sotello stood up, and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry now I didn’t waste them all last night. Somewhere, there’s another one out there for sure, not a very pleasant thought.”

  “The van driver,” Pensley agreed. “We found the van this morning, and the FBI have a team going over it, looking for anything. You have nationwide attention now though. Even the White House has ordered the Justice Department to pull out all the stops on this investigation. Ever since the Twin Towers, they take no chances. I have been ordered already, to make helping this FBI team from Homeland Security, my number one priority. Janowitz said to tell you hi.”

  “Hank’s leading the team?” Sotello asked, turning back with a grin. “God, I haven’t seen him since he left the San Francisco Bureau when the kids were little.”

  “He’s in the field right now, running leads on the van, with pictures of the guys we have.”

  “Would you tell him I would love for him to come over Saturday?” Sotello requested.

  “I sure will. He wants to talk to you anyway. I gave him your cell phone number.” Pensley told him.

  “Good,” Sotello replied. “He’ll know where to reach me then if he has any questions. I’m glad the spotlight will be on me from now on. It will be pretty tough to stay alive otherwise.”

  “I will be leaving officers at your home on a 24/7 basis until this election is over,” Pensley said. “There could be a connection with these three to a terrorist network Jim. Have you thought of that?”

  “We all think about that stuff now. We live in the most porous border state in the union. Man, I hate for you to have to stretch yourself so thin, with all the extra time already being put in with the terrorist war on,” Sotello replied. “Damn, that will cost you some un-budgeted money.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Pensley said, waving off his concern, “Hank says Justice will pick up the tab, because of this foreign terrorist connection. He told me they took a big chance and lost. With these guys in custody, and the FBI sealing off the escape routes for the van driver, Hank says they will nail the ones responsible. Since the 9/11 act, and all the bio-warfare scares, they have the budget and manpower to attack this full force.”

  “I hope so,” Sotello replied. “I still think we play too many ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ games on the border now. With this war on terrorism stuff, and all the action already under the bridge, you would think we would have sealed the damn borders by now. People still believe TWA Flight 800 crashed from a missile fired on it. Many do not believe the FBI’s report on it, and still think they covered up for the perpetrators, rather than going after the country that sent them.”

  “When those kids in uniform died on the Cole, we still did nothing. The conspiracy theories look pretty good after New York and the Pentagon. It always takes thousands of innocent deaths to get attention anymore. With the chemical weapons threat, along with the fear of suitcase nukes, we don’t need any outside additions to the ‘Fifth Column’ we already have operating on our own soil.”

  “I read and heard the things Cmdr. Donaldson said about the holes in those reports from the NTSB and FBI on the TWA crash,” Pensley agreed. “I’m not a conspiracy nut, but damn, they sure had a lot of unanswered questions on that one. If they tie these three in with the Al Queda network, or one of the other Middle East whacko outfits, there will be hell to pay.”

  “I trust Hank implicitly,” Sotello said, “but even he can’t prevent them from burying this without losing his job. They will slap a Top Secret label on it, and lay it to rest in some warehouse next to the Arc of the Covenant.”

  Pensley laughed at Sotello’s reference to the final scene from The Raiders of the Lost Arc movie. “You may have a point Jim, but you have a great chance now of becoming Governor of California, and making some real progress on our border. This may not have to do with foreign intrigue though. There are plenty of people capitalizing on illegal labor in this state, who would like to keep the gravy train running.”

  “I know,” Sotello nodded. “I’m already getting hate mail from different business interests, claiming the old crapola about there are some jobs American citizens won’t do anymore. It would have to be a single person Steve, if it was some business interest, or it could never remain a secret. It could not be La Raza, because of the secrecy it involves to pull something like that off. I also don’t believe any California business would be stupid enough to take the chance either. Man, this couldn’t have a Middle Eastern connection to it, could it?”

  “Well, all we can do now is wait and see what the FBI boys come up with,” Pensley said. “If they try to cover up a faction responsible over the border, or in the Middle East, they will be hard pressed to get away with it.”

  “When I get done mouthing off at the press conference I promised,” Sotello replied, “it will be even harder. If I can keep the press interested in the story, I will be that much more safe, and so will my kids.”

  “You will still have to watch the skylines buddy,” Pensley said with a sigh. “You had better start wearing a vest.”

  Sotello banged on his chest. “Already taken care of. I have two more pulled for the kids when they get to the office today.”

  “At least you take this stuff seriously,” Pensley replied. “Some of these goofy folks walk around believing nothing could ever happen to them, even after 9/11. Give us some good press today Jim, if you get a chance.”

  Sotello stood up and shook Pensley’s proffered hand. “I will indeed, Steve. You have been great. Take care of my compadres in the lockup. They will be targets too.”

  “They are incommunicado my friend,” Pensley said, “and likely to stay that way for a long time. We rushed them in for arraignment with a public defender, whom they refused to talk to, and it took the judge all of one minute to let us box these characters up without bail. Shall I walk you to your…”

  The door opened, and the desk sergeant came in, and smilingly nodded at Sotello, before addressing Pensley. “The press is out in force Captain. They know we have the next Governor here. Want us to hustle him out?”

  “No need,” Sotello cut in, smiling at the portly black officer. “Now’s as good a time as any to answer some questions, and keep the heat turned up. Thanks for the vote of confidence Sergeant.”

  “We’re all behind you Mr. Sotello,” he said, shaking hands with Sotello. “I’m Ernie Barnes.”

  “Call me Jim, Ernie,” Sotello said. He turned back to Pensley for a moment. “I’ll take them outside Steve, so they don’t turn your precinct into a circus.”

  “Thanks Jim,” Pensley replied. “See you Saturday.”

  “Count on it,” Sotello said, following Barnes out the office door.

  Chapter 33

  The Press And The People

  Sotello squinted as the flashes began going off again as they did the night before, and the camera lights illuminated everything. As the reporters moved in with shouted questions, Sotello held up his hands until they quieted.

  “If you will all step outside,” Sotello told them, “I will answer all your questions worth answering.
The things I do not know, I will not speculate about. What I do know, I will tell you.”

  They followed him outside; where a number of people, drawn by the news vans parked around the area, cheered as they saw Sotello leading the news contingent out of the building. He looked up in surprise, and then began waving. Without a thought to the reporters, or his impromptu news conference, Sotello charged right into the midst of the people on the sidewalk. He shook hands with everyone, and anyone, wishing the attention. Sotello went back up a couple of steps away from the group, and held up his hands, quieting the crowd.

  “Buenos Dios,” Sotello shouted, drawing huge laughter and applause. Many in the crowd yelled back in Spanish, waving and chanting. He quieted them again. “I cannot tell you how much your greeting here today means to me. As you know, my campaign has become a rather dangerous game. Knowing I have supporters, like you all out there, means everything to me. Thank you.”

  The crowd erupted again as the cameras rolled. Sotello held up his hands again to quiet them. “I am giving a press conference right now to answer to what I know about the incident last night. I want you folks to know what a first class police department the city of Castro Valley has. They handled an impossible situation by the numbers, without a hitch. Many more people may have been hurt, without their expertise and professionalism. I am honored you came out today.”

  After the cheers again died down, Sotello turned to the reporters grouped around him. “Okay, I will answer questions one at a time, so just raise your hand, and I will point to you. I have time, so you will not get shorted. Be patient. One more thing, anyone out there wanting to insinuate remarks about my involvement in a blown drug deal, better have their dental insurance paid up. I am not some smiling, political pincushion, who will stand by while you spit on everything I live by. You can do so, but you do it at your own risk. If you want a ten second loop of my doing unscheduled dental surgery, then by all means, start throwing poison darts.”