Killer Focus

by Fiona Brand

  The information, most of which had been supplied by an unnamed South American source eighteen months previously and which had formed the basis for the FBI’s investigation into Lopez, should have put her to sleep, but Taylor refused to be lulled by the familiarity of the material.

  She needed to find something—anything—that would provide a lead on a man who had killed almost everyone who had ever gotten close to him.

  The list had included Lopez’s own father; his business partner and father-in-law, Cesar Morell; and, at the age of twelve, his own bodyguard.

  Exhaustion, the product of another late night spent surfing government databases and the Internet, sucked at her as she read. Her mind began to drift, slide sideways…. She blinked, staring at the page, not seeing the words, suddenly on the verge of—

  A sharp thud jerked her head up.

  Mike Colenso, the agent occupying the adjacent desk, was rummaging through the box of files he had just dropped onto the floor.

  Stifling a yawn, she tried to recapture the moment. When the relaxed mood wouldn’t come back, courtesy of Colenso opening and discarding files, she went over what she’d just read. After skimming the page a second time, then a third, she stopped trying to force the knowledge. Whatever it was that had gotten her antennae twitching was obscure enough that she wasn’t going to find it by focusing harder. It was entirely possible that what she was looking for wasn’t on the page, but the result of information triggering her mind to make a connection.

  She checked her watch and set the file down. She would get that moment back, and now she was going to have to do it on her own time, not the Bureau’s. Marc Bayard, her boss and a newly appointed division head, had been saying for weeks now that she was too close to the case, that she had lost her perspective and needed to back off. In fact, this morning he had ordered her to back off.

  According to Bayard, the Lopez case had redefined her commitment to her job in “an unhealthy way.” The only reason she had been assigned to the Lopez task force in the first place was her connection to Rina Morell. He had assigned another agent in her place. He had been polite but he hadn’t pulled his punches. Her psychiatric report detailed post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, chronic fatigue, paranoia and evidence of obsessive behavior. Bayard had enough material to suspend her on medical grounds if she didn’t fall into line.

  She had argued the point on the “obsessive behavior.” Driven, maybe. Bayard hadn’t seen the distinction.

  She pulled out Lopez’s psychological profile and studied it. He was clinically organized and successful, but he had made significant errors in judgment, notably in underestimating the Morell family. Years ago, Esther Morell had outsmarted him, Cesar Morell had worked with him, but only under duress, and their daughter, Rina, had come close to bringing him down.

  Lopez was also eccentric. Amongst a list of known traits, it was noted that while he used computers in his business, he didn’t trust them. In a way, that was understandable, since Esther Morell, in partnership with Xavier le Clerc, had relieved him of billions of dollars through a series of electronic transactions.

  A pen rolled off Colenso’s desk and dropped onto the floor, but this time the elusive feeling that she was about to get something didn’t vaporize.

  Taylor stared at the sentence she’d just read. That was it.

  So far they had gleaned zilch from Lopez’s computer files. In a nutshell, he didn’t store his information on any electronic system they’d found. They had assumed that he had the information stored on a computer somewhere. It was possible he had an encoded system and they simply hadn’t found it, but what if he stored information in another way?

  Feverishly, she turned pages. Mendoza had had a book, and there had been a mention of a book in Earl Slater’s testimony.

  She found the page and ran her finger down the margin until she located the piece she was looking for. According to Slater, Lopez had recently retrieved a book from a bank vault in Bogotá. Slater didn’t know what the book contained, just that it had been important enough for Lopez to make a trip to collect it. It was possible it had been a rare antique, an easy asset to liquidate when he’d needed—

  Colenso’s chair creaked as he rocked back and propped his expensively shod feet on the desktop. He jerked his head toward the file she was reading. “Thought Bayard pulled you off the case.”

  “He did.” She indicated a pile of paperwork occupying one corner of her desk. “In theory I’m working on operation Update the Filing System.”

  His gaze sharpened. “You’ve found something.”

  Several heads turned. Taylor closed the file. “Maybe. Nothing that isn’t already on file.”

  And nothing that she was prepared to talk about yet.

  The fact that there had been a serious leak connected with the Lopez case—in effect, a mole in the Bureau—made her wary. According to her own private snooping, the information leaks were exclusively related to the Lopez case. That meant Lopez had either corrupted someone in the FBI, or else he had managed to hack into the Bureau’s information systems. She trusted everyone in the office…to a degree.

  Colenso looked disgruntled. “You’re giving me that schoolmarm look again.”

  “Get used to it. I’ve applied for Bayard’s old job. You could be looking at your new boss.”

  “After what happened on the West Coast?”

  Colenso’s amused expression set her teeth on edge. Taylor picked up a file detailing Slater’s successful prosecution and tossed it onto his desk. After “what happened” in both Eureka and Winton, she had zero tolerance for assholes. Someone had hemorrhaged information, compromising the operation on more than one occasion, with the result that Lopez had slipped the net. She had been caught off guard and taken hostage on the heels of the last spoiled operation. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but my mistake was the only investigative break we had.”

  His hands shot up in surrender. “I hear you, Yoda.”

  A reluctant smile twitched at her mouth. Lately, she’d gotten a lot of wisecracking about “the force,” courtesy of her crusade against the “evil empire”—Lopez.

  Gail, one of the clerks from administration, sorted through the bundle of mail she was carrying and dropped a letter onto Taylor’s desk.

  Frowning, Taylor retrieved a paper knife from her drawer and slit the envelope. A business card slid out, and for a moment her mind went utterly blank. There were no words, just a crude symbol in the shape of a jaguar’s head stamped onto the card. The stamp lacked detail, it was the kind kids bought from bargain outlets and toy stores, but the fact that it was a jaguar’s head made her skin crawl.

  Lopez had had a jaguar tattooed on the back of one of his hands. The tattoo was no longer visible. He’d had it lasered off years ago, but Taylor had seen a grainy photo of it.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Someone just sent me a calling card. A jaguar’s head.”

  Feeling light-headed and a little strange, she turned the card so Colenso could see it, then slipped it back into the envelope so as not to further compromise any prints.

  Colenso frowned. “It’s got to be a prank.”

  “I’m not laughing.” The thought that it could have been Lopez made her freeze inside. If it was a bona fide calling card, the precursor to a hit—

  He shrugged. “Sorry, wrong word. I’m not trying to trivialize it, but I’ve never heard of Lopez or the Chavez cartel using mafia tricks.”

  Taylor dropped the envelope into a plastic bag, her mind automatically going over the list of people, aside from Lopez, who could hold some kind of grudge against her. Slater’s ex-wife and his hooker girlfriend. A number of Lopez’s security staff who had been arrested in Eureka following the bust on Senator Radcliff’s place, and who were presently standing trial. It had to be someone who knew about Lopez’s tattoo and who knew that she would recognize the significance of the jaguar’s head.

  It could have been sent by Lopez.

 
The probability sent a shaft of raw panic through her. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how much she never wanted to see Lopez again. As badly as she needed him caught, as totally as she had immersed herself in his case, she realized Bayard was right: the personal cost was too great. She didn’t want back into a hell she’d spent months crawling out of.

  Colenso touched her shoulder. She stared blankly into his concerned gaze, unaware until then that he had gotten up from his desk. “Stay there. I’ll get you something to drink.”

  Minutes later he handed her a polystyrene cup of coffee. The hot liquid burned her mouth and was so sweet she could barely drink it.

  Colenso propped himself on the edge of her desk as she sipped, his presence obscurely comforting because he blocked her off from the rest of the office, giving her time to recover. The last thing she needed was a cataloged report of an anxiety attack in the office. Bayard would have her out the door so fast she would be spinning.

  Colenso studied the typed address label on the envelope, which was visible through the plastic. “If the card is from Lopez then it’s manna from heaven. It could be the lead we’ve been waiting for.”

  But Colenso didn’t think so.

  The thought slid into her mind, as sharp and acid as the sugar-laced coffee, and suddenly Colenso’s uncharacteristically PC behavior made sense. He was soothing her because he didn’t believe the card was a serious threat.

  Three days later, Bayard handed Taylor the forensics report on the envelope and the card. The envelope, the card, the ink and the stamp were all locally available items, most likely purchased in D.C. Whoever had sent the card had been professional enough to wear gloves, because the only identifiable prints besides Gail’s and Taylor’s had belonged to post office personnel. The postmark was local and the address was a computer-generated label that had been affixed to the envelope. The stamp showed no traces of saliva and because the envelope was of the self-sealing variety it hadn’t yielded any, either, so there was no DNA.

  Given that the envelope had been posted in D.C. on the same day Slater and the minor felons involved in the hostage situation had been sentenced, Bayard suspected that it was a hoax, most likely perpetrated by a family member or an associate of one of the felons. Without conclusive evidence of a death threat, he could no longer justify the around-the-clock security on her apartment or the escort to and from work, but she had options. She could scale down her hours until she felt better. If she wanted time off, she could have it on full pay. A holiday—a change of scene—could be just what she needed.

  Taylor refused both offers point-blank. The “until she felt better” part had grated. She wasn’t sick and she needed to work. The last thing she wanted was time alone. Without her job, she was an emotional amputee.

  When she walked out of Bayard’s office, the field room was abnormally quiet and no one glanced up, which was also unusual. She had known several of the agents for years, attended most of the departmental parties and done her share of hanging out at bars; the camaraderie had always been one of the best aspects of the job.

  She had heard about the rumor that was circulating, that she had lost her grip, that someone down in records was running a book on the odds that she had mailed the card to herself.

  Her stomach burned as she reached her desk. She checked her watch. It was after one, and she hadn’t stopped for breakfast. Instead of sitting down, she shrugged into her coat and buttoned it against the wave of cold that was going to hit her the second she walked out of the building.

  Colenso rocked back in his chair. “How did it go with Bayard?”

  “The card was sent the same day Slater and his hired muscle were sentenced. He thinks it was one of them.”

  “Makes sense.”

  She hooked the strap of her handbag over one shoulder. “Want to go get some lunch?”

  Colenso tapped his watch. “I ate an hour ago. Besides, if I don’t get these notes written up, Bayard’s threatened to send me out with Tripp.”

  Taylor glanced across the office, more than willing for some light relief to stave off her own growing conviction that Bayard was right and that she really was losing her grip. Martin Tripp was sitting at his desk, staring at his computer screen as if it were about to suck him into cyberspace and he wouldn’t mind the journey one little bit. Tripp, in his late forties, was a genius with computers and equipment, but he was also notorious for his bumbling in the field. Personally, Taylor thought he had a lot more potential than anyone had ever given him credit for. She glanced at Colenso with his sharp suit jacket and edgy haircut. At least Tripp had his ego under control. “He’s not so bad.”

  Colenso glanced at Tripp and lifted a brow. “You’ve never been on a stakeout with him.”

  Rico Casale hunkered down on the roof of one of the older brownstones that lined the street just down from the Bureau’s building. The brownstone was low enough that he got a good view of most of the street. With the aid of a pair of high-powered binoculars, he could just see the back entrance and the employee parking lot.

  The roof of the brownstone also had the virtue of a water tower, a jumbled series of maintenance sheds and a waist-high parapet. It was cramped, and the parapet meant he couldn’t use a tripod because the angle to the street below was too acute, but there was enough cover that he could remain hidden while he observed, even from buildings that overlooked his position. These days, after the Washington sniper, he couldn’t be too careful. People were a lot more observant and a lot more suspicious. If he was spotted this close to the FBI building, it was game over.

  A scattering of rain turned a miserable day even grimmer, but he was wrapped up warmly, with a padded coat, a woolen beanie pulled down low on his head and thick woolen mittens on his hands.

  Crouching lower to avoid the worst of the rain and find an angle that would shield the lenses of his binoculars, he took time out to jerk the sheet of plastic he’d brought with him more securely over the rifle he had assembled more than an hour before.

  Long minutes passed as he scrutinized the FBI building. He shifted, easing stiffened muscles and wiping moisture from his face. It was possible she wouldn’t come out today, but she had yesterday and the day before. She might not eat at the same place or even walk in his direction, but so far she hadn’t shown any signs of deviating from her pattern. He took a break to sip hot coffee from a thermos and checked the time. If she was going to eat lunch today, she was late.

  A split second later, the door slid open and Taylor Jones stepped outside.

  Tipping out the remains of his coffee, he slipped the binoculars into his knapsack, tugged the plastic sheet off the Remington and eased the butt of the rifle against his shoulder.

  He swore beneath his breath. Jones had finally left for lunch, but today she had taken a route that angled away from his position, which meant he had to move, and fast.

  With fingers stiffened by the icy wind, he disassembled the rifle and repacked the gun in a guitar case that had been customized to store the weapon. Seconds later, he slipped through the janitor’s door and took the stairs to the ground floor.

  He emerged out of the back entrance of the building, threaded his way down a service lane and out onto another, smaller street. Within minutes, his knapsack stowed in the trunk of his car, and his coat, beanie and mittens stripped off to reveal the business suit he was wearing beneath, he entered a second office building and took the lift to the sixth floor.

  Within seconds of entering the room he had rented earlier in the week, he had reassembled the gun, locked it onto its tripod and trained it on the street below.

  Taylor strolled into view, huddled against the wind. She disappeared momentarily beneath a shop awning, then reappeared, head down, walking directly into the crosshairs.

  Four

  Taylor paused by a Chinese food stall called Chen’s, which was set up on a street corner just two blocks from the office. The stall was hemmed in by high-rises and situated in the protective lee of a large departm
ent store but, even so, the wind whipped her coat around her legs as she surveyed the stainless-steel bins of dishes.

  Gray clouds were a solid mass above. In the few minutes it had taken her to walk from the office, the temperature had plummeted, the weather unseasonably cold for spring. The steady trickle of water from a gracefully weeping fountain set to one side of the department store didn’t make her feel any warmer. “Nice day.”

  Chen shrugged. “Last I heard the forecast is for sleet.”

  A faint pattering of rain started as she ordered fried rice and spiced chicken. Huddling in closer beneath the small shelter, Taylor flipped up the collar on her coat and waited while he packaged her selection. The coat was pure wool, and lined. It would protect her for a while, but if it poured she was going to get soaked. “Sleet, great. I love cold—”

  The raucous honking of a car horn cut her short. A taxi was stuck in traffic only feet away, slewed at an angle as a delivery truck double-parked. Wincing at the sustained assault on her ears, Taylor shifted to the other end of the counter, far enough that the steel wall of the take-out stand cut the direct blast of the horn.

  Simultaneously, a tiny projectile sliced past Chen’s head, bounced off the booth, ricocheted off the hot plate and embedded itself in the fountain. He blinked and went back to shoveling rice.

  Taylor cocked her head to one side and stared at the punch mark in the back of the booth. It glinted in the dim light as if freshly made. She hadn’t noticed it before and, cumulatively, she had spent a lot of hours staring at the back of Chen’s take-out stand.

  She continued to study the punch mark, then shook her head. The job was getting to her. To anyone else it would just be a dent; to her, the dent looked like it had been made by a bullet.

  She dragged her gaze from the dented steel and made herself watch the pedestrians hurrying by. Ordinary, everyday people: a businessman trying to talk into a cell phone; a woman struggling with an umbrella as the rain thickened and the wind turned gusty; a mother with two children in tow, all of them clutching bags filled with shopping.