Death Never Lies

by David Grace

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Before calling Green to set up the money drop Black cased the area around the Idle Hour in a way not very different from Donald’s investigation and Black came to a similar conclusion. He identified four surveillance locations with varying degrees of desirability where Donald, or someone like him, might hide. The abandoned bakery was number one on Black’s list. A five story apartment house bordered the bakery’s rear parking lot and the window at the end of the apartment building’s fourth-floor hallway afforded him a good view of the side passage and the gate. Black had identified similar surveillance points for each of the other three potential locations and planned to visit them in turn until he either found someone watching the Idle Hour or he convinced himself that Mr. Green didn’t have any surprises planned. That hope vanished the instant he spotted Donald crouched behind the gate.

  Black knew that for the first hour or so a sentry was usually careful but as the watch went on he lost focus. After a meal or a piss break he would sharpen up a little and then slowly begin to zone out until he neared the end of his shift when he’d start paying attention again. The money delivery was set for two p.m. so around twelve or twelve-thirty a pro would start watching in earnest. Black had spotted Donald a little after eight so he figured that by eleven Donald would both be bored with all the waiting and not yet revved up for the main event. That’s when Black planned to make his move.

  The apartment house had a weed-filled strip of dirt between its back wall and the chain-link fence separating it from the bakery’s parking lot. Black had filled a knapsack with things he thought he would need including a gun, heavy gloves, and a pair of baseball shoes he’d picked up the day before at a Big 5 sporting goods store. The preferred method to get past a chain-link fence was to use a pair of three-foot long bolt cutters to snip a line of links and then slip through the tear but people tended to notice a guy carrying bolt cutters and each snip made a noise. The cleats on a pair of baseball shoes would securely grab onto the links and if you were careful you could climb a steel fence in a few seconds and barely make a sound. Donald could only see the first few feet of fencing directly behind his position. The section near the property’s eastern boundary was completely out of his view.

  At ten-fifty Black slipped out of the apartment house’s back door and put on the spiked shoes and his gloves. As casually as he could he walked over to the fence then turned to study the windows along the building’s back wall. As far as he could tell no one was watching. Why would they? An overgrown strip of dirt backed up against a decaying parking lot wasn’t a very attractive view. Still, you never knew what people would do. Black took one final look at the apartments then climbed the fence. For a second he hesitated at the top then slipped his right leg over and dug the toe cleat into a link on the other side. The steel made a little rattle as he brought the other leg over and began the climb back down.

  Once on the ground the spikes made a dull clack, clack, clack against the decayed asphalt. Should he stop here and change shoes? No, he was too exposed. Instead Black varied his pace so that the noises sounded too irregular to be footsteps. When he reached the Bakery’s back wall he took a deep breath and pulled off the spikes. If Donald had heard anything and chose this moment to peek around the corner Black was screwed. Fifteen seconds later he had returned the spikes and gloves to the backpack and finished tying the laces on his sneakers. After another deep breath and a quick look around he removed his Sig Sauer, zipped up, and strapped on the backpack.

  Foot by foot he worked his way to the edge of the building. In the movies the cops always poked their heads around corners like nervous birds, which was really a bad idea. The human eye is attracted by swift motion. Any sudden movement is likely to be noticed, which was why snipers were trained to approach their targets at the rate of inches per minute instead of inches per second. Black pulled a dentist’s mirror from his pocket and slowly extended it just beyond the corner of the building. It showed him Donald sitting crosswise in the passage with his back against the wall, his head turned to the right so that he could watch the street through the gap between two of the planks.

  Black muffled his gun underneath his coat, cocked the hammer with the barest of clicks and sucked in one last, deep breath. OK, go time! With the Sig stretched out in front of him in the traditional two-handed grip Black swung around the corner and fast-walked down the passage. Donald sensed him almost immediately. This son of a bitch is fast! Black thought even as Donald was grabbing his own weapon from the concrete where it had lain.

  Black fired three shots without even thinking, pure reflex. The first caught Donald in the stomach. The recoil walked the barrel up so that the second hit round hit him high on the chest and the third drilled a nasty hole through the middle of Donald’s forehead. Black kept walking. The body had blocked the gate but it reluctantly slid aside when Black hauled on the latch. He noticed that there was no blood on Donald’s stomach or chest and realized that the operator had been wearing a vest. If the third shot hadn’t hit Donald in the head it might be Black who was dead right now instead of the other way around.

  Black pulled out a well-used painter’s drop cloth and draped it over the body. If no one in the apartment building had seen the shooting he figured there was a good chance that the body would remain undiscovered for at least several hours. He only needed it to stay hidden until Mr. Green made the promised money drop at two.

  Black shoved the gun into his waistband then squeezed through the gate and pulled it closed behind him. He took a quick look around but no one seemed to be paying him any attention. He paused half a second to wipe his prints from the rusted pipe and then headed for the corner. He had parked a stolen car half a block down. He intended to abandon it a quarter of a mile away and then walk to the public lot where he had left his Toyota. He wanted to dump the gun and everything else but he couldn’t, not yet. By one o’clock he was back, parked down the street from the bar, waiting.

  Green arrived promptly at two. Even if Black hadn’t recognized him he couldn’t miss the big, yellow envelope Green carried into the alley. Black started his engine and waited. Luckily Green wasn’t a professional criminal. He cruised along oblivious to the cars around him. Black had no trouble following Green to a large construction company’s corporation yard a few miles outside of town. Green parked the well-used RAM pickup he had driven to the bar and went inside. Anticipating a long wait Black had brought a sandwich and bottled water. It was almost six-thirty when Green finally emerged. This time he slid into a silver Ford Expedition with chrome rims. Black snapped a picture of the plate and, later, another of the sprawling house where Green parked the Ford and then went inside. A few dollars to an Internet database gave Black the registered owner’s name, Carl Feeney. Another payment to a different site rewarded Black with an image of Carl Feeney’s driver’s license.

  Got you, asshole! Black thought when the picture matched the man he had met weeks before. Within an hour Black’s gun, his shirt, coat, the backpack and all the rest of it were at the bottom of a large body of water. He allowed himself a short break for a decent meal and a good night’s sleep before diving into the shit again.

  Tomorrow he would start Plan B.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  While Ray Black contemplated Plan B and drove white-knuckled past the corner where his old connection still offered little packets of short-term invincibility Gregory Kane inched his way back toward D.C. and wondered who had betrayed them. As usual the Beltway was jammed with idiots darting in and out of openings barely the size of a sixties-era Cadillac and viewing any hundred-foot-long stretch of open asphalt as an invitation to kick it up to seventy and trust their brakes to save them from disaster.

  The list of suspects was short but not sweet. Danny? No, Kane refused to believe that. Besides Danny was the one who had found Farber in the first place. Kane tapped a button on his phone and set it to speaker mode.

  “Danny, are you alone?”

  “I’m at
home. My girlfriend is here. Where are you?”

  “Did you tell anyone that we’d found Farber?”

  “You mean before the raid? No, nobody.”

  “Not even your girlfriend?”

  “That’s against the rules.” Kane waited. “No, I didn’t,” Danny said a second later. “Why?”

  “Are you absolutely sure? Think hard.”

  The phone was silent for a couple of seconds. “I’m sure. Why?”

  “Because Farber got a call that we were coming.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’ll fill you in later. The point is that someone tipped him off.”

  “Maybe it was somebody on the D.C. PD,” Danny said after another second’s pause.

  “Outside of the D.C. PD and the judge, who knew that we were interested in a house with the number 817?” Kane asked.

  “Supervisor Wren knew,” Danny said uneasily. “But he didn’t know the street name or why we were looking at it.”

  “He didn’t need to,” Kane said.

  “Maybe he told someone.”

  Who could Wren have told? Kane wondered. His boss, the Principal Deputy? Did he have a secretary, an assistant? Had someone hacked his computer?

  “Maybe,” Kane said finally.

  “Where are you? The boss was asking for you.”

  Kane thought about the three calls from Immerson that he’d ignored. “I’m stuck in traffic. I’ll see you in the morning.” Kane disconnected. Nothing had changed. He had to find the leak and he had very little time. How long could they continue to pretend that they were still looking for Farber? Once they were past the weekend how long before somebody at Homeland found out that Farber was already in FBI custody? Two days? Three?

  Kane dialed Ron Franks’ cell.

  “I’m a little busy right now Kane,” Franks said instead of “hello.”

  “Is Farber cooperating?”

  “We’re negotiating.”

  “You can’t give him a pass. He killed a cop.”

  “And we’d like to recover the body.”

  “I know where it is, more or less. It’d be some work but we can find it without him.”

  “Kane, you’ve already told me all of that. Look, I don’t have time–”

  “I’ve got to identify the leak in my office before anyone finds out that we’ve got Farber.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “On Monday morning I’m going to drop a juicy tidbit in someone’s ear and see where it ends up.”

  “No, you’re not. We need Farber to lure Munroe into a trap. If you tell people you’ve got a lead on him then Munroe will panic and he won’t come within miles of the meet.”

  “Once you spring your trap on Munroe I won’t have any bait to catch my mole.”

  “Kane, I’m warning you. Do nothing. Nothing!”

  Kane thought about arguing but knew it would be waste of time. At this point Franks was like a dog with a bone. Fuck it! He’d do what he had to do and worry about it later.

  “How long can you keep anyone at Homeland from finding out that you’ve got him?” Kane asked.

  “As long as I have to.”

  “How long is that in days?”

  “Three days,” Franks said after a long silence. “Maybe four.”

  Maybe two, Kane thought.

  “Call me when you’ve set up the meet with Munroe.”

  “Take it easy. Farber’s refusing to cooperate until the U.S. Attorney signs off on a deal so nothing’s going to happen before Monday. I’ll keep you in the loop,” Franks said in the same voice people used when they told you that the check was in the mail.

  “I didn’t make myself clear. You need my cooperation. If you don’t call me by eleven Monday morning with all the details of the deal you’re giving Farber then I’m going to tell my boss that I caught Farber and where he is.”

  “The hell you will. If you interfere with our getting Munroe I’ll have your badge.”

  “In your dreams.”

  “If you fuck this up, Kane, I swear I’ll destroy you.”

  “You’ll destroy me?” Kane said, feeling his control slip. “For catching a wanted criminal and reporting the arrest to my boss?”

  “I can–”

  “You can go play with yourself!” Kane shouted as something inside him snapped. “Jesus, how stupid are you? I don’t work for you. I’m the hero who caught the guy. You’re the asshole who let the best lead to a wanted fugitive slip away. One word from me and you’ll be at the bottom of the crapper trying to figure out which way is up and we both know it.” Kane took a breath and tried to calm himself. “So, what time Monday morning are you going to call and give me your report?” he asked finally.

  Franks didn’t answer and Kane waited him out. “I’ll call you when the U.S. Attorney signs off on Farber’s deal,” he finally said in a voice like ice.

  “Which will be when?”

  “I should know something by eleven on Monday.”

  “What a coincidence. If I haven’t heard from you by eleven-fifteen I’m telling my boss everything.”

  Too angry to speak Franks hung up.

  Well, I never figured we’d be pals, Kane thought.

  * * *

  Kane was at his desk by eight on Monday morning. Danny arrived at ten after and Greg motioned him over.

  “Did you find any trace of Farber?” Danny asked then glanced around to see if anyone was watching.

  “Nothing beyond the hot lead you’re working on.” Kane didn’t like lying to Danny but anyone with good interrogation skills could read the kid’s face like a book.

  “I’m – What?”

  “You worked your tail off over the weekend and came up with something unusual when you went back through Farber’s credit cards.”

  “I did?”

  “You called me at home and as soon as I heard about it I told you to follow up.”

  “And did I?” Danny asked.

  “Of course, and you know what? I think with a little luck it just might break the case. Of course it’s too soon to get everybody all excited so you can’t tell anyone about it.”

  “Sure,” Danny said. “I get that. We can’t say anything until we find out if it’s going to get us somewhere.”

  “Exactly,” Kane said, patting Danny on the shoulder.

  “Is there something I should be doing, you know while we’re waiting to see if the new lead is going to pan out?”

  “Good question. Somebody told me about a new drug that’s coming out. He called it a ‘broad spectrum recreational product.’ It’s supposed to appeal to anyone who uses heroin, cocaine, and amphetamines. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

  “I–”

  “Kane!” Greg looked up and spotted Immerson standing in his office doorway. “Get over here!”

  “Check it out will you? I’ll be back in a minute.”

  By the time Greg entered the office Immerson was seated behind his desk. Kane closed the door without being asked.

  “Where were you Friday afternoon?”

  “Out running down tips. Didn’t Boland tell you?”

  “It’s not his job to report your whereabouts to me. It’s yours.”

  “Oops. Sorry,” Kane said, though he didn’t look sorry at all.

  Immerson frowned, shuffled a few papers then looked back at Kane.

  “Did you turn up anything?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Immerson snapped.

  “I found a stripper who said that Farber might have been in her club on Thursday night but it was dark and the guy paid cash and she had no idea where he went when he left.” Kane shrugged.

  “And then what?”

  “I canvassed the neighborhood and eventually I called it quits but by then it was late and the traffic was so bad that I just went home. I checked with Boland’s team over the weekend and they had nothing. I called Danny and he’s still pushing paper. I came in early
this morning,” Kane said earnestly.

  “You need to get me your FR-2.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Immerson looked at Greg for a count of two then shook his head. Kane just stood there with his hands behind his back and tried to look innocent.

  “Oh, get out.”

  A moment later Kane pulled up a chair next to Danny’s desk.

  “I couldn’t find anything on the phrase ‘broad spectrum recreational drug,’“ Danny said.

  “Do you know anybody in the tech department at the DEA?”

  “I can make some calls.” Danny clicked a few keys and pulled up the Homeland directory then migrated down the section listing the liaisons for ATF, ICE, DEA, FBI and the rest of the Federal alphabet soup. “You know,” Danny said a moment later, “you could ask Professor Bellingham. He hates drug addicts.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He called, while you were on that Justice Hopper thing.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He asked if we needed any more help. He said that he thought that drug addicts were a scourge on the nation and that he would do anything he could to stop them. I told him that we were still investigating but we would call him if we needed anything. So,” Danny suggested, “maybe you should ask him if he’s heard of some kind of broad spectrum drug.”

  Kane felt a slight tickle at the back of his brain.

  “When Bellingham called did he ask for me or for you?” Greg asked a moment later.

  “It buzzed at my desk but he could have asked for you and they transferred the call to me because you were, you know, out in the field.”

  “No, if he asked for me and I wasn’t here they would have just sent him to my voice mail,” Kane said absently.

  “When the operator told him you were out he might have asked to speak to me, well speak to your partner.”

  “He’s a civilian. How would he even know I have a partner?”

  “In the movies investigators always have partners.”

  This isn’t the movies, Kane thought.

  “How do you answer your phone?”