‘Oui, monsieur?’ Davies replied.
‘Quick, De De. Find Drakoslava. The Adkins woman is here, in the hotel. We have to find her and end this today. Now. Come to my room, and we will spread out and look for her.’
Something suddenly occurred to him as he hung up the phone. He thought he knew why the Adkins woman was there. She had come there to kill him. The thought lifted his heart for some reason. It was funny in some perverse way, and he smiled as his confidence grew. It was like a mouse hunting a panther, he thought to himself.
She was giving him one last chance.
‘Miss Weisz, where are you now? Are you safe?’ Thiery asked. He pushed the speakerphone button on his cell so Logan could hear the conversation.
‘I’m at the Gaylord Palms Hotel in Kissimmee, just outside Orlando.’ She sounded out of breath. ‘No, I am not safe.’
‘Okay. Is there security nearby—?’
‘Please, just listen. My real name is Millie Adkins. I am a witness in the WITSEC programme.’
Thiery glanced at Logan and winked. Logan returned the gesture with a thumbs-up and pushed the Porsche up to one hundred-twenty. It flew like a hovercraft.
Erica continued. ‘My controller is a US Marshal named Robert Moral. I have reasons to believe Moral exposed me to the people I’ve testified against.’
‘Who are those people?’ asked Thiery.
‘Emilio Esperanza. He is a drug lord from Mexico. I was his nurse for eight years. It’s a long story, but you and the FBI agent, what was her name? Logan?’
‘I’m here,’ said Logan.
‘You two can check it out. The US Marshals will not tell you anything unless you convince them I’m in danger.’
Thiery was jotting down notes with a stylus on his iPad. ‘Okay, Millie,’ said Thiery. ‘We will be at the hotel in five minutes. Can you stay hidden until we get there?’
‘I … I’ll try… ’
Thiery could hear a knock on the door in the background. The woman on the phone held her breath.
‘Millie,’ said Thiery. ‘Do not answer that door. Move into a safe place, bathroom or closet, and whisper which room you are in.’
He heard her breathing again. Then, a man’s voice.
‘Erica? Millie. Are you in there?’ A man’s voice. Edgy, desperate … A pause. Then, a fist banging on the door. ‘Millie! It’s Robert. I heard you in there. You need to come out now, if you want to live. The Esperanzas are in this hotel. I tracked them here. I can protect you from them, but you must come out, now.’
‘I’m in 527,’ she whispered.
‘’K,’ said Thiery. ‘Don’t answer that door. We’re pulling in now.’
There was an abrupt sound of the door being kicked once, twice, and the crack of the doorjamb splintering. Then, the sound of gunfire.
TWENTY-FIVE
Bullock sat across from his friend Ron Sales, the Associate Director of the US Marshal’s Service, at the Lincoln Waffle House on 10th Street in DC. They had been friends for years, having met in the police academy two long careers ago. Bullock had stayed in Florida while Sales had gone on to take a job with the Feds. They’d vacationed with each other’s families when their kids were young, but the responsibilities of their careers had curtailed visits until they only saw each other now and then, more often at law enforcement conferences than in the comfort of a friend’s home.
Now, Bullock found himself losing his patience as he tried to extract information from Sales. He found him to be cagey, speaking generally rather than providing the specifics Bullock – and Thiery – needed. He held up his hand, stopping his friend mid-sentence, the rattle of the diners’ forks and coffee cups on flowered, white ceramic plates lending their conversation some privacy.
‘Look, Ron,’ Bullock said. ‘I know you have to maintain a level of confidentiality, but I’ve got my best man working on this school shooting and the investigation that has come out of that. I’m concerned about him and this woman he is trying to find. I’m going to be blunt. I don’t believe we had a random shooting by some pissed-off kids in black trench coats whose mommies didn’t hug them enough. From what Thiery has found, the evidence seems to point back to your department.’
Sales looked across the table at his old friend, a quick flash of anger in his eyes.
‘I … understand, Jim, but just as you have obligations to your department, I have commitments to my organization and the people we protect.’
Bullock leaned forward, trying to keep his voice down, his nose twitching as if he were trying to keep his glasses on the bridge, an involuntary thing that happened to him when he was losing his cool. ‘If this woman is one of your witnesses, you guys are doing a shit shoveller’s job of protecting her.’ He continued in a harsh whisper. ‘She’s already been shot. She leaves the hospital because she doesn’t feel safe there and goes to another one of your so-called safe houses and almost gets killed there by a bunch of gun-toting rednecks and some Mexican hitmen.’
Sales stared at him for a moment and sipped his coffee. Both men quit eating. ‘How do you know it was a safe house?’
‘C’mon, Ron,’ said Bullock. ‘We’re cops, too. The Lake Wales house was owned by the same bank that owned the house that was the last address for Weisz in DC, and the same one that held the title on her current address in Frosthaven. We looked them up, and she hadn’t leased, or purchased, those houses. Your department did.’ He watched Sales’ face turn red.
‘Okay,’ Sales said with resignation. ‘Okay.’ He rubbed his forehead with his fingers, kneading it like dough, unable to look into his lifelong friend’s eyes. ‘Jim, it’s our job as US Marshals to underscore the importance of our witness protection programme, and for the public to see us and WITSEC as infallible. We have to have people trust us implicitly or we would never get people to testify against organized crime. You get that, don’t you?’
Bullock looked at Sales warily. ‘I understand what you’re saying. I understand the significance of the programme. But, as any person with common sense could discern, there is no way your organization could go all these years without a fuck-up. Some fly in the ointment. C’mon, Ron. Law enforcement officers gossip as much as anyone. I’ve heard stories … ’
‘Maybe you have, but there’s never been anything in the media. There’s never been any … proof. To the public, we’re still golden. And, we have to stay that way. Do we understand each other?’
Bullock scowled at Sales but nodded an affirmative. There was a television installed in the corner of the restaurant. THN was running the footage of Thiery and Logan talking to Gruber outside the Sun Beam Motel. Bullock had already caught it in his room before leaving to meet Sales. He glanced at it over Sales’ shoulder, but said nothing.
‘First, you need to know that yes, Weisz is one of ours. Has been for years. I can’t disclose her real name, so please don’t ask. She was part of the Magician Programme I talked to you about briefly yesterday. She’s testified already against a significant and very dangerous drug lord, a kingpin from Mexico. So, you’re probably right about the hitmen. But, I just can’t believe the shooting at the school would be due to a compromise by one of our agents. Especially the marshal assigned to her.’
‘What’s his name?’
Sales shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Jim. I can’t tell you that. It could compromise everything.’
Bullock had to loosen his collar; he felt his blood pressure rising. ‘Wouldn’t you say this witness has been compromised? Whether it was your agency’s fault or not, this girl is out in the open now. If your guy had his shit together, he’d have gotten her down into a hole already.’
‘He’s trying. It’s just— ’
‘Just what? Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t trust him anymore. Maybe she shouldn’t. If she’s had to move so many times, it’s obvious someone is dropping the ball, at the very least. Worse case scenario, your guy has compromised himself— ’
‘No,’ said Sales, shaking his head vigorously. ‘
That doesn’t happen to our people.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Bullock, exasperated. ‘You’re all popes and preachers, huh? Well, let me tell you, Ron. Popes and preachers do bad things all the time. Now, you sit here and look me in the eye, and tell me your man is golden. You tell me this cat never gave you any reason to doubt his character, his motivations. You tell me that right now, and I’m outta here. I won’t say another word. But, if you can’t tell me that, we need a different game plan. And quick.’
Sales chewed on one of his knuckles as he considered his next words carefully. His eyes blinked rapidly, and he drew a deep breath. ‘There was an incident about ten years ago,’ he began. ‘And yes, it gave us some doubt about the man. He was the lead marshal providing protection for an inside man named Eric Gazmend, connected to the Albanian Mafia in New York. He was supposed to testify against one of the head honchos, a mobster named Andre Kadriovski. We couldn’t get him on racketeering, so we thought we’d go for the old standby, tax evasion.’
‘I’ve heard of Kadriovski,’ said Bullock. ‘He’s still in operation, so I think I know how this story goes.’
Sales nodded. He seemed weary and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Anyway, we had his accountant, Gazmend, and we had him in a corner. We do what we have to do to get these guys to come over to our side, and some of it isn’t pretty. We knew he had a girlfriend. The mistress was an old flame Gazmend couldn’t let go of. He didn’t seem to care if his wife found out about her, but the mistress was married, too, and she didn’t want her husband to find out about him. So we used that to leverage his testimony against Kadriovski. Our man was assigned to his case and was handling it well, point by point, no mistakes. Then, the bean counter goes to dinner with his woman friend to a tiny, little, presumably very private, Albanian restaurant in New York. The owner kept it open after hours just for Gazmend, so they had the place to themselves, you see?’
Bullock listened, but said nothing.
‘They … didn’t make it. We had three guys covering Gazmend. Everything had been quiet and we had other people doing twenty-four hour surveillance on Kadriovski and his key players.’
‘But, there was still a hit?’
Sales nodded. ‘Yep. Took out Gazmend and his lady friend and two of our guys. But, one of our men survived.’
‘Without a scratch?’
Sales nodded. ‘He fired back, the restaurant owner confirmed that, but the shooters were all wearing masks and no one was ID’d. We had doubts about the deputy, but his story held up. We assigned him to desk for a year or so, had internal take a look at him. But, after a year, our HR department came around and told us he’d made some complaints that we hadn’t charged him with anything, so we put him back on the streets. As far as I know, he’s had a good, long, and at times, distinguished career.’
‘What was the name of the woman killed in the restaurant?’
Sales smiled, the Cheshire cat returned. ‘We weren’t sure. She had an assumed name, also Albanian, we thought. The newspapers reported that she was killed at a restaurant shoot-out, and printed the name we had, which was something like Magnolia, or Mangola. First name, Andrea, or something like that. Truth is she wasn’t identifiable; took a shotgun blast to the face.’
‘You guys didn’t notify her family, or anything?’
Sales shook his head. ‘I know it sounds shitty, but she wasn’t important to us. We knew she was a side fling for our accountant, but that’s all she was. NYPD was the lead on the homicide investigation and they didn’t take it anywhere. With our witness dead, we lost the sure conviction we thought we had. Essentially, he got away from us. Without Gazmend, without eyewitnesses who could ID the shooters, we couldn’t prosecute. We tailed Kadriovski for months, waiting for him to slip up, but he never did. After that, he vanished.’
Bullock sipped at his coffee. It was cold. ‘So, that’s that?’
‘I know,’ said Sales. ‘You wanted more, but I don’t have it. I’m so far up the ladder now, so removed from the field; I only know most of this, because you asked me to look. You knew I would eventually tell you what I knew, out of our friendship, but what I’ve told you is all I can share. The mission of our department demands we fly under the radar with some of these cases so we don’t expose other witnesses to the bad guys. You know that. Not to be disrespectful, Jim, but I can’t believe someone in our organization would be corrupt and last as long as this man has.’
‘Can’t believe, or won’t, Ron?’
‘C’mon, Jim. I didn’t have to share any of this with you.’
Bullock squinted at his old friend, noticing for the first time in years how much he’d changed. ‘Yeah, you did. You knew I’d really stink up the place if you didn’t.’ He let Sales chew on that for a moment. ‘Can you at least send another marshal down to keep an eye on your man? If nothing else, maybe he could shadow him and assure things are on the up and up?’
Sales breathed out heavily and looked out the window. It was bright but cold and a wind whistled down the street like a sigh. He looked back at Bullock. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Bullock, standing to leave.
Sales stood up as well and reached for his wallet.
‘I got it,’ said Bullock, trying to remember if he’d taken his blood pressure medicine that morning …
Sales looked at his watch. ‘Oh, man, I’m late. Jim, it was good seeing you. Wish it was under better circumstances, but this will work out. You just watch. It’ll all be fine.’
Bullock nodded, shook his friend’s hand, and said nothing. As soon as Sales was out the door of the restaurant, Bullock called his secretary, an efficient woman who had been with him for some twelve years.
‘Good morning, sir,’ she answered. ‘How is Washington?’
‘It’s cold, Dawn,’ he said abruptly. ‘Listen, I need a favour. Get some people in our research department to look into something for me.’
‘Go ahead, sir,’ she said, a pad and pen poised at the ready.
‘Have them find out everything they can about an Albanian mobster named Kadriovski, and his accountant, a guy named Gazmend, who was hit in a restaurant in New York about ten years ago.’ He took the time to spell the names for her, then went on. ‘There were some US Marshals killed at the scene, and a woman. See if they can confirm the woman’s name: possibly Mangola, Andrea, and that could be an alias. There was a US Marshal that survived the hit, too. See if they can find out who he is. Have our guys work with the FBI on it. The Feds like to play in their own sandbox but aren’t necessarily bed buddies with the US Marshals. Tell them it’s connected to an active case in which one of their agents, Special Agent Sara Logan, is working with one of ours. This is urgent. Priority is Number One. You got all that?’
‘I sure do,’ said Dawn, her tone never less than melodic, as if she were scribing a grocery list Bullock was reciting. ‘Just trying to work out that “bed buddies” statement for our investigative team, but I’m sure I can find the right phrase.’
Bullock thought for a moment before giving her one more piece of information. He felt guilty as he cleared his throat and said, ‘Have them look into Ron Sales, too.’
‘Ron Sales, from the US Marshal’s Office?’
‘Yeah.’
‘O … kay. But, don’t you know him personally, sir?’
Bullock hesitated before answering. ‘I thought I did.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, diplomatically. ‘Probably prudent to make calls rather than send emails.’
‘Thanks, Dawn,’ said Bullock, recalling why she was so valuable to him and the department. ‘One more favour, too.’
‘Go ahead, sir.’
‘Book me a flight out of here as soon as you can get me on the next one. I’m not staying here.’
‘Too cold, sir?’
‘Nope. I just can’t take the politics anymore.’
TWENTY-SIX
Millie Adkins – there was no sense in pretending she was Erica Weisz anymore – glan
ced back at Moral. He was hunched over, framed in the doorway, grimacing, his pistol lying impotently about five feet away, holding his arm, clutching at a bloodstain that grew under his hand.
‘Millie,’ he called her, using the name she’d gone by her entire life, before becoming enmeshed with this den of snakes. She stood staring at him, her mouth agape as she still struggled with the realization that Moral was one of the bad guys. The gun felt hot in her hand, a faint wisp of smoke curling out its barrel. She raised it and pointed it at his head.
‘Millie,’ he repeated, pleading, ‘don’t … please … Millie! You’ve got it wrong!’
‘Then why are you here?’ she screamed. She wanted to believe him, believe in him, or anything that could give her reassurance, make her feel not so alone. ‘With them?’
Moral sensed a glimmer of hope. Maybe he could bullshit her one more time. ‘I’m not with them. I tracked them here … you were right. Su … somehow they found you. I … we need to move you again.’ Then, trying for one more ounce of sympathy, he tried, ‘I can’t believe you shot me … ’
But, it didn’t stick. Even if he were telling the truth, she was done running. ‘Where are they, Robert?’ she said, her voice icy, almost mechanical. ‘And how many of them are there?’
Millie heard the ‘ding’ of the elevator stopping on their floor. She stepped past Moral to see who would emerge from the car, hoping it might be a tourist, or better yet, a cop. Her heart stopped as she watched an antique gun, like one of those a German soldier would have in an old World War II movie, extend from the elevator’s doors, the end of its long barrel encased in what appeared to be a homemade, cylindrical housing that she knew to be a silencer. A round face peeked out of the door, one eye squinting.
Millie raised her gun and fired. The head and gun tucked inside the elevator instantly, as the bullet ricocheted off the stainless steel doors. She heard them begin to close again. Millie glanced back at Moral who was trying to stand, his face ashen. She looked up and saw the ‘Exit’ sign that pointed to the stairs. Her choices were to stay and try to shoot it out with the man on the elevator, with Moral free to put a bullet in the back of her head, or to run for it and hope the cop and the FBI agent were already downstairs. She felt outnumbered in spite of Moral’s wounded arm. She decided to run for it, the hollow but prophetic quote, A good run beats a bad stand any day, creeping into her head.
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