Signature Wounds

by Kirk Russell

  “If you can tell all that from being around him, I’d like to know some things about my life.” She leaned toward me. “Will I ever find true love?”

  Right there at that moment, I started liking Sarah Warner. I smiled and drank and said, “I think it’s inevitable for you. Look, I’ve studied Denny. Sometimes he comes up big, so I’ve learned to pay attention. That’s why we took his casino-extortion bomb plot seriously.”

  “But that tip doesn’t really fit with anything, does it?”

  “So far, it doesn’t. Are you buying dinner tonight, or is the DOD?”

  “The Criminal Investigative Division will pick up the tab if I get enough from him.”

  “Don’t leave the table before everything is ordered, or you’ll end up in your supervisor’s office a month from now explaining the bill.”

  “Okay, I’ll remember that.”

  “He’ll order, but he won’t eat. He just drinks and he doesn’t get drunk, and he doesn’t go all the way on the first date. He’ll give you something but not everything. He knows how to tease, and he knows how to find out what’s valuable to you. You’re law enforcement so you’re untrustworthy, but that doesn’t mean you’re not fun to dance with. You can be worked and if you work him in return, he’ll respect you. I know this is probably too much information.”

  “Actually, after everything, I can’t believe you’re even talking to me.”

  But she could. She was proud and determined and not afraid to put herself out there. She might not believe it right now, but my guess was, she’d become a top investigator at the Department of Defense.

  “I can’t either,” I said, “but I’ll be waiting for your text tonight. I’ll be close to the Bellagio. I need to catch him when he leaves you.”

  I stood and picked up my coffee, then saw she had something else she wanted to say.

  “Can we start over?” she asked. “You and me, I mean.”

  “Want to do it right now?”

  “This second.”

  “I’m good with that.”

  We shook hands, then tapped our plastic coffee cups together in a quick toast, and you know, that would never have happened with a younger me. The younger me would still be offended that DOD had suspected me. But if you live long enough, you learn we all make mistakes. Then you learn how to let them go. That’s the hard part, letting them go.

  29

  At the morgue in the midafternoon, an assistant slid open the drawer holding Jim Kern. I unzipped the body bag and looked at my old close friend and brother-in-law with a five-inch gash in his scalp. Maybe the gash could be hidden, maybe not. I wasn’t up on their techniques, but white bone showed and Julia didn’t need to see it. When the bag was unzipped farther, I saw his left arm detached and lying in the bag, his right shattered and flayed. I slowly rezipped the bag and slid the drawer back in, and then had to take a few minutes before looking at Melissa.

  Her face was nearly unmarred. For that, I was thankful. I knew when I found her the night of the bombings that she’d bled out rapidly, but that night I hadn’t registered the full extent of her wounds. The ripping tear through her abdomen brought bile to my mouth, even as I told myself she couldn’t have felt much, if anything. She lost consciousness in the initial blast. She didn’t suffer, did she?

  I looked at Nate last. He’d lived long enough to bruise on one side of his face. Maybe if Julia looked at him from only the other side, or if the bruising was masked, it would be okay. But if it was my choice, I’d tell Julia to remember them as they were, not as they are.

  Outside I was glad for the bright hot sunlight and made one more stop and a drive-by before visiting Julia. The stop was to see the car from the freeway bombing. It was in the airplane hangar with the Alagara bomb debris. I stood with a couple of techs and looked at the twisted-and-burned shell, glass and doors gone, roof deformed. It smelled heavily of melted plastic. Early analysis said only a small amount of C-4 was used, but incendiaries were with it. In the intense heat, the car interior ignited. Neither man had a chance. It underscored the skill of the bomb maker and to me was another indication of a pro.

  When I left the hangar, I drove past the Alagara to see the flowers. I didn’t linger and wouldn’t have told anyone, but it helped me to see that people were moved enough to leave flowers. I still didn’t know what the rose thing was about, but there were more and more of them. They spilled over the sidewalk into the bar lot and, though wilting in the summer heat, they were quite beautiful.

  Driving to the hospital I scrolled cell numbers until I reached the name Peter Henley. For a long time Henley was in CIRG, the Bureau’s Critical Incident Response Group at FBI headquarters. Retired now, he lived in Vermont but still had limited clearance and was a resource for certain bomb investigations. Some combination of the morgue visit and fatigue had left me shaken, so I waited a few minutes before calling him.

  Henley picked up on the second ring and said, “Good to hear your voice, let me get to a chair.”

  An armchair squeaked: a big man getting older. When Henley was FBI he was overweight by Bureau standards, and they periodically got on him about it. Chemist that he was, he brewed great beer. He reworked a shed he had and figured out how to make an IPA with a distinct bite, but a good one. When I tried it I wanted more.

  Beer put weight on Peter. Now that he was retired, he’d gained another thirty pounds. I was out east in April and had driven to his house in Vermont to see him. Physically, he was struggling. Diabetes was a problem.

  I heard him clear his throat, then his deep voice with the familiar question, “What have you got, Paul?”

  “A detonator of a type I haven’t seen before. We found bits of tubing on the Alagara lot and again today on the freeway.”

  “Could be an igniter,” Henley said.

  “With C-4, why go to the trouble?”

  “I’d guess it’s what you already probably suspect. He’s changing his signature. I don’t see any advantage in terms of detonating the bomb.”

  “I don’t either. It’s why I’m calling.”

  “I would look for a known bomb maker.”

  “I have been, and the CIA is telling us AQAP has much deeper pockets now. They’re getting Saudi oil money through several charities and can afford an expensive freelancer. At the same time, ISIS and AQAP have better bomb makers and more of them now, so who knows?”

  “I think you’re right about a pro.”

  The chair squeaked and I knew that was Peter leaning forward. After so many years working around him, I could easily visualize him. Henley cleared his throat again.

  “You’re guessing he’s using a different igniter to throw you off from recognizing his signature because he’s aware he’s in our database, Interpol’s, or the Russians’.”

  “I am guessing that, and whoever they have on the ground here is getting very good information. We’re struggling with that. The car was rented less than twenty-four hours before, and it’s a different type than Nasik, the engineer, usually rents. Yet the charge was shaped for the car. They found out what type of car, got the information to the bomb maker, and got the bomb planted, all inside twenty-four hours.”

  “This bomb maker may be getting in your head, Paul.”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  “How much C-4 is left?”

  “Roughly half.”

  “It’s not a one-off-then-run-away operation.”

  No need to respond to that. That was Peter thinking aloud. The freeway bombing was the third. Henley was headed to the same conclusion I was debating.

  “The bomb maker is being careful,” Henley said, then paused. “But there are more and more law officers concentrated there. If a sleeper cell is in Las Vegas, it’s just a matter of time before it’s uncovered.”

  “I agree that the risk of being found increases for them with every passing day. At some point, economizing with C-4 doesn’t make sense. We’ll have so many law enforcement officers here, we’ll find them sooner or later. Th
ey know that.”

  “They could take the bombings to another city.”

  “Drone pilots. Drone engineers. AQAP. This is about the drone program,” I said.

  “You’re looking at all the C-4 left and thinking they’ll go big if they’re not caught before.”

  “That’s part of why I’m calling.”

  “Can you send me photos of the igniter pieces?”

  “I’ve got to get it approved, but you’ve still got your clearance, right?”

  “For this, yes.”

  “I’ll get them to you. Thank you, Peter. I miss working with you.”

  I clicked off and called Jo, who had texted she’d just been with Julia.

  “How is she?” I asked and heard the catch in her throat as she answered.

  “The swelling is diminishing. She’ll be on her feet soon.”

  “I’m headed there. That’s such good news.”

  “That’s the good news. The bad news is her state of mind.”

  I brought a present with me, a new iPhone for Julia. I knew from Melissa that she wanted an iPhone. She tried to smile when she saw it, but her heart wasn’t in it. She placed the phone on the bedside table as tears came.

  “I just really miss Mom and Dad and Nate.”

  “I know you do, Julia.”

  You always will.

  “I thought more about it like you asked, Uncle Paul, and I want to see them. I have to see them. I know what you said, but I have to.”

  “Then we’ll do it.”

  “Are their faces all—”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her chest heaved as she wept, and I felt a great rush of sadness and a desire to protect her from what I couldn’t.

  “Their faces are the faces you know, but they aren’t there anymore. The light in our eyes is how we know each other and that’s gone. I stopped at the morgue today. It’s going to be hard and you won’t ever forget the change.”

  “I want to hold my dad’s hand just once more.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to answer that and continued on in my clumsy way.

  “You saw your grandmother at her funeral. How old were you?”

  “Four, but I remember her.”

  I nodded.

  “A lot of energy gets released very fast when a bomb detonates. There’s a rapid, almost immediate, expansion that rips things in its way apart. I don’t know any other way but to tell you the truth. If we do this, you only get to see their faces.”

  Through her sobs she said, “I want to know everything. I want to see. I have to see.”

  “We’ll go and after that they’ll be cremated and we’ll need urns for their ashes. I think we should look at urns together and find ones that are beautiful.” Or they come home in cardboard boxes with gray ash and fragments of bones and teeth. Urns were a way to start. We could find urns and talk about a memorial and a place for their ashes. And I’ll hunt the people who did this and when I find them . . .

  “I brought your laptop and headphones too. They say you’re healing so fast you’ll get out of here soon. You know this already, of course—your friends Krissy and Elysa and Natalie are coming this evening and bringing dinner. I was thinking music might help, so I got you the phone.”

  She said nothing to that and went quiet and back into herself. Later, she dozed and I answered e-mails. When Julia woke, she said, “I thought I felt Mom today.”

  “Maybe you did.”

  “It was like she was in this room.”

  “Could be.”

  Two nurses came in and I kissed her forehead and left. Sarah Warner called as I got in my car. For a moment, I was afraid Mondari had canceled out on her.

  “Just calling to let you know we’re on. He moved the dinner to nine o’clock, but we’re a go. I’ll text you.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  30

  Near midnight, the text came. It read, Almost done. Waiting for the check. Mondari in restroom.

  Which restroom?

  I didn’t wait for her response. The restaurant faced the arcade. The nearest restrooms were a short walk to the left. At the line of urinals I spotted Mondari and ducked back out. Less than a minute later, Mondari came out. He looked toward the restaurant then walked the opposite way.

  I texted Warner, He’s leaving. I’m following.

  No way!

  I didn’t answer her next text or the one after as I trailed Mondari outside onto the midnight street. She called a moment later.

  “He’ll call you,” I said. “Something will have come up, an emergency, a friend who needs help, but he’ll call you. How did it go with him?”

  “I thought it went well. Now I don’t know.”

  Up ahead, Mondari slowed, lit a cigarette, and pulled out his phone.

  “Here comes your call from him. Talk to you later.”

  “You’re right. It’s him.”

  I slid my phone into a pocket and watched Mondari talk with Warner. I saw him smile and stroke the tuft of upright hair on his head. Probably just promised to cook for her at his place next time. She had long legs he wouldn’t have missed. He crossed the road and started toward a casino lot. I cut him off.

  “Time to talk, Denny.”

  He started to step around me.

  “Here or in the field office. Your call.”

  “You’ll have to arrest me.”

  “Okay.”

  Mondari looked back toward the Bellagio. Must be thinking Warner burned him.

  “Here or in an interview room, what do you want to do?” I asked. “Why did you lie to Jane?”

  Not sure why, but I was centered on that question still. He’d still balk at answering but I could read his face, and I’d be back with the question again. Then he surprised me; that was the thing about Mondari, he had that trait.

  “I was scared,” he said.

  “Of what?”

  “If I tell you and it goes anywhere, I’m fucked.”

  “You’ll be an unnamed confidential informant.”

  “I need a guarantee.”

  “Start talking first.”

  “No really, Grale, I’m serious. If it goes anywhere, I’m dead.”

  “It won’t leak out of our office.” I saw he didn’t believe me, so I added, “I don’t have to name my source.”

  What followed was a silence. There were all kinds of people on the sidewalks and neon lights glaring and traffic up and down the strip, but between us a silence I could almost touch, me waiting, Mondari weighing risk.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay, what?”

  “There’s a mid-level Sinaloa cartel manager who stays in the same room every time he comes through Vegas. He’s a gambler, so the casino treats him well. They loan him a laptop when he’s here, and he logs into a dark site. Some guys I know figured out a way to see his e-mails while he’s reading or responding. They take screenshots. They’ve made some money with what they learned.”

  “Some guys you know steal the e-mails of a mid-level Sinaloa cartel manager?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this cartel manager always stays in the same room?”

  “Once a month.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “The name he uses is Miguel Catalangelo.”

  I couldn’t match anybody with that name and asked, “What happened?”

  “The guys fucked up. They left a trail and the cartel followed it.”

  “Your computer-thief geeks?”

  “They’re not mine. I know them, but I don’t have anything to do with whatever they’re up to.”

  “Right. Where are they now?”

  “They’re missing.”

  “When did they go missing?”

  “Mid-June. That’s why I’ve been hiding.”

  “How do you know they didn’t just take off?”

  “They fucked up, they got found out, and now they’re missing. What’s that sound like to you?”

  “What was in the e-mails they read?�
��

  “A confirmation of a delivery and a wire transfer of money.”

  “A drug sale?”

  “No, it’s what I was starting to tell Jane.”

  “You told Jane or were starting to tell her?”

  “I told her part of it. I told her the guys read an e-mail that mentioned a bomb maker.”

  “Do you still have the screenshot with that e-mail?”

  “I never had it.”

  I didn’t believe that, but we could come back to that later.

  “The e-mail said the cartel delivered a fabricante de bombas.”

  “Delivered?”

  “Catalangelo’s e-mail was a confirmation of delivery. That’s what it was about.”

  “The cartel delivered a bomb maker? And you’re certain this Catalangelo works for the Sinaloa cartel?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long had your guys been reading his e-mails?”

  “Three months.”

  “Give me their names.”

  “Uri Pylori. John Edelman. Catalangelo’s e-mail said they were paid in full for the delivery of the fabricante de bombas, so now they would move the product.”

  “The product?”

  “Yes.”

  Maybe it was true that a bomb maker was delivered like a shipment. Smuggled over the border in the drug pipeline. I turned the phrase fabricante de bombas in my head. There were no other meanings. Bomb maker. It translated as bomb maker. This Catalangelo oversaw delivery of a bomb maker, and the cartel got a big fee. Then delivered what product? C-4?

  “We’re going to the field office.”

  “I knew you’d fuck me.”

  “Not doing that, but we’ve got to take it there.”

  At the office Mondari repeated the same things he’d said under the lamp in the lot. He didn’t know where his guys or Miguel Catalangelo were. He didn’t know where the fabricante de bombas was delivered. He couldn’t help us find anybody, but he showed us his phone texts and e-mails from the guys when it was going great.

  I could place Uri Pylori and Edelman now. Edelman was late twenties, gaunt and pale. His eyes danced around like he was looking for his next fix. Pylori had bad teeth and had worn the same short-sleeve black T-shirt for a decade, but he was good with numbers. It was best to keep a step back from his breath.