“And Sergeant Harper? Your role?”
“It’s my conference room. I know how to work the electronics.”
Rivers threw her head back and launched a throaty laugh. “Well, again, I thank you all for coming together for such an odd meeting. I’ll get right to it. You cannot release Patrick Kelly’s name to the public.”
“Who’s Patrick Kelly?” several asked in unison.
“He’s the dead man in the parking lot,” Rivers said.
“How do you know his name?” Chief Rendel asked. “Even I don’t know his name yet.”
“Sure you do. I just gave it to you. I need you to keep it quiet. And how I know this is irrelevant. Suffice to say that it’s a matter of life and death.”
“This went down in a parking lot in the middle of the day,” Angelina said, shocked at the sound of her own voice that she’d spoken up at all. “God knows how many people saw the exchange of gunfire. He—Patrick Kelly, I guess—must have fired twenty, thirty rounds of five-five-six at me. A mag dump. And I emptied my service weapon in return. We can’t keep that kind of thing off the news.”
Rivers listened with what appeared to be a feigned smile. “Are you finished, Agent Garcia?”
Angelina looked at the others and noted that they were all staring down at the table. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I think so.”
“Good. And I hope you feel better. Because this next part is going to blow your mind.”
That brought all the heads up.
“Agent Garcia, I need you to disappear for a day or two,” Rivers explained. “I have agents on the way down from DC to take you to a safe house.”
“Oh, my God,” Angelina said. “Why?”
“Because we’ve got a complicated situation on our hands.” Rivers sat back in her chair and chewed on the stem of her glasses as she weighed something that was clearly troublesome to her. When she’d made up her mind on whatever the dilemma was, she put her specs back on and leaned forward till her forearms were on the table.
“Chief Rendel,” Rivers said. “Please take whatever action you need to take to lock down that name and to keep Agent Garcia’s name out of the news. I know that you have a thousand questions, and I’ll be happy to address them later, but right now, that one thing is of critical importance. And the clock is ticking.”
“The press will already be on the scene,” Rendel objected. “I’m not sure I can get the genie back in the bottle.”
“Make it happen,” Rivers said. “If you fail, one child will be tortured and killed and a second will likely be sold into the sex trade, to be tortured and killed later. If that happens, I will use the not-insignificant power of my office to hang that around your neck. Have I made myself clear?”
“Director Rivers,” Rendel said. “All due respect—”
“I’m fully aware of how much respect I am due,” Rivers snapped. “Find a way to quarantine this story for forty-eight hours. It may take less time than that, but that’s the number to plan on.”
Angelina watched as Chief Rendel’s jaw worked like she was chewing gum. She was pissed. Clearly, it had been a while since she’d had her ass chewed.
“I look forward to your formal complaint,” Rivers said. “But for now, I’d like to be left alone with Special Agent Garcia. Alas, Sergeant Harper, that means that I’d like you to entrust the electronics to Uncle Sam for just a few minutes.”
Harper rose, looking relieved not to be needed.
“One other thing,” Rivers said, causing them to freeze at the door. “Not a word of what you’ve heard is to be uttered outside of this room. Whatever stories you tell about the whats and the whys cannot reflect the truth.”
They all gaped, unsure what to say.
“It’s the nature of a secret,” Rivers said with a smile. “Truth is the first casualty. Welcome to your first taste of federal law enforcement. Thank you all.”
Angelina stayed in her seat as the others left. When the door closed, Director Rivers asked, “Are we alone now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“First things first, relax a little, okay? No one thinks you did anything wrong. Your career is not in danger, and I’m well aware of the unique pressures you face at the hands of your immediate supervisor.”
Angelina recoiled in her chair. The director knew that Jacobs was an asshole?
“The Bureau seems much larger than it actually is,” Rivers said. “I won’t elaborate, but rest easy that I outrank Special Agent in Charge Jacobs, and anything I say trumps anything he says.”
Angelina couldn’t suppress her smile. “That’s good to hear, ma’am. Now, why—”
“About the safe house,” Rivers interrupted. “Here’s the deal. Patrick Kelly’s fourteen-year-old daughter was kidnapped, and the ransom was for you to be killed.”
Angelina rattled her head. Surely, she had not heard correctly. “Who would do that? And who is Patrick Kelly?”
“He is the owner of Toby Jackson Bail Bonding Company.”
Angelina felt a jolt of electricity in her spine. “Fernando Pérez.”
“The one and only,” Rivers confirmed. “The Cortez Cartel is coming for you.”
“They’re not sending their A-team, then. Kelly’s rifle was in charge of him, not the other way around.”
Director Rivers chuckled. “That was only their first try.”
“Look, Director Rivers, I appreciate your concern, but I’m an FBI agent. I piss off a lot of people, many of whom would love to see me dead. That’s true of every agent in the Bureau. If we sent all of them to safe houses—”
“That has nothing to do with why you’re going to the safe house,” Rivers interrupted. “You’re going there because, meaning no offense, you’re dead now.”
Okay, there went the brain cells again. “I, um . . .”
“And Patrick Kelly is still alive. At the very least, he’s not officially dead.”
“Ma’am, with all due . . .” She stopped herself, remembering that the director already knew how much respect she was due. “This isn’t making any freaking sense. Ma’am.”
“Sure it does. Pull your investigator hat a little tighter. The only thing keeping Patrick Kelly’s daughter, Ciara, alive is the anticipation of your murder. If your murderer is known to be dead, then all of that leverage goes away. You know the cartels. The Cortez Cartel in particular. They’ll sell her off to the highest bidder without two seconds’ thought.”
Angelina ran the data through her head. “So, you’re buying time?”
“Exactly.”
“Do you know where she is? Is HRT looking for her?”
“We do not know yet where she is, but yes, people are looking for her.”
“You mentioned a second person,” Angelina remembered. “Someone who would be killed.”
“Yes,” Rivers said. “Another young teen. A boy. Ciara’s boyfriend, apparently. He’s being held for a monetary ransom, but sort of as an afterthought. Smart money says that if there’s no reason to keep Ciara, then the boy becomes more of a liability than an opportunity.”
“Do you even know where to look for them?” Angelina asked. “You told the chief that you only needed forty-eight hours. That’s not a lot of time. Implies that you have reliable leads.”
Rivers smiled. “There you go. The investigator’s hat is fitting well again. Let’s just say that we have a pretty good idea.”
“Ma’am, permission to be blunt?”
“Oh, hell, yes. Consider that to be an open invitation. I’ll knock you down if you cross a line.”
“It makes no sense for me to go into hiding if we’re keeping the shooter’s identity a secret. If he’s not officially dead, then I don’t need to be, either. I’m a big girl. I’m pretty good at this self-defense thing. I don’t want to hide from these asshats.”
“Call it an abundance of caution,” Rivers said. “If word leaks out that Kelly is dead, we’ll build a narrative that you shot each other.”
The ease with wh
ich Director Rivers launched the already formed cover story caught Angelina off guard. Startled her, actually. “And the witnesses?”
“You didn’t know you were shot. You were on your way back to RA when you started to bleed out internally.”
Angelina found herself without words.
“You’re going to take a few days off, Agent Garcia. You’re going to take one for the team. And if it comes down to it, you’re going to accept your fake death with dignity.”
Chapter Twenty
Jonathan and his team went in hard and fast, with their feet propping open the Durango’s doors so they would be able to peel out of the vehicle quickly. It had been a very long time since Jonathan had run a daytime op like this. Normally, at night, they could kill power to the building and own the darkness with night vision, but in daylight, everyone could see everything, thus eliminating that one big advantage.
In the absence of night vision, the ability to intimidate the enemy became paramount.
As soon as the big SUV slid to a halt, the team was out. Jonathan led the way, with Dawkins right on his tail and Big Guy bringing up the rear. At his size and girth, Boxers always needed to be last in the room, if only to give the others in the stack a chance to see anything.
The front door was closed, but it wasn’t latched. When Jonathan kicked it with the sole of his boot, it exploded inward and rebounded off the interior wall. He caught the bounce with his left shoulder and pivoted to his left. Dawkins would pivot right, and Big Guy would cover them all.
The place looked like a trailer park gentleman’s club. A dozen or so overstuffed club chairs were arranged in conversation groups on top of shiny pine floors. None were occupied. On the left in the rear of the room, a man in a stained business suit literally jumped out of his desk chair as they exploded through the door.
“Hands in the air,” Jonathan said in Spanish.
The man complied without complaint.
“Cuff him, Thor,” Jonathan said. He pointed toward the closed door at the far side of the long wall. “Is that door locked?”
The guard (receptionist?) stared back.
“I asked you if the door is locked.”
The guy was petrified. “He wet himself, Scorpion,” Dawkins said.
“Won’t matter,” Boxers said. He rarely used knobs anyway.
The door to the back was hinged on the inside, and it was, indeed, locked. That meant it opened inward. It took three slams with the sole of Big Guy’s shoe to break the tongue of the lock from its steel keeper, each one of them shaking the entire building. Both Jonathan and Dawkins had their long guns shouldered.
As that door slammed open, they were confronted by a guard of the same age as the ones outside and armed with the same model of MP5.
Jonathan tried to tell him to put his weapon down, but the muzzle had already lifted up past the neutral line. He shot the guard in the pelvis to knock him down and to direct any overpenetration into the floor, away from the walls. As the kid collapsed, Jonathan sealed the deal with a bullet to his forehead.
This section of the building resembled a low-rent hotel with curtains hanging where doors should have been along the hallway. Six rooms per side. The sound of the gunshots provoked a lot of yelling from behind those curtains, both from males and females.
“Everybody step out right now with your hands up!” Jonathan shouted in Spanish. He didn’t shout for Roman specifically because if the boy wasn’t here, Jonathan didn’t want a direct connection between him and the raid.
At the far end of the hallway, a naked man stormed out of a room with a badge in one hand and a pistol in the other. He started to shout something, but Boxers shot him dead.
“No one else has to get hurt!” Jonathan said.
“Don’t tell them that,” Boxers grumbled in English.
Jonathan ignored him. “Let’s clear the rooms.”
Jonathan started with the first room on the left. With his rifle pressed against his right shoulder, he used his left hand to pull the curtain aside. A naked man in his twenties sat on the floor, apparently in the spot where he’d fallen. His hands were in the air, and his face showed utter terror. The girl on the bed was far too young to be there.
“Cover her up,” Jonathan said.
“W–who are you?”
“The man who hasn’t killed you yet. Now, cover her up and lie facedown on the floor.”
The rapist reached for his clothes.
“No,” Jonathan said. “You stay naked. Cover the girl. If you try to run, I will kill you. If you hurt her any more, I will kill you slowly.”
Beyond this first room, bedlam grew. Another gunshot rattled the shoddy construction. Unless someone else had brought in a portable cannon, the shot had come from Boxers. And if he had fired the shot, someone had just died.
“Everybody step out into the hallway!” Jonathan shouted again, but no one complied. Who knows, maybe that was the smart move under the circumstances.
Thor arrived in the doorway. “Where do you want me?”
In English, Jonathan said, “Keep the rapists facedown on the floor as I pull them out. If any of them tries to run, kill them.”
Jonathan moved to the next room, and as he pulled back the curtain, he was startled by a man on the other side, knife raised in his hand, ready to defend himself. Jonathan yelled a curse and shot the guy in the chin even as the blade was coming down. The point of the knife caught Jonathan’s left shoulder, just at the margin of his vest, but the blow didn’t have much behind it. It didn’t hurt much yet, but he’d been stabbed before and knew that the real discomfort would come in the next couple of days.
Across the hall, Boxers’ 417 boomed again.
Big Guy yelled, “Give up, you sonsabitches! Or I will kill every friggin’ one of you!” His warning came in English, but even if the people in this place could not understand the words, there was no denying their meaning.
Jonathan wanted to help the second girl, but she would have to wait.
As Jonathan approached the third room on his side of the hallway, a fat guy in his fifties tumbled through the curtains and damn near collided with him.
“I’m getting down,” he said in Spanish. “Please don’t shoot me.” He lay facedown on the filthy indoor-outdoor carpet.
When Jonathan peeked in, he saw a young boy on the bed. Maybe fourteen years old, his eye was swelling shut from a recent blow to his cheek. “You’re okay, now,” Jonathan said. “I’ll be right back.” Based on what he saw, he offered a silent prayer of thanks that the boy was not Roman.
Turning back into the hallway, Jonathan saw Big Guy smash a john in the bridge of his nose with the buttstock of his rifle. The man’s face erupted in blood, and his legs folded.
The fourth room on Jonathan’s side of the hallway was empty. As he scanned the interior, a john from the fifth room crawled out from behind his curtain and lay facedown on the floor, just as he’d been instructed. Apparently, he didn’t realize that he was within the halo of the dead cop’s spreading gore until he hit it. He tried to lift himself away from it, but Jonathan forced him back down into the blood by stomping on the space between his shoulder blades.
“Take a taste,” Jonathan said in Spanish. “Be happy it’s not your own.”
“Put your guns down, or I will kill this boy!” a man’s voice yelled in broken English from behind the last curtain on the left. “I am a police officer. You are all under arrest.”
Jonathan looked back at his partners and placed his gloved forefinger across his lips. Say nothing.
“Do you hear me? I know you are Americans!”
Jonathan remained silent. Who might the boy be?
The fifty-something said, “They’re still standing—”
Jonathan kicked him in the head, and he fell silent.
“I am not bluffing!” the cop said. “Drop your weapons, or I will kill him.”
But he was bluffing, whether he realized it or not. There were only a few ways for this to play ou
t. In scenario one, he came out with a gun to the kid’s head, and either Jonathan or Boxers would kill him. In scenario two, he’d follow through with his threat and kill the kid (please God, no), and Jonathan would kill him. In scenario three, he was in there by himself—the hostage being a true bluff—and he would have to show himself sooner or later.
If he was armed, he would die.
If his hands were empty, Boxers would probably kill him anyway.
“Say something!” the cop yelled. Then he yelled it again in Spanish.
“Please don’t let him shoot me,” the boy said. There went scenario three. And Jonathan did not recognize the voice.
The other johns on the floor had begun to stir, but none of them said anything. Lessons well learned.
“How many of you are there?” The hostage taker had switched back to Spanish.
Jonathan gestured again for silence.
“Say something, or I will shoot this boy!”
They’d crossed a tipping point. They had to assume that the bad guy was thoroughly committed to his cause by now, with his finger on the trigger and his fear levels through the roof. Even if Jonathan swooped around the corner and took him out, chances were good that the cop would get off a shot out of reflex.
They needed to play this out.
Jonathan heard movement behind the sixth curtain. It was a shuffling sound, but he couldn’t determine what it was. Were they on the way out?
Jonathan let his M27 fall against its sling, and he unholstered his Colt. His thumb found the safety and pressed it off. This had the feel of a confrontation that was going to play out at bad-breath distance, and wielding a longer barrel—even as short as that of the MP7—presented an opportunity for the bad guy to swipe at it and ruin his aim.
Behind and to his right, Jonathan more sensed than saw Boxers moving around him to get a better angle on the doorway.
Then he heard the sound of a phone being dialed.
Shit! The guy had played for enough time to get to his cell phone. This thing had to go down now. Maybe his distraction would play to their favor. Maybe—
“Hey!” A naked child bolted through the curtain and dove for the floor just as the cop fired his gun.
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