by Radclyffe
“Go talk to William.” Catherine caressed Rebecca’s face. “No coffee.”
“Jesus,” Rebecca muttered under her breath. “No coffee, no work, no sex. I might as well have stayed in the hospital.”
“I’m not going to say I agree, but I do.” Catherine clasped Rebecca’s hand and kissed the back of her fingers. “So stop grumbling. Call me later?”
“I will.”
“Go then, Detective,” Catherine murmured, because she had to let her go. Rebecca was many things, but first and always a cop.
*
Rebecca buckled her seat belt as Watts pulled away from the curb.
After a few seconds of silence, he said, “So I guess you got your balls busted for going back to work, huh?”
Rebecca slowly turned her head. “Sorry?”
“Nothing, Loo,” Watts said, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Didn’t say a thing.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Despite rush-hour traffic, Watts made it across town in record time and pulled into the parking lot at One Police Plaza at a little past 8:30. They walked across the parking lot to a side door, avoiding the main lobby that serviced the administrative offices. A back elevator took them to the third floor. Since the formation of the HPCU, Rebecca reported directly to Captain John Henry, one of the few administrators she liked and respected. A former street cop who had worked his way up through the ranks, he gave her as much room as he could to run her unit the way she wanted. As she and Watts wended their way through a jumble of desks assigned to detectives from homicide, vice, and special crimes, Rebecca nodded and muttered her thanks to the colleagues who congratulated her on the recent successful raid or asked after her health. At that hour of the morning, most of the desks were occupied with men and women reviewing reports, organizing case files for court, and planning the day’s work. She disliked fanfare for just doing her job, and she definitely didn’t want to dwell on almost taking a bullet in the face.
Henry’s door was open a few inches. With a sigh of relief, she rapped and a deep voice inquired, “Yes?”
“Frye and Watts, Captain.”
“Come in and close the door.”
Rebecca and Watts entered and remained standing until Captain Henry waved them to a couple of straight-backed chairs in front of his desk. As usual, he wore a crisp white shirt, subdued tie, and dark jacket, and sat ramrod straight, his smooth mahogany features giving no clue as to his thoughts. Only the sharp glint in his dark chocolate eyes revealed his irritation. That and the early-morning summons confirmed Rebecca’s suspicions that she was about to hear bad news.
“I got a wake-up call from Agent Clark this morning,” Henry said.
Watts uttered an insult directed at Clark’s parentage just low enough so that Henry wouldn’t be able to hear. Rebecca managed to contain her own oath. Avery Clark was a federal Justice Department agent who managed to show up just in time to claim jurisdiction every time she and her team made an arrest. They’d been ordered from the brass on high to cooperate with him. Unfortunately, no one had told Avery that teamwork was a two-way street.
“What does he want now?” Rebecca asked.
“He wants us to know he appreciates the HPCU’s expertise, and he knew there were things we could accomplish that he couldn’t.”
Beside her, Watts snorted. Rebecca shook her head. “He doesn’t pay compliments without a price.”
Henry nodded. “My guess is his resources are stretched thin, and he needs to ride our coattails as long as he can. He figures that we have the best chance of tying the sex slavery business to the local crime syndicate. If we can prove that they’re taking these girls across state lines for purposes of prostitution, the federal case gets a lot stronger.”
“He wants us to make his case for him,” Watts grumbled. “Just like old times.”
“Clark has a point,” Henry said. “The best shot at finding the people behind the trafficking operation is to uncover the link to the local crime organization.”
“That means we have to get someone deep inside,” Rebecca said. “That kind of undercover operation takes a lot of time to set up. And the Zamoras are going to be looking for a plant, especially after Jimmy.”
Running an operative undercover was one of the most frustrating jobs someone in Rebecca’s position could have. She had to put her people in danger and could do very little to protect them. She didn’t like it. Jimmy Hogan had managed to infiltrate the Zamora organization and he’d turned up dead. Undercover cops knew the risks, and often thrived on the constant stress and adrenaline high, but Zamora knew he was a target. The timing was all wrong.
“We’ve already got someone inside his organization,” Captain Henry said. “Courtesy of Avery Clark.”
“Uh-oh,” Watts said. “I’m starting to feel like there’s a dick up my ass.”
Henry pursed his lips. “Thank you for that personal revelation, Detective Watts.”
Watts grunted. “Fucking Clark.”
“If the organzied crime unit has an undercover agent inside the Zamora family, why are we just hearing about it?” Rebecca asked. Interdepartmental communications weren’t always seamless and cops could get territorial, but her team had been poking around the edges of the Zamora organization for long enough that someone in OCU would have either waved them off or filled them in by now. Something wasn’t adding up. And that something had to be Avery Clark’s doing. When she’d woken up that morning, her headache had receded to a low-level throbbing. Just thinking about Clark interfering in her investigation, yet again, made her eyes ache.
“What aren’t I seeing here, Captain?” Rebecca asked.
Henry rose and carried a file folder with him around to the front of his desk. Opening it toward Watts and Rebecca, he displayed several typed pages and a glossy photograph clipped to the inside cover. Rebecca leaned forward, recognizing the woman in the photograph at the same time as Watts.
“Hey,” Watts said. “That’s our boy Mitch’s new squeeze.”
“Irina Guterov,” Henry elaborated. Anyone else would’ve leaned against the edge of the desk, but he didn’t.
“She was picked up in the raid the other night,” Rebecca pointed out. Irina had unknowingly led them to one of the houses where the Russian girls were being held under armed guard. Mitch and Irina had been about to have sex when Rebecca’s team burst in.
“Clark has convinced her to work for us,” the captain said. “She’s our way inside.”
Rebecca replayed the details of the raid earlier that week. Mitch and Irina had been in the back bedroom, and all the working girls had been upstairs. The only other occupant of the house, the girls’ armed captor, was dead. The girls had immediately been sequestered by Immigration and would probably be deported, so no one in the crime ring knew Mitch’s true identity.
“Does Irina know Mitchell is one of ours?” Rebecca asked.
“Clark says no, but she’ll have to be briefed since the whole plan hinges on Mitchell being her contact.”
“That might fly,” Rebecca conceded. “Irina has worked with the handlers who send these girls out on jobs. It’s one step further up the ladder.” She took the folder from Henry and studied the photograph. Even the stark black-and-white police photo couldn’t diminish Irina’s haunting beauty. “The problem is, Zamora’s people have to know she was in that house when we raided it.”
Henry nodded. “Her story is going to be that she and Mitch went out the back window and they’ve been hiding until the heat died down. No one knows we’ve had her under wraps.”
“Then she has to get back into circulation quickly. With Detective Mitchell.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Henry said. “You need to get your boy back on the streets with her. Tonight.”
“And we’re going to trust her, why?” Watts asked, his voice laced with suspicion and anger. “Mitch is gonna be hanging out there by himself. You can bet Clark isn’t going to lose any sleep over him.”
&n
bsp; “According to Irina, her little sister is in a house just like the one you took down the other night,” Henry said. “That’s part of the reason Irina has been willing to work for these people to begin with. She’s been trying to find her.”
“She says,” Watts snorted.
Henry lifted a shoulder. “Clark believes her.”
“And I’ve got a ten-inch pecker.”
“If her story’s true, she’s got motivation to play along. At least until she finds her sister. Do we have an ID on the sister?”
“Not yet. The feds are searching the international databases, but she’s probably not in any of them. Irina says she has a picture of her at the club where she works,” Henry said.
“Ziggie’s,” Watts said.
“Right. Another reason we need her and Mitchell back there.”
“Where’s Irina now?” Rebecca asked.
“Clark’s got her stashed somewhere.” Henry’s face showed a flicker of anger. “He doesn’t trust our security and won’t tell me where. He’ll deliver her when we arrange a meet between her and Mitchell.”
Rebecca rubbed her forehead. “Do we have any room to negotiate here? I’d like to talk to her before I put Mitchell in the middle of this.”
“Clark already took the plan to the top, and the brass like it. It’s an election year, and it looks good whenever we take a bite out of organized crime.”
“Let’s hope they don’t take a bite out of us first,” Watts muttered.
“They won’t,” Rebecca said flatly. It was her job to make sure that didn’t happen.
Chapter Six
Dell clenched her fists under the table, trying like hell not to let anything she was feeling show on her face. Lieutenant Frye was still talking, but she was having a hard time concentrating. Her mind was going in a million directions at once. The lieutenant had called them all together to brief them on a new operation, an undercover operation targeting one of the biggest crime families in the country. And she was the point man. Never mind that it was a career-making assignment. What mattered to her was making the lieutenant proud. Making her team proud. But hell—Irina. Jesus. She hadn’t figured to see her again, although she’d tried to find her after the raid, just to be sure she was all right. Now they’d be working together, pretending to be a couple. Irina and Mitch, that is.
“Are you with us, Detective?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes ma’am,” Dell snapped, straightening in her seat.
Rebecca stared at her hard for a few seconds, then turned back to the whiteboard. As she talked, she blocked out the highlights of the operation. “Mitch will continue with his cover as a friend of the Kings. He’s been seen with them a couple of times in Ziggie’s and at the Troc. He’s known to have a girlfriend, but he plays around. It helps that he’s already been seen with Irina.”
“The boy gets more action than most guys with real dicks,” Watts groused.
Ordinarily Dell would have shot back that it wasn’t what you had in your pants, but what you did with it, but her stomach was in knots and she couldn’t muster up any levity. Since she’d started working undercover in drag, she’d discovered that Mitch wasn’t just an assignment. She’d connected with a part of herself that felt natural and necessary. Lucky for her, Sandy liked Mitch too. And so did Irina.
“Maybe Mitch scores so well because he knows how to treat a lady,” Jason said with just enough of a lilt in his voice to remind everyone he knew what he was talking about.
“Mitch needs tighter backup than we can provide with ordinary surveillance,” Rebecca said. “We can’t wire him routinely because we’re hoping Irina will be taking him places where he’s going to get patted down.” Rebecca focused on Jason. “I can’t order you to do street work, but—”
“I hope you’re not going to suggest that a lady can’t be trusted with Mitch’s ass,” Jason said, his tone still light but his eyes serious.
“You’re a civilian, Jason. And it won’t be just Mitch’s ass on the line.”
“I’m in,” Jason said. “Jasmine has a show Saturday night before the Kings go on. Mitch can bring Irina. She’ll figure Jasmine is just part of the group.”
Rebecca nodded. “I like it.”
Dell was glad Irina would know she was a cop because she didn’t want to lie to her anymore, but she started to sweat when she imagined taking Irina to the Troc like it was some kind of date. They’d just be acting, she reminded herself. Both of them.
“This might be our only chance to find out who took out your cops,” Sloan said to Rebecca. “We’re not going to quit with the middlemen, are we?”
“A few token arrests might be enough to make City Hall happy,” Rebecca said, “but we’re going after the top dogs.”
“Fucking A,” Watts muttered.
Sloan nodded. “I still want to continue the forensic analysis of the computers at the port. We might find a tie-in there.”
“Agreed. Stay on it.” Rebecca looked at Watts. “Talk to the captain down there today so Sloan can get started.” She wrote “midnight” on the board and circled it. “Mitch and Irina are due to show up at Ziggie’s tonight at midnight. Watts and I will take surveillance.”
Watts’s eyebrows rose as if he were going to object, but a look from the lieutenant shut him down.
Dell cleared her throat and hoped her voice didn’t crack. “Where’s Irina going to stay? She can’t go back to the house where she was living with those girls, not alone.”
“Her cover story,” Rebecca said, “is that the two of you went out a back window and hid out in Mitch’s apartment. For now, that’s where she’ll be staying.”
“Mitch’s apartment.” Dell’s stomach rolled. The studio she’d rented when she went undercover was down the hall from Sandy’s apartment and its only furnishings were a mattress and a ratty sofa. Her mind shut down before she could think about taking Irina there. “Okay. Right.”
Rebecca sighed. “Unfortunately, there’s more.”
“There always is when the feds are involved,” Sloan said grimly.
“Clark wants more information on the Zamoras’ political connections, and he thinks we’re in a better position to get it than his people.” Rebecca pulled out a chair and dropped into it. “He’s probably right. Kratos Zamora is a big supporter of the mayor’s campaign.”
“Pretty dicey association for the mayor,” Sloan said.
“Kratos Zamora is a legitimate businessman, and he donates big bucks to the local political machine.” Rebecca shrugged. “And for all intents and purposes, he’s squeaky clean.”
“So what’s the brilliant plan?” Sloan asked.
“There’s an upcoming fund-raiser for the mayor, and Clark wants us there.”
“Us?” Sloan narrowed her eyes. “Why would we be there?”
“I’ll be there representing the force, to show the department’s support for the mayor. Normal politicking.” Rebecca stared at Sloan. “Clark thinks you’d have a chance at getting close to Zamora if you were with Michael, because she’s one of the wealthiest businesswomen—”
Sloan shot to her feet. “Clark can go fuck himself. Michael’s not going anywhere near Zamora.”
“All right,” Rebecca said. “I understand.”
“Are you planning on taking Catherine?” Sloan asked angrily.
“Catherine’s already going.” Rebecca would have preferred Catherine stay far away from anything even remotely connected to the case, but she couldn’t ask her to skip the event. “She’s on the board of the city’s AIDS/HIV commission. She attends a lot of fund-raisers.”
“Michael is out of it.” Sloan sat back down, her eyes stormy. “I’ll go stag. Sloan Security does business with all the big firms in the city. We’re not without resources, so I’d have a reason to be there.”
“What about the rest of us?” Dell asked.
Rebecca shook her head. “You need to stay away from Zamora for the time being.”
“Sandy’s going to be pissed she m
issed it.”
“No doubt.” Rebecca grinned fleetingly.
Dell would have laughed, except she was thinking that Sandy was going to be pissed about a lot of things.
*
“Talk to you a minute, Loo?” Watts said as the others filed out of the room.
Rebecca nodded, mentally reviewing her hastily thrown together operation. Mitchell might end up chasing a dead lead. With the girls Irina had been supervising out of the picture, Irina’s conduit to the crime organization might have closed. If that was the case, they’d waste a few weeks of surveillance time. But if Mitchell actually did get inside, she’d be there on her own. Because there was no way backup was going to be able to follow her where she needed to go. Rebecca had lost one partner. She wasn’t losing a member of her team.
“…my ass.”
“What?” Rebecca said sharply. “Nobody likes surveillance, Watts, but it’s necessary—”
“I’m not saying I don’t want to freeze my ass off out in the cold while Mitch is inside a titty bar getting his crank pulled,” Watts shot back. “Hell, what guy wouldn’t want to be the one freezing his nuts off in the car? All I’m saying is, you can’t go.”
“What?” Rebecca straightened. “I don’t think I heard you right, Detective.”
“Excuse me, Loo, but you’re supposed to be on desk duty. And excuse me again, but I don’t feel like having my ass chewed out by your…woman. Whatever.”
“My woman?” Rebecca raised her eyebrows.
Watts shrugged. “The doc. I sort of promised her.”
Rebecca turned around and strode to the opposite end of the room. She braced both hands on the counter and closed her eyes. She’d promised her too. Except that she hadn’t known at the time that Henry planned to put the team back out on the street so fast. Units like hers typically spent months building cases through surveillance and wiretaps and gathering street intel. They tapped their confidential informants, they followed midlevel drug dealers, they rousted street pushers and pimps. They toiled at their desks and spent endless hours cruising the streets, until maybe they got lucky and could put a case together. But this was different. They were going hunting, and they were sending their youngest, their least experienced, into the jungle alone.