The Informant
Page 1
James Grippando
The Informant
For Tiffany
Contents
Part One
Chapter 1
gerty Kincaid expected the worst.
Chapter 2
special Agent Victoria Santos was staring down the barrel of…
Chapter 3
two rapes, nine robberies and a fatal drive-by shooting. After…
Chapter 4
a record-breaking cold front was working through south-central Georgia that…
Chapter 5
mike sped along the coastline on Bayshore Drive, toward the…
Chapter 6
the Tribune headquarters sat right off sparkling Biscayne Bay, with…
Chapter 7
nightfall made mirrors out of the windows overlooking Biscayne Bay,…
Chapter 8
victoria wasn’t invited to the meeting in Miami with Aaron…
Chapter 9
victoria arranged to meet Mike Posten at Mango’s Café in…
Chapter 10
on Friday evening Karen headed home on Miami’s Metrorail, an…
Chapter 11
by 4:00 P.M. Pacific time a thick, bone-chilling fog had…
Chapter 12
“a Tribune Exclusive,” boasted the morning’s front page, “by…
Chapter 13
thirty minutes before sunrise Victoria parallel-parked her car at the…
Chapter 14
on Wednesday morning Victoria and the field coordinator from the…
Chapter 15
late Friday evening Victoria cabbed it to the airport to…
Chapter 16
karen’s eyes blinked open at the crack of dawn. The…
Chapter 17
victoria arrived at Washington National Airport with pleasant thoughts of…
Chapter 18
for the first time in two months, Mike went home.
Chapter 19
the Sunday-morning Tribune landed with a thud on the Baines’s…
Part Two
Chapter 20
victoria arrived in Quantico, Virginia, for a team meeting at…
Chapter 21
victoria arrived in Miami just after three o’clock that Monday…
Chapter 22
victoria parked the borrowed Mercury Grand Marquis in the far…
Chapter 23
mike left the Hilton at seven-thirty and headed toward Zack’s…
Chapter 24
mike collected his thoughts for a moment before dialing the…
Chapter 25
torrents of icy air streamed from the air-conditioning vents in…
Chapter 26
mike woke at precisely 7:30 A.M. He lay in bed…
Chapter 27
the cuckoo clock on the wall chirped three times in…
Chapter 28
a shaft of morning sun from the skylight cut through…
Chapter 29
from the penthouse balcony overlooking Biscayne Bay, Mike could see…
Chapter 30
frank Hannon woke at ten minutes till two that afternoon.
Chapter 31
the winding mountain road reached a dead end at a…
Chapter 32
it took several hours for the Fairfax County Sheriff to…
Chapter 33
hannon reached Brooklyn before 10:00 P.M. and parked the Volvo…
Chapter 34
victoria and her friend Freeda Schnabel arrived at the Fairfax…
Chapter 35
on Saturday afternoon Victoria dropped her muddy baseball cleats at…
Chapter 36
the Charter Bank of Antigua opened for business at nine…
Part Three
Chapter 37
mike was critiquing the eleven o’clock news from the couch,…
Chapter 38
clouds rolled in a few hours before dawn, blocking out…
Chapter 39
two hours passed before the door finally opened. In the…
Chapter 40
lieutenant Scot was in his office early that morning, sitting…
Chapter 41
their plane landed at Miami International Airport that afternoon on…
Chapter 42
the night sky was a cloudless blanket of stars from…
Chapter 43
the stale smells of burned coffee and pipe tobacco lingered…
Chapter 44
at ten after eight Karen put on her robe and…
Chapter 45
the luxury cruise ship MS Fantasy sailed from the Port…
Chapter 46
one floor directly below the Academy’s gun vault, Victoria was…
Chapter 47
a three-foot tail of perforated computer paper flapped behind her…
Chapter 48
at 3:30 that afternoon the sun was shining down brightly…
Chapter 49
from an altitude of eleven hundred feet, the MS Fantasy…
Chapter 50
at 5:00 P.M. Victoria and David Shapiro met with the…
Chapter 51
at sunrise, the MS Fantasy docked at pier number 3…
Chapter 52
the double bed was stripped, and what was left of…
Chapter 53
the sea was up as the MS Fantasy sailed out…
Chapter 54
victoria dialed David Shapiro’s direct supervisor in Quantico, the Assistant…
Chapter 55
just after 4:00 P.M., Hannon was kneeling in front of…
Chapter 56
kevin McCabe was nearly running as he reached the communications…
Chapter 57
hannon’s cabin was closer to the bow than midship, so…
Chapter 58
mike took a deep breath and started walking from the…
Epilogue
mike filed his firsthand account of Hannon’s demise by modem…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by James Grippando
Copyright
About the Publisher
PART ONE
Chapter 1
gerty Kincaid expected the worst.
An Arctic front was dipping through Dixie, and southeast Georgia was bracing for its first blast of winter. By nightfall, said the weatherman, it might even snow. After seventy-eight years, Gerty wasn’t tickled by the novelty. In the small town of Hainesville, January at its worst meant ice storms and downed power lines—not fluffy white snowfalls and a winter wonderland. There was no sophisticated meteorological explanation for it. That was just the way it was—and always would be.
That simple logic was like the town creed.
Life in Hainesville, they said, was as predictable as the sweet smell of azaleas in the spring and the April crop of onions. Vidalia onions, to be exact. They were the town’s bona fide claim to fame, but it wasn’t very southern to brag, so nobody claimed it. Hainesville was a one-stoplight town, population 532. It relied on one schoolhouse, a white clapboard rectangle serving kindergarten through twelfth grade. The First Baptist Church was the sole house of worship, built of bricks from the red Georgia clay. And there was just one doctor, a semiretired family physician who’d been honored with a parade, marching band, and key to the city when she moved down from Atlanta.
By early Friday evening a wind sock full of bitter northeasterlies was blowing through town. The smell of charred oak wafted from the chimneys of old homes with no electric heaters. Gerty was bundled up warmly in her beige trench coat and plaid wool scarf as she hurried up the curved sidewalk that led to her front door. Covered by a thin glaze
of icy rain, the front steps and pathway glistened in the dim yellow porch light. It was slick and treacherous. She could have walked it blindfolded, however, having lived in the same old two-story, white frame house for nearly fifty years, the last ten alone as a widow.
She tucked her shopping bag under her arm while digging through her purse for the keys. The brass ring was enormous, cluttered with house keys, car keys, keys to an old shed that had burned down in ’67—even keys to luggage she’d never actually locked. She kept them all on one ring, having promised herself that the day she could no longer tell the good ones from the bad would be the day she’d accept her daughter’s persistent invitation to move in with her.
“Ah, fiddlesticks,” she muttered. Her fingers ached with arthritis, and the tattered knit gloves only made it harder to grab the right key. The key ring jingled and jangled like a wind chime in her shaky hand. Finally she got it. With a quick shove the door opened, and she rushed inside to keep out the cold.
An eerie yellow glow from the porch streamed through the slatted windows on the door, lighting the needlepoint words of wisdom in the gold-leaf frame hanging on the wall. Gerty had designed and stitched it herself. THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I, it read. Southern for “Better you than me.”
She flipped the light switch in the foyer, but the expected illumination didn’t come. Must be a power shortage. But then she realized the porch light was still burning outside the door. Maybe a blown fuse?
It took a minute to hang her coat and scarf neatly on the rack. Then she fumbled for her key again in the dim yellow light. She needed the key to secure the lock. Her granddaughter, now a big-city girl with self-proclaimed street smarts, had come down from Richmond over Thanksgiving and replaced the old-fashioned chain and dead bolt with new high-security locks, the kind that required a key to get out of your own house. The idea was to keep burglars from reaching through the window from the outside to unlock the door on the inside.
It seemed like overkill to Gerty. What was next, a blood test to sit down at your own dinner table? She knew it defeated the purpose, but she’d developed the habit of letting herself in, then leaving her keys right in the lock on the front door.
As her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, she started across the living room. The curved back of the Victorian sofa was visible in the shadows. A shaft of light from the porch reflected off the oak-framed mirror above the fireplace. The century-old floorboards creaked beneath her feet.
“General Lee?” she called out. “Where are you, baby?” Her voice had an apologetic tone. She’d promised to be home no later than five o’clock, and the general was one kitty who didn’t like his dinner late.
“Come on, sweety. Mommy’s sorry she’s late.”
She stopped at the table by the staircase to try the crystal lamp. It didn’t light. The whole living room appeared to be without power. Strangely, though, the time displayed on the digital clock on the table seemed about right, and she watched one of the digits fall, which confirmed it was working. Seven-forty-two P.M.
She started down the narrow hall toward the kitchen. Halfway down, she was completely beyond the outer limits of the faint glow from the porch. She’d reached total darkness. With each additional step she relied more on memory than on vision. She slid her hand across the wall to feel for the light switch. A quick flip of the button brought an erratic flicker from the fluorescent bulb over the stove, giving her a start. Her pulse quickened, but the calm returned as she scanned the familiar old kitchen.
“General—” she started to say, then stopped. The bright crimson droplet on the floor caught her attention. At first she thought it might be coffee she’d spilled earlier in the day, but it seemed thicker and redder. She took a paper towel from the countertop and bent down to dab it. She blinked at the way it smeared across the linoleum.
She rose slowly and noticed a whole string of deep red drops, each about a foot or two apart, reaching from one end of the kitchen to the other. Most of them were small, but some were as big as quarters. The trail ended at the back door, which had a pass-through in the lower half that allowed her pets to come and go.
“General Lee?” Her voice shook with concern. Had he cut his paw in the darkness? she wondered. Was he hemorrhaging? Maybe he crawled outside to die in the weeds. In a panic she rushed for the back door, but it was locked and there was no key in the dead bolt.
“Damn these new locks!”
She raced from the kitchen, retracing her steps through the pitch-dark hallway and into the living room. Her breath was short and her heart was pounding as she neared the front door and reached for the keys in the lock, right where she’d left them. She froze.
The keys weren’t there.
She stared in disbelief. Her hands began to shake, but she was standing completely still when the floorboard creaked directly behind her.
She wheeled and gasped, looking straight into the eyes of a dark silhouette—a huge man dressed from head to foot in some kind of black hood and tight-fitting bodysuit. She was about to scream, but his hand jerked forward and grasped her throat. His quickness stunned her. The strength of his grip made her knees buckle.
“I can’t…breathe.” Her voice broke as she fought for air.
“I don’t…care.” He used the same broken cadence, mocking her struggle.
As his grip tightened, the knife appeared. It hung before her eyes with the flat side toward her, and she saw her own terror in the eerie reflection. She could hear his voice, even make out a few words. He was talking at her, demanding something. The intense fear and pain made it all seem jumbled. The room began to blur. But the voice grew louder.
Chapter 2
special Agent Victoria Santos was staring down the barrel of the gun, watching the marksman take aim from just thirty feet away. He was in the classic stance with feet spread wide, arms extended, and both hands on the revolver. His gun moved erratically from left to right; his eyes darted up and down. He had all the telltale signs of a nervous young cop trying desperately to get a bead on the man behind the hostage.
Her captor held her tightly with a knife pressed to her throat and one arm twisted behind her back. His breath felt hot on the back of her neck. The cop had kept him talking for nearly two minutes, but he was growing ever more angry and showing no interest in taking her alive.
“Drop the knife!” the cop finally shouted.
“Drop dead!”
“Drop it, now!”
The knife pressed against her jugular. A shot rang out.
“Ow,” she cried.
Deep, red rivulets ran down her forehead, onto her plastic safety goggles.
The lights came up in the packed auditorium as Kevin Price, director of the FBI’s Hostage Negotiation Training Seminar, tossed the rubber knife aside and stepped toward the microphone at center stage. He was a thirty-year veteran, gray-haired and ruggedly handsome. A dark blue FBI raincoat had shielded his striped tie and starched white shirt from the exploding mock bullet. “Thank you very much, Officer Crowling.”
The embarrassed volunteer placed the training gun on the prop table, then stepped quickly off the stage.
“The point of these crisis simulations is not to single anybody out,” Price continued. “Rather, it’s to show that in real life, it’s frighteningly easy to end up with a dead hostage. A face-to-face confrontation is one of the most volatile situations an officer can encounter. It draws on instinct, but also on proper training. It requires split-second application of some basic negotiating skills. There are right and wrong things to say and do.”
Victoria wiped the last vestiges of red dye from her forehead. “Let’s take a fifteen-minute break,” she said, “and when we come back we’ll talk about some alternatives to shooting the hostage in the head.”
A light round of laughter rose from the crowd, followed by the hum and bustle of two hundred cops heading for two rest rooms.
Victoria removed her raincoat. The waterproof material had made her hot bene
ath the spotlights, but she couldn’t feel too indignant—it had protected her suit from the pinkish red splatter. She smiled at Price as she rubbed the center of her forehead. “I must look like Cyclops.”
He stepped closer to check where the mock bullet had impacted. In two-inch heels she stood eye-to-eye with him—six feet even.
“A third eye can come in handy,” he said with a straight face. Then he smiled. “Seriously, it doesn’t look too bad. I wish there were another way to give these demos authenticity.”
“It’s okay,” she said as she folded up the raincoat. “Let me ask you something, though. We’ve done this seminar how many times now?”
“Oh, geez. Six years, three or four road shows a year. Probably thirty or forty times, I’d guess.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why is it that I’m always the hostage and you’re always the hostage taker?”
A funny look came across his face, like he’d never really thought about it. “I guess I didn’t think it mattered.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. I just want you to know I can play both roles. Besides,” she said with a disarming smile, “I’d really love the chance to slit your throat.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” he said with a smirk.