Laura held up her right hand.
Rolf handed her Corbin’s gun.
Laura jammed the muzzle between Corbin’s breasts.
“NO!”
Laura pulled the trigger.
Click.
She drew back the weapon and released the magazine. She held it in front of Corbin’s shocked face.
“We found your throw-down piece in that little hidey-hole in your car. We reloaded it with rounds filled with rock salt. There’s this great thing about rock salt, Phyllis—it weighs the same as gunpowder. Even a gun fanatic can’t tell the difference just by picking up a loaded gun. It just … feels right.” She tossed the gun and magazine aside. “We reloaded your service weapon as well, just in case you were stupid enough to bring it along. Your gun safe is a joke, by the way. You should look into that. But, then again, you’re not going to get the chance.”
“What do you want?” Corbin rasped. “Money? I can—”
She was cut short by a hard slap in the face.
“Want to try again?” Laura hissed.
Rolf dropped a warning hand on Laura’s shoulder. She glanced up at him. “You’re right. Let her hear it.”
He reached inside his jacket and brought out a cell phone.
“Yes, it looks like an ordinary cell phone,” Laura said. “And that’s because it is.”
Rolf thumbed in a code.
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I was in the shower. Just saw the pictures.”
“Lanza’s behind it. He sent those photos to a burner we were using to talk to Nelthorp when he was in Italy, so he’s got him and he’s talked. I need you to move those files.”
“Don’t you mean, burn them?”
“No. It’s gonna take cash to set up a new supply chain, so we’ll use that paperwork to shake down our old customers. Those people won’t want the world to know they paid for a kidnapped kid. We’ll get an extra hundred per.”
The audio went silent.
Laura leaned toward Corbin. “There’s lots more.”
“How? How did you—?”
Laura ignored the question. “We have audio on every call you’ve made or received in the last five days. On both your phones. Oh, and we also have all your texts since the last time you wiped them, which was about the time I got back from Sicily.”
Corbin stared. “How?”
“That’s not your concern. What is your concern is what we discovered. That your boyfriend, Alan Turnbull, was keeping you up to date on the search for me. That you’ve been playing him. We could see that, so we have to wonder why he didn’t. Eventually, that will have to be looked into. What else did we find? That you’ve got an informant at the Collier Sheriff’s Department. Someone your FBI lover boy doesn’t know about, a woman named Bernice Castellano who’s been feeding you information, mainly about a detective named Jardine.”
Laura let that sink in.
“We have something else…”
“… I know you helped frame me for the Edens’ murders, and then tried to make me disappear. Oh, and, I know that Mazzara is now planning to blackmail all your former customers and you’re more than happy to take your cut of the proceeds.”
“How the fuck could you know all that?”
“Doing your own hits now, Corbin? I thought you left that to Mazzara’s thugs.”
“You bugged the cabin?”
Laura touched an earring—one of the ceramic bead studs Marco had given her in Catania and hadn’t taken back. Dickie had isolated the frequency, figured out how to recharge them, and put them back in service. “You look, but you do not see. Women on the run from the law don’t usually stop to put on their earrings.” She changed subjects. “How long has he had his hooks in you?”
“Who?”
“Mazzara! How long?”
A second passed.
“Since Jacksonville. It’s a long story.”
“You can keep your long story. Here’s what’s going to happen: You’re going to tell us everything you know about the baby-smuggling operation. You’re going to give us the names of everyone who has even been marginally involved. You’re going to tell us where you moved the files on those forty-one adoptions. And, you’re going to tell me what happened to baby number forty-two, the one with the fake name Gisella Pelizon.”
“If I do that, I’ll be dead in a week.”
“If you don’t, you’ll be dead in ten minutes.”
“You won’t kill me! I’m your only chance to clear your name.”
“That’s just it. That recording of you and Mazzara is all I need. No U.S. attorney will worry about little niceties like unlawful interception once he’s heard it. He’ll be only too happy to launch a full investigation into human trafficking by corrupt CBP officers working in league with the Mafia. He’ll be hugging himself, knowing how well that will play for him later, during his campaign for Congress.” Laura stabbed a finger at the vat. “Phyllis Corbin can disappear forever, and it won’t make a shred of difference. The FBI will waste years of money and manpower looking for you while Laura Pace lives comfortably on book and movie deals, and a fat financial settlement from Homeland.”
“The Collier cops drained that vat!”
“That’s right. In fact, they took the whole thing away. This is a nice new one.” Corbin’s throat tightened, and Laura went in for the kill. “I read all the news stories. The sheriff’s public statement talked about Lewis dissolving corpses in acid. Actually, he was boiling them in potassium hydroxide, which isn’t even an acid; it’s a base. The problem for him was that it doesn’t dissolve teeth. Obviously, you need to disappear completely. We considered fluoroantimonic acid because it will dissolve a human body in an hour. But that stuff is so powerful, it can only be stored in a vessel lined with Teflon. It also reacts violently with water, and we need to be able to flush you into the swamp without attracting attention. So we settled on sulfuric acid. It will take a day or two, but we can wait.” She paused. “This is what you planned for me, Phyllis. There’s just one little difference.”
“What?”
“You’ll be going into that vat alive.”
Corbin took the bait. “You’re bluffing! If there was acid in there, we’d smell it.”
“Sulfuric acid is odorless unless it’s heated. Or … unless it’s dissolving something.”
Laura unzipped her knapsack and extracted a pair of black, neoprene gloves. She handed them to Rolf, who pulled them on. Next she handed him a plastic bag. He stepped over to the vat, opened the bag, and pulled out a dead rat. Holding it by the tail, he lowered it. From their seated positions, his gloved hand disappeared from view.
There was a crackling sound, and smoky fumes rose. In seconds, the shed was filled with the smell of rotten eggs.
Rolf raised his arm. The rat’s tail was attached to a pulpy, dripping, yellowish red mass. He dropped it in a bucket.
Corbin’s face was ashen. “I know you, Pace! You wouldn’t do this!”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t. But I won’t be here. It’ll just be you and my associate.”
Now Corbin’s eyes were bulging. “Don’t you see? Even if I tell you everything and you don’t kill me, even if I end up in prison, even if I cut a deal in return for my testimony, it won’t matter! This is the Mafia! I’ll never make it to a witness stand alive. Why should I tell you anything if I’m going to die anyway?”
Laura picked up her knapsack. “I see I haven’t done a very good job explaining your new reality.” She rose to her feet. “My friend will take it from here.”
“Okay, okay! You win!”
* * *
Forty minutes later, Laura stepped out of the shed. First she called Renate, then she called Scott.
“You heard?” she asked.
“Dickie looped me in.”
“Renate is using the tape to bait the hook.”
“Good. What about Corbin?”
“We’ll lock her in the safe room.”
“Okay. Lea
ve the key on the table. And, Laura…”
“What?”
“This could still go bad.”
“I know.”
“Be careful. Please!”
43
They found Frank Riley at the airport in Boca Raton.
Waiting for a plane that would arrive too late.
Laura had to hand it to Renate. When fast action was needed, her people delivered. Working from information supplied by Dickie, they discovered that a privately owned Learjet 36 was being readied for a flight out of Long Island’s Republic Airport. The flight plan recorded its destination as KBCT.
Boca Raton Airport.
The jet was registered to a holding company belonging to Gus Mazzara’s attorney, Vincent Basso. From there, it had been a short step to ensure that its departure from Republic would be delayed for several hours by an unforeseen mechanical problem.
So now it was just a matter of flushing Riley out of the Boca terminal.
The private terminal was well appointed, but it wasn’t elaborate. There were no facilities for arriving international flights, all of which had to clear customs at another airport before proceeding to this upscale enclave on the coast. That deficiency had kept things simple. There was only one obvious exit into the parking lot.
Rolf waited there while Laura walked in.
It didn’t take long to spot him. He was sitting on a stool at a small coffee bar, back to the wall, with a takeaway cup in front of him and a laptop case sitting next to it.
That suited Laura perfectly. She didn’t need to approach the man. All she had to do was let him see her. She walked slowly past his position, her eyes scanning, pretending she was searching for someone among the surges of arriving and departing humanity, embracing couples, and car service chauffeurs holding up signs.
Of course, her circuit through the terminal was all an act. She knew Riley would recognize her. And she knew that when he did, he’d scuttle for the exit.
Which was exactly what he did.
He didn’t struggle when Rolf strong-armed him into the backseat of their waiting car. That might have been because of the gun stuck into the small of his back. Laura exited the building a few seconds behind Riley, strode to the car, and slid behind the wheel.
She checked the rear view as they wheeled out of the lot. What she saw was the trembling jowls of a terrified con man with the muzzle of a pistol pressed against his throat.
“So, we meet again, Mr. Riley. Or is it Agent Kemp? But then, you’re not really an ICE agent, are you? You’re just a dirtbag who sells children.”
She swung the vehicle off Airport Road, drove across a parking lot, and parked in a dark service bay behind a movie theater. She swung in her seat and pointed Corbin’s unregistered SK with its dud rounds directly at Riley’s head. Rolf tucked his own weapon away and then shoved the man’s torso forward, facedown on his knees. As Laura pressed the muzzle of her pistol against Riley’s skull, she had the satisfaction of hearing his muffled whimper, “Please! I’ll do anything!” while Rolf zip-tied his wrists behind his back.
Rolf yanked the man upright. Riley’s face was contorted with fear and uncertainty.
“We have Corbin,” Laura said. “And we have all the files. Paperwork on forty-one kids. You’re finished, Riley. And after everything you’ve done to destroy all those families and”—she raised her voice—“ruin my life, there’s really only one reason why you’re still alive.”
“The last kid,” Riley croaked.
“Where’s her file?”
“In my bag.”
“Good start. One other thing…”
“You want to find her.”
“We know where she is. Corbin drew us a map.”
“Then what—?”
“Your boss gave you a little job to do before you head north.”
Frank Riley sat very still, silent and sweating. He looked more afraid than ever.
“There are six car rental companies in Boca. Which one is it, and what name did you use?”
44
Early the next morning, Laura stood at the opening of a rutted dirt track than ran into the bush off a gravel road. To her right was the bed of an old irrigation canal, puddled here and there with murky water. To her left, dense growths of acacia, slash pine, and myrtle.
The steamy hiss of the bush brought back memories. Memories of another gravel road, surrounded by another bush. Memories of being confused and alone.
Memories of being afraid.
About a mile off the main road, Corbin had told them. On the left.
She was five miles south of LaBelle, Florida.
Thirty-five miles from Clewiston.
I was this close and never knew.
They were about to visit a migrant camp—the home of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America who had come to pick oranges and tomatoes. They lived in these scattered ghettos all across the state, miles from the closest towns, their lives controlled by ruthless labor contractors who kept them in poverty with loans for food and rent they could never repay. Their overseers were usually armed, and always dangerous. With good reason, these workers lived in mortal fear of these bosses.
A hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, slavery lived on in the dark corners of America.
All of this Laura knew from her training, but she had never worked with the Border Patrol and ICE teams who had sporadically, and mostly ineffectively, raided these camps.
She got back in the car. “Let’s go.”
Rolf was at the wheel, with Paolo next to him, and Renate and Laura in the back.
Minutes later, the Range Rover rolled into a clearing in the bush. What met the team’s eyes was a jumble of rusting trailers and sagging plywood shacks squatting at the edge of a swamp.
They got out and stood looking around. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The air was thick, the atmosphere brooding.
Laura swatted at a mosquito. “This is no place for a baby.”
“This is no place for anyone,” Rolf replied. “How can your country allow it?” She looked at him. Once in a while, the hard man surprised her.
“Let’s get started,” Renate said, taking the lead. She pointed. “Paolo, you and Laura start at that end, and we’ll start here.”
Paolo nodded and headed across the compound. He and Laura went from shack to shack, trailer to trailer, opening unlocked doors, forcing those that weren’t, searching every room, every cupboard. Every shelter was the same: stained mattresses, stinking sleeping bags, blackened camp stoves, grimy shelves of canned food … and no human beings, living or dead.
“Where is everyone?” Laura muttered to Paolo.
“Probably in the fields.”
They came to a rotting 1960s-era travel trailer. It had been backed into the trees, its tail end suspended above a froth-covered cesspool of camp effluent. There were no steps in front of the door. Laura went in first. As she pulled herself up, the trailer leaned slightly under her weight. Obviously its suspension was shot.
Then she heard it.
A weak cry.
Laura peered into the trailer’s interior. A woman was standing in the archway leading to the rear compartment. She was holding a baby.
It took a few seconds for Laura to realize she was the same young woman she had watched carry baby Gisella onto the Atromos III. Yes, it was definitely her, but she was almost unrecognizable—thinner, hollow-eyed, her face and arms blotched with mosquito bites, and trembling with fear.
From outside came the sound of a shout. It was Renate.
“ROLF!”
The rattle of an automatic weapon split the air. One burst … two …
Laura spun around … and found herself facing Paolo.
He was holding an automatic pistol, and it was pointed at her chest.
“It’s loaded … and not with salt,” he said in Italian.
From behind Laura, stumbling steps and the baby’s startled whimper marked the nanny’s panicked retreat to the rear of the
trailer.
Laura answered Paolo in English. “How do you know? How do you know we didn’t suspect you? With all that time you’ve been spending in the kitchen, how do you know we didn’t switch your ammo?”
“Why don’t we find out?” The impish chef’s grin was gone, replaced by a malevolent smile.
“Yes. Why don’t we?” She took a step toward him.
Her unruffled response startled him. He stepped back.
“Your phone conversation,” she continued, trying to fill the space between them with words. “That night … under the tree. When I asked you about it the next morning, you forgot to mention a few things.”
He stared, uncertain. “What things.”
“You weren’t talking to your boss at AISE. You were talking to your other boss—Taffi Tafuro, the Palermo thug who helped Nelthorp escape to Tunisia. You’ve been feeding Tafuro information about us.” She saw from his expression that her words had hit home.
“How do you know that?”
“Because of the thing I didn’t tell you that morning.”
“What?”
“I understand Sicilianu … enough to get by.”
“You can practice on Gus Mazzara before he kills you.” The malevolent smile was back. “He’ll be here in a minute.”
“Not likely. He was arrested four hours ago.”
At that instant, Rolf exploded through the doorway of the trailer. His sudden appearance was all the distraction Laura needed to rip the weapon from Paolo’s grip and break his wrist in the process. Rolf seized the Italian by the throat and dragged him outside. It was only Jardine’s timely appearance, accompanied by four uniformed officers, that prevented Rolf from snapping Paolo’s neck right there.
The trap Gus Mazzara and Paolo Nori had planned for Laura, Renate, and Rolf had been doomed from the start. After Highway Patrol intercepted a pair of rented SUVs as they drove out of the Hertz lot and arrested Mazzara and his mixed crew of Italian and Cuban gun thugs, Scott Jardine and a squad of state troopers took up positions in the bush surrounding the migrant compound. They were already in place when Laura’s party arrived. Unknown to Paolo, everyone was wired up, and the cops were listening to his conversation with Laura in real time. They were closing in on the trailer when Rolf’s rage at his former friend’s betrayal boiled over.
Killing Pace Page 24