by Marc Rainer
"What about Tim?" Doroz asked.
"She sure as hell can't partner with him," Carter said. "Or have you gone blind in your advancing age?"
"Oh yeah. There is that." Doroz nodded. "He's probably at her place now."
"He needs to be there now," Lynn said. "And since all you men won't say it, I will. Dix is the perfect partner at the moment for Randi. Who else in this room knows what it's like to go through losing a partner? Nobody. It's taken Dix this long to deal with the way Juan died." She looked across the table at Carter. "You can help her through this. That will help you, too, and she'll feel like she's doing something to get back at whoever who did this. Tim's not a rookie, he can go solo, or he can ride with you, Bear."
Trask looked at Carter who was nodding in agreement. He thought he saw tears in the big man's eyes.
Doroz saw it, too. "I thought you were just the squad analyst, Lynn," he said.
"You know better than that," she said. She looked at Trask. "Any problems with that, babe?"
Trask nodded. "Yeah, actually, but none that we can't handle."
"What's our next play, Jeff?" Carter asked.
Trask leaned over the table. "I talked to my man in Mexico. His source tells him the supply line is still open, and that blowing the truck was a double-shot from the cartel. The driver had been ripping them off some way, so they used him to drive a bomb into the District. The Zetas blame us—America and our ATF in particular—for arming their opposition in the Fast and Furious mess. It was their method of retaliation. They've hung some signs around Nuevo Laredo taking credit for the bombing.
"All that means is that their vehicle and driver will be replaced, and that at some point they'll resume deliveries. They can't let their customers wait too long or the junkies will hook up with other suppliers. We keep the camera on the racquet club, and look for a similar pattern with another truck—or a car. It doesn't have to be a ton-and-a-half to haul a few kilos of heroin. If our Mexican source can peg the new driver or vehicle he'll do so, and I'll get a call. Otherwise it's up to us."
"I'll start watching the video feed," Lynn said. She half-smiled at Doroz. "It'll be something for me to analyze'.'
Trask's cell phone vibrated on his belt. He checked it and read the text message. "Oh, hell."
"What's up?" Doroz asked.
"It's from Ross Eastman. I'm being summoned by Heidelberg."
Hart Senate Office Building
3:35 p.m.
One thing was different when Trask entered the room. The big side chair beside Heidelberg's desk—the one usually occupied by Senator Sherwin "Digger" Graves—was empty.
Heidelberg noticed that Trask noticed.
"I didn't tell Senator Graves we'd be meeting today," Heidelberg explained.
"Any particular reason?" Trask asked. He measured the old man carefully. He looks exhausted.
"I just wanted the two of us to talk freely for a while."
"Good," Trask said. "I think that's necessary. Since he's not here, though, I have to ask you something. Did Digger ever date your daughter?"
The senator frowned. "Not that I know of. Like I said before, she had her own life and I never had Janie followed or anything like that. I do know, however, that he wanted to see her socially. Janie told me she 'shot him down,' as you Air Force types say."
"We do say that, sir."
"You don't think he's a suspect, do you?"
"I can't rule him in or out at this point. I just wondered why he was here at every prior meeting, and wondered why he was so interested in our progress. He wasn't really entitled to be present, but since he appeared to be here at your invitation I didn't say anything."
"If you prefer that he not be here in the future, we'll do it that way. At least until you can rule him out."
"I would prefer that."
"I saw the news reports about that truck blowing up and killing all those people. One of the telecasts showed some others on the scene helping with the initial response. I thought I saw you in those shots."
"You did."
"It was related to the case you've been working on, tied to Janie's death, wasn't it?"
"We have plenty of reason to believe it was."
The senator nodded. "I thought so. What can you tell me?"
"Do we have an agreement that this goes no farther than this room, Senator?"
"We do."
Trask remained silent for a moment, still studying the old man's face.
"You're wondering if you can trust me," Heidelberg noted. "Let me tell you this. You mentioned the other deaths caused by this China White heroin. Four or five prostitutes, as I recall. I have to admit that that news didn't really concern me. My daughter wasn't a hooker, Mr. Trask. I had a great deal of difficulty linking her in any way to those other women."
"They were other human beings who died from the same kind of heroin, and that heroin very probably came from the same supplier, Senator."
"I know, I know." The old man put his hands up. "I realize that now. I think the deaths of all those others in the bombing may have jolted me into seeing the magnitude of this whole thing."
Well, Trask thought, maybe the old bird has had an epiphany.
"Who were those people at the store—the victims?" Heidelberg asked.
"Except for the driver of the truck carrying the charges, just folks going about their everyday lives and tasks. Each had a story. If we ever catch the ones responsible, their surviving family members will get a chance to tell those stories."
"What can you tell me about them?"
An odd request. Trask shrugged. "Okay, we'll start with the driver. A little man named Robert Carey. No criminal record to speak of, just a few tickets while out on the road driving trucks. Our intelligence, which I'll explain later, indicates that he'd crossed the wrong people south of the border. Those people are the Zetas Cartel, a crew which may be the closest thing to the Nazis we've seen in the last few decades. They blame the US and the ATF in particular for providing weapons to their competition, the Federation Cartel, through the Fast and Furious disaster. They appear to have substituted C4 for the heroin this trip. Carey and the other victims never knew what hit them. Ironically, ATF's bomb experts were the ones tasked with processing the scene. They found bits and pieces of this and that after the blast, and they've concluded that the charges were detonated by a cell phone wired to the bomb."
"Do you trust these bomb experts?"
"I've never found any fault with the ATF worker bees, Senator. Many are former cops, and there are some fine investigators in that organization. For some reason, however, the cream doesn't seem to rise to the top of that barrel. Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Fast and Furious were all operations severely lacking in the use of common sense. We—the folks in my office—have to get approval from the Pope and every cardinal at main Justice to let a couple of pounds of marijuana out of our control in a reverse sting operation, where we sell drugs to the bad guys. To let hundreds of assault rifles and other firearms walk out the door to the enemy is the most moronic thing I've ever seen."
Heidelberg nodded, and looked down at his desk. "I've never been satisfied with the answers we've gotten in our hearings on that operation. Very troubling." He looked back up at Trask. "You were telling me about the victims at the store."
Trask met the old man's gaze. Something else is going on here. "Yes, I was. You asked me about the ATF bomb squad, so I got sidetracked. Sorry. The other sixteen victims, Senator, were Wanda Blackwell and Newton Boyles, the clerks working the counter in the store; Sally Jean Butler, a nurse who had stopped for gas on her way home after her shift at one of the trauma centers; Ricky Carter, a fifteen-year-old dropout who was there running an errand for his mother—picking up a pizza—I believe; Taneesha DeLancey and her two-year-old daughter Theressa, who were there to buy ice cream for the little girl—"
Trask looked hard at the Senator as he took a breath. I understand now.
"Sandra Freeman, who was there to get a powerball ticket
for her father, an invalid who couldn't leave his house; Isaac Grady, who just liked to hang around the store; Jackie Grantham, an attorney from a firm on K Street who had stopped for gas; Billy Halliwell, a dental student who had been jogging and wanted one of those frozen fountain drinks; Brian Hendrix, a congressional staffer to Representative Hill from Tennessee; and Dana Holland, an off-duty police officer on her way to start her shift. Three of the last four victims were Hal Mauldin, a stay-at-home dad, and his kids Randy, and Carolyn. Hal was standing by a gas pump when the explosion hit. The kids were still in his minivan. When we interviewed their mother she said they were on their way to the National Zoo. That's what we've learned so far from the surviving family members and friends."
Trask stared at Heidelberg. The old man's mouth was hanging open in disbelief.
"The last victim I have to mention is—was—Sam McInnis. He was the police officer who originally put us onto what we believe was the load truck that was bringing the heroin into town. This time the truck wasn't carrying heroin. It was carrying C4."
Trask waited for Heidelberg to say something. He didn't.
"Did I pass, Senator?"
Heidelberg reached down and pulled a newspaper clipping out from under a stack of papers on the top of his desk. He held it up sheepishly. "Yes, you passed."
"Where do you think The Post got most of that information, Senator? I gave it to our PR guy and he passed it on."
Heidelberg sat in stunned silence for a moment. "Why and how did you remember all that?"
"I never, NEVER forget the victims, Senator. That includes your daughter. Are we clear on that?"
"Yes. We are now."
"Are we done here?" I resent the hell out of this little game. I don't care who you are.
The senator leaned back in his chair, but this time there was no arrogance, no attitude. When he spoke, he spoke softly. "No, Mr. Trask. We aren't done. I'm from Texas. I've had some briefings about the Zetas. We have a common enemy here, so let's try a fresh start. I lost my only daughter, and it's hard to wait for answers. I'm sorry if I've pushed too hard, tried to rush things."
The old man started to tremble. He looked at Trask though eyes swollen with tears.
"How can I help you, Mr. Trask?"
Tampico Naval Air Station
Tamaulipas, Mexico
June 17, 2011, 4:45 a.m.
"Hello." Aguilar answered the special phone he carried.
"It’s me."
"Your information was perfect, my friend. I passed it on to our men in Zacatecas. They captured Lazcano's man Huerta—the one they call El Wache—and twenty-one others yesterday. Huerta confessed to being involved in the massacre at San Fernando, and showed them some mass graves from other murders. Well done, my friend. Well done. Your other information has been passed on to my friend in the US. Whatever other intelligence you can get on the heroin could also be very fruitful."
"I will do what I can."
"You have always provided heroic service for us. More than I thought would be possible when we began."
"I have to go, Captain," the man said.
"I understand, my friend. Stay safe."
Washington, D.C.
2:27 p.m.
"How long has this been going on, Jeff?" Dr. Ramsey Huddleston asked.
"A few months. I thought it was psychosomatic. The Air Force docs in San Antonio ran some tests and couldn't find anything. First the hand just shook a lot, but when I got to work this morning I had to use my right arm to reach across and open the car door. My left was just too weak."
"No pain to speak of, just weakness?"
"Right."
"What kind of tests did they do in Texas?"
"Mostly nerve stuff."
"It was just the hand then?"
"Yeah. Now it's the whole arm. Like I said, it doesn't really hurt—"
"That's what you said when we found you had double pneumonia last year, and it nearly took you out. No chest pains, even when you were down more than twenty-five per cent on lung capacity. We're going to have to wake you up one day to tell you that you died during the night."
"I thought it was just a cold. I really didn't have any pain with it."
"Any past history of similar incidents, other than the pneumonia?"
"I played the second half of an intramural football game at the academy on a broken ankle. I collapsed when the game was over."
The doctor nodded. "This isn't unheard of, but cases of this degree are pretty rare. You have a ridiculously high pain threshold, especially when you're focused and concentrating on something else. On top of that, you've got an area across the upper chest area—at least on the inside—where your nerves just aren't talking to your brain at all."
"What do you call that?"
"Abnormal. But I suspect I'm not the first to call you that. I read a recent study on this kind of thing. Some researchers tested the pain sensitivity of a bunch of healthy folks by touching them with a hot probe. Then they gave the test subjects an MRI, and determined that the ones least sensitive to pain were the ones with the most grey matter in certain parts of the brain. You're a very bright guy, Jeff. You're probably better able to distract yourself from the pain messages your nerves are trying to get through to that head of yours."
The exam room door opened and a nurse handed Huddleston a large envelope. "Let's see what these tell us," he said, putting the X-rays of Trask's left shoulder on the light rack. The doctor paused, then turned back toward Trask.
"Just how long have you been walking around with a shattered collar bone?"
"What!?"
"The end of the thing is all sharded, Jeff. Look here. The bone splinters are digging into the muscle tissue in your shoulder. That's why the arm's shutting down. Your muscle strength is probably down to near nothing. When did this happen?"
"I had to tackle a couple of people at that bombing site—"
"No, no, no. This is an old injury. You can tell from the patterns in the bones that some have tried to heal and set. You don't remember hurting it?"
"Sorry, no."
"No falls, impacts?"
"A tumble skiing last year, and I had a tussle with a couple of bad guys in our house before Lynn shot 'em, but that was several months back."
"And you haven't felt any pain?"
"Not really."
"You, my friend, are not wired right."
"You're not the first to say that, either. How do we fix it?"
"Surgery, cowboy. I know a good ortho guy. He'll have to file down the end of the bone here, smooth it out, re-attach the labrum, basically rebuild the entire AC joint. He can do it on an out-patient basis, meaning you can go home after the surgery, but there'll be some rehab therapy. They'll give you some pain pills for after the surgery … oh what the hell. You probably won't even take them, will you?"
"We'll see. When can he do it?
"I'll call him. Are you at a spot in your schedule where you can take some time off?"
"No."
"Of course not. Just don't overdo it or you'll have to have the whole thing re-done. Here—" The doctor wrote down the phone number for the referral. "Call them Monday morning. I'll tell them to work you in as soon as they can."
"Thanks. It's a relief, actually. I was beginning to think something was wrong with my head."
The doc just looked at him. "If you're waiting for me to say something to cast some doubt on that conclusion …"
"Thanks again." Trask smiled and headed for the door.
South of Nuevo Laredo
Tamaulipas, Mexico
June 21, 2011, 8:41 a.m.
"Why isn't he dead yet?" Heriberto Lazcano pounded the head of the table. "I do not hear an answer!"
"He is like a snake, Lazca. He strikes and then crawls back in his hole." The Zeta sitting closest to Lazcano on the left side of the table seemed impressed with his analogy.
Lazcano glared at the man. "Do snakes fly, Emilio?"
"No, Lazca," the man said, a co
nfused look on his face. "Snakes cannot fly."
"Then why say something that stupid? We know where Aguilar's hole is. It is that damned base in Tampico, where we cannot reach him. He and his marines hide there, climb into their helicopters whenever they feel brave, and they can be anywhere within hours. They are not snakes, you fool. Finish your breakfast in silence."
The admonished Zeta fixed his eyes on his plate.
"Anyone else have anything better to offer, or are we all just waiting for the marines to ambush us again?" Lazcano asked.
"Your question is an excellent one, Lazca," Dominguez said, sitting on Lazcano's right. "And it suggests our answer. We must ambush the marines. We step up our attacks on targets which will attract Aguilar and his men. When they come to respond, we ambush them."
Lazcano clapped his hands together. "Finally! Ramon demonstrates why he is my second in command. Do you have some targets in mind, my friend?"
"Let's try something in an area that they do not know as well. We've fought them everywhere in Tamaulipas. We will set something in motion elsewhere, and lure them onto ground that they do not know."
"Yes," Lazcano said. "We will do that. And this time, we will not be outnumbered."
FBI Field Office
Washington, D.C.
June 24, 2011, 9:17 a.m.
"Well! The cast is gone. How's the wing?" Carter asked as Trask entered the squad room.
"Just came from my first rehab appointment," Trask said, "And quite probably, my last."
"What the hell did you do, Jeff?" Lynn was standing with her hands on her hips, looking over the top of her cubicle wall.
"Just followed directions."
"Explain, please." She folded her arms across her chest.
"I go in, and this guy—the head therapist—takes my medical history. I told him the whole story. No pain before or after the surgery. Never took any pills, never needed any. He asked to see the range of motion, so I gave him a full windmill with the arm. Nothing fast, I just showed him I could do the full three-sixty. He takes me over to a greased track with a metal weight on it—probably ten pounds or so—and hands me one end of a bungee cord. The other end is tied to the weight. He tells me to move the weight as fast as I can so he could measure my pain tolerance, despite what I'd told him. I gave the thing a good yank, it jumped the track at the far end, flew across the room and put a hole in the wall. End of rehab."