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Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2015, Seattle
Rand Nickerson was in an 8 a.m. meeting with his boss and Stan Warren. He hated early morning meetings. Moreover, his boss hated them, and tended to make his life miserable for having to call one. Rand was briefing the two of them about what he knew. He knew more now than he had last night when Mac called him, but it was still mostly conjecture.
Special Agent in Charge William Noble was a good man. Gruff, tough, a westerner through and through. He liked western boots. Stan Warren had never had a pair of western boots on his feet in his life. He was East Coast all the way. Although Rand had heard he’d grown up in West Virginia, he smacked of D.C. with his expensive suits and polished shoes.
The two of them were learning to respect each other, Rand thought. He’d be interested to see how well they pulled together on this one.
“So, we should just have Shorty Guillermo come in and brief us,” Rand began. He had a Starbucks coffee cup in his hand, more to give himself pauses as needed, although with as little sleep as he’d had, he needed the caffeine hit as well. “Short version, Mac Davis got a text supposedly from his cousin, saying he’d trusted a cop, and it wasn’t going well. Could Mac come down and protect his girls and wife while he sorted it out? We now know, that was actually an SOS message Toby had given his wife to use.”
Rand walked them through the story. “So Mac called me last night and told me he was heading into Mexico with his cousin and their cartel connections — who are apparently Mac’s long-lost father, and half-brother.” He explained all of that.
“But something’s off with all of this,” Rand continued. “Mac thought it was weird that Shorty got one reaction from the cops when he emailed dispatch that there was a break-in going on, and Mac got another one, when he called to say he’d managed to escape on his own. It did seem weird.”
Rand had made some calls last night, and more this morning before coming in. None to anyone in Vallejo, he assured the two men, because he didn’t know who to trust, maybe no one. Rand hesitated, then looked at Stan Warren. He’d investigated Mac thoroughly once. He sighed. Well, if they didn’t know, they would have to now. “So the biggest drug dealer in Vallejo is Toby Rollings, Mac’s cousin,” he said. “Apparently he is trying to get out of the business. He has some cops on retainer so to speak, so he knows not to go to the locals. He goes to the DEA. DEA puts him in temporary protection and starts to grill him. But as time goes on, Rollings gets spooked. And 24 hours ago, he walked away from the safe house. Went to his office, hooked up with Mac, and the cartel reps, and they’re all on their way to Mexico.”
Rand still hesitated. “Mac used to be Rollings’ last-ditch enforcer,” he finally said bluntly. “After he got out of the Marines. If Toby needed a contract enforcer, he’d call Mac. Mac would go down, do whatever Toby needed done. It’s how he put himself through college. Not very many hits. But a couple.”
Stan didn’t look surprised, and Rand gave a sigh of relief. Noble swore under his breath.
“So someone recognized Mac,” Rand continued. “I think that’s why the cops’ reaction changed. Just a bit of warfare between rival gangs. I got ahold of a reporter down there — the one Janet found for Mac. He reluctantly filled me in. I assured him Mac was what he said he was — a reporter in good standing who worked for Janet Andrews.”
“You’re sure he’s honest?” Noble asked. “The reporter?”
Rand shrugged. “I’d trust Janet’s vetting against anyone’s, including the FBI’s.”
Stan snorted, but he nodded.
“So, how does this tie into the FBI surveillance outside that Marysville gun dealer’s place?” Noble asked. “What’s his name?”
Trust Noble to keep his eye on the turf games. “Craig Anderson,” Rand supplied. “Somewhat ambiguous character. But Mac went to bat for him after the North Cascades mission. Anderson returned the favor by supplying Mac with information about what Malloy was up to last fall.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Stan said dryly. Rand grinned briefly.
“Mac says Craig is in Vallejo and gave him his usual greeting — which means he probably shot at him. Missed him,” Rand said, somewhat unnecessarily.
“So the FBI staked out his old place because he’s returned to Vallejo?” Noble asked.
“No,” Rand said. “I did a background check. Craig Anderson was a cop in Vallejo 20 years ago. He was given the option of quitting or being prosecuted. My sources tell me he was probably set up. He drifted for a while, ended up here.”
“Is he the dirty cop Rollings referred to?” Stan asked.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Rand said. “Rollings would have been 12 or so when that went down. But I think Anderson knows who the dirty cop is — probably the same man who set him up. Turns out, Anderson’s ex-wife is an assistant chief of police in the county seat down there. She wouldn’t talk to me this morning about it. Just wanted to know if ‘Ben’ was OK? And when I goofed and revealed that I didn’t know who Ben was, she shut up.”
“So Ben, whoever he is, was the person hiding in Anderson’s apartment,” Noble said slowly, reasoning it out. “And he gets trapped there, by those two stooges who have it staked out. Anderson does something....”
“He called in an anonymous report of a break-in,” Rand said, appreciating Noble’s quick uptake. “He knew it would make the blotter. Mac would see the address, and head up to check it out. Except Mac was already headed south, and he asked Angie Wilson to go. Angie did, the sedan follows her — they’d been sitting up there for three days by then — and ‘Ben’ escapes.”
“Do we know where he went?” Noble asked.
Rand hesitated. “I’ve got an idea,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll follow up later.”
Noble nodded. “So Ben is so important that the northern California FBI office can free up two agents for a trip north, for three days? longer?”
Rand sipped his coffee. “Who knows?” he said. “I know a guy in the San Francisco office. I gave him a call this morning at home. He says that’s not possible. It’s not protocol. I said we ran the plates.”
“And?”
“He hung up, called me back a few minutes later. Subtracting all of the cussing, the northern California FBI office has two men on personal leave. And yes, they checked out an FBI sedan. My contact said they told another agent, they were going to do a favor for a friend — someone on an interagency drug task force.”
Rand described the drug task force, and the failed bust. The three men looked at each other in silence.
“So is this our problem?” Noble asked. Rand assumed it was rhetorical and shook Stan off when he started to answer.
“They made it our problem when they came into our area, unannounced, staked out a private dwelling — without a search warrant — followed a young woman home, scaring her needlessly,” Noble said, his voice getting louder and louder. Rand bit his cheek to keep from laughing. Noble could justify about anything if he put his mind to it.
“So, get us an invitation to the party, Nickerson,” Noble ordered. “Who do we send down there? You?”
“Not me,” Rand said regretfully. “Well, at least, not just me. Mac Davis suggested Joe Dunbar might be a good guy to send down.”
The three of them considered that, and Stan began to smile. “Think the Seattle PD would loan him to us?” he asked. “And I could go down, make a lot of noise, draw attention to me, and let him do the undercover investigation?”
“And the invite?” Noble demanded.
“DEA wants their potential informant back,” Rand said. “Alive. They were salivating over all the information Toby Rollings would have. And the notion that there’s a bad cop that sold him out? They’ll want that cop’s head on a platter.”
“Is that what the bad cop did?” Stan asked. “Sold out their potential CI? To whom?”
“Well, that’s where it gets interesting,” Rand agreed. “I think he sold him out to the Del Toro cartel. Which means the cop has a link to the cartel — not just to the local drug dealer.”
Stan stared at him. “That would be the same cartel that Mac is headed into?”
“That’s the one,” Rand agreed. “Davis, Rollings, both.”
“Shit,” Stan muttered. He stared at the ceiling for a moment. “Do we have any funds to hire Guillermo as our computer expert?”
Noble shrugged. “Probably,” he agreed. “Do we need him?”
“Yeah,” Stan Warren said. “We do. We’re going to need to know who reaches out to the Del Toro cartel from the Vallejo law enforcement agencies. And if we want a leash on Mac Davis, Shorty Guillermo is the closest thing we have to it.”
Noble considered that and nodded. “Do it,” he ordered. “Do we know where Davis is right now?”
“No,” Rand said. “But I’ll be willing to bet Guillermo can tell us.”
Stan raised his eyebrow, questioning that.
“What? If you had a loose cannon for a friend and you were one of the premier data analysts in the region, would you let him leave home without a find-me tracker?” Rand demanded.
Stan Warren snorted at that, but he didn’t disagree. “How much do we tell Janet? Or Angie?”
“Might as well tell them all of it,” Noble said. “Or they won’t tell us what they learn. And Janet Andrews has better sources than we do. Much better.”
Which proved the old man wasn’t stupid, Rand thought, and he went to make his calls.
At 5 p.m., Nick Rodriguez rolled off the elevator in his wheelchair. Rand flinched inwardly at the sight. Nick could walk, but he said he saved his walking hours for his kids — the department could deal with his chair. And if Rand thought Nick was rubbing the Seattle Police Department’s nose in their shitty behavior last fall? Nick probably wouldn’t argue. Nick had been left hanging out there for target practice. The SPD should feel guilty. Oh, it had cleaned house of some of the worst culprits. Some of them were up on attempted murder charges. But plenty of others still had jobs.
Although one of the worst, the president of the police union, might still have a job, he was no longer union president. He might have escaped charges — so far, but the humiliation was burning him up. Rumor had it, that had been Mac’s revenge. Mac could be a nasty little bugger, Rand thought. Do not get on Mac’s bad side.
Lieutenant Joe Dunbar came in with Angie and Janet. Angie was teasing him about something, and he actually cracked a smile. He was a 30-something Black man, with a lean, runner’s build. He’d never been someone the department sent out for Officer Friendly duty in the schools. But he had a bitter edge now that he didn’t use to have. He was a detective, and his career was effectively stalled. In Seattle, he’d be a lieutenant and a detective until he retired.
Rand nodded at Janet Andrews. Like the others, he respected the woman. She could organize and dispatch people like no other. He’d watched her last fall. Then she’d synthesize the information they brought in and made it into stories that moved people. Without breaking a sweat even. Her staff said her tell was the condition of her hair — the messier, the more stressed. He’d take their word for it.
He’d never known a journalist before; never wanted to. Thought they were assholes for the most part.
And for the most part, they were, Rand thought, amused at that. But then so were cops.
Shorty Guillermo was the last of the team to come up the elevator. Well, he had to make it across the bridge from Bellevue. He was carrying a laptop.
The team’s all here, Rand thought. This was the core of the team from last fall. He’d trust them with his life. He already had.
It felt strange though without Mac, without his intensity and drive. Without that core of rage.
Bill Noble walked into the conference room followed by Warren, deferentially a half-step behind him. Stan Warren knew how to play the power games — had played them for so long, he probably didn’t even realize he was doing it.
“Thank you all for coming,” Noble said. “So we’ve been tasked by headquarters to assist DEA in determining what went wrong in a major drug investigation in Vallejo, California. It is their perception that local law enforcement has been compromised — including the northern California FBI.”
Rodriguez’s eyes narrowed. “Cut the bull, Bill,” he said. “What the hell’s going on? And why isn’t Mac in here?”
“Well, that’s the problem,” Stan said. He started through the story.
The nice thing about having to tell the story so many times is that it got boiled down and often that made things clearer, Rand thought. The downside was he had to sit through this story one more time.
“And you want what from us?” Joe asked warily.
“From you? We want you to go down to Vallejo undercover,” Stan said. “You can pass for someone who isn’t a cop — which is more than I can say about the rest of us. Rand does OK as a hick up in the woods, but Vallejo? No. And me? Everything about me screams I’m from D.C. — and I’m OK with that,” he added when people snickered.
“So, Lt. Rodriguez? I’d like to have you coordinate the task force from here,” Bill Noble said. “Mr. Guillermo? I’m authorizing a consulting contract for you, if you’re willing.”
“I’m not cheap,” Shorty warned him.
“Do you have a tracking device on Mac?” Rand asked.
Shorty just looked at him blankly. Angie, however, was looking at Shorty with speculation.
“I would, if I were in your shoes,” Rand continued. “And if so? You’re worth whatever price SAC Noble has to pay.”
Shorty laughed at that. “Yeah, his pickup and his phone are both together and near the Mexico border,” he said. “Looks like they’re crossing at Lukeville — a small border station about half-way between Nogales and San Luis.”
“Good,” Noble said. “So we know the task force had a leak. They scooped up the small fry, but nothing to justify the resources that went into that investigation. It’s thought that the leak went to the Rollings crew — none of their people were in the arrests. But the DEA was already bringing in Toby Rollings. He wants out. And you don’t just walk away. The cartel would gun him down within hours. So he’s looking at witness protection, and in exchange he’d tell them what he knows. He’d be a goldmine of information. But something happened; the DEA doesn’t know what spooked him, but he walked away from the safe house 24 hours ago. And he’s supposedly headed to Mexico with Davis.”
“The thing is that the DEA doesn’t think the leak is between local drug dealers and local cops. They think someone is leaking to the cartel,” Rand said. “Which makes me nervous about Mac. What are they telling the cartel about Mac?”
“Depends on which Mac they think they’re dealing with,” Shorty said. “Toby’s cousin? Or Janet’s reporter?”
“There’s some indication that Mac has been labeled as Toby’s cousin and contract enforcer,” Rand agreed. He glanced at the women in the room. Did they know this? Janet looked serene, but he thought she’d look like that if a bomb went off under her chair. Angie was struggling to school her face. So no, she didn’t know exactly what Mac had done for Toby in the past. Well, there was no room for secrets here.
“Mac pointed that out,” Shorty said. “The police were very responsive when I was emailing dispatch about the home invasion that was underway. But when Mac called them later to say he escaped, they were distant and uninterested. He said Geller, the reporter, was equally so.” Shorty glanced at Janet.
“I’ll call him,” Janet said briefly.
“So they may leak to the Del Toro cartel that Mac is Toby’s enforcer?” Stan asked. “Hard to see that’s a problem — not for Mac at least.”
“So there’s another complication,” Rand said slowly. “Craig Anderson. Turns out, Craig was a cop in Vallejo, but he was fired 20 years ago — supposedly for being on the take with the local drug dealers. My source says he was set up.” He updated everyone on the rest of that. “So, when I called his ex, she said, ‘Is Ben OK?’ Then she refused to say anything more and hung up. My guess is that Ben, whoever he is, was the person in Craig’s apartment, Angie. He’s not there now.”
Angie nodded.
“So I thought, where else would Craig stash someone, and I called Ken Bryson, the outfitter I worked with in the North Cascades,” Rand continued. “And I said, so how’s Ben?”
There were laughs at that.
“And he said which Ben?” Rand said, rolling his eyes. “I said, is he safe? We had interest down here. And I was informed that Ken didn’t know of any Ben who was in danger.”
“I see he is his usual talkative self,” Angie observed.
Rand nodded, and they smiled at each other. They both had done guide work for Ken. Good man. Cranky bastard, though. “Here’s the thing. Ben is young. Ken is troubled that he’s missing school and wondered if he should enroll him up there. Ben isn’t receptive to that. Wants to go home.”
Noble frowned. “What are you thinking? This is Anderson’s own private witness protection program?”
Rand nodded. “That’s exactly what I think,” he agreed. “Which means that Ben knows who the bad cop is. I think Angie should go up and talk to him.”
Angie and Janet looked at each other. Janet gave her a brief nod. “I can do that,” Angie said. “I’ll go up in the morning.”
“Take my car, maybe?” Rand suggested. “Those FBI agents that trailed you? I think they’re lurking about still. They’re off the clock by the way. Doing a favor for another task force member. They may not even know why they’re looking for him.”
Angie nodded. “Just going up on my day off to talk to Ken about possible gigs this spring,” she said.
“That works,” Rand agreed.
Shorty had set up his laptop and had been working on something while Rand briefed everyone. He looked up now. “Ben McBath,” he said. “He’s 16, the nephew of Craig’s ex, Jesse McBath. But get this, his mother is an assistant district attorney. And she was on the task force.”
“Do you think she’s dirty?” Stan asked.
Shorty shrugged. “No, not really,” he said. “That doesn’t game out right. I think she might be set up to take the fall for it, though.”
Stan nodded slowly. “So, Joe goes down, but how do we embed him anywhere useful?”
“Send him down as Mac’s replacement,” Shorty suggested. “An old friend of Mac and Toby. Is Keisha still in Vallejo?” He looked at Angie.
She nodded. “Michael Rollings got here with the girls this afternoon,” she said. “Nice man. College professor. Girls are great. So he called Keisha, and she’s going to fly up. But she’s waiting a couple of days. Said she feels watched. She doesn’t want to panic whoever is watching.”
“Smart woman,” Rodriguez said, the first thing he’d contributed. “Can she introduce Joe to Rollings crew?”
“I would think so,” Shorty said. “Joe? That puts you right in the midst of the drug operation. You OK with that? You’re homicide, right? Not narcotics.”
Joe took the time to think about it. “I’ve never done undercover work,” he said finally. “But this should work. If I hear you right, all I have to do is look intimidating.”
“Pretty much,” Shorty agreed. “They’re going to be in disarray without Toby or Mac. They may look to you for leadership. And something Mac said? One of them is a link to the cartel — Ping. But he thinks one of the others might have ties to cops. He wondered if one was an undercover cop, actually.”
Joe nodded. “Can you book me a flight? And can someone call her — Keisha?”
Angie said she would.
“So I’m also going down,” Stan said. Rand wasn’t happy about this decision. He had wanted to go. “I’m going to play the asshole outsider coming in to ask questions about the failure of the task force.”
“Play?” Joe asked, raising an eyebrow. Stan ignored him, but Rand grinned at the young cop. Shorty snickered.
“So book me a flight too,” he said to Shorty.
“I need an account number to pay for all of this,” Shorty said. “And Joe’s ticket cannot come from an FBI account.”
“No,” Joe said, looking horrified at the thought of it.
“They’re going to be able to figure out you’re a cop pretty easily,” Janet interjected.
Joe shrugged. “That’s not as big a problem,” he said. “A cop on the take? Doing a favor for Mac? Doubt that is going to be a hard sell. But an FBI plane ticket? That’s a problem.”
Shorty nodded. “Give me a credit card,” he said. “SAC Noble? You’ll need to transfer funds to him ASAP.”
Rand watched with amusement as Shorty started giving orders. Things happened right now — no paperwork, just give me a credit card. And even Bill did it. Angie was looking at her watch.
Rodriguez was looking around the conference room. “If this is going to be our coordination room, I need a white board I can write on from this chair,” he said. “Shorty? What else will you need?”
“Evening access,” he said, almost absently. “I’m teaching, remember? I can come over for a couple of hours, but truthfully? I can do everything and more from my apartment. Do I need to be physically present?”
“It would be helpful,” Nick Rodriguez said. “I’m old school.”
Shorty shrugged and nodded. He reached into his computer bag and pulled out a cell phone. He fiddled with it for a few moments and then tossed it to Joe. “It’s clean,” he said. “I put the numbers for Toby Rollings, Mac, Angie and me in there. None of those would be surprising. And Keisha’s too. In fact, Ping would probably find it comforting.”
“Ping?” Joe asked.
“Second in command,” Shorty said. “I’ll do up a brief dossier of the players and email it to you. You now have a new email on gmail.” He gave him the details, and Joe used his new phone to access the account. “Good,” he said. “When’s my flight out?”
“First thing in the morning,” Shorty said. “Angie? You need to call Keisha.”
“Do we trust her?” Angie said slowly. “I’m not sure....”
There was a pause. Joe shrugged. “Just tell her the cover story then, and ask her to meet me?”
Angie nodded. She pulled out her phone and called Keisha’s number. The rest of them listened in silence as she chatted with the woman. Then finally, “Mac said for me to make arrangements to send down a buddy of his to take his place. With Toby and Mac both headed to Mexico, he thought it would be good if Joe was there. He’s a take-charge kind of guy — like Mac.”
Angie listened. “Yeah, I know him,” she said in response to something. “Good guy. You’ll like him. Can you pick him up at the airport? Introduce him to Ping and the rest of them? He’ll take it from there. He’s mostly there as backup to Ping — like Mac.”
Joe looked at Rand and raised his eyebrows. Rand shrugged briefly. Yes, she’d basically just said Joe was an enforcer.
“Are you coming up? I really want to meet you,” Angie went on. They talked about that for a bit, and then Angie hung up.
“She’ll pick you up in the morning. Says you can stay at their place.”
“What about me?” Stan said, plaintively.
“You get to deal with government bureaucracy,” Shorty said wryly. “Good luck.”
And that seemed to be the ending of the meeting. People packed their things up and headed out the door. Rand, Stan and Bill watched them go in silence.
“Well.” Bill turned to the other two. “Do you suppose we could delegate all of our meetings to them?”
Rand grinned.