CHAPTER 70

Sonia Blakely’s office was downtown. But we knew if we showed up and she wasn’t there, her assistant would text her before we were out the door.

“We have her cell,” Kylie said. “Ping it.”

We did. She was at Forlini’s, a family-owned Italian restaurant on Baxter Street that was so old-school, it had become Instagram trendy. At lunchtime, it would be packed with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, bail bondsmen, and of course, criminals.

Blakely was at a booth with three men, enjoying her last meal as a free woman.

Kylie and I approached the table. She looked up, recognized us immediately, and forced a smile.

Kylie smiled back. “Hell-l-l-lo-o-o-o, Mother,” she said, stretching the two words out into a very un–New York languid drawl, letting them hang in the air—bad tidings dripping with honey.

Blakely let the fork drop from her hand, and Kylie snapped the cuffs on her.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she bellowed.

Kylie yanked her out of her seat and toward the front door.

Blakely was apoplectic. “Are you out of your fucking minds? I’ll have you fired. Then I’ll sue your asses, and I won’t let up until I’ve taken your homes, your cars, and every penny you have in the bank.”

People looked up from their paglia e fieno or their veal chop valdostana. Most of them shrugged and went back to their lunches. They had spent their lives in the criminal justice system. They’d seen it before.

We perp-walked Blakely out of the restaurant. Kylie remained stone-faced, but I knew that inside she was doing cartwheels. She would gladly have paraded Blakely through the crowded streets, past the county courthouse, Foley Square, and the rest of Lower Manhattan, where friends and enemies alike knew that her reputation was legend.

But there was no time to revel in the collar. We put her in the car, still ranting, and within minutes we led her into the building at One Saint Andrews Plaza.

Her wrath turned to fear. “What are we doing here?” she insisted. “You have no right to take me here.”

“Here” was the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. As soon as we walked her through the door, Blakely realized that she would no longer be dealing with the city, the county, or the state. We had kicked up the charges to the most punishing court in the land: the federal government. And as every lawyer knows, when you end up fed, you end up dead.

Blakely is combative by nature. She thinks she’s at her best when she’s arguing her case. But we hadn’t said a word to her since we took her from the restaurant, and I could see that our silence had her unnerved. She was trembling as we took her upstairs to the fourth-floor conference room.

The welcoming committee was already there: Selma Kaplan from the Manhattan DA’s office, two FBI agents who had been called in because Blakely’s crimes crossed state and international lines, and Edward Owen, an assistant US Attorney.

Sonia knew him. “Ed, I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, “but tell these morons who I am and get these fucking cuffs off me.”

“You’re a prisoner, Sonia,” Owen said. “The cuffs stay on.”

Not the response she’d expected, but she fought back. “This is outrageous. I want to speak to my lawyer. How can you allow them to interrogate me without reading me my rights?”

“You have no rights,” Owen replied. “You get no lawyer. Dickerson v. United States reaffirmed that the Miranda rule is out the window if these officers have determined someone is at immediate risk of death or serious injury.”

The last ounce of bravado drained from her face. She didn’t ask whose life was at risk. She knew.

Owen gestured to a chair, and Blakely sank into it. Then he nodded to me and Kylie. I gave my partner the honors.

Kylie moved closer to the chair and looked down at Blakely. “Where are Megan Rollins and Wayman Tate?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” Blakely said. It was a lame response. A stall while she ran her options through her head.

“They kidnapped a teenage boy,” Kylie said. “If anything happens to him, you’re looking at the death penalty. Now, where are Megan Rollins and Wayman Tate?”

Blakely turned to Owen. “I want a deal,” she said.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“Total immunity.”

“No,” he said, his voice cold and uncaring, making his response all the more menacing. “I could have you tried, convicted, and on death row in three weeks. Here’s my best offer. You’ll do time in a federal prison, and if you stay healthy, you won’t be leaving in a box. How old are you?”

“Forty-nine,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “I’ll be fifty in September.”

“If you give us what we need, and if no harm comes to that hostage, you can get out of prison by your seventieth birthday. Don’t bother doing the math. It’s twenty years, and it’s a gift.”

Before she could negotiate, Owen looked at his watch. “I have a meeting in two minutes,” he said. “My generous offer expires as soon as I walk out the door.”

I remember seeing a documentary where an old lioness was surrounded by a clan of twenty hyenas, and the camera moved in on the pitiful look of defeat in her eyes when she realized she couldn’t survive the ordeal. Sonia’s eyes welled up with tears and that same mournful look of resignation. The queen of the jungle knew that her reign was over.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I accept the deal.”

Owen responded with a look that was part contempt, part pity, and he walked out of the room.

“Where are Megan Rollins and Wayman Tate?” Kylie said for the third time.

“I don’t know where they are right this minute,” Blakely said, “but I have a plane on the way to get them out of the country.”

“Details,” Kylie said.

“It’s a Gulfstream G650. Pickup is at Monmouth Executive Airport in New Jersey. Eighteen hundred hours.”

“Where are they going?”

“Bogotá, Colombia.”

“Who will be on the plane?”

“Just the two pilots. They’ve worked for us for years. I pay them enough so they don’t ask questions. They’ll land, pick up the passengers, and take off.”

“What about Theo Wilkins?” I asked.

“He’s with them. Sheffield told him a lot. They’ll interrogate him in flight.”

“And what happens to him when he gets to Colombia?”

“I don’t know,” she said, turning away from me.

I grabbed her chin and turned her face toward mine so she could see the rage in my eyes. “Don’t . . . you . . . fucking . . . lie to me,” I said, spitting out the words. “What happens to the boy after they’ve beat everything out of him?”

She began sobbing, lowering her head to her chest.

I dropped to my knees and screamed in her ear. “answer the fucking question! Where are they taking Theo when he gets to Colombia?”

She looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said, whimpering, gasping for air. “I’m really, really sorry. They’re flying over the Atlantic Ocean. He’s never going to get to Colombia.”