Natasha looked at Jack when he hung up from speaking with Connie. “Is everything okay?”
Jack smiled. “Everything is fine. Bad guys killing bad guys, but you know how Connie feels about that.”
“I see. A good offence is a good defence.”
“Bad guys killing each other is one thing, but do you know what the best thing is?”
Natasha shook her head.
“Our romantic dinner is back on. I don’t have to go to work.”
“You sure?” questioned Natasha.
“Well, as sure as I can ever be. I need to call Laura back and let her know. Why don’t you go shave your legs while I do.” He grinned.
Jack’s call to Laura was brief.
“Looks like Boyle won the most valuable player award,” replied Laura.
“Yeah, he scored a hat trick.”
“With an assist from you,” added Laura.
“Me?” replied Jack, with mock surprise.
“Yeah, act surprised, show concern, deny, deny, deny. Do you think Connie will ever figure it out?”
“She has her suspicions,” admitted Jack.
“She’ll be ticked off if she ever finds out,” said Laura.
“At least we know we need to concentrate on Benny Wong CC-1. Boyle saved us a lot of time. We could have spent months working the Vietnamese without ever learning that Wong was somehow connected.”
“You don’t think Wong was simply doing the Vietnamese a favour? Maybe letting them know the heat was on?”
“According to Roger Morris, any leak in the past was in favour of the Chinese. I don’t think Wong would risk burning his source at AOCTF by helping out the Vietnamese if it didn’t affect him. I’m sure it was for his own benefit.”
“Makes sense. Too bad we didn’t see who whacked Anh.”
“That would have been nice.”
“Also, makes me wonder why they wasted airfare on Duc and Nguyen. Why not shoot them like they did Anh?”
“I think it was because Duc and Nguyen had more prominent roles in society and they figured it would attract unwanted police attention locally. How much attention would two guys disappearing in Hong Kong bring?”
“Good point.”
“As far as Anh goes, he was a low-level hood. His murder was set up to make it look like another gang hit. Something the police would be expected to believe.”
“So where to from here?”
“Let’s take the rest of the day and tomorrow off. Come Friday afternoon, we’ll sit down with Connie and Roger and go over a few things.”
“Like whether or not we should be charged with conspiracy to murder?”
“It wasn’t us who passed the report on to AOCTF. I explicitly told Connie that it was to be treated on a need-to-know basis. How were we to know that Boyle would try to back-stab us and use the report to try and figure out who our informant was?”
“Other than we knew he called Forensics to see if they had fingerprinted anything for us and that he is stupid and egotistical … gee … how could we have known he would do that,” said Laura, sarcastically.
“Exactly. To give Connie credit, she wants to transfer him, but isn’t sure if she will be able to do it.”
“Too bad.”
“No worries. Come Friday I’ll have a private conversation with him. I have a feeling he will be asking for an immediate transfer.”
You play with the bull you get the horns, thought Laura.
Later, back at her office, Connie sat at her desk and glowered through her open door at Boyle who was out in the main office. Jack read that asshole right the first time he met him. I’m surprised he let him get a copy of his report … especially when he was concerned about a leak in AOCTF.
Connie re-read Jack’s report again. One phrase caught her eye: “Bien Duc VC-2 had to pass the order on to Tom Nguyen VC-3 …” Had to pass the order on? Goddamn him … did he word it that way on purpose?
Connie took the offensive immediately when Jack answered his phone. “Okay, Jack, what the hell were you doing when you put in your report that Bien Duc VC-2 had to pass the order on?”
“I meant it in the context of a paramilitary structure, where subordinates have to follow the orders given by their superiors.”
“Oh,” replied Connie.
“What the heck do you think it meant?”
“Uh …”
“Wait a minute Connie! What are you implying?” yelled Jack.
“Nothing! Uh, sorry. Just … you know, trying to foresee any questions the prosecutor might have. I needed to clarify that nobody had a gun to his head or anything. Gotta go.”
After hanging up, Connie reflected on Jack’s response and how upset he sounded. Was it all an act? Everything with that guy is smoke and mirrors …
She felt a twinge of nervousness. If he did plan this … what the hell does he have planned next?
Her next task was to send a memo to all mainland law-enforcement agencies requesting that for the next six months, she be notified of any homicides involving Asians. She proofread her memo, then added a request to notify her of deaths that appeared to be accidental as well.
Okay, Jack, I’ll be watching …