Horns of the Devil - Jeff Trask [02] (24 page)

Crawford had expected her for dinner, but she was late. He was about to put her portion of the lasagna in the fridge when the doorbell finally rang.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I got stuck at work on a last-minute report that Rios wanted out tonight. He insisted that I stay late, even though I’d been invited to dinner at Tio Juan’s house. I had to call and cancel it.” Her nose caught the scent. “You made your lasagna for me? I love you, and I’m starved!” She kissed him and pulled him back toward the dining table.

Trask sat on the floor, numb and unable to move. Then he saw her legs twitch. In a flash he was dialing 911 and asking for an ambulance and police while he was untying her. When her hands were free, she ripped the tape from her mouth. She hugged him and started crying softly. She pointed to the pistol with the silencer lying on the floor almost hidden by the shadow of the couch.

“Is he gone? Is he gone?” she cried.

Trask instinctively pulled the Glock from his waistband and whirled around, expecting to see the attacker. The machetes sliced across his memory again. There was no one there this time. He turned back to her, checking her head, her back. “There’s blood here on the floor. Are you hurt? Were you shot? Cut?”

“No, just dizzy, and my head hurts. Chloroform, I think. I feel like I’m going to throw up.” She grabbed a wastebasket from beside the corner of the couch, and did.

“If this isn’t your blood, then…?”

“Check Boo,” she said. “I heard a shot, I felt something hit my head, and then the chair got knocked over. I hope he didn’t hit her. The dogs were outside when he grabbed me.”

Trask called the big dog over, and she walked to him without difficulty. He checked her all over and found no injuries. “She’s fine,” he said. He pointed toward what had been the sliding screen door to the patio. “That’s not.”

The frame of the door was bent inward, almost in half. The screen hung from the twisted aluminum in tatters.

Trask hugged the big dog’s neck. “It’s OK, Boo. I can fix that. Thanks to you, we don’t have to fix your Mom.” He heard sirens outside. “Here we go again. The neighbors are going to hate us.” He pointed to the bloodstain on the carpet. “We want them to cut that out and find out who it belonged to. I want ballistics on that pistol, too.” He looked around the room, and found the bullet hole in a corner, near the ceiling.

“USAA,” she said, laughing a little. “Our insurance company’s going to hate us, too.”

The medics came barreling down the stairs with a stretcher, freezing when they saw the Glock.

“Sorry, guys,” Trask said, returning it to his belt. He motioned toward Lynn. “She needs to be checked out.”

“I’m fine, Jeff,” she protested.

“You don’t know that. They need to do some blood work, find out how much of that gas you inhaled, and check out that bump on the back of your head,” he said.

They had her on the stretcher in a matter of seconds. He kissed her and told her he’d be at the hospital shortly, then she was gone, and he was alone for a moment. He started shaking and sobbing.

A Saint Charles County Deputy Sheriff was standing at the top of the stairs.

“Mister Trask? You all right?”

He nodded, still choking back the tears and rage. “Yeah,” he heard himself saying. “But I’m going to find out who did this, and he won’t be.”

Trask sat beside her bed at the hospital, watching her sleep. It was past midnight. The doctors had checked her out and said everything would be fine. A little more nausea, perhaps, until she got the rest of the crude anesthetic out of her system. The attacker hadn’t wanted to kill her with the drug, so it wasn’t a heavy dose. That’s what the pistol had been for. He shook his head.
It’s not worth
this. Nothing is worth this.
He felt a large hand on his shoulder.

“How you holding up?” Bill Patrick asked.

Trask saw that Barry Doroz was standing behind Patrick.

“I’m OK, Bill. She was very lucky. Just a concussion, and the doc says it’ll just require some rest. As best I can put it together, our big dog came plowing through a sliding screen door just as the creep was about to put one in the back of her head, just like the defense counsel murders. The shooter turned toward Boo—our dog—but she got to his arm before he could get the gun trained on her. The shot went up into a corner of the room, and the gun went down to the floor after bouncing off the back of Lynn’s head. She went down, and the shooter ran away.” He shook his head. “I never should have let her leave the office by herself.”

“Apparently you didn’t, Jeff,” Doroz said. “You left her in the capable paws of that wolf you brought home. She
is
lucky, though. Much luckier than some others tonight.”

Trask looked up at him. “Who is it this time, Bear?”

“The Salvadoran ambassador and his wife. Both carved up like turkeys. MS-13 style. I just came from their house. Our friend Murphy showed up and started cussing me—and you—up and down. Blamed us for it, said we were incompetent, promised he would have us both off the case by morning. I guess your friend Rios is the new ambassador, for the moment at least.”

“Wonderful.” Trask looked back to Patrick. “How much time can you give me, Bill?”

“No longer than Monday.” Patrick thought for a minute. “I can leave you in place that long. We’ll have Eastman tell the guys at Main Justice that we realize that as victims, you and Lynn will be disqualified, and that they’ll need to bring our office in Northern Virginia or Maryland on board to take over the case. We’ll DQ our whole office on the conflict of interest, but tell Justice that we’ll just leave you there in the interim to run the transition. Sorry, but we’ve got no choice now.”

Trask nodded. “Understood. Thanks.”

“I’ve got two guys here to watch her room tonight, Jeff,” Doroz said. “What about you?”

“I’m going home, Bear. Like you said, I have a wolf and another dog, and I need to feed them. That process got interrupted by our friend with the silencer. Feel free to have the sheriff park a unit outside if he wants to, but I’m staying at the house tonight. Lynn’s sedated, and your boys are watching her door.”

“Get some sleep,” Patrick said, patting him on the shoulder again as he turned to leave.

Doroz waited until Patrick was gone. “Plan?” he asked.

“The first time, I think they came for me,” Trask said. “Whether they came for Lynn tonight or were trying to get to me through her, it doesn’t matter. My
plan
is to solve this mess in the next three or four days and take it down, then hand my successors a gift-wrapped, bulletproof package that even a moron couldn’t screw up at trial. This is personal now.”

“Normally, that doesn’t work very well.”

“I realize that, but I’m not normal.”

“Yeah,” Doroz chuckled. “I know. You OK to drive?”

Trask nodded soberly. “Absolutely.” He looked back at Lynn and kissed her on the forehead.
Sleep well, Babe. You’re safer here than at home for now.
He squeezed her hand gently before he left the room, tears in his eyes.

The house was still being guarded when he got home. The Maryland State Police had processed the scene and left. Trask talked the deputies outside into limiting the sentries to two marked units, got them some coffee, then went into the house. He put the Glock back into a holster and pulled out the .45 from the headboard before loading two of its magazines with hollow-point rounds.
More stopping power. The hell with the regs.
He went to the bar and knocked back a stiff double of Crown Royal, then returned to the bedroom and lay down. Nikki jumped onto the bed and curled up at his feet. Boo sprawled across the doorway. The dogs were snoring in five minutes. Trask joined them in ten.

.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tuesday, September 12, 8:30 a.m.

“A
ny signs of forced entry?” Trask asked, looking over the crime scene photos spread across the conference table.

“Nope,” Doroz said. “Looked like whoever pulled this one walked in through the front door.”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Trask said. “Their government signs a truce with the
Maras
and takes the heat off them—exactly what the gangs have been looking for—and the local chapter of this crew whacks the ambassador and his wife, leaving their calling cards carved into the corpses? Good way to bust the truce your bosses just agreed to, don’t you think?” He looked across the table at Crawford. “How’s your girlfriend, Mike?”

“Pretty messed up. She was supposed to eat dinner with the ambassador and his wife last night, but had to work late on something for Rios. She’s taking it hard. She was real close to the ambassador, called him her Tio, her uncle.”

“She have any ideas about this?” Doroz asked.

“Just that it’s the MS-13. Her cousin killed herself years ago after being gang raped by them. Marissa hates their guts.”

“We either have a rogue clique operating under their own set of rules, or someone who wants us to think they are,” Trask mused.

“I may have something!” Lynn shouted from her cubicle out in the bullpen.

Doroz shook his head. “I can’t believe you brought her in here today, Jeff.”

Trask looked back at him and smirked. “If your two stalwarts couldn’t stop her, what makes you think
I
was going to? The docs cleared her, and she called me before six. I couldn’t trust her to stay home, and I wasn’t going to let her drive herself in after last night. Let’s see what she’s got.”

They walked into the bullpen and looked over her shoulder.

“Look at this first,” she said, cueing up a photograph of several young men posing on risers. “It’s a photograph of the UCLA Salvadoran Student Association about twenty years back. I pulled it off an online yearbook collection. The club charter said that membership was open to students from El Salvador and any others who wanted to promote good relations between the US and Central America.”

She highlighted a tall young man standing in the center of the group.

“The future and now late ambassador from El Salvador and president of this association at the time, Juan Carlos Lopez-Portillo,” Lynn said.

“Prominent even while a student,” Trask said. “Meaning what?”

She shot him a familiar glance.

“Sorry,” he said. “What else do you have?”

She moved the curser to another tall young man standing to the right of Lopez-Portillo, blowing up the photo to the point where the goateed face of the student filled the screen.

“Anybody want to take a stab at this one?” she asked.

“Looks familiar, but I can’t place him,” Doroz said, shaking his head.

Trask took a moment longer. “Sorry, same here.” He stepped aside for a moment to let Crawford, who had joined them, venture a guess.

“You got me. No idea,” Crawford said.

“Watch this.” Lynn pulled the photo of the face onto a second computer monitor on her desk. “First I gave him a shave, using some of this high-tech Bureau Photoshop stuff. Then I aged him twenty years with the facial recognition software. Finally I added a fashion accessory. An eye patch.”

“Holy shit!” Doroz exclaimed. “It’s Rios-Garcia.”

“Not exactly,” Lynn said. “His real name is—or was—Luis Moreno-Montillo, according to the caption under the photo.”

“Amazing work, Lynn.” Trask was massaging both her shoulders. He saw that Crawford was heading for the door. “You OK, Mike?”

Crawford nodded and waved, but continued toward the exit.

“Now check this out,” Lynn said. She pulled the face of the man standing on the other side of Lopez-Portillo from the photo to the second monitor. “I’m aging this one too, and since the yearbook shot was a black-and-white, I gave it some color.”

Trask looked at the red-haired face in the new portrait. “Murphy.” He shook his head. “We have a college reunion here. The ambassador pulls one college bud up as second-in-charge and has a ready-made plant at State with Murphy, another member of the club. Phenomenal.” He turned to Doroz. “Bear, can you get our CIA and DEA boys back in for another sit-down? Give ’em the real name of the new acting ambassador and see if it means anything to them, please.”

“Tomorrow afternoon all right?” Doroz asked.

“Sure. That’ll give ’em time to do a file search on Moreno. Maybe they’ll actually have something this time, now that we have his real name.” Trask looked around the room. “What happened to Puddin’? He left looking like he’d seen a banshee or something.”

9:30 a.m.

Carter and Wisniewski climbed the stairs to the second floor of the apartment building on Rhode Island Avenue.

“That was the vic’s apartment,” Carter said as they passed a door with the number 206 on it. “The canvass notes indicate that the patrol guys tried to talk to the lady in 208, but she didn’t speak English.”

Wisniewski nodded and knocked on the door to 208. A small, Hispanic woman of about sixty opened the door cautiously, but smiled broadly when she saw their badges. She began to explain that she did not understand English, but when Wisniewski answered her in Spanish, she invited them inside.

“Did you know your neighbor in 206,
abuela
?” Wisniewski asked her.

“Yes, a nice young man. His name was Adan Sarmiento. Very troubled.”

“Troubled? How do you mean?”

“Something bothered him very much. I never saw him at ease. When I asked him what was wrong, he would only say that he worried for his family back in El Salvador.”

“Are you from El Salvador?” Wisniewski asked.

“No. Guatemala,” she said. “But close enough to know the troubles in El Salvador. Our countries seem to share them.”

“Do you mean the gangs?”

“Yes.” She nodded, paused, and then nodded some more. “Always the gangs.”

“Did Adan say why he was worried for his family?”

“Not specifically. He just said they were not safe, and he had to do something to help them. Then he got worse.”

“Worse? What do you mean?”

“He came to me one morning and asked if I could take him to the church. I am one of the few in the building here who has a car. He said he needed to see a priest, and that he had done something very bad to help his family. He was very upset.”

“Did you take him to the church?”

“Yes, of course. But the confession did not seem to help him. He was always very serious, but he seemed to be very scared and sad after that.”

“Do you remember what day it was when you drove him to the church?” Wisniewski asked, pulling a small notepad and pen from his sport coat.

“It was the ninth of August,” she said. “A Tuesday. I go grocery shopping every Tuesday. Just a habit. I remember telling Adan it was no inconvenience because I was going out anyway. I dropped him at the church, did my shopping, and picked him up on my way back. He was waiting outside, but he was standing in the shadows until I pulled up in front of the church. I did not even see him until he stepped out into the sunlight.”

“It was August, a hot day,” Wisniewski offered.

She smiled and patted his hand. “A
warm
day. We are from what you
Norte
Americanos
call Central America. It is always hot at home. We came back, he helped me carry in my groceries, and he sat in that same chair where you are now. He wanted to talk to me.”

He smiled. “I understand. You are an easy person to talk to, grandmother. Did he ever tell you any more about these things that bothered him so much?”

“I asked him what he was so very afraid of. He told me that if anything ever happened to him, it would be because of the
sombra tuerto
.”

“Are you sure that’s what he said?” Wisniewski asked her. “
Sombra tuerto
?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was a strange thing to say. It made no sense to me. I asked Adan to explain it, but he would not. He only said that he had said too much already, then he got up and left.”

“Thank you, grandmother. You have been a very big help.”

“I hope so,” she said.

“What was that?” Carter asked as they headed down the stairs. “
Sombra
tuerto
?”

“Yeah,” Wisniewski said. “The one-eyed shadow.”

“Really,” Carter said. He started nodding. Trask would have something else to scribble on his jigsaw puzzle pieces. “Really.”

They got into the car and pulled away from the curb. There was a traffic light at the first intersection, and it was changing to yellow.

“Don’t run it,” Carter warned him. “Look. It’s got one of those citation-generating eye-in-the-sky cams on it. Cap’n Willie will make you pay it. Department regulations, you know. No special privileges.”

Wisniewski applied the brakes. He looked at Carter. They were thinking the same thing. “What day was it when our man Adan got shot?”

“Wednesday the twenty-third. It’s a long shot that we’ll recognize any vehicles, but we’ll pull the images anyway. The Traffic Enforcement Office will still have them on file.”

5:30 p.m.

Crawford sat in his car, looking at the rear of the embassy, the exit he knew she’d take leaving for home. He felt like the fabric of his soul had been ripped.
Has she
been playing me all along? That SOB with the eye patch is her uncle, for Christ’s sake. The guy in
the photo in her apartment is the same one in that yearbook Lynn found, and I can’t even tell her I
know that because it’ll blow our lead. Have I told her anything that would get back to him? I don’t
think so. How do I play this? How the hell do I get her to talk to me about it?

She saw his car and waved, rushing over with a smile on her tired face. She got in and kissed him hard. “I’ve missed you all day.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said quietly.

She pulled back a little. “What’s wrong, Michael?”

“It’s nothing, really. A little headache. Some minor things at work.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I can’t, Marissa. Classified stuff.”

“It’s OK.” She leaned forward and kissed him again. “It is the nature of our jobs. I understand. There are things I can’t talk about sometimes.”

He nodded. “Where would you like to eat?”

“Wherever you are going. I am going there with you.”

They opted for a small café in Old Town Alexandria, close to the river. After ordering, he noticed that her smile was gone and that her eyes were starting to fill with tears.

“Your Tio Juan?” he asked.

She nodded, unable to speak for a moment. She sipped some water and composed herself.

“If I hadn’t had to work late, I might have been killed with them,” she sobbed. “The deputy ambassador saved my life.”

He saw what he thought might be an opening and took it, even though he felt ashamed for doing so. “You told me that Rios-Garcia arrived just after the ambassador’s son was killed. Did he bring anyone with him when he came?” he asked her.

“Some personal staff,” she said. “Why?”

“I just wondered if he brought any family with him. He might want to protect them in light of what happened to the ambassador. Did his personal staff include any security personnel?”

“I think so.” She stood up. “I need to go to the ladies’ room. My makeup is running.” She pushed her chair under the table and patted his shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m just a secretary. Rios is the ambassador now. He has good bodyguards. He will be safe, and I will, too.”

He watched her as she walked toward the back of the restaurant
. She’s gorgeous.
She’s also either very good, or she’s not to blame for any of this. Maybe both. Maybe there’s a
legitimate reason for her uncle’s use of an alias. To protect her, for example. If their enemies didn’t
know she was the new ambassador’s niece, she’d be less likely to be kidnap bait or worse.

She was back in five minutes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a sad day for us.”

“I understand. It’s tough to lose people you care about.”