Horns of the Devil - Jeff Trask [02] (8 page)

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Chapter Eight

August 16, 8:30 a.m.

“G
ood morning, Jeff,” Doroz said, looking up from a stack of papers on his desk.

“For some of us. I just walked through your bullpen. Dix looks like shit.”

“Yeah, I know. He and Tim pulled some late surveillance last night on the MS-13 clique’s new car wash. I didn’t OK it in advance, had to fill out the forms and back date ’em this morning so they can get paid for the OT. If I’d known about it beforehand, I’d have said, ‘Hell, no.’ I don’t think Carter’s been sleeping lately.”

Trask sank into a chair facing the desk. “I thought you never wanted a supervisory job.”

“Didn’t, and still don’t.” Doroz shoved the completed forms into his out basket. “It’s a pain in the ass, but they gave me the choice of running this squad, one of those antiterrorist jobs where I’d be chasing ghosts all day without ever putting the cuffs on ’em, or a desk at headquarters. This was the only option that left me doing active crim’ work.” He shoved a pile of forms from one side of the desk to the other, next to three other similar stacks. “I even hate being in this office. I usually hang out in the bullpen with the guys on the squad, or in the conference room.”

Trask saw lines on Doroz’ face that he hadn’t noticed before.

“I’m glad you’re around for this case, Bear.”

“Thanks, but my brain’s so mushed out with all this paperwork, Dixon Carter’s still thinking rings around me with less than four hours sleep per night. I might get half a day of real work in between the department’s precious forms and holding the hand of whatever staff employee needs a father figure for a day.”

Trask glanced out the door to see Lynn blowing him a kiss from her desk. Doroz followed his eyes and saw it, too.

“At least you can handle that one for me.”

“I’ll give it my best shot,” Trask said, chuckling.

“She’s a hell of an analyst, Jeff. I point her and she takes off.”

Trask nodded in agreement. “She was a hell of an agent, too.”

“Too bad I can’t partner her up with Dixon Carter and have her kick his ass out of this depression. They won’t let me put analysts on the street.” Doroz waved at the door. “Shut that thing, will you?”

Trask reached over and pushed the door shut. “What’s up?”

“I think,” Doroz said, “that Dix and Tim didn’t go out
together
last night on that surveillance. They left here at about the same time—Dixon first, Tim a few minutes later—but I don’t think it’s like Tim to pull something like this surveillance without prior authorization and no backup.”

“You’re right; it’s not,” Trask nodded. “Think he’s covering for Dix?”

Doroz smiled. “Why don’t you take this job for me? It took you ten seconds to get where I got in thirty minutes, and you didn’t have to grill Tim like I did.”

“Did Tim admit it?”

“Hell, no. He’s playing the good and faithful junior partner. Said they met up after he parked his car at his house and then left together. They came up with the idea to stake out the car wash after dinner and just did it on a whim. They saw a bunch of pipe being unloaded and think that the
Mara
boys are starting a marijuana hydro-grow.”

“Good, Bear. Let
Tim
try to pull Carter out of his funk. It might happen, once Dix starts trusting him.” Trask paused for a moment. “From what I’ve seen, despite his problems, he isn’t missing anything in this case.”

“Right again.” Doroz rose from his chair and stared out the window. “That’s the other weird part about this. With the fatigue, which we can all see in his face, you’d think he’d be overlooking things, getting sloppy, but he’s not. It’s like having a damned detective
savant
around. None of his old humor, no life away from the job. Just a zombie version of Sherlock Holmes who looks like he could collapse at any second.”

“You’re worried about what might happen if the lead starts flying again.”

“Of course I am. If he doesn’t snap out of this pretty damned quickly, I’m going to have to send him back to Willie Sivella.”

“You’ve talked to Dix about this?”

“Sure. He says all the right things. He’s working on it, just needs time. I just don’t know how much more I can give him. Any suggestions?”

“Give him the time that you can. I don’t have any magic wand to wave.”

“We’ll ride the storm out a little longer, then. I just don’t want him or anyone else getting hurt in the process.”

“Don’t say that to him.”

“I don’t have to. He’s wearing Juan Ramirez around his neck like an albatross.” Doroz checked his watch. “It’s time for your lovely wife’s briefing. She took those ideas of yours and found some stuff.”

They left the office and walked out into the bullpen, where Puddin’ Crawford, five other FBI agents, and four task force officers, including Carter and Wisniewski, were staring at their respective computer terminals behind low cubicle walls.

“You ready, Lynn?” Doroz asked. When she nodded, he said, “Conference room, folks.”

When they were assembled, Lynn pushed a button and the screen dropped again. Trask, standing at the back of the room, glanced at Mike Crawford to see if he resented being replaced.

Nope. Looks like he’s glad to have a true analyst on the squad. Frees him up to be a full-time
G-man again. Good.

Lynn hit a key on a laptop, and the image of a prison flashed across the screen.

“This is an assignment presented to me by our prosecutor,” she began.

“Before you continue,” Doroz turned and faced the room, “I’d like to say something about that. Some of you guys, both agents and cops, have never worked a case with a prosecutor closely involved in the investigation process. It’s essential in a long-term conspiracy investigation to have a prosecutor on board early. It helps focus the investigation. When you have the best prosecutor in the district, a former military guy who’s a helluva tactician and not afraid to get his hands dirty, it’s a big advantage. I’ve worked with Jeff before, and so have Dix and Mike.”

Mike? He must be serious about this,
Trask thought.
He’s using Puddin’s real name.

“Jeff ’s also your co-supervisor as far as I’m concerned. When he tells you to do something, consider it an order from me. If you don’t like it, come see me and I’ll tell you to do it anyway. Questions?”

There weren’t any.

“Sorry for the interruption, Lynn.”

Doroz took his seat. Trask caught the smile that Lynn flashed him before resuming.

Thanks, I think, Bear. No pressure, as usual.
He smiled back at Lynn.
If I screw this
up, babe, we’ll be canoeing out of a satellite office in Idaho.

“This is
La Esperanza
,” she said pointing toward the screen, “the largest prison in El Salvador. It’s a prison from the outside, usually surrounded by the army and a lot of Salvadoran cops. Inside, the inmates often run the asylum. It used to be controlled inside the walls by members of the 18th Street gang, otherwise known as Barrio 18 or M-18.”

She clicked forward to the next image, showing bloody bodies lined up against one of the prison walls.

“This is following the prison riots of 2004, when 216 inmates were decapitated, hacked, shot to death, or burned by M-18 prisoners. The riots caused the ARENA government to spread the gang members throughout the country’s prison system. One of the results was a drastic reduction in the M-18 forces within
La Esperanza
, and the ranks of
Mara Salvatrucha-13
members grew to the point where MS-13 now controls the prison population. We think the warden and other government officials equalized the gang ranks intentionally inside the prisons to punish M-18 for the riots. They increased the MS-13 population for ‘balance,’ but the pendulum has now swung too far in the other direction.

“The MS-13 bosses inside the prison have their own cell phones and are in constant contact with their cliques throughout the hemisphere. They’re the smart ones, the ones who keep lower profiles. Their more violent soldiers and some of the mouthier leaders get transferred to a more maximum security prison at Zacatecoluca. They call it Zacatraz after our Alcatraz. Inmates there are kept pretty isolated. Our intel is that a lot of the
Mara
prisoners—both M-18 and MS-13—expected to be freed after the FMLN took the reins of the Salvadoran government, but they weren’t, and so the word may have been passed to the various MS-13 cliques to attack those who have betrayed them. That may be the motive behind the murder of the Salvadoran ambassador’s kid…”

Trask held the door for her as she joined him in the parking lot. They’d driven to work together for once. He pulled the Jeep into traffic and headed southeast toward Waldorf.

“So how’d I do, co-boss?”

“Very nicely,” he said.

“But I missed something?”

“I don’t know that you did.”
That did a fat lot of good. She knows you too well.

“What did I miss?”

Way to go, ace. She DID do a good job, but you had to have it perfect, and she feels that. Now
she’s upset.

“Lynn, it really was exceptional work—but I put my case hat on when you ask me case questions.”

“OK, fair enough. What did I miss?”

“You covered all of the journalism school basics very well except for one. The what, why, when, and how…you nailed all of those. I just didn’t get enough who.”

“I said the ARENA government. I know you want some info on the eye patch character at the embassy. I’m working on that.”

“You’re right. You did say the ARENA guys.”
Let her figure it out. Be quiet for a
minute.

She was looking out her window now. “You wanted to know
who
in the ARENA government.”

“
That’s
the analyst at work. The one who knows what I’m thinking before I do.”

She turned back toward him and kissed him on the cheek. “That,” she said, “is impossible. But I’ll work on it. I’ll get you your who.”

“I know you will. Thanks.”

August 17, 2:16 a.m.

José Rios-García, deputy chief of mission for the United States Embassy of El Salvador, pulled the bolt back on the Norinco SKS, AK-47 knockoff. The assault rifle and its twin in the front seat of the stolen black Cadillac Escalade were loaded with banana-clip magazines filled with steel-core 7.62 x 39 ammunition.

“Turn here, Hugo. A quick right past the back of the building. Get ready, Mateo.”

The Escalade went dark as its headlights were switched off. It left the street and crept slowly around the side of the car wash until it cleared the left rear corner. The tires screamed as they bit hard into the concrete. The two men standing outside the rear door threw down their cigarettes and lunged for the safety of the concrete walls on the other side of the door, but they were too late. The deep chatter of the automatic rifles was the last sound they ever heard.

It was also the sound that woke Detective Dixon Carter, who had dozed off in the front seat of the Green Buick, which was parked again behind the strip mall to the south of the car wash.

What the hell?! Wonderful. Now I have to call this in, and Willie and Bear’ll have my ass for
being out here alone again. Shit, can’t ignore it.

“Dispatch. Detective Carter, Homicide.”

“Dispatch. Go ahead.”

“Shots fired. Rear of the Qwik Shine Car Wash, 2110 Bladensburg Road, Northeast. Send two ambulances.”

“Roger. Any description on the suspects?”

No, goddammit. I slept through it.

“No, dispatch. I was in the area and heard the shots. No description. I’ll meet the ambulances and crime scene behind the car wash.”

“Roger.”

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Chapter Nine

August 17, 3:47 p.m.

T
rask started the two-block walk north toward the United States Attorney’s office from the courthouse where he’d covered an arraignment for Bill Patrick, who was out sick. His first thought was to drop the thick case file in his office so he wouldn’t have to carry it across the street to the FBI field office. Two things changed his mind. He figured that Ross Eastman, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, had probably left a message to see him immediately about the shootings at the car wash. The problem there was that Trask hadn’t had a chance, thanks to the morning hearing, to get the info Eastman wanted, and the last thing he wanted to do was to sit in Eastman’s office without the details.

The other consideration was the weather. It was one of those August steamers, a hundred degrees in the shade with 100 percent humidity to match, thanks to those who had picked the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers as the site for the nation’s capital. Trask was already having to wipe his forehead with his handkerchief, and he didn’t want to appear in Eastman’s doorway looking like he’d been stoking coal in a packet steamer’s engine room.

It was still early enough so there were shadows along the east side of 4th Street. He crossed the street to take advantage of the shade, which provided about four degrees of relief from the heat of the sun, walked past the entrance to the Triple-nickle, and crossed the street to the FBI field office. An hour in the squad room would give him the necessary facts for the briefing of the boss, and a chance to cool down a little.

Dixon Carter was in Doroz’ office when Trask arrived.

“You’re a little late for the execution, Jeff.” Carter looked as sheepish as Trask had ever seen him.

“Willie Sivella stopped in to ream him a new one,” Doroz said, still sitting with his feet propped up on his desk.

“I was told,” Carter said, “that if the Cap found me out on the street again without my youthful partner and mole, it would probably be my last day on the job.”

“Sorry I missed it.” Trask sank into the chair beside Carter. “I’m sure it was entertaining. You deserved whatever was said, Dix, but do I understand that you’re still with us?”

“Kinda like the fraternity in
Animal House
,” Doroz said. “Double-secret probation, except it’s not secret. And I get to be Dean Wormer. Thanks for putting me in that position, Detective Carter. Nothing I like better than having to write extra report cards on my senior task force officer.”

“Sorry, Bear.”

“So what exactly happened out there, Dix?” Trask asked. “I’m probably late for a meeting with my US Attorney.”

“The official word, both for the press and anyone outside this office,” Doroz said, “is that Detective Carter just happened to be in the area when he heard shots fired, rushed to the scene, and found two dead Hispanic employees of the car wash lying by the back door. Perforated by AK-47 rounds, fired fully automatic.”

“The truth, Jeff, is that I was staking the place out again from the parking lot in back of the strip mall. I dozed off and didn’t even get the plates on the shooters’ vehicle, or even the type of vehicle for that matter. The AKs woke me up, and all I saw were muzzle flashes and headlights.” Carter shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Let’s look at the positives,” Trask replied. “You were on the scene and got something out of it. You’re sure the weapons were AKs and not some sniper rifle this time?”

“Yeah. Fully automatic fire. AK-47s or clones. Unmistakable sound, even for a half-awake idiot like me. The ME did the autopsies early this morning. Kathy dug the usual cheap 7.62 bullets out of the vics’ bodies, and I saw the crime scene guys prying the same kind of rounds out of the back door of the car wash. No NATO rounds this time.”

“And our victims?”

“MS-13, no doubt about that, either,” Carter said. “Both of ’em were fully tattooed with the trappings of their fraternal association.”

“So our theory is what?” Trask asked. “A drive-by ambush by M-18 members?”

“That’s how it looks.” Carter shook his head again. “But that’s not how it feels.”

“Why not?”

“Ask your bride to step in, Jeff.” Doroz nodded toward the open doorway.

Trask walked to the door. Lynn was already looking up from her cubicle. He tilted his head toward the office, and she nodded.

“We were knocking this around this morning while I was waiting to be filleted,” Carter said. “Willie was a little late getting here. I said then that it didn’t feel right, that it felt like a set-up. I was too tired to figure it out, but Lynn wasn’t.”

“Figure what out?” Trask asked.

“That it would be stupid and suicidal for M-18 to pull this kind of attack right now,” Lynn said as she entered the office.

“Because…?”

“It’s the numbers, Jeff.” Lynn held up some papers. “You remember the initial briefing on MS-13? Ten thousand members locally, maybe twenty. I ran everything I could think of this morning on the M-18 numbers in and around DC. There was a murder of an MS-13 member on January 18 by four local M-18 types. Apparently the date was significant to them, and they went looking for an MS-13 rival to whack. They butchered him and left his body by one of the local streams. All four of the killers were arrested. The significant thing is that this murder’s the only recent M-18 incident I could locate that’s amounted to anything. All the intel estimates conclude there are only a couple of hundred 18ers in the metro, and they usually keep their heads down because the MS-13 troops outnumber them about fifty to one. The Maryland State Police wrote reports on four suspected homicides in the week after January 18. All of the vics were M-18 members. Probably retaliation in kind by MS-13 for the one they lost.”

“Four in custody and four more dead. Where were those 18ers living—the ones picked up for the January murder?” Trask asked.

Lynn picked through her stack of papers until she found what she was looking for.

“Two from Bladensburg, Maryland. One in Reston, Virginia. One with no known address.”

“You thinking they’ll try another retaliation raid, Jeff?” Doroz asked.

“Exactly. You’re the big bully on the local Central American gang block. Even if it’s not really an organized M-18 group tugging on Superman’s cape, you can’t ignore it. You can’t let your main rival start to move into turf that you own. You have to respond. The question is, where?” Trask turned back to Lynn. “Any demographics on where the largest concentration of 18th Street members is in the metro?”

“I anticipated that question,” she said, smiling proudly. “To the extent there is one, I’d say upper Prince George’s County, Maryland.”

“Bladensburg, again?” Trask asked, smiling back.
It’s nice to have some common
sense to add to the data collection.

“It’s a reach, but yes. That’s the only place I could find with any recent, multiple arrests of M-18 types.”

“Bear, can you—”

“I’m on it,” Doroz said, reaching for the phone. “We’ll warn the locals and set up out there tonight.” He looked up at Carter. “Dix, you and Tim will be riding with me.”

Carter rolled his eyes skyward, then nodded.

“I’d like to come,” Trask began, but he caught the warning glance that Lynn was shooting at him and shifted gears, “but it’s out of my jurisdiction, and Ross Eastman is certainly going to order me to keep my impetuous young ass away from the scene. I’ll be at home, with our lovely and talented squad analyst, waiting by the phone. Keep me posted as soon as anything happens. Ross will be calling his counterpart in Baltimore within the hour, and he’ll want real-time information.”

“Will do,” Doroz said.

“I had one other reason for thinking it’s not the 18ers,” Lynn said. “I just found out about the car wash a couple of days ago by tracing the money from the deli insurance settlement. This Ortega character claimed that someone had burned down his business, and he just signed the settlement check over when he bought the car wash. How’d the 18 crew know about the MS-13 move to the car wash so soon?”

“Where’s Puddin’?” Doroz asked. “Anybody seen Crawford?”

Special Agent Michael Crawford, wearing shorts and a polo shirt that his mother had told him made his eyes stand out, waited a short distance
away
from the panda exhibit.
Don’t want her to think I’m stalking her,
he thought.
I’m not, actually.
Or am I? She’s a source, or a potential source, for now.
He asked himself what would happen if she wanted to be more than that. What would win? The Bureau’s restrictions on dealing with a potential witness, or the other thoughts of her that had dominated his mind now for the past three days? Rather than answer, he chose to ignore the question.

She came around the walkway looking at the animals. She was wearing another sundress, blue and white. He tried to walk up behind her, to surprise her.

“How long have you been waiting?” she asked before he could say anything or touch her.

“About thirty minutes,” he confessed.

“I was waiting for you by the lions.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

She looked up at him, and then kissed him. He almost fell backward.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I just hadn’t expected that.”

“It’s the twenty-first century in El Salvador, too,” she said. “I’m not required to have a chaperone when I leave my apartment, and I’m not even
in
El Salvador. Does that bother you?”

“No. Not at all.”

He thought of that priorities question again…and ignored it again. Another question replaced it. “Do you think it’s completely safe for you to be seen with me like this?” he asked her.

She laughed again. “Give me your address, then. That way I can come see you where it’s safe and cool. I’ll make sure I am not followed.”

“Let me know when you’re coming so I can clean the place up.”

“No!” She laughed again as she walked backward away from him. “I want to see how you really live. I’ll surprise you!”

He watched her turn and walk back toward the entrance. His apartment would be immaculate for the foreseeable future.

At 11:47 p.m., Esteban Ortega and seven other members of the Washington, DC, east-side clique of the
Mara Salvatrucha
checked their weapons and headed northeast on Bladensburg Road in two vehicles, a stolen Chevy Cavalier and a Ford minivan.