Tenderloin (Abby Kane FBI Thriller) (7 page)

López!
“Sorry, I was under the impression you were out of town for a few days.”

“Yeah, well, I’m back.”

He didn’t seem interested in my presence at the office. I watched him take a seat at the desk near the rear, away from where Cabrera sat. If they were best buds, why didn’t they sit near each other? He unpacked his laptop and then relegated himself to tapping. I was at a loss for words. Was this ape socially inept? The thought of being stuck in this office with Special Agent A-Hole didn’t thrill me.
If that’s how it was going down—fine. I’m the queen of the silent treatment.
I sat back down at my desk and busied myself with the report.

For the next hour or so, neither of us said a word to each other. In fact, that jackhole didn’t even offer to grab me anything from the market downstairs when he went for a soda run. I don’t drink soda, but I might have wanted a piece of chocolate. My nerves had started to get the best of me. I had lost all my focus, and the only thought I had was to yell at Cabrera for leaving me there. It was a monumental waste of my time, and the investigation had essentially come to a grinding halt.

I snuck a few peeks at López as he busied himself. How could this agent sit there and ignore another agent a few feet away? It didn’t match the office culture Cabrera boasted of. López didn’t appear bothered by the silence, and his complete lack of courtesy seemed out of place.
What the hell is wrong with him?

I stood up in a huff, grabbed my purse, and headed toward the door. I figured fresh air would help calm me down; slamming the door on the way out helped as well.

I stomped down the stairs and over to the convenience store, where I proceeded to buy myself the biggest bar of chocolate they had. I then slipped into the canteen and asked for a cup of hot water. Two cups of tea and three quarters of a bar of chocolaty goodness later, I had calmed down.
I’m Abby Kane, FBI. I don’t get riled.

I tucked the last bit of chocolate into my purse for later and headed back upstairs. As I expected, the stump had not moved from his desk. I sat and stared, wondering how long it would take for him to look up. Ten seconds? Twenty? A minute? I leaned back and kicked both feet up on my desk, letting the heels clank down on the metal desk. He stopped typing. A beat later, he looked up at me.

“You got something you want to say?”

For someone who attended university in the States, his English was rough, and his accent was thicker than one would expect. “It’s Fredy, right?” I stuck with casual. He didn’t deserve to be addressed properly. “You treat every visitor to this warm hospitality of yours?”

He let out a breath. “Look, I’m not here to babysit.”

“I don’t see any babies around here.”

“Funny, I thought I heard whining a second ago.”

“No, that’s the sound of the FBI doing the DEA’s job.”
Zing!

“Oh, okay. Then ask them why they sent a secretary and not an agent.”

Oooh, someone wants to get knocked the eff out.
My fists balled up tighter than ever; I felt my nails cutting into my palms as they shook under the desk. What a low blow. López might have had a height advantage, but I inherited my father’s love for bare-knuckle fighting. I was quick. I was short. And if given the chance, I always placed my first punch where they least expected it. Men think all women want to play with their family jewels. When are they going to realize we like sparkly, not hairy?

I belonged to a gym in North Beach and got consistent sparring time with a few of the local boxers. So the fact that we had just gone from not talking to “I want a good clean fight. Let’s touch gloves and come out at the bell!” in a matter of seconds didn’t bother me at all.
Ding! Ding!

The tension was thick as we sized each other up. It didn’t appear that either of us was going to look away, let alone blink. We had insulted each other past the point of no return. Whoever gave in now would be the weak one. It had been a while since I’d had to put up with any misogynistic crap, but I knew this game. I spent years as a detective in Hong Kong. They were still calling me “delivery girl” when I made Chief Inspector.

Someone had to crack. The staring competition was boring me. Luckily for him, my cell phone rang.

“This is Abby Kane.”

“Abby, it’s Dom. How are you holding up?”

“Not so good. Your other half got back early.”

“Who? Fredy?”

“Yup.” I watched López close his laptop and slowly push his chair back from the desk.

“Abby, it can’t be. I spoke to him twenty minutes ago. He’s still in Medellín.”

I didn’t answer, and Fredy López continued to stare me down.

“Abby?”

I watched him reach down to his side, and I heard a slow zipping sound.

“Abby? Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Is Fredy clean shaven?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Fredy has a beard. Get out of there
now
!”

Chapter 14

No sooner had Cabrera spoken those words than Fake Fredy lifted his right arm up and pointed a large silver handgun at my face. My instincts took over, and I flew off my chair and hit the floor as the gun boomed. It was high caliber—the kind that punched holes in people. I had my service weapon drawn, a Glock 22, no match for his firepower but enough to spill his brains.

I peeked around the side of my desk and squeezed off two rounds, forcing him to duck and giving me the chance to scramble further away behind another desk. He let out a low grunt. I had nicked him, but a surface wound wouldn’t slow him. If anything, it just pissed him off. My only shot at survival might be out that front door.

“Agent,” he roared, “you can’t escape.”

We’ll agree to disagree.
I had gotten closer to the door, but mostly I hoped one of the businesses downstairs had heard the gunshots and had called the police.

No footsteps. He wasn’t on the move.

Suddenly, the top of the wooden chair next to me splintered into pieces.
Shit!
I could hear a low guttural laugh coming from his direction. It was a game to him. He wanted to hunt me. I had a terrible feeling he could have killed me already but instead chose to have fun.

I couldn’t stay put. I scrambled on all fours toward the last desk. Another shot rang out, hitting the file cabinet I had passed. I popped up and had him in my sights. I pulled the trigger twice. This time, I saw red explode off his left arm. He reeled back a few steps and howled. I had rendered it useless. Unfortunately, he appeared to be right-handed and managed to return fire, forcing me to duck. Again.

“You fucking bitch. I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

I had no idea who this guy was or why he was trying to kill me. An assassination attempt on one of the DEA agents made sense, but me? I had just arrived. How could my attacker have known who I was or that I was even here? Could I really have been the target, or was I simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I couldn’t quite tell. He called me “agent,” but he didn’t say my name. He could have been sent here to target any agent. But if Cabrera or the real Fredy were here, they would never have let him inside. The story didn’t add up. A plethora of questions had found their way into my head. I had to stop my internal dialogue and concentrate on killing this guy. My escape depended on it. I had already determined my odds of surviving a dash to the door were nil.

I maneuvered to the right side of the desk near the row of filing cabinets lining the wall. My body temperature had taken off like a rocket. My forehead was slick, and I could feel a trickle snaking its way down the left side of my face. Where was he? I couldn’t stay put for much longer. I slowed my breaths and listened. A second later I heard him. He was on the move.
Now, Abby!
I popped up, not knowing if he had me targeted or not. He had. I barely missed having my forehead seared in half by hot lead. I had to act quickly. I reached out and grabbed the leg of the plastic chair next to me and chucked it high over to where I had last seen him. As soon as I let go, I moved around the desk, rose up and pumped two bullets into his chest, sending him backward to the ground. My plan had worked. I caught him looking.

I held my weapon straight out and listened for a moment. All I heard was the thumping in my chest. He was obscured by office furniture, so my approach was cautious and my finger remained on the trigger. When I finally had my eyes on him, I saw that his eyes had rolled back into his head. He was dead, all right.

I searched the body, avoiding the pool of crimson that grew under him, but found nothing worth noting except his weapon. It was custom built, a .45 caliber. I rooted through his bag and found it was filled with old newspapers. His laptop was empty. All of that tapping was a game of Solitaire. Was this a hit? If it was, he wasn’t a very good assassin. A professional would have put a slug in my face the moment I opened the door. Speaking of moments. I started to see the signs—signs that should have sounded the alarm.

He had jiggled the knob for so long that I opened the door for him. Was that part of his plan? It worked. My second oversight was that he didn’t speak to me about anything regarding Riggs. That’s because he knew nothing. I had confused it with rudeness. Why did he wait until the call to make a move? Was he unsure? Had he shown up for Cabrera or López?

That phone call, coupled with the assassin’s incompetence, saved my life. I should have been dead.

Chapter 15

Cabrera arrived fifteen minutes after I shot my attacker dead. He was shocked.

“I’m as confused as you are. We get death threats all the time, but what government agency doesn’t? This is the worst we’ve seen it, though.”

“So nothing like this has ever taken place?” I asked.

“No, nothing to this degree. Emails, notes outside the door, human waste thrown on the windows—”

“Ewwww.”

“Yeah, tell me about. We flip a coin to determine who cleans it. Every now and then, a rogue shot comes through the window, but that stopped after we installed bulletproof glass. Anyway, we figured most of these threats were just talk.”

“Do you think he was after me?”

Cabrera knelt next to the body. “How could he be? Fredy and I were the only ones who knew you were coming.” He stood up and threw his hands up. “I don’t recognize this guy, but he had to be here for either Fredy or me. We’re known entities among the cartels. We made the lives of the drug lords harder. It only makes sense for us to be targeted.”

“So he could have been waiting for either of you to return?”

Cabrera shrugged. “It’s possible. And then the phone call spooked him.”

The police and the medical examiner arrived shortly and proceeded to do their jobs. Cabrera had busied himself with them, so I took that opportunity to step outside and call home. It’s not often the job shakes me up, but it did that day. At that moment, nothing was more important to me than hearing the voices of my children and Po Po. I didn’t bother to tell them what had happened. I was content to listen to whatever they had to say. Nothing was too trivial. I often forget how precious life is, and it’s not until these reality checks knock on my noggin that I remember. Yet within a week… Oh, who am I kidding? I usually forget within a day. I hate that about myself.

My pity party didn’t improve much when I started thinking about what would have happened to them had I been killed.
What’s the plan, Abby?
I didn’t have one. I wiped away the tears that had welled.
First things first: When I get home, I need to figure out a plan B.
In the meantime, I would try not to beat myself up and instead focus that energy on enjoying my family. Hard to do when you’re almost four thousand miles away.

When the medical examiner finished up and the body was removed, Cabrera had a cleaning service take over. A few hours later, everything smelled like fresh pine, and it looked like nothing had ever happened. I notified Reilly about the hit and let him know that my fact-gathering assignment had taken a dark turn, but I was fine to continue. Reilly agreed that most likely I wasn’t the target but instructed me to be extra careful.

“There’s only so much I can do for you while you’re in Bogotá, Abby. The sooner you wrap things up, the better.”

Tell me about it.

Cabrera and I closed up and headed over to his favorite watering hole. We both needed a drink. We sat quietly, tilting back our bottles and creating bubbly fountains. At a time like this, beer seemed fitting. Then we ordered four shots—even more fitting.

“It’s
aguardiente
. The translation is
firewater
.” He rubbed his hands together and smacked his lips. “It’s like a brandy. This one has a citrus flavor.” He picked up the shot glass and raised it. “Here’s to survival.”

I tapped my glass against his and chucked the clear liquid back. The burn wasn’t bad, and the taste of oranges came through.

He immediately picked up the second shot glass. “Best to get two drinks into us, considering…”

Who was I to argue? I felt a small tinge of numbness around the edges of my face.

Cabrera looked me in the eyes. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

“How could we have known?” I said with a shrug.

He grabbed my right hand, and I watched it disappear between both of his. They were warm, surprisingly soft. I didn’t think we were that friendly. Or maybe the agents in the DEA really look out for one another. Whatever his motive, it made me feel safe.

“I’m serious, Abby.”

“I’m glad you called when you did.”

He studied my face for a minute. “Listen, I was going to invite you out tonight, you know, to the club, but I’m not so sure it’s a good idea.”

“Good, because I’m not in the mood.”

“There’s nothing more we can do today. We should both go home and relax. Tomorrow we fly to Mitú.”

“Oh, wait. There was something I wanted to ask you before the whole Fredy ordeal reared its head. I read in the report that there was another victim with similar wounds to Agent Riggs’s and the couple’s, but there’s very little information about this body and where it was found. Yet if I’m correct, this one had the eyewitness.”