The Bricklayer (14 page)

“Probably while holding the gun in Bertok’s hand in case of a residue test. Yes, that’s right.”

“That’s right?” Kate asked. “Then when SWAT broke in here, where was he? With the bars on the window, the only way out is the door where you and I and the L.A. cop were waiting to light him up.”

Without answering, Vail pulled on the evidence gloves. First he felt along the left edge casing, and after apparently not finding what he was looking for, he tried the right side. As he slid his hand along it, he found a gripping point and pulled the casing off. Inside was a metal plate into which were anchored the ends of the bars. He pushed the plate up and, reaching through the window, pushed the cage open. It swung out on the hinged edge of the other side. Vail put the casing back into place and pushed on it until it snapped into place. He climbed out through the window. Once on the ground, he swung the bars back into place, and a soft metal snap sounded when the bars reseated themselves in the hidden metal plate. He pulled on them to make sure they had locked into place.

“Those bars on the living room window were removed so anyone covering the back would have to also watch that side because escape was possible through that window. The Dumpster was probably put back there for cover so whoever went to the rear would be screened from this side of the house. This side would be ignored because the window was barred, which is exactly what we did.”

“But where did he go once he was outside?” Kate asked. “We were in the front and the cop with the shotgun was in the back.”

Vail walked over to the fence and tested several of the wooden boards until he found two next to each other that were not nailed at the bottom. He angled the lower ends away from each other and, half squatting, squeezed himself through the narrow opening. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He let go of the boards and they swung back into place.

Ten minutes later, he came back through the fence. “It’s just a short walk to the other side of the property. There’s a side street where he could have had another car parked.”

“How’d you know about the bars?”

“I didn’t, but when I felt the bars move back and forth and saw that pin-and-loop construction that could act as a hinge, it seemed like the only possibility. See, all those years in the construction trade weren’t wasted after all.”

Kate let all the implications run through her mind, trying to synthesize them into a logical explanation. “But Bertok’s gun was used in the homicides, three of them before he even disappeared. So how can it
not
be him?”

“The answer to that will require a call to the firearms unit at the lab.”

She had no idea what Vail meant but opened her cell phone and dialed FBI headquarters. Once she was put through to the lab, she asked for the examiner on the case and hit the speakerphone button. “Hi, this is Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon.”

“Mike Terry,” the examiner said.

“I’m calling on the Pentad case. I’m going to put on an agent named Steve Vail. Please answer any questions he might have.”

Vail took the phone. “Hi, Mike. You got a match on all the slugs with Bertok’s issue weapon, is that right?”

“And the casings. The one from the fourth murder and all those recovered at the house where he died.”

“Where is the gun now?”

“I’ve got it right here. I was just finishing my report.”

“Other than ballistics, did you do any examinations on it?”

“Not really. Assistant Director Kaulcrick called and said the comparisons were to be done immediately. At the time I was right in the middle of an examination for a customs agent who had been shot, so I went back to that once I had completed the Bertok tests.”

“I’d like you to take a look at the barrel of that Glock. It should have a serial number.” The examiner didn’t answer right away. “Mike?”

“Sorry. I was looking at the gun. It definitely has some wear. But the barrel, it looks much newer.”

“I thought it might.”

“But the casings matched. And they have nothing to do with the barrel. This has to be the gun used in the homicides.”

“Good enough. I’m just tying up some loose ends. Let me have the serial number on the barrel. For the office records.” After writing it down, Vail hung up and handed Kate the phone. “Call the armorer at Quantico and see if this is the barrel that was in Bertok’s gun when it was issued to him.” He handed her the slip of paper with the serial number on it.

Kate called Quantico and was put through to the armorer. She read him the serial number and, after five minutes, said thank you and hung up. “You were right. That is not the barrel that was originally in Bertok’s weapon. It all makes sense. Whoever did this committed the first three murders with a Glock 22 of their own, kidnapped Bertok, took his issue gun, and switched the barrel from the first three murders into his Glock. Then they committed the fourth mur
der with Bertok’s gun and left the casing because it would now match. Shot at you with the gun before escaping out the rigged window, and they had already placed Bertok’s body in here. Then they just had to leave the gun behind, which tied up all loose ends.” A look of revelation creased her features. “Which means that if all this was staged, the key in the moneybag can’t be anything more than another wild-goose chase.”

She looked at him to confirm her theory, but he was taking out fingerprint powder and a brush from the evidence kit. He dusted the white window frame with black powder. “Nothing there,” he said.

Then he took off the casing and dusted the metal release mechanism. “And nothing there. So much for a quick solution.”

Vail packed up the kit and took it out to the car. They got in and Kate asked, “What do we do now?”

“Do you have any contacts at ATF?”

“I could make a call to headquarters and find one.”

“We need a factory trace on the barrel.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll have to see where that leads us.”

“Is it me, or are we losing ground?”

“Well, let’s see. We now have five murders, we’re short four million nine hundred thousand plus, and we’re still being played like a whorehouse piano.” He smiled. “I’d say we’ve got them right where we want them.”

T
HEY HAD BEEN DRIVING FOR ALMOST A HALF HOUR WHEN KATE
cracked her window to let the warm sunny air stream across her face. It felt good against the cool artificial flow being pumped so uniformly throughout the car. She needed some sort of sensory feedback to separate the real from the staged. She, like everyone else, had been taken in by the Pentad’s plan to blame Stan Bertok for the murders. She let her mind find its way through the twists and turns of the case, looking for any inconsistency that the FBI would eventually have picked up on to lead them to the truth. She was not sure there were any. In the end, the money would not have been found, and the search for it would have become no more than a frustration eventually downgrading to a mild curiosity as everyone thankfully moved on to new priorities. She closed the window and looked back at Vail. He glanced at her with an absentminded smile. He didn’t seem to appre
ciate what he had done. Then a more immediate downside of the discovery hit her. “Do you want to tell Don about Bertok or should I do it?”

“You’re the one who has to keep him happy.”

“We swallowed the Pentad’s frame hook, line, and sinker. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to make him happy. Until a half hour ago, this case, minus the money, was solved. Now we’ve got another murdered agent, no suspects, and not the slightest idea where the money is.”

“Then give him Pendaran. If he has someone to go after, it’ll take some of the sting out of being wrong about Bertok.”

“What about tracing the gun barrel? We can’t really tell him about Stan Bertok without explaining what we’ve found out about his gun.”

“Give that to him too.”

She looked at him quizzically. “You’re suddenly generous.” She let it hang in the air to see if Vail would respond. When he didn’t, she said, “I know you like to keep the best lead to work on yourself. Giving up both Pendaran and the gun will leave you nothing. Unless you’re keeping something from me.”

“Maybe it’ll get you back in his good graces. Besides, tracing the barrel is piecework; doing it doesn’t interest me. Just let me know what they find out. Besides, like you said, we have no choice—it’s part of exonerating Stan Bertok. And Pendaran is going to need surveilling. That’s not a one-man operation, not twenty-four hours a day. I’ve never had the patience for surveillance.”

“Okay, then tell me, while we’re doing the light lifting, where will you be?”

Vail pulled up in front of the federal building. “Even bricklayers are entitled to a little downtime. Union rules.” Vail glanced at his side-view mirror.

“Just on the off chance that you’ve got something going on, please keep the stupid stuff to a minimum.”

He checked the mirror again to make sure the car that had been following them since they left Spring Street was still there. “Define ‘minimum.’”

“You know, anything that causes a lot of paperwork, blowing up tunnels, shoot-outs, honking off assistant directors.” She squeezed his hand before she got out. He took a moment to enjoy her rhythmic walk in the dazzling sunlight.
Not now, Vail,
he admonished himself. Once she was inside the front door, he checked his mirror to make sure the car was still with him. He wasn’t positive but he thought there was now a second vehicle.

Once a seam formed in the traffic, he pulled away from the curb. He had to assume they were the Pentad. But why were they following him? They had their money and as far as anyone knew, Bertok was being blamed. They had been on Vail since he left Spring Street. Was there something else there they were afraid he’d find?

If he had told Kate about being followed, she would have wanted to bring in the troops, and as careful as these people had been, they would have been gone long before anyone could have gotten near them. He decided if he was going to sneak up on them, he’d have to go back to Spring Street alone.

At a light, he drew his automatic and set it on the seat next to him. When the light went green, he checked his mir
ror again. There was definitely a second car, and they were keeping a block’s distance between themselves and him. One was a dark gray two-door Dodge and the other a gold Honda. The Dodge was the one he had originally spotted and apparently had called the Honda for help.

Vail drove at a leisurely pace, slowing down for lights so they wouldn’t lose him. The drive back took about a half hour. Reholstering his weapon, he got out and went to the trunk. Slipping the monocular into his suit pocket, he lifted the evidence kit out of the car along with the Halligan bar. He set the evidence kit on the front porch and pushed open the door. Hiding in the shadows of the front room, he used the monocular to look out the window. Half a block away, the Dodge had pulled to the curb. He assumed the Honda was hanging farther back.

Going out on the porch, Vail took several items out of the evidence kit. Pulling on a fresh pair of gloves, he walked back to the Dumpster and started dusting, occasionally ripping off a piece of clear tape and apparently lifting a print, which he then attached to an index card. He repeated the process two more times before returning to the house.

The driver of the Dodge lit a cigarette. His gray eyes narrowed as he tracked Vail’s movements. “Vic, he’s back inside the house,” he said into his cell phone.

VICTOR RADEK SAT
in his Honda almost a hundred yards farther away. He wondered if all his planning was going to be ruined by the man’s voice he was listening to. Had he made the mistake that was going to enable the FBI to identify Radek or
the other members of his gang? “I don’t like this. This is the guy from the tunnel, so he’s no fool. Are you sure you wiped down that Dumpster, Lee?”

“I’m sure. Whatever prints he found aren’t ours. They could be anybody’s, probably the cops or FBI.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“And inside the house, you’re also positive?”

“I wiped everything down before I went out the window.”

The first time Radek saw Lee Salton in prison, he immediately recognized his usefulness. Always boiling just below the surface was a brutal, hair-trigger violence, which was common in a place like Marion. But Radek also detected an unusual weakness that rarely accompanied homicidal ability, something that made Salton exploitable. Salton needed someone else to be in charge, which in turn allowed him to rationalize not being responsible for his actions. Salton, as deadly as he was, was not a psychopath. When acting on his own, he invariably suffered self-recrimination afterward. When directed to violence by someone else, he suffered no such guilt. One night they got very drunk on prison hooch, and Salton told him that his mother had been a Bible-thumping lunatic, while his father was an alcoholic over-the-road trucker who, when returning home, would invariably remark his territory by beating the hell out of both of them.

Salton had been the ideal instrument to carry out the Pentad murders. He was efficient, dependable, and, as he proved in setting up the Bertok suicide, fearless, and he could follow the most complicated instructions. Best of all, he kept
Radek from having to get his own hands dirty. And, most important, Radek knew that Salton was incapable of ratting him, or anyone else, out.

The agent in the house had become a threat. First surviving the tunnel, then the shoot-out the day before. Now he had crossed paths with Radek again. He couldn’t know what they were doing there, but there he was. Why did he keep going back to the house? Radek feared it was only a matter of time until he discovered the trick bars on the bedroom window. If he did, the FBI would again be trying to figure out who was responsible for the murders instead of just chasing their tails looking for the money. There was only one thing to do.

“Is he still in the house?”

“Yeah,” Salton answered.

“What’s he doing in there? They did all their crime-scene stuff yesterday.”

“You don’t think he can figure out that trick window, do you?”

There was something uncertain in Salton’s voice. “Why, Lee? What if he does? Didn’t you wipe the plate down before you closed it up?”

“I’m almost positive I did.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“He was trying to kick the door in and shoot me, remember?”

“If he finds any one of our prints, we’re through.”

“What do you want me to do, Vic?”

“Think you can take him out?”

Salton leaned across the front seat and picked up a Heck
ler & Koch submachine gun from the passenger-side floor. “As much trouble as this guy has been, try and stop me.” He chambered a round.

“Once you put him down, we’ve got to destroy the evidence he’s collected. Just torch the house so we don’t have to worry about it again.”

Salton put the car in gear. “My pleasure.” He pulled up a little past the house, closer to the salvage yard than to the one-story structure, and got out, leaving the engine running. Cutting across the lawn on an angle so he couldn’t be seen as easily, he pulled himself up on the front porch silently and flattened against the wall. He could now hear Vail moving around inside. Counting to three, he spun himself in front of the door with the MP5 positioned on his hip ready to fire. Vail was in the bedroom doorway, putting the door back up over the opening. As soon as he saw Salton, he pushed it closed.

Salton took three quick strides toward the bedroom and opened up, firing full automatic, low through the door in case Vail had hit the floor. And if he was still standing, the raking burst would take his legs out from under him. After firing all thirty rounds in the magazine, he slammed in a second clip and moved to the door. Raising the weapon to his shoulder, he kicked open the door. The room was empty and the bars on the window had been swung open.

Behind him, Salton heard Vail’s voice. “You would think that if there was one person who wouldn’t fall for that it would be you.”

Vail watched Salton’s neck muscles tighten with decision and knew what was coming next. Salton started to turn, fir
ing before he could see Vail, hoping that the spraying rounds would cause the agent to take cover.

Vail stood his ground and fired one shot, hitting Salton in the side of the head just above the ear. The machine gun went silent and Salton’s lifeless body hit the floor. Vail moved to the wall next to the front window and peered out carefully, looking for the Honda. He could see it now. It had moved up to where the Dodge had been sitting.

After a few seconds, the silence was interrupted by a cell phone ringing. Vail patted down Salton’s body and found the phone. He answered “Yeah” as anonymously as possible.

“Did you get him?”

Vail was surprised by the matter-of-factness of the voice. “Yeah,” Vail answered, trying to keep the single syllable unrecognizable.

There was a hesitation and then the voice ordered, “Say something else.”

Vail knew he had been discovered. “Looks like you’re going to need new business cards. I’m thinking something like the Quartet Rubaco, or the Rubaco Tetrad has a nice ring to it, you know, for continuity, since the Pentad has been reduced by one member. Personally—”

The line went dead. Vail moved back to the window and watched as the Honda turned around in a driveway and disappeared from sight. He dialed the office on Salton’s phone and looked down at the body. “Don’t worry, it’s a local call.”

When Kate answered, he told her what had happened. She started to ask a question, but he cut her off, telling her there was at least one more member of the gang in the area, and then hung up.

He turned back to the man he had just killed. Rolling him over, he searched his pockets. He didn’t have a wallet, but he did have a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills in one of his front pants pockets. He was wearing a black turtleneck, not a logical garment for such a hot L.A. day. Vail pulled down the neck, revealing a tattoo that was hidden just beneath the collar. The faded letters said at your own risk. Tiny drops of blood in red ink dripped from the letters. The quality, Vail knew, was jailhouse. He pushed up one of the sleeves, revealing more tattoos of institutional inferiority. He was about the right height and weight of the individual who had fired at him the day before. Even though he was dead, there was still something about him, some kind of potential for violence. It was the eyes, Vail decided. They were still open and full of hate.

Vail walked out to the car, which was still idling. The front and back seats were empty. He reached in and turned off the ignition, taking the keys. Watching the street in case the Honda returned, he opened the trunk. A heavy cardboard box was the only thing inside. It was bigger than a large suitcase, tightly sealed with nylon filament tape. Vail took out his lock-back knife and slit along the seams. Packed in heavy-gauge plastic and wrapped with the same tape were neat stacks of banded hundred-dollar bills.