F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (28 page)

“A number of reasons,”
Bob said. “The primary one being that the President wants it that way.
You heard it from the Man himself just a few minutes ago.” He was still
amazed that he’d been able to assemble this mini task force so quickly.
Wonderful what could be accomplished when you had the full authority of the
Executive Office behind you.

The four of them were crammed into
a corner office in W-16. Bob had drawn the shades, locked the door, and stationed
two uniformed agents in the hall with orders not to let anyone within ten feet
of the door.

He’d briefed his team on the
situation, describing everything pretty much as it had gone down. He’d
diverged from fact only when he’d told them that Razor had swallowed the
pills, and that Vanduyne, overcome by guilt, had confessed. Since it had been
too late to pump Razor’s stomach—Bob didn’t know if that was
true but expected them to buy it—the President was admitting himself to
Bethesda for observation.

Bob didn’t think it was
necessary to con these men; he knew them all and would trust each of them with
his life. But Razor wanted it this way, so that was how it was going to be.

“The other reasons,”
Bob added, “are that Vanduyne is the link to whoever’s behind this.
We need him out there, trading messages with these guys. And the third is that
we’re trying to save a little girl’s life. Katie Vanduyne is
Razor’s godchild and he wants the rest of her back alive and in one
piece.” Bob viewed the last objective as of secondary importance; his
primary concern was protecting Razor from any more attempts on his life.

“The rest of her?”
Canney said.

Bob turned and put the cooler on
the desk. “Yeah. The kidnappers sent her little toe to her father to
convince him they meant business. It’s in here.”

Canney winced. The grimace
emphasized the fine scars left after a car accident half a dozen years ago;
Gerry survived, his wife didn’t. Bob knew he had a daughter somewhere
around Katie Vanduyne’s age.

“Oh, God,” Keane
whispered. He suddenly looked pale and sweaty. Bob knew he had grandchildren;
probably imagining one of them in a similar situation. Only Jim Lewis seemed
unaffected. But then, nothing seemed to affect Lewis.

“I’ll get this into the
lab ASAP,” Canney said. “But what do I say about it? I’ve got
to attribute it to a specific case.”

“I’ll have the case
number before you leave. Razor’s talking to your director right
now.”

“What do you need from my
people?” Jim Lewis said.

“That anonymous remailer in
the U.K.” Bob handed him a manila folder.

“These are printouts of all
his e-mail to Vanduyne. You find that remailer, find out who
‘Snake’ is, and this case will be on the home stretch.”

“Snake?” Canney said.
“Did you say Snake?”

“Sound familiar?”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that
name before… connected to a couple of kidnappings… I think I heard
of one where he sent a finger when things weren’t moving fast enough to
suit him.”

“Got to be the same
guy.” Bob clapped his hands and rubbed them together. This was great. The
team hadn’t been together half an hour and already they were rolling.

“Okay. Pull your file on him
and we’ll—”

“Sorry. No file. The
information’s been tangential— you know, the kind of stuff you pick
up when you’re looking for something else. We don’t know diddly
about the guy except that he seems to specialize in snatching the kind of
people who won’t holler for a cop.”

“So we’re dealing with
an experienced team,” Bob said.

Not good news. It meant this guy
Snake had probably perfected his technique before snatching the Vanduyne girl.
He turned to Keane.

“We figure this has got to be
drug related, Dan. Who’s most likely to be behind it?”

“Hmm?” Keane seemed
mesmerized by the cooler.

Bob wondered what was bugging him.
He repeated the question.

“I can only guess,”
Keane said slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “The Cali
cartel—and that pretty much means Emilio Rojas these days—has the
most money, but the Mexican traffickers have the most Stateside contacts now.
Could be Rojas working through the Mexicans, or the Mexicans acting on their own.”

Bob hid his annoyance. He’d
hoped for a little more in-depth analysis from the assistant director of the
DEA.

“What’s your best
guess?”

“Best guess? I’d say
Mexicans. Kidnapping is an art form in Colombia; they’d bring in their
own people. But I can see the Mexicans hiring local talent. We keep tabs on
Carillo, Garcia, Esparragosa, and the other big shots. I’ll run a check
and see if any of them have been crossing the border lately.”

That was better. “Good. All
right. We all know what we have to do. Don’t waste any time. This is top
priority.” He wished he could tell them they only had till Tuesday, but
only he and Razor knew that. “I say we meet back here at six
p.m.—sooner if something breaks.”

As they began to rise. Bob said.
“I know I don’t need to repeat what the President said when you all
first got here, but I will anyway. Nothing said here goes beyond these walls.
Doesn’t matter who asks, whether it’s the director of your agency
or a senator or a cabinet member, you say nothing. Razor has signed an
executive order to that effect, so you’re off the hook. It’s not
that you don’t want to discuss it, you are forbidden to discuss it. And I
want to know immediately the name of anyone who presses you about it.”

Dan Keane was the first
out—seemed in a big hurry to leave—followed by Jim Lewis. Gerry
Canney hung back, the cooler dangling in his hand.

“Thanks for calling me in,
Bob. I appreciate the confidence.”

Bob smiled and thought of the close
call they’d had with a certain Dr. Lathram a few years back. “Not
the first time we’ve worked together on a plot against a president.
Except you may never get a chance to talk about this one.”

Canney shrugged. “I’ll
save it for my memoirs. But more than anything I want to get that little girl
back alive.”

“Thinking of Martha?”
Bob said.

“How can I not? Katie
Vanduyne is only a couple of years younger.” He glanced down at the
cooler. “I don’t know what I’d do if someone
ever…” He shuddered.

“I know,” Bob said. His
own boys were teenagers, but it seemed only yesterday that they’d been
small and so much more vulnerable.

When Canney was gone, Bob sat down
and began making notes and organizing his information. He couldn’t have a
secretary in on this, so he had to do it himself.

Not a bad start. Dan Keane tracking
from the drug lords toward Snake. Jim Lewis tracking from the anonymous
remailer toward Snake. Gerry Canney tracking from Katie Vanduyne’s toe
toward Snake.

Snake, my man, whoever you are,
wherever you are, you’re the key. And you’re in deep shit. Because
we’re going to find you. And when we find you, we squeeze you. We squeeze
you like no one’s ever been squeezed before. We squeeze until you cough
up who you’re working for. And then we find them and squeeze again. And
pretty soon we get to the guy who started it all.

By Tuesday, please God.

After a quick stop at his office to
pick up his briefcase, Dan Keane hurried along Sixth Street toward the Mall.
The chances of his running into someone he knew downtown on a Saturday were
slim to none, but he kept watch, kept glancing around, unable to escape the
feeling that someone was following him.

Just paranoia, he knew. And well
deserved. The plan was unraveling before his eyes. The weak link had always
been Vanduyne, and he’d broken.

But not before dosing Winston with
that antibiotic, thank God. That was all that mattered: taking Winston out.

And making sure nothing linked the
plot to the drug cartels. Because if that was ever established, it would advance
the decriminalization cause—precisely the opposite effect Dan wanted.

Dan was in the clear, at least.
Nothing to link him to Vanduyne, the kidnappers, or Salinas. And to lessen the
possibility of linking Salinas to the plot, the whole kidnap apparatus had to
be immediately dismantled and its components scattered.

But what about the child? What
happened to her?

He tried not to think about that
little girl. Yes, she had a name, but he kept it far to the rear of his
thoughts, kept telling himself she’d be all right, but already he knew
she was anything but. Great God in heaven, what sort of monster can carve a toe
off a child?

Dan knew exactly what kind. And
this was simply further proof that these slimy bastards had to be
eliminated—not by legalizing their filthy trade, but by hunting them
down, rounding them up, locking them away from decent society and throwing away
the key.

Dan knew his particular
monster’s name. He was going to speak to him today. Now.

The little girl would be all right.
But even if she weren’t— He couldn’t believe he was actually
thinking this, but even if she weren’t all right, even if it worked out that
she never made it back to her home, she was only one life. If she was the means
that put an end to Winston and his decriminalization plans, her single life
would be spent to save countless others.

Keep thinking about the big
picture, he told himself. Don’t let the minutiae swallow you up. What was
one little life weighed against the unraveling of the moral fiber of an entire
nation?

One little life…

He spotted a phone near the Air and
Space Museum and stepped up to it. He removed the battery-operated voice
distorter from his briefcase and glanced around. No one nearby. He attached the
mechanism to the mouthpiece, dropped a quarter in the slot, and dialed. He had
no doubt Salinas was recording these calls, and doing his damnedest to trace
them. Good luck. Dan used a different phone every time, and in the highly
unlikely event that the tapes ever got to court, the distorter would confound
any attempt at voiceprint analysis.

When someone on the other end
answered, Dan said, “Put Salinas on.” The first few times
he’d called there’d been some argument about calling him back. Dan
had always refused. Those days were gone. Now when they heard his distorted
voice, they put him right through.

“Yes?” he heard Salinas
say. “Who’s calling?”

He pictured the fat slob sitting in
a chair or on a sofa, his belly drooping between his spread thighs. When was
the last time you saw your dick, pig? Dear God, he hated his type. That was why
he’d joined DEA—to rid the earth of them.

But Salinas was no dummy. Dan had
to hand him that. He, too, assumed the calls were being recorded, so he always
played dumb. No one was going to entrap Carlos Salinas.

And so they began their verbal
dance.

“You know damn well who it
is,” Dan said.

“Sorry, I don’t
recognize the voice. Must be a bad connection.”

“Right. The worst ever.
Here’s what you need to know: The target is being admitted to the
hospital later today.”

“That is too bad for Mr.
Target, but I don’t believe I know him.”

“Maybe you know his doctor.
Shortly after treating the target, the doctor confessed to his mistake. A
number of agencies are involved in trying to unravel the matter.”

A long pause on the other end. Dan
was sure this was the last thing Salinas wanted to hear.

“But Mr. Target is
sick?”

“Not yet, but he expects to
be. The doctor, obviously, is of no further use, therefore the apparatus you
assembled to put pressure on him must be dismantled immediately, and his
valuables returned to him.”

“Valuables?”

“Yes. The valuable thing you
took from him.”

“No,” Salinas said.
“I do not think that will happen. You see, he did not fulfill the terms
of the arrangement, therefore he cannot expect the return of his possession.
Besides, it is more… how do I say?… discreet if the possession is
never seen again.”

Dan closed his eyes and repeated
his mantra: The big picture… forget the details… always look at the
big picture…

He swallowed. “Will you be as
thorough regarding the other components of the apparatus?”

“Of course. It is a small
apparatus. No one will miss the parts.”

“No one must connect you or
your business with it.”

“There will be no trace. How
can I be connected with something that never existed?” How indeed?

Dan hung up and retched. forget the
details… always look at the big picture…

How the hell did he get himself
involved in this? He had to ask himself how many people at DEA hated Winston
and his plan.

Easy answer: Everyone. How else do
you react to someone who has condemned your career, your life’s work to
extinction?

But how many had considered
conspiring with the enemy to put a stop to Winston? Maybe a few. But he knew of
only one with the guts, only one who cared enough about his duty and his country
to follow through with it.

Daniel J. Keane.

But were his reasons so purely
idealistic? He wanted to think so, but in his most honest moments, at 3:00 a.m.
when he found himself wide awake and staring at the clock, his mind taunted
him, whispering that he was motivated not so much by principle as by
self-preservation.

He’d devoted most of his
working life to the DEA. And now that he was finally in line to be
administrator, Winston was planning to render the agency obsolete, and
Dan’s entire career irrelevant. The DEA might continue to exist, but only
as a shell, a vestigial organ, of as much consequence as the human appendix.

Had he made a deal with the Devil
merely to salvage his career? No. He couldn’t accept that. He was better
than that. But then another question would arise: When you join forces with the
enemy, don’t you become the enemy?