Horns of the Devil - Jeff Trask [02] (19 page)

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Chapter Nineteen

Monday, September 11

T
he dilemma—even after Trask’s application for the installation of a bug in the car wash office had been approved by the Department of Justice—had been how to install the damned thing. Ortega’s
Salvatrucha
clique always had someone at the place, since the precious marijuana crop in the attic always required tending and guarding. Several straight nights of continual surveillance had failed to identify any periods of time in which an FBI black-bag team could get into the building. Everyone was losing sleep over the problem, both mentally and physically, except for Carter, who remained on periodic injections of “zombie juice” in the hospital. The doctors and Willie Sivella still couldn’t trust him to get any rest at home without the knockout shots.

The break finally came thanks to some creative thinking on the part of Barry Doroz, who had a good contact in the security section of the regional office of AT&T. In discussing some hypotheticals with his phone guy, Doroz learned that the car wash had no phone service. The next morning, wearing an official AT&T sales outfit and equipped with business cards and order forms, Doroz—calling himself “Mike Long”—sold the basic service for a hard-line telephone to Mr. Esteban Ortega, the proprietor of the Qwik Shine Car Wash.

While Ortega was initially a reluctant customer, Mike Long sweetened the deal with a special sign-up offer that included the first sixty days free and a free listing in the yellow pages. Ortega signed the papers, and an installation crew appeared on schedule the next morning to install the desk phone in the car wash office. The Washington field office of the FBI reimbursed AT&T for the sixty days of not-really-free service and—as an extra bonus feature—installed a microphone and transmitter inside the desk set. The mic could pick up any conversation in the room, was powered by the telephone line that serviced the telephone, and sent a signal directly to the digital recording equipment in an electronic surveillance facility: the “wire room” of the Washington field office of the FBI.

The first call received by Esteban Ortega over his new business equipment came from one Timothy Wisnieswski, who told Ortega that he had just moved into the area and was looking for a good place to clean seven hundred miles of road dirt off his prized Dodge Charger. When Ortega hung up the phone, he was pleased that his new listing was driving business to the establishment, providing both some modest income and some cover for the real business being cultivated in the attic. He would not have been pleased to know that by picking up the receiver, he had switched on the concealed mic, which, by order of the United States District Court, was to be allowed to transmit any pertinent conversations in the office for a period not to exceed thirty days. Timothy Wisniewski was pleased to get the dirt, tossed by bucket onto his vehicle by Mike Long, off the Charger, and he opined that the MS-13 clique actually did a respectable job of cleaning cars.

The first week was spent monitoring the normal pattern of conversations in Ortega’s office and provided few surprises. In addition to two prearranged visits from Peewee James, there were sixteen other encounters between Ortega and residents of the nation’s capital who desired something a little stronger than a natural high. The potent marijuana was walking out the back door at the rate of more than two hundred pounds per week, generating a weekly gross income for the
Maras
of $1,400,000 at $7,000 per pound.

The squad monitored the mic twenty-four hours a day, rotating in eight-hour shifts. Ortega did most of his business in English, since most of his customers (both for marijuana and car washes) were American by birth. The conversations usually shifted to Spanish in the after-hours chats in the office, so Wisniewski and another Spanish-speaking agent were assigned the four-to-midnight shifts to provide real-time translations. Trask monitored the calls and the shift summaries as they came in, returning every day to his office computer to prepare the required status reports for the court, and for one very interested Ross Eastman.

The first “tickle” orchestrated by Doroz was an ATF arson team. As expected, when the two agents pressed Ortega for any information about the fire at the deli, they came away with nothing but denials and assurances by Ortega that the deli had been a profitable business, one he never would have thrown away had it not been for his enemies torching the place. The agents’ conversations over the bug were duly recorded as several knowing nods and eye-rolls were seen around the wire room. It was the follow-on session between Ortega and his lieutenants that they wanted to hear.

They weren’t disappointed. Within minutes after the ATF agents’ departure, Ortega and two others were laughing it up in the car wash office. Wisniewski had the office on speaker for a moment, then switched the speaker off to concentrate on the conversation through his headphones.

“
What a couple of morons
…That’s Ortega speaking,” Wisniewski translated, doing his best to provide a real-time interpretation. “
I told them we were turning a
profit and had no reason to burn the joint down. I told them I had enemies in the Eighteenth Street
gang. Real criminals. I’m an honest businessman, I said, and I just couldn’t take that neighborhood
any longer. They just nodded and apologized for disturbing me
.

“
Yes, it was the Eighteenth-street girlies, Esteban
.” Wisniewski explained there was a second voice, unknown speaker. The three
Mara
troops in the office were laughing their asses off.

“
Yeah
…This is Ortega again…
Me and a gallon of gas from my own pumps. Best torch
job the Eighteenth-Street idiots ever did. Those stupid bastards would have probably just tossed the
gas on the concrete wall and scorched it a little while they ran off like little girls
.”

Wisniewski looked at Trask and grinned.

“There it is,” Trask said, smiling and nodding in acknowledgement toward Doroz. “Nice work and two counts on the indictment even if we get zilch from now on. Arson and insurance fraud. If your other tickles work as well, we’ll be adding some dope deals and a few homicide counts. What’s next on the agenda, Bear?”

“Run Peewee back in at the end of the week for some more dope conversation, I guess. Build the drug conspiracy evidence pile a little higher. We might be able to ID some more weed customers we can spin later for additional testimony. We’ll save any interrogation on the murders for next week. Let ’em get real comfortable about their little sessions in the office.”

Trask nodded. He allowed himself to lean back in his chair and took a couple of deep breaths. He finally had some real progress to report to Eastman, who would then report it to the Department bigwigs, who would then stay out of their hair a little longer. He watched Wisniewski making notes on the shift report.

“Ortega’s leaving for the day,” Wisniewski said, still listening on the headphones. “He’s leaving someone named Mario in charge.”

“I’m leaving for the day, too,” Trask said. “This office at least. I’m looking forward to giving Eastman and Patrick some good news for a change.”

“I’m heading out, too.” Doroz was piling some papers into his briefcase. “Tim, you get to match wits with Mario for a few hours.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.”

Trask took the elevator up to the squad room. Lynn was looking at the murder file on the M-18 victim. She looked up and smiled when he came in.

“How’s it going down there?” she asked.

“Pretty well. Some good conversation about the arson at the deli. I was just heading across the street to brief the bosses. Anything jumping out at you on that homicide?”

“Nothing other than a couple of loose ends to tie up; I’ll work on it. What time are we heading home?”

“Fivish, barring some emergency.”

“Great. We need to walk the dogs, and there’ll still be some daylight.”

“See you at five.”

He didn’t have to pick up Patrick. The Criminal Division chief ’s office was empty, and when Trask looked at Patrick’s secretary, she nodded in the direction of Eastman’s office. They waved him in when he appeared in the doorway.

“How’s the bug?” Eastman asked.

Trask recounted the translations Wisniewski had made of the conversation between Ortega and his underlings in the car wash office.

“Excellent.” Eastman was nodding. “This ought to keep the buzzards from circling for a while. I was starting to look for them out my window. I’m due to go over and give the AG a status report today.” He stopped nodding and looked at Trask. “Any talk about the ambassador’s son yet?”

“Not yet. We haven’t thrown anything at them to prompt that discussion.”

“You might move that up on the timetable, Jeff. I anticipate I’ll be asked that question when I make my status report. When do you think you can work that in?”

“Next week, probably. We didn’t want to spook the bad guys by throwing every tickle at them at once.”

“That should be soon enough. Nice work.”

“Thanks. I’ve got some more reports to write for the judge.”

“Of course, thank you for the update.”

Trask headed back to his office, getting an approving wink from Bill Patrick as he left.

An hour at his computer left him feeling even more like a cop. For every half an hour of the “fun side” of an investigation (the successful field work), he had to spend double the time writing about it. In this instance, it was the ten-day report required by statute for the bug. The pertinent conversations had to be summarized and presented to the judge who had signed the Title III authorization for the hidden microphone, the Honorable Waymon Dean.

Drawing Judge Dean had been a pleasant surprise. Trask liked the man, and felt that the judge had some positive regard for him as well. Judge Dean was one of the old breed. There were certain attorneys he trusted, and his review of pleadings submitted by those favored few could be very cursory. Trask wondered if the judge would even read the report he was typing.

Probably not. He’ll just ask me for a quick verbal summary and sign these thirty pages after
I talk for two minutes. It’s worth doing, anyway. His signature will say he approves the report,
and that’s what the law requires. It’ll make it easier for me down the road in the case, having these
summaries in the can. Electronic cut-and-paste, the new practice of law.

The phone jarred his concentration away from the computer on his desk.

“Did you wear your watch today, hotshot?” Lynn asked.

“Yeah…oops!” Trask saw it was already 5:20.

“I was beginning to think you’d left me.”

“Sorry, got buried in a ten-day. I’ll see you in five minutes.”

“I’ll meet you in your garage.”

One of the few benefits of being an AUSA who’d been attacked in his home was the temporary underground parking spot that Trask had been assigned in the office’s guarded garage. Spaces there were usually a perk reserved for upper management.

Lynn was waiting beside him at the Jeep.

“How’d you beat me down here?” Trask asked.