Zero Separation (17 page)

Donovan downshifted, checked his mirror, and then swung a hard U-turn. He punched the gas as they sped off in the opposite direction.

“I can't believe it.” Montero punched at the air as they drove. “We had her. She was sitting right there with us and we let her get away.”

They came to an intersection, and Donovan stopped at the red light. His eyes swept every car that moved past, hoping they could catch a break and spot the Lexus.

“We did lose her, right? She was dead?” Montero asked, quietly. “I mean, as fast as that car was going—the way she hit.”

“Yeah, she was gone.” Donovan glanced at Montero, trying to judge if she was being somber out of respect for Sasha, or remorseful because she couldn't interrogate her. Donovan looked beyond Montero down a side street to the parking lot of a Walgreens. People had gathered. He could see that it wasn't a casual group. Arms were waving and people were running back and forth.

“What's going on over there?” Donovan asked.

Montero snapped her head around and found what he was looking at. “Get us over there.”

Donovan was in the wrong lane for the turn, so while the light was still red, he made a hard right from the inside lane. He ignored the blaring of horns as he accelerated toward the parking lot.

“It's the Lexus!” Montero instantly had her pistol up and
ready. “It looks like someone's down in the middle of those people. Pull up over there and stop. You take the group and see if you can find out what happened.” Montero slid out of the car holding her weapon low along her right leg, trying to hide the fact she was armed. “I'm going to check out the Lexus.”

Donovan approached the cluster of onlookers. There were no more than a dozen people, mostly customers from the store, but a woman in a blue smock looked to be an employee. As he drew closer, he saw they were standing five or six feet back from a body sprawled on the pavement. A man was face down on the asphalt, the back of his head was a bloody mess, and he was half laying on a white bag from the store.

Everyone seemed to be talking at once. One part of the group was speaking rapidly in Spanish, the other, English. As he listened, they mostly repeated the same thing. That it was a tragedy. That no one heard or saw anything. Where were the police when you needed them? Why was it taking so long for an ambulance to arrive?

Donovan backed away from the crowd and moved toward the Lexus. He looked down the curb line and spotted two shiny metal objects—spent shell casings.

“Montero, check this out.” Donovan pointed to his discovery.

“The victim came out of Walgreens and was killed for his car. Sasha's killer is long gone, and now we have no idea what he's driving.”

The front of the Lexus was dented where the car had hit the girl. Donovan stepped around to the rear of the car when he heard the pop of the trunk release.

Montero stepped beside him, her pistol up and ready. She carefully lifted the lid and Donovan could see the oddly contorted body. Donovan turned away and glared at Montero. This was the third corpse he'd seen in the last twelve hours.

Montero leaned in for a closer look. “It's Diego's brother, Ramone. Someone is cleaning house.”

“Police! Drop the weapon, hands behind your head!”

Donovan froze. He watched as Montero carefully raised her hands, holding her gun by two fingers. “I'm a federal agent,” she said, without turning around.

Donovan was so caught up in watching Montero surrender, that he was completely unprepared as someone came up from behind him and forcefully drove him down to the pavement. Shouts filled the night and Donovan felt his hands being drawn up behind him, followed by the cold bite of handcuffs as they encircled his wrists.

“You're free to go,” the nurse said as she slid the curtain open.

Lauren looked up at Buck and William. “Okay, get me out of here. I want to go see Michael before the FBI arrives.”

Buck held out a hand, but Lauren waved it off. She sat up and closed her eyes against a spike of pain that shot out from her temples and radiated throughout her head. She fought off the worst of it, and lowered herself off the table until her feet touched the floor. Lauren stood for a moment, testing her legs to make sure all of her appendages were working correctly. Her head continued to pound inside her skull, but it wouldn't keep her from walking.

Lauren followed William's lead as they rode the elevator up one floor and walked to a doorway marked ICU. William pushed through first and held the door open for her. Lauren saw a man positioned outside one of the cubicles, a radio up to his mouth. He was short and wiry with longish hair and a beard. There was an intricate snake tattoo running the length of his left arm. The stranger nodded as they approached.

“Dr. McKenna,” Buck said, “This is my friend Andy. Andy, Dr. McKenna.”

“Hello, can I go in?” Lauren asked, realizing that she probably only had a few minutes to spend with Michael before Calvin, as well as the FBI, descended on her.

“Of course.”

Lauren found Susan sitting in a chair next to the bed, she and Michael holding hands. Michael looked up and smiled. His lopsided grin brought an almost boyish look to his face, and she wanted nothing more than to give him a big hug. Instead, she leaned in
and carefully kissed him on the cheek. She pulled away and felt the tears well up in her eyes.

“It's good to see you too.” Michael's smile waned and his voice wasn't much more than a croak.

“I can't tell you how happy I am that you're awake.”

“Dr. McKenna,” Andy stuck his head into the room. “Calvin Reynolds is on his way up here. The FBI is about ten minutes out.”

“Thanks, Andy,” Lauren replied.

“Calvin's here? The FBI is on their way?” Michael offered up a puzzled expression, first at Lauren, then Susan. “Who in the hell is Andy?”

Lauren heard a gentle tap behind her. She turned as the door opened, and in walked Calvin Reynolds. Nearing sixty, Calvin was tall and thin, almost birdlike. His thinning hair was combed straight back and perfectly in place despite just getting off a helicopter. He was wearing a suit and tie, as well as his trademark suspenders. Lauren guessed he'd been at DIA headquarters putting in yet another sixteen-hour day. His position as a senior deputy director made great demands on both him and his staff. She'd known Calvin since her days at MIT. Lauren didn't need to make any introductions. Everyone in the room already knew each other.

“I wish you'd stay out of trouble,” Calvin whispered as he hugged Lauren. He and William shook hands. “Nice to see you again. Thanks for watching out for Lauren.”

Calvin moved to Michael and Susan. “How are you two doing?”

Lauren felt herself smile. Calvin loved an entrance and he was good at it. His warmth and charm lit up the room.

“We're much better now,” Susan replied.

“I wish I'd have been briefed earlier.” Calvin shot Lauren a look of disapproval. “But I wasn't aware of any of this until I was told a bomb went off.”

“A bomb?” Michael said.

“Michael is a little behind on current events,” Lauren said. “If it's all right with you, I thought you and I could talk in here and bring everyone up to speed at the same time.”

“No one is going to rest until we know what's going on,” Susan squeezed her husband's hand. “I'm not sure I know everything that's happened at this point.”

“I'm sorry,” Calvin shook his head. “I need to speak with Lauren privately. At the moment, I'm only authorized to talk to people that report directly to me. Once the FBI has clearance from the doctors, they'll be in to debrief Michael.”

“Michael, do you remember anything about the man or men who shot you?” Lauren asked.

“Everyone's already asked me that. Sorry, I don't remember anything,” Michael said.

“You managed to hit one of them with your right hand.” Lauren pointed to the marks on Michael's knuckles.

“So I've been told.” Michael flexed his hand. “I guess I didn't win.”

“Lauren, you're with me.” Calvin said. “Good to see everyone. Sorry it isn't under better circumstances. Michael, I'm glad you're okay, but I need to remind everyone to sit tight until the FBI arrives.”

“I'll come back in when I'm finished.” Lauren said as she turned to go. “I promise.”

“Lauren,” Michael's voice was just barely above a whisper, “where's Donovan?”

“I'll explain it all later.” Lauren followed Calvin out of the room, past Andy, and down the corridor. Escorted by two DIA agents whom Lauren had never seen before, they were guided through a conference room to a private office where they took a seat on a sofa that lined one wall.

“This has become a far bigger issue than it was an hour ago.” Calvin took off his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief, holding them up to light to check his work. “Due to your position within the DIA and the security clearances you hold, the FBI, as well as myself, were immediately called in to investigate.”

“Why? I wasn't the target.”

“Really?” Calvin pulled a transparent evidence bag from his
inside jacket pocket.” This was found in the hallway where the bomb went off.”

Lauren saw it was a charred portion of a photo. Only the top section had survived the explosion, but as she looked closer, she was taken aback to find that the two people in the picture were herself and Susan.

“Do you have any idea when or where this was taken?”

“This was taken early this morning when we arrived in Boca Raton.”

“That's what William said,” Calvin replied. “This suggests the bomber waited in the parking lot for one of you to show up and lead them to Michael. It was very premeditated. Where Michael was being taken, while not a state secret, wasn't widely advertised.”

“These people are nothing more than drug smugglers who think Michael can ID them. Right? Florida drug people called Virginia drug people and tried to get to him.”

“Drug smugglers don't do what this guy did,” Calvin said. “Before he died, he cried out ‘God is great,' in Arabic, and then blew himself up.”

Despite Montero's furious protests, both she and Donovan were handcuffed and placed in the back of an unmarked squad car. More and more official cars arrived as well as an ambulance. Someone strung crime-scene tape over a wide area, and once it was determined that the man on the ground was beyond human help, a blanket was placed over his body.

Donovan noticed there were three distinct groups gathering at the scene. There were uniformed police, plainclothes officials, and then there were the civilians. Each wanted a good look at him and Montero. Inside the car, muffled bursts of walkie-talkie transmissions were all they could hear.

“God, I hate this!” Montero said for the fourth time.

To his surprise, Donovan saw someone he recognized. Walking toward the car was a very unhappy-looking Hamilton Burgess—Montero's boss.

“Oh shit,” Montero said under her breath. “This is not good.”

Burgess was on his phone, pacing the perimeter, stopping at times to angrily glare at them both. Moments later, one of the uniforms came over and opened the car door. They were released from the handcuffs and ordered to stay put. Montero started in by demanding the cop return her badge and gun. Donovan leaned against the squad car, rubbed his wrists, and watched.

Burgess ended his phone call, inhaled deeply, and then blew out his breath as if trying to calm himself.

“Walk with me.” When they were safely out of earshot of anyone else, Burgess stopped and faced Montero.

“I can explain, sir.”

Burgess raised his hand to stop her from speaking. In a voice not much more than a harsh whisper he began, “You have no idea how much trouble you're in this time. I told you to go home. What part of go home did you not understand?”

“I can—”

“Don't say a word,” Burgess hissed.

Montero nodded, but she didn't avert her eyes.

“Did it occur to either one of you that you might not be the only ones out playing cop tonight? Did you bother to consider that maybe we were bright enough to have dug up some information without you?” Burgess ran his hands over the stubble of whiskers on his face. “While you were out playing dress-up, trying to do God knows what—there was, in fact, a joint ATF/Broward County Crime Commission task force doing the same thing. Which forces me to admit to the locals, and my superiors, that I either have a rogue agent and her boy-toy out in the field screwing up an official investigation—or that I assigned an agent on administrative leave to invite a civilian to go undercover. How do you think I feel about those options?”

“Mr. Nash and I were simply out for the evening.” Montero shrugged. “We accidentally found ourselves in the middle of something I felt should be investigated.”

“You beat the crap out of two bouncers, Veronica. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, you assaulted an undercover detective.”

“Which one was the detective?” Montero asked as if not overly concerned.

“He was the guy in the parking lot of the Arena. He tried to keep the two of you from leaving the scene of a hit-and-run felony.”

“He grabbed me from behind,” Montero said with a shrug. “By allowing me to kick his ass, he maintained his cover very well, sir. He should be commended.”

“Nash,” Burgess asked, “what's your part in all of this?”

“I invited Ms. Montero out for a drink, to thank her for saving my life earlier today.”

“So you brought her to a strip joint? Yeah, I'm buying that. From what I saw earlier, you couldn't wait to get out of Florida.”

“Sir, did anyone run the plates on the Lexus?” Montero asked, clearly wanting to forgo any more ass chewing.