ANDREW GROSS
No Way Back Part 3

Table of Contents

Title Page

Cano

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Gillian

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

Chapter Sixty-Six

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy-One

Chapter Seventy-Two

Chapter Seventy-Three

Chapter Seventy-Four

Chapter Seventy-Five

Chapter Seventy-Six

Chapter Seventy-Seven

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Novels by Andrew Gross

Copyright

About the Publisher

CANO

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The modern six-story brick-and-glass office building was on Atlantic and Summers Streets in downtown Stamford.

I got there at 7:30 A.M. and waited in the garage.

I had looked up the address for Sifton, Sloan and Rubin, where the article I’d read the day before said Harold Bachman was a partner. The underground garage had two floors. I asked the attendant at the entrance if there was any designated parking for the law firm, and he directed me down to the lower floor.

I just didn’t go in.

I positioned myself near the elevator, where I could get a decent look at anybody going in, and watched the procession of office workers and businesspeople arrive at work. None of them resembled Bachman.

The first hour felt like three. Worried that he might be away or still on leave and not even coming in, I called the firm from inside the garage and asked to speak with him. The receptionist who answered put me on hold and then told me he hadn’t come in yet. So I was pretty sure he’d be here at some point.

All I could do was pray he’d listen to me and wouldn’t alert the police.

At ten of nine, a white Mercedes 350 drove in and rounded my corner. Through the glass I saw the driver’s curly gray hair and wire-rim glasses. I checked the photo I had printed at the café.

It was him.

Bachman parked on the lower ramp, took out a leather briefcase from the backseat, locked the car with his remote, and made his way over to the elevator. I stepped out from between a couple of cars, my heart beating nervously.

“Mr. Bachman?”

He squinted back through his glasses, clearly taken by surprise. “Do I know you?”

“No. No you don’t,” I said. There was no one else around. “Can I talk with you just for a moment?”

I knew he wouldn’t recognize me. He had no reason in the world to suspect who I was, nor that I would be here looking for him. He glanced around; I figured I looked harmless enough, or desperate. He nodded and stepped away from the elevator to a spot near a handicapped parking space and shrugged. “All right. Sure.”

On the ride down from Boston I’d gone over at least a dozen times what I would say. But my blood was racing and I was nervous and scared, and there was no chance it would come out the way I planned. “Mr. Bachman, I’ve got something to tell you that will take you by surprise … and maybe bring up some things that I know are still painful … things you may not want to talk about. But I need you to just hear me out—”

“Who are you?” he asked me, his brow wrinkling.

I didn’t know how else to say it. I just handed him a copy of the New York Times. There was a photo of me, one taken with Dave at an advertising industry function we had attended a few months back. It didn’t exactly look like I did now. I lifted my sunglasses. But the headline said it all: WESTCHESTER WOMAN SOUGHT IN CONNECTION TO HOTEL SHOOTINGS.

Bachman looked back up at me and his eyes grew wide.

His gaze darted around again, trepidation coming onto his face, and if a security guard had come by at that particular moment, I don’t know what he would have done.

“Mr. Bachman, there’s no reason for you to be alarmed. I know what you’ve recently been through, and if there was anyone else in the world I could talk to, I would—I swear!—and not put you in this position …”

He looked at me and then glanced back down at the article. “You’re Wendy Gould?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Ms. Gould, if you have any thoughts of me representing you, I’m afraid you’ve sought me out for the wrong reason. First, it’s not what I do; it’s not my specialty. I don’t do criminal work. And anyway, I’m not doing this kind of thing right now.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here,” I said. “I don’t need you to represent me—”

“You’re a federal fugitive, Ms. Gould.” He handed me back the paper. “I can’t talk to you. You’re wanted in connection with the murder of a government agent. Not to mention, if I remember correctly, the murder of your husband …”

“None of which is true.” If I could have shown him the truth with a single, steadfast look, my eyes as solid and steady as they’d ever been, I gave it to him now. “None. I swear. At least, not the way it’s being portrayed.”

“Then let me say, as a lawyer, Ms. Gould, someone’s doing an awfully good job of making you look bad.”

I swallowed, and nodded back with a resigned smile. “That’s the only part that is true. Mr. Bachman. Look, you can look around, but I’m the one who’s risking everything just being here with you now. You can see I’ve changed my appearance. What would it take for you to call for security or even the police and let them know? In an hour, everyone would know.”

“I appreciate the trust, Ms. Gould, and I’m truly sorry for your predicament, but unless you’re looking for someone to mediate the terms of handing yourself over to the police—”

“I can’t hand myself over to the police!” I shook my head defiantly. “I can’t. I’m not here because I found your name on some lawyer’s website. I’m here because you’re the only person I know who can help me prove that I’m being framed. Trust me. Otherwise I’d be as far away from here as I could. Please, just hear me out. Two minutes is all I’m asking. I’m begging you, Mr. Bachman … I don’t have anywhere else to turn.”

“Why me? You said you’re aware I’ve been through a situation of my own …”

“And that’s exactly why I’m here.”

Maybe it was the utter desperation on my face. Or that I had sought him out, the one person who could prove my innocence. But Bachman put down his bag. He nodded reluctantly. “You have two minutes. Make it good, Ms. Gould.”

CHAPTER FORTY

“Do you know the name Curtis Kitchner?” I asked him.

“Kitchner? If I recall, he was the guy who was killed in New York up in that room?”

“That’s correct.”

He shrugged. “Then only what I’ve heard on the news.”

“Mr. Bachman, I did an incredibly foolish thing. I ended up in someone’s hotel room I had no right being in. I’d never done anything like that before in my life. But nothing happened up there … and I’ve had nothing to do with the murders I’m being implicated in. I was actually in the bathroom, preparing to leave, when I heard someone else come into the room.”

Bachman said, “I’m listening …”

Harried, I explained the whole thing to him. Hruseff. Curtis. How the agent killed him right in front of my eyes, and the second gun fell across the bed to me. “This person was a Homeland Security agent, Mr. Bachman. And I watched him kill Curtis. Not in a shoot-out. Not under any threat, or in self-defense as it’s been alleged. But in cold blood. Right in front of my eyes. Right there on the bed.”

Bachman shook his head in puzzlement at me. “Why?”

“That I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Curtis was a journalist. He was working on something that implicated the U.S. government in a shooting in Mexico. Look, I found something he wrote on the subject …” I reached inside my pocket and took out a copy of the article. “I’m certain he found out something to do with the Mexican drug trade. Something he shouldn’t have.”

“You said this other person in the room was a Homeland Security agent. He identified himself?”

“No. Afterward, I looked through his pockets and found his ID. And if he was an agent, he damn well wasn’t up there for any good. He was only there to kill Curtis, Mr. Bachman.”

The lawyer nodded, taking it in. We heard a car door slam, and a man who had parked nearby walked up to the elevator. Bachman smiled briefly, uttering, “Morning,” as I looked away. The elevator opened and the man stepped in. Then Bachman turned back to me. “The problem is, Ms. Gould, two other people ended up dead.”

I told him the rest. How I picked up the gun, knowing that the killer would come for me in the bathroom. How I identified myself and still the guy just raised his weapon. “Yes, I shot him. He was preparing to shoot me.”

“And then you just ran?”

I told him how I ran from the room and how the guy’s partner tried to silence me too. Then I told him how Dave died as well. I went through the whole thing. “Not in the kitchen. Not by my hand. They shot him! I left that gun on the bed back in that hotel room, Mr. Bachman. I swear!”

He kept looking at me with this lawyerly, evaluating stare. I had no idea if he actually believed me. But I kept going.

“I tried to turn myself in. You heard what happened at Grand Central the other day. I wasn’t trying to run away. They’re trying to silence me, Mr. Bachman. For what I saw. A close friend was trying to work out my arrest, and he ended up being shot too. That’s why I can’t turn myself in. Not until I find out why they’re trying to kill me.”

“So how do I fit in?” he asked. “Assuming I even believe all this. You said I was the only person who could help you.”

I reached inside my jeans and pulled out Curtis’s BlackBerry.

“I took this from Curtis’s hotel room when I ran. It belonged to him.” I pushed the power button and then scrolled through Curtis’s pictures. “This is the last one he took. Just a couple of days before he died.”

I held it out and watched Bachman’s eyes go wide. He stared at the photo of Lauritzia Velez.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The picture hit home. Harold Bachman’s face went ashen.

“Curtis visited her,” I said. “Just before he died. She knew something he needed to find out. I’m sure it was connected to Cano. To the killing of those two DEA agents down in Mexico, which he thought was connected to the airport bombing that took your wife. Maybe he was trying to get to her father. Maybe he suspected something else about why those agents were killed.”

Bachman shook his head. “This just isn’t something I can get involved in, Ms. Gould.”

“Mr. Bachman, this is the second time I’ve had to say this in the past two days, but we’ve both lost people we loved.” I put my hand on his arm. “Whether you believe me or not, I loved my husband every bit as much as you did your wife. The difference is, I can’t even grieve for him. I’ve got half of the United States government out looking for me. And I’m being framed for a horrible murder I didn’t do.

“And the thing is, their deaths are connected, Mr. Bachman. Your wife’s and my husband’s—whether you can see that or not. I need to find out why Curtis Kitchner was killed. It’s the only way I can clear myself and get my life back. Mourn who I’ve lost. And whatever that reason is”—I looked in his eyes—“I’m absolutely certain it leads through Lauritzia Velez. I’m here because I need to find her, Mr. Bachman.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Ms. Gould.”

“Why? Why is it impossible? You and your wife were her protectors. You represented her. You have to know where she is! I have to find out what she knows. Why Curtis needed to find her. What there was about the killing of those drug enforcement agents in Mexico that every one’s trying to keep quiet.”

“You don’t understand …” His voice lowered, but it was still firm. “This girl’s been the target of some very dangerous people, and I’m not about to put her in any more danger. Any more than I would put my own kids in danger. Besides, I’m quite sure she doesn’t know anything that can help you. She wasn’t a part of any of this.”

“Maybe what Curtis needed to know was how to find her father? He was a part of it.”

“I assure you she doesn’t know where her father is.” Bachman reached down and picked up his briefcase. “Look, I understand your predicament, Ms. Gould, and I’m sorry. I truly am. If you want, I’ll recommend someone who can represent what you’ve told me to the proper authorities. This is the United States, for God’s sake; they can’t just put you in a cell and make you disappear.”

“They damn well can, Mr. Bachman. They’ve already tried.”

“But I hope you understand it’s best if we don’t have any further direct contact. I can’t allow my name to be connected with this Cano person in any other way. I have my kids. My only goal is to protect them now. We’ve already seen what this man will do …”

He was slipping away from me, and without Lauritzia Velez I had nothing. Only possibilities. Suppositions. No proof on anyone. He made a move to leave, but I grabbed his arm. “You looked into those DEA murders yourself, Mr. Bachman. For Lauritzia’s trial. Did you ever come across someone named Gillian?”

“Gillian?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, no …” He moved toward the elevator.

“The agent who killed Curtis said that name. ‘This is for Gillian,’ he said, before he pulled the trigger and killed him. Maybe Ms. Velez would know who he meant.” My voice took on a tone of desperation. “Just let me speak with her once. That’s all I ask. Please …”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I have to go.” He pushed past me and pressed the elevator button several times. “I wish I could help you, Ms. Gould. You see the position I’m in.”

“Here …” I tried to force the article Curtis had written into his hand, but it fell to the floor. “Curtis wrote about all this. It’s what got him killed.”

“And that’s precisely why I can no longer afford to get involved. Don’t you understand?”

The elevator opened. Bachman stepped in.

I stood there looking back at him, my last chance to prove myself dissolving away. “Look up the agent I shot. Hruseff. You’ll see, he wasn’t always Homeland Security. He was in the DEA. He was reassigned. You’ll see.”

“I’m really sorry, Ms. Gould—”

“Look them all up,” I said as the doors began to close. “They’re all connected.”

Harold Bachman’s face disappeared, and I kneeled down to pick up Curtis’s article, sure my last chance to prove I was innocent was now gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Harold sat in his corner office on the sixth floor, a view of the Long Island Sound in its large picture window. He’d gotten his coffee, checked his schedule for the day. He started to prepare for his ten thirty meeting on the Lefco vs. Connecticut case, but his mind kept drifting back to Wendy Gould.

He thought he’d mishandled the situation. What he should have done, he decided, was gotten on his phone as soon as that elevator door closed and called 911. He was a lawyer. He was sworn to uphold the law. Whatever her guilt or innocence, she was a fugitive, wanted for her involvement in two capital crimes. He’d lost his wife a few months ago in such a crime. If true, Wendy’s story was a rough one, and he was sorry for that. He actually did believe her. But that was for the authorities to figure out, not him. He had his kids. He couldn’t get involved.

Putting down his brief, Harold had to admit he was nervous now. He wanted nothing to do with Eduardo Cano again. Since he first heard his name, it had caused him nothing but heartbreak and ruin. He still had Jamie and Taylor. Keeping them safe was the only thing that mattered now. Yet no matter how he tried to block him out of his mind, this Cano kept knifing his way back in. Back into his life. Someone he had never met but who had caused him the most pain he had ever known.

He glanced at his watch. He could still call 911. He could merely say that he had hesitated for an hour, that the whole thing had simply taken him by surprise. Surely the FBI would want to know her whereabouts. That she was around there.

So why haven’t I dialed?

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled to face the window. On the credenza in front of him were several photos of Roxanne, whom he missed more than anything in the world. Whom he still couldn’t contemplate having to spend the rest of his life without—who would not just call up, at any second, and ask him what he was doing for lunch or if he’d ever heard of this Off-Broadway play or this dance company that was performing in the city. Death was always something abstract and far away until it hit home; and then it became a black, bottomless pit you could never crawl your way out of. He picked up the photo of his wed-ding day, and then next to it one of them sailing off Nantucket, where Roxanne’s eyes shone as blue and brightly as the sea. And he remembered his thoughts as he looked at her that day from the tiller, thinking that he was the luckiest man in the world to have someone of such vitality and beauty. And courage. Roxie never backed down from anything she truly believed in. Look at what that had done to her now. He missed her more and more every day.

But today those eyes seemed disappointed in him. They seemed to contain a form of accusation. For him having backed down when someone needed him so much.

To have given in to the fear when inwardly he really wanted to stand up. Stand up and say, Yes, I believe you. I will help you. In his heart he knew what Wendy said was true. He felt she was innocent. He could hear it in her story; he saw it in her eyes.

Look what it has gotten you, Roxie … He put down his wife’s photo and looked away. All the “standing up” in the world. He put his hands over his eyes and felt like weeping.

Look what it has gotten you.

Was it such a crime, wanting to keep Jamie and Taylor safe? To keep this evil away from their already damaged lives? He wanted that more than anything. Except for maybe one thing … one thing that did burn deeply inside him. A flame he could not put out. And that was to see the person responsible for Roxie’s death brought to justice.

Made to pay.

To know he wasn’t out there, living in some lavish home. Basking in the rewards of his evil, gloating, never knowing the pain he’d caused and the beautiful life he’d extinguished.

Both their deaths are tied together, Wendy Gould had said. Whether you accept it or not. And as much as he wanted to deny that, the throbbing in his soul told him she was right. They are connected.

He looked at the phone. Why haven’t you made that call?

Look them all up, she had said, the desperation clear in her eyes as the elevator door closed. They’re all connected.

Connected to whom?

Harold logged on to his computer. He went into Google and typed in the name she’d told him to look up, Hruseff. The agent she had shot.

He paged through several articles, finally finding one that gave his personal bio. Growing up in Roanoke, Virginia. His two tours in Iraq. His short tenure at Homeland Security. Before that at ICE. There was a shooting incident the agent was involved in on the border, in which he was cleared of any guilt. “After earning his release from the army, Hruseff spent four years as an agent for the DEA …”

Was that what Wendy Gould was referring to? Harold took note of the years: 2006–10. He read on:

“… rising to the rank of Senior Field Agent, based out of the agency’s regional headquarters in El Paso, Texas.”

That’s what stopped him. The dates. El Paso.

Harold minimized his search on Hruseff and typed a new subject into the search box.

Sabrina Stein.

He dug up a government press release announcing her appointment to the DOJ, which also contained her past history. It credited her success in running the El Paso DEA office, and the Intelligence Center there, in what they called “Ground Zero in the government’s war against narco-terrorism …”

Her tenure coincided with Hruseff’s. Hruseff worked for her.

The killings of the DEA agents in Culiacán took place in 2009, when both of them were there.

Harold felt the blood seep out of his face. He knew anyone who stepped into his room at this very moment would be facing a ghost.

Look them all up. They’re all connected. Was this what she meant?

He took another look back at his wife, then picked up his phone.

But instead of calling 911, he paged his secretary. “Janice, I need a favor. See if Sabrina Stein can see me tomorrow in DC.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Joe Esterhaus pointed to the tree-shaded Tudor at the end of the cul-de-sac. “That’s the one.” Only three days out of the hospital, he still had his arm in a sling. “Pull up over there.”

His daughter, Robin, drove the car over to the curb and turned it off. There was a double line of yellow police tape still blocking both entrances of the semicircular driveway. She stared at the pretty house, thinking that only a week before this was the scene of a creepy murder. “That tape’s up there for a reason, Dad. You sure you should be doing this?”

“I’m just gonna walk around a little and see what gives. You just stay in the car.”

He pulled himself out, grimacing at the pain that still stabbed at his shoulder. Besides the yellow tape, a crime lock barred the front door. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

“I’d say, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’” Robin called after him, “but I know there’s not much chance of that.”

“Not much chance at all.” Esterhaus laughed, ducking under the tape line leading to the bricked, half-circle driveway. He winced. He still had to wear the sling, at least for another week. Then came weeks and weeks of physio. All trying to get mobility back for a guy who for the past two years could no longer put peas into his mouth with a fork. What the hell was it all for anyway?

He went down to the house and tried the front door. He knew it was a waste of time. He stared in through a frosted-glass window. The crime boys had already done their work. Been through the kitchen on their hands and knees. He had no clue what he would possibly find. Still, it was worth a look. Wendy needed anything that could drive a hole in their story.

He waved to his daughter, who was watching him while on her cell phone. Then he headed around the back. Wendy’s lot was a wooded, three-quarter acre bordering a golf club. Through the gaps in the tall oaks and pines, he could see a fairway. There was a pool in the back that was covered up, and a hot tub a few steps away. Nice. He tried the French doors off the patio outside the living room. They wouldn’t budge. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get in after all.

Continuing around, he followed the property’s slope down to the side of the house. Under what appeared to be the kitchen was a rear basement door. Eight glass panels, not too thick. Esterhaus had no idea if the place was alarmed.

Only one way to find out.

He bent his good arm and gave a short, hard thrust into the window, smashing through one of the panels. The glass cracked and fell back into the basement.

Nothing sounded.

So far so good. Reassured, he cleared the glass edges still remaining in the door, then reached his hand through and unlocked it from the inside. The door opened, leading to a darkened basement. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. There was a large TV on the wall, a bunch of sofas and chairs. A primo Brunswick pool table. He had always wanted one of those. He found the stairs, which led upstairs to a mudroom off the kitchen.

Bingo.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, right, doll? Esterhaus looked around. The kitchen had been redone. A polished marble island, a fancy farmhouse sink, antiqued wooden cabinets. There were beams above the island with a hanging iron rack with lots of copper pots.

A ton of evidence tape all around.

One taped area marked the outline where Dave’s body had been found. There were numbered flags that indicated shell casings, bloodstains, some marking the wooden stool above the body. He examined it closely, admiring the work the way a craftsman might admire a well-built table. Whoever had manufactured the scene had done a nice job. They’d even created their own spatter.

Anyone would have bought into it. Why the hell not?

A cooking pot was still on the floor, and a glass was still turned on its side. Wendy’s friend had already confirmed that Wendy and Dave had had a spat the night before. The gun that came from the hotel room where the government agent was shot. Everything seemed to back up what they were saying: that Dave was killed here. That maybe Wendy had told him what had happened in New York and he wasn’t so sympathetic. Then she panicked, shot him, and was about to flee when the lights went on behind her …

Esterhaus knew this would be hard to overturn on the basis of the evidence, but he continued to look around. It was so elaborately laid out. He went back down the stairs and left by the same door he’d come in through. He wiped down the doorknob with his sleeve.

Then he squeezed through a wooden fence on the side of the house and came back around the front.

The thought started to worm even in him: What if Wendy hadn’t been telling him the whole truth? What if she was up in that hotel room and panicked? And what if she did tell Dave, and he reacted. The way any husband might react. What if he threatened to tell the police and she shot him?

But he reminded himself that that hole in his shoulder was the best evidence he had that she was telling the truth.

He went back up the drive, then stopped before he got to the car, rerunning in his mind how Wendy had said it all took place. They’d been backing out of the garage. Lights flashed on from behind them. Esterhaus saw the outline of tire rubber still visible on the blacktop, where Wendy had said she floored it past the first agent. There were shots. Which didn’t prove anything in itself—she was trying to escape! She drove onto the front island. He went over and saw tire marks still in the soil. Dave’s door had opened. Wendy sped past the agent, and Dave was shot as they drove by.

“Dad, c’mon!” he heard Robin call from the car. “I gotta pick up Eddie.”

“In a minute …” He walked to the top of the drive and saw where Wendy’s car had bounced off the island and back onto the street. She said she stopped, looking on in horror as Dave fell out of the car. I stared at my husband lying in the street. Then a shot slammed into her car and she hit the gas.

Esterhaus went out onto the street. Bending, he looked over the area where he was sure the car had stopped. That’s when he noticed something.

Specks.

Specks of a dark, congealed substance that had hardened into the pavement.

He kneeled. The whole thing had happened at night. Even someone looking for it afterward, in order to cover it up, would likely never have spotted it in the dark.

He reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out his key chain, which had a Swiss Army knife on it. Opening the knife, he scraped at the specks, which were hard, dried, more black than crimson.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself.

How the hell had it gotten all the way out here, on the street, and not in the kitchen, unless it happened just as Wendy said?

From the car Robin came over, leaning over him. “Find something, Dad?”

“Could be …” Esterhaus got back up to his feet. “Run and get me the camera,” he told his daughter. “It’s in the backseat.”

He had found something.

He was sure he was staring at David Gould’s blood.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Harold wasn’t sure why he was doing it. He didn’t know what he hoped to find out, or what he would do, if something turned up. He was a real estate lawyer, not an investigator. He specialized in REITs, not crime solving.

But waiting outside Sabrina Stein’s office at the DOJ, watching the flow of staffers going in and out, he did know that he’d never ever be able to look at his wife’s photo again without averting his eyes, never be able to hug his kids without the suspicion that their mother’s death could possibly have been solved and he hadn’t followed it up.

Much of what Wendy Gould was saying did have the ring of truth to it. And was backed up by the facts. And if there was one thing that did burn in his heart, drove him, almost as much as the vow he made to protect Jamie and Taylor and that he couldn’t put away, it was that he wanted to see the people who had committed this horrible act brought to justice.

Wherever it led.

“Mr. Bachman.” The twenty-something staffer stepped out from behind her desk. “The secretary can see you now.”

She opened the office door as a young shirtsleeved staffer stepped out, carrying a large stack of files and giving Harold a polite but harried nod. Harold could recognize the crazed look of someone a year or two out of law school anywhere.

Sabrina Stein’s office was spacious, official-looking. An American flag, photographs on the wall of the presi-dent and the attorney general. She stood up from behind her large desk, piled high with multicolored folders. “Mr. Bachman.”

Sabrina Stein was in her forties, attractive, with short, dark hair and vibrant brown eyes—eyes that were both intelligent and welcoming, yet at the same time bright with ambition. She hadn’t hesitated when Harold contacted her to testify on Lauritzia’s behalf. She had put her own life on the line both as an agent and then as head of EPIC, the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center fighting narco-terrorism. She’d been shot; she’d been bludgeoned with a bat in a sting in Juárez that went horribly wrong. She still walked with a slight limp. She’d spent a good part of her career inhabiting the murky area between police work and covert action. For twenty years she’d been trying to put killers like Eduardo Cano out of business or take them down.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, coming around with a mug of coffee. She was dressed in a stylish short jacket and pants, a blue crepe blouse, a pretty pin on her lapel. She was from Arkansas and spoke with a slight drawl. “It goes without saying, how shocked and saddened I was to hear about your wife.”

“Thank you.” Harold smiled appreciatively. “I received your note.”

“I know she was an extremely determined woman. With a huge heart. I can promise you that everyone in this building is doing whatever they can to see the person behind what happened brought to justice. Please, take a seat over here.”

She motioned to the couch in front of the large window that had an impressive view of the Capitol dome. “I’m sorry we didn’t have better luck with that court ruling down in Dallas. I’ve been through this situation a number of times. Once it gets in the hands of the courts, you can never tell what’s in the heads of those judges. The ability to protect confidential inform-ants and their families is one of the lynchpins of the federal justice system. Take that away, we’re no better than special-ops guys without weapons. Anyway, I’m afraid I only have a handful of minutes to spend with you. I’m expected over at State …”

“I appreciate you carving out some time on such short notice.” Harold opened his briefcase.

“Alicia said this is about Ms. Velez? I expect you’re deciding whether to continue the case to a higher level? How is she doing?”

“Recovering. She’s obviously been through a lot. And not just the physical trauma, of course. She was also very fond of my wife.”

“Of course. Poor girl. I’m assuming you have her in a very safe place.”

Though Stein certainly seemed like a person who could be trusted with the highest levels of confidence, Harold found himself hesitating. “We have her tucked away” was all he said.

“Well, you’ve certainly gone above and beyond for her. She’s truly fortunate to have someone like you in her corner.” She took a sip of coffee and faced him, indicating that the small talk was over.

“I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me,” Harold said, taking out a yellow legal pad from his briefcase. “Should we go forward, as you say, I think there are some things I’ll need to know, specifically about Mr. Cano and his dealings. I think I underplayed his direct connection to the deaths of Ms. Velez’s siblings. So to start, can I ask your view on why the case against Cano was dropped by the DOJ?”

“I assume you’re speaking of his involvement in the murders of Agents Dean and Rita Bienvienes?” Sabrina Stein replied.

Harold nodded.

She inhaled before speaking. “I don’t truthfully know. The party line, as I’m sure you’re aware, is that problems sprang up with Oscar Velez’s testimony.”

“Problems?”

“Matters of memory.” Stein shrugged officiously. “It seems to happen in certain cases, when CIs come face-to-face in court with the persons they’re testifying against. They get second thoughts.”

“Or when their children are ruthlessly butchered,” Harold felt compelled to add.

“That too, of course.” Sabrina took a sip of coffee and offered a philosophical smile.

“But if that were the case,” Harold said, flipping a page of his notes, “the question I would ask is why Mr. Velez wouldn’t have just simply been deported? If his use to the government was negated, that would seem to have been the perfect leverage against him. Threaten to send him back to what would clearly have been certain death. To the very person who had vowed revenge against him.”

“A fair question.” Sabrina Stein exhaled. “And one I’m afraid I don’t have a very good answer for.”

“Rumors were going around … I’m merely echoing what’s already been written,” Harold said, “that Dean and Rita Bienvienes were less than one hundred percent Ivory Snow clean. And that the Department of Justice grew to feel that a public trial would potentially air a series of allegations that might embarrass them.”

Stein put down her coffee. “Dean and Rita Beinvienes were among the best agents I had, Mr. Bachman. What you’re alluding to is what we in the trade refer to as ‘back draft.’ One government agency sees a firestorm rising around them, so they spread the flames somewhere else. In this case, back at the DEA. The Bienvieneses were turned upside down by our own internal investigative teams. Not a thing was ever found that would give any credence to those rumors. Zero.”

“It’s also possible that Eduardo Cano had some ability to influence the government’s decision, isn’t that right?”

“Influence?” The Justice Department official’s eyes seemed to harden at the word.

“Affect the outcome,” Harold said bluntly.

“If I follow … you’re suggesting he was able to buy someone off?”

“Or possibly have information that might discredit people higher up, that the government might have wanted to keep secret. Cano was trained here, and he is alleged to still have high-level friends in the government. The cartels have millions and millions to spread around, correct? This is still a world fraught with corruption, is it not?”

Stein nodded stiffly, the pleasant veneer of a moment before replaced by something guarded and professional. “Mexico is an excellent place to commit murder, Mr. Bachman, because you will almost certainly get away with it. That said, I’d still like to think that no amount of money would derail the prosecution for the assassination of two people who so selflessly put their lives at risk for the country. Not to mention the three other completely innocent individuals who tragically were caught in the crossfire.”

She uncrossed her legs. “No litigator likes to take on a case they can’t win, Mr. Bachman. I’m sure you’re familiar with that. Especially one that can make or break one’s career. For several reasons, Oscar Velez’s testimony was a matter of concern from the moment he chose to defect. I think the answer to your question lies much more with the witness, Mr. Bachman, than with the United States government.” She glanced at her watch, reflecting surprise at the time. “Now, if you have no more questions, I’m sorry but I have to cut this short.”

“I understand.” Harold closed his pad and began to pack his briefcase. Then he stopped. “Just one more. There’s an addendum to this case that I found a little curious.”

“Which case are we speaking of, Mr. Bachman? Cano’s or Lauritzia Velez’s?”

“I’m sorry, but to me, Ms. Stein, they are becoming pretty much the same.”

“Well, as a representative of the United States government, I’m sorry that you feel that way.”

“The Homeland Security agent,” Harold said, “who was shot and killed in that hotel room in New York City a week ago … I think his name was Hruseff?”

Stein nodded. “That’s correct.”

“I was surprised to discover that he once worked for the DEA. Out of the El Paso office, as it turns out; coincidentally at the same time as the Bienvieneses’ killings … I guess that also means he worked under you …”

“And your guess would be correct, Mr. Bachman.” Stein stood up. “Ray was a good man. Very sad, what happened. And if I recall, there was a third person in that room. I’m pretty certain that when she’s found—and she will be, soon, I promise you—and all the facts come out, it will show that Ray was simply doing his job.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Harold said, and stood up too.

“Only I don’t see what that particular incident has to do with Eduardo Cano.” Sabrina Stein cocked her head. “Ray was working for a completely different government agency at the time he was killed. On matters totally unconnected with his past role—”

“The other person in the room … who Hruseff allegedly shot,” Harold said. “I think his name was Kitchner …”

“Curtis Kitchner.” Sabrina Stein nodded.

“He was a journalist. As it happens, he was looking into Eduardo Cano at the time of his death.”

“Into Cano?” She began to walk him to the door. “How would you possibly know that, Mr. Bachman? I never saw that come out anywhere.”

“Because he visited Lauritzia Velez. In the hospital, just a few days before his death.” Harold picked up his briefcase. “I was merely pointing out how this Cano seems to have his imprint everywhere. And how the two cases might be related.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Drawn out long enough to take on a shape, hard and stony, and even a pro like Sabrina Stein couldn’t hide how she was working to put it all together.

That was the moment Harold first thought she might be lying.

“Eduardo Cano continues to be a dangerous man, Mr. Bachman. A fact that I think you found out for yourself, firsthand. But to your point on Agent Hruseff, we all seem to cross paths in this business if we stay in long enough. Scratch any of us, and I suspect that’s what you’ll find. And now I’m afraid I have to move on …” She stopped at the door. “Once again, I feel like I haven’t been altogether helpful.”

“No, you have. I want to thank you for your time. But if you don’t mind, just one more quick thing. Any chance you ever come across someone named Gillian who was connected with this case?”

“Gillian?” Stein blinked at the name.

“Maybe someone connected to Hruseff? Or possibly another agent?”

“Gillian. No, I’m sorry. Where did that name happen to come up?”

“No matter.” Harold shrugged. “Just something this Curtis Kitchner seemed to have on his mind.”

“I see. Once again, I feel I haven’t been very helpful to you. Anyway, it’s been a pleasure meeting with you again, Mr. Bachman. Please keep me informed of what you find.”

She opened the door and they shook hands.

“I like your pin,” Harold said, noticing her lapel. “Looks Aztec.”

“Yes, it is,” Sabrina Stein said. “I actually got it while down there.”

Almost involuntarily she seemed to adjust it on her lapel—a turquoise and silver grasshopper.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

The Amtrak express train rocked gently back and forth, speeding to New York City.

Harold sat in the quiet car and took a sip of his vodka.

Mexico is an excellent place to commit murder. He thought of what Sabrina Stein had said. Because you will surely get away with it.

He had no proof, nothing he could share with anyone. Nothing that would make someone think he was doing more than just grasping at straws.

Just that Hruseff was part of Stein’s DEA team back in El Paso. And that it was he who killed Curtis at the hotel. Curtis, who was looking into the deaths of Dean and Rita Bienvienes, who were in El Paso at the very same time, and who was sure he had found something. Something that led him to Lauritzia Velez.

Which may well have been that the Bienvienes were murdered in Culiacán by Eduardo Cano—and with the complicity of the U.S. government.

Why?

Look them up, Wendy Gould had begged him. Harold recalled her pretty but desperate face disappearing behind the closing elevator door.

They’re all connected. All of them.

That phrase kept on coming back.

All of them.

As soon as the train pulled out of Union Station in DC, Harold had googled the other agent who was with Hruseff at the hotel.

Alton Dokes. The agent Wendy claimed was framing her for her husband’s death.

He couldn’t find much of a history on him, only a ton of recent articles that quoted him as lead investigator on the manhunt for Wendy Gould. But he did find one linking him to an article from the San Antonio Express-News, from back in 2008, a year before the Bienvienes were killed.

As a DEA agent, Dokes had been implicated in the shooting of a seventeen-year-old Mexican crossing the border from Juárez. The boy ended up being a drug mule, and the shooting was ultimately ruled justifiable. Dokes was fully cleared.

“Sabrina Stein, Senior Agent in Charge of Operations out of the DEA’s El Paso office, commented, ‘We are glad this episode is behind us and a dedicated agent is able to resume his duties … ’ ”

Harold took a sip of his vodka. So Dokes was there too.

All of them.

He was sure Sabrina was hiding something. But what could he possibly prove? This wasn’t enough to cast even the slightest suspicion off of Wendy. Even if he handed what he had over to the authorities, he knew it wouldn’t go further than the person he told. That two government agents had been in the same place years ago at the same time two fellow agents were murdered in Mexico? That, years later, they’d both had some connection to a journalist who had been killed? A journalist who was looking into that very story.

Scratch any of us, Sabrina Stein had told him, you never know what you will find …

The train’s rattling brought him back from his thoughts.

You’re crazy to get involved, Harold told himself. Look what it’s already cost you. You made a vow. To protect your kids. You’re all they have now. This was over. He’d already seen what could happen. His wife’s desire to protect Lauritzia had cost them everything. They had nothing now, except themselves …

Harold finished his drink and gave the woman sitting across from him a pleasant smile. As he went to shut the lid on his laptop, he fixed on his screen saver, a photo of Roxanne. Her arms around Jamie and Taylor in their backyard, their sunny faces promising everything beautiful in life.

He could shut the computer a thousand times, but it wouldn’t shut it out.

Not completely.

There was one person who would know all this, Harold realized. Who might hold all the secrets.

Curtis had gone to see Lauritzia in the days before he died. It was time to know what he had told her.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I was down to my last few dollars. Hiding out in parking lots and business parks after dark, catching bites to eat at drive-thru windows. I realized that the first time I hit up an ATM, my location would be given away. Not to mention a photograph taken of how I looked.

But I was getting to the point where I really didn’t care.

I’d been in the same clothes for five days now. I also knew Jim and Cindy were probably up in Vermont by now, and there might well be a national APB out on the Explorer at this very moment. Every time I saw a flashing light, or a police car randomly drove by, my blood froze and I came to a standstill, sure that it was the one car that had closed in on me.

So far one hadn’t. But I knew I was on borrowed time.

Driving out of Stamford, I passed a tiny lodging on Route 172 in Pound Ridge, just across the New York border, called the Three Pony Inn. It looked quiet and empty. Just what I needed. I just said the hell with it and pulled in. I desperately needed a shower and to wash my clothes. And to sleep in a bed. The place was a family-run B and B, and the proprietors’ teenage son was manning the front desk when I came in, doing his math homework. I paid for a night at $109 with a Bon Voyage gift card I found in my wallet—one of Dave’s advertising accounts, which I knew to be completely untraceable. But my funds were running out.

The first thing I did in the small but cozy room was run the shower. It was amazing how just letting the warm spray stream down my body revived me with the feeling that I could get through this and that everything would somehow be okay.

I washed out my T-shirt and underwear and spread them on the towel bar to dry. I laughed to myself that if the police barged in right then, they’d have to arrest me in my towel—I didn’t have anything dry to wear. I looked at my face in the mirror. I hardly recognized what I saw. I put on the TV and curled up to the news, ecstatic to be in a bed for the first time in days and stretch my legs on the cool linens. There had been another massacre in a village in Syria. A New York City assemblyman was being sentenced on corruption charges. There was nothing on me. I was exhausted. I closed my eyes and fell asleep to the news.

I woke around three in the afternoon and called to the front desk to ask if there was a computer I could use. I was told there was an Internet setup for guests in the sunroom off the main lobby. When my clothes dried I cautiously made my way down. A woman was at the desk now, and she asked genially if I wanted a cup of coffee and I gratefully said that I would. I sat at the desk in the sunroom, decorated with a patterned couch, English roll-leg chairs, and equestrian prints.

There was an old HP computer there, and the first thing I did after logging on with the hotel code was to check Google News to see if there was anything new on me. There wasn’t, but I did spot a headline on Curtis: HOTEL SHOOT-OUT VICTIM HAD TIES TO KNOWN DRUG TRAFFICKERS.

I clicked on the link.

FBI sources say that Curtis Kitchner, the journalist who was shot dead in his New York hotel room after a confrontation with a federal law enforcement agent, had maintained contacts and carried on conversations with drug traffickers familiar to law enforcement agencies, some high on the DEA’s most wanted list, leading investigators to speculate that was the reason he was under surveillance by federal authorities.

Investigators now seem certain it was not Mr. Kitchner who fired the shots that killed Agent Raymond Hruseff of the Department of Homeland Security, and are still searching for Wendy Stansi Gould of Pelham, New York, who was believed to be in the hotel room at the time. Ms. Stansi is also being sought in connection to the shooting death of her husband at their home in Pelham later that night, but her whereabouts remain unknown.

So here it is, I said to myself, the stream of misinformation that would make it seem as if Curtis was the bad guy and had instigated things and that Hruseff was merely doing his job. The article was from Reuters, without a byline. Otherwise I might have contacted the author to tell my side of the story.

I was growing more and more certain this all had something to do with the two rogue government agents covering up the murder of two DEA agents four years ago.

Hruseff and Dokes had both been at DEA in El Paso at the time of the Bienvienes killings. Four years later, in completely different jobs, they were both at the hotel with Curtis. It seemed certain they wanted something covered up. Something from their past, that Curtis had found out and had linked to Lauritzia Velez. Why else would he go to find her? Perhaps to find her father, who was connected to the Culiacán killings too.

Which was also connected to a person whose name had yet to come up in anything I had read or anyone I had talked to: Gillian.

I knew that until I uncovered who that was, all I had was just supposition. They’d sink their teeth into me the second they had me in cuffs. I had nothing, nothing except suspicion in the face of overwhelming evidence that I’d shot Hruseff in panic and killed Dave to cover up what I’d done …

Hell, I couldn’t even convince Harold.

Before closing the computer, I went back one more time to that article Curtis had written about the Culiacán ambush. Maybe if I just read it one last time, I might see what it was Curtis knew. I had to be missing something.

I looked at that shooting from every aspect I could find online. The newspaper coverage. The Dallas Morning News did a series of articles on it, first casting suspicion on the Bienvienes. Then the DEA’s own internal investigation that cleared them fully, which was published eight months later. I looked at whatever I could find on Eduardo Cano and why his trial never took place.

It all still led nowhere.

I even found an article in the Greenwich Time about Sam Orthwein, one of the college students killed in the ambush, and another in the Denver Post: LOCAL UNIVERSITY MOURNS THREE OF ITS OWN.

In frustration, having read through everything else I could find on the subject, I clicked on it.

The article began, “They were three about to embark on the road where life would take them in just a couple of months, but where it led in the hills of central Mexico was to a tragic end for three promising University of Denver students, as well as grief and heartbreak for their families and friends who loved them.”

I looked at pictures of Sam, Ned Taylor, and Ned’s girlfriend, Ana Lasser.

I’d already read about Sam; he was described in Curtis’s article. Ned Taylor came from Reston, Virginia. He was a soccer player and a sociology major. Ana Lasser was pretty, with shoulder-length blonde hair, high cheekbones dotted with a few freckles. The article said she was a photography major at Denver. It said some of her photographs were currently part of an exhibition at the Arts Center. There was even a link to them. A follow-up note said the collection had been expanded to include some of her final shots, taken moments before her death.

I clicked on them, not even sure why.

I scrolled through Ana Lasser’s photographs of old-woman fruit vendors in their stalls by the road—sharp-cheeked, sun-hardened faces. I saw Culiacán, with its white stucco houses and church towers. I looked in the deep-set eyes of a young boy in a narrow doorway staring back at the camera. I realized this would have been just moments before the shooting. Was he one of them? One of those child killers enlisted by the cartels who a second later would have pulled out an automatic weapon like a toy and sprayed death on them? Or was he just staring back at Ana, the killers scrambling in doorways and on rooftops, knowing what, seconds later, was about to take place? His look held a kind of fascination for me.

“Ana Lasser,” I read in the bio accompanying her photographs, “who was tragically shot and killed along with two other DU students in Culiacán, Mexico, moments after taking these shots, was a senior at DU majoring in photography. She came from …”

Suddenly it was like the off switch in my body turned on.

I stared at the words that followed, my brain sorting through what it meant. My eyes doubling in size.

“She came from Gillian, Colorado …”

I read it again, the truth slamming me in the face that I’d been looking at it all wrong.

This is for Gillian, asshole… .

All wrong.

Suddenly the whole thing seemed to just fall into place. What Curtis had to have known that led him to Lauritzia. What she had to have known.

And more important, what Hruseff would have killed for in order to keep secret.

You have no idea what you’ve stepped into, he’d said as he raised his gun at me.

Now I did. Now I did know.

That that ambush was somehow not related to the Bienvienes at all. But to this girl …

Ana. Lasser.

“A photography major … from Gillian, Colorado …”

I read it again and again, unable to lift my eyes. This murdered girl, this seemingly random victim, who, I now knew, hadn’t stumbled into tragedy after all. But was at the very heart of it.

Who, I now realized, was Gillian.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

I pulled out the throwaway phone from my bag and rushed outside. My hands shook, not from the late-October chill but from the sudden realization that Ana Lasser was Gillian. That the Bienvieneses hadn’t been the intended targets of that ambush at all.

She was.

I hid myself against the far side of the Explorer and pressed the number I had already loaded in. I was just praying he hadn’t already called the police on me.

It started ringing. The receptionist answered. “Harold Bachman,” I said, as soon as I heard her voice.

“Who should I say is calling?”

Who should I say? My name was on every newscast in the country. “Wendy” was all I came up with. “Just tell him it’s incredibly urgent. Please.”

My head spun in circles while I waited for him to come on the line. I tried to figure out just what this meant. The world had shifted. Curtis had to have found this out as well. That was why he had to find Lauritzia. To see if she knew too. Or maybe to get to her father.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.