Bloodline (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

They took the Florida Turnpike north from Miami to West Palm Beach. Traffic was moving well and Alexander Landry wound out the rental, topping a hundred miles an hour a few times, and reducing the hourlong drive to less than forty minutes. Eugene called ahead and got the address to the dealership. It was on the narrow spit of land across the Intracoastal Waterway from the main body of the city. He had Landry exit the turnpike at Okeechobee Boulevard and follow it straight though until they crossed the water and entered the high-rent district. Massive Royal palms lined the wide road, their fronds barely moving in the light afternoon breeze. About halfway to the ocean they spotted the Renault dealership on the right side of the road. Landry pulled into the parking lot and switched off the ignition.

“Want to bet whether he's here or not?” Landry asked.

“Only if I can bet that he's nowhere near West Palm Beach,” Eugene said.

“No bet.”

They walked into the air-conditioned showroom. At sixty feet by forty, it was about half the size of Correa's flagship enterprise in Miami. Land values flanking either side of Royal Palm Way were through the roof, but from the glittering glass and chrome look of the ultra-modern dealership, Correa appeared to be covering the rent with no problems. Alexander Landry crossed the exposed aggregate floor, his soft soled shoes squeaking slightly on the polished surface.

“Mario Correa, please,” he said in a polite, but firm, voice.

“I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Correa is in a meeting and cannot be disturbed.” She smiled as she spoke, but her tone was equally firm.

Landry flashed his DEA creds at her. “Get him out here now, miss, or I'll have a SWAT team here in ten minutes to drag him out.”

Her tough veneer cracked immediately. “He's not here,” she said, her voice wavering. “Mr. Correa phoned from Miami earlier today and told me that if anyone came looking for him he was in a meeting and was not to be disturbed.”

“How do you know he was in Miami?” Landry asked, leaning over the reception desk and using his size to get close to her. “And don't lie to me, miss, or I'll have you up on obstruction charges.”

“We have call display. He was in his office in Miami Beach when he called.”

“What time?”

“Around ten o'clock.”

Landry fished a card from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. She took it with shaking hands. “If he calls or walks through that door, you call me. And if I find out you've seen him or spoken with him and haven't called me, I'll personally travel back here and throw you in jail.” He spun on his heels and marched out of the showroom, Eugene trailing behind him.

“You were a little rough on her,” Eugene said. “She was just doing what she was told.”

“Eugene, get something straight here. Someone lies to you, that makes them a dishonest person. Someone lies to me, that puts them in jail for obstruction. It's one of the perks of having the badge.” He stopped next to their rental car and continued in a less aggravated voice. “I've been lied to so many times I can't remember a tenth of them. Sometimes I have to swallow it and sometimes I don't. When it's a car lot receptionist, I don't.”

“Got it,” Eugene said. He paused, his hand on the door handle. “What now?”

“Back to EPIC. This is going nowhere right now. We need time to find Mario Correa, and time is one thing we don't have.”

Traffic was heavier heading south toward Miami and Landry had to settle for cruising at eighty miles an hour. It pissed him off, and turned a bad mood into a downright foul one. They were on the south tip of Fort Lauderdale when his cell phone rang. He answered it with a gruff, “Hello.” A moment later he said, “Hello, Senator. What can I do for you?”

“Cathy phoned me, Alexander. She filled me in on the result of Bud's trip to Zurich and your wild goose chase to Miami. Did you find him in West Palm Beach?”

“No, sir. It was a lie. He was in Miami the whole time.”

“Shit.” A pause, then, “Are we all thinking the same thing here, Alexander?”

“I think so, Senator. We've got a leak.”

“I agree. I'm leaving Kentucky inside the hour for El Paso. I've booked off the next few days and will be working side-by-side with you and Cathy for the duration of this problem. This is getting out of hand, and I want it reeled in right now. If Escobar is alive, I want him.”

“We all do, sir.”

“We'll see about that. I'll talk to you in Texas.”

Landry dropped the phone on the front seat and shook his head. “What the hell is going on, Eugene?”

Eugene didn't answer, just stared out the window at the passing buildings. But he was wondering the same thing.

Chapter Thirty

Senator Irwin Crandle stood amid the organized confusion of their EPIC command center and made it perfectly clear who was in charge. This was his covert op. Cathy Maxwell and Alexander Landry were simply representing their respective agencies. Eduardo Garcia was an afterthought, and Eugene Escobar was a private citizen connected to the search for Pablo only through blood. It was late in the evening when Bud Reid arrived, straight from the airport after eleven hours on planes, but Crandle still took the time to put him in his place.

“Bud,” he said, as the man took a chair at the conference table, “you missed my little speech to the group, so let me sum it up. No one makes a move without my approval. Every lead is to be channeled through me. There is no independent action without my clearance. If the wheels come off and the public finds out that Pablo Escobar is still alive, and that I knew about it, I'm the one who will take the heat. And unless I've miscalculated the response to this hitting the nightly news, the heat will be unbelievable. Since you guys are insulated and my head is ultimately on the block, I want control. Now, is there anyone in this room who doesn't understand the chain of command?”

Five heads shook in unison. No one spoke.

“All right. Now, before we go any further, we've got a small problem. Someone tipped off Mario Correa that we were on our way to Miami. And I think we all agree that Jorge Shweisser's death wasn't a coincidence. The man had his carotid artery sliced with a curved scalpel. He was professionally murdered. Since we don't have any support staff, I'm going to suggest that someone in this room is responsible. Anyone care to disagree?” He took a few short breaths, and continued. “We've got a rat. Whether it is the same person who kept the
narcos
informed of our movements while we searched for Pablo thirteen years ago remains to be seen. If it is, then Agent Garcia is in the clear. But then again, our informant might be new to the DEA and on someone else's payroll.” He turned to Eduardo Garcia. “Were you on your regular shift when Mr. Escobar showed up?”

Garcia shook his head and nervously bit his bottom lip. “No, I was on overtime. Filling in for a buddy.”

“Why?” Crandle asked, then added, “And don't give me any bullshit, Garcia, because I'll check your story to make sure it's true.”

“Ben Smythe wanted some time off. I offered to take over his shift.”

“He wanted to be relieved of that shift in particular?” Crandle asked harshly.

“No. He needed some time to find a new house. His wife is having another child and they need a bigger house. I offered to take that shift if he could arrange to see houses with his realtor.”

Crandle looked mildly amused. “And what realtor doesn't make the time to show his clients houses. You knew he'd say okay when you offered. Which means, Agent Garcia, that you could have known within a fairly narrow time frame when Eugene was going to arrive. And you made sure that you were working that day.”

Garcia was flustered, his face flushed and his mouth dry. He took a drink of water, and rallied. “How could anyone have known which DEA office Eugene would head for? He could have gone directly to D.C. just as easily.”

“Common sense says that he's going to head to an office where he can get results. That's Arlington or El Paso. And our
narcos
probably have a man in Washington as well, Eduardo.” Crandle twisted his head slightly in Bud Reid's direction. “And you've known what's been going on since I have. We've both been about ten milliseconds behind Alexander and Cathy throughout this whole thing.”

Bud leapt from his chair, shaking with rage. “That's ridiculous, Irwin. I traveled to Zurich to find out Jorge Shweisser's identity and interview him. I certainly didn't fly to Europe to talk to someone I knew would be dead.”

“Why not?” Crandle snapped at him, pacing about the room. “What a great alibi. No one is going to suspect the guy who flies to Europe to talk with the target he just had Escobar order a hit on. Well, Bud, fuck that. I suspect you. Right now, the only person in this room I don't suspect is Eugene Escobar.” He gazed at Cathy Maxwell and Alexander Landry for a few moments. “And you two. Both of you had Pablo's name flagged in your computer systems. How many dead-ends and red herrings were dropped on your desk before this happened? Has one of you been on Pablo's payroll all these years? Were you watching for something like this so you could warn Escobar?” He stopped and sat on the edge of a desk. “Well, by the looks of things, we've all hit the big-time. I'm getting the distinct feeling that Pablo is alive, and we're the only ones who know what's going on here. Whoever is feeding Escobar the information has earned their money this week.”

Alexander Landry didn't like the accusations. He looked like he was going to come out of his chair and use his immense size to pulverize the senator. Veins stood out on his forehead and, by the look on his face, his blood pressure was peaking at a dangerously high level. Finally he said, “You're an asshole, Irwin.”

Silence descended. The hum of tiny fans in the desktop computers was the only audible sound. Crandle scanned each face, taking in eye movements and body language. He backed off a bit. “The point I'm trying to make is that none of us is above suspicion. Not one of us.”

“Including you?” Cathy asked hotly.

“Yes, Cathy,” he shot back, “including me. Only I know if I'm clean. But to everyone else in this room, I must be considered as likely as anyone to be feeding Pablo information. We all know whether we're clean or dirty, but no one else does. So I expect you to suspect me, just as I suspect you.”

“This is quite the situation we have here,” Landry said disgustedly. “How are we supposed to share sensitive information if one of us is a sell-out?”

Crandle was thoughtful for a moment, then said, “We need to keep the avenues of communication open. We can't afford to shut them down by compartmentalizing data flow. We'll continue to work in groups so no one person is privy to information without someone else knowing. But I want to stress this: all information is still pooled and all six of us have access to it. I don't think we've got a crisis at this point, as we're still a long way from figuring out where Pablo is living. The closer we get to that, the more we'll look at isolating information.”

“Who works with whom?” Bud Reid asked.

“We'll draw straws,” Crandle said. “Agent Garcia, get six straws and cut them into pairs of differing lengths. Whoever has the same length of straw is your partner.”

“Works for me,” Landry said. Maxwell and Reid just nodded, and Garcia left the room in search of some straws. He returned a couple of minutes later and showed the group the six straws. Two were fairly short, two medium length and two uncut. Crandle took the straws and arranged them in his hands so that no one could tell their lengths. He offered the first choice to Cathy Maxwell with the comment, “Ladies first.” She drew a medium straw. Bud Reid pulled out a full-length one. Garcia followed with the second full-length straw, and Eugene selected a short one. With two straws left, Crandle gave Alexander Landry his choice. He drew a medium one, putting him with Cathy Maxwell. Crandle held up the second short straw.

“Okay, I'm with Eugene. Cathy, you and Alexander stay together, no change there. The final pairing is Bud and Eduardo. Anyone have a problem with their partner?” No one challenged the selection and Crandle continued. He looked to Eugene and asked, “Your friend in San Salvador, how is he doing?”

Eugene hesitated for a second, then decided that giving the group a vague idea of how Pedro was doing wouldn't endanger his friend. “He's in San Salvador now and he's looking for Julie and Shiara. I think he said he's concentrating his search in Colonia Escalón, one of the city's more upscale neighborhoods. He told me he's making progress, getting closer all the time. But that's all I know right now.”

“Does he know the kidnapper's name?” Landry asked.

“Yes,” Eugene replied.

“But we don't,” Landry added sarcastically.

“No, you don't.” Eugene looked him directly in the eyes. “And the way things are going, I'm glad of it.”

Landry bristled at the comment, but Senator Crandle interjected. “Stop it right now. Cheap comments will not be tolerated. Not even from you, Eugene. Understood?”

“Understood,” Eugene said.

Crandle addressed Bud Reid. “The disks from Jorge Shweisser's house in Zurich, where are they?”

Reid fished in his pocket and pulled out a CD-RW in a clear plastic case. He handed it to Crandle who in turn set it on the central table. “Cathy, you're probably the best in the group at computer work. Can you and Alexander have a look at the files on that disk and see if there's anything that might point to Escobar's location?”

“Sure,” Cathy said, leaning over and picking up the CD. Her jaw was set, her teeth clenched, and everyone in the room knew she was biting her tongue to keep from exploding at Crandle.

“Bud, you and Eduardo get on those transit codes for the funds transfers. Contact Hyram Ockey at the National Security Agency and see if he can crack the encryption algorithms. We need to find out which bank handled the cash from the two recent withdrawals from Pablo's account.”

They drifted back to their desks where stacks of paper awaited them, the mood more than a little tense. Six people brought together by a situation that would quickly become front-page news across every continent if it were to leak outside the thin walls that contained it.

Six people.

One of them a simple man, thrown into a complex web of cunning and violence by his blood relationship with a ruthless drug dealer.

Five others.

Professionals from the past and present who dealt with death and treachery on a daily basis. Four men and woman who had seen more atrocities and suffered more losses than any normal person would in ten lifetimes. Yet despite the scars the
narcos
left on them, one of the five was a traitor, an informant to the most dangerous drug lord who ever lived. And now, after a dozen years, the killing had started again. A banker in Zurich was on a slab of cold metal because CIA records had identified Pablo's account.

Who was next?

That was the question on every mind in the room.

Every mind but one.