Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel (35 page)

FBI special agent Jack Longhorn kept us waiting for thirty minutes. We hadn’t called ahead, his secretary explained. But I suspected Longhorn was trying to discover if we had uncovered his secret arrangement with Gonzales.

When we were finally escorted inside his office, we discovered Longhorn had called in reinforcements. There were two other men with him seated at a conference table.

“I’d like to introduce you,” Longhorn said in a matter-of-fact voice, “to Special Agent Ronnie Cart, who works with me and Jason Gilbert, who’s an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.”

They didn’t offer to shake hands and neither did we. As soon as we were seated at the table, Longhorn asked: “What brings you here unannounced this afternoon?”

I got right to the point. “I’d like to know if you’re putting Carlos Gonzales into the Federal Witness Protection Program.”

I was watching Longhorn’s eyes, searching for some sign of surprise, but his years of training as a bureaucrat had taught him how to maintain a poker face.

“I’m afraid I can’t comment one way or another about that. While it’s our policy to be as cooperative as possible with local law enforcement, I don’t think our drug and racketeering charges fall under the purview of the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. Or to be blunt, Ms. Fox, you don’t have a dog in this fight.”

I noticed Longhorn’s FBI buddy was fighting back a grin.

Now I was really angry. “Carlos Gonzales raped and tortured his daughter. If you put him into the witness program, I’m sure the New York media would enjoy exposing how the FBI has relocated him into some unsuspecting community.”

For the first time, I saw a glint of reaction in Longhorn’s face. He put his hands on the conference table and tapped his fingers—as if he were playing a piano. When he stopped, he said in a voice edged with anger, “Ms. Fox, you might want to consider a few things before you say anything more. First, I don’t take kindly to threats. Gonzales is in the MCC awaiting trial on federal drug and racketeering charges that are still pending. Nothing has been officially resolved in that criminal matter and I know of no paperwork that suggests Mr. Gonzales has entered into any sort of arrangement with the FBI or anyone else. If you were to make your charge in public, you’d be putting his life in grave jeopardy and possibly be opening yourself up to federal criminal charges.”

“What charges?” I said.

“Oh, I’m sure we could find something,” he replied coldly. He wasn’t finished lecturing me. “Second, you need to do some homework when it comes to the Federal Witness Protection Program. Start with the names: Joseph ‘the Animal’ Barboza and Vincent Charles Teresa, aka ‘Fat Vinnie.’ Between them, those two boys killed more than twenty men and stole at least one hundred fifty million dollars. Yet Uncle Sam opened his arms and gave them big hugs when they decided to come over to our side. That’s the sort of critter this program was created to protect. Third, let’s presume, for the sake of argument, that you are correct. Let’s say Gonzales is a candidate for the program. If he can give the government the names of his Colombian connections and their mules who may be bringing millions of dollars’ worth of dope into Manhattan each year and ruining thousands of lives and also hand us the heads of dirty NYPD cops—then that’s a pretty sweet deal for the government—no matter what harm he did to his daughter. It’s called a greater good. And it’s none of your goddamn business.”

We locked eyes.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gilbert chimed in, “Ms. Fox, I’m not certain how familiar you might be with the rules and regulations that govern the Federal Witness Protection Program, but logic would dictate that it would be against the federal government’s best interest for anyone in the FBI or the Justice Department to comment about whether an individual is, or may be, a candidate for that program. If we were to tell you that Mr. Gonzales was a candidate, it would defeat the very purpose of it, wouldn’t it? I’d also like to point out that it is against the law for anyone involved in law enforcement, and that includes state officials such as you, to reveal information about someone who has been admitted into the program. We recently prosecuted and convicted a U.S. Marshal in Newark who revealed the identity of a protected witness.”

Longhorn wanted the last word. “I think this meeting is over. Good-bye, Ms. Fox.”

I was so furious during the return ride to White Plains that I could barely speak. Surprisingly, O’Brien was dead calm.

“You wanna stop for some beers?” he asked when we hit the White Plains city limits. “Hell, let’s go over to O’Toole’s and kick back.”

“Why aren’t you angry?”

“Dani, I’ve been around the track a long time and you’ve got to learn that sometimes you lose.”

“Not this time, not after what he did to his daughter!”

In a concerned voice, O’Brien said, “Listen, what Longhorn said is true: the FBI and the Justice Department can come down on you with a hammer.”

“You afraid of them?”

“Longhorn, as a man, no. He’s a punk. But I am afraid of the power he wields. And I sure as hell don’t want the IRS or any other federal agency breathing down my neck—and neither should you. I told you those Hoover boys couldn’t be trusted and they play rough. They can destroy careers and lives. You need to be careful. We both do.”

I asked O’Brien to drop me at my office, even though it was now dark and after hours. There was something that Longhorn had said that I had taken to heart. I didn’t know much about the Federal Witness Protection Program, and if I was going to prevent the FBI from making Gonzales disappear, I needed to do some late-night homework.

42

Witsec, the acronym for the witness Protection Security Program, more commonly known as the federal witness protection program, had been around for only a few years. The government officially created it on October 15, 1970, when the Organized Crime Control Act became law. Buried deep inside that massive bill was a short section entitled “Title V: Protected Facilities for Housing Government Witnesses, Section 901(a)” that said the Justice Department could cut deals with criminals and give them new identities in return for their testimony. Another part of that same crime bill created a program called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). It allowed the Justice Department to prosecute the heads of crime syndicates for crimes they ordered but were carried out by their underlings. The Justice Department was now using the two programs—WITSEC and RICO—to decimate the mob. FBI agents would catch a mobster, threaten him with life in prison, and then get him to “flip” and testify against his bosses.

I dug in and soon made some interesting discoveries investigating WITSEC. While the FBI could submit “candidates,” the bureau actually didn’t have the authority to guarantee a witness that he would be accepted into the program. That decision was made by the Office of Enforcement Operations, a tiny office buried inside the bowels of the Justice Department.

However, the FBI was not actually in charge of protecting witnesses once they were accepted into the program. That job fell to the U.S. Marshals Service. The marshals, who could trace their history back to the old Wild West days, were responsible for hiding and giving witnesses new identities.

Those two discoveries were important because they meant Longhorn didn’t really have final say over Carlos Gonzales’s future. He had to get the Justice Department to approve Gonzales and the U.S. Marshals to accept him. Put simply, Longhorn could be overruled.

All I needed to do was find a reason for the government to overrule him.

It took me hours and hours of digging, but I finally found what I’d been so desperately searching for: a legal loophole. I immediately dialed O’Brien’s home number. As it was ringing, I checked the clock on my office wall. Wow. It was 3:45 a.m. I’d completely lost track of time.

“Hello?” a sleepy woman’s voice answered.

I wasn’t expecting a woman to answer because O’Brien had told me he was twice divorced. I said, “I work with Detective O’Brien and need to speak to him. Did I dial the wrong number?”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than I realized that I knew that woman’s voice, or I thought I had. She was someone I had heard repeatedly on the telephone.

There was a muffled sound, probably caused by her putting her hand over the receiver. The next sound I heard was O’Brien’s gruff “Hello.”

“Hey. I’m still at the office but I had to call. I think I found a way to beat Longhorn. But it’s going to depend on those records you are getting for me.”

Still half asleep, O’Brien said, “What records?”

I reminded him that he’d promised to pull the autopsy and investigative files about Benita Gonzales’s alleged suicide. “I need to read about that case as soon as possible to see if she was, indeed, murdered by Carlos Gonzales.”

“Sure, okay, I’ll bring them to you this morning. Now why don’t you go to bed?” he said. “Get some sleep and stop calling me.”

“One more thing,” I said.

“What,” he replied in an irritating voice. “It’s three forty-five in the morning.”

“Is the woman who answered the phone who I think it is? It sounded just like her.”

When O’Brien slammed down the receiver, I knew that I had hit pay dirt. One mystery was solved. The reason why O’Brien knew what Whitaker’s pollster was telling him before the elections and other tidbits about Whitaker’s private conversations inside the D.A.’s office was because he was sleeping with Whitaker’s uptight and formidable secretary. O’Brien was sleeping with Hillary Potts!

43

By the time I got home and got to bed, it was time for me to head back to work. Anne Marie greeted me as soon as I stepped into the Domestic Violence Unit. “Have you heard what’s happening at the courthouse?” she asked.