Speak of the Devil (28 page)

Sam and Anna exchanged a glance. There were other options.

“We’ll see what we can do,” Anna said.

42

By the time the meeting with Gato ended, the setting sun bathed the sky in a deep rose glow. But for Anna, the most challenging part of the day was about to begin. She and Jack climbed into the back of the unmarked Taurus, and Deputy Fitzgerald drove up New York Avenue for the second time in twenty-four hours. Anna eyed the cheap motels and scrappy lots with distaste. They were going to meet Nina.

Her fingers tapped nervously on the car seat. She hoped Jack and Nina hated each other, that their old fights and controversies would flare up immediately.

Deputy Fitzgerald parked in the lot and escorted the two of them to the motel door. This time, Anna knew whom to expect on the other side. She just couldn’t anticipate how her fiancé would react to that person.

Deputy Cook let them in and locked the door behind them. Nina stood in the middle of the room. She looked slightly different than she had yesterday. Anna realized with a sinking heart that the woman was wearing makeup. She wanted to look nice for Jack.

Jack stood still for a moment, gazing at his wife. Nina stood looking at him.

They both moved at once. Jack folded Nina into his arms. Nina rested her head on his chest.

“Oh, Nina,” he breathed. He didn’t seem to notice that Anna was behind him, still standing by the door, one hand to her broken heart.

“Jack,” said Nina. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. Thank God you’re okay.”

To Anna, it felt like they held on to each other for hours. In reality, it was probably a few seconds. Nina pulled back and looked at Jack.

“You look good,” Nina said. “How have you been?”

“Fine. How about you?”

“Awful. I made a terrible mistake, Jack. I should never have left my family.”

“You thought you were protecting us.”

“I could have done it differently. The last few years, it felt like I really was dead. I gave up on you—I left Olivia—I lost everything that made my life worth living.”

“I would have come with you,” Jack said softly, “if you’d asked.”

“I know. But I was so angry about you and Carla. I didn’t want you. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I betrayed you. That’s not the man I wanted to be. You deserved better.”

“It’s okay, Jack. I forgave you a long time ago. Now I just blame myself.”

Anna coughed, inartfully.

Jack looked back at Anna as if just realizing she was there.

“You’ve met my . . . er . . . you’ve met Anna?”

“Yes.” Nina nodded coolly. “She seems like a lovely young girl.”

“We’re engaged, Nina. To be married.”

“I’ve heard.”

“You were dead. I moved on with my life.”

“Of course. I wish all the best to both of you.” Nina looked like she was going to cry.

Agent Cook broke the silence. “I was married once. Didn’t work out, though. I’m sure your marriage will work out much better. At least, one of ’em will. I’ll just shut up.”

“How is Olivia?” Nina asked softly. “My baby.”

“She’s six. She’s a wonderful, bright little girl. She thinks her mother is dead.”

She thinks I’m her mother
, Anna thought.

“I did this for Olivia,” Nina said.

Anna wasn’t sure exactly what this meant, but the emotion on Nina’s face erased any doubt Anna had about the other woman’s maternal instinct. Anna glanced at Jack, and saw that he was tearing up.

“Can we have a moment, please?” Nina said.

Anna realized the woman was talking to her. She glanced at Jack. He nodded. She got up, and Deputy Cook walked her out of the room. He closed the door behind them, and suddenly he and Anna were out in the cold, dark night. Jack and Nina were on the other side of the door, talking about . . . whatever.

“You can go ahead home, ma’am,” the deputy Marshal said, pointing down the outdoor hallway. “I’ll make sure Mr. Bailey gets a ride when they’re done.”

Anna walked to the blue Taurus. Moments later, Deputy Fitzgerald was pulling out onto New York Avenue. The motel receded in the distance. Anna glanced out the window and saw Cook standing on the balcony, lighting a cigarette, apparently having decided that Jack was harmless and could be allowed to speak alone with Nina.

Anna pictured the two of them, alone in the motel room, overwhelmed with emotions. She wished she hadn’t allowed herself to be shuffled away so quickly.

43

Anna sat in their darkened hotel room, waiting. An episode of
Breaking Bad
played on the TV, but she wasn’t following it. It was her second pay-per-view rental of the night, as she tried to distract herself from the fact that Jack was still at the motel with Nina. It wasn’t working. She gazed out the window at the dark city. The headlights of cars passing on the street below grew ever sparser as the night wore on. She waited for Jack to return home. She wondered if he would.

He finally arrived, at a quarter to two. He entered the hotel room quietly, maybe hoping not to wake her.

“Hey,” she said. She turned off the TV.

“Hey.”

She wanted to ask him a hundred questions. Do you still love her? Did you kiss her?

But she knew this would not help her cause. Instead, she walked over to him, put her arms gently around his neck, and kissed him softly on his lips. She did not detect the taste or smell of another woman on him.

“You doing okay?” she asked.

He sank down on the couch, and she sat next to him.

“I don’t know how I’m doing,” he said. “I’m—God, I was so relieved to see her. After all those years. The guilt. It’s—gone.”

“Good.”

“But now—I’m angry. I know I shouldn’t be. But I had a funeral for her. I stood at her grave and lowered a coffin into the ground. I went through her clothes, one by one, and gave them to Goodwill. Olivia was too young to understand, so she kept asking for her. Every night for months. She would stop, and then one day, out of the blue—is Mommy coming home today? It killed me, every time.”

Anna nodded and kept silent. He needed to work out his own emotional process. And she’d learned an important lesson in court: Shut up when things are going your way.

“But Olivia and I got through it. Time passed. I moved on. I met you. Everything was good again. But now that scab has been ripped right open.”

“I think she’s a foolish woman,” Anna said. “To have given you up. But I’m glad she did.”

“I love you,” he said. The words were a balm.

“I love you, too.”

She pulled him into her arms and held him for a long time. She wished she could press “pause” on the moment.

• • •

When Anna awoke the next morning, she reached automatically for Jack, but found an empty spot on the bed. She opened her eyes, and found herself alone in the room. Groggily, she padded to Olivia’s room, opened the door, and peeked in. The little girl was still asleep in her bed, looking angelic and peaceful. Anna followed the sound of running water to the bathroom. Jack was washing his face in the sink. He was wearing just pajama bottoms, and she watched the muscles in his back rippling under his taut brown skin. He dried his face on a towel and turned to her grimly.

“Good morning,” she said. “What got you up so early?’

“I’ve been thinking all night,” he said. “Olivia needs to see Nina.”

“Um.” She stalled, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep from her mind. “Are you sure? I mean, Nina is in Witsec. Her whole existence is a secret. Can you really expect a six-year-old to keep a secret that big?”

“Olivia is precocious. She can do it. Anyway, MS-13 knows she’s alive. The ‘secret’ thing is pretty pointless now.”

“Maybe it would hurt Olivia more, though? To know her mother left her?”

“We can explain it.”

Anna wiped the sleep from her eyes, and wondered whether the “we” referred to Jack and her—or Jack and Nina.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I shouldn’t have sprung this on you. I’ve been thinking about it all night. I’ll make some coffee and we’ll talk.”

Fifteen minutes later, she sat with minty fresh breath and a mug of steaming coffee in her hands. She felt more awake, but not any happier about the prospect of Nina meeting Olivia. It meant Nina was probably around to stay.

“What’s the plan, Jack?” She spoke softly so she wouldn’t wake the little girl. “Are we still planning our wedding? Or are you getting back together with Nina?”

He met her eyes with resolve. “You and I are getting married.”

“Is Nina staying in Witsec? Is she going back to Nebraska after the trial?”

“I don’t know. It’s been difficult for her. She misses Olivia terribly. I’m not sure she can go back.”

“I thought you were angry at Nina,” Anna said, trying not to sound hopeful.

“Furious is more like it. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s Olivia’s mother.”

“Didn’t she leave because she thought that her presence was somehow putting Olivia in danger? Has that threat gone away?”

“It will if you can catch Diablo and win your case,” Jack said.

“Maybe we should wait a few more months to see how it all plays out, then,” Anna said. “It would be terrible if Olivia saw her mother, then Nina had to go back into hiding because Psycho got acquitted or Diablo got away.”

Jack got up and kissed Anna on the forehead. “I’m counting on you not to let that happen. Anyway,” he brought the coffeepot to the table and refilled her cup. “I can’t do it. I can’t keep from my little girl the fact that her mother is alive.”

Anna thought of her own mother, who died in a car accident when Anna was in college. If her mother were alive today, Anna wouldn’t want to miss one second with her. There were so many things she would want to tell her. So many questions she wished she’d asked when she still had the chance.

“I understand,” she said.

Jack looked relieved. “Thanks, Anna.”

• • •

In two days, Anna had a lot of work to do. The MS-13
generale
was tomorrow night. If they were going to record the meeting, they had to get ready immediately.

After dropping Olivia off at school, Anna went into the office. Staring at the papers on her desk, she kept picturing Nina, taking Olivia from Anna’s arms. Anna tried to shake it off and lose herself in the legal issues.

The first was how to record the
generale
. They couldn’t wire up Gato. Button-sized video cameras could be worn on a shirt or installed in a cell phone, but there was little that could be secreted on a man in his underwear.

If they could find out where the
generale
was going to happen, they could wire up the room. So far, though, Gato had only been told that the
generale
would be held in Wheaton Regional Park, and someone would tell him where to go when he got there. That didn’t help Anna and Sam. Wheaton Regional Park included many acres of pavilions, picnic areas, playgrounds, and trails through woods. There were administrative buildings, a butterfly conservatory, a carousel, and a mini-train that chugged through the grounds. The FBI couldn’t wire up the whole place.

The wiretap that Anna had gotten on Psycho’s smuggled-in-jail cell phone was finally up and running as of this morning, and it paid off. Later that afternoon, Psycho got a call from a man he referred to as “Rooster,” who mentioned that he would be guarding the
generale
in the Train Room. That was a large room overlooking the tracks of the mini-train. Olivia had been there for a birthday party last year.

The room itself could be wired, and the conversation in it recorded. But they had to be smart about it. The government could only record the talk without a court’s wiretap order if one party to the conversation consented to the recording. Otherwise, they’d have to get a court order authorizing them to wire up a public place. Such a wiretap application had to satisfy a high legal burden—one they likely couldn’t meet on such short notice.

Sam’s Ops Plan called for plainclothes FBI agents in cars in the parking lot and pavilions throughout the park. They would monitor the meeting using infrared binoculars and pole cameras to see who was coming and going.

“So they’ll know when Gato is inside?” Anna asked.

“Right.”

“And you can remotely control the recording devices in the Train Room?”

“We can.”

“So you can record only when Gato is in the room, and we have our consenting party.”

“Exactly.”

“Have Gato arrive early, stay late, and stay close to Diablo.”

Anna didn’t want to miss a word Diablo said. In years of looking for him, this was the first time the government knew where he was going to be before he got there. And he was leading a big meeting of the gang—that evidence would be gold in a RICO prosecution against him. They had to get it.

The plan called for Diablo to be arrested immediately after the
generale
. Anna drafted an arrest warrant and affidavit, and Sam took it to the home of Magistrate Judge Gallagher, the duty judge that weekend. The judge called Anna to ask some questions, and Sam made edits to the affidavit. When the judge was satisfied, she signed the warrant.

The FBI would set up the recording devices in the Train Room late tonight. Meanwhile, Sam was gathering up a small army of agents and local police. Depending on what was said at the
generale
, they might be able to arrest dozens of MS members. They needed almost a hundred agents to be on hand. Sam borrowed FBI agents from the Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston Field Offices, and police from Montgomery County. McGee hooked a bunch of MPD officers with the lure of overtime.

Sam’s coup de grâce was getting the “eagle”—a law enforcement airplane that would fly overhead and monitor the ground using thermal imaging cameras. This was going to be one of the largest regional FBI operations of the year, and Sam set it up on two days’ notice. She clearly loved it.

A small voice reminded Anna that all the work she did to arrest Diablo brought Nina one step closer to meeting Olivia and getting back together with Jack. Anna kept working and tried to ignore that voice. She didn’t want to give it the power of contemplation.